Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Steve Gilliard's found a story that strikes terror into my heart:

Cat Shoots Owner
BATES TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A man cooking in his kitchen was shot after one of his cats knocked his 9mm handgun onto the floor, discharging the weapon, Michigan State Police said.

Aieee!

The article doesn't say what the man was cooking at the time, but I'll bet the cat managed to scarf up much of it before the emergency teams arrived. The article also doesn't offer any information on what became of the cat, whether he's been confined or is out on the prowl.

I don't know about you, but I'm worried. I certainly don't want our cats getting any shady ideas from this no-good fleabag...

Never forget, for all the cute human interest stories about cats calling 911 or rescuing their humans from fires, cats are still carnivores at heart!

As seen on Atrios, an adulterous husband (who used to be a trustee to a Christian school) murdered his wife because he found that easier to reconcile with his religious beliefs than divorce.

Whuh?

So, somehow he missed "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not commit adultery" in the Decalogue but those passages on divorce caught his attention?

As Prof. Diggory was wont to say, "What do they teach them in these schools?"

[Due to Blogger problems last night, I hope nobody minds me posting these three short tidbits this morning.]

Cool news as seen on Usenet:

For those interested: the Oxford English Dictionary Science Fiction project at http://www.jessesword.com/sf, which has intermittently been discussed here, has been redesigned and relaunched.

The biggest change is that the OED's database of citations of SF words is now made (mostly) available via the website. The OED (a nonprofit organization) does not usually make its work available in this way, but OED has agreed to publicly open up this part of its database to acknowledge the great contribution volunteers have made to this project.

That means that if you contribute a cite, it's viewable by everyone. Here's a link with more information about the citations

http://www.jessesword.com/sf/about_citations

We are also adding quite a few new words: there is an internal list of pending words we have been maintaining and over the next few weeks many of those words will be moved to the main pages. This link:

http://www.jessesword.com/sf/newest_adds

takes you to a list of the most recent additions.

Finally, I also wanted to point out that the site now includes definitions for every word. These are in many cases taken directly from the OED's existing definition; in other cases they are draft definitions from the site maintainers. Comments on those are welcome, of course, as are any other comments or suggestions.

We hope these changes make the site into more of a general resource for the vocabulary of sf, instead of just a catalog of OED research needs.

Thought some of you would appreciate that.

Well, the official press opening for Dido was Wednesday night. It's Friday, which means today's Globe and Herald have finally posted their reviews of the production (which I blogged on Monday). [I noticed the Globe also has its announcements of the 2005 Shakespeare & Co season: later and less detailed than what I posted to Bard in Boston. Why is Tamer Tamed barely described as a "sequel" (their quotes) without mention of its title? That's one of the highlights as far as I'm concerned, since it's only started being performed in pairings with Shakespeare's original.]

The Globe review opens with:

If Shakespeare was the Beatles, [Marlowe] was the Rolling Stones.

Bzzt. I first heard that comparison last year in materials related to Michael Wood's In Search of Shakespeare. A cute phrase, but the Stones came after the Beatles, while Marlowe was a playwright before Shakespeare.

Aside from that, I find it interesting to compare how the professionals do it compared to my efforts.

I just got the email from Shakespeare & Co with their Summer schedule.

They will be performing both Taming of the Shrew and Tamer Tamed!!!

I'll post more details forthcoming to Bard In Boston including the other plays they'll be presenting.

But, oh, I've been longing to see the latter ever since I heard of it.

Added later (since I started trying to post this at 11 and Blogger has been hosed and refusing to update), more details about Tamer Tamed can be found in my archives: My initial discovery of the work last January and links to the full text. I'm so happy I'd be bouncing up and down (if I hadn't missed half a day of work due to a worrisome case of dizziness)

I just discovered this dual review of World of Christopher Marlowe and Tamburlaine Must Die in the latest issue of The Nation.

I'm reading along and nodding until I reach this line:

Louise Welsh's novel Tamburlaine Must Die is the third book in the past fifteen years to return to the circumstances of the murder, and to spin stories around its fantastic possibilities.

Um, no.

Not in the least.

Let's see, fifteen years would take us back to 1990.

By my count, I know of at least eleven other books that definitely focus on Marlowe's death, plus several plays and short stories. And that's out of over thirty works of fiction relating to Marlowe since 1990, so I'm probably estimating low.

I think I should send in a letter of correction, don't you?

I wonder which were the other two the reviewer was thinking about?

I have to say, I found this Globe "photo-therapy" slideshow to be quite the thing for a few minute respite from the winter blahs.

<grump> Blogger ate my first version of this post!

or has this winter been worse than usual in terms of snowfall?

Added later: Just saw in the Globe that last night's weather was "the latest in a series of snowstorms that have ranked this winter among the top six in terms of snowfall." I guess it's not just me.

Hmm... It was just about this time last year that Shakespeare & Co. announced their summer schedule. For that matter, so did The Publick Theatre and New England Shakespeare Festival. Checking the websites just now, only the last one has announced 2005's plays (shortly to be added to Bard In Boston). I can't wait to hear from the other two...

And sometimes it sucks to be a know-it-all. I've been happily reading Squeaking Cleopatras, but over lunch decided to look at some of the scholarly reviews of the book. And I found enough criticism of the author's technique that I'm no longer sure I'll be able to finish the rest of it. Does that ever happen to you?

I wish I were in a better position to travel this year.

This summer, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival will be performing Dr. Faustus. In the fall, the Stratford Festival in Ontario will do Edward II.

And, of course, Dido just opened at the A.R.T. and will be playing the rest of the month.

Everybody says how infrequently Marlowe is staged, so why so many this year? Is this another example of my contagious enthusiasm predicting the zeitgeist?

I just wish I were better positioned to attend more of these...

PS: Speaking of the Elizabethan theatre scene locally, I've added two new announcements to Bard In Boston. Check 'em out!

Saturday night, Ian and I attended the opening performance of Dido, Queen of Carthage at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge. I've read the play, but never seen it staged. Ian's neither familiar with the Marlowe nor read the source material in the Aeneid, so approached the story with a fresh and unspoiled eye.

The play opens on three half-naked young men, which I consider an auspicious start. <grin> The set was deceptively simple: plain black background with a red velvet curtain used to disguise the movement of props and people during scene changes. Costumes came from no particular time-period: merely what was necessary to evoke the character (reminiscent of Elizabethan practice, as described by Gary Taylor (PDF)). Both were effective and not at all jarring.

Cupid, the first character onstage, is impressively inhuman. At times moving like a ballet dancer, at times reminiscent of Pee Wee Herman, John Kelly maintained a near-constant onstage presence and was very effectively creepy. Looking at classic portraits of Cupid, you don't realize how impossible those poses are until you see a grown man assume them: successfully. Nicely done.

Diane D'Aquila's Dido really was the standout of the play, as is appropriate for the title character. She nails every stage of the character, starting with regal authority and then unravelling over the course of the play, a descent also reflected effectively through her costume and hair.

As written, Aeneas is a weak character, pulled this way and that by the gods. Still, Colin Lane made a believable war veteran, tough and shell-shocked, torn between duty and desire. His narration of the destruction of Troy was amazingly powerful. Writers are always advised to "show, don't tell" but when the telling is this vibrant, throw the rules out the window.

Besides language and delivery, the other reason this scene stands out is the use of light and shadow. Aeneas' shadow towered over the action, providing a dramatic focal point for what might otherwise be a static monolog. I noticed similar use of shadow in a few other scenes; quite an effective form of emphasis.

I'd feel remiss if I neglected to mention a few others in the cast: Probably the most fun character to watch was Saundra McClain's Venus as an earthy mama-hen (decked out in some amazing costumes) protecting her boys any way she can. Sheer delight. Gregory Simmons as Iarbus and Karen MacDonald as Anna also gave strong performances.

It feels unfair to ding this production for weaknesses in Marlowe's 420-year-old script, so I won't delve too deeply into the plot. Also, I don't want to spoil the story for anyone unfamiliar with it. I'm not familiar enough with the text to tell whether or how they abridged it, though the few places I checked my Complete Works (afterwards) seemed complete.

Given those limitations, I can only really point to a few directorial decisions worthy of mention. The second use of Cupid's arrow felt superfluous and almost detrimental, given the target's established feelings. And, I thought the whole cast did an excellent job milking every last bit of comedy from the Nurse (Act IV, Scene 5).

I'll confess, the purist in me wishes Ganymede has been played by somebody younger, but authenticity in this aspect is probably too shocking for this century. [Why yes, I have started reading Squeaking Cleopatras, does it show?] Still, I was very pleased to see the director's notes in the program make explicit what Ganymede meant in Elizabethan slang. Considering I've seen too many productions of As You Like It which haven't explained this crucial fact, I found the mention most welcome.

Dido and Aeneas were also older than I had imagined them. I always perceived the story as one of foolish young love. Maturity carries with it presumptions of wisdom and experience which heightened the tragedy. But I'm not sure how much of this was directorial decision and how much was the luck of casting. Still, it worked.

The show benefits from the theater's affiliation with Harvard. At the box office, you can pick up copies of ARTicles, a little newspaper with further stories about the current productions by students of the dramaturgy program. [BTW, what precisely is dramaturgy? Anybody care to explain?] Best of the lot was Akiva Fox's history of the Dido story in literature and art. [And, yes, I would be saying the same thing if I wasn't personally acquainted with the author.] Unfortunately, I was far less impressed by the next article, a biography of Marlowe. I've read a lot about Marlowe's life, and was disappointed at how similar this felt to the recent David Riggs. I don't know that this was a single source biography, but that's how it came across to me.

The program also mentions that A.R.T. is offering pre-show lectures by the Literary Department one hour before curtain on the March 20, 23 & 24th shows, and post-show discussions after Saturday matinees. I wish I could attend. [Hey, the latter say "all ticket holders welcome." Can I bring my stub from another performance and come just for the talk?]

Running now through March 26.
Warnings: The production runs two hours ten minutes with no intermission. They use fog machines and cigarette smoke on the stage.

PS: I'll confess, walking into the theater I was sorely tempted to snark about the A.R.T. in my review, since they were so snooty to me, but the production was good enough that my need to praise it outweighs any base desires to bury them. I will just get in one minor gloat that by refusing to treat me as any other reviewer, they allowed me to scoop the rest of the press. If you do go to see the play, tell 'em I sent you!

Given that Young's 1999 King James and the History of Homosexuality debunks Bray's 1995 Homosexuality in Renaissance England, I get very very annoyed whenever I read a book that includes Bray in the bibliography without mention of Young. [Which I can generally deduce just by reading how the author has bought into Bray's theories.]

That's also one of the reasons I'm so upset that Young is out of print, because I find too damn many books taking Bray's conclusions at face value. If the publisher doesn't see profit in reprinting, why the hell can't it be made available as an ebook so researchers and historians can make use of it, and stop repeating Bray's inane paradigms.

I'm just saying...