The Change-Up was a really funny movie, despite its only getting 24% positive reviews on RottenTomatoes. Maybe critics found it too juvenile and crude, though that has certainly been the trend in American comedy (along with the whole awkward-uncomfortable The Office-type cringing). I was really amused watching Jason Bateman (normally the straight man) adopt Ryan Reynolds' horndog, foul-mouthed persona and vice versa.
In Bateman-related news, I see that there is finally, after years of rumors, going to be an Arrested Development movie. I'm not sure how I feel about that, regardless of the personnel involved. Honestly, what's the point?
After reading Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell last spring and a collection by Carson McCullers a few weeks back, I was curious to see what other Georgia writers were out there. I found the website of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame and here's some of the other inductees, in addition to McCullers and Caldwell:
- Conrad Aiken, a name still heard in Savannah (buried in Bonaventure Cemetery), the first Georgian to win a Pulitzer, for his poetry
- Jimmy Carter
- Pat Conroy (he was born in Atlanta)
- James Dickey, Deliverance! (The 'squeal like a pig' section wasn't even in the book, but Dickey, who wrote the screenplay, put it in the movie)
- the great W.E.B. DuBois, of The Souls of Black Folk fame, among his myriad of accomplishments, including co-creating the NAACP
- Johnny Mercer
- Margaret Mitchell (pictured)
- Flannery O'Connor
- Jean Toomer (author of Cane, one of the first major novels of African-American life)
- Alice Walker
Today's artist? Why not a quick mention of the botanical artist William Prestele, a man from a family of botanical/agricultural artists. Prestele worked with chromo lithography and watercolors. In 1887, he was elected as the first artist on staff at the newly created Pomological Division of the Department of Agriculture, a division that had its artists using watercolors and lithographs to technically re-create the varieties of fruits and nuts developed by U.S. breeders and growers, using painstaking detail for the twigs, leaves, insides etc. The purpose of this Division (aside from helping with patent claims, so many of the growers arguing that other farmers stole their innovation for so-and-so type of raspberry) was to disseminate information and bulletins on new varieties to growers and fruit men all over the country; the illustrations done by these painters helped give specific visual clarity to the new types of fruits grown, so that there could be dispute over who created what - there are over 7,700 watercolors, almost half of which are of apples. (Above are, clockwise from top left, an Auburn apple, Zengi persimmon, Bourgeat quince, and Tucker plum.)
Today's bird? The eared quetzal, you say, formerly known as the eared trogon? You got it. The northernmost variety of quetzals (Wildlife Adventure board game, I miss you...), its ears are hard to see, but it has splendid emerald plumage ("quetzal" is translated from the Aztec as "feather" and "precious"), iridescent wing coverts (sets of feathers); it's a noisy bird, able to pump out only one brood a year. They're about a foot long, the females a little bigger. They mostly can be found in canyons and tend to nest in sycamores. Where to see them? Mexico almost year-round, but sometimes even in Arizona.
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