nothing is ever nothing

I can't help but think the two recent shows that we have read were extremely similar. Perphaps echoing eachother if you may. The fairytale that seems to linger its dark head around is Snow White. Just bits and pieces, obviously not the whole story. When Marina is rescued by pirates and then sold to the brothel I immediately thought about being outside of the Molly Brown or the Scoop on a Friday night...

"Dude, I was talking to her first brah!"
-" No man, she was totally into me first"

(Punch punch, kick kick, curse word curse word curse word)

A contemperary brothel is a scary place.

I do have to say, chorus' are my favorite part of most shows. The people who get to see the whole show but aren't really paid much attention to, however, if they weren't there a key part of the show would be missing. I was part of the chorus of Rocky Horror and had more fun than the leading cast.

Left: me and the other phantoms or "chorus" of Rocky Horror










So I was interested in the definition of Marina and I found that Marina's in this day and age are a lot like Marina the character in Pericles. Obviously the element of water is there. Marina's original rescuers were pirates. Also, a Marina keeps things safe, refuels and repairs boats. I can't help but think that Marina is so pure she refuels and repairs people. She got to the Governer and her father. The two gentleman came out as new men after she was done with them... hm.. just some connection that I thought was interesting.

notes 3/31

A Winter's Tale

Blogs: Roberto, Jennifer, Ashley, Amanda

Shakespeare has withdrawn in this show

In the beginning everything is whole

paradise lost, paradise regained

crone: A wise woman

Mother and maiden reunited at the end of the play

Act I scene2
something happens

"The great nothing speech"

echoing

Delphos @ Apollo

Issue: the most used word in AWT

Ceres: goddess of the Earth

pg. 709
"Exit pursued by a bear"
                 most famous stage direction

4 little girls
        1 Imogen
           2 Marina
              3 Perdita
                4 Miranda

Live on the threshold

Act IV scene 4
"for I have heard it said there is an art...."

"No worse there is none"

MSU's motto comes from this poem

We skip the recognitions, why? someone else tells us about it

The story of Pygmalion

The statue is brought to life by Claudia

The Tempest
 Shines light on all other plays

notes 3/24 and 3/29

Translate your secondary reading in your blog

Moonwalking with Einstein

Cymbeline
servant must sent bloody hankerchief

Imogen's male name Idelle: Faithful



3/29

blog your thesis for your term paper

Pericles

Shakespeare is exploiting genre's

Romance: cheap, taudry book about love

Shakespeares Romance: babies seperated at birth, captured by pirates

*Pericles was not all written by Shakespeare

Comedy of Errors

We're not covering the first two acts- why? because they're not very good

answer to the riddle: incest

Act III
        Start sounding more like Shakespeare

Pericles & Titus were the shows that were the most flocked to...
 wrap up of Acts I and II: Dumb show

storm: tempest

A Chorus

They throw the dead queen overboard

Psyche & Cupid

-Evil stepmother who watns to kill baby

She is rescued by pirates, they $$$ so they sell her to Brothel peeps

Pericles= Dudley do-right

Pericles vows not to cut hair and not talk

Cerimon finds real queen and brings her back to life by music and massage

Great Healer=music

Myth with person in basket = Moses, Superman

Pay attention to flowers

"Pirate Talk": Arghh

"Virgin Knot"

Persephoney & Demeter
               Romances myth

Colin Still- myth of the mother and the daughter

Governer wants some and Marina coverts him... so he gives her a bag of gold.

Marina & Pericles scene: Very devastating

Pericles: "Thou that beget'st him that did thee beget;"

                          "the person who begot you, begot me"

Diana @ ephesus

I am so an Egyptian

Not literally I mean. Actually I'm half German and half Irish. Whodda thunk it?

So, many things have been scrambling my brain since the past two classes. First of all, I recently watched The Virgin Suicides and I thought to myself, "gosh, Shakespeare would have had an orgasm watching this movie." Young girls in torrid love affairs, kept from social interaction and eventually killing themselves all together in horrid ways. He would have been quite pleased.

Its funny that they talk about Cleopatra being of "infintite variety", makes me think about what my thought process is when I hear the name Cleopatra. It has jogged my memory about my cat, whose name was Cleo. Short for Cleopatra but obviously doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

I got Cleo at the animal shelter umpteen years ago. However, when it came to telling my friends about her I came up with a more "colorful" story, I had her imported from Egypt where she was born. I emphasized that she was really from Egypt and I sometimes even exaggerated the story to the point that she was owned by a princess there. Hence, why I named this blog I am so an Egyptian. I made up shit like that all the time.

Once, I was dating this boy freshman year of High School and I was at my friends birthday party. So I was on the phone with my boyfriend and my friend and I were pretending so play psycho killer. I was the victim and she was the killer. So she pretended to kill me while he was on the phone and he totally thought she really killed me. He freaked out and like screamed into the phone, "TAYLOR!!!! GOD NO!! YOU KILLED HER!!!" Oh it was so dramatic, I loved it. Just so you all don't think I'm a heartless bitch I got back on the phone and calmed his panicked attacked ass down... But I still got a kick out of it.... tee hee

 So, I was also thinking about Romans and they way we discussed them. Immediately I thought of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a show recently aired on Starz.

Before, I thought the show was quite unrealistic, the women weigh about 90 pounds and are drop dead gorgeous. Now, I realize that may be how women in Rome were. Studying the show deeper, I realize these women are very muscular and strong. Obviously there are still some levels of unrealisticness. (I don't think they all had chiseled 6 packs and were able to fornicate without pregnancy) but, I do think they nailed the hardness in Romans.

To end, I thought I would share my hypothesis on why clouds form images. Again, not something I really believe but something I made up some years ago while writing a screenplay. I thought the clouds were drawings deceased children threw from the heavens down into the sky. The clouds then formed their drawing. Thats why we see what we see in the sky.

class notes 3/7 and 3/10

guest: Gretchen Menten

handout: history Antony & Cleopatra continuance of Julius Ceaser
44- Assasination of Ceaser

*Pay attention to place names and maps while reading

Antony & Cleopatra
High School, sexual references, a lot of characters

Scene 1
Nay is the first word spoken
                    presence of rumor or report
                             "The common liar"-Antony
Antony and Cleopatra are never alone together onstage and there are no monologues in the show

Act II scene 2
       Speech on when A&C 1st meet
rumors, rumors, rumors- think about this and their perspective

Rome- order, masculine, cold-hard stuff
Egypt- passion, feminine, soft stuff

"Upon a tawny front" - Description of Cleopatra- she is dark

Mars &Venus- adultery
Mars is Antony- god of war
                      "Love and War"

Natural world is constantly at risk of dissolving

Act I scene 3
"Sir, you and I must part..."
              poetry through love
                       identity- who am I? who are these people?

Act II scene 7
It is what it is

Montane- french philosopher and essayist
-no such thing as a fixed identity

Antony- identity being questioned

Act I scene 4
demasculization of Antony
                     he used to be one way, now he is a different way
                                          whipped

Act II scene 5
he is two-faced

Act I scene 2
"no he, the queen" 

A&C are not young
                identity changes through the years

"infinite variety"- describing Cleopatra
                    The more you have of her, the more you want of her.

Bathos- climaxes and anticlimaxes

Plenty of fish in the sea

History
       Everybody already knows the story

Act III scene 13
           how are they going to be remembered











3/10/11
Revisiting King Lear

Book Worms

Shakespeare helps us to endure the unendurable

Antony & Cleopatra
Cleopatra always needs an audience
                     -she wants to be a beautiful corpse

Egypt and Rome are metaphorical for place of mind

Gypsy- from Egypt

A&C plan to be gods, heres what they do
1. say 2. see 3. do

Isis- goddesss of fertility
apotheosis- to make devine

Antony=Hercules
"The shirt of Nessus is upon me"

Antony's cloud speech

flyting

I was thinking about some flyting incidents that may have happened between my sister and I, the only thing I can think of that I might have said was "stupid face" or "poo head." My sister is an extremely intense person so getting into fights with her was something I avoided because she loves to fight, she gets some sort of weird pleasure out of it. Not I, being the pretty laid back person I am I avoid confrontation unless it is absolutely necessary.
  However, I do remember a time I was in 6th grade and I went to Wendy's (the cool thing to do after school in 6th grade) with some friends and I winded up in a flyting of words with a fellow patron who attacked me out of nowhere. You see, I was at a rebellious time in my life and had decided to dye my hair green. I wanted blue but didn't take into account my hair was red and when you don't bleach the hair first it will turn green. Anyways, this girl thought it necessary to say a rude comment to me.

"Where did you get your hair dye... Wal Mart?"
-her friends around her giggled and laughed. Mind you, these girls were probably sophomores or juniors in high school. After she said that comment, something inside of me snapped... normally I would brush it off and be the bigger person... not this time, oh no, this time I was gonna kill with words.

"Yes, in fact, I think it was right next to 'slut brown' the color you have right?"
-she then proceeded to get very angry and call me a little bitch and I just interrupted her,
"I find it sad that a girl of your age needs to come to Wendy's after school and pick on young girls to make yourself feel better about yourself. Wow, I feel sorry for you."

I then left the restaurant as she was trying to continue the argument. I still feel like I won...

Lear

Upon our discussion in class about King Lear. The more things you have, the more things you want. My boyfriend would be the perfect example of this. He buys some big fancy thing and then need every bell and whistle to go with the damn thing. Take his Xbox for instance.
"But you have an Xbox already John"
"No I need to buy an external hard drive for it"
"Doesn't it come with a hard drive?"
"Yes but only 4 gilgabites" (or whatever they are)
"Ah"

Nothing is ever good enough unless you can have more. This is why I live an extremely strict lifestyle of not falling into the common habit of buying a bunch of (excuse my french) shit. All I really need is myself and my brain and I think I can get by.