September 8th, 2012 → 8:50 am
“I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.” – As You Like It
Author and performer David Rakoff died last month, and after listening to all the tributes to him on radio and in the news I bought his last book, Half Empty. I was familiar with David from his This American Life contributions, but I’d never read one of his books before. Half Empty is a paean to negativity and melancholy, which is a perspective that is often right up my alley. While the book is more raunchy than I expected (and at times liked), so far it has been a fun read. And I wholeheartedly sympathize with the joy of being a pessimistic cynic, especially in the face of some people’s candied optimism.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
September 6th, 2012 → 7:58 am
“A man of fire-new words.” – Love’s Labor’s Lost
I stayed up watching Bill Clinton’s speech last night at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, though I should have been doing other things. It was great. He sure has a way with words!!
Filed under: Blog & Politics/Politicians
September 4th, 2012 → 8:08 am
“Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne’er turns the key to the poor.” – King Lear
When I was a graduate student in L.A. years ago, I used to volunteer at a shelter for run-away teens. It was an enormous eye-opener for me, that people could exist that dirty, poor, and without options. Not dirty and poor like a suburban kid after a soccer game with no bus fare home, dirty and poor like no dental care and clothes so threadbare they’re see-through. I was recently reminded of an old friend from those days – who, sadly, never made it out. It leaves me feeling empty and bleak.
September 1st, 2012 → 9:23 am
The quote today is not from Shakespeare, but about Shakespeare. The British Museum in London is staging a major exhibition of Shakespeare and his world right now – if I were wealthy, the trips I’d take! As I am not independently wealthy, however, and can’t just hop on over to London for a random weekend of fun, I did the next best thing and ordered the books published in conjunction with the exhibition. One of which is called Angels & Ducats: Shakespeare’s Money & Medals. It is from there that the following quote is taken. It claims that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the reward of gold. I never really thought of that as Shakespeare’s motivation before, which I guess is ironic since I am an economist after all.
(Note when reading below that Will Summers was Henry VIII’s jester.)
“Did not Will Summers break his wind for thee?
And Shakespeare therefore write his comedy?
All things acknowledge thy vast power divine
(Great God of Money) whose most powerful shine
Gives motion, life.” – Thomas Randolph, Hey for Honesty, 1627
Filed under: Blog & Economics/Money & Literature/Theatre/Art