Random Life and Sort of Recs
Life
Nothing new and major has gone wrong lately! In my world in 2015, that really is something to celebrate. My grandma still isn't doing well after the late May car accident. From everything I've heard, I will be somewhat surprised if she makes it to the end of the year, but I'm trying to keep that kind of in the back of my mind since I don't know a timeline and can't do anything about it.
My dissertation progress is in a really weird place. Things stalled for several weeks as I just got really frustrated with some of the background stuff I've been trying to write. It's a bunch of discrete chunks that I need to be able to write in maybe 7-8 pages each, but I can figure out how to write it all in a paragraph each or in 50 pages each and can't seem to find the middle ground I need. The past couple days have been a bit better, though, so maybe I've found the magic spot. Here's hoping!
Sort of Recs
BBC Radio is doing new Rumpole with Benedict Cumberbatch! I so very much love Rumpole. I wish they'd bring back Timothy West for the back-and-forth between older and younger Rumpoles that they mentioned, but I'm not holding my breath on that and will take whatever Rumpole they can give me. Anywho, the first two of the four new episodes have aired already and are on iPlayer. I liked the second a bit more than the first but wouldn't put either as best or worst Rumpole episodes of all time. Middle-of-the-pack Rumpole is still pretty good, though.
I've been in love with Good Tickle Brain, a mostly Shakespeare Webcomic for a while now. The creator posts a few times a week and recently opened an online store with tshirts, books, and the like. I bought a Complete Works of Shakespeare shirt on the day she opened the shop and the next day received an email saying that when she went to the post office to ship everything in the first round of orders, she found that actual shipping was cheaper than the automatically calculated online amount so she'd be adjusting that for the future and refunding a couple bucks or so to everyone who ordered in the first round. I thought that was pretty awesome. So if you like Shakespeare, you should read her webcomic and if you like what she does and want to buy some stuff then she'll be awesome about that, too.
In other Shakespeare not-really-news, several years ago I bought a CD audio version of a stage production of Othello. In my mind, it's always been Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello, Ewan McGregor as Iago, and a bunch of other people I didn't recognize. I listened to it when I first bought it back in like 2008 and then listened to it again a couple years later but haven't listened to it again since even though I remember really liking it. Just too much new stuff, I guess. I recently found out that the "bunch of other people I didn't recognize" included Tom Hiddleston as Cassio. So I listened to it last night and it's as good as I remember and it was kind of fun recognizing Hiddleston this time. I also realized as I listened that I knew another voice, that of Edward Bennett who played Roderigo here and who I knew previously from playing Laertes in Hamlet with David Tennant.
And in other "I'm behind the times" recs, I just read Octavia E. Butler's 1993 novel Parable of the Sower. Wow that thing is amazing and brilliant. It is a near-future take on an America in the grips of massive draughts thanks to climate change and the worst stuff that happens in the novel, and it gets pretty bad, is all so frighteningly plausible. There is a sequel, Parable of the Talents that isn't quite as good and isn't necessary so you can just read the one or read both if you really like the first and want to know more but I definitely recommend reading at least the first one.
Nothing new and major has gone wrong lately! In my world in 2015, that really is something to celebrate. My grandma still isn't doing well after the late May car accident. From everything I've heard, I will be somewhat surprised if she makes it to the end of the year, but I'm trying to keep that kind of in the back of my mind since I don't know a timeline and can't do anything about it.
My dissertation progress is in a really weird place. Things stalled for several weeks as I just got really frustrated with some of the background stuff I've been trying to write. It's a bunch of discrete chunks that I need to be able to write in maybe 7-8 pages each, but I can figure out how to write it all in a paragraph each or in 50 pages each and can't seem to find the middle ground I need. The past couple days have been a bit better, though, so maybe I've found the magic spot. Here's hoping!
Sort of Recs
BBC Radio is doing new Rumpole with Benedict Cumberbatch! I so very much love Rumpole. I wish they'd bring back Timothy West for the back-and-forth between older and younger Rumpoles that they mentioned, but I'm not holding my breath on that and will take whatever Rumpole they can give me. Anywho, the first two of the four new episodes have aired already and are on iPlayer. I liked the second a bit more than the first but wouldn't put either as best or worst Rumpole episodes of all time. Middle-of-the-pack Rumpole is still pretty good, though.
I've been in love with Good Tickle Brain, a mostly Shakespeare Webcomic for a while now. The creator posts a few times a week and recently opened an online store with tshirts, books, and the like. I bought a Complete Works of Shakespeare shirt on the day she opened the shop and the next day received an email saying that when she went to the post office to ship everything in the first round of orders, she found that actual shipping was cheaper than the automatically calculated online amount so she'd be adjusting that for the future and refunding a couple bucks or so to everyone who ordered in the first round. I thought that was pretty awesome. So if you like Shakespeare, you should read her webcomic and if you like what she does and want to buy some stuff then she'll be awesome about that, too.
In other Shakespeare not-really-news, several years ago I bought a CD audio version of a stage production of Othello. In my mind, it's always been Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello, Ewan McGregor as Iago, and a bunch of other people I didn't recognize. I listened to it when I first bought it back in like 2008 and then listened to it again a couple years later but haven't listened to it again since even though I remember really liking it. Just too much new stuff, I guess. I recently found out that the "bunch of other people I didn't recognize" included Tom Hiddleston as Cassio. So I listened to it last night and it's as good as I remember and it was kind of fun recognizing Hiddleston this time. I also realized as I listened that I knew another voice, that of Edward Bennett who played Roderigo here and who I knew previously from playing Laertes in Hamlet with David Tennant.
And in other "I'm behind the times" recs, I just read Octavia E. Butler's 1993 novel Parable of the Sower. Wow that thing is amazing and brilliant. It is a near-future take on an America in the grips of massive draughts thanks to climate change and the worst stuff that happens in the novel, and it gets pretty bad, is all so frighteningly plausible. There is a sequel, Parable of the Talents that isn't quite as good and isn't necessary so you can just read the one or read both if you really like the first and want to know more but I definitely recommend reading at least the first one.