Wednesday, March 2

Word of the day: diophysitic : possessed of two distinct, conflicting natures

Sick day! Sick day! Because of a larger-than-expected bonus check, the fam went on a shopping spree today and it felt great. The purchases: a Blu-Ray player, two Blu-Ray movies, a new Nikon camera, a Wii games, and various other necessities. Julia also got some plus-sized bras today.

Gabriel has been sick this week and, naturally, I caught the bug; so did Julia, although not as virulently. The Oscars were a bust, a boring, indifferent bust. James Franco was leaden and smug, and there were absolutely no surprises in terms of the winners.

How do I love Julia? Let me count the ways... A million, a trillion, a zillion ways! Gorgeous, firm, brilliant, witty, honest, an outrageously good, caring mother, hardworking, sexy. Unreal.

Have I seen any movies this week? Hmmm, the only thing knew was Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger, an enjoyable old bit of the same old, with a first-rate cast (Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, among others), the usual neurotic woes (although the screenplay isn't littered with the fall-back one-liners of old), some curiously anonymous London location shooting. It would be fun to try and compose a list of Hollywood and British stars, those with Oscars, those who have merely been nominated, who haven't been in one of Allen's movies.

Trivia: Can you name the Oscar-winning actor who has starred in the following movies, some of the worst-reviewed movies ever made?

Joe Dirt, The Country Bears, Gigli, The Stepford Wives, Balls of Fury, Click, Domino, Envy, The Rundown, Kangaroo Jack, Wayne's World 2, and America's Sweethearts.

Think about it.

Today's artist is Winslow Homer. The above painting is Gloucester Harbor from 1873. Largely self-taught (it is rumored that he learned to paint by copying photographs), Homer (1836-1910) began his career as an illustrator before he travelled along with the Union army during the Civil War, etching out powerful portraits of tired, weary soldiers, nervous, flopping horses. These images became famous in Harper's. He is most famous, however, for the watercolors of the Maine shore; he spent the final years of his life in Prout's Neck, Maine. Unlike the Hudson River School artists, he didn't sentimentalize nature although his paintings do tend to memoralize mid-century innocence. He used watercolor to convey the immediacy of experience - beautifully.

Did you guess the quiz's answer? If you did, try this one: Which Oscar-nominated actor has appeared in the following clunkers:

Yogi Bear, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, 50 First Dates, Christmas With the Kranks, Crossroads (yes, the Britney Spears vehicle), The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Pearl Harbor, Evolution, Loser, Celtic Pride, Blues Brothers 2000, Feeling Minnesota, Sgt. Bilko, Tommy Boy, and Casper.