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Saturday, January 24, 2004
Brush up your... Fletcher?
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:20 PM
 Late last night I got bored and decided to Google the news on Shakespeare. [Yes, I am that boring. Friday night and I'm Googling randomly for lack of better things to do.] Readers may recall last week, in my review of the Arisia Shakespeare panel, I wrote about modern dissatisfaction/discomfort with the ending of Taming of the Shrew. And in my browsing, I discover that isn't necessarily a modern attitude shift. John Fletcher, Shakespeare's sometimes writing partner late in his career, actually wrote a sequel to Shrew in 1611! Titled Tamer Tamed, it involves Petruchio, now a widower, remarrying -- and discovering his new wife is more of a match than Katharina ever was. It's opened recently in London, and the descriptions of the plot from reviews sound hysterical. Quoting the Telegraph synopsis: Petruchio, still brandishing his riding crop, now has his eye on a new and - he believes - more pliable wife, Maria. But, egged on by Kate's militant sister, Bianca, Maria proves no pushover. Do others find this as funny as I do? I found this site with more on the history of the play and the sexual politics. Apparently, the RSC is currently performing both plays; the Independent quotes the actress portraying Kate and Maria as saying "It means you don't have to make elaborate apologies for The Taming of the Shrew; you can just do it because you know there is also The Tamer Tamed as a flip side." I want to see it! Or at least find a copy to read (starts hunting library catalogs...) 
Friday, January 23, 2004
Oh dear Gd!
Posted by Lis Riba at 2:45 PM
Apparently, what the world needs now is a good laugh. Or at least, that's what's just been given me. Mel Gibson's mouthpiece suggested the Vatican broke the commandment against bearing false witness after a papal spokesman yesterday denied that Pope John Paul praised the actor's gory movie about the Crucifixion. Alan Nierob of Icon Productions claims to have an e-mail from the Vatican quoting the Pope plugging the film, but refuses to show it to anybody. All together now: "The lurkers support me in e-mail..."
What the world needs now...
Posted by Lis Riba at 2:04 PM
From today's New York Times: Two of the nation's most prominent Jewish leaders [Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York] said yesterday that they had watched recent versions of Mel Gibson's unreleased movie "The Passion of the Christ" and found it anti-Semitic and incendiary in the way it depicted the role of the Jews in Jesus's death. The rest of the article provides further details on the film's antisemitic aspects (including broken promises by Gibson to remove certain particularly inflammatory scenes) and is worth reading. The ADL's press release on the issue notes: Mel Gibson has every right to say that this is his personal religious vision. But when he says it is historically accurate, that gives us concern, as the film runs contrary to Biblical scholarship and the teachings of Vatican II, which absolved the Jewish people of guilt in the death of Jesus. And in the ADL FAQ on the controversy, they do insist they are not trying to censor the film, but instead call upon him to show a little more sensitivity and moral responsibility in his presentation. This isn't the first controversy Gibson is dealing with this week. Several weeks ago, his production company stated that the Pope saw the film and praised it, but the Vatican is firmly denying that the Pope has made any comment on the film whatsoever. Quoting the NYT article on that story: That Archbishop [Stanislaw] Dziwisz spoke out is unusual. He is closer to the pope and spends more time with him than anyone else at the Vatican. Partly because of that, he almost never gives formal interviews to reporters. His decision to talk to Ms. [Cindy] Wooden [a Vatican correspondent for the Catholic News Service] suggests that either he, the pope or other Vatican officials close to the pope had become concerned about the degree to which the pope's imprimatur was being placed on "The Passion." [Quick technical note: the New York Times Link Generator requires URLs to begin with http://www.nytimes.com. It will not recognize URLs that begin http://nytimes.com or www.nytimes.com without the http.] Added a few minutes later: I was just reminded, back in October reports surfaced about members of the cast and crew being struck by lightning. Could someone upstairs be unhappy?
Framing the right-leaning media
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:25 PM
Building upon
Problem: the notion of a "liberal media" already has the public mindshare, even though the media is clearly not liberally biased. We need to counteract that. We need to re-frame the issue, as Lakoff would describe it. Unfortunately, the euphemisms currently in use are insufficient to the task:
Given the current administration is hardly conservative in its goals, I'm tempted to propose the term right-leaning media (RLM), which implies bias, but not ownership. But that's just a phrase (and I'm still open to suggestions for better ones or criticisms of this proposal). There's also the matter of getting across to the general public just how right-leaning most of the media actually is. I wonder... What sort of Venn diagram does the phrase "CBS and the right-leaning media" evoke in your mind? Does it describe two distinct (disjoint) entities? Are they overlapping? Or is CBS nested within the "right-leaning media"? I'm trying to come up with some easy way of wording things to raise questions in people's minds about the bias in their "mainstream" media, thus expanding the notion of what is right-leaning media. If people keep seeing/hearing things like CBS, NBC and the right-leaning media or the New York Times, Washington Post and the right-leaning media used in casual conversation/writing, with enough repetition... Would that do it? Conservatives have spent decades spreading the "liberal media" myth, going back to Spiro Agnew's nattering nabobs. In some respects, that's a disadvantage. On the other hand, we can also look at what they've done and learn from it. Avoid their mistakes, improve upon what really worked... But the first step is to reframe the debate and avoid using their language to discuss issues. This sounds rather Orwellian, but it's true and that's what they're doing. Does that make sense? Tangentially related: See the Forest strongly recommends We ARE the majority by Bernie Sanders. I second that. It's well worth reading for talking points in the coming campaigns.
Waterloo?
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:05 PM
Oh cool! Somebody else independently came up with the same political affiliation I use -- ABBA: Anyone But Bush Again -- and has created a website for it, including FAQ and (the seemingly-obligatory) Cafe Press merchandise. [via Janet Miles] Quoting from their FAQ to explain the concept further: What is A.B.B.A? They're making no primary endorsements, but will "throw our entire support to the alpha dog who wins this battle. It's okay to have differing opinions on the issues; we're still rock solid in wanting Anyone But Bush Again." And they point out Gore did win the popular vote, so we're already a majority if we stand together. Hmmm... I wonder if we could get filkers involved in this campaign? Mamma Mia!
Latest on the Leaky Hatch
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:35 AM
Look at how the New York Times is describing the scandal: "Senate Inquiry Into Memos That Went Astray Nears End." It isn't until the seventh and eighth password that they mention that Republicans were reading the Democrats' private messages and that this went on for a year. [Via Josh Marshall] Even the Globe's followup goes into a GOP "fact sheet" trying to argue no rules or laws were broken. Searching Google News on Senate Judiciary Committee and Pickle (the name of the Sergeant-at-Arms conducting the investigation) turns up fewer than twenty articles, about half of them from high-tech publications (ZDNet) and nothing from the Washington Post, CNN, or wire services (AP or UPI). Crap. I stopped by the library last night and picked up Carville's latest: Had enough? A handbook for fighting back and Buck up, suck up -- and come back when you foul up. I'm tired of being mad. I want to get even! Via Avedon, Who's with me?
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Scandalous
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:20 PM
First of all, this scandal clearly needs a name. We need to frame the issue properly so it makes a dent in the public consciousness. Comparisons to Watergate do seem appropriate, but we need something short, sweet and pithy that will explain and encompass what's going on. On Corrente, Lambert thinks the -gate suffix is too old, tired and hackneyed. "How about -thuggery? FileThuggery? PlameThuggery?" Eric at Wampum has the relevant criminal law that these Republicans have broken. [via Julia] Over at See the Forest, John (Zizka) Emerson reminds us of other Republican scandals that haven't yet gained traction. Eric Boehlert Salon offers some tantalizing hints of the biggest scandal yet to come to light. He quotes former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, Republican chairman of the independent commission investigating 9/11: "As you read the [commission's] report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen." Finally, huge thanks to Darius Bacon for finding the quote I was looking for last Friday: "It's bad civic hygiene to build an infrastructure that can be used to facilitate a police state." -- by Bruce Schneier Which means I probably saw it first on Vicki Rosenzweig's LiveJournal or web log. I've got another post on language and countering the term "liberal media" mostly written up my stenopad, but I'm feeling oddly not in a typing mood at the moment.
What's the moral of this story?
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:00 PM
Tommy Chong sold artistic glass pipes. Ashcroft's Justice Department considered them drug paraphenalia and prosecuted: 9 months in federal prison. Rep. Janklow was speeding when he struck and killed a motorcyclist. He had prior warnings for speeding (including for running that same stop sign) and his "defense" was that he was impaired due to his diabetes and His sentence? 100 days in the county jail. [via BikerGeek]
Added later (8:05 pm): Writing on DailyKos, Meteor Blades notes "the average prison sentence in second-degree manslaughter cases in South Dakota is seven years and the average jail sentence for this crime is six months" and describes some other cases of vehicular homicide in the state where the leniency (or harshness) of the sentence appears related to privilege.
Being heard?
Posted by Lis Riba at 5:15 PM
After writing about CBS's refusal to air MoveOn's ad, a friend suggested sending them my research. And I did. I just got an email from MoveOn's mailing list. To quote from the beginning and the end: From: Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org I can't say for certain whether they got the link to that article through me or from some other source. But when I blogged it, people were speculating that there might be ONDCP anti-drug ads, but I found the list on my own. Teddywolf, thanks for the suggestion I contact them. While I don't know I made a difference, it certainly allows me to nurture that illusion.
Hail to the thief (Grasping Old Pols)
Posted by Lis Riba at 5:00 PM
Back in November, I wrote about Orrin Hatch -- Serial Thief, but it appears matters are even worse and more pervasive than previously known. From this morning's Boston Globe: Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. This is BIG, people! Atrios calls it bigger than Watergate. [Which, you should keep in mind, was a burglary conducted by Republicans to spy on Democratic strategy.] Josh Marshall writes "So the law-breaking and dirty tricks were systematic and of long standing. And I suspect it's much more widespread than even what is described in this article." [Again, though Watergate began with a foiled break-in, investigators quickly discovered it was only one small element in a massive operation.] Kevin Drum knocks the Republican's "glitch" defense out of the park. Kos suggests "the crime may violate the Patriot Act's cyberterrorism clauses" and promises more on that angle this evening. Warblogging points out that the Senate Judiciary Committee are supposed to be the ones watching our judicial watchmen. In other news, ten retired CIA officers are taking an unprecedented step in petitioning Congress to investigate the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. And there are rumors Ashcroft overruled career attorneys regarding Texas redistricting, and is also refusing FOIA requests for the memos behind their decision.
Quotation Marx
Posted by Lis Riba at 2:35 PM
Via librarian.net, this page of cool quotes about libraries, books and knowledge. I rather like this one: "Journalism traditionally assumes that democracy is what we have, information is what we seek. Whereas in the weblog world, information is what we have -- it's all around us -- and democracy is what we seek." The whole list has way too many quotes for me to read them all now, but I'll be savoring them. And, as long as I'm posting one quote, I may as well share another, from Patrick Nielsen Hayden by way of Avedon Carol: Conservatives know that you can't engineer all chance of misfortune and self-created calamity out of society without distorting things so badly that everyone's miserable. Libertarians know that the people who volunteer to be social engineers often harbor teapot-tyrant tendencies of their own. But liberals know that a deep pool of human misery is a recipe for the domination of society by the worst kind of pointy-haired bosses, and they're not wrong. Read the whole discussion thread for context and other wise remarks (how often are Joanna Russ and George Carlin quoted in the same thread?)
We're now on Witch Alert: Orange
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:45 PM
IGN has a really cool interview with former Python Terry Jones about a new 8-part series on the History Channel called Medieval Lives, trying to deconstruct many of the myths we have about the Middle Ages. Sounds really cool, and makes me wish I had cable. [I took a course on Arthurian Literature back in college, and the professor pointed out that all the Pythons had enough classical education that Holy Grail is amazingly clued in to the canon and tropes.] Anyway, fascinating reading. [courtesy of Mark Evanier's blog]
Ban them from Boston!
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:10 PM
Just found this on TalkLeft and am surprised I didn't hear it elsewhere from my various local feeds (then again, I have been a little behind on news and blogs since Arisia):
Remember, Bostonians were among the first to rise up against the King George III. Bush is the third American president* named George. And he seems to be following his predecessor in inflicting repeated injuries and usurpations upon us.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Provoking three things:
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:40 PM
• For fellow USAians, I just found out that PBS will be airing a four-part biography of Shakespeare, In search of Shakespeare in February, starting in two weeks. Here's the official website, with a handy feature to show when it's airing locally. The program has already aired in the UK, and there's a companion book by the series creator, Michael Wood. Based upon comments from HLAS, it looks like he's got an angle and promises a few startling new dramatic revelations about his life. Sigh. At this point, it appears that Shakespeare's biography is well-written enough that only books geared towards younger readers avoid this kind of agenda-driven sensationalist approach. Mind you, I'm not saying this to warn anybody away from the show. I will probably be watching. But keep a skeptical eye out for any claims too novel or grandiose. • For those of you more interested in the content of his plays than the man behind them, Elayne Riggs has found The Most Lamentable and Excellent Text Adventure of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. That's right! It's an Infocom-style game in which you portray that melancholy Dane. I haven't had much time to play it yet, but how can one fail to be amused by: I am on the palace balcony. Bats are flapping around in the twilight. Miles and miles of crinkly Danish countryside stretch out below me. • Also, I've just updated my Marlowe in Modern Fiction list, increasing coverage from 26 to 34 titles. Thanks to all who have contributed, though I'm still eager for more. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Company outing
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:20 PM
Company outing today for food, bowling and billiards. I'll start out by saying that our team was not the lowest scoring team of the six that played -- we were the second-lowest. And my score of 37 was not the lowest individual score of the thirty-some coworkers who bowled -- again, I was the second-lowest. Of course, the lowest-scorer, who earned all of 16 points, was also on our team. I had some misgivings about attending, given my introverted and nonathletic nature. But, it was an opportunity to possibly better get to know my coworkers, and a chance to get off the phones for an afternoon, so I signed up. But I nearly brought a book along. I didn't, but then started to regret it as the chartered bus began to fill up, and the seat beside mine remained one of the few empty ones. If nobody chose to sit with me on the ride, I thought I'd have justification for feeling pouty. However, that didn't actually happen. In fact, the seat beside mine was taken by the President/CEO. Had a surprisingly pleasant conversation, as I didn't realize he had also once worked at Lotus. Somehow, former Lotus employees can always find something to talk about in foolish management decisions and ways the company squandered its earlier advantages. [Did you hear, Lotus is apparently porting its desktop software to Linux? I made that suggestion up the management chain five years ago, as it became clear we were losing the Windows market to Microsoft!] We also talked other things, and it was good. When we got to the bowling alley, I snagged a seat by some coworkers who I like and want to get to know better. Buffet meal; good food; great conversation. [Found out another coworker is also an Angel fan, watching primarily for Spike.] And it was an open bar, which further helped loosen things up. [Though I made sure to tip the bartender every time. I don't think Ian would forgive me if I hadn't.] Then, the organizers did another smart thing. The attendees were already divided up into teams. They called our names and handed out shirts. No chance for anyone to back out and say "I'm not sure..." No opportunity to raise memories of gym class and being the last one to be picked. We'd all bowl, and then elimination rounds of billiards (the original plan was four the two two winning teams to be exempt from the first round, pitting the four lower-scoring teams against one another. Then the two winning bowlers would play the winners of that round of billiards, then a final game between the winners of those matches. Instead, there was only time for one billiards game between the two best bowling teams. But I digress.) The last time I bowled (this was 10-pin, not candlepin (which I've never played)) was back in college. I didn't do well (by the end, I was saying we were playing in order to get more billiards, which is a somewhat odd thing to say since I'm a lousy billiards player and hadn't really wanted to play billiards either. But I got into the team spirit, which I suppose is what's important) but I had fun. After the teams finished bowling and went off to watch the billiards, I discovered that several of the senior managers got shoes again and decided to play another round of bowling. They'd already programmed their lanes, and I felt nervous about playing a set by myself in an adjacent lane, so just tried to watch their technique. I can see why they chose bowling for this outing. During this more private round, the CEO scored strikes or spares every time his first four frames. In fact, by the fourth frame, I think everybody playing in that group outscored my entire game. Another self-conscious reason not to take the lane beside theirs for more of my own pitiful efforts. They had to call their game short once the billiards were won and "awards" were given out. Thankfully, I was not the lowest scorer, and someone else walked away with that trophy. Then it was the long busride back to the office through Boston rush hour. Got back a bit later than was initially planned, but it seems like a good time was had by all. I definitely want to go bowling again. I'd like to take Ian, who's never played ten-pin at all. And I think I might want to take bowling lessons or something before the company does this again...
Geeky coolness
Posted by Lis Riba at 8:30 PM
In Ian's words, "That's wrong! Brilliant, but wrong!" Take a look at this or this or this. Cool, hunh? Pick one URL for content and another for the UI. You can create your own through this site. [Via shadesong, someone I met and whose LiveJournal I discovered through Arisia.]
Do these exist? or Two possible undertakings:
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:20 PM
This is largely a followup to my previous entry about the Arisia Shakespeare panel, but I thought it worth a separate post for the answering of questions: 1. All this talk of adaptations makes me wonder whether there already exists a list of Shakespeare in fiction which parallels my Marlowe in fiction list? I'm starting to wonder whether I shouldn't compile such a list, particularly considering all the overlap... I'd be surprised if one didn't already exist, and no sense duplicating others' efforts if it's already out there; on the other hand, if there isn't one, I certainly perceive a need and a certain ability to fulfill it. 2. Is there any central location/list for Shakespeare performances/reading/whatnot in the Boston area/Massachusetts/New England. Through the panel, I found out about a show and an entire company that I wasn't previously aware of, both of which interest me. Unless something like this already exists, I'm thinking of creating an LJ Community -- a cross between games_announce and boston gamers. Would anybody else be interested in something this? If so, let me know so I can survey preferences and design it appropriately to make it most useful.
I think I must speak
Posted by Lis Riba at 1:15 PM
As mentioned last week, Arisia's schedule included this panel: Shakespeare and SF I attended and had a lot of fun. Don't know how coherent an account I can provide, since I wasn't taking notes or anything, but discussion ranged all over the map. I suppose I'll start by describing the panelists:
For about the first five minutes, there were more panelists than audience (bad timeslot -- over the dinner hour and two hours before masquerade), but then more people showed up and we had about a dozen people total. And it was definitely a case of quality, not quantity. And forgive me for mistaking attributions; I was enjoying myself too much to take notes on who said what. [If anybody on or at the panel reads this, I welcome your comments and corrections!] So, my random associations: The focus was far more on (a) Shakespeare's use of SF/fantasy tropes (Midsummer night's dream, Macbeth and Tempest being the most obvious examples) and (b) the use of Shakespeare's stories within SF/fantasy than (c) Shakespeare as a character within SF/fantasy, where more of my expertise lies. Thus, my earlier smugness was not quite so justified, and instead (to my delight) I got a lot more listening and learning from the experience. Massive agreement among panel and audience that the way American schools teach Shakespeare (or, at least, the way we all learned Shakespeare; hopefully things have improved in the intervening years), is just about the worst way Shakespeare could be taught. Also a question was raised over whether there exist any decent prose versions of the plays. Lamb's tales was mentioned as an example of it being done poorly, but aside possibly from transplants and reinterpretations, nobody could think of well-done novelisations, making us wonder whether it was possible or if Shakespeare's stories are too dramatic (as in, tied to the conventions of the stage) to be adapted that way. Abby said (and everyone seemed to agree) that the keys to a good performance of Shakespeare is (a) a director who truly understands the "spine" of the play, and (b) actors who understand what their lines mean, and thus grok how to read them. If you've got those, relocating can work. Without them, even a straight production will fail. Key to transplanting a story to another time and/or place is recognizing which constraints are necessary for the story to make sense, and finding a reason for them in the new location. Certain history plays don't make sense without a firm belief in the divine right of kings. If you don't provide some reason for that within the new setting, the story won't work so well. Classic stories that depend upon the heroine's virginity/chastity have similar problems. Somebody described Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw, in which "the axioms of the sentimental Victorian novel were inescapable laws of biology" as demonstrationg a good understanding of this concept. When Michael asked about how much tweaking of the story was allowed to still call it Shakespeare, I was able to point to my meta-Shakespeare class and Nahum Tate's King Lear with the romance and happy ending, which was more popular than Shakespeare's for about two-hundred years. And if we're going to be purists about these things, since Branagh's Hamlet was the first wholly unabridged film of the play, what does that make all previous films? As for the question raised in the synopsis: whether writers keep redoing Shakespeare because he's that good, or just to impress? General consensus seemed to be the stories were just that good and that universal. One of Shakespeare's talents was finding the right pre-existing stories to steal/adapt. He's already cherry-picked the existing canon, so it's hard to look for a classic tale without bumping into him somewhere along the way. That given, it was also noted that the discussion kept turning back to the same few plays: King Lear, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and a few others... Yes, Shakespeare was a hack writer and many of his works were clearly written because he had one more in his contract to churn out. As an example of this, Abby pointed out that the version of Twelfth Night that we have from the First Folio is very clearly an early draft. In one of the first scenes, Viola says she'll disguise herself as a eunuch because she sings so well, and the sea captain promises to stay by her side. In the rest of the play, the eunuch aspect is ignored completely, another female character gets all the songs, and the captain never makes another appearance... [I wonder the story behind this. Somebody leave the company, forcing Will to drop the role? Did Viola's voice change between concept and performance? Curiousity...] Michael(?) wondered whether in 400 years Stephen King would be seen as this generation's Shakespeare, for his popularity and ability to reuse and revitalize old tropes into scary new stories. I'm not much of a horror fan, so have my doubts. Then again, most Elizabethans/Jacobeans didn't live in London nor go to plays, so who then would've predicted Shakespeare's ascendancy? I guess we'll have to wait a couple centuries and see who's most remembered and respected. [Regardless, I think Harold Bloom will spin in his grave the selection.] Numerous gripes about how Star Trek overused Shakespeare, to the point of turning one audience member off of Shakespeare entirely, until he discovered it through another context (Kurasawa's Ran) which kindled an appreciation. Amusing question whether there was a massive biblioclasm sometime in the history of the Star Trek universe, destroying all books but Shakespeare's. [Seriously, as far as Next Gen is concerned, it was probably a sop to Patrick Stewart.] One of the panelists noted that originally, Romeo and Juliet was classified as a comedy, because the families were reconciled in the conclusion. Somewhere in the last 400 years, we changed into a more individualistic society rather than a family/community/clan-based one. And at that point, the problems of a couple dumb teenagers mattered more than the broader societal well-being. I'm curious as to when exactly that switch happened in the categorization. One panelist considered it a disservice to divide the plays into comedies, tragedies and histories. Just sort the histories in among the comedies and tragedies. Giving them their own category makes them sound more fixed in time and place than they really are, but they really are just as transplantable. Oh, and I didn't know that My own private Idaho was a retelling of Henry IV, Part 1. I may have to go see that now. At the conclusion, Michael Anderson asked the other panelists which Shakespeare play they'd like to see a new SF adaptation: Meredith mentioned Winter's Tale, and based upon the comments, I clearly need to read/see that one imminently. In fact, that was brought up several times as a story people were surprised hadn't already been adapted, using cryogenics, perhaps, for the living statue... Abby suggested Taming of the shrew. For the most part, the story still works -- except the ending in which Katherine finally submits to her husband. Some modern versions treat it with a nudging wink -- he acknowledges her as his equal, she's just playing along, maybe he secretly bribes her... -- or it's a tragedy -- she's somehow been brainwashed, and isn't the loss of an independent woman so horrible. But Shakespeare and his contemporaries did see this as a comedy with that being the only just conclusion. Is there some venue where that could be played straight? Perhaps it's not a marriage, but some more alien relationship where one must be subservient to the other? Michael Anderson had a staging suggestion for Macbeth that sounded so incredibly cool that I can't help wondering whether it's been done before. Make the witches into stage techs. Black turtlenecks, light meters, walking about the stage as the audience takes their seats, so it's not even obvious these are actors until they start to speak. They even have copies of the script on hand to refer to. [First witch: "When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?" Second witch flips through to Scene III, "When the hurlyburly's done." Or (in that scene, to Macbeth): "You shall be king," (turns to the middle of the book and points out a relevant passage) "hereafter!" As I said above, I adore As you like it, and wonder how it would translate, given the genderplay and confusion of crushes. And I'd definitely love to rework Marlowe's Jew of Malta not only to make it less antisemitic, but to actually portray Barabase as positive and empowering. There are certainly seeds of that in the text: Marlowe treats all religions poorly and as hypocritical, and Barabas is so wronged in the beginning that I found myself rooting for him for most of the story. At any rate, that's all I can recall worth mentioning in the panel. I'm sure that after I post this, I'll think of a half-dozen other comments I wished to make. Like right now I'm remembering several references to John Varley's novel The Golden Globe, which is also going on my reading list. But I have to stop writing sometime. Maybe there'll be a followup post or two. Given that Shakespeare seems to be a perennial panel topic at Arisia (2003 included "Shakespeare as an SF Writer", 2002 had "Why Do Those Folks Say Shakespeare Isn't Shakespeare?"), I'm starting to wondering whether I want to volunteer to be on panels. I've actually been considering it for a while, since I've attended several panels that I think I could do a better job from the other side of the desk. [In this con, I felt that particularly about "Who's Reading Your Blog?" and the Harry Potter discussion, though I think I'd also be good at the perennial YA fiction panel, given my reading habits.] On the other hand, I worry about locking myself into a particular panel and then discovering it conflicts with something else I really want to attend... Input from other Arisia panelists would be most appreciated, including how one contacts concom about putting one's name forward. Unrelated to the panel, but of similar subject-matter, I noticed in the Dealers Room that Sarah Hoyt has yet another book out in her fantasy series about the early Shakespeare. And I'm torn between wanting to be completist (since the inside flap does mention Marlowe) and the fact that I really didn't like the previous book so much. Like the film Shakespeare in Love, her series (and also the Simon Hawke mysteries featuring Shakespeare & Smythe) all involve various events in the life of young Shakespeare which resonate with and inspire his "later" plays. And aside from Simon Hawke, for the most part I find them cloying and obnoxious. I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love when I first saw it, but the more Shakespeare I've read, the more unwatchable I've found the film. I don't know how Simon Hawke manages to do it right, throwing in lines and names from the plays that are supposed to influence, but it's an element that gets annoying real easily.
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