Hump day. Gabriel was slightly more excited to go to school today - the key word being slightly.
Julia likes to give her students in her Global Citizenship classes this quiz. Take it and see how you do:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/world
How many of the world's 196 countries can you name?
What should I write about today? Well, to get an entry on my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time out of the way, let's make a slot for...
Ingrid Bergman
as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942)
Why not? One of cinema's most legendary actresses in a legendary part in one of the most legendary movies. Bergman displays it all here - vulnerability, steeliness, inner torment, subtlety - as the love of Rick Blaine's (Humphrey Bogart) life, sweeping into his gin joint and making time stop. Bergman is every man's dream here - swoony yet understated, passionate, exotic, headstrong yet in need of some protection. Bergman had chemistry with everyone, but her sparks with Bogey here are out-of-this-world.
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Julia and I have been watching some '80s movies the last couple of nights. Baby Boom, Stakeout - mmmm, tasty. Seeing that cute baby in Baby Boom, whose resemblance to Julia as a girl was beyond eerie, got me thinking of another baby. Stakeout was just a lot of fun, and made me remember when I saw the sequel (way way way back in 1993) at the theaters with my cousin Steven and my aunt Bonnie. Yikes!
We also watched the first couple episodes of Gordon Ramsay's new show, Hotel Hell. I'm not sure how in the world Ramsay has time to film all these reality shows - this one, Kitchen Nightmares, Hell's Kitchen, Master Chef - and still cook and run all his restaurants. I'm glad he does, though. And if it's a given that all his shows eventually turn into formula (and oddly consistent formula, given the supposedly non-staged goings-on) and revolve around his exaggerated blowhard personality, he's still entertaining to watch.
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Today, in my list of the NFL's greatest players of my lifetime:
Offensive Linemen:
1. Anthony Munoz
2. Larry Allen
3. Bruce Matthews
4. Randall McDaniel
5. Orlando Pace
6. Jonathan Ogden
7. Alan Faneca
8. Willie Roaf
9. Jeff Saturday
10. Nate Newton
11. Brian Waters
12. Dermontt Dawson
13. Steve Wisniewski
14. Jason Peters
(tie) 15. Nick Mangold / Tony Boselli
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My sister Catherine turns 24 today (happy birthday!) but did she know that the great French rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard died on this day in Paris in 1806? Fragonard is best known for his 1767 work The Swing, but how about we take a quick look at a painting of his also held in London's Wallace Collection.
The Musical Contest
c. 1754
oil on canvas
The Wallace Collection, London
A young girl, flushed and elegant (full of herself, even), poses beneath her yellow parasol as two prospective, musical suitors gaze up at her, each trying to win her affection; the man on the left tries with his flute, while the man on the right tries with his musette (a rural French bagpipe). The setting is typical Fragonard: a whimsical, airy garden, full or statues, urns, and foliage. The girl's skin is strikingly pale, almost virginal white - a temptation for her two intent, beseeching pursuers. Fragonard was perhaps inspired by the French master Antonie Watteau, whose works often included theatrical scenes of young love and lust in arcadian settings; the work bears thematic resemblance, too, to some of the idyllic summer scenes of Fragonard's mentor, Francois Boucher.
Images:
http://www.gonemovies.com/www/drama/drama/CasablancaKus.jpg
http://www.threedonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/fragonard_musical.jpg
http://www.celebritiesfans.com/pictures/anthony_munoz.jpg
Information:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/world
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