Stratford better send me a fruit basket for this publicity.

Listen. I want you to imagine I am John Donne, and you all are my wife. We are a compass, and our legs move separately, but in unison.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun. - Forbidding Mourning

This is a roundabout and highly tool-ish way of saying, “So, yeah, I've been gone. Suck it.” Did you laugh at “and grows erect, as that comes home”? Because I always do.

But this post isn't about John Donne. Oh, no. It's about another poet. BILLY SHAKES. Yes, him. Earlier this fall, I ventured to Stratford, Ontario to see Macbeth with a friend. We drove four hours through Canada for this because we are nerds. Way back when, I promised pictures. I am here to make good!

First of all, there was some driving. Here was our path:


Detroit to Stratford.


I did all the driving because I am fabulous. I also look fabulous doing it.


At the border, we exchanged out American dollars for cold, hard, Canadian cash. And then I licked it. It tasted like maple syrup and freedom.


We came upon a lovely, lonely church along the way. It appealed to my inner Catholic child, and we stopped to take pictures.


After about 3.5 hours, we arrived in Stratford, at the Festival Theatre. Fun history fact: It's the first thrust stage of its kind since the original Globe. This place is serious business.

We at lunch and wandered:


Playing on a bridge.


This is a good shot demonstrating how lovely the area is in early Fall. Very Michigan-like, which put my wily Wolverine heart at ease.


Climbing a tree.


Here's the front of the Festival Theatre. Yes, that's him.


BILLY SHAKES.


And so I took a quothing picture.

No photos allowed inside the theatre, so no piccies for you! It was an awesome production that made use of plasma screen televisions that changed as the scenes changed.


After the play, I got a picture with an arbor. Arbors are important in Renaissance drama. In The Spanish Tragedy, someone woos and is killed upon the very same arbor! Not this one.

At this point, we ate, wandered, and drove back to Detroit. Woo.

Links For Your Perusal

Stratford, Ontario's Site
The Shakespeare Festival
The Festival Theatre

(Stratford shows non-Shakespearean plays as well from many eras, so if that's not your cup of tea, look about!)

Summer Reading: Or How to Stay Pale All Summer

Summer is here, apparently, and as the temperature rises, so does my boredom level. I start out each summer break with quite the joi de virve, excited at the prospect of no papers, exams, or long classes. Then as the season wears on, the very lack of the same begins to drive me mad. Am I really so nerdy and lame that I enjoy the papers, exams, and long classes? Yes, a little. Mostly it's the fact that I am occupied during the school year that keeps me happy.

I have decided that if I cannot pay academics to give me things to read and think about this summer (I suppose I could take a summer class, but this involves large sums of money) I can assign reading to myself! I am an academic after all, sort of. I could even pay myself to make me read, but that seems a little pointless. I have made up a list of things that I want to get read this summer, with explanations, below. Golly, I love commas.

I am rapidly approaching graduation, and my personal canon is seriously wanting. In the Fall semester I will be taking an Elizabethan/Jacobean drama class excluding Shakespeare. I have never taken any course in Billy Shakes, besides learning his sonnets, and have only read Romeo and Juliet - in high school. This is a problem! Especially because my “track” or specific course of study in English is Renaissance literature. I am determined to make up for this deficiency by reading:


-Hamlet*
-Othello
-A Midsummer Night's Dream
-Titus Adronicus

*I actually managed to read Hamlet already, and so I'm already on the ball. Gold star for me!


Apart from the Bard, I also wish to read some so-called “classics” that I have missed out on. I will be searching through reading lists in Renaissance literature (for obvious reasons) science fiction, and Victorian literature. Here's what I have so far:


-Jack of Newbury, Thomas Deloney*
-The Inferno, Dante Alighieri
-The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe
-Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Loius Stevenson
-The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill**
-Stardust, Neil Gamain

*This was assigned last semester by one of my professors. I did not read it, oops. I hope the poor professor whom I have slighted is not reading this, because I am VERY SORRY, YES INDEED. I am trying to make up for being a bum by reading it this summer.
**Yes, it's a comic. Shut up, it's literature.


You may be saying, well, what are you going to be reading for fun? Um, this is fun! I'm super duper excited about this list! I don't want to hear anything about these texts being boring because without Jack of Newbury, there would not be your goddamn Twilight! I don't expect to read every single book on the list, and I will not force myself to rush, as of course that will suck the enjoyment out of reading. That's kind of why reading for school gets us all constipated. I'm going to try to get a little Billy Shakes read first, and then move on from them. Hey, maybe there will even be a review or too! Done in iambic pentameter. No.

Feel free to post suggestions, comments, or opinions! And thank you for suffering through my sad descent into complete nerdiness.