Back

Northern Lapwing

After a two-day hiatus, I'm back.  The fam had a nice day in Milledgeville yesterday, and, boy, talk about some college basketball games yesterday!  A half-court buzzer beater!  Five overtimes!  11 straight for the...Miami Hurricanes? 

My new top five teams in this ever tenuous landscape...
(no order)
- Indiana
- Gonzaga
- Miami
- Michigan
- Florida

*

A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Meryl Streep
as Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009) 

Streep is at her best here, as the flowery, larger-than-life Child; the actress' mannerisms and emulations of Child's physical behavior are, of course, spot-on.  Streep is having a great time here and she's a ball to watch; the chemistry between her and Stanley Tucci (gloriously understated as her husband) is pitch-perfect.  It's fun too when Jane Lynch shows up as Streep's sister.  Of course, the problem with Nora Ephron's film is that the Streep's Child isn't the sole focus of the film but rather shares the screen with the annoyingly whiny, rather uninteresting present-day character of Julie Powell (Amy Adams, in a thankless part). 

*

Well, it's February 10th and I can honestly say - and pray - that I have read the worst book of the year.  Matthew Quirk's ludicrously-hyped debut novel The 500 is so bad, it's comical.  I won't bother to recount the ludicrous plot for you - I'd only do that if I wanted to entice you to read it, and if you did that at this point, I'd be incredibly disappointed.  I will say that it wants to be a Firm-Baldacci sorta thing, but, honestly, this book makes a typical James Patterson novel look like high art.  Not one original plot point, characterization, line of dialogue, or description to be found anywhere in it.   

*

A rare bird has been spotted in Bulloch County by a number of bird-watchers, some of whom have hurried in from other counties to see it:

A northern lapwing:

This bird is rarely seen in the States.  It usually abides in Eurasia, although it is a migratory that sometimes wonders over to Canada after storms.  A wader bird that noisily defends its territory, the northern lapwing tends to feed late, late at night, guided by the moonlight.  













Images courtesy of:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF7HfY0e5LHSZstCFDw0Y-srK8DOKkGmOplkDnnulGEaJ90ZwcgMlAlfFcnCkMbiaO_gqmAip0nM6pfXqj2V7JPT49_MDnt6a8KVAk11lmaqbPkrpeOm6bhdR-l6CDXg_2yec2EnxkCkNA/s320/Meryl+Streep+in+Julie+%26+Julia.jpg

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/Lapwing.jpg