Super Bowl Sunday?

Word of the day: assoil : to atone for, absolve

The big game is today and for the first time since 1999, I can honestly say that I am completely indifferent to it. After a fun morning with Gabriel, I plan on getting some work done on my novel (or play), watching a movie on-line, and then watching some basketball. We'll probably go to the store later, pick up a movie from Redbox, and have some soup for dinner.

Last night, Julia and I watched the fascinating documentary Catfish, a chilling, completely absorbing film about a New York photographer who begins Facebook friendships with an 8-year old painter in upper Michigan, her mother, and the girl's stunner of an older sister, whom he finds himself attracted to. He begins to suspect that something is off-kilter, fishy about the whole set-up, though and, along with two filmmaker friends, decides to go up north to investigate. What he discovers might be obvious for viewers, but it's poignant and frightening in equal measures, a sad, alarming commentary on modern life.

Other news to report? Well, Statesboro is looking more tempting and inviting than ever, as some dumb ol' Mexicanos moved in upstairs. Fantastic... A three-month spell of silence, and then of course the return of the wetbacks...

More favorite performances over the last decade. My Oscars... the Chascars, we'll call them...

Best Actor:

Christian Bale, American Psycho (2000)

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart (2009) and The Door in the Floor (2004)

Adrien Brody, The Pianist (2002)

Michael Caine, The Quiet American (2002)

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dirty Pretty Things (2003)

Paul Giamatti, Sideways (2004)

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote (2005)

Bill Murray, Lost in Translation (2003)

Sean Penn, Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008)

Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (2008)

Best Supporting Actor:

Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Sea Inside (2004)

Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder (2008)

Gene Hackman, The Royal Tennenbaums (2001)

William Hurt, A History of Violence (2005)

Sergei Lopez, Pan's Labryinth (2006)

Ulrich Muhe, The Lives of Others (2006)

Dennis Quaid, Far From Heaven (2002)

Mark Ruffalo, You Can Count on Me (2000)

Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass (2003)

Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Today's artist of interest for me is John James Audobon, the great painter of aviary wonders whose Birds of America was released to staggering praise (more so in England than America)

in 87 parts from 1827 to 1836. Audobon was born in Haiti in 1785, escaped conscription from Napoleon's army, and eventually settled in Henderson, Kentucky, owning a dry goods store. He encountered bankruptcy and was largely without prospects when he set off across America with some materials and a gun. Yes, a gun. Audobon was a weirdo, whose techniques included shooting birds, even rare ones (sometimes up to a dozen at a time, desperately trying to find the appropriate one), would kill the bird or animal, and then insert a flexible wire frame inside the creature so that its pose would be life-like, if even theatrical. He used mixed media (watercolor, pastels, oil, and gouache, pencil, charcoal, and chalk). The above painting, Roseate Spoonbill, is from Birds of America.