March 9th, 2017 → 5:35 am
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Hamlet
My six year old son loves it when I take an afternoon off to join him for lunch at school. I generally bring Jimmy John’s sandwiches, blue Gatorade, and Kit Kat candy bars for dessert, and every time I go I get the biggest hug from him afterwards. Usually he asks me that very night when I can come again. Recently, because of an injury, I hadn’t joined him at the school for nearly four months. So I asked him last week, would you like me to visit you at school for lunch soon? His immediate response: “Will you bring the crutches too?”
The disabled person in me was crushed. The mother in me understood. The human rights activist in me wanted to protest and explain. I paused for a minute before simply asking my son if he didn’t want me to go. “No,” he said, “I want you to come.”
So, I did. I hobbled into his school, carrying our contraband take-out lunch in a napkin-lined backpack, and acted like nothing was amiss. In the end, my son did too. I even got my enormous hug after we ate and before he ran outside for recess. I don’t know if my son was embarrassed by me, but I’m pretty sure he has the strength of character not to care too much. What I know for certain: he loves me, and I love him more than he will ever know.
Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life
March 5th, 2017 → 5:37 am
“…the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.” – As You Like It
Shakespeare is apparently more popular in the rest of the world, than he is in the UK, a recent study finds. Apparently that is because the way Shakespeare is taught in the UK (and many other English speaking nations) kills it for most people. How sad! Though I do kind of understand. I didn’t love Shakespeare when I was first exposed to his works in middle school. My love only came much later. At the same time, I have always assumed that early exposure planted the seed; that I might not have grown to love Shakespeare now, had I not been force-fed him earlier. Who knows. Either way, I am glad the bug finally bit, and I feel kinda bad for others who never grew to appreciate the taste of the fruit.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
March 1st, 2017 → 1:23 pm
“Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long.” – Henry VI, Part I
I found this antique pocket edition of Henry V the other day. Is it not adorable? It’s a bit tattered and worn, but I like it even more for the use. It means someone read it, and possibly even regularly thumbed through it, and didn’t just keep it around for looks. Finding it made my day. Plus, who doesn’t like Henry V, once he’s done being Hal?
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
February 22nd, 2017 → 5:45 am
“We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.” – Comedy of Errors
A Jewish cemetery that I drive by nearly every day was vandalized this week. In response a Muslim American group started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to repair the damage. They reached their goal in three hours. Now that is what makes America great.
February 18th, 2017 → 5:06 am
“Hope is a lover’s staff.” – The Two Gentlemen of Verona
What a striking sentiment. True. Deep. Concise. Clear. When you are young and in love, you hope the other will return your affection. When you are later a newlywed, you hope your future will be bright and full. Once you are a long time married, you hope the relationship stays the course, that your lover will not lose faith or lust. After you are widowed/divorced, you hope you’ll find love yet again. Hope really is the crutch all love leans upon.
February 14th, 2017 → 6:42 am
“They do not love that do not show their love.” – The Two Gentlemen of Verona
In reading The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I came across this line in Act I. Do you think it’s true? That if someone doesn’t demonstrably show you their love, they must not love you? So if my husband doesn’t make a big display on Valentine’s Day, he no longer loves me? What if he only makes a small display, is his love then small? I guess I’ll have to wait and see what he does, then I’ll decide. 😉
February 10th, 2017 → 5:50 am
“You, minion, are too saucy.” – The Two Gentlemen of Verona
I love minions! Hilariously, here Shakespeare is using “minion” as “hussy”. I knew minions were servants, sycophants, vassals, and stooges, but hussies? Love it!
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art
February 6th, 2017 → 5:29 am
“…thou has metamorphized me,
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at naught;
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with
thought.” – The Two Gentlemen of Verona
At the same time as we are discussing the sonnets, this week the Shakespeare discussion group I participate in also began reading The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The above lines are in the very first act. They are about love, but again, I can easily see them as describing madness; this time the madness that Donald Trump inflicts on others. Love and madness really are too, too similar.
Filed under: Blog & Other & Politics/Politicians & Stupid/Evil People
February 2nd, 2017 → 9:41 am
“My reason…Hath left me,
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly express’d.” – Sonnet 147
The Shakespeare discussion group I participate in recently decided to begin discussing the sonnets. And at random started with Sonnet #147. It is about someone who is heartsick in love, but these lines made me think of the madness of Donald Trump. Love and madness can sound frighteningly similar.
Filed under: Blog & Other & Politics/Politicians & Stupid/Evil People
January 27th, 2017 → 6:19 am
“Trump’s a clay-brained guts, knotty-pated fool,
whoreson obscene greasy-tallow catch, right?” – Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament
Mexico’s president recently canceled a meeting with Donald Trump. Other world leaders have admonished him harshly. But Ruth Davidson takes the cake with an apt Shakespearean insult. The best part is, she could have gone further. That quote comes from a larger comment about the lying, ridiculous Falstaff which Trump does strikingly resemble (minus the humor). Here’s the larger quote:
“These lies are like their father that begets them,
gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou
claybrained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou
whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch–” – Henry IV, Part I
Translated into modern English:
These lies are like the man who tells them:
huge as a mountain, obvious, and plain as day.
You clay-brained fatso, you knuckleheaded fool,
you son of a whore, you obscene tub of lard–
Filed under: Blog & Politics/Politicians & Stupid/Evil People