My monthlydiaryday post
I've not been much good at updating this comm of late, but Friday was quite a fun day. This is what I posted - mostly under a cut to spare you.
Really? 2018???? I have never really adjusted to the new millennium, and now its second decade is nearly over.
Up earlier than usual as my car had to go in for its MOT and service, which involved both of us going over to the dealers' the other side of Leamington Spa, and then back in Dave's. On the way we stopped at the mega-Sainsbury's round the corner from the car place, to buy food and so I could trawl what's left of the children's stuff in the sale. Only the bigger branches do clothes, and it's not usually worth the hassle to go over that way, so this was a nice opportunity to pick up a few things for Rhiannon, all half-price or better. A sweet top and leggings, a fluffy fleecy jacket and cool jeans with stars on.
Rhiannon cares very little about what she wears, but she'll look adorable (as she would in a paper bag, frankly) and F will, I hope, be pleased.
(Bloody LJ just swallowed a long paragraph. WHY?)
I watched some TV while we consumed much-needed coffee on getting home; my secret vice is crafting TV channels, especially the morning-only Sewing Quarter, which, you may be amazed to learn, deals only with fabric, textiles and sewing crafts. The presenters are hilariously inept, often apparently more interested in talking to the producers they, but not we, can hear on their headphones than addressing their audience. A little goes a long way, however, so I then turned to planning a trip to Nottingham next week to see the County Archives and, I hope, to garner useful material on productions of Shakespeare in the mid-60s there.
Dave sneakily ate some lunch. I forgot, which was silly. Then it was off to Stratford in Dave's (battered, elderly) car where he strolled around town and bought a shirt in the Rohan sale. He wears almost entirely that brand since retiring.
Meanwhile I went into the Shakespeare Institute for a "Sonnet Workshop". Will Sutton, , an SI alumnus, came in to run a two-hour session. In the first hour as a group we looked at one of my long-time favourites, Sonnet 73, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold..." Then we moved into small groups to pick one to work on and present as a performance. Three of us chose Sonnet 123:
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past;
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by that continual haste.
This I do vow, and this shall ever be:
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.
We played around with different ways of doing it, from a word each, a line each, a punctuation block each, before settling on a dynamic way to project the poem, which is a typical Shakespeare boast - time can't change me. We weren't entirely sure about the pyramids, mind you.
Each group performed to the others, then the session was rounded off with three professional performers - Will and two major celebrities in our (granted, fairly niche) field, the Sonnet Man (Devon Glover):
and Ben Crystal (son of the incredibly eminent David Crystal) who has made a career of performing Shakespeare in the closest we can get to the accent of the period:
Here he is with his father at the Globe, talking about OP, with examples:
Ben performed Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee...". It was lovely, and the afternoon was enormous fun. It's always great to do this sort of thing with other people who are just as geekish about the poems. Will said he'd loved working with people who didn't need iambic pentameter explaining to them, and who could tell the difference between poetry and prose!
They posed with the Boss afterwards:
Dave attracted my attention by waving through the window, as we went on talking long after we were supposed to have finished. We went straight to the garage and collected (and paid for - ouch) my car and then went home.
We didn't do a lot in the evening, other than watch TV - QI and "Silly boys in fancy cars"=Amazon's Top GearThe Grand Tour, which was entertaining enough.
Just to catch up, the Wednesday before we went down to see F. Compulsory Rhiannon photos:
And on Thursday there was the 25th anniversary of the SI play-reading sessions, so there was fizzy wine, cake, Professor Sir Stanley Wells (another niche megastar!) and, as we did The Revenger's Tragedy, much perverted murder. I do love Early Modern plays!
Really? 2018???? I have never really adjusted to the new millennium, and now its second decade is nearly over.
Up earlier than usual as my car had to go in for its MOT and service, which involved both of us going over to the dealers' the other side of Leamington Spa, and then back in Dave's. On the way we stopped at the mega-Sainsbury's round the corner from the car place, to buy food and so I could trawl what's left of the children's stuff in the sale. Only the bigger branches do clothes, and it's not usually worth the hassle to go over that way, so this was a nice opportunity to pick up a few things for Rhiannon, all half-price or better. A sweet top and leggings, a fluffy fleecy jacket and cool jeans with stars on.
Rhiannon cares very little about what she wears, but she'll look adorable (as she would in a paper bag, frankly) and F will, I hope, be pleased.
(Bloody LJ just swallowed a long paragraph. WHY?)
I watched some TV while we consumed much-needed coffee on getting home; my secret vice is crafting TV channels, especially the morning-only Sewing Quarter, which, you may be amazed to learn, deals only with fabric, textiles and sewing crafts. The presenters are hilariously inept, often apparently more interested in talking to the producers they, but not we, can hear on their headphones than addressing their audience. A little goes a long way, however, so I then turned to planning a trip to Nottingham next week to see the County Archives and, I hope, to garner useful material on productions of Shakespeare in the mid-60s there.
Dave sneakily ate some lunch. I forgot, which was silly. Then it was off to Stratford in Dave's (battered, elderly) car where he strolled around town and bought a shirt in the Rohan sale. He wears almost entirely that brand since retiring.
Meanwhile I went into the Shakespeare Institute for a "Sonnet Workshop". Will Sutton, , an SI alumnus, came in to run a two-hour session. In the first hour as a group we looked at one of my long-time favourites, Sonnet 73, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold..." Then we moved into small groups to pick one to work on and present as a performance. Three of us chose Sonnet 123:
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past;
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by that continual haste.
This I do vow, and this shall ever be:
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.
We played around with different ways of doing it, from a word each, a line each, a punctuation block each, before settling on a dynamic way to project the poem, which is a typical Shakespeare boast - time can't change me. We weren't entirely sure about the pyramids, mind you.
Each group performed to the others, then the session was rounded off with three professional performers - Will and two major celebrities in our (granted, fairly niche) field, the Sonnet Man (Devon Glover):
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
and Ben Crystal (son of the incredibly eminent David Crystal) who has made a career of performing Shakespeare in the closest we can get to the accent of the period:
Click to viewHere he is with his father at the Globe, talking about OP, with examples:
Ben performed Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee...". It was lovely, and the afternoon was enormous fun. It's always great to do this sort of thing with other people who are just as geekish about the poems. Will said he'd loved working with people who didn't need iambic pentameter explaining to them, and who could tell the difference between poetry and prose!
They posed with the Boss afterwards:
Dave attracted my attention by waving through the window, as we went on talking long after we were supposed to have finished. We went straight to the garage and collected (and paid for - ouch) my car and then went home.
We didn't do a lot in the evening, other than watch TV - QI and "Silly boys in fancy cars"=Amazon's Top GearThe Grand Tour, which was entertaining enough.
Just to catch up, the Wednesday before we went down to see F. Compulsory Rhiannon photos:
And on Thursday there was the 25th anniversary of the SI play-reading sessions, so there was fizzy wine, cake, Professor Sir Stanley Wells (another niche megastar!) and, as we did The Revenger's Tragedy, much perverted murder. I do love Early Modern plays!