It's a sick love, but there ya go.

Heh. Just today I was listening to that recording I have of Ian McKellen reciting the HoYayful Sonnett XX backed by a rock band sounding like the Velvet Underground. You really need to spend a weekend with Jen chatting up all the dark twisty corners of Wm. Shakespeare.

You really need to spend a weekend with Jen chatting up all the dark twisty corners of Wm. Shakespeare.

Yes please.

Edit: I'm reading a great book right now called _Looking for Sex in Shakespeare_ that has two delightful HoYay-heavy chapters, one about the Sonnets and another about hot boy-on-boy action in all the works.

Though I must also note the scatalogical genius of the comic Ed, The Happy Clown

Another great piece of anti-Reagan nostalgia there, even if the caricature looks nothing like him.

Playboy of the Western World. How can you not like Synge, Plei?

Well, that first part would be the main reason. I hate PotWW with a passion I normally reserve for cleaning the catbox or people who cut me off. I had an extremely adverse reaction to it when I had to read it.

Sort of like my feelings about Robert Frost. Though I did once write a Frost parody that worked rather well. Pity I don't know where I put it.

But histories were notoriously slippery back then anyway.

I apologize for my other notable ancestor's disregard for the truth. (Hollingshed, or however you spell it. Same branch as Bad Poetry Man.)

Another great piece of anti-Reagan nostalgia there, even if the caricature looks nothing like him.

Yeahhhhh. For those who have not read it, Reagan's head gets cut off because he sticks it into an interdimensional portal (which happens to be somebody's ass) and it gets stuck on the end of a penis. That was very amusing and bizarre.

I love it when he's toadying up to the Powers That Be by rewriting history to flatter their ancestors.

I hate it when he does that. Hate it hate hate it.

No one's claiming he owes shit to history, but the fact of the matter is, historians who also love his work are not obliged to shine it on when he blatantly ignores history to keep his sorry arse out of the Tower.

And Richard is a BULLSHIT PLAY. It would be less infuriating if it wasn't so well-written, mind you, but it's pure NeoCon, er, Tudor, bullshit.

edit: Jen, I used to lecture at high schools on one of the twistiest of Shakespeare's dark corners: the Scots play. Man, do I love that one....an ode to passive aggression in marriage.

It would be less infuriating if it wasn't so well-written

Still "Richard III" gives us the gloriously vindictive Queen Margaret--"Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog!"

In my advanced lit class in high school--which was just an excuse for our drama obsessed English teacher to play with Shakespeare--we did all the history plays, assigning the parts to the class to be read aloud. No one was shocked when Mr. Berryhill took all the hero parts. He definitely played favorites, but this was an elective class, anyway. (He also had us read "The Hobbit" and "Watership Down" for class, which was a nice change from the usual selection of high school English novels.)

Anyway, I got to be Queen Margaret when we got to Richard III. The big confrontation scene is still one of my shining memories, because it was such fun to fling those insults at a teacher, as well as it just being a blast. So few of the other kids could act.

(He also had us read "The Hobbit" and "Watership Down" for class, which was a nice change from the usual selection of high school English novels.)

We did Watership Down in ninth grade. I was always pages and pages ahead of whatever we were assigned. And one day, I decided to memorize the names of all the rabbits, and it turned out to be the bonus question on the quiz.

We spent five weeks on Richard III in my Shakespeare on Film class. We watched both the Olivier and McKellen movies. I love that play.

Quizzes were Mr. B's forte. Every week, ten questions on something. I had him for both Junior and Senior English. Once I figured out that most of his questions on various books were taken from the footnotes, I stopped reading the books. Never did finish Moby Dick, but I got an A+ on the test. His tests were a trivia mavin's wet dream. Most of the thematic issues were dealt with in class, and if you disagreed with him and could back your statements up with at least an attempt at intelligence, you could count on getting a better grade.

We did Watership Down in ninth grade. I was always pages and pages ahead of whatever we were assigned. And one day, I decided to memorize the names of all the rabbits, and it turned out to be the bonus question on the quiz.

That's... a lot of rabbits.

We never did that as an assigned book, but I had a teacher... fifth grade, I think? Anyway, she suggested it to me, so I took it home and read it. Came back the next day halfway through.

TEACHER: Wow, you got that far? ME: I finished it. I'm just re-reading the good parts.

To her credit, she went back to my teacher from the previous year to ask whether this was likely to be true.