Nissah has drawn to my attention a new website called Overheard in New York
At first I thought that a lot of these had to be made up, but it occurred to me that I have in my life overheard equally stupid conversations on busses, at bus stops, in the mall and been in equally stupid conversations with others.
Enjoy!
Friday, July 28, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Unhappy (in fact Melancholic) 404th Birthday
Thought I would share an article I found at Book TV.
Hamlet -- Borrowed, Crawled and Pythoned
by Steve King
print tell a friend comment
On this day in 1602, printer James Robertes entered in the Stationers' Register, "A booke called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servants." Shakespeare seems to have written Hamlet about 1600; more certain is that two of the Chamberlain's Men in the original cast at the Globe playhouse were Richard Burbage, as Hamlet, and Shakespeare, probably as the Ghost and perhaps as Claudius, too -- a casting economy which might have given Gertrude a start.
James Robertes was practicing standard thievery for these pre-copyright times, but Shakespeare too had borrowed. As well as various mythic sources, an 11th-12th century Danish saga entitled "Amleth" tells the tale of Feng murdering his brother, Horwendil in order to marry Gerutha, his sister-in-law; causing son Amleth to pretend to be mad in order to save himself; causing the suspicious Feng to set woman- and spy-traps for young Amleth; causing Amleth to be sent to England guarded by two no-goods carrying an execution letter, which Amleth will alter to have, as Shakespeare puts it, "the engineer hoist with his own petard."
Apart from the complexity and depth, Shakespeare's unique additions include the play-within-the-play device. Stage historian John Mills (Hamlet on Stage: The Great Tradition, 1985) documents over a century of lead actors who borrowed the stage business of "Hamlet's Crawl" for this scene. Starting with Edmund Kean in 1814, Hamlet would slither and squint towards Claudius, jumping up when the guilty conscience was "frighted with false fire." The first-night reviewer for the London Herald was appalled:
During the mimic representation, Mr. Kean so far forgot that inalienable delicacy, which should eternally characterize a gentleman in his deportment before the ladies, that he not only exposed his derriere to his mistress, but positively crawled upon his belly towards the King like a wounded snake in a meadow....
A different sort of tradition is documented on the web site barbarapaul.com, devoted to listing all the book titles that contain an allusion to Hamlet. There are over 150 titles currently listed for the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy alone -- To be/Not be (24), Undiscovered Country (22), Outrageous Fortune (18), Perchance to Dream (16), No Traveler Returns (11), as many Slings and Arrows... all the way down to one To Take Arms (subtitled, 'A Year in the Provisional IRA'). Also included on the site is this anagram of the first three lines of the soliloquy: "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."
There are almost as many Hamlet parodies, the one following owing a lot to Monty Python's Dead Parrot:
Hamlet Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times. I cannot believe he is dead. Tell me, good sir, what is wrong with my friend Yorick?
Digger I'll tell you what's wrong with him, my Lord. He's dead, that's what's wrong with him.
Hamlet No, no, he's resting. Look you upon those lips that I have kissed.
Digger My Lord, I know a dead jester when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Hamlet No, he is not dead. He is merely resting.
Digger Resting?
Hamlet Yes, a remarkable fellow, Yorick. Beautiful skin tone.
Digger His skin tone don't enter into it - he's stone dead.
This goes on for a bit (available at saifai.co.uk), until the Gravedigger makes a near-fatal mistake:
Digger He's not pining, he's passed on. This jester is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. This is a late jester. He's a stiff. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. If you hadn't wrenched him from the earth, he'd be pushing up the daisies. He's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-jester! He cannot speak, and he cannot be!
Hamlet To be or not to be...
Digger God, not a soliloquy! I have work to do.
Hamlet Right then, wrap him up. I'll take him with me. Yorick loves a good ride.
Hamlet -- Borrowed, Crawled and Pythoned
by Steve King
print tell a friend comment
On this day in 1602, printer James Robertes entered in the Stationers' Register, "A booke called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servants." Shakespeare seems to have written Hamlet about 1600; more certain is that two of the Chamberlain's Men in the original cast at the Globe playhouse were Richard Burbage, as Hamlet, and Shakespeare, probably as the Ghost and perhaps as Claudius, too -- a casting economy which might have given Gertrude a start.
James Robertes was practicing standard thievery for these pre-copyright times, but Shakespeare too had borrowed. As well as various mythic sources, an 11th-12th century Danish saga entitled "Amleth" tells the tale of Feng murdering his brother, Horwendil in order to marry Gerutha, his sister-in-law; causing son Amleth to pretend to be mad in order to save himself; causing the suspicious Feng to set woman- and spy-traps for young Amleth; causing Amleth to be sent to England guarded by two no-goods carrying an execution letter, which Amleth will alter to have, as Shakespeare puts it, "the engineer hoist with his own petard."
Apart from the complexity and depth, Shakespeare's unique additions include the play-within-the-play device. Stage historian John Mills (Hamlet on Stage: The Great Tradition, 1985) documents over a century of lead actors who borrowed the stage business of "Hamlet's Crawl" for this scene. Starting with Edmund Kean in 1814, Hamlet would slither and squint towards Claudius, jumping up when the guilty conscience was "frighted with false fire." The first-night reviewer for the London Herald was appalled:
During the mimic representation, Mr. Kean so far forgot that inalienable delicacy, which should eternally characterize a gentleman in his deportment before the ladies, that he not only exposed his derriere to his mistress, but positively crawled upon his belly towards the King like a wounded snake in a meadow....
A different sort of tradition is documented on the web site barbarapaul.com, devoted to listing all the book titles that contain an allusion to Hamlet. There are over 150 titles currently listed for the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy alone -- To be/Not be (24), Undiscovered Country (22), Outrageous Fortune (18), Perchance to Dream (16), No Traveler Returns (11), as many Slings and Arrows... all the way down to one To Take Arms (subtitled, 'A Year in the Provisional IRA'). Also included on the site is this anagram of the first three lines of the soliloquy: "In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."
There are almost as many Hamlet parodies, the one following owing a lot to Monty Python's Dead Parrot:
Hamlet Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times. I cannot believe he is dead. Tell me, good sir, what is wrong with my friend Yorick?
Digger I'll tell you what's wrong with him, my Lord. He's dead, that's what's wrong with him.
Hamlet No, no, he's resting. Look you upon those lips that I have kissed.
Digger My Lord, I know a dead jester when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Hamlet No, he is not dead. He is merely resting.
Digger Resting?
Hamlet Yes, a remarkable fellow, Yorick. Beautiful skin tone.
Digger His skin tone don't enter into it - he's stone dead.
This goes on for a bit (available at saifai.co.uk), until the Gravedigger makes a near-fatal mistake:
Digger He's not pining, he's passed on. This jester is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. This is a late jester. He's a stiff. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. If you hadn't wrenched him from the earth, he'd be pushing up the daisies. He's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-jester! He cannot speak, and he cannot be!
Hamlet To be or not to be...
Digger God, not a soliloquy! I have work to do.
Hamlet Right then, wrap him up. I'll take him with me. Yorick loves a good ride.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Lyrics for the Night Shift
I don't know what I'm doing, don't know should I
Change my mind, I can't decide, there's too many
Variations to consider
No thing I do don't do no thing but bring me
More to do, It's true, I do imbue my blue unto myself,
I make it bitter
Fiona Apple's When the Pawn... I think might be my life from about 2003-the present.
Change my mind, I can't decide, there's too many
Variations to consider
No thing I do don't do no thing but bring me
More to do, It's true, I do imbue my blue unto myself,
I make it bitter
Fiona Apple's When the Pawn... I think might be my life from about 2003-the present.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Tales from the Niagara Penninsula
(courtesy of My Pictures folder at Keefer Mansion Inn)
Sigh. Until this point I had resisted the urge to msn at work. It's on the computer, but I've been trying really hard to behave myself. Here's the dinger. I have three overnights this week and I am not exaggerating in the least when I say that it is 12:05 (an hour into the first of them) and I have NOTHING left to do. I really hope they leave me something tomorrow night. The place has been so slow that there is no cleaning to catch up on, nothing to enter into the databases, and no work left to do. In the next 7 and a half hours the only thing I have to do is dust the chairs in the dining room and windex the windows (preferably closer to the morning) and set up for breakfast. Once an hour I'm supposed to patrol the hallways and make sure there aren't any burglars or ghosts. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do if I find either a burglar or ghost (aside from allerting Scooby Doo and the gang), but at least it keeps me up and moving (and awake).
Today I found out that I am a huge gigantic wuss. More so than originally suspected.
I went in to have a consult done on Lazer Hair Removal. Apparently my hair growth is so freaky that not only are salon-based estheticians freaked out, but even estheticians who deal with frequent electrolosis patients and lazers are baffled. I am indeed circus material folks. Anyways to add insult to injury, I didn't faint getting treatment done -oh no- I fainted getting the treatment DESCRIBED to me. You would think that someone who is capable of having hair ripped out of the side of their face with wax strips wouldn't be so afraid of a little needle sensation, but there you have it. The esthetician also informed me that the lazer treatment would improve my self-confidence. From this statement I can conclude that the lazer not only removes hair, but gets rid of acne scarring, burns 30lbs and adds 3 inches in height.
At any rate, the play is coming along, and should be ready for Thursday. Meanwhile I get to log a few more hours here... doing nothing. Seriously, come visit me online. I'll be around until like 4AM when I go to clean.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
July 8th in History
Some important events:
1099 - First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mock them.
1775 - The Olive Branch Petition is adopted by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies.
1776 - The Liberty Bell was rung to summon citizens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the reading of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.
1889 - The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published.
1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetalism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1947 - Reports are broadcast that a UFO has crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
1969 - IBM CICS is made generally available for the 360 mainframe computer.
Some Important Births:
1838 - Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)
1839 - John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1937)
1908 - Nelson A. Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States (d. 1979)
1926 - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist (d. 2004)
1951 - Anjelica Huston, American actress
1958 - Kevin Bacon, American actor
1961 - Toby Keith, American singer
1968 - Billy Crudup, American actor
1970 - Beck, American singer
A Few Holidays and observances:
Feast day of Saint Grimbald
Feast day of Saint Kilian
Annual Soapy Smith wake, held each year in Skagway, Alaska in the Gold Rush Cemetery and in Hollywood, California at the Magic Castle
The most important Event/Holiday and Birth:
1982- Jenny Hazelton is born!
1099 - First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mock them.
1775 - The Olive Branch Petition is adopted by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies.
1776 - The Liberty Bell was rung to summon citizens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the reading of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.
1889 - The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published.
1896 - William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetalism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1947 - Reports are broadcast that a UFO has crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
1969 - IBM CICS is made generally available for the 360 mainframe computer.
Some Important Births:
1838 - Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)
1839 - John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1937)
1908 - Nelson A. Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States (d. 1979)
1926 - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-born psychiatrist (d. 2004)
1951 - Anjelica Huston, American actress
1958 - Kevin Bacon, American actor
1961 - Toby Keith, American singer
1968 - Billy Crudup, American actor
1970 - Beck, American singer
A Few Holidays and observances:
Feast day of Saint Grimbald
Feast day of Saint Kilian
Annual Soapy Smith wake, held each year in Skagway, Alaska in the Gold Rush Cemetery and in Hollywood, California at the Magic Castle
The most important Event/Holiday and Birth:
1982- Jenny Hazelton is born!
Thursday, July 06, 2006
What you don't get online is the picture of me right next to the picture of Johnny Depp
For the full story go to The St Catharines Standard.
Liz Buchanan's character mistakes Hutchinson's Antipholus as her husband during the play. Playing Adriana, who is married to Antipholus of Ephesus, the 23-year-old recently moved to Welland after studying theatre at Sudbury's Laurentian University.
Originally from Canfield (? that's a new one), just outside Cayuga, Buchanan's first acting experiences with Shakespeare came while in university. She was assistant director for Hamlet and was Stefano in an all-female cast of The Tempest, which was staged outside.
When she saw the audition call for Comedy of Errors, it appealed to her right away.
"There's something nice about doing Shakespeare outdoors," she said. "I'm enjoying it a lot. We've got some interesting characters and that always appeals to me. At first glance, the female characters seem to be one note but there's a lot you can do with them."
Buchanan, who is currently working at the Keefer Mansion Inn in Thorold, said the only challenge she's faced in the production is that everyone is new.
"Everybody has been very welcoming. It's a very fun group, very talented, and that has made it easier," she said.
Buchanan said she has benefited from working with people who have such varying theatre backgrounds.
"A lot of people think Shakespeare is over their head and they won't enjoy it because they think it might be boring, but there's beautiful language and a lot of fun stuff here," she said. "I love Shakespeare and hope everybody gets a chance to enjoy it."
Not bad. I would like to think I answered more eloquently than that, but probably not :P
Just don't be surprised if I don't post the review.
PS- The other good news: normally the prospect of having a brand new actor playing a prinicipal part tht I spend most of my time acting with on stage a week before the show would bother me. In this case I'm thrilled, I have a new Lucianna!
Liz Buchanan's character mistakes Hutchinson's Antipholus as her husband during the play. Playing Adriana, who is married to Antipholus of Ephesus, the 23-year-old recently moved to Welland after studying theatre at Sudbury's Laurentian University.
Originally from Canfield (? that's a new one), just outside Cayuga, Buchanan's first acting experiences with Shakespeare came while in university. She was assistant director for Hamlet and was Stefano in an all-female cast of The Tempest, which was staged outside.
When she saw the audition call for Comedy of Errors, it appealed to her right away.
"There's something nice about doing Shakespeare outdoors," she said. "I'm enjoying it a lot. We've got some interesting characters and that always appeals to me. At first glance, the female characters seem to be one note but there's a lot you can do with them."
Buchanan, who is currently working at the Keefer Mansion Inn in Thorold, said the only challenge she's faced in the production is that everyone is new.
"Everybody has been very welcoming. It's a very fun group, very talented, and that has made it easier," she said.
Buchanan said she has benefited from working with people who have such varying theatre backgrounds.
"A lot of people think Shakespeare is over their head and they won't enjoy it because they think it might be boring, but there's beautiful language and a lot of fun stuff here," she said. "I love Shakespeare and hope everybody gets a chance to enjoy it."
Not bad. I would like to think I answered more eloquently than that, but probably not :P
Just don't be surprised if I don't post the review.
PS- The other good news: normally the prospect of having a brand new actor playing a prinicipal part tht I spend most of my time acting with on stage a week before the show would bother me. In this case I'm thrilled, I have a new Lucianna!
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Toughening up in my young age
Stephie will be pleased, I finally found the x-men parody I was searching for:
Death Becomes Them
Things continue to be insanely up in the air right now, but I made an important discovery this weekend.
Everyone tells you that when you finish University you have to start in the "real" world. The funny thing is, nothing has ever felt more real than the three years I spent in Sudbury at LU or the year I spent in Peterborough at Trent (save perhaps a couple of summers at Lakewood. Sudbury doesn't just feel like home, it feels like life. I also realized, however, that this particular reality I was living for sometime is no longer an option. Something I don't think I even fully realized or considered when I moved. This was not a happy realization
It is scary, but on some level I know that I can take this on, and I know that I can take it on myself. Because I am a little tougher than I give myself credit.
Death Becomes Them
Things continue to be insanely up in the air right now, but I made an important discovery this weekend.
Everyone tells you that when you finish University you have to start in the "real" world. The funny thing is, nothing has ever felt more real than the three years I spent in Sudbury at LU or the year I spent in Peterborough at Trent (save perhaps a couple of summers at Lakewood. Sudbury doesn't just feel like home, it feels like life. I also realized, however, that this particular reality I was living for sometime is no longer an option. Something I don't think I even fully realized or considered when I moved. This was not a happy realization
It is scary, but on some level I know that I can take this on, and I know that I can take it on myself. Because I am a little tougher than I give myself credit.
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