shadydave: (rock on)
1) Six shots of novocaine, whyyyyyyyyyyyy

2) This, on the other hand, is 100% pure win. The Henriad! With Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal, Jeremy Irons as Henry IV, and cast members from Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Robin Hood, and every BBC production ever! HENRY IV, PART 1 WILL NO LONGER BE LIMITED TO THE CHEAP-ASS BBC COMPLETE WORKS VERSION OR THE CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, AVAILABLE ONLY IN BRAZIL!

omg excite
shadydave: (poisoning pigeons in the park)
Shakespeare post!

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, by Joss Whedon, Age 9: Part II!

AKA, interviews with Joss and the stars of his secret production of Much Ado About Nothing that he filmed at his house with all his buddies. There is nothing that is not awesome about this concept.

COURTNEY: Wait... Branagh directs Thor. Whedon directs The Avengers. I smell some sort of bet or one-upmanship here. Are they playing Director Bingo now? Is Branagh's next project a witty supernatural tv show?
DAVE: Then Joss will direct Mary Shelley's (But Not Really) The Last Man, and Kenneth Branagh will produce Lady Death's Sing-A-Long Twitter Feed...

Meanwhile, Anonymous is ::gasp!:: filled with historical inaccuracies!!! (I think zombie!Marlowe might be my favorite. He can hang out with zombie!Oxford as he writes all the Shakespeare plays published after he died in 1604.) And the great Oxfordians vs. Stratfordians debate has truly reached its pinnacle and landed its very own Fandom Wank entry.

Unfortunately, no one has mentioned whether or not in Anonymous "Shakespeare" has to outrun an explosion (probably from the Globe catching fire). That's what *I* want to see in a Roland Emmerich movie.

POR QUE

Oct. 21st, 2011 11:11 am
shadydave: (do not taunt the octopus)


AND THEN I GOT STOOD UP ANYWAY.

On the plus side, last weekend I went to NYComic Con with Courtney (I was femme!Eleven, she was the Black Canary: together, we FIGHT CRIME! And go to panels featuring Tamora Pierce), and this afternoon I'm heading down to Homecoming! Hopefully I will not arrive only to discover that William and Mary has shut down and completely vacated the premises, leaving only empty buildings and tourists.

Thirty Days of Genre

Day 6: Most Annoying Character )
shadydave: (peace out)
And thus began the Battle of the Rogue Rhododendron. )

In other news

- I got a new job! Well, technically, I got ANOTHER job. I get to review Shakespeare plays! Big Grandmother apparently does not approve:



- By way of Katherine: welcome to Oregon, where the beaches will fucking kill you.

- American Gods is being turned into a tv show!

Good: produced by HBO, Tom Hanks, and Neil himself, and will have an actual budget!

Weird: "six seasons, each [...] of 10-12, [sic] hour-long episodes". Sixty episodes? I don't think American Gods even has that many chapters.

- I'm going to see LotR: FotR: Extended Edition in theaters tonight!

Which leads us to:

Thirty Days of Genre

Day 2: Your Favorite Character

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend..."

<3 <3 <3 ~*~*~*~Faramir~*~*~*~ <3 <3 <3

It was hard to pick just one, but Faramir wins because he stands for a whole archetype of my favorite characters: the badass pragmatist who is nevertheless a (not-so-secret) idealist underneath. Whether they are staring down a Nazgûl, blowing up the Pegasus, or dropping a mountain on an invading demon army, my favorite characters cradle their honor close to their hearts. It's a lot easier to hit the bad guys with, that way.

(You can expect a lot of fist-shaking when I go see The Two Towers next week.)
shadydave: (poisoning pigeons in the park)
Haha, remember that time a noreaster rolled in during the five minutes it takes me to walk down the block to Starbucks, and then it immediately stopped raining as soon as I got there? ME TOO. ::wrings out khakis::

In other news, on my commute this morning, I honest-to-God saw one of these trucks.

It's probably just as well I don't have Lance in my pants; he'd be soaking wet by now.

Spam, Spam, Bacon, Links, and Spam:

Any article that mentions kuru is a winner in my book - FYI: Could Scientists Really Create a Zombie Apocalypse Virus?

The pizza you save may be your own - Alert Pizza Delivery Driver Saves Customer's Life

Said Bookisms: the edible ball-bearings of the writing world - The Use and Abuse of Dialogue Tags

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE - Time Lapse Videos of the Universe

Seriously, anyone who doesn't put Isabella in the Lawful column clearly didn't pay any attention AT ALL during Measure for Measure - Shakespeare Alignment Chart

Damn you, British theater-goers! WHY CAN'T I HAVE NICE THINGS - Danny Boyle's Frankenstein (Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Lee Miller) (HAHAHA HIS FAAAAAAAACE.)
ETA: Woohoo, broadcast!

The Christian Science Monitor: boldly going where all 12-year-old minds have gone before - Need Help Finding Uranus? (And don't miss the follow-up article, Scientists Plan Uranus Probe. Did you know Uranus has the most powerful wind observed in the solar system?)
shadydave: (rock on)
SHAKESPEARE! IN! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

(Even if the adaptation itself looks kind of dubious, I AM SO THERE. THIS NEEDS TO BE A NEW GENRE.

I HOPE THERE ARE LIGHTSABERS.)
shadydave: (poisoning pigeons in the park)
What's better than Shakespeare? ZOMBIE Shakespeare!

My SHAKSPEARE rise ! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room :
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

-- From To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us, by Ben Jonson

For the BRAINS!! they raineth every day.

(And what, do Chaucer and Spenser smell? Geez, Jonson.)

The War of IV Henries: Henry IV, Part 1, A Summary )
shadydave: (rock on)
So far, I have not yet been assassinated in the Senate, but who knows -- the night is still young!

Got a cold last Friday, which sucks. Clearly the best cure for this was standing around in the rain all day at Shamrock Fest! Fortunately, we heard some awesome bands (The Tossers! Scythian! Enter the Haggis! Carbon Leaf!), so it was totally worth it.

Yesterday, as you should know, was Pi Day! In celebration, I made Laura drive me all over NoVA in search of some place that had pie. Fortunately, we found Meera, and then a diner, so all was right with the world once more.

Personally, I think we should combine the two holidays (3-14/15, see? It fits!) and organize epic games of Assassins wherein you take out your target by pieing them in the face.

In conclusion: GoogleBooks has apparently opted for a very entertaining reading of Shakespeare's play, wherein the mob is actually made up of delicious pastry and not, you know, plebeians. But isn't that a mistake we all make?

It's a shame, really: "Enter Brutus [...] and Cassius, with the pie" would give even "Exit, pursued by a bear" a run for its money as Most Awesome Stage Direction.
shadydave: (CEILING TIGH IS WATCHING YOU!)
So, not only is today SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY, it is also Secretary's "Administrative Professional's" Day. Which means that we are clearly both THE MOST AWESOME PEOPLE EVER.
shadydave: (Default)
So, on Friday? I totally spent the night at a LLAMA FARM. David was farm-sitting for one of his professors, and he and Lynn decided it was way too horror-movie for them to be out there alone, so they invited Meera and me to hang. We played with the psychotic dogs and drank cider and watch Tom Yum Goong, which is probably the only Thai action movie named after soup and featuring Tony Jaa's quest to recover his stolen elephants. It was pretty awesome.

Saturday morning we got to feed the llamas and alpacas! The llamas were more friendly, but the alpacas were softer to pet. One tried to spit at me. It was pretty awesome. Then I had to come back to the W-burg for a concert for prospies. Saturday night, we went to see Shakespeare in the Dark's Measure for Measure. About half the jokes in this play boil down to 'Ahahaha, you have syphilis!' )

I was amused, however, to recall that while we stayed in Vienna during spring break, our apartments were totally in the sex shop part of town. Some things never change.

Sunday I accidentally slept for almost 11 hours, because my alarm took daylight savings into account, but I did not. Also, apparently some of the llamas and alpacas escaped and David had to spend the afternoon chasing them around. Heh. We went to mug night at the Leafe, and Natasha and I watched "Dead Man's Blood". All in all, it was a pretty awesome weekend.

In conclusion: this week's preview for SPooN looks suspiciously like it will feature The Flying Dutchman. Hah. Also, I am watching the BBC's version of Henry IV, Part 1, and if you go solely by hairstyles, it stars Prince Valiant as Hal, Art Garfunkel as Hotspur, and a bearded Emma Peel as the King. Awesome.
shadydave: (leather coat guy)
Aaaaaaaaand the first full week of class is complete! I like all my classes (Shakespeare's Comedies and Histories, Shame and Self-Respect, Worlds of Music, and Phonetics and Phonology), though I did have existential angst about dropping Language Patterns because 1) it looked really interesting, 2) the prof seemed awesome, and 3) there were lots of cool people in it! However, I decided that since I can't write an honors thesis (::grumble::), I'd like to work on my Monroe Slacker's Project instead, and I don't think I'd have enough time to do that with 5 classes. It made me very sad, though.

Last night was exciting fun. We had tea and scones at Katherine's, then played the King Arthur drinking game (not with actual alcohol, though, because A, you would die, and B, we were watching it in a classroom) because Natasha had never seen the movie, although since she didn't really hear a whole lot of the movie over the mockery, I'm not sure how much of it she actually absorbed. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing, since watching Clive Owen ride around in armor is movie enough for me. After that, we went over to David's, met his iiiiiiiiiinteresting middle-aged roommate Tim, and watched Anchorman on Tim's very excellent TV while eating watermelon soaked in Malibu, which was also iiiiiiiiinteresting. When we got back to campus, we ran through all the sprinklers on Barksdale, and it was awesome. Also, wet.

Kirstin called me today to inform me that she bought a silver Dodge Avenger. I told her that "The Silver Avenger" is definitely a superhero name. Fight crime with great gas mileage!

I finished reading The Merchant of Venice for the first time today. Not only did it remind me how awesome this movie was, but it has also led me to the conclusion that Portia is actually a professional secret agent. No one just happens to brilliantly cross-dress, have an intimate knowledge of Venetian law, and have an information network that can determine the status of Antonio's boats before he knows. Super spy!

Finally, link spam!

Wall-mounted keyboards? It must be THE FUTURE! Or anyways, what they thought the future would look like, a hundred years back.

Going along with the theme, this sounds like the AWESOMEST IDEA EVER. Except we obviously couldn't dress up like colonials because no one would notice. I really like the idea of setting off a smoke bomb, then staggering out of the ensuing clouds and going "WHAT YEAR IS IT?" It involves small explosions AND messing with people's heads! (Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics Awesomeness suggests after you receive the answer to yell "NO! I've gone too far! I'VE GONE TOO FAR!!!!!" which I also advocate.)

Finally, the music video of "Rapper's Delight" is proof positive that the 70's was a bad, bad time. Also, one of the more hilarious things I've ever seen. (Watch out for the guy jamming in the background around 3:50). Most rappers nowadays wouldn't be caught dead in a turtleneck, but compared to the leisure suits everyone else is wearing, Master Gee is the baddest mofo to hit the streets. We watched this in Worlds of Music, which should demonstrate the awesomeness of that class.
shadydave: (It stinks!)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Save me, Philip Winchester!

Bleargh

Jun. 4th, 2007 01:03 pm
shadydave: (poisoning pigeons in the park)
In addition to my iPod still being sick, it now seems that I, too, am sick, as the scratchy feeling in my eyes and throat that heralds an oncoming cold has appeared. This does not please me.

Also, I spent half an hour this morning completing what is possibly my most terrifying job at work yet. I had to etch numbers into 50 stamps for the student portfolios using a "Vibro-grave" which, though it sounds like some kind of sex toy, is actually a tiny high-speed drill of EV0L, not unlike those used by dentists. The entire time I used this infernal device, visions of severed fingers, maimed hands and gouged eyeballs danced through my head. Fortunately, I emerged from the gauntlet unscathed, despite my increasing paranoia as the job neared its completion that NOW was the time the drill would slip and I would forever be accompanied by the haunting strains of "Frodo of the Nine Fingers". Never again. Next time, I will insist upon a Sharpie, which requires much more ingenuity to cripple one for life.

Saw PotC this weekend. I liked it a lot and thought it was a good sequel to the second one, but the first is still the best. Possibly I will write more on this later, when I am not late from returning from lunch.

In conclusion: Pathetic fallacy is when nature reflects someone's emotions. It happens whenever Shakespeare gets pissed, and then the dude that he's pissed at gets eaten by a bear!
shadydave: (poisoning pigeons in the park)
Ok, so there weren't actually pirates in Stratford. But there was lots of Shakespeare! Or at least stuff associated with him. Anyways, the plays we saw:

The Sorrowfull Tragedie of Naked Ian McKellan, or King Lear )

Chekhov's Comedy of Tragical Proportions )

This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard )

The moral of this story is that you should go hang out by the stage door after the performances because then you can get IAN MCKELLAN'S AUTOGRAPH. LIKE ME. OH YEAH.
shadydave: (Do not set yourself on fire)
So, I was lurking around [livejournal.com profile] shaksper_random when I discovered this marvelous discussion (and its inspiration here). Basically, the Ninja Replacement Scale evaluates how badly a work of literature needs ninjas in order to be vastly improved, on a scale of 0 (no ninjas needed) to ∞ (everyone needs to be replaced by a ninja, STAT). I'm sure you can see the value of such a system. Anyways, in celebration of my LAST DAY OF CLASSES, I have decided to give the NRS (Ninja Replacement Score) of all the books I read this semester.

Firstly, Shakespeare )

Ghosts and Goths )

Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists )

Children's Literature )
shadydave: (Default)
PLAYER 1:             Hey, Will, I've been looking over this "to be or not to be" stuff, and I think we have a problem.
SHAKESPEARE:   Really? What?
PLAYER 1:             Well, you know lines 78-80?
SHAKESPEARE:   You mean where I call death "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns"? What's wrong with that?
PLAYER 1:             You do realize we have a ghost in this play, right?
SHAKESPEARE:   ...
PLAYER 1:             ...
SHAKESPEARE:   DAMMIT.
PLAYER 1:             ...
SHAKESPEARE:   ...
PLAYER 1:             ...
SHAKESPEARE:   Look, let's just keep it in. Maybe no one will notice.
shadydave: (Default)
4:05 AM

Paper Topic: Discuss the way in Julius Caesar language is used as a manipulative tool.

Really tempted to write "Mark Antony is a manipulative tool", because he is. However, this is not exactly helpful.
shadydave: (Do not set yourself on fire)
Reason #183 Why I Love Dinosaur Comics

Four words: Shakespeare vs. the Cylons.
shadydave: (army of deanness)
So, these past two weeks kind of sucked out loud. Week one, I had my 19th Century Women Novelists paper due, which even though I started three days before it was due -- THREE -- still had me up til 5:00 AM the night before it was due. However, thank God for time zone differences, because this meant I felt (relatively) unguilty about making Meera read it. And this past week, I had a 1500-2000 word essay due on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which meant that I started writing on Saturday and didn't stop until yesterday morning. Yeah. But now I don't have to worry about writing papers for another 5 weeks! Of course, then I have FOUR due in one week, but I'm choosing to ignore that for now.

In more entertaining school news, yesterday was the Ides of March, and we started reading Julius Caesar. Apparently, it wasn't on purpose. Heh. Also, tomorrow we leave for Oxford!

Kirstin got me a t-shirt that says "Saving people. Hunting things." for my birthday. She wins.

Speaking of Spoon... )

In conclusion, I found this on Maya's Livejournal and had to share:

This book reminded me of a dreadful TV show about Romantic Heroes, in which the opinion was expressed that every woman wanted to marry Heathcliff, Mr Rochester or Mr Darcy.

I took offence, both for myself and for my beloved Mr Darcy. I mean, can you imagine them all in a room together?

TV PRESENTER: Boys, would you like to talk about your interest and hobbies?
ROCHESTER: Well, there’s the compulsive lying. And then there’s the cross-dressing.
HEATHCLIFF: I enjoy long romantic walks on the moors-
TV PRESENTER: Oh, that’s nice!
HEATHCLIFF: And then I round off the day by hanging a puppy.
DARCY: …
TV PRESENTER: So, do any of you have a special lady?
ROCHESTER: Well, I may have gotten the syph from my score of mistresses. And I have this illegitimate kid. And I do have a wife, but she’s crazy and in the care of a drunk, so that won’t stick.
HEATHCLIFF: Oh snap, I have a wife too! I beat her.
DARCY: I am as yet unmarried, madam.
TV PRESENTER: Thank God for that… So, uh, what would you consider your greatest, uh, fault?
ROCHESTER: Some narrow-minded fools frown on tricking defenceless girls into bigamy.
HEATHCLIFF: So I practise incestuous necrophilia. Don’t be a hater.
DARCY: Sometimes I’m a little judgemental. And aloof at parties.
TV PRESENTER: *hides behind Mr Darcy*


Hee.

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