Why are The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe so boring? Maybe if The Tempest had some cannibals and Robinson Crusoe was on a magical island...?
Trufax: Robinson Crusoe lives on the island 28 years WHICH IS ALSO THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT TAKES TO GET THROUGH THE BOOK!
I never got The Tempest until I saw it acted live.
My favorite bits are when Prospero goes all power-mad and scary, like when Ferdinand shows up and Prospero, while privately pleased that he and Miranda are starting to make goo-goo eyes at each other, decides to play anti-matchmaker and basically says "you're a liar and a spy and this whole island is mine so come here and let me make you my prisoner/slave"
And Ferdinand is like, "Um. NO."
And draws his sword.
And Prospero is like, "Bitch, please" and both paralyzes and mutes him with a flick of his fingers.
(Most classics/history lessons are rather far from boring the way I recap them. It cracks my little brother up. You should hear my version of the Trojan War.
("So we basically drew a line down the middle of the planet and said, 'This is OUR side of the world, and that is YOUR side of the world. Stay on your side, or else.")
It also loses a lot in type vs. in person because a) I talk reallyreallyreally fast b) there is a lot of hand gestures/facial expressions. And funny voices.
Everybody always talks about Helen of Troy and “the face that launched a thousand ships” But the whole thing is Paris’s fault. This is what you have to remember.
See when he was born he was abandoned on a hillside to be raised by shepherds because apparently someone prophesied that he would bring about the destruction of Troy. This happens an awful lot in Ancient Greece – Oedipus, Jason. You’d think people would eventually wise up and realize that maybe it’s a good idea to keep these potential timebombs around where you can keep an eye on him. I mean isn’t a lot less likely for the prophecy to come true if you keep the kid at home and remind him “Look, that’s Daddy. You *like* Daddy, remember? You certainly don’t want to wind up killing him, do you?”
Anyway, because Paris is off in the middle of nowhere being a shepherd instead of where he belongs in the walled city of Troy he is in the wrong place at the wrong time when three goddesses decide they want a mortal’s opinion. See, the goddesses are bored and fighting amongst themselves (this happens an awful lot, too) So they show up and ask Paris to decide which one of them is prettiest. And because they’re selfish and stupid and can’t leave well enough alone, they each throw in a bribe if he’ll pick them.
(Come to think of it, it REALLY is all the gods’ fault, but then, it usually is in these things.)
Hera, queen of the gods offers him power; Athena, goddess of Wisdom (and Arts and Crafts!), offers him intelligence and knowledge, and Aphrodite (who, really, already has an unfair advantage here, I mean, she’s the physical embodiment of the goddess of Love and Beauty!) offers him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.
Paris, being a normal teenage boy (who grew up in the middle of nowhere and is really, really bored of looking at sheep) ... and also kinda stupid (because, dude, everyone knows you don’t want to get in the middle of a catfight between NORMAL females, much less the all-powerful, immortal kind) naturally thinks the Most Beautiful Woman in the World is a totally awesome idea.
Unfortunately for Paris, and, really, the rest of the known world, but especially Troy, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World is already taken (would you expect any different?)
But this doesn’t bother Aphrodite or Paris and the next thing you know Helen and Paris are honeymooning in Troy. And her poor husband back at home gets his “Dear Menelaus” scroll and goes crying to his brother.
...
The beginning is clearly going to be rather exposition-heavy to explain the NINE YEARS-plus that have gone by before the story even starts. Which is about the time that Achilles gets mad and basically says “Fine! If you’re not going to play the way I like, I’m going to take my elite fighting troupes and go home!”
Blahblahblah, Athena and Hera are mad at Troy (hmm, can’t think why!) and so they keep helping out the Greeks while Aphrodite and some of the others keep cheating on the part of the Trojans. Then Aphrodite gets upset and pouts to Zeus all “Da-dee! It’s not fair! You always liked Athena best!”
And although this is true, since, unlike most of his children, Athena is relatively level-headed and normal and NOT bipolar, (that may be some of my own bias showing) and also because she has a special place in his heart ever since she sprung fully-formed from his forehead, wearing her helmet and carrying her spear (after all, he was able to skip all the diaper-changing and annoying teenage years with her!) - Zeus has by this time gotten fed up with this and just wants to get back to his nap, so he orders ALL the gods to leave the battle alone.
This of course, doesn’t keep them from continuing to cheat, because they’re the Ancient Greek gods and that’s just how they roll.
Many, many years ago we had a tape (yes, a CASSETTE tape!) called "10 Classics in 10 Minutes" which was recorded by John "MotorMouth" Moscovita. Recapped Moby Dick, Oliver Twist, Robin Hood, etc. in a humorous fashion. (For instance, a portion from Romeo and Juliet: "The famous balcony scene! Juliet's on the balcony! Romeo's in a bush! - 'O-Romeo!-Romeo!-Wherefore-art-thou-Romeo?' - They kiss a lot and the next thing you know? They're married. That's it for the love-story part - now it's time for the tragedy!")
I blame that tape for making me find the humorous recap in even dry, boring classics, history and science. The whole thing walked the line between truly appreciating great literature and carrying a wonderfully irreverent attitude to the ridiculous involved in much of the stories/characters.
I practically had it MEMORIZED! =)
His intros (spoken at normal speed in a dramatic, radio-announcer type voice were often among the funniest bits. (Intro to Gone With The Wind: "This great book stars Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh, and is the winner of ten Academy Awards")
He also did The Odyssey.
Which is where I got the "Athena, goddess of Wisdom (and Arts and Crafts!)..." bit from. (I honestly cannot think of her without that little parenthetical description popping up in my brain!)
Let's see if I can remember how the one-minute 'The Odyssey' began...
I know the intro closed with
"...so pretend it is 500 B.C.; ...that you are somewhere in Greece; ... and you Don't. Know How. To Read..."
[DEEP breath]
"After the Trojan War it was *fif-teen* years before Odysseus returned home where his wife, Penelope, was waiting, weaving, and fending off lots of muscle-bound Hercules-types.
Where WAS Odysseus all this time? Eating-baklava-with-a-beauty-named-Calypso-on-her-Mediterranean-island.
For *EIGHT YEARS*!!
That's how badly *HE* wanted to get home!...
...
Sadly, between moves and things, the tape is tucked away SOMEWHERE in a box.
But hey! you can hear for yourself how fast MotorMouth is! (I can't touch his speed of course, but I'm pretty good!)
Eliot Spencer("Leverage") is Shawn Spencer("Psych")'s older half-brother.
This is a ...mindboggling thought!
Shawn would be greatly impressed / incredibly terrified for his life by Eliot.
Eliot might be left longing for Parker on happy pills. (And resenting Hardison for making him actually GET some of Shawn's pop-culture references.)
Hmm, so I'm guessing that part of what led to Eliot's life of crime was resentment over a law-enforcement father who abandoned his own mother to have another family?
Actually, in my head, Henry and Eliot's mother had a drunken one-night-stand when Henry and his wife were arguing. Then, the woman shows up pregnant and he totally blows her off, and then Eliot shows up when he's twenty and Henry denies him, but Shawn goes off with him for a month and learns how to fight and most of those skills he has, and then he goes back home but they hang out once in a while, and then when Shawn gets shot while investigating, Eliot swings by and helps take care of him, and he and Henry are always arguing.
And then there's the other story where Shawn leaves Santa Barbra after getting Lassiter shot on accident and lives with Eliot for a while. When he goes back after three months, he gets kidnapped and sends Eliot an SOS, and Eliot has Hardison track him by the broken-bits of his phone.
In my head, all fiction takes place on pretty much the same vast multiverse.
You know?
I have come across a Leverage/Psych crossover ficlet.
In it Shawn and Gus were discussing the latter's attraction to Parker, which Shawn totally gets because a) Gus has always had a thing for dangerous women (including Pinky Tuscadero, according to canon!) and b) he had an inexplicable love for the movie 'Powder' - and "this chick" is "practically an albino!"
Hast thee e'er cast thine eyes upon TITUS ANDRONICUS, the play Da Bard horrified his audiences --who were down with Le Grand Guignol, fercryinoutloud -- with?
There's enough stuff you'd think Kripke and a batch of drunken FANGORIA fangirls wrote the damn thing.
I've never heard of that one. But I've read Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo&Juliet--and I could not get past Act I scene II of The Tempest. It was so boring.
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& to answer the first question...
Date: 2009-02-18 03:20 am (UTC)evil!serialkiller!winchesters
OBVIOUSLY YOU SHOULD WRITE BOTH. Ahem. You know you want to.
Re: & to answer the first question...
Date: 2009-02-18 04:18 am (UTC)Re: & to answer the first question...
Date: 2009-02-19 12:46 am (UTC)Ah hell, serial killers win everytime.
Re: & to answer the first question...
Date: 2009-02-19 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-18 03:25 am (UTC)Maybe if The Tempest had some cannibals and Robinson Crusoe was on a magical island...?
Trufax: Robinson Crusoe lives on the island 28 years WHICH IS ALSO THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT TAKES TO GET THROUGH THE BOOK!
I never got The Tempest until I saw it acted live.
My favorite bits are when Prospero goes all power-mad and scary, like when Ferdinand shows up and Prospero, while privately pleased that he and Miranda are starting to make goo-goo eyes at each other, decides to play anti-matchmaker and basically says "you're a liar and a spy and this whole island is mine so come here and let me make you my prisoner/slave"
And Ferdinand is like, "Um. NO."
And draws his sword.
And Prospero is like, "Bitch, please" and both paralyzes and mutes him with a flick of his fingers.
(Most classics/history lessons are rather far from boring the way I recap them. It cracks my little brother up. You should hear my version of the Trojan War.
Or the Monroe Doctrine for that matter.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-18 04:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-18 07:24 pm (UTC)The Monroe Doctrine is much easier to recap:
("So we basically drew a line down the middle of the planet and said, 'This is OUR side of the world, and that is YOUR side of the world. Stay on your side, or else.")
It also loses a lot in type vs. in person because a) I talk reallyreallyreally fast b) there is a lot of hand gestures/facial expressions. And funny voices.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-18 11:00 pm (UTC)An example of what it is like:
Date: 2009-02-18 07:41 pm (UTC)Everybody always talks about Helen of Troy and “the face that launched a thousand ships” But the whole thing is Paris’s fault. This is what you have to remember.
See when he was born he was abandoned on a hillside to be raised by shepherds because apparently someone prophesied that he would bring about the destruction of Troy. This happens an awful lot in Ancient Greece – Oedipus, Jason. You’d think people would eventually wise up and realize that maybe it’s a good idea to keep these potential timebombs around where you can keep an eye on him. I mean isn’t a lot less likely for the prophecy to come true if you keep the kid at home and remind him “Look, that’s Daddy. You *like* Daddy, remember? You certainly don’t want to wind up killing him, do you?”
Anyway, because Paris is off in the middle of nowhere being a shepherd instead of where he belongs in the walled city of Troy he is in the wrong place at the wrong time when three goddesses decide they want a mortal’s opinion. See, the goddesses are bored and fighting amongst themselves (this happens an awful lot, too) So they show up and ask Paris to decide which one of them is prettiest. And because they’re selfish and stupid and can’t leave well enough alone, they each throw in a bribe if he’ll pick them.
(Come to think of it, it REALLY is all the gods’ fault, but then, it usually is in these things.)
Hera, queen of the gods offers him power; Athena, goddess of Wisdom (and Arts and Crafts!), offers him intelligence and knowledge, and Aphrodite (who, really, already has an unfair advantage here, I mean, she’s the physical embodiment of the goddess of Love and Beauty!) offers him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.
Paris, being a normal teenage boy (who grew up in the middle of nowhere and is really, really bored of looking at sheep) ... and also kinda stupid (because, dude, everyone knows you don’t want to get in the middle of a catfight between NORMAL females, much less the all-powerful, immortal kind) naturally thinks the Most Beautiful Woman in the World is a totally awesome idea.
Unfortunately for Paris, and, really, the rest of the known world, but especially Troy, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World is already taken (would you expect any different?)
But this doesn’t bother Aphrodite or Paris and the next thing you know Helen and Paris are honeymooning in Troy. And her poor husband back at home gets his “Dear Menelaus” scroll and goes crying to his brother.
...
The beginning is clearly going to be rather exposition-heavy to explain the NINE YEARS-plus that have gone by before the story even starts. Which is about the time that Achilles gets mad and basically says “Fine! If you’re not going to play the way I like, I’m going to take my elite fighting troupes and go home!”
Blahblahblah, Athena and Hera are mad at Troy (hmm, can’t think why!) and so they keep helping out the Greeks while Aphrodite and some of the others keep cheating on the part of the Trojans. Then Aphrodite gets upset and pouts to Zeus all “Da-dee! It’s not fair! You always liked Athena best!”
And although this is true, since, unlike most of his children, Athena is relatively level-headed and normal and NOT bipolar, (that may be some of my own bias showing) and also because she has a special place in his heart ever since she sprung fully-formed from his forehead, wearing her helmet and carrying her spear (after all, he was able to skip all the diaper-changing and annoying teenage years with her!) - Zeus has by this time gotten fed up with this and just wants to get back to his nap, so he orders ALL the gods to leave the battle alone.
This of course, doesn’t keep them from continuing to cheat, because they’re the Ancient Greek gods and that’s just how they roll.
Re: An example of what it is like:
Date: 2009-02-18 11:01 pm (UTC)Re: An example of what it is like:
Date: 2009-02-19 10:00 pm (UTC)Many, many years ago we had a tape (yes, a CASSETTE tape!) called "10 Classics in 10 Minutes" which was recorded by John "MotorMouth" Moscovita. Recapped Moby Dick, Oliver Twist, Robin Hood, etc. in a humorous fashion. (For instance, a portion from Romeo and Juliet: "The famous balcony scene! Juliet's on the balcony! Romeo's in a bush! - 'O-Romeo!-Romeo!-Wherefore-art-thou-Romeo?' - They kiss a lot and the next thing you know? They're married. That's it for the love-story part - now it's time for the tragedy!")
I blame that tape for making me find the humorous recap in even dry, boring classics, history and science. The whole thing walked the line between truly appreciating great literature and carrying a wonderfully irreverent attitude to the ridiculous involved in much of the stories/characters.
I practically had it MEMORIZED! =)
His intros (spoken at normal speed in a dramatic, radio-announcer type voice were often among the funniest bits. (Intro to Gone With The Wind: "This great book stars Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh, and is the winner of ten Academy Awards")
He also did The Odyssey.
Which is where I got the "Athena, goddess of Wisdom (and Arts and Crafts!)..." bit from. (I honestly cannot think of her without that little parenthetical description popping up in my brain!)
Let's see if I can remember how the one-minute 'The Odyssey' began...
I know the intro closed with
"...so pretend it is 500 B.C.;
...that you are somewhere in Greece;
... and you
Don't.
Know How.
To Read..."
[DEEP breath]
"After the Trojan War it was *fif-teen* years before Odysseus returned home where his wife, Penelope, was waiting, weaving, and fending off lots of muscle-bound Hercules-types.
Where WAS Odysseus all this time? Eating-baklava-with-a-beauty-named-Calypso-on-her-Mediterranean-island.
For *EIGHT YEARS*!!
That's how badly *HE* wanted to get home!...
...
Sadly, between moves and things, the tape is tucked away SOMEWHERE in a box.
But hey! you can hear for yourself how fast MotorMouth is! (I can't touch his speed of course, but I'm pretty good!)
Also
Date: 2009-02-18 03:30 am (UTC)This is a ...mindboggling thought!
Shawn would be greatly impressed / incredibly terrified for his life by Eliot.
Eliot might be left longing for Parker on happy pills. (And resenting Hardison for making him actually GET some of Shawn's pop-culture references.)
Hmm, so I'm guessing that part of what led to Eliot's life of crime was resentment over a law-enforcement father who abandoned his own mother to have another family?
Re: Also
Date: 2009-02-18 04:16 am (UTC)And then there's the other story where Shawn leaves Santa Barbra after getting Lassiter shot on accident and lives with Eliot for a while. When he goes back after three months, he gets kidnapped and sends Eliot an SOS, and Eliot has Hardison track him by the broken-bits of his phone.
I have a lot of time on my hands.
Re: Also
Date: 2009-02-19 10:17 pm (UTC)I love crossovers.
I love just the CONCEPT of crossovers.
In my head, all fiction takes place on pretty much the same vast multiverse.
You know?
I have come across a Leverage/Psych crossover ficlet.
In it Shawn and Gus were discussing the latter's attraction to Parker, which Shawn totally gets because a) Gus has always had a thing for dangerous women (including Pinky Tuscadero, according to canon!) and b) he had an inexplicable love for the movie 'Powder' - and "this chick" is "practically an albino!"
hee.
Re: Also
Date: 2009-02-19 10:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-18 05:49 am (UTC)There's enough stuff you'd think Kripke and a batch of drunken FANGORIA fangirls wrote the damn thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-18 01:47 pm (UTC)