NBA Playoffs. Victor Hugo. Romanticism. Caspar David Friedrich.

The NBA Playoffs start today. This is very very important. I think. If you don't already have a team to root for, or you just don't care about basketball, well, I still think you should cheer for a team. I recommend you cheer for the Phoenix Suns. You will thank me in the end.

In other news... I finished Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, such an amazing book. Unfortunately, since I liked it so much, I'm going to have to read more of this writer's works, and, uh, his novels seem to be very long (some writers have too much time on their hands, if this guy had kept a more active lifestyle, maybe his books would've been a little more concise?)... well, maybe I will read some of his poetry instead, read his other novels later. But this book I just finished, it was great, really well-written, and the story itself is good (although a little silly and predictable at times). I'd tell you about the story, but I'd probably give it away or more likely than not you already know the story.

Well, I'll tell you a bit about the story, for those of you who don't know... there's a 'magical' goat in the story who's able to do lots of stuff, like, impersonate people and do all sorts of other hilarious stuff which I wish I could teach my dog how to do... and then there's a hunchback character, and he's basically a fighting machine and he's exactly like Stallone in the movie Rambo, blowing bad guys away, except he doesn't use rocket launchers and sniper rifles, he uses beams and rocks and super-strength... another character is a beautiful girl who goes by the name of Esmerelda. Everybody in the story loves her except for one person, but this one person happens to be the person she loves! And this guy, whom she loves, is a total bozo, which is totally sad, but hey, this is a tragedy, so that kinda stuff happens in tragedies. And people die in tragedies, which I don't like. I like happily ever after stories, well, most of the time, although we all know happily ever after is an illusion, people grow old and fat and hog the television remote and don't help clean the dishes, not to mention the kids they have, who more likely than not are spoiled brats, always whining and trying to strongarm their parents into buying them stuff, and whining about wanting to go see a Britney Spears' concert...

Anyways.

Victor Hugo was part of the romantic movement, I'm not too familiar with writers from that movement, except for Chateaubriand. I'm mostly familiar with romanticism in the realm of 19th century painting... specially German romantic painters, there were a bunch of great ones, one of my favorites is Caspar David Friedrich... Some of Friedrich's paintings are very well known, but he also did some unbelievable drawings. His work tends to be sad and spiritual, and the colors tend to be low-key... I included some pictures of his work down below. And if there is one thing we can all probably agree on, it's that Caspar David Friedrich was a great tree painter. I'm guessing he really liked trees. And owls. Although, I'm not sure how he felt about gophers, but I'm willing to bet that if I study his paintings a little more I will be able find that out, and I will promptly get back to you on that (I must admit it would be a huge disappointment if I were to find out that Friedrich was a fan of gophers, we all know they are terrible, terrible creatures who are always cooking up nefarious plots).

Back to Hugo... Hugo was famous for his writing, but I found out he did lots of drawings and paintings, I guess he was multi-talented like William Blake... Although, I've searched the internet for Hugo's drawings, and I've only been able to find a couple, but they look pretty cool. Nothing mind-blowing, but cool enough...

Here is one of the few Hugo drawings I found on the internet...


And here are a couple of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings and drawings...