Present Imperfect

Way Better Than Skunks

August 28, 2003

Well, despite how prolific I was last week, I'm afraid I've only managed to blog today. And what with my mother coming to town this evening and the long weekend approaching, this will probably be the only entry for the week. Oh well.

Too bad, then, that I don't really have anything to say. I will, however, share this article from the good ol' NYT today. It's about wild boars invading Berlin and turning up people's gardens...and football pitches. I guess they're considered pests there, but just look at 'em! Awwwww! Baby boars! They're all stripey!

I'm currently reading Koushun Takami's Battle Royale. It's easily the goriest book I have ever read. The translation is a little odd in spots, too. Still, I can't seem to put it down.

American Idolatry

August 21, 2003

You know, the thing I find most ridiculous about this whole Alabama courthouse ten commandments thing is that all those people kneeling and praying in front of the monument are essentially breaking the second commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."

It's tantamount to idol worship, which is part of what Martin Luther condemned when he kicked off the reformation in the first place. I mean, I know they're probably Baptists, but they're still protestants, right?

Normally, I just take the "separation of church and state" stance, which I'm sure is what the Supreme Court will cite when it tells justice Roy Moore exactly where he can stick his monument. But this argument is much sweeter, as it calls attention to the utter hypocrisy exhibited by these "Christians" who would rather spend their time genuflecting in front of a hunk of rock than helping to make their community a better place.

Which is not to say that I myself am doing anything to make my community a better place, but at least I'm not bawling about the ten commandments and claiming that "the acknowledgment of God as the moral foundation of law in this nation is being hidden from us."

Moore is even willing to cost the state of Alabama $5,000 a day just to indulge his criminal folly. Jerkface. I hope that money will go to a good cause, at least.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear

August 19, 2003

Finding the underwear mines tiresome once again today (I'm getting lace lung!), I read The New York Times at lunch and found this article about the Folger Shakespeare Library's new exhibit called "Fakes, Forgeries and Facsimiles."

The bit that interested me most was this:

What may become the most controversial exhibit in the show is a portrait bought in 1931 by Folger's widow, Emily. The Folger book "Infinite Variety" (2002) says she probably thought it was a portrait of Shakespeare. It is known as the Ashbourne, and it has had a long and complicated restoration by the Folger over the last several decades. Alongside the portrait the results a full-size radiograph made last year by the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa shows what is now beneath the surface, and the institute's report is on display.

Also included with this exhibit is an article published in Scientific American in 1940 that, one way or another, changed minds about the Ashbourne forever. Using X-rays, Charles W. Barrell, a photo expert, found images under the surface paint that no one knew were there and, based on his findings, determined that the figure in the portrait was Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, who was then and is still the most popular challenger for the authorship of the Shakespeare canon. An exhibit label says this article is "now discredited."

Tantalizingly, the article says nothing else about the Canadian Conservation Institute's report and I can't find it on the Web. I'm guessing it's the assertion that the portrait is really of some guy named Hugh Hamersley.

I did find this article in the Guardian about the CCI's investigation of a Canadian family's alleged Shakespeare portrait, though.

Anyway, the point is that the NYT article got me thinking about the whole Shakespeare authorship question. For me, it's a sort of a non-issue. The texts are rich enough, and trying to discover who wrote them simply takes valuable time away from reading them...over and over and over again.

The anti-Stratford camp takes a different view of this entirely, of course. The Shakespeare Fellowship explains that "First, the topic is of interest from the point of view of intellectual history. Does it matter that for more than two hundred years students have been memorizing a point of view which now seems, to an increasing number of informed scholars, to have been false? It would certainly seem so! To say that the subject does not matter is merely to follow the ostrich and bury one's head in the sand."

And, with the kind of off-putting statement that makes people dismiss such theories as nothing more than typical English intellectual snobbery, The De Vere Society insists that the man from Stratford could not possibly have written the Shakespeare canon because: "Q. The playwright was obviously a person of great education. What documentary evidence is there that Shakspere of Stratford had any education at any level? A. None. The records from Stratford Grammar School for the period are lost. He did not attend Oxford or Cambridge or the Inns of Court." De Vere did attend these venerable institutions, so clearly, he is intelligent enough to have written the plays and poems. I knew an Oxford-educated guy who wore sweatpants in public. So, whatever.

Then there's The Shakespeare Oxford Society, which takes great pride in noting that Derek Jacobi believes De Vere is the "real" Shakespeare. After all, the man is an actor.

It's all very interesting, and I guess if someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, it probably was De Vere. I can't buy the Marlowe-faked-his-own-death theory, but in the end, it doesn't matter.

No, really, it doesn't.

Those Days at the End of the Week

August 18, 2003

I didn't do anything this weekend.

Well, I went to see Whale Rider at the ArcLight on Saturday. I got free popcorn, because I am an ArcLight member. Jealous?

Anyway, I also read some books. And I listened to the neighbors packing up their stuff because they're moving into a house and we're moving into their way better apartment. (Way better than our apartment, not way better than their house...I assume.) I also went grocery shopping, which I hate, and I forgot to take back eight milk bottles. That's eight free dollars. I always forget.

The Saddest Baby-G

August 12, 2003

Oh, woe is me. I need a new watch. I love my old watch, but the Indiglo has died and the band is all gross and broken and it's held together by a rubber band. But see, holding things together with rubber bands is very me. When I still had ye olde Chevy Lumina (so sexy), the turn signal broke and for eight months I just manually flicked it on and off when I wanted to make a turn. My work computer monitor is propped up on the Tampa, Florida yellow pages. When shoestrings break, I tie them back together. I have repaired glasses with Band Aids and paper clips.

Now, all this is not to say that I'm particularly cheap. In fact, I tend to spend way too much money. Well, not WAY too much money, or I'd still have the dreaded credit card debt, but I'm always blowing my budget a bit.

Neither does it cast me as a sort of office supply-savvy MacGyver. (Thank goodness my mother shops for Christmas stocking stuffers at Staples every year. You can never have too many AA batteries or push pins. Oh wait, yes you can.)

No, my rubber band reliance is born out of sheer laziness, like so many of my other fanciful quirks, such as not actually doing anything important with my life.

Bookwise, I have moved on to the third book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series: The Well of Lost Plots. So far, this one isn't quite as thrilling as the others, but it's rather more dark and foreboding. It's also more fantastical. I believe there's a secret page on Fforde's site you can access by entering information from the book, but I haven't tried it yet. It's that kind of thing that makes Fforde a genius, though. And a funny, seemingly down-to-earth, well-read, sarcastic genius at that.

I think I'd like to take up horseback riding.

Am I the Only One Who Saw "Exotica?"

August 05, 2003

Last night Eric and I went to see a burlesque show put on by members of Suicide Girls, and it totally sucked. When will people learn that sequined pasties do not a burlesque show make? Where are the theatrics? Where are the cohesive themes? Where are the fabulous costumes? Immediately after the show, I called Jeremy and told him we really need to get on the ball with this high-class strip act we keep fake talking about.

I mean, Dita and the Pussycat Dolls have largely cornered the market on the "retro" burlesque show, but who says the Los Angeles metro area couldn't use a post-modern burlesque show? A vampire act! A space act! A Victor/Victoria-style "is she or isn't she?" act! A catholic school girl act...with a twist (the nun gets naked)! I mean, come ON people! If you're just going to gyrate around to a Nine Inch Nails song, get a fucking job at Jumbo's. This is ART.