Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Midsummer Night's Dream #2



...a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings
---Lysander, Act II, Scene II

Between enough and too much, there is Herzenslust

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Journey of cards #2

No, I didn't do it on purpose. But I like it.

Down the street from Walden Pond Books and its guardians.

The very majestic Grand Lake Theatre in the Background at the Saturday Farmer's Market.

Left with Oakland entrepreneur Henry Miyoshi of Korrupt Label

Archeological find.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I could not see it then because I did not want to see it

A pilgrim at left, the first word, "I" at right

"could not see it then" at left, "because" at right



A friend asked me recently if we can ever really know another person.
I think one answer is that it's as possible as really knowing ourselves.
Sometimes it's doable, and sometimes we have to readjust our perceptions.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Richard the Third #2

I have taken liberties, as the drowned Clarence is actually offstage.

I repent me that the Duke is slain.
– Second Murderer

So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.
Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,
Til that the Duke give order for his burial.
And when I have my mead I will away,
For this will out and then I may not stay.
– First Murderer

– King Richard the Third, Act I, Scene IV

Which one repents?

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Jessie Lilac's Birds

This lovely creature is one of several treatments of the Illustration Friday them "confined" on Jessie Lilac's blog.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Richard the Third #1

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking glass
...since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

– King Richard the Third, Act I, Scene I

Do people really prance around delighted with their own evil? My own experience is that people who do the worst things are those most unquestioningly convinced of their own virtue. I do think this royal cloak would hide any hunchback (I have read that it may have been a war wound, not a birth defect, that caused Richard's ungainliness).

Friday, January 8, 2010

1 from King Henry the Fifth

...gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall thinks themselves accursed they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks
That fought with me upon St. Crispin's Day.
---Henry The Fifth, King Henry the Fifth. Act 4, Scene 3

As far as I can tell this speech may be the origin of the trope in war films - and Battlestar Galactica - of drawing the line where the guys who don't have the stomach for it are free to leave and not take part. Peer group pressure dictates that nobody ever does.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

1 from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania

- Oberon, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2, Scene 1