The return of the summer of the middle-aged action hero

Movie stars are, for the most part, handsome men. Sometimes they're quirky handsome, sometimes they're offbeat handsome, sometimes their appeal is a strange alehemical mix of talent and personality, but all of them have IT. And IT does not fade with age.  Never mind that Shakespeare wrote:

And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers.
The Tempest (4.1.213-4)

This summer we'll get Denzel Washington in an updated version of The Equalizer, Bruce Willis (almost unrecognizable in The Prince, where he plays a bad guy in the Ben Kingsley mode), Liam Neeson in the provocatively titled A Walk Among the Tombstones, and in the fall we'll get Peirce Brosnan in a movie that looks an awful lot like a reboot of The Mechanic.  And somewhere this summer is going to be the latest chapter of The Expendables, with Harrison Ford and young'un Wesley Snipes (he's only 52) along for the ride.

"Death of a Fairy" new fiction from the Misbegotten universe

I have been writing "Misbegotten" stories for almost seven years now, urban fantasies set in the City of the Angels where paranormal creatures exist alongside normal citizens. (In L.A., it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.) I decided to test the waters of the short fiction marketplace by putting "Death of a Fairy" up for sale(under my pseudonym Kat Parrish) as a stand-alone story using their beta cover generator to put together a cover. It's an experiment. I'm curious to see how it'll turn out but in the meantime, I am pleased with the story, which begins when a homeless woman mistakes a dead fairy for a discarded Barbie doll in the alley she calls home.

Sunday Shakespeare quote

One of the advantages of being an English major is that even years after you graduate, you have a lifetime supply of literary quotations you can whip out at a moment's notice. That can actually be annoying to people (especially if you preface the quote with a pretentious phrase like, "As the bard said,") but it's kind of amazing how often Shakespeare came up with a comment that sounds like plain old common sense or answers a question you might have. One of my favorite quotes comes from Henry IV, part 1 when a character is bragging about being able to call "spirits from the vasty deep." and someone says, "but do they come when you do call them?"

You can find a lot of sites online that offer all Shakespeare quotes all the time. Brainy Quotes even has them organized into categories, like "Top 10 Shakespeare quotes." You'll also find more than 200 top quotes at eNotes. Bartlett's Quotations. I used that book so often it got threadbare. Now of course, at just the click of a mouse, I have access to enough quotations to fill a whole library. I <3 br="" internet.="" the="">

I love these sites because when I was in school, one of the books that had a permanent place on the shelf above my desk was a hugehardback copy of Bartlett's Quotations. Now of course, I have access to almost every quote in the world, just at the click of a mouse. I (heart) the Internet.

La Dolce Vita

The Taming of the Shrew is not my favorite Shakespeare play and I've only seen it performed a couple of times. (Plus I saw the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton film version.)  This La Dolce Vita style production looks like it's kind of fun though.  It's part of the free summer Shakespeare festival in L.A.'s Griffith Park, so I have no excuse not to go see it. Here's more information.

A different kind of zombie apocalypse

You've heard of disaster tourism? Combine that with a zombie apocalypse. Check out The Z Cruise, a kindle short story by my alter-ego Kat Parrish.

Friday Shakespeare Silliness with bonus cat cuteness

Shakespeare Swag

Is this bracelet cool or what? I snagged it from the RareJewelbyKathy shop and it's just perfect for the promotion I'll be doing of my Shakespeare Noir collection (out this fall)!  And right now, if you pin three items from the shop, and send her the link, she'll give you a coupon. So it's awin/win. (And really, you should have a Shakespeare board on Pinterest.)