One More Week O' This Crap!

Word of the day : mawkish
                                             : having a weak, often unpleasant taste
                                             : marked by a sickly sentimentality ; sad or romantic in a foolish or 
                                               exaggerated way  

Well, hello, everyone.  Hope everyone on the east coast is staying safe... What a storm! 

Thank God there's only a week left of election crap.

A better news story?  (for me, anyway)  The basketball season officially kicks off tonight, as the NBA starts up.
(Even though I really don't start watching the NBA until about January-February or so...)

Here are my predictions for the 2012-2013 NBA season:

Eastern Conference       
Best Record: Miami Heat

Playoff Teams: 

Miami
Boston Celtics
New York Knicks
Chicago Bulls
Indiana Pacers
Brooklyn Nets
Atlanta Hawks
Philadelphia 76ers

Eastern Conference Champions:  Miami Heat


Western Conference
Best Record: Los Angeles Lakers

Playoff Teams: 

L.A. Lakers
San Antonio Spurs
Oklahoma City Thunder
L.A. Clippers
Denver Nuggets
Memphis Grizzlies
Houston Rockets
Dallas Mavericks

Western Conference Champions:  L.A. Lakers

NBA Champions: Miami Heat

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On this Halloween Eve, let's go ahead and suggest another frightening book for your reading pleasure:

 
Why not?  It's not really a horror book or a "fright-fest" per say, but it's a relentlessly terrifying vision of a post-apocalyptic America.  Brutal, cold, pessimistic, and relentlessly depressing, it's nevertheless an artistic triumph; it gave me chills. that's for sure.  This 2006 book won almost every prize imaginable, including the Pulitzer.  
   
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One of my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time?

William H. Macy 
as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo (1996) 

"Ma'am, I answered your question.  I answered the darned... I'm cooperatin' here!" 

A perfect performance by a perfect film actor.  Equally sleazy, despicable, goofy, and sad, Macy's Lundegaard, a small-town loser is a man who's tired of scraping show, tired of his father-in-law, and dispirited by the fact that it's not that easy to have your wife killed. 


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Moret Bridge
1893
oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay, Paris 

Alfred Sisley (born on this date in 1839) was one of the great Impressionists, though not as famous as some of his counterparts within the movement - Monet, Renoir, etc.  Sisley spent a few years living in Moret and often painted the Moret Bridge; bridges were a popular feature and compositional device in his works.  In most Sisley landscapes, people don't play too much of a part (or even appear); rather, like here, they tend to just merge with the environment.  



Images: 

http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news/19883/_1280390134.jpg

http://quarterlyconversation.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/the-road-cormac-mccarthy.jpg

http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/MASTERPIECESfromPARIS/Images/400/191260.jpg