April 2nd, 2014 → 6:02 am
“We […] alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.” – King Lear
King Lear was recently performed in the Zaatari Refugee Camp, in Jordan. Hearing about it I pictured a sun-swept, bone-dry, dust-encircled platform with thin, but passionate refugees voicing their sorrows and hopes upon the stage. Acting in their wall’d prison. I wish I could have seen it.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
March 20th, 2014 → 5:58 am
“The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.” – Othello
There was a story on NPR yesterday about a guy who bought a game console online, but then never received it. When he realized he’d been cheated he exacted revenge by texting 37 Shakespeare plays to the seller’s phone. It came to nearly 30,000 text messages. I like the joke, but my question is, did he type it all in himself?!?!
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Stupid/Evil People
March 13th, 2014 → 8:28 am
“For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up: urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made ’em.” – The Tempest
Barack Obama was on the comedy podcast Between Two Ferns the other day. I don’t know about his performance, but I did spend an embarrassing amount of time at work yesterday (during lunch, of course!) watching a number of the other videos. Some were really funny!
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Politics/Politicians
September 14th, 2013 → 7:01 am
“[The] Man delights not me.” – Hamlet
OMG, there was a hilarious article in the New York Times yesterday titled, “Too Much Shakespeare? Be Not Cowed.” It compared Shakespeare’s plays to The Wire, 24, 50 Shades of Grey, and The Book of Mormon. It talked about hating Shakespearean prose, not always understanding the actors, and being a Shakespeare skeptic, but in the end, admitting that while Shakespeare is hard, so is life. It was a fun, satisfying read. Yeah 🙂 Argh 🙁 Shakespeare.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
September 12th, 2013 → 6:06 am
“Britain’s a world by itself, and we will nothing pay for wearing our own noses.” – Cymbeline
A friend of mine forwarded to me the following bit of British Humor, care of John Cleese:
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Politics/Politicians
September 10th, 2013 → 5:59 am
“O beauty,
Till now I never knew thee.” – Henry VIII
How exciting, the experts have confirmed the finding of an authentic Van Gogh painting, “Sunset at Montmajour.” I wish I could happen upon one of those hidden away up in my attic! Come to think of it, when was the last time I’ve even been in my attic??
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
August 21st, 2013 → 5:52 am
“O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.” – Hamlet
A friend of mine turned me onto Thug Notes the other day. Their tag line: “Classical Literature. Original Gangster.” They make quick five minute videos of classic works of literature, gangster style. Totally hilarious. Of course, my favorite is Thug Notes – Hamlet where Laertes warns Ophelia that Hamlet “might just hit it and quit it.” And the poisoned chalice at the end is “Elizabethan Hator-ade – gotta have it.” And while it has the potential to go over the top, no worries, it doesn’t. There’s no out-heroding Herod here!
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
August 12th, 2013 → 6:24 am
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.” – Sonnet 116
I’m currently reading Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon, and it’s quite engrossing. I’m learning all about dwarfs, prodigies, schizophrenics, and more. At one point Solomon vigorously disputes the above quote, saying it is not true that love is constant, but instead that it “alters all the time; it is fluid, in perpetual flux, an evolving business across a lifetime.” I think the distinction may be between love in the short run and love in the long run. Over the long run, sure, love evolves. But if in the short run your love for someone easily alters, it probably isn’t actually love, but something else.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Other
July 29th, 2013 → 5:45 am
“If we should fail?”
“We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.” – Macbeth
That seems to be the mantra of the thieves of the Kunsthal Museum art heist. I’ve been fascinated by this story for weeks now, where robbers walked off with works of art by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, and others from the Kunstal Museum in the Netherlands. Authorities had begun to close in on the culprits in Romania, when it was reported that some crazy old mother burned the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art in a stove (!) thinking it would save her son; that if the authorities couldn’t find the actual paintings, they couldn’t convict her son of anything. Now, there’s speculation that her admission was a lie, a story told to make the trail of the art itself go cold. This entire escapade is worthy of a Hollywood movie. I just pray all that beautiful art isn’t really burnt to cinders in some crazy old woman’s basement…
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
July 16th, 2013 → 6:50 am
“There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.” – Coriolanus
The last few years have seen a lot of discussion and awareness brought to the issue of childhood bullying. But the best essay/poem/performance I’ve seen about it so far is the one I saw last night, by Shane Koyczan. Go to his website and scroll down the homepage to the video of his “To This Day” TED talk. It’s amazing.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Other