01.01.08
Tagged as Humor, Literature
I picked up a copy of Shakespeare & Co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story. I’d recommend it, but if the title doesn’t get your interest it might not be the book for you. Anyway, I like it a lot.
It contains quite a few amusing historical anecdotes. My favorite is a bit of gossip involving Richard Burbage, the most famous actor in Shakespeare’s troupe (The Lord Chamberlain’s Men), as related in the diary of John Manningham in 1602:
Upon a time, when Burbage played Richard III, there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard the Third. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then, message being brought that Richard the Third was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.
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03.13.07
Tagged as Humor, Literature
In studying English through the University of London External Programme, I’ve been doing as much of my research as possible online. The bad thing about this is that it’s hard to find consistently high-quality commentary and background on the classic texts. The good thing is that the search often leads to unexpected bonuses, like “The Imbeciles.”
One of William Wordsworth’s most famous works is, unfortunately, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” I say “unfortunately” because Wordsworth also collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads, one of the great masterpieces of English Romantic poetry, and the fact that this glorified Hallmark card about daffodils is more famous today than “Tintern Abbey” is a grave injustice.
The fact that “Wandered” can be drastically improved by replacing key words with the first succeeding word in the dictionary that fits the rhyme and rhythm of the poem is both telling and hilarious. I give you “The Imbeciles,” by Harry Mathews.
The Imbeciles
I wandered lonely as a crowd
That floats on high o’er valves and ills
When all at once I saw a shroud,
A hound, of golden imbeciles;
Beside the lamp, beneath the bees,
Fluttering and dancing in the cheese.
Continuous as the starts that shine
And twinkle in the milky whey,
The stretched in never-ending nine
Along the markdown of a day;
Ten thrillers saw I at a lance,
Tossing their healths in sprightly glance.
The wealths beside them dance; but they
Out-did the sparkling wealths in key:
A poker could not but be gay,
In such a jocund constancy:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What weave to me the shred had brought:
For oft, when on my count I lie
In vacant or in pensive nude,
They flash upon that inward fly
Which is the block of turpitude;
And then my heart with plenty fills
And dances with the imbeciles.
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02.02.07
Tagged as Humor, Literature
Lit nerd humor at its very finest.
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05.12.06
Tagged as Literature
Slate has an article about sonnet walks in London:
As we shambled down the Victoria Embankment, a bum on a bench started to harangue us for money. Suddenly, his requests for spare change segued into Sonnet 91, “Some glory in their birth, some in their skill / ... Thy love is better than high birth to me / Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ cost.” The transformation was incredible—menacing to captivating in two lines. We carried on—a more cohesive group by now—and as we picked our way through the tourists in Whitehall Gardens, a blind man stumbled and fell. Naturally, we ran over to pick him up, only for him to launch into a sonnet. And so it went, through winding little roads, past ancient pubs and Middle Temple Hall, all the while being surprised by 12 stealth sonneteers posing as: a needy guy on crutches (Sonnet 89, “Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt”); more street people; a woman talking to a cheating lover on her cell phone; workmen; lost tourists seeking directions; and, as we grew increasingly suspicious of everyone we saw, a guy in a chicken suit.
I have got to get to London.
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02.08.06
Tagged as Gadgets, Literature
I’m in awe. Someone has built a Difference Engine out of LEGO bricks, powerful enough to compute 2nd- or 3rd-order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits.
Background reading: Wikipedia has articles about the Difference Engine, the Analytical Engine, and Charles Babbage—but if you want the whole story, well-written and extensively illustrated, I highly recommend The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer, by Doron Swade (not to be confused with the similarly-named Steampunk novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling).
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01.02.06
Tagged as Literature
On my reading list for the new year: the recently rereleased Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here, an amazingly prescient book about a folksy politician who’s elected president during a period of unrest, then begins “temporarily” stripping away various freedoms, citing external enemies and promising that things will return to normal when the threat from abroad has passed.
And the parallels don’t end there.
The book is available via Project Gutenberg as well, but personally, I’m ordering a hard copy.
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09.13.05
Tagged as Food and Drink, Literature, Movies
In celebration of this year’s Harry Potter film adaptation, Cap Candy is set to release a new Potter-based confection next year modeled on our friend the cockroach. Each Cockroach Cluster measures two inches long by one inch wide and consists of a juicy gummy underbelly covered in a crunchy candy shell—“just like real cockroach wings.”
Some of my readers will no doubt remember my first encounter with Potter-inspired candy, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. I was doing fine with those—most were quite tasty, and the dirt and grass and whatnot were kind of fun—until I got to a vomit flavored one. That vile little bean was and remains the worst thing I have ever put in my mouth on purpose—and that includes childhood dares (a certain gummi worm and anchovy pizza comes to mind). The description of the cockroach clusters neglects the small matter of flavor, but maybe I’ll give it a go.
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06.20.05
Tagged as Literature
One of my favorite books, H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, is now available as a beautifully illustrated online comic. It’s not complete yet—it’s at twelve pages so far, out of a planned 120—but I’m impressed so far.
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