Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Bad Teacher

 Cameron Diaz is very funny and sexy in this movie.  She plays a gold digger who slips under the radar of her principal even as she arrives at work each day in mini skirts only to show movies to her students.  The students seem thoroughly engaged by these movies, which nearly always have an educational theme.  Her rival, a truly dedicated, also funny character named Amy Squirrel, is the exact opposite.  She plans her lessons, tries to have fun with the students, and reports Halsey's (Diaz's character) bad behavior to the principal.

 


Diaz struts her stuff in amazing shoes and skintight dresses.  I read an article about her that said if she had lived in another era with better directors Diaz would have had a brilliant career.   The material in the movie is thin, but I am grateful for a movie that allows a gifted comic actress to make us laugh.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Indigo bunting, scarlet tanager, robins

Indigo Bunting, painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

Even though there are lovelier birds than robins here, it can be dramatic to watch robins hunt and feed.    They are so very thorough.

A robin captured a fresh worm in her bill.  She hauled the wriggler across the hot pavement.  Two bitty steps pulling her cargo, then a rest.  Two more bitty steps.  Progress was slow but steady as she made her way from one side of the road to the other.  Halfway there, the worm broke in two.  This did not stop her from clipping the fragment in her bill and pulling it a quarter inch at a time until she got the worm to the other side then gently with the most delicate of manners she ate him tidbit by tidbit.  But before she tackled the eating of the worm she'd successfully carried to the grass, she returned to the hot pavement where the rest of the worm had begun to show signs of life.

Scarlet Tanager, photo by Terry Sohl


Again just as she did with the first half, the robin pulled the writher by her a bill a quarter inch at a time until he joined up with the other portion.







photo by Ryan Bushby
Did the two halves greet each other at their reunion?   Were they glad to see each other?  I know nothing of worm communication.  Now it was time for the feast.  She ate a dainty snatch at a time, did not gulp or grind.  She chewed slowly and swallowed silently as the best brought up of us do.  When the worm was a manageable size, she flew off with it in her bill to her nest to share with the rest of her family.


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Sullivan County

We arrived at Ten Mile River yesterday morning when it was still spring.
After unpacking the car,  R noticed a scarlet tanager in a pine tree.















A red spotted purple butterfly basked in the bright noonday sun among the impatiens waiting to be planted.  At first, from underneath, with the orange
and white and black markings, I thought it was an admiral.  No, its first
cousin.  The butterfly looked brand new, no bird had taken a bite out of
him yet.  His wings shimmered as if still wet from birth.
 
Took a walk up the steep hill just to stretch my legs.  Ran into a large cluster of
mountain laurel, some pink, some white. 
laurel
rhododendron
Can't believe I ever confused rhododendron with laurel.
Must be the similarity of the leaves.  Laurel looks more
like ballooning petticoats in the shape of a ten
pointed star.  Each part of the flower petal has
a tiny vertical line almost like a border between
one part and the next.

Lest all of this sound like Eden, in order to get here, we drove
up the Palisades, then onto 6 and 17 west, and passed
at least five deer who had been struck and killed by speeding cars. 















Saturday, June 11, 2011

The Trip

The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom, and starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as themselves, has a foolproof structure.  The structure is  based on a BBC tv series in which the two characters take a restaurant tour of northern England.  Each episode features a new location.  Originally suggested by Steve's girlfriend, who has since backed off such a romantic journey, the trip takes the two men into and out of luxurious accommodations,  gorgeous scenery, and tantalizing versions of sauteed scallops.

We learn how close the men are by how well they accommodate each other through bouts of talkativeness, recitations of Wordsworth, singing, and imitations of actors, mostly British, which are hilarious.

It's a road movie, a buddy movie, a food movie, and  a story about family and loneliness.  I am so grateful not to have to see a Judd  Apatow movie in order to have a belly laugh!