Wednesday, November 22. William Shakespeare's Thought For The Day:

[Aristus]

"He was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior."

The Taming Of The Shrew, Act III, Scene 2, Lines 12-13.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear Aristus!

Alas, I don't know who this guy is! :cry:

If you would tell me, then I can (and will) comment...

Thanks, sweetie........:hug:

[Aristus]

4. This is Michael Richards, who played Kramer on the TV show "Seinfeld".

He's not necessarily a right-winger, but the other day, a black guy was heckling Richard's stand-up act, and Richards just went ber-ZERK!He went off on a totally racist, misanthropic rant right there on the stage. Complete meltdown. He can probably kiss what's left of his career goodbye.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Oh, I heard about that! Thanks!

I don't watch the show....I'm so out of the loop!

And now that I know who he is, I can say...

You nailed him perfectly...as always!

Will you be taking tomorrow off? I will look for you, of course....

But I wouldn't blame you for resting!



:yourock: :hug:

[Aristus]

7. You know, CalPeg, I hadn't even thought about it. Thanks for the reminder.

If I can find a good quote for Thanksgiving, I'll post WSTFTD. If not, I'll take the day off. How's that?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. That sounds great!

Either way, you'll be doing what you want to! :pals:

[Haole Girl]

2. I like this one...

Shakespeare was amazing...so much truth in just a few words! Thank you for continuing to do this...I'm curious...did you study Shakespeare a lot in school?

[Aristus]

6. Actually, KC2, in school, I didn't think too much of Shakespeare's stuff.

We did "Julius Caesar" and "MacBeth" in English class, like everyone else. I've come to the realization as to why these two plays are chosen more often than any others in order to teach Shakespeare to high school kids. They are both short plays (for Shakespeare, anyway), and "Julius Caesar" has no sex in it. None at all. Good for teachers who want to avoid a class full of snickering students. "MacBeth" is also short; the shortest of the tragedies. And while there are some fairly steamy scenes between MacBeth and Lady McB where she's seducing him into killing Duncan, teachers can explain it away because Lady McB is evil. Anyway, because of the cautious ways teachers choose to teach him, I found Shakespeare to be a real yawner.

My conversion to the true faith, as it were, came when Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" was released on video. I was in the Army at the time. A friend of mine got the video and said "Come on, you have GOT to watch this!" He put it on the TV in the barracks day-room, and KC2, you never saw such a thing: A whole roomful of tough, macho Army tankers watching and enjoying Shakespeare...and UNDERSTANDING it. That did it for me. I've been a Shakespeare fan ever since.

[Haole Girl]

8. What a story!

I love it...I could just picture it in my mind! :hi:

[Aristus]

9. Well, if nothing else, it should serve to illustrate the notion that you should

see Shakespeare being performed, not read it, or listen to it being read. Makes a world of difference.

[YankeyMCC]

11. Nice story

and I'll add my praise, you always pull out the right quote, I look forward to these everyday.

However, I have to say that I tried watching that Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" just a couple of months ago and I'm surprise to hear someone use it as an example of being able to Understand Shakespeare.

I'm a fan of Branagh's and I generally like Shakespeare (Our teaching in Junior High took us to some local plays which were good..at least I thought so :) ) though I'm no expert by any stretch.

So when I stumbled across that version of "Henry V", which I hadn't even known existed, one day I was excited but I didn't make it more than 20 mins into it. I couldn't understand half of the words they spoke. It was all delivered with passion but I simply could not understand their speech.

[Aristus]

12. Thanks for the kind words about WSTFTD, YankeyMCC. As far as "Henry V" goes,

the first scene where the royal advisors a parsing the Salic Law and trying to predict what Henry will do can be a little tedious. After that, though, the film really takes off.

[SeattleGirl]

3. Damn, but you are good, Aristus!

:thumbsup: