We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
She had the Emilia-Romagna thing going, and her Bolognese is the best. Bologna is the capital of Emilia-Romagna. Baloney. The home of Balsamic, Mortadella, the Lamborghini, and many other fine things.
William Shakespeare pretty much stole his plots. That's fine with me. And I suppose he was commercially right to take on the then-old Romeo and Juliet tale, judging it to be one that would sell tickets. Passion, blood, melodramatic death, etc. He wanted to be wealthy, and he was. Little could he have imagined, though, that his version of R&J would be selling tickets in 2013, both on and off Broadway.
It's a silly story, and a silly play. No character development, no fine poetry, no tragedy. Two stupid hormone-crazed 14 year-olds off themselves because the mailman missed delivering a letter in an Italy in which mail delivery is spotty and the vendetta is the spice of life. Poor mail delivery is not the stuff of tragedy. In fact, the play is not a tragedy in Aristotelian terms - or any terms.
My drama expert kid says she thinks it was written as a spoof.
West Side Story beats the Shakespeare, in my view, by miles.
In Verona last month, Mrs. BD and I avoided the Juliet tourist trap baloney. I hate that kind of phony crap but, again, it sells tickets.
Instead of the B'way version with heart-throb Orlando Bloom, we went to see the opening night at our regular Classic Stage which we support to a humble degree, starring (heart-throb) Elizabeth Olsen.
Dumb play, and a lousy performance by all. Where did WS instruct the players to shout their lines? Or to do a ponderous delivery? "Look Mom - I'm reciting Shakespeare!" When people do Shakespeare, they forget how to act like people because it's SHAKESPEARE. Like it's holy.
The only plus was dinner with one of the NYC kids at the Blue Water Grill afterwards with a wonderful jazz singer under our balcony seating. I do love that joint with their music, the exceedingly pleasing surroundings and staff, and their lobster mashed taters. I'll do a whole post about Branzino when I get to it. A tasty fish, but any grilled fish (or anything) is good on a bed of lobster mashed potatoes.
My pic is the pleasant East Village, with the Classic Stage sign. Despite this screw-up, we still like them. They do good Ibsen and Chekhov if you like that sort of thing.
These guys will play you for money. Many of them prefer speed chess - 5-minute or even one-minute games. It's a wonderful thing, excellent mental exercise. I hear that these guys are savvy players.
There are a few checkers guys too, but isn't checkers too much like tic-tac-toe? If you start, you win or draw unless you make an error.
16:19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
16:20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
16:21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
16:22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.
16:23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
16:24 He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.'
16:25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.
16:26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'
16:27 He said, 'Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house--
16:28 for I have five brothers--that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.'
16:29 Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.'
16:30 He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'
16:31 He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"
The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain, Of such as wand'ring near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, and the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care, No children run to lisp their Sire's return, Nor climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Any party that cannot successfully sell freedom and personal liberty doesn’t deserve power. The trick will be to explain — by word and deed — that the Democrats’ Manichean choice (Big Brother or the orphanage) is a false one, that less can be more, and that the restoration of a Republic of self-reliant citizens will benefit all Americans — not simply the government class and its clients.
Science, strictly speaking, explains everything but creativity. Not only that, but in its reductionist mania, it generally attempts to explain the creative via the uncreative, the intelligent via the mindless, freedom via necessity, and the living via the lifeless. It just waves a magic wand over the ontological discontinuities and pretends this is an explanation.
I noticed this yesterday while thumbing through a recent Scientific American in the orthopedist's office. No matter what subject they touched -- the Big Bang, the origin of life, the intersection of ideology and science -- every author had the same adolescent tone of smug superiority to go along with their dull absence of style and their one-dimensional shallowness of thought.
So is this: Brown University to sponsor Naked Week:
"The Facebook event page, also indicates that the six-day program will include a clothed event called “Stripping Privilege: Undressing the Isms” on Wednesday which will include discussion on “power, privilege, race, class, gender, ability, and other isms how they intersect with nudity, body image, nudity in relation to (de)sexuality, etc.”"
How about the "Elvis" from Mississippi? Peanut butter, fried banana, and bacon on toast, with a splash of hot sauce on top. Sounds ok with me. Gimme one, to check it out:
We will plant Dad's ashes next to Mom's at the Congo church cemetery in the Massachusetts Berkshires in a week or two. I have some ancestors buried there, but the older ones were buried on the farm's own adjacent cemetery because the church and its burial ground were not built until 1817. I have always appreciated the olde epitaph:
Behold my friends as you pass by As you are now, so once was I As I am now, soon you shall be Give thyself to God and follow me.
While visiting northern Italy, I jotted down some menu items we saw, and many of which we tried. These are typical antipasti, primis, or secondis:
Beef carpaccio Duck and horse carpaccio Ossa Bucco Antipasto misto Tagliatelle with truffle Tagliatelle with butter and sage Seared Tuna with pepper sauce Braised turkey breast with onion sauce Horse stew on polenta Salmon with zucchini blossoms with Prosecca sauce Gnocchi with porcini and truffle Chicken liver with balsamic sauce Triple fish carpaccio Grilled octopus with pesto sauce Rabbit stew on polenta Truffle risotto with smoked goose breast
That's Italian! As I said before, none of these treats taste as good as they should without wine.
If I want a dessert, my preference is a plate of mixed local cheeses with a couple of figs. Cafes change their menus daily, depending on what they have, and post them outside. Here's one, in Verona. Macceroncini in this context refers to thin tagliatelle:
And we still do. She certainly
William Shakespeare pretty much stole his plots. That's fine with me. And I suppose he was commercially right to take on the then-old Romeo and Juliet tale, judging it to be one that would sell tickets. Passion, blood, melodramatic death, etc. He wanted to be wealthy, and he was. Little could he have imagined, though, that his version of R&J would be selling tickets in 2013, both on and off Broadway.
VDH: If the truth doesn’t deserve social justice — 
Rachel Lucas: 
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
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