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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Showing posts with label Romeo & Juliet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romeo & Juliet. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2015

I have supped full wuth horrors

That lines comes form Act 5, Scene 5, Line 13-15 - Macbeth. I know it's upposed to be bad luck to quote "the Scottish play" but I always felt like that was an actor's superstition, not a writer's one. I always thought that if high schools had students read Macbeth instead of Julius Caesar, there would be more Shakespeare enthusiasts in the world. But no one asked my opinion. (It's Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet, which has a higher body count than Hamlet and I honestly don't think those are the best plays to start with.)

If you haven't supped on any horror lately but would like to, check out my longish short story Unsanctified, which is free on Kindle this week. I did a lot of spider research for that story--yet another example of getting lost in research.  I so love Google.)

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Otherllo at San Diego's Globe Theater

I've seen some powerful productions of Othello. It's a play that's as incendiary today as when it was written all those years ago. This production from this year's Globe Summer Festival stars Blair Underwood in the title role and Richard Thomas as Iago. The last thing I saw down there was Neil Patrick Harris and Emmy Rossum in Romeo & Juliet, and I'm way overdue for a return trip. This production tempts me to take the drive.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

I feel the earth move--Shakespeare and earthquakes

My apartment is near a freeway and also a block from a supermarket supplied by big trucks that travel the street running perpendicular to mine. As a result, the apartment often vibrates, strongly enough that visitors--acutely aware they're visiting earthquake country--mistake for a tremor. "Is that an earthquake?"
"No.""
"Are you sure?"
"Trust me, I'm sure."
Long-time residents and natives deal with earthquakes in one of two ways, sometimes simultaneously. We practice denial. ("What do we say to earthquakes? Not today.") And we prepare. (I have a friend who has an earthquake app on his phone that notifies him of an earthquake anywhere in the world. I'm not sure what this does except fuel his own anxiety, but his is the house I'm headed to in an earthquake apocalypse. He has a GENERATOR.

There's a guy named David Nabham who believes he can predict earthquakes. If he's right, L.A. is due for a major quake this Saturday, between 4 and 8 a.m. or during the same time frame in the evening. The last big quake in LA was 20 years ago, the Northridge quake and it happened in the early morning. I find myself a little unsettled by Nabhan's prediction.  I have bought extra water. i will wear shorts instead of jammie pants to bed on the 11th. 
But since I am thinking Shakespeare this summe, I wondered if there were any mentions of earthquakes in the plays. Turns out there is one, a famous one in Romeo & Juliet. It's Nurse talking about how old Juliet is:
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;

That shall she, marry; I remember it well.

'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;

And she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--

Monday, June 16, 2014

Monday was a bad day for Juliet

CAPULET
 Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed.
Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love,
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next—
But, soft! What day is this?
PARIS
Monday, my lord.
CAPULET
Monday! Ha, ha. Well, Wednesday is too soon,
O' Thursday let it be.—O' Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.—
Will you be ready?