Thursday, Feb. 3

Word of the day: abderian : given to incessant, idiotic laughter

It has already been an exciting day. Gabriel and I went to COSI this morning and had a blast, running all over Kidspace, checking out the ocean and gecko exhibits. Tonight, the fam will have some pizza, Julia and I will watch the claustrophobic Ryan Reynolds thriller Buried, and maybe we'll watch some Top Chef.

Random thoughts: Early Super Bowl prediction: Pittsburgh Steelers 27, Green Bay Packers 24.

In honor of the upcoming Academy Awards, the first of the new decade, I want to go back over the last decade and present my own Oscar nominations for my favorite films and actors in the six main categories, critics be damned. (I'll do two a day...)

Best Film:

Before Sunset (2004)

Far From Heaven (2002)

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Lost in Translation (2003)

Match Point (2005)

Once (2007)

Sideways (2004)

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Wonder Boys (2000)

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams, Junebug (2005)

Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There (2007)

Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Viola Davis, Doubt (2008)

Rosemarie Dewitt, Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Laura Linney, Kinsey (2004)

Virginia Madsen, Sideways (2004)

Melanie Laurent, Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Mo'Nique, Precious (2009)

Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener (2005)

More to come...

I'm happy to see that FX is bringing back their wonderful show Justified for a second season. It's tense, chewy hour of television, with terrific writing (it's based on an Elmore Leonard short story), a vivid sense of place (Appalachian Kentucky), a smokin' lead (Timothy Olyphant, at his best), fine pacing, well-drawn characters. A real winner.

I just finished an outstanding book, a truly great novel, Evan Connell's Mr. Bridge. In 1959, Connell wrote Mrs. Bridge and ten years later, in 1969, Connell wrote its companion piece, Mr. Bridge. It's about 369 pages long, portioned out over 140 chapters, and it tells the story of one half of a well-off Kansas City couple experiencing life in the 1930s and 1940s. Society changes, their three kids grow up, and Mr. Bridge, recalcitrant, opinionated, racist, conservative, begins to understand what exactly his life has amounted to. It's a very subtle book, ridiculously easy to read, nuanced, funny, and its impossible not to see some bit of ourselves (even the bits we must not like) in the Bridges. The dialogue is pinpoint and we learn a lot about the thirties too, about the upper classes. Connell is particularly adept at both satirizing his characters and humanizing them at the same time, all the while portraying them with spare, blunt, unvarnished realism.

Finally, the painting at the top of the page is Early November: North Greenland, a 1933 work by Rockwell Kent. Kent studied under William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri, fully immersed in the Ashcan school of early 20th century America. Kent was mostly known for his pen-and-ink, black-and-white illustrations in adventure novels like Moby Dick and Two Years Before the Mast and paintings of distant frontiers such as Alaska, Greenland, and Newfoundland. He had strong Soviet and Communist ties and was suspected of left-wing activities under McCarthyism and blacklisted.