The Course Of - Whatever - Never Does Run Smooth ~ Late Afternoon Thoughts

Marja at her delightful blog "Dutch Corner" did a 4th of July post about being introduced to one of Shakespeare's zanier comedies "Midsummer Night's Dream." And I had left a comment about "Years ago (in a galaxy far away) my 6th grade drama students did an adaptation of this wonderful play." --> her post is here <--

This week as I was moving things around, under the guise of "getting rid of somethings" .. I found the "gift" they had given me after the performance. And for a second time a flood of memories charged back demanding to be written down.

This occurred while I was teaching in India.

At that time, I was a teacher of English, Speech and Drama. The English, Speech portion involved grades 10-12 and Drama was divided up into Creative Drama grades 1-6 and Drama grades 10-12. Yes, there was a three year gap, but neither my schedule or the syllabus allowed for much more than doing a week long intensive theater performance with the 7th graders once a year.

The Shakespeare "experiment" started, as things so often do, on the way to somewhere else.

The 5th and 6th graders had done short plays before, and I was really not thrilled with what we had done, and they were a little dissatisfied with the level of plays available to be done. I was a little gun-shy about writing a couple of plays for them. I had done that twice for my High School students and while they loved them and "got" them, the administration was not terribly enthusiastic about them. 'Twas a quandary...and a puzzlement!!

I don't know how many of you are acquainted with "My Weekly Reader **" but when I was growing up, it's arrival in the classroom (we each got our OWN copy) was 2nd only to the Weekly Reader book sale ~ as I remember, once or twice a year. For years in school, this little newspaper brought fun, learning and insight to all who received it. When I was teaching at Woodstock School, I knew that it was available, but didn't realize that the students enjoyed it just as much as I had.

As I remember, it was in the staff dining room where the 5th grade teacher showed me a issue that contained a very short (10 or 12 lines) of one of the speeches from Julius Caesar and the article accompanying the adaptation (if that's the right word for it) about Rome and current affairs. As we were talking, (cue the theme from ANY Judy Garland, Micky Rooney "Let's put on a show" movie here.") One thing led to another, And I had agreed to adapt the play to their level, and do a Shakespeare segment as their drama classes. The 6th grade teacher, not to be outdone, wanted a play for her class as well. Well, why not (cue violins from Psycho shower scene here) ... why not a comedy - Midsummer Night's Dream wasn't being done anywhere around ... so, why not.

The major "why not" was the script(s) ... my agreement meant that I not only had to come up with two adaptations of major theatrical works, but would now need to stage them as well. Any student of Theater or Theatrical Literature knows the Julius Caesar text to use - and I don't think the cover has changed much in over (a certain number of years) ... And Midsummer Night's was available almost anywhere, so I set to work. Interesting enough, it was the adaptation of Midsummer Night's Dream that proved to be the most difficult.

As a play that is basically one big "romp" ... it is full of sexual innuendos and some not-so innuendo. And taking away completely everything that might ring slightly off would turn the play into a big nothing. Then, there is the magic, fairies and sprites wandering around ... this being a school high in the Himalaya Mountains depending on mission boards for teachers, support and some income (to say nothing of a stream of students!!) was somewhat vexing.

The teacher and I worked closely and sometimes contentiously about the wording. The most amusing part was what to do with Bottom's famous line (after being released from his donkey's head) that "sometimes a man might still be an ass." That line went in and out of the script more times than most people breathe in a day!! And was still a problem up to the final rehearsals ...

--- more to come ...

** FYI ~ (My) Weekly Reader has been in continuous publication since 1928 ~ to quote Wikipedia: The first edition was produced for the fourth grade, and appeared in September 1928. Its cover story was entitled "Two Poor Boys Who Made Good Are Now Running for the Highest Office in the World," and focused on the childhoods of Herbert Hoover and Al Smith.

-- and yes, that is a picture of Woodstock School ... I just wish it was mine!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY # 233 !!!

It's the time for serious thought, heavy reflection and ... who am I kidding?

It's time for a few good laughs ...

Suppose Twitter had been available 233 years ago??? (click on picture to enlarge)

(that was from historicaltweets.com)



And let's not forget the e-cards just waiting to be sent (to everyone we know!)





And when all else fails .... Cue the Muppets!!!




Have a wonderful day everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blame It All On The Internet(s) ~ Early AFternoon Thoughts

Sorry, I've been away for a bit ~ that will change very soon. However, this little jewel from College Humor was too good to pass up . . .

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

An Elegant Timewaster - Lovecraftian Lore ~ Early AFternoon Thoughts

It's VERY hot here today - just the kind of day to stay inside and get all those nagging things done that I have been putting off doing . . . and after discovering -->this delightful site<--, will put off even further ... The site is devoted to those dark and deadly seeming card games. Somewhat like playing Dungeons and Dragons, but it moves much more quickly and even somewhat darker. Alas, no gnome tossing or princess rescuing ...

The start of the game looks like this ....



And once you press start game (I would suggest reading how to play first!!!) you will see this --


Nice creepy music and sounds accompany the game play, and no I've lost each time I've played, but there's always the next time

To play the game .... --> CLICK HERE <-- and as always, I'm not responsible for lost time, jobs or - in this case - sleep!!

And The Bleet Goes On ~ Early Afternoon Thoughts

This was posted on one of my absolutely favorite morning blogs --> Daily Kos<- -, which if you have not bookmarked, you should. It is updated during the day, and for American politics, culture with amazing commentary could not be any better (sorry, Huffington Post!)

At first I thought I might make a few "comments" about the mess in Albany, NY ~ but they're doing just fine holding THAT circus without any further comments from me!!

I had written about RIAA and MPAA --> once before <-- but now they seem to have outdone themselves in self-pity. It seems they feel they have lost the PR war over pirating and downloading/sharing music ... You can read the entire post from the original source --> here <-- an ezine called Zeropaid. This was the section that was posted at Kos and really caught my attention ... These might be the reasons they lost the PR battles and probably the "war" ~ (Republicans, are you listening???)

"We figured a short list might be in order:

-destroying Napster and Audio Galaxy and not creating an alternative for the get-go,
raiding people’s homes because they uploaded Star Wars (not necessarily leaking it in the first place),
-hacking the URN hash and polluting FastTrack,
-hacking The Pirate Bay,
-having Viacom serve DMCA notices to people posting video’s of people eating in a restaurant on YouTube,
-suing tens of thousands of average American’s including fining one individual $222,000 for sharing a couple songs,
-saying that files in a shared directory is copyright infringement in court,
-saying that evidence is too hard to get and that the industry shouldn’t be burdened to prove their cases in court,
-suggesting that iPods are little more than little pirate ships,
-saying in court that even making one back-up copy of a DVD is illegal,
-lobbying to put in the DMCA, demanding that laws should be in place to prevent any tinkering with DRM including for research purposes,
-installing rootkits on people’s computers,
-installing spyware on people’s computers via the MediaMax technology,
-being outed for being hypocrites for pirating a documentary movie and claiming that it’ll only be in a safe place,
-tried to bring people a broadcast flag and telling people you can’t record TV shows if the broadcaster doesn’t like it,
-trying to bi-pass the backfiring of WIPO and the FCC to bring in the broadcast flag anyway, -tried to get ISPs to do all the copyright industry’s dirty work,
-pressured and bullied other countries to implement laws the industry saw fit and using shady lobbying tactics to accomplish this,
-tried to sell us music that cannot be copied through the internet and on discs,
-tried to bi-pass the will of the European Union and get countries to pass “three strikes” laws even if artists disagree with it,
-attempted to price fix music albums,
-secretly hold negotiations to pass draconian copyright laws that would see people’s physical property effectively stolen on the mere suspicion of copyright infringement through ACTA, -demanding that laws be passed that mandates the promotion of legal alternatives,
then not providing the kind of deals that would allow legitimate services to flourish with internet groups and businesses like ISPs,
-alienate an entire generation by labeling their own customers as pirates,
-likened downloading music on the internet to terrorism,
-likened internet users who download music online to “biker gangs”,
-spread blatantly false information about file-sharing,
-forcing people to watch anti-piracy ads on movies,
-suing people who had a recently deceased family member,
-argue that the industry is for artists, then going to court and demanding that royalty rates should be lower for artists - thus having to pay them less and keeping more money from album revenues,
-forcing radio broadcasters to pay royalties even if they don’t play music from the copyright industry,
-suing a lawyer for blogging about court cases related to copyright,
-and possibly the whole issue of listing countries that hold 70% of the world’s population and labeling some as rogue nations that need to update their copyright laws via the USTR Special 301 report - thus alienating many countries in the first place.

Again, a short list of probably simple misunderstandings in the world of PR that have been taken out of context by the “enemies of copyright”."

Just so it's clear, the copy is from the articles, the pictures I added ...