Greer Gilman's Blog, page 37

Struts & frets

So the loveliest little thing happened at Vericon.  They traditionally finish up with an auction for charity, always hilarious, and full of delightful serious or silly things I can't afford to bid for, as they’re driven up into the stratosphere within minutes.  This year Thrud donated a region-free boxed set of the BBC history plays from the early 80s (RII, 1 & 2 HIV, HV, & RIII), plus a very rare Korean (!) set of of the Henry VIs.  I dropped out pretty early, as the bids had overshot my means—and an ad hoc consortium of writers and students spontaneously bid for it on my behalf, and presented it to me.  I was so touched.  Thank you, you kind people.

On the principle that temptation avoided means money saved for other extravagances, I then went and ordered the Globe set of all their filmed productions to date—21 discs + book!—at a fraction of what they'd cost individually.  I was afraid they'd come to their senses and quadruple the price.

That box just came, and I’ve been gloating quietly, and planning a great Shakesfest with my old friend the Culture Vulture.

Looking at my grand list of Shakespeare on DVD, I'm quickened:   so close to filling in the gaps.  Sadly, the full BBC set is Region 2, and the boxlets for New Atlanteans don’t include their Dutch-painting Cymbeline with Helen Mirren or their Pericles.  Damn it.  I don’t own an Othello or a Coriolanus either, I blush to say.  I really liked the NTLive productions of those (Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear; Tom Hiddleston), but the National Theatre is unlikely to release them on disc:  they’re jealous of their rights.  They’ve done some absolutely stunning things over the years, and I would buy the hell out of them, if they gave me half a chance.  Shockingly, I don’t own a Lear.   I've seen some brave performances over the years, but never the one true production.  On the whole, I’d like to find the old black-and-white Scofield film—Jack MacGowran was a wonderful Fool.  And I suppose I ought to acquire a Merchant of Venice and a Measure for Measure—any recommendations?  Also missing:  Troilus and Cressida and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

I’d love to get my hands on Prospero’s Books, but the transfer is universally damned as appalling.

And I adore embedded Shakespeare:  that Restoration Othello in Stage Beauty, as stylized as kabuki; that desperately off-kilter Hamlet driving In the Bleak Midwinter; that travestied Romeo & Juliet in Nicholas Nickleby; all of Slings & Arrows.  I so wish the full plays had been filmed (along with that Mikado in Topsy-Turvy—Martin Savage’s Koko is a thing of beauty).  Any others I've missed?

What Shakespeare on film do you absolutely love?  Anathematize?

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Conversation

My very local Vericon has given me a perfectly fabulous schedule this weekend.

Friday:
7-8 PM: Writing Fast and Slow
"There are nine and sixty ways of creating tribal lays, and every single one of them is right!" If you look at writing advice books you'd think there was only one true way to do it, but here we have a panel whose writing methods are extremely different from each other.
Greer Gilman, Pamela Dean, Wesley Chu. Moderator: Jo Walton

8-9 PM: Fantasy Worlds that Feel Real
Worlds are complex and fascinating -- how do you integrate the fantastic with imagined history, culture, economics, religion, folklore, and everything else to come up with a world that feels solid and magical at the same time?
Fran Wilde, Pamela Dean, Greer Gilman. Moderator: Seth Dickinson

Saturday:
10-11: Reading

2:30-3 Book Signing

5-6 PM: What can we learn from Shakespeare?
Language, pacing, worldbuilding -- Shakespeare has it all. But Shakespeare is so great, can we find our own ways to be influenced by him and not get swallowed up?
Jo Walton, Pamela Dean, Greer Gilman. Moderator: Ada Palmer

Sunday:
10-11 AM: Awards -- What Difference Do They Make?
People talk about the importance of awards in the field, but are they just a nice sign of appreciation or do they really make any difference to your career? Our panelists have won enough that they ought to know.
Ann Leckie, Wesley Chu, Greer Gilman. Moderator: John Chu

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"This is the strangers' case..." still

Harriet Walter speaks Shakespeare's lines on refugees.



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Prospero's cell

As I'd hoped, the Wanamaker is a cabinet of wonders, box within box.




And tiny:  negothick 's seat was in the opposite gallery, and we could look across and catch each other's dizzy grins.  We saw The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, both blissfully uncut—"every 'leven wether tods" and all. Not that The Tempest wasn't beautifully spoken, down to the smallest part, but the moments where I died of bliss were visual, and the simplest effects.  The storm was done by actors hurling themselves, though it looked as if the motionless stage were a deck and hurling them—heaven knows how much tumbling practice that took—and aloft in the near-darkness, you saw a great lantern swaying madly, as if it were at the masthead, and riding that was Ariel.  Gorgeous.




The spirits who brought the Tantalus feast, were all in grey-white, and wore their masks facing backward, arsy-versy, so that they moved contrariwise, disjointedly, as if they'd scuttled out from under Caliban's woodpile.  The Romans would have called them Larvae:  spectres, goblins, ghosts.   And the dance of the nymphs and sicklemen was perfect emblem-book—the men in golden masks, with golden ears of wheat, immortalizing what they'd slain.   Only afterward I thought of Traherne:  "the corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown..."

The Winter's Tale was uneven:  their Leontes unmemorably feeble, their Polixenes, too grandfatherly; but Niamh Cusack did a fierce Paulina.  Their Hermione stood trial with passion.  And James Garnon (I'd seen him on stage as Fabian in Twelfth Night and on screen as a volcanic Caliban) rocked as Autolycus, the cheeky beggar.  When he said, "


—only wickeder.  Much wickeder.

And everywhere, elusive, was the scent of smoke and honey.



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The letters of this alphabet were trees

Walsingham, Norfolk



Binham Priory, Norfolk





Hampstead Heath (by Rackham)



Norwich, Norfolk

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facing

Cathedral of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Norwich, Norfolk; St. Mary the Virgin, Turville, Buckinghamshire; Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks




Shop window near Lincoln's Inn, London

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Waterweft

I leapt the year in England.  It was lovely, lively, restorative.

Here is the Misbourne at Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire.  Intermittently, a river:  I relate.










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Three of the Nine

"A memento of the Dean's reception, held Oct 10, 1885. ... Anandibai Joshee graduated from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMC) in 1886; Kei Okami graduated from WMC in 1889; Sabat Islambooly graduated from WMC in 1890."

This warms my Seven Sisters heart.

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Faerie

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The letters of this alphabet were trees

He learns this other writing. He is the scribe
Who drove a team of quills on his white field.
Round his cell door the blackbirds dart and dab.
Then self-denial, fasting, the pure cold.

 Seamus Heaney
§§§§

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