wednesday reads
What I've recently finished reading:
Text: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne. I pretty much agree completely with Trin's (spoilery) review. This is a delightful bit of tropey (if occasionally eye-roll-inducing) fanfic that brings the characters of the original series back together to reconcile their issues in a plausible and pleasing way, and takes the next generation kids from mere names in an epilogue to real (and wonderful) people. Scorpius is the most adorkable thing ever, I totally ship Scorpius/Albus, and I am pretty sure the ending is pointing at OT3 Rose/Scorpius Albus which I'm entirely on board for. Also, as I said last week: TIME TRAVEL. Time travel with CONSEQUENCES. I love time travel!
Some of the scenes struck me as ludicrous, but maybe that's the difference between reading a play and seeing it performed. At any rate, I would be interested in seeing this on the stage - if only to see how they manage chairs flying around the room and people turning into other people via polyjuice, and other bits of the magic implied in the stage directions.
Audio (sort of): Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. This is 'sort of' because the audio download from the library also came with a pdf download of the annotated libretto. Which was necessary, because the last 'chapter' of the audiobook is Miranda reading his libretto annotations, one after another, which is completely meaningless on its own.
The audio chapters about the production are very well organized, and manage to go simultaneously through the timeline of the show's production, and the sequence of songs in the production, while also telling various tidbits about the people involved. As I'm neither a hip-hop music fan nor a general NYC musical theater fan, I wasn't particularly interested in the stories about the people. To me, the most interesting parts were about the craft: the decision to use a rotating stage, the reactions of Chernow to the various liberties taken with history to make a stronger story, the songs that were cut from the production. I feel lucky that I saw the show this past spring, so I could connect what was discussed in the book to what I saw on stage.
The pdf of the libretto is gorgeous, no lie. However, the annotations (while interesting) felt to me like only tiny little glimpses of what lies beneath the surface of the lyrics, probably because while endlessly listening to the album last fall I also delightedly read the annotations at genius.com, which cover so much more than in this book. I mean, obviously the annotations here are the work of Miranda directly, while others are just others' interpretations, on a scale of 'obvious' to 'obscure'. But there is so much more on the genius.com site, and most of what's in these annotations is covered there.
What I've recently given up on reading: Abandoned The Death of the Necromancer at 40%, and started Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr but gave up at 10%. I don't know if it's me or these books, but I am feeling too restless to continue with things that don't grab me.
What I'm currently reading: Women Heroes of the American Revolution by Susan Casey, which I got from the University of Chicago Press's monthly free ebook offering. This is a collection of short biographical essays written for perhaps a middle-school/high-school audience (which I didn't realize when I started). Really only scratching the surface of what could be written about these women, but interesting so far in a pop-history way.
I'm also listening to the third part of "Kings of Kings", the Dan Carlin Hardcore History podcast series on the Achaemenid Persian Empire. This one is about Xerxes.
What I'm reading next: I think I need to stop trying to find gems among the random stuff I already have, and actually go to the library (or the library website) and find something really compelling. I dunno.
While I'm sort of on the subject of Hamilton, I wanted to mention that last night I went to see a Chautauqua presentation by Mr. James Madison - or rather, Dr. Bill Worley, a history professor who dresses up in Colonial rig and delivers a monologue about his work in crafting the Federalist Papers and Bill of Rights, then takes questions from the audience, first in character and then afterward as himself discussing the character of Madison. He was excellent, really, especially when he complained about Hamilton's financial plan, or when he answered my question about political parties (in character; he talked about the contentiousness of the election of 1800, and about how factions naturally arose from competing economic interests, but that this must result in compromise and consideration, not in refusal to negotiate). He also did a good job of talking about slavery (in character, as Madison the slave-owner; he mentioned Henry Clay's proposal to buy all the slaves and resettle them in Africa) and the 2nd Amendment (a question asked during the final period, talking as himself but also speculating on how Madison might have seen it; mostly he talked about state militias and the formation of the National Guard in 1898 as being a way to dissolve them, thus making the 'militia' portion of the amendment obsolete).
BTW if your community does Chautauqua, these in-character presentations are really enjoyable. A few years back I saw "Alexander Hamilton" - long before the current craze!
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
Text: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne. I pretty much agree completely with Trin's (spoilery) review. This is a delightful bit of tropey (if occasionally eye-roll-inducing) fanfic that brings the characters of the original series back together to reconcile their issues in a plausible and pleasing way, and takes the next generation kids from mere names in an epilogue to real (and wonderful) people. Scorpius is the most adorkable thing ever, I totally ship Scorpius/Albus, and I am pretty sure the ending is pointing at OT3 Rose/Scorpius Albus which I'm entirely on board for. Also, as I said last week: TIME TRAVEL. Time travel with CONSEQUENCES. I love time travel!
Some of the scenes struck me as ludicrous, but maybe that's the difference between reading a play and seeing it performed. At any rate, I would be interested in seeing this on the stage - if only to see how they manage chairs flying around the room and people turning into other people via polyjuice, and other bits of the magic implied in the stage directions.
Audio (sort of): Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. This is 'sort of' because the audio download from the library also came with a pdf download of the annotated libretto. Which was necessary, because the last 'chapter' of the audiobook is Miranda reading his libretto annotations, one after another, which is completely meaningless on its own.
The audio chapters about the production are very well organized, and manage to go simultaneously through the timeline of the show's production, and the sequence of songs in the production, while also telling various tidbits about the people involved. As I'm neither a hip-hop music fan nor a general NYC musical theater fan, I wasn't particularly interested in the stories about the people. To me, the most interesting parts were about the craft: the decision to use a rotating stage, the reactions of Chernow to the various liberties taken with history to make a stronger story, the songs that were cut from the production. I feel lucky that I saw the show this past spring, so I could connect what was discussed in the book to what I saw on stage.
The pdf of the libretto is gorgeous, no lie. However, the annotations (while interesting) felt to me like only tiny little glimpses of what lies beneath the surface of the lyrics, probably because while endlessly listening to the album last fall I also delightedly read the annotations at genius.com, which cover so much more than in this book. I mean, obviously the annotations here are the work of Miranda directly, while others are just others' interpretations, on a scale of 'obvious' to 'obscure'. But there is so much more on the genius.com site, and most of what's in these annotations is covered there.
What I've recently given up on reading: Abandoned The Death of the Necromancer at 40%, and started Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr but gave up at 10%. I don't know if it's me or these books, but I am feeling too restless to continue with things that don't grab me.
What I'm currently reading: Women Heroes of the American Revolution by Susan Casey, which I got from the University of Chicago Press's monthly free ebook offering. This is a collection of short biographical essays written for perhaps a middle-school/high-school audience (which I didn't realize when I started). Really only scratching the surface of what could be written about these women, but interesting so far in a pop-history way.
I'm also listening to the third part of "Kings of Kings", the Dan Carlin Hardcore History podcast series on the Achaemenid Persian Empire. This one is about Xerxes.
What I'm reading next: I think I need to stop trying to find gems among the random stuff I already have, and actually go to the library (or the library website) and find something really compelling. I dunno.
While I'm sort of on the subject of Hamilton, I wanted to mention that last night I went to see a Chautauqua presentation by Mr. James Madison - or rather, Dr. Bill Worley, a history professor who dresses up in Colonial rig and delivers a monologue about his work in crafting the Federalist Papers and Bill of Rights, then takes questions from the audience, first in character and then afterward as himself discussing the character of Madison. He was excellent, really, especially when he complained about Hamilton's financial plan, or when he answered my question about political parties (in character; he talked about the contentiousness of the election of 1800, and about how factions naturally arose from competing economic interests, but that this must result in compromise and consideration, not in refusal to negotiate). He also did a good job of talking about slavery (in character, as Madison the slave-owner; he mentioned Henry Clay's proposal to buy all the slaves and resettle them in Africa) and the 2nd Amendment (a question asked during the final period, talking as himself but also speculating on how Madison might have seen it; mostly he talked about state militias and the formation of the National Guard in 1898 as being a way to dissolve them, thus making the 'militia' portion of the amendment obsolete).
BTW if your community does Chautauqua, these in-character presentations are really enjoyable. A few years back I saw "Alexander Hamilton" - long before the current craze!
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth