Shakespeare Geek for the Shakespeare Geek.

"You had me at forsooth!"  Shakespeare Geek is a fun little site with jokes and news (release date for Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing), random Shakespeare posts (a gift guide for the Shakespeare Geek) and resources. You can buy message t-shirts ("Mercutio drew first") and Shakespeare-imaged iPad covers. Check it out.

Ms. Tomlinson is going to Washington

Photo by Mihal Tamasila

I have been in an eye study for the past three and a half years. My doctors are testing the use of a drug called Lucentis (already approved for age-related macular degeneration) on diabetes-rekated retinal bleeding. (Judi Dench has the age-related kind and she's going blind, so it's a serious condition.) I was an undiagnosed diabetic (none of the symptoms) for several years (no medical insurance) and damaged my eyes significantly before a routine eye exam discovered  my retinas were in bad shape.
Lucentis is a miracle drug.  When I started the study I was losing my color vision, which meant I really wasn't comfortable driving. I had a lot of trouble seeing gray cars if the morning was cloudy. Reading was a challenge. And I read for a living. Enter Lucentis...and three years later, I'm driving again. I'm reading books again.
So I've been asked to come to DC and talk to the Feds about the drug as part of the approval process. I am happy to do this for all the right reasons but also happy because my brother lives and works in the area and I'll be able to see him for the first time in a couple of years.
I've served on a jury. I vote. And now I'm testifying to a committee.  That about ticks off the list of participatory Democracy actions.  (I guess I could run for office.)  I have to say, I think it's kind of cool.
I'll be back on Friday. Stay cool.

R.I.P. Sally Ride

1951-2012
First American woman in space.

Shakespeare and Chocolate

Chocolate had been imported to Spain early in the 16th century and chocolate beans were given as part of royal dowries all over Europe by the 17th century, so of course Shakespeare knew about it, and had probably partaken of the hot beverage that would later become an addiction alongside tea and coffee. He would not, however, ever tasted a Cadbury bar or a silky Godiva truffle.

Shakespeare's Chocolate in Davenport, Iowa, sells chocolate, pretzels, do-it-your-self s'mores kits (although that sounds kind of redundant) and more. One of their best sellers is a trio of "ice cream cones" crafted out of white and dark chocolate, tagged "Candy Crunch."  Definitely a company to check out if you buy mail order sweets for Christmas (or other holidays).

Even the greatest writer ever can have an off day!

Like any writer, Shakespeare had his ups and downs. He is generally  believed to have written 37 plays (in only 20 years) but if you look at the plays that show up in rep year after year after year, you start to see the same 15 or so plays over and over. Someone's always reviving Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, the Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing. You can take your pick of Macbeths and Henry Vs and any number of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Just try, though, to find a production of Pericles.  According to some sources, Shakespeare was just a co-writer on this play, responsible for roughly half the lines. (The other writer is supposed to be a man named George Wilkins. Not much is known about Wilkins. He was apparently an inn-keeper who was into some dodgy activities.

The basic plot is that a man offers his daughter's hand in marriage to anyone who can solve a riddle but those who fail to solve the riddle will die. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, understands the riddle but ... well, it's not that simple is it?
Welsh actor Mike Gwilym, who played Dick Francis' jockey hero Sid Halley in some early adaptations of the novel The Racing Game, played the prince in the BBC adaptation of the play. Welsh-Canadian actor Geraint Wyn Davies, now a mainstay at the annual Stratford Shakespeare Festival (he's in Cymbeline this year), played the part for them at least two decades ago. (My friend Susan Garrett, who did a lot of fan fiction based on his cult series Forever Knight, had a photo of herself taken with a standup of the actor in his Pericles armor. It's a great picture but I can't find it.)
I've never seen this play performed live. I did see the TV adaptation with Gwilym but remember almost nothing about it except that Gwilym had the most intense eyes.

Enough is Enough--It's time for gun control

"Blood will have blood." --William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I grew up in a house with a gun in it. When I was younger, I went target shooting with a .22. I have fired large caliber handguns at a shooting range.  I am, in fact, a decent shot, more than good enough to pass LAPD standards.
 I am not categorically opposed to private ownership of handguns. I am not a knee-jerk liberal on the subject.I am not advocating mass confiscation of projectile weapons.
But for the love of God, we have to stop mail order gun sales, particularly of automatic rifles, and we need to close the loopholes on sales at gun shows. "Guns don't kill people," gun rights advocates are fond of saying, "people kill people." This is an argument that has been going on since 1963 when a mail-order rifle in the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy.  Fifty years people.
Enough.
Police in Aurora are now trying to trace the weapons used by a man to kill and wound dozens of people. (As I write this the death toll at the Dark Knight Rises screening is being variously reported as 12 and 13, with the number of wounded between 38 and 50.)  I'd be willing to bet the suspect picked up at least some of his arsenal either through mail order or from a gun show, where sales protocols are riddled with loopholes.

Feminist Fiction Friday--the founding feminist edition

Ti-Grace Atkinson

Best in-your-face feminist quote ever:  "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."--Ti-Grace Atkinson. I haven't read a lot of Atkinson. At some point in college I read her pamphlet "Vaginal Orgasm as a Mass Hysterical Survival Response" at some point, probably at the urging of my gay roommate (Atkinson was a member of "Daughters of Bilitis," and advocated specifically political lesbiansim.) Atkinson was exactly the sort of feminist that sexists have in mind when they say feminists have no sense of humor.

Atkinson was influenced by Simone de Beauvoir, whose book The Second Sex is at the top of the list of any woman's studies curriculum.  Simone, the life-long companion of Jean Paul Sartre, is one of the most interesting of the early founding feminists. She's been quoted on everything from retail therapy ("Buying is a profound pleasure") to love and attraction ("Why one man rather than another? ...