YATES

Word of the day : raiment : clothing, garments

Julia and I heard today that James Patterson will be the Keynote Speaker at the 2013 Savannah Book Festival.  Uggh.  I respect the career he's built for himself doing half-assed, below-par factory-writing, but as a writer, he's the pits.  You can't take him seriously at all.

- In the period from 2006 to the end of this year, he will have "written" 62 books.  Seriously!

- In 2011 alone, he "wrote" 12.

- He is "writing" 9 different series right now!  This is in addition to the stand-alone novels that he "writes."

- He has 13 "novels" on tap for this year.  

The man is God.  That is, if God sucked, couldn't write, was enviously rich, and fake.  

Oh, well, hopefully they get other, actual writers in the lineup.

Ralph Gibson (#27)

I couldn't find a whole lot out there about Gibson, but here are the basics:

He was born in Los Angeles in 1939, joined the Navy, and later graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute.  Early in his career he was an assistant to the great photographer Dorothea Lange.  He published one of modern photography's more well-known books, The Somnabulist, in 1970.  Influences included Edward Weston and Walker Evans.  Here is a description of his work from an exhibition at the Palm Beach (Florida) Photographic Centre in 2011

Ralph Gibson’s images often incorporate fragments with erotic and mysterious undertones, building narrative meaning through contextualization and surreal juxtaposition.

He had an exhibition at Atlanta's High Museum of Art this year.  He has used a Leica camera his entire year.  His work is a little Surrealist, a little Minimalist; nudes are common too.  He lives in New York City.  

from The Somnabulist

Richard Yates just may be - no, he is indisputably my favorite American writer.  His characters are more real than many of the people you actually meet in real life.  His dialogue and prose is so exacting, so carefully crafted yet natural, that it's almost breathtaking.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Yates spent the final years of his lonely, depressed, booze-heavy life in Tuscaloosa, Alabama:

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090126/NEWS/901250234?p=6&tc=pg

Interesting, huh?  I had no idea that Yates despised the work of John Updike, nor did I have any idea that comedian Larry David dated Yates' daughter Monica at one point.  And it would have been fascinating if Woody Allen, who bought the rights to Yates' great, splendid Easter Parade, had indeed made a version of it, rather than just keeping it and hording it because he admired Yates so much and (I guess) didn't want to see anyone else screw it up on screen.

I've said it before, but I do think Revolutionary Road, Yates' 1961 breakthrough, is the Great American Novel.  I still think that - and I think I will think that ten years from now, twenty, forty...

Even a late-period work like this, somewhat repeating some of the themes and moods of his earlier work, exemplifies what most writers at their peak are up to.  

He might not have been a nice, chummy, supportive teacher; maybe he was a bitter man, but he was definitely a great artist.

I would write more today, but I want to play with Gabriel outside some, work for an hour on my novel, and fume a little bit over our landlord.

Until tomorrow!  

What? No award!

Word of the day : piquant : agreeably stimulating to the palate ; spicy, provocative

News today:

1) I've decided to just go ahead and finish my long-gestating, all-over-the-place novel.  If I can't take one hour out of my day and work on a novel, one in which I more or less know how it starts and ends, then that is just sad.  Who cares about what happens to it at that point?  I just want to finish the dumb thing so I don't have to think about it anymore.     

2) No Pulitzer Prize was awarded this year for Best Fiction, the first time since 1977 that no novel was given this highest of literary prizes.  Why?  The board, led by novelist Michael Cunningham, evidently felt nothing was "worthy" enough, whatever that means, although there were three finalists: Denis Johnson's Train Dreams; Karen Russell's Swamplandia!; and The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace.  This seems insulting, the phrase "not worthy" both arrogant and goofy.

TV

- Nurse Jackie is really cooking early on in its fourth season.  I missed all of Season Three, but this is an easy show to get right back into.  All hail Edie Falco as the harried title character, a pill-popping, adulterous hot mess, but the whole cast is wicked fun playing a gallery of frenzied, conceited goofs.  This is a unique show, with a unique tone  - sophomoric and chippy, turbulent, fast-paced, occasionally dead-panned.   

- In another life, I would be writing for Mad Men.  Last night's episode was incredible, strangely hilarious, with Jared Harris' Lane and Vincent Kartheiser's Lane actually putting up their dukes and boxing each other.  This is a show in which even a pitied, pitiful character like the one so deeply, hypnotically etched by Kartheiser, through great writing, can be granted deep pathos.  There has never been anything on TV like it.

- Scandal is a pretty good show.  Kerry Washington is fabulous as always as a damage control-specialist with her pulse on the Beltway, leading a colorfully crack team of lawyers in this product of Grey's Anatomy creation Shonda Rhimes.  The first two episodes have been fine, fast and snappy, with an intriguing subplot in which Washington's Olivia Pope shares an ensnaring, heated romantic backstory with the president of the United States; he's played by Tony Goldwyn, so you know's he's up to his eyeballs in his insinuating, snaky sleaze.    

Book Review

William Boyd's Restless (2006) refers to the way Sally Gilmartin has spent the second half of her life - always watchful, always paranoid, never content.  You see, Sally, as she tells the story to her shocked daughter Ruth, wasn't always the shy, greenthumbing rural Oxford granny she is now.  In fact, she was born in Russia and, after the mysterious death of her brother, recruited by a British spy service.  During  World War II, she was one of England's finest, resourceful spies, working at an AP-like office planting false stories over the wire in order to draw America into the war.

The book jumps back and forth between Sally's time during the war and Ruth's life in a small college town as a single mother teaching ESL to foreign grad students.  The novel builds tension as Sally entreats Ruth to help her track down her boss in the service, a charming, possibly traitorous man named Lucas Romer, who was Sally's lover.  Lucas is still very much alive and on the hunt for Ruth.

I wanted to love this book because I thought it had an irresistible premise.  I didn't... But I liked it a lot.  The pace almost never lags, and there's plenty of detail and one nerve-shredding scene in which Sally jabs a Mexican policeman through the eye with a pencil.  The plot moves cleanly, the writing is sharp.  It's a very efficient, polished effort - not one of Boyd's more personal efforts but a perfectly enjoyable, satisfying piece of work.     
(****)

History Today:

Bernard Baruch  utters a popular phrase

Baruch, born in South Carolina in 1870, was a millionaire, stock financier, stock-speculator, and one of the country's most respected political advisers.  From 1919 through the 1940s he advised presidents on economic and foreign policy issues.

In 1947, a portrait of Baruch was to be hung in South Carolina's House of Representatives building, and Baruch was present for the unveiling.  He gave a speech in which he lambasted the country's industrial labor problems.  He encouraged unity between labor and management.  He stated:

Let us not be deceived -we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success.

Hence, the phrase "cold war" came into being.  Newspapers jumped on it.  The phrase still recalls to even those generations removed from the Bay of Pigs the tensions between Russia and the U.S.

Thanks:  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bernard-baruch-coins-the-term-cold-war

What do I think of when I think of the "Cold War" in terms of its usage and implications in pop culture?

- The Manchurian Candidate, the novel by Richard Condon, and the Frank Sinatra-Laurence Harvey film by John Frankenheimer

- Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's 1964 comedy classic

- The Hunt For Red October, by Tom Clancy - and the 1990 film version with Sean Connery

- Thirteen Days, Roger Donaldson's exciting 2000 film about the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Kevin Costner and Bruce Greenwood.

 - John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

- pretty much most of James Bond

- Of course...

  

- George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck 


 

Glorious Sunday

Word of the day : cummerbund : a broad waistband usually worn in place of a vest with men's dress clothes (and various styles of women's clothes)   (Note: this word is using misspelled as "cumberbun')

Neither Julia nor I can get 2nd and Charles out of our head.  We might have to make a trip back to Augusta next weekend.

And me and my little walking buddy, Daisy, saw one of these babies today out strolling prissily along the 3rd hole of the golf course:

Daisy and Chas saw me, not Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones (below)

Like Crazy is surely one of my favorite movies from last year - and, damn shamedly, an overlooked one.  The plot is beguilingly simple: an American guy and an English girl meet in college in L.A., fall in love, but are constantly forced to be on separate continents as snags in her work visa prevent the two from being together for longer than holidays and extended visits.  The guy is played by the appealing Anton Yelchin (of Fright Night) and the girl is played, in a richly expressive breakthrough performance, by Felicity Jones; The Hunger Games's Jennifer Lawrence shows up, in a compactly touching turn as Yelchin's new (temporary?) girlfriend.  Co-writer and director Drake Doremus does a superb job capturing the natural rhythms of a couple in love, and he evokes, with nuance and understatement, the changes of mood and season, the passing of time, the shifting of feelings over the course of a relationship.  He is also courageous enough to forgo the obligatory (and almost destined-to-be) happy ending; sometimes when one gets what they want, they might no longer want it much anymore.  The film flirts with rambling, but the screenplay has an arc to it, and the film is touching and moving.  It's similar in theme to 2010's Going the Distance, but it captures fragility in a smart way.   (***1/2)

Bill Brandt (#26)

Brandt = nudes.  That may not be fair, but it'll suffice. 

Brandt (1904-1983) has spent most of his working life in England, but he was actually born in Hamburg.  He spent some time in Paris in the late 1920s, where he was an assistant for Man Ray.  His first major book of photos, The English at Home (1936), showed British people as they really were: stratified, economically divided.  During the next year, he traveled north and took photos of the economic and social situation in factory towns.  During the war, his was an ongoing photoreportage of Londoners and the buildings during the Blitz. 

He is more known for the second half of his career, when he began to work in portraiture, lansdscape, and, of course, nudes.  Many of his early nudes were shown in front of imposing, menacing architectural backgrounds, almost stifling.  These images shocked people, not the least of which because of Brandt's close-up treatment of details, wide-angle lenses, and distorted lenses. 

He also photographed many famous British literary and cinematic artists: Peter Sellers, Graham Greene, Francis Bacon.

     

from The English at Home

In music news, it's a bit alarming how little I know about Entertainment's Weekly's 30 Greatest Musical Artists of today:

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20585702_20585925_21143987,00.html

I've heard Beach House before, thought they were okay... Man, I'm getting old, I guess.  Some of these artists I've never even heard of - nor do I have the slightest interest in doing so.   

I will say that the Civil Wars are a good band.  I've been listening to them on Pandora - they have a good, clean, plainspoken, mournful, sound - kind of like Robert Plant/Alison Krauss replete with gorgeous, clear harmonies.  I'd say go out and buy their CD, but does anybody still do that?   

 

ArtsFest

Word of the day : querulous : habitually complaining ; fretful, whiny

I'm certainly not going to Georgia Southern's Arts Fest.  Nope, I'm staying home with Gabriel Owen Fischer.  Unfortunately for my lovely wife, she has to work it all day long. 

Yesterday, we had a great time in Augusta, and found one of the coolest stores imaginable: 

http://www.2ndandcharles.com/

There are only 6 locations (so far) in the country; if it wasn't for Julia curiously spotting one as we were on our way out of the city, we wouldn't have even gone in!  It's nicer than Half Price Books - cleaner, bigger, less dumpy, but with similar prices, far more new stuff.  Julia and I bought 11 books for around $45.

Today, Gabriel and I will do some spring cleaning and maybe go for a walk since it's so nice out. 

The other night, we watched Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the America, David Fincher-helmed remake of the Swedish mega-phenomenon.  Once you settle into the fact that the accents are not really Swedish but more British, it's a pretty good film, though I'm getting a bit tired of Fincher's perrenial penchant for unrelieved darkness; it seems innate at this point, laced into his very DNA.  Adapted by Steve Zaillian, the film is brilliantly edited and scored, with a forceful, alert performance by Daniel Craig, a highly creepy one by Stellan Skarsgard, and a wise, fine one by Christopher Plummer.  My only problem with the film was its overlength.  The film, because it follows the book so closely, runs into the same problem its source did: that unwieldy, drawn-out, half-hour anti-climax after the death of Skarsgard's serial killer.  That said, the film, well-designed and shot (the flashback scenes are nicely handled) is worth a look, especially (well, largely) because of the oddly intriguing relationship between Craig and Rooney Mara, who's wonderful here, taking a role that I couldn't imagine anyone other than the Swedish actress who was so vivid and ingrained in it, Noomi Rapace, in and making it her own, giving it a glum, quick-witted hard-charging urgency.  (***)

(Note: I always rate movies on a scale of one star (*) to four (****); books I rate on a scale of * to five (*****).  I don't know why, I just do.)

William Klein (#25)

Klein was born in New York in 1928, grew up in the Big Apple, passed through France as a soldier during World War II, studied at the Sorbonne after the war, and then proceeded to spend nearly the next half-century there.  He is not particularly well-known here in the U.S.; in fact, some of his work (including his documentary films) is vituperatively anti-American.  Klein was trained as a painter and studied under the great modernist Fernand Leger.  He was renowned as one of the more important, influential independent filmmakers.  As a photographer, he was distinct and wide-ranging in his influence too.  His style?  Blurred, out-of-focus images, high-contrast prints, severely over-exposed negatives, wide-angle, long-focus lenses.  He worked for Vogue for a decade (1955-1965).  In the 1980s, there was renewed interest in him; a signature of his work during this period was the close-up.

   

Thanks to: http://www.designboom.com/portrait/klein_bio.html

  

Cold Down Here in Georgia Today... Only 68 degrees!

Word of the day : refection : refreshment or nourishment of mind, spirit, or body ; the taking of refreshment

On tap for the Fischer family for tomorrow... Augusta, Georgia! 

New movies opening this week: 

The Three Stooges    Directed by the Farrelly Brothers, this one looks like a who-cares? misfire, with a weak lead cast: Sean Hayes (Larry), Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe), and Will Sasso (Curly).  There's some interest, I guess, in some of the supporting players (Sofia Vergara, Larry David, Jane Lynch), but what can you really say about this?  It doesn't look funny at all.  Although it was shot in Atlanta.  Why is the million-dollar question all around. 

The Cabin in the Woods    A lot of buzz and excitement and plenty of terrific reviews for for co-writer Joss Whedon and director Drew Goddard's tale of five students who go to the title setting.  None of the reviews are giving anything away at that point, although I'm hearing descriptions like meta and self-reflexive tossed around and comparisons to The Matrix and Scream.  Critics are calling in imaginative, bloody, and fun.  Co-starring Richard Jenkins (?) 

Lockout    Futuristic junk starring a hammy, up-for-anything Guy Pearce (in Nic Cage mode), Maggie Grace, and Peter Stormare set a outer-space maximum security prison.  Looks derivative and bland - and guess what?  Critics are saying that it is. 

In commemoration of yesterday being the 51st anniversary of Bob Dylan's first major professional gig in New York City, opening for the late John Lee Hooker at Gerde's Folk City, let me present the list of 10 Bob Dylan Songs I Never Want to Hear Again: 

- "Like a Rolling Stone"
- "Blowin' in the Wind"
- "The Times-They-Are-A-Changin'"
- "To Make You Feel My Love"
- "Forever Young"
- "Gotta Serve Somebody"
- "Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)"
- "Idiot Wind"
- "You're a Big Girl Now"
- "A Hard Rain's-A Gonna Fall"

Stuff these in a time capsule.  Hopefully, people 200 hundred years ago will forget to dig them up.  Burn them.  Incinerate them.  Dump uric acid on them. 

And here are 10 underrated, fantastic Bobby D songs:

- "I Threw It All Away" (1969, Nashville Skyline)
- "Tryin' to Get to Heaven" (1997, Time Out of Mind)
- "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" (1969, Nashville Skyline)
- "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (1976, Greatest Hits Volume Two)
- "Dark Eyes" (1985, Empire Burlesque)
- "Goin' to Acapulco" (The Basement Tapes)
- "Every Grain of Sand" (1981, Shot of Love)
- "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" (1965, Highway 61 Revisited)
- "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" (1968, John Wesley Harding)
- "Mississippi" (2001, Love and Theft) 

Today in History: 

The Civil War began, 151 years ago. 

I did this a couple of weeks back, but I'll do it again here, very briefly.  Let's look at who won some major Civil War battles: 

First Bull Run (1861, Virginia) - Won by Confederacy
Antietam (1862, Maryland) - Won by the Union
Shiloh (1862, Tennessee) - Won by the Union)
Second Bull Run (1862, Virginia) - Won by Confederacy
Fredericksburg  (1862, Virginia) - Won by Confederacy
Chickamauga  (1863, Georgia) - Won by Confederacy
Chancellorsville (1863, Virginia) - Won by Confederacy
Gettysburg (1863, Pennsylvania) - Won by the Union
Vicksburg (1863, Mississippi) - Won by the Union
Chattanooga (1863, Tennessee) - Won by the Union


- On a side note, in yesterday's post I mentioned the early, early Oscar buzz for Daniel Day Lewis and Bill Murray playing, respectively, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in upcoming films.  Check this out: No actor has ever won an Oscar for playing a real-life U.S. president. 

- With the upcoming Pulitzer Prize unveiling on Monday, it's time to guess what book will win the fiction prize.  Here are my ten guesses:

- The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
- The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obrecht
- Swamplandia!, Karen Russell
- The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides (very, very slim, since he's won before)
- The Pale King, David Foster Wallace
- State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
- The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
- The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
- The Submission, Amy Waldman
-The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka

I'm thinking it's going to be Harbach's The Art of Fielding, which is why I'm going to start reading it pronto - well, right after I finish the William Boyd book I'm reading... This is not a broken record, I assure you.  I'm always reading Boyd.  And speaking of Boyd, I heard he will be writing the next James Bond book, which means there will finally be a Boyd book I have no interest in.  

David LaChapelle (#24) 

We're almost a quarter of the way through our photographers.

What should you know about LaChapelle?  Well, he crafts social messages behind a dizzying, striking, hyper-realist aesthetic.  His first real job was given to him by Andy Warhol for Interview, LaChapelle coming to the master's attention via his acclaimed photographic work in New York in the early 1980s.  His work has virtually everywhere since then: Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, French and Italian Vogue, GQ.  He has shot hundreds of celebrities: Tupac, Elizabeth Taylor, Paris Hilton, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hillary Clinton, Lance Armstrong, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lance Armstrong, Fleetwood Mac. 

He has made documentary films, music videos, and directed live theatrical events.  He now focuses almost exclusively on fine art photography.   

All his work is sensual, playful, colorful, provocative yet accessible, futuristic at times, erotic, baroque... LaChapelle (born in Connecticut in 1963) is one of the most recognized artists around.

Mrs. Pitt

 

David Beckham

Music videos he has directed include:

Joss Stone's "Super Duper Love"
Amy Winehouse's "Tears Dry on Their Own"
Elton John's "This Train Don't Top Here Anymore" (this one's pretty cool!)
No Doubt's "It's My Life"
Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty"

Which makes me wonder: Why waste so much money and talent and time on music videos? 

Life List #3

50 Architectural or Natural Wonders to see Before I Die

Non-U.S.
1. Sydney Opera House
2. Pyramids at Giza
3. Serengeti National Park
4. Victoria Falls National Park
5. Taj Mahal
6. The Imperial Palace
7. The Hermitage
8. Hagia Sophia
9. Red Square
10. the Swiss Alps/Matterhorn
11. St. Peter's, Rome
12. Eiffel Tower
13. Arc de Triomphe
14. Acropolis
15.  Mt. Olympus
16.Forum and Colisseum, Rome
17. Norwegian fjords
18.Kruger National Park
19. Burj Dubai
20. Guggenhiem Museum, Bilbao
21. Macchu Picchu
22. Angel Falls
23. Iguazu Falls
24. Galapagos Islands
25. Angkor Wat
26. Amazon Rain Forest
27. Ephesus
28. Mount Kliminjaro
29. Panama Canal
30. The Great Wall of China
31. Easter Island
32. Lake Baikal
33. Komodo National Park, Indonesia
34. Great Barrier Reef
35. Leaning Tower of Pisa
36. Ayers Rock
37. Bora Bora
38. Bali
39. Patagonia
40. Loch Ness
41. Lake District, UK
U.S.
42. Grand Canyon
43, The Alamo
44. Yellowstone National Park
45. French Quarter, New Orleans
46. Denai National Park
47. Rocky Mountains
48. Glacier National Park, Montana
49.New York art museums (Met, MOMA, Guggenheim)
50. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

Humpety-Hump

Word of the day : marmoreal : of, relating to, or suggestive of marble or a marble statue especially in coldness or aloofness

Julia and I are watching season one of FX/Direct TV's Damages.  Julia has seen all four seasons; I've only seen seasons three and four; Julia thought it necessary for me to see where and how it all began.   

The show centers on the relationship and working life of two very different New York high-stakes litigation lawyers: Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), engaged when we first meet her, somewhat retiring, but focused and smart, a keen observer; and Patty Hewes, who, as written and played (by Glenn Close), remains one of the most polarizing, unlikable, memorable creations on television, a conniving games-player, shrewd, blisteringly intelligent and reptilian.  Hewes isn't too much different from the powerful men she tries to bring to their knees - sneaky and corrosive, charming and vile.   

But she's great fun to watch: Everything about her, in fact, is just monstrous, not the least of which her tenacity at ensnaring the financial villains that run through each of the show's first four seasons (season five, the upcoming one, will be the last): Ted Danson's grinning, beguiling huckster Arthur Frobisher, William Hurt, Lily Tomlin-Len Carious and their clan (most notably, Campbell Scott), John Goodman. 

It's an extraordinary cast: from Close and Byrne and Tate Donovan to the gallery of outstanding actors that have peppered the seasons I've watched: Danson (a great villain), Zachary Booth (as Close's warped son), Zeljko Ivanec (an Emmy winner as Close's lawyer nemesis), Goodman, Peter Facinelli, Philip Bosco, Tom Noonan, the extraordinarily creepy Dylan Baker, etc.  

There's a formula: each season, each episode in fact, flash-forwards about six months to a year in the present, when a main character is dead or being killed; we then go back to see what led up to this.  There's more than meets than the eye, and almost every character has something to hide.    

Creators Todd Kessler, Glenn Kessler, and Daniel Zelman have fashioned a first-rate show, loaded with mystery and complex characters, a deft, lurid bit of well-written storylines (all of which are relevant to the present day).  Season 5 premieres mid-July, the guest stars including Ryan Phillippe, Jenna Elfman, John Hannah, and Janet McTeer (who was a fellow Oscar nominee with Close in Albert Nobbs.)

I've heard crack is addictive.  Hear this: Damages might even be more addictive. 

Check out this painting on permanent display in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.  It's Isabella and the Pot of Basil, an 1897 work by Pittsburgh-born artist John White Alexander (1856-1915), who studied and trained in Munich, worked as a cartoonist and illustrator in New York, but truly came into his own and flowered after befriending James Whistler in Paris at the end of the 19th century and being introduced to leading members of the Symbolist movement.

He had been well-regarded in New York for his portraiture of actors and other artists, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Walt Whitman.  In France, he began to experiment with Symbolism and Art Nouveau  - slender, sinuous lines.  A lot of his work had decorative and decadent themes.

The above painting was based on the 1820 poem "Isabella" by John Keats, who adapted it from a poem by Boccaccio.  From the Museum of Fine Art's website:

Isabella was a Florentine merchant’s beautiful daughter whose ambitious brothers disapproved of her romance with the handsome but humbly born Lorenzo, their father’s business manager. The brothers murdered Lorenzo and told their sister that he had traveled abroad. The distraught Isabella began to decline, wasting away from grief and sadness. She saw the crime in a dream and then went to find her lover’s body in the forest. Taking Lorenzo’s head, she bathed it with her tears and finally hid it in a pot in which she planted sweet basil, a plant associated with lovers.      

Gruesome stuff, huh?  The painting is theatrically lit, and Isabella is sensuously-curved, almost ghostly in her attention, in a deep, reverent trance.   

For all my information, thanks to: http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/isabella-and-the-pot-of-basil-31098

(brief) Book reviews:

I'm in a William Boyd groove right now.  His third novel, 1984's Stars and Bars isn't his best novel by any means, but it's a funny, raucous fish-out-of-water story about an uptight, nervous British art appraiser, Henderson Dores, desperate to feel like an American.  He is assigned to rural Georgia to check out an Impressionist collection owned by an eccentric millionaire and his truly strange southern clan.  Even writing a light romp like this, Boyd still sheds insight (into the differences between Brits and Americans) and creates some truly original set pieces: Henderson flailing on a canoe in a luxury Atlanta hotel where the guests have to paddle across a lake to get to the elevators; and a sequence where a naked Henderson runs through the rainy after-hour streets of New York with a empty box of napkins around his torso and privates.  (***)

  
This collection was Hemingway's second collection of short stories.  It's easy to read, short, but it contains a lot of the qualities that tend to annoy me about Hemingway's style: bland characterizations, oblique plotting, repetition of adjectives and descriptions.  The backdrops are mostly bullfighting and war.  In short, here's a breakdown:
Really Good: "The Killers"
Good: "Fifty Grand," "Now I Lay Me," "Today is Friday"
Average or Worse: the other nine stories.
(**)

- In sports news, here's a rundown of my opinions of weekly stories:
- Ozzie Guillen: for making pro-Castro comments?  Moron!
- Arkansas football coach: for fooling around (and promoting) a female intern and lying about her presence in his motorcycle accident: Moron!
- Michael Jordan's legacy by continuing to be the lackadaisical owner of the NBA's worst franchise, the Charlotte Bobcats: Tarnishing!
- the Miami Heat's odds of winning a championship this year: Diminishing!

It's never too early to think of next year's Oscars, is it?

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/are-leonardo-dicaprio-and-vanessa-redgrave-heading-for-the-oscars-predicting-best-supporting-actor-actress-2013

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/2012/03/02/could-bill-murray-and-keira-knightley-soon-be-oscar-winners-we-prematurely-predict-best-actor-and-actress-at-the-2013-academy-awards

So let's conjecture: For Best Actor, Bill Murray vs. Daniel Day-Lewis vs. John Hawkes
                               Best Actress: Keira Knightley vs. Laura Linney
                               Supporting Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio vs. Russell Crowe vs. Joaquin Phoenix
                               Supporting Actress: Vanessa Redgrave vs. Amy Adams
                              
And:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/Could-The-Dark-Knight-Rises-The-Master-Be-Contenders-We-Prematurely-Predict-The-2013-Best-Picture-Oscar-Nominees

So it could be Spielberg's Lincoln vs. Affleck's Argo vs. Bigelow's Kill Bin Laden vs. Hooper's Les Miserables

It'll be interesting to see, nine months from now, if any of these early predictions bear any relevance.