In the department of bits of my favorite movies following me around places, my coffee mug at Food for Thought last week bore the image of the 1999 U.S. Federal Duck Stamp, painted on acrylic by Jim Hautman, a friend of the Coen Brothers who allowed his art and name to be used in Fargo. The back of the cup contains blurbs on both Hautman (as of that year he was the fourth artist to win that stamp-design competition three times; I wonder if he's exceeded that record now) and his chosen species of duck (the Greater Scaup, a fan of aquatic invertebrates and Arctic breeding grounds). The fictional Hautman, an off-screen character, won a contest to have his art printed on twenty-nine-cent postage stamps; the real Hautman's fifteen-dollar duck stamps are now worth $195. They're rather pretty ducks, too.
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