It's over, that's all I can say. Gabriel can hear just fine. No more need be told about that long morning in the Savannah hospital.
I'm still catching up on PBS' American Masters and I'm watching the episode devoted to the life and career of the great Jeff Bridges - who, along with Gene Hackman, just may be my favorite American actor. While it's nice to learn more about Bridges (while I knew he was a somewhat revered photographer, I had no idea he was a potter, too), it's worth it just to see all the clips of the wonderful performances over the years: (chronologically) dewy and elegantly raw in The Last Picture Show; terrific in the hard-nosed, spare boxing movie Fat City; silly in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot; compellingly confused in Winter Kills; intelligently languid in Cutter's Way; very solid in Against All Odds, Starman (Oscar nominated again), and Jagged Edge, and The Morning After. And then, starting with Tucker: The Man and His Dream, a lot of indelible performances, my favorites being the following: The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, The Big Lebowski, Arlington Road, The Door in the Floor, A Dog Year, Crazy Heart, True Grit. What a career!
Okay, why stop? Here are some specific highlights:
- "I Don't Know" in Crazy Heart
- playing the piano in the empty lounge with his dog while Michelle Pfeiffer watches unnoticed, both of them falling in love with each other - but both of them dancing around it, neither admitting it, neither giving an inch, in The Fabulous Baker Boys
- the staccatio, clipped, horizontal head movements in Starman, based on the behavior of birds
- coming across the lawn naked in The Door in the Floor
- the Dude's body language
- as the President of the United States, asking a faceless assistant over the phone to whip up some kung pao chicken, in The Contender
In honor of Michelle Bachman dropping out of the race, I'll forgo a political cartoon and, instead, give you this little piece about political cartoons in art: http://www.artnews.com/2011/12/20/when-satire-becomes-art/
Okay, here are my NFL playoff predictions for the weekend.
- Cincinnati over Houston
- Pittsburgh over Denver
- New Orleans over Detroit
- Atlanta over the NY Giants
(In case you're wondering, I entered six Fantasy Football leagues this year. Six teams. Three of my teams finished in 4th place. The other three teams finished in 1st place. Hooray for me!)
I'm glad that Julia and I will get to watch Parenthood tonight. It's one of our favorite shows, one of the best shows on the air. The writing is first-rate (it helps that Jason Katims, who was the head writer on Friday Night Lights, has a big hand in it), the characters so warmly believable and relatable, the ensemble first-rate (Craig T. Nelson, Peter Krause, Monica Potter, and Joy Bryant particular standouts, Max Burholder astonishing as the autistic Max). The show isn't afraid to tackle thorny, unsettling issues, and the series is full of piercing, unflinching honesty.
One final note. This bird?
This is a painted bunting, a near-threatened species whose epicenter is in coastal Georgia. Why is it threatened? Here are all the reasons I could find:
- the old abandoned farmlands that these birds love to nest in is now dense forests in a lot of places
- hedgerows they too nest in have been decimated for conversion into manged farmland
- there's too much pine plantation now, not enough agricultural land
Their last refuge is in the wetlands now, so, Charles Fischer, get thee to St. Simons Island and the Golden Isles to see them, stat!
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