Oh, for the love of literature!

This weekend, the next to last of the Harry Potter books goes on sale. I have mixed feelings about this. I do think that once the series is over that people will move on to the next hot thing. This means that the rare edition of HP #1 that I have will probably have a sudden drop in value. (Note to self: take that bugger to NYC and sell it by Jan 2007!)

On the other hand, the overhype will also drop off, and that is a good thing. I'm surprised we've almost gotten to the release date before we started seeing the "OMG, someone put it on the shelves early, HORRORS!" messages.

Much less stupid-ass attempts to keep a lid on it like this - the Canadian government ordering people not to read the copies they've already bought. "One sympathizes with the reader from a non-legal point of view, but property rights often trump civil liberties. There is no human right to read.” says one of the lawyers involved.

What was that line from Max Headroom? "Reading is a privilege, and if you had enough money to pay for an education you'd know that."

GIP & Lady Windermere's Fan

The gratuitious icon is attached; it doesn't have much to do with this post, but I'm fond of it, so I wanted to show it off.

The post is a review of Lady Windermere's Fan, at the DC Shakespeare Theatre. I have highly mixed feelings about this version. I

t's the lightest performance that I've seen yet - and yet, it was still somewhat bombastic. Everyone had a tendancy to bellow their lines, and since Wilde is all about subtlety, that takes the edge off. Nancy Robinette, for example, shouted "WHAT A HORRIBLE MAN I QUITE LIKE HIM" with no inflection or pause, as if she didn't know what the line actually meant. She's better than that.

On the other hand, the bombast worked beautifully for David Sabin, who was perfectly cast as Lord Augustus, a role that suits him. And Tessa Auberjonois, who sparkled in the effervescent The Rivals, started out with an arm-flinging delivery that was too giddy, but settled down into the role as the pompous, naieve young wife nicely after that... although she, like everyone else, shouted. The Shakes isn't that large a venue and The Rivals wasn't so high volume, so I don't know what happened. Bleedover from the Shakespearean productions, which stratfordbabe always calls too loud?

Certainly Stratfordbabe was right about Dixie Carter who has, between the stage makeup and the facelift(s?) turned herself into The Joker.

The standout was Tonya Beckman Ross as Lady Agatha. She only ever got to say "Yes, Mama" in a monotone, but she managed to steal most of the scenes she was in simply by the way she moved. The perfect "there are no small parts" example; even as a minor character with one line she was a standout.

And yet after all this quibbling, I liked it. It's almost impossible to do Wilde wrong; even when I disagree with the delivery, the lines remain funny. The stage business the actors (particularly Ross) came up with was lovely. And the sets and costumes were gorgeous.

Despite the icon, I wasn't swept away - but I did have a lovely evening, made moreso by meeting friends at the performance. It's worth a ticket to go see.

Europe and the Wars of Religion

The Tudor self-study begins with Lecture 1 (Ideologies of Political Obedience) of Europe and the Wars of Religion (1500-1700). Professor Sreenivasan of Brandeis has a slightly prissy, very clear tenor voice; its easy to hear what he's saying and he seems to have an engineer's habit of being very precise about what he's talking about and why. (As opposed to Mozart Guy, who is talking about Mozart because anyone with any sense loves, loves, loves Mozart and wants to know the real deal.) I almost missed it, but he's also got a sly, dry sense of humor that surfaces at odd moments:

"The final aspect we are going to look at is technology. Technologies of resistance, technologies of repression. Now, when I talk about technology, I suppose what immediately comes to mind are tools. Things like guns. Large artillery. Long pointy sticks."

This is the first class with suggested pages for the suggested readings in the coursebook. I'm not going to go get a copy of The European Dynastic States 1494-1600 by Bonney, partially because the only copy on half.com costs $30, but mostly because in the long run, I'll be focusing on the Tudors and I have reading of my own.

The short-term goal is to finish this class and one of the Henry books by the end of the month. At 2 lectures a day, I can finish the Teaching Company class in 12 days. (Then I'll take History of England, Tudors-Stuarts and Henry VIII as listening on the drive to Stratford. With soundtracks in case I get bored and want to sing along.) If I finish the book I'm reading this week, I'll have sent in 3 reviews to RtE, leaving me free to read Harry Potter and then a Henry book before it's time to review the next book for I Love a Mystery and the new month's cycle starts for RtE.

The end goal of all of this is to:
1) Become well-rounded on English history from the rise of Henry VIII through the end of Elizabeth's reign.
2) Pitch/write multiple articles on the subject to Renaissance magazine.


And on a slightly related note, in an effort to exercise and have non-food rewards, I've promised myself that if I exercise for half-hour increments to Batman TAS v4 and Scrubs S1 (which I have), I can buy the DVDs for Teaching Company's "Great Artists of the Renaissance" and "A History of Impressionism."

Madness Takes its Toll

Some Harry Potter musings:

Both Barnes & Noble and Borders are having Midnight Madness sales. B&N is selling it for $18; Borders is selling it for $20 and change.

Since everyone who knows me knows how utterly impatient I am, it's probably no shock that I've calculated that it costs right around as much to buy a B&N copy at Midnight Madness and wait for an English copy to come overseas than it is to expedite shipping of the English copy from Canada... and buying at midnight puts the book in my hands all that much faster.

Probably not gonna get a lot done this weekend after all...