Gabriel's last day of summer school is today. To celebrate, we're taking him out to Isabella's, a reputedly nice Italian restaurant here in town.
Don't forget about my wife's blog:
She hadn't posted for a while, by she's back and she's unleashed a flurry of links this week!
http://arthistorymusings.tumblr.com/
Born today:
Lizzie Borden (1860-1927)
Star of one of the 19th century's most famous murder trials, Borden was born in and was a lifelong resident of Fall River, Massachusetts. Borden's mother died when she was three and Lizzie had one sister, Emma. Her father, Andrew, eventually re-married, to Abby Gray, and the family remained comfortably wealthy. There was an odd tension in the family, though: Lizzie claimed that her father didn't provide sufficiently enough for her or Emma, and neither her nor Emma trusted or particularly liked their new stepmother.
In July of 1892, the Borden sisters went away to visit friends. Lizzie came back early. A few weeks later, Andrew and Abby came down with a sever came of vomiting - Abby suspect poisoning. Around this time, Abby's brother came to visit and on August 4, he and Andrew went into town, Andrew returning early to lie down.
It was during this time that Lizzie allegedly went out to the barn to rifle through the barn for fishing equipment and to eat some pears (!). When she returned to the house, she found her father hacked to pieces with an ax. Lizzie and the maid called a doctor and the three of them found the stepmother, Abby, upstairs in her room, also hacked to death.
Tests later showed that Abby was killed 1 or 2 hours before Andrew. Andrew didn't have a will, so all of his estate (up to half a million) would go to his daughters and none to Abby or her heirs.
Lizzie was arrested and charged with the murder. She was put in prison for a mere ten months pending trial. Her trial ran for a few weeks in mid-June of 1893, and Lizzie never took the stand. There was no direct evidence, no murder weapon. Hence, she was acquitted.
She lived out the rest of her life in relative comfort in her hometown, with her sister until 1905 or so. They took in many pets. She left part of her estate to the Animal Rescue League.
She is buried beside her father and stepmother.
(The house she lived in is now a Bed and Breakfast museum: http://www.lizzie-borden.com/index.php/about-us/contact-us)
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I won't analyze the picks too much because I haven't seen or just flat-out don't watch a lot of the shows and performances. I'm glad to see love doled out to Homeland, Modern Family, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and New Girl, though. I don't think Mad Men will win again, though - not five straight years. No way. I love the show to death, but even I'll admit this wasn't its best season.
Here are my picks for who I think is going to win on September 23.
Drama : Homeland
Comedy: Modern Family (again)
Miniseries/Made-for-TV movie: Game Change
Lead Actor, Drama: Damian Lewis, Homeland (no more Bryan Cranston!)
Lead Actress, Drama: Claire Danes, Homeland
Supporting Actor, Drama: Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad
Supporting Actress, Drama: Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
Lead Actor, Comedy: Louis C.K., Louie
Lead Actress, Comedy: Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation
Supporting Actor, Comedy: Ed O'Neill, Modern Family
Supporting Actress, Comedy: Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Lead Actor, Miniseries: Idris Elba, Luther
Lead Actress, Miniseries: Julianne Moore, Game Change
Supporting Actor, Miniseries: Ed Harris, Game Change
Supporting Actress, Miniseries: Jessica Lange, American Horror Story
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Today's selection for the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time?
Humphrey Bogart
as Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)
Nicholas Ray's lovely, lonely, fatalistic (as ever) adaptation of Dorothy Hughes' noir novel has a perfect part for late-period Bogart as a burned-out, moody, possibly homicidal screenwriter. Bogart tears up the screen here. He seems so wired, so edgy, so crazy (I mean, look at the image above), that he just may have all the characteristics of a killer. As the neighbor across the way, Gloria Grahame isn't sure one way or the other. But there's a sadness to him, a been-around-the-block weariness too. Damn it, he's impossible to read!
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Since today is also Edgar Degas' birthday, let's feature one of his paintings.
The Rehearsal on Stage
c. 1874
pastel over brush-and-ink drawing on thin, cream-colored wove paper, laid on bristol board, mounted on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
By the 1870s and 1880s Degas was a regular painter of the Paris ballet. Degas didn't paint or draw actual dancers. Instead, what he did was hire dancers to come to his studio to pose for him - often uncharacteristically, with their poses and contortions atypical of an actual ballet dancers'. Several of the characters in the painting look bored or exhausted: the gentleman on the right, who may or may not have paid to see the girls practice; several of the dancers look stressed too. Degas, who frames the scene as if from the point of view of someone sitting in a box near the stage, liked to paint modern city institutions - the opera, the racetrack. Everything about the scene suggests the humdrum banalities of rehearsal, of practice, of long hours of toil. As ever, Degas focuses on movement, particularly paying attention to the fleet, floating legs of the young girls.
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Movie Openings This Week:
Well, there's only one of note. Perhaps you've heard if it?
The Dark Knight Rises
I'll be indifferent when this trilogy concludes; I've liked other superhero series' more. While critics are saying this doesn't reach the Ledger-propelled heights of 2008's The Dark Knight, the reviews are still really good for this one: 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman are back. Tom Hardy, the physically imposing British actor who had made a name for himself the last couple years (Inception, This Means War, Warrior), plays the villain, Bane; some critics are saying that his dialogue is hard to make out, being that his character wears a steel-mandibled breathing apparatus. Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be a welcome addition as a Gotham City cop, as will Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. Marion Cotillard is here too. A lot of it was filmed in Pittsburgh, but I have no idea why it runs two hours and forty-five minutes.
Verdict: Interested
Images:
http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ap_lizzie_borden_ll_120313_wg.jpg
http://www.altfg.com/Stars/photo-actors-j/julianne-moore-sarah-palin-game-change.jpg
http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/71/7c/000a7c71_medium.jpeg
http://www.oceansbridge.com/paintings/artists/d/edgar_degas/big/The_Rehearsal_on_Stage_1874.jpeg
http://img2-2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/04/17/SMP/Dark-Knight-Rises_320.jpg
http://charactergrades.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/curb-your-enthusiasm-season-7-dvd-boxset-86_2.jpg
Information:
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/criminals/p/lizzie_borden.htm
http://www.all-art.org/history480-5.html
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