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Saturday, June 10, 2006
Naive expressions of love?
So far only one person expressed any interest in the stories behind my titles.
From a commenter who really needs to fill in the Name field:
- Poor Wandering Ones
- A line from Pirates of Penzance for a post about pirates
- A Difficult matter
- T.S. Eliot began one of his poems, "The naming of cats is a difficult matter." Since this entry addressed readers' difficulties with a previous post I'd called The naming of cats (about names and how we address public figures, think "cats" in a 1950s sense), it seemed only logical.
- Recent Reads
- I just liked the alliteration.
Meanwhile, I'm still open to more questions. It's not always easy to articulate my motives, but it's fun.
Someone recently talked to me about titling posts and pages to optimize search engine placement. I write mine in a more abstract and frivolous bent, and while I understand the logic of the other position, I think I'll continue as I have been.
Scent of a woman?
In her post about cosmetics, antiprincess wrote something that could've come from me:
I never (or statistically never) wear makeup. I never got the knack for it, don't know what I'm doing with it, have better luck with finger paints anyway. ... That said, I have nothing but awestruck respect for the patience and artistry required to properly put one's face on, and no small bit of envy.
So why am I writing so much this week (since last Saturday) about girly beauty products?
During last spring's extended hotel stay after our housefire, I splurged on a few fancy bath products.
After a year, I've accumulated a small tray beside our shower filled with various shower gels and other stuff (I'll resist the temptation to list the litany)...
And, yes, I went to the LUSH event Thursday night.
I decided to return the two solid shampoos I bought on Saturday (and was even ethical enough to return the free tin I got with purchase) in exchange for a bottle of the shampoo I received in sample form. OMG! I don't know how they do it, but my hair has never felt so good as now that I'm washing it with Cynthia Stout Shampoo and American Cream Conditioner!
Between the raffle and the goodie bag with purchase, I also walked away with Heavenly bodies buttercream, I should coco soap, a Bathos bubble bar and a bluish-purple bath bomb with star-shaped glitter (I think it's Twinkle, but would welcome further guesses from more expert LUSH fans which appears to be Jingle Spells).
Since I'm not much of a bath person, I suspect I'll give the latter two as gifts to someone who will appreciate them more.
BTW, a few other products I'm considering, if LUSH-fen care to chip in with their opinions: Reincarnate for my hair, Running to the Embassy for my feet, and shower gels Happy Hippy and Sonic Death Monkey
After leaving LUSH, I took the opportunity to stroll down Newbury Street. I was offered a free soap sample from Sabon, which opened its store selling all-natural aromatherapeutic and body care products directly across the street from LUSH. Good location. :)
I'm extremely careful about what I buy, particularly given Ian's chemical sensitivities. I can easily spend a half-hour or more just walking around a store sniffing the products to find something just right.
If anyone is thinking of giving me such products as gifts... I'll just note I'm not much of a fan of floral scents (except for lilac, which is my favorite flower, and which I'm surprised isn't a more popular perfume).
Instead, I've found I lean towards fragrances that are either herbal (particularly mints and ginger) and fruits (mostly the citrus family).
I'm quite the fan of the True Blue Spa line by Bath & Body Works, and already have a number of their products. And again, I resist the urge to list everything I've bought over the last year...
Friday, June 09, 2006
Friday Cat Blogging: Micro-kitty
LiveJournal user ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) simplykimberly is fostering a feral mamacat which had kittens on May 12th.
She posted almost daily updates throughout the month of May, including massive amounts of photos on flickr (in reverse chronological order) and multiple YouTube videos.
Boy, kittens grow fast. Take a look:
Anyway, last week, they found an abandoned newborn kitten, so young it still had its umbilical cord.
Fortunately, the mamacat quickly adopted it as one of her own, despite the three week age difference between the new arrival and the rest of the litter.
And this new kitten, dubbed "Micro-kitty" truly is teeny!
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After a somewhat sloppy bottlefeeding
(Yes, he's posed beside a quarter!)
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She's posted more photos of Micro-kitty and is blogging updates on her LiveJournal, if you want to follow along. Here's wishing him the best of health... And let us all say Awwwwww
Saturday morning update: I just saw on Kimberly's LJ that Micro-kitty passed away last night.
He was surrounded by the family who found him, and the family who helped him have a great week of life, and a lot of the community who loved him. He managed to open one eye, just hours before he died, giving hope until the very end.
He had a week of snuggles, cuddles, and even a few tussles with his adoptive family.
Despite everyone's best efforts, and and the best wishes of watchers from around the world, the odds were too stacked against him.
RIP Micro-kitty
And thank you to Kimberly for doing so much...
PPS: For your reading pleasure, two more tributes by those who knew Micro-kitty -- from DeeDeeByTheBay and Cyan Blue.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Who sed it?
We likewise feel that an adult woman's life, even a few months of it, is worth more than that of a hardly-formed fetus; and that the vigorous, usefully-employed, merrily procreating Michael Schiavo has a life, a life, more worthy of the name than had the incurably insensate relict of his spouse. Those like Ponnuru who think differently are working against the grain of human nature, against our feelings -- yes, our feelings -- about what life is. The life of a newly-formed embryo, or of a brain-damaged patient who has shown no trace of consciousness for fifteen years, is worth just as much as the life of a healthy adult, Ponnuru insists. Well, most of us instinctively but emphatically disagree, and no amount of argumentative ingenuity is likely to change our minds. Hearts, whatever.
Answer: (highlight to reveal the name; click for link) John Derbyshire (via Leonard on Unqualified Offerings).
And a second, via Dwight on Wampum:
If you interpret the Constitution's saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws you don't have a constitution: you have a king. They're not trying to change the law; they're saying that they're above the law and in the case of the NSA wiretaps they break it.
Answer: (highlight to reveal the name; click for link) Grover Norquist
"Daddy would have gotten us Uzis"
Anybody else remember the 1984 schlock movie Night of the Comet?
Anyone else remember it fondly?
antiprincess was asking hypothetical questions, and though it's only tangentially related, now I can't get it out of my head.
For those who haven't had the pleasure, a passing comet destroys humanity, turning most survivors into cannibalistic zombies... except for the protagonists -- a pair of Valley girls, hoping to find other intelligent life people who survived intact.
The burden of civilization is among us...
Ohhh. Bitchen, isn't it?
<scans what little IMDB has on the film> OMG, that was Robert Beltran (Chakotay) in that role!?!
Anyway, fun fluffy movie, of the sort that Comedy Central or SciFi Channel would rerun at odd hours. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available on DVD. [Though I'm sure Ian's thankful for that.]
PS: In a closer vein to the original hypothetical, I've never read Y: The Last Man, and only know its premise. Does it deal with transsexuals at all? FTMs or MTFs? If so, how were they affected by the plague scenario?
Kiss and makeup
Yaaay! Blogger's back up! Must post quickly before it goes down again!
Yesterday, I was rather unfair to antiprincess.
Monday, she blogged (excerpt):
I feel it's important to chime in on the origins of cosmetics. I've been hunting high and low for a solid citation, and so far come up empty, but I think I read somewhere that men and women in ancient desert cultures used kohl around their eyes to cut glare, and those individuals as could afford it used all manner of more colorful and expensive dusts and pastes ground from precious and semi-precious stones. Throughout recorded history (and earlier, I imagine) cosmetics and lotions and unguents and hair waxes and all manner of skin dyes and paints were used by clergypeople (priests and priestesses) as part of purification rituals preceding religious rites. I think (though I'm no fashion scholar) that the function of cosmetics as class markers came first, as they were reserved for those who could afford them and those for whom their use signified a religious function. Consider what any individual needs to successfully complete "beauty rituals" - you need money, with which to purchase your lapis-lazuli dust or cochineal-beetle paste or modern concoction of wax and water, and you need time, time set aside in which you are totally devoted to the preparation of the materials, preparation of the tools, cleansing, applying, combing, brushing, painting, etc. So, going out in public with this stuff on your face meant that a) you have enough money to spend on something you can't eat and b) you do not devote your every waking hour to labor, but instead have the luxury to spend at least some of your time grooming. Of course, if you are of the opinion that gender created class, we're right back to blaming the patriarchy. But I am not completely convinced that gender creates class, or created it in the first place, at any rate. So, I think that cosmetics are a relic of one particular visual representation of class issues, at the base, even though nowadays every teeniebopper with even the most pathetic pittance of an allowance can afford that pink-and-green tube of Maybelline and a strawberry lipgloss.
In her comments, I recommended Flapper, because it addresses the birth of modern makeup popularity to a certain extent, and replied to the best of my memory gleaned from this and other books:
The major changes in dress in the 1920s led to a blurring of visible class differences.
A quote (from the NYTimes review): "In a study published in 1929, an Indiana businessman complained, 'I used to be able to tell something about the background of a girl applying for a job as stenographer by her clothes . . . but today I often have to wait till she speaks, shows a gold tooth, or otherwise gives me a second clue.'"
At any rate, cosmetics existed for a long time, though (with a few notable exceptions, like Queen Elizabeth I, or particular affectations like beauty spots) was generally considered a low-class common thing to do (at least in the West). Well-bred ladies didn't wear makeup, and that sentiment has been portrayed in popular media from Jane Austen to Gone With the Wind.
HOWEVER, the flappers began to wear makeup as a way of flouting the old social order and flaunting their beauty. [Remember, flappers were the daughters of Victorians -- there was a lot to rebel against!] Flappers (so the book claims) wore makeup because they didn't have to. It was portrayed as being daring or fun or whatever.
Now, I'll point out that (still from Zeitz) this was also the timeperiod when advertising really took off (after WWI, all the propogandists had to go somewhere) and played up social insecurities. Keep in mind Listerine invented halitosis, and imagine similar campaigns about all kinds of ordinary skin conditions. So that probably played into it as well.
[And don't forget, this was also the early years of Hollywood glamor. Acting was one of the professions long associated with makeup, although until the 1800s, it was considered a low-class profession, barely better than prostitute.]
Anyway, if you actually want to look into the history of cosmetics, hopefully this gives you a place to start -- at least as they're used and perceived nowadays.
After yesterday's post, I did a little more digging into works I could read full-text, and got a bit further. As it turns out we're both right. How does the Monkees song go? "It's a little bit me and it's a little bit you." In brief, here's what I found:
Throughout history, cosmetic use seems to have alternated between (1) being the exclusive province of the upper classes and nobility (think ancient Egypt or the pre-revolutionary 18th Century) or (2) not being used much at all (Greeks & Romans, early Medieval). But either way, cosmetics were used about equally by both sexes. It really was more about class and not gender.
By the late nineteenth century, in both Europe and the United States, cosmetic use reached a low ebb and was socially discouraged among the "respectable middle-class." The fact that more marginal types (prostitutes, actors) continued to wear makeup only proved its shameful nature.
But early 20th century -- with industrialization enabling inexpensive mass-production, along with other societal changes -- cosmetic use became acceptable once more. And it was cheap enough to be used by most everyone, regardless of income level. However, this time its use was primarily among women, rather than the egalitarian nature of cosmetic during previous periods.
Make sense? Anybody have further information or references?
Speaking of dirty pool...
Get a load of this letter to Romenesko's Media News:
I'm a reporter with the Village Voice-owned Houston Press. For the past few weeks, I've been investigating online pharmacy referral services. I bought some generic Vicodin from a company based in Costa Rica, to see how easy it was. I called their Las Vegas customer service line, faked a story about a back injury, and requested a telephone consult. I received a call from a doctor (later identified as a medical student, not licensed to prescribe) at a New York area code. In five minutes, he approved my script. The script was sent from a Florida pharmacy, approved by a Florida doctor I never spoke with. My money went to Costa Rica. I interviewed the spokesperson for the company and told him what I did. We spoke on the record. He knew I was writing a story. A few days ago, I posted a query on an online forum for people who buy their drugs online. I identified myself as a reporter and asked to hear their stories. In the course of this correspondence, I explained my dealings with this one company. An employee of that company was reading the forum and didn't like what I had written, so he posted the Yahoo e-mail and password I used to open an account with the company. He told the people on the site that the password with his company might be the same as my Yahoo password, and to have at it. They did. All my e-mails on that account have been erased, and he sent me an e-mail saying that unless I write a positive story, he's going to disseminate all my private info. I've never been blackmailed before. Do I have any recourse? It doesn't look like VV has my back on this. I feel powerless, and I desperately need some advice. Any ideas? [Permalink]
Obviously, take this as a lesson to vary your passwords.
Meanwhile, if anyone has advice for the reporter, he's posted his contact information (presumably a more secure address) with his letter and can probably use all the help he can get.
I've also been thinking further about Armando's situation, and the double-bind his accusers could put him in.
Apparently, he works in a profession that has clients, and some folks are trying to exploit those relationships.
If he's written anything that aligns with his clients' interests, detractors can try to publically discredit him by alleging he's just shilling on behalf of those clients. If the positions he blogged off-the-clock were independent of his professional obligations, detractors can use that to scare clients away by alleging he acts against their interests.
No-win situation, and like I said earlier, a low blow.
Also, Bitch|Lab found a useful cautionary note regarding Cole's treatment by Yale from Inside Higher Ed:
Some of those expressing concern about the way Cole's candidacy was handled aren't scholars of the Middle East or political allies of Cole. Ralph E. Luker, who has criticized political litmus tests by a variety of political views, wrote on Cliopatria Saturday that "if a distinguished conservative scholar were denied an appointment at Yale because of her or his conservatism, partisans on the right would be, er, rightly outraged. Academic conservatives ... can't both take heart from the denial of Juan Cole's appointment and continue their campaign for a 'depoliticized classroom.' However ideological Juan Cole may be, he is no Ward Churchill and conservative ideologues sullied the decision-making process by their ideologically-motivated public campaign against Cole's appointment."
Wow.
I just gave Boopsie her catnip Bill (Gates). She put it between her forepaws, head bent to rub against it, and executed a perfect somersault!
Not flopping on one side to mark it with her cheek, like she usually does in catnip ecstasy, but tail over head in excellent form.
This may not seem like much given all the bouncy kittens I showed on Friday, but Boopsie's no spring chicken. She's fifteen. [She's also beautiful, and she's mine!]
Oh, look! Kitty Hoots is now making a George W. catnip toy! I'll have to get one, since we long since lost Boopsie's Newt
Bad day for bloggers
Two news stories in two days:
First, the campaign against Juan Cole:
Juan Cole, one of the country's top Middle East scholars, was poised for the biggest step of his career. A tenured professor at the University of Michigan, Cole was tapped earlier this year by a Yale University search committee to teach about the modern Middle East. In two separate votes in May, Cole was approved by both the sociology and history departments, the latter the university's largest. The only remaining hurdle was the senior appointments committee, also known as the tenure committee, a group consisting of about a half-dozen professors from various disciplines across the university. Last week, however, in what is shaping up as the latest in a series of heated battles over the political affiliations of Middle Eastern studies professors, the tenure committee voted down Cole's nomination. Several Yale faculty members described the decision to overrule the votes of the individual departments as "highly unusual." [...]Cole has attracted a visibility that has made him a favorite target of several conservative commentators. When Cole's potential hiring became publicly known, several of his detractors, including the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin and Washington Times columnist Joel Mowbray, took various steps to protest the decision. They wrote op-ed pieces in various publications and Mowbray went as far as to send a letter to a dozen of Yale's major donors, many of whom are Jewish, urging them to call the university and protest Cole's hiring. Cole, while refusing to comment on the tenure committee's vote, told The Jewish Week he believes that "the concerted press campaign by neoconservatives against me, which was a form of lobbying the higher administration, was inappropriate and a threat to academic integrity. "The articles published in the Yale Standard, the New York Sun, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and the Washington Times, as part of what was clearly an orchestrated campaign, contained made-up quotes, inaccuracies, and false charges," he said. "The idea that I am any sort of anti-Jewish racist because I think Israel would be better off without the occupied territories is bizarre, but I fear that a falsehood repeated often enough and in high enough places may begin to lose its air of absurdity."
If that weren't enough, Armando of DailyKos may give up blogging in response to an attempt to publically out him and make his personal life an issue:
A major Right wing site has chosen to support a troll's campaign started at this site to out me. The writing is on the wall. I will likely be giving up blogging as a result.
After reading the comments, it sounds as though they're making his clients an issue -- directly attacking him in ways that will hurt his pocketbook and professional reputation.
Like jedmunds on Pandagon (where I first saw the story), I haven't always agreed with Armando, but this isn't the way to debate the issues.
These tactics are just low.
The politics of personal destruction isn't hardball -- it's hitting below the belt.
And it's intimidation. If such prominent bloggers can be hurt for holding strong opinions, maybe it will hold back those less secure from entering the debate. Cole shows the threat to those who blog openly; Armando shows that pseudonyms aren't safe.
I'm so disgusted by this turn of events, I can't think of the words...
Update@lunch: I've added a few more comments on this issue in a subsequent post, on why it's so outrageously unfair.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Makeup assignment
Since I unintentionally wrecked antiprincess's theory on the history of cosmetics, I thought I'd make it up to her by looking for other books on the subject.
Keep in mind, all I know about these titles are their LC subjects and possibly the back cover blurbs. Furthermore, many of these are out-of-print, so you may have better luck trying your local library over any bookstore.
Books are listed chronologically, oldest to newest to forthcoming:
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
TMI?
Too bad Scott McCloud already used the title I Can't Stop Thinking, because it seems the perfect descriptor for how I feel -- right now and in general.
Monday, June 05, 2006
A very rare tropical fish
For no good reason, one of my favorite movie quotes has been running repeatedly through my brain today.
It's from Desk Set (IMDB), when librarian Bunny Watson (Katherine Hepburn) sits down for lunch with Spencer Tracy's character, Richard Sumner.
Imagine this said in Hepburn's typical staccato delivery, rapidly and totally matter-of-fact:
"Oh, I did a little research on you. You were born in Columbus, Ohio on May the 22nd. That makes you a Gemini. You're a graduate of MIT with a PhD in science. You're a Phi Beta Kappa, although you don't wear your key, which means either that you're modest or you lost it. You spent World War Two in Greenland, working on something so top secret that even I couldn't find out about it. You're one of the leading exponents of the electronic brain in this country and the inventor and patent holder of an electronic brain machine called EMERAC -- the Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator. That's all I found out so far, but I only had half an hour."
Have I mentioned recently how much I adore that film?
Did the blogosphere explode?
This weekend, Stephen Colbert gave the Commencement Address to Knox College, in Illinois.
The school has posted a full transcript of his speech online.
I'll excerpt just a portion:
Today is about you--you who have worked so hard to pack your heads with learning until your skulls are all plump like--sausage of knowledge. It's an apt metaphor, don't question it. But now your time at college is at an end. Now you are leaving here. And this leads me to a question that just isn't asked enough at commencements. Why are you leaving here? This seems like a very nice place. They have a lovely Web site. Besides, have you seen the world outside lately? They are playing for KEEPS out there, folks. My God, I couldn't wait to get here today just so I could take a breather from the real world. I don't know if they told you what's happened while you've matriculated here for the past four years. The world is waiting for you people with a club. Unprecedented changes happening in the last four years. Like globalization. We now live in a hyperconnected, global economic, outsourced society. Now there are positives and minuses here. And a positive is that globalization helps us understand and learn from otherwise foreign cultures. For example, I now know how to ask for a Happy Meal in five different languages. In Paris, I'd like a "Repas Heureux" In Madrid a "Comida Feliz" In Calcutta, a "Kushkana, hold the beef." In Tokyo, a "Happy Seto" And in Berlin, I can order what is perhaps the least happy-sounding Happy Meal, a "Glugzig Malzeiht." Also globalization, e-mail, cell phones interconnect our nations like never before. It is possible for even the most insulated American to have friends from all over the world. For instance, I recently received an e-mail asking me to help a deposed Nigerian prince who is looking for a business partner to recuperate his fortune. Thanks to the flexibility of global banking, a Swiss bank account is ready and waiting for my share of his money. I know, because I just e-mailed him my Social Security number. Unfortunately for you job seekers, corporations searching for a better bottom line have moved many of their operations overseas, whether it's a customer service operator, a power factory foreman, or an American flag manufacturer. They're just as likely to be found in Shanghai as Omaha. In fact, outsourcing is so easy that I had this speech today written by a young man named Panjeeb from Bangalore. If you don't like the jokes, I assure you they were much funnier in Urdu... And when you enter the workforce, you will find competition from those crossing our all-too-poorest borders. Now I know you're all going to say, "Stephen, Stephen, immigrants built America." Yes, but here's the thing--it's built now. I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it's a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spansih, the next thing you know, they'll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools. So we must build walls. A wall obviously across the entire southern border. That's the answer. That may not be enough--maybe a moat in front of it, or a fire-pit. Maybe a flaming moat, filled with fire-proof crocodiles. And we should probably wall off the northern border as well. Keep those Canadians with their socialized medicine and their skunky beer out. And because immigrants can swim, we'll probably want to wall off the coasts as well. And while we're at it, we need to put up a dome, in case they have catapults. And we'll punch some holes in it so we can breathe. Breathe free. It's time for illegal immigrants to go--right after they finish building those walls. Yes, yes, I agree with me. There are so many challenges facing this next generation, and as they said earlier, you are up for these challenges. And I agree, except that I don't think you are. I don't know if you're tough enough to handle this. You are the most coddled generation in history. I belong to the last generation that did not have to be in a car seat. You had to be in car seats. I did not have to wear a helmet when I rode my bike. You do. You have to wear helmets when you go swimming, right? In case you bump your head against the side of the pool. Oh, by the way, I should have said, my speech today may contain some peanut products. My mother had 11 children: Jimmy, Eddie, Mary, Billy, Morgan, Tommy, Jay, Lou, Paul, Peter, Stephen. You may applaud my mother's womb. Thank you, I'll let her know. She could never protect us the way you all have been protected. She couldn't fit 11 car seats. She would just open the back of her Town & Country--stack us like cord wood: four this way, four that way. And she put crushed glass in the empty spaces to keep it steady. Then she would roll up all the windows in the winter time and light up a cigarette. When I die I will not need to be embalmed, because as a child my mother hickory-smoked me. I mean even these ceremonies are too safe. I mean this mortarboard...look, it's padded. It's padded everywhere. When I graduated from college, we had the edges sharpened. When we threw ours up in the air, we knew some of us weren't coming home.
Go ahead and read the rest to learn about Colbert's own graduation(s).
BTW, showing he's a good sport, Barack Obama sent Colbert a few words of advice before the big event: Stephen, Congratulations on being asked to speak at the 2006 Knox College Commencement. This is an enormous honor and on behalf of the people of Illinois, I'd like to welcome you to our state. As you know, I was invited to speak at Knox after my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and subsequent election to the United States Senate. Your convention speech must also have gone really well to have been invited. It's weird that I didn't read about it somewhere. Before you deliver your remarks in front of literally millions fewer people than you would at say, a nationally televised political convention, I'd like to offer you a few words of advice. First, I know you're fond of your Peabody Awards, whatever those are, but I'd recommend not bringing them. The students at Knox are down to earth and not impressed by material possessions like my Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Second, use hand sanitizer after the Pumphandle. Lots of germs there. I cannot stress this enough. And finally, don't forget to bring the Truth. I'd recommend putting it in your carry-on bag rather than in your checked luggage. O'Hare Airport is notoriously unreliable. To the Knox College class of 2006, I'm sorry I won't get to speak with you this year, but congratulations and best of luck. You make us all proud.
And by all accounts, the speech did go well. Afterwards, students presented Colbert with a Veritasiness t-shirt.
Books on my brain
I'm still in the middle of reading Naomi Novik's Black powder war (which is a bit slower going than the first two in the series), but that hasn't stopped me from noticing other potentially-interesting titles I may wish to check out:
Fear hath made thee faint
When Shakespeare's Globe (in London) announced their new season, their claims regarding authenticity came under some criticism from me and some of my commenters.
Well, Titus Andronicus opened recently, and get a load of these headlines from Google News:
The Independent provides the best explanation of what happened:
One observer told the Evening Standard: "All four fainters were standing in the Yard and went down in the space of about two minutes. It happened after Lavinia comes back on stage and blood comes out of her mouth when she tries to speak. One girl hit her chin on the stage. They were dropping like flies." A spokesman for the Globe said: "At the height of summer we often have people fainting during performances if they have been exposed to the afternoon sun, or have been standing as a 'groundling' for a long period of time. "However, we have had a higher level of fainters this year than we normally would experience towards the earlier part of the season, before the height of summer. Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare's more gruesome plays, and audiences should be aware of its graphic nature prior to seeing the play."
Now that sounds authentic! And what great advertising to pack the theater with folks who might not otherwise consider seeing Shakespeare. Get all the fans of horror movies and gross stunts, the folks who try to outmacho one another by trying not to faint or scream...
It certainly made Ian express an interest in hopping the pond to catch a performance...
Ah well...
Next March, Actors' Shakespeare Project will be putting on their own Titus Andronicus closer to home, and their pitch sounds promising:
A fantasy of blood and horror Stephen King or Quentin Tarentino have nothing on the young Shakespeare, who crafted this unforgettable story from the cracked mirror of Roman tragedy. Its myth-sized figures include a Wicked Queen and her Paramour, a Father consumed by his lust for revenge, and a beautiful Maiden tragically made Mute. Directed by David R. Gammons.
I can hardly wait.
Meanwhile, I'm taking a closer look at this summer's Shakespeare schedule, closer to home. [Stay in touch with Bard in Boston for the latest list.]
The most important, must see, can not miss event for me this summer is the Searching for Shakespeare exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art. I couldn't get to London's National Portrait Gallery for it, so wild horses won't keep me away from its North American stop.
Honestly, everything else pales in comparison.
I'd like to see Shakespeare & Company's Merry Wives of Windsor (opening July 13), but I'll confess, I'm not terribly interested in Shakespeare & Co's Hamlet, even if it does star Tina Packer with her real-life son and husband as the royal family.
I want to shlep out to Worcester to see Redfeather Theatre Company's As You Like It in August.
And I want to see Industrial Theater's Merchant of Venice at Sanders Theatre, July 14th only (which may conflict with opening night of Merry Wives)
And I'm curious about Publick Theatre's Beard of Avon to wish to see that, even though that's about Shakespeare rather than by him.
But those aside, most of the rest on this summer's schedule seems relatively uninspiring. I'm curious how Commonwealth Shakespeare will make Shrew palatable, but the gender politics make it a tough play to enjoy. Midsummer Night's Dream probably lends itself well to New England Shakespeare Festival's improv style, but I don't feel terribly driven to seek it out, as much as I enjoy the play.
What do you think? Any must-see Shakespeare in your neck of the woods? [And if your neck of the woods is also my neck of the woods, any interest in seeing shows together?]
Feeling suddenly prescient
I was reading yet another post on net neutrality (via Atrios), when I encountered this summary of the issue by Matt Stoller:
Here's the deal. The internet has always had rules. One of those rules is that even if you own a pipe, you're not allowed to tell people what they can put through that pipe. You can't block web sites, you can't say 'don't stream video', and you can't dictate what people and can't say. You do have to pay for the pipe you use; Google pays millions a month on one end, and millions of consumers pay smaller amounts ($20-$60) a month on the other. But no one can tell you what you can do with those pipes. It's very much the opposite of cable TV. There are no gatekeepers, and that's by design. This has created a highly competitive marketplace. Through a series of regulatory decisions from 2002-2005, the FCC stripped these protections for broadband pipes. Now telecom companies can do whatever they want, and they have basically announced business models that depend on their ability to turn the internet into a more cable-like service. This new playground for them is tenous, because the FCC could at any point reverse themselves. To firm this up, the telecom companies want to legislate a change in the rules, stripping authority from the FCC to hold ISPs accountable for degrading service.
And suddenly I was reminded of something I said at BloggerCon 2003. Several big name bloggers were all talking triumphantly about blogs meaning the death of the gatekeepers, to which I replied:
Regarding the freedom of the Internet, who controls access? Outside of college students, how many people reading this get their home access via the phone company, cable company or AOL/Time-Warner? There are only a handful of companies providing fast internet connections for individuals and small businesses. And if you fall afoul of any of them, they can make it hellish to obtain an alternate feed.
What happens when they decide to start restricting by content? How accessible will the blogosphere remain?
It's only two-and-a-half years later. Isn't that bolded sentence precisely the issue under debate?
Yet at the time, the high-profile experts in attendance, including Adam Curry and Jeff Jarvis, pooh-poohed my concerns as alarmist and impossible.
Sigh. Where's my lucrative media deal? [I know... I shouldn't grouse; Seth Finkelstein's been waiting longer and with better cause.]
From a conversation late last night:
After I was talking about how I use hunting metaphors to describe how I search, with respect to Artemis and Diana as goddesses of the hunt.
Ian: Who's the patron saint of librarians, again? Me: I don't know right now, but... In unison: ...it's easy to look up.
For the record, according to the Patron Saints Index on Catholic-Forum.com, the patron saints of archivists, librarians and libraries are Catherine of Alexandria, Jerome and Lawrence.
Of course, Saint Osmond patronizes insanity, mental illness, mentally ill people, paralysed people, paralysis, ruptures, and toothache (however, the dentists in Ian's family are not of the Osmond branch).
Saint Amand is responsible for bartenders.
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