Things I Like Right This Very Now

1. Much Ado About Nothing- This is my favorite play by Shakespeare. I just love Benedict and Beatrice. Their dialogue back and forth is some of the best writing I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Beatrice is my dream role.  I’ve seen this version: and want to see this version because, you know, Tennant and Tate. ’nuff said.

 

2.

Where do I find this??? I want to order it in bulk!

3. “I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.”– What is the What by Dave Eggers

4. This interested me

5.

This is pretty much what I am like on a day to day basis. Gummy bears. Your argument is invalid.

6. I am just now being introduced into the marvelous world of Bob Dylan. It’s been fun. I think that so far, Blood On The Tracks is my favorite album. Not sure though. I’ll keep you posted.

7.  I love this video. Vintage VlogBrothers. Books, libraries, John Green, nerds, insults, Shakespeare… 🙂 If you’re not watching VlogBrothers, you might want to do something about that.

8. I watched the 3 final episodes of Community, a TV show that is one of the best things on American television (BBC ftw). They were brilliant. But then Dan Harmon announced his firing. What is Community without Harmon??? Especially since people have worked so hard to even have a season 4!

9. I love crossovers

10. And I leave you with this…

See ya soon!

My Love Affair with Shakespeare

Recently, I started reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In the section entitled “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books”, the narrator says:

“…few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a place in our memory to which, sooner or later – no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn and forget- we will return.”

 For me, two books are tied for this role. One is The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. The other is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

 I know that you will probably laugh at that. Romeo and Juliet is not my favorite play of Shakespeare’s. I don’t think that it is the love story to end all love stories. But it was the play that first made me realize what people could do with words.

 Unlike the chapter books we read in class, Shakespeare’s words rolled off the tongue. They danced while the chapter books tottered. And as Romeo fell in love with Juliet, I fell in love with the English language.

I’ve read *almost* all of Shakespeare’s plays and all of his sonnets. I own more than 3 different versions of his complete works plus individual copies of some of the plays. I even went to school dressed in a historically accurate Roman stoa in order to give a  book report on Julius Caesar.

In my experience, the two most some responses to Shakespeare are apathy or love. I think it’s clear which side I’m on.

_____’s Heart: A sonnet

Image via Wikipedia

Awhile ago, I was really interested in sonnets. Shakespeare and and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are two of my favorite poets, and they both wrote sonnets, so I decided that I needed to at least attempt it.  The required elements are

• 14 lines
• Iambic Pentameter (ababcdcdefegg)
• 3 quatrains and a final couplet

I didn’t quite follow this list. I did four quatrains and no final couplet…oh well! This is one of the sonnets I wrote. Constructive criticism is encouraged!:

I look up and see your face- one brief glance

And once again I turn away in fear

That in that moment, you saw by chance

In my eyes the true feelings that linger here

My heart is laid bare; a book all can read

I am nothing more than a girl in love

But I know not what you hope, want, or need

Your words are like sparrows, or flighty doves.

What would it take for you to tell me plain,

Whether hate, love, or apathy were yours

Towards me? No truth could drive me more insane

Your answer are vague, like door upon door

In a never ending hall. So too goes

Your heart, or at least the piece I can see.

Why must I talk in this poor meager prose?

Why can’t I tell you what you mean to me?