I worked on some fic
but I just ignored my diss
and napped on the couch

No seriously. The first of them is a potted version of King John I wrote for faithhopetricks, who just went to see a production thereof. She thought I should post it, so here it is.

NB that the emphasis on Arthur being pretty is completely from the text. If anything, I toned it down.

( King John as it would be if it were shorter and more ridiculous. Contains a lot more lolcat than I thought. )

And the other thing is Star Trek in the Park! Via aris_tgd. It is awesome.

To Mock the Expectation of the World, by lareinenoire. Shakespeare Henry IV, gen, Hal and his brothers (and Richard); contains discussion of suicide (kind of, but it's certainly pretty awful) and Victorian psychiatry. Set in a wide-ranging histories AU which starts in Victorian England and continues through WWII; other fics in this universe include "Sic semper traditores" (Henry V, set c. 1900, and written for meeeeeeee!) and "An Exchange of Favours" (Richard not-yet-III, set c. 1930). They are both excellent and you should read them too. Also, in the interests of full disclosure, I was a beta-reader for this.

Anyway! In this fic, the Lancaster boys learn that their cousin Richard has died, and Hal flips out. Wackiness patently does not ensue, even if Falstaff does have a cameo. I am a sucker for good fic involving Hal and Richard, and Hal and his brothers, and AUs, and this is all of those things -- in particular, the relationship between the Lancaster boys rings very true in their semidysfunctional way.

The door opened to admit what had to be a first-year, judging from his size. "Are you Henry Lancaster's brother?" At Humphrey's nod, he continued, "There's someone here to see you."

The first awful thought was that it was his father, but Father surely had no reason to turn up at Eton at a quarter to one in the morning. Unless...no, he couldn't think about that. Swallowing his dread, Humphrey followed the younger boy down to Weston's Yard, where he saw a figure lounging against one of the walls and, though he would never admit it to anyone, for a split-second was convinced it was Cousin Richard come back from the dead.

"You must be Lancaster's brother." The sharp accent of East London dispelled any lingering illusions even before the man stepped into the light, fingers twitching at the collar of his cheap but fashionable suit. Even the tumbled, curly hair was far darker. Humphrey's heartbeat slowly began to return to normal. "You've got the look of him."

Humphrey shooed the first-year back toward the door and crossed his arms in the best manner of his father. Whatever bizarre fancies he was having, there was certainly nothing to be gained from admitting to them, least of all to strange men in dark corners.

Courtesy of tree_and_leaf on twitter, the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton contest winners!

The trouble with the B-L contest is that many of these sentences clearly start novels I would love to read, because they would be completely fucking hilarious. (Actually, wouldn't that be an awesome fic challenge? Fics starting with Bulwer-Lytton winners?)

My favorite of the year (although the "hot air baboon" one was a close second):

No man is an island, so they say, although the small crustaceans and the bird which sat impassively on Dirk Manhope's chest as he floated lazily in the pool would probably disagree.

So I was (for Nefarious Purposes) contemplating this quote:

Je ne scais comme la réprésentation de ton image me vient si souvent devant les yeux de mon cueur, car de jour et de nuit toutes mes pensées imaginations ne sont aultres sinon pensées à toy

which is from a letter from the French courtier and historian Jean Creton to Richard II -- in 1402, so Richard had in fact been dead for two years, although Creton believed he had escaped to Scotland (as he writes at the end of his history of the last days of Richard's reign). Paul Strohm talks about this quote in England's Empty Throne in terms of fantasies of sovereignty not actually requiring the actual sovereign.

Anyway: does anyone who actually knows something about Middle French know if tu/vous were established as informal/formal circa 1400 as well as singular/plural? Because it's quite striking that Creton addresses Richard as tu! (It is also a little bit surprising that I had not noticed it, but whatever.)

You have until midnight tonight to sign up for Histories Ficathon II! That's midnight CDT, so it's also:

10 pm PDT
11 pm MDT
1 am EDT
6 am BST

Go ye forth and sign up!

THIS IS YOUR LAST WEEKEND TO SIGN UP FOR HISTORIES FICATHON II

GO YE FORTH AND SIGN UP

FOR VERILY IT WILL BE AWESOME

The first owners of Smith & Co. and Callard & Bowser were devout members of the Anglican Church. It is, therefore, not surprising that they developed a method of liturgical Altoid consumption.

Hee.

Now I really want Altoids, too. (Especially the tangerine ones. I love those.)

It was a good series. Just not good enough.

(man, it was a bit of a shock how upsetting it was seeing the Pens getting the Cup in Detroit. I guess 15-year-old me who got all teary after the 1995 finals has not actually gone anywhere.)

So my decidedly unkingly couch¹ did the watch-case or common 'larum-bell -- and you should visualize that being said exactly the way Jon Finch says it in the 1979 BBC version -- thing tonight, with the result that I haven't actually been to bed yet. Well, no, I did go for about an hour, rather pointlessly, and then I got up and actually did stuff. It is weird to have accomplished things before 8 am, even if they only include grocery shopping and going to the pharmacy for brane medz. (Also nice: the pharmacist filled my prescription right away, because it's my birthday.)

I am going to go return some library books now and then mail something, but before I go, a couple of links:

This guy was my freshman English teacher. I liked him, though I would have liked him even better if I liked contemporary American literature more than I do (the class that really inspired me was my sophomore English class, where I read Chaucer and Shakespeare and figured out what I wanted to do with my life). I got back in touch with him recently (zomg facebook), and he actually did remember me,² even though I took his class over fifteen years ago. I'm sure I'm not one of the students he'll ever write about in his lengthy facebook notes, but he did always like my creative writing assigments, and he said I have a gift for the absurd.

Blog post on the soliloquies in Chimes at Midnight. A reasonably interesting read, though there are a few things I'd quibble at, and a factual error (Hal and Falstaff do in fact have another scene between Shrewsbury and the coronation. In fact it's the fairly unsettling Hal/Poins/Doll/Falstaff OT4 scene. That makes total sense in context, I promise.)

1. Actually I spent three hours sleeping on the couch just yesterday evening. That reference would probably work better if I came from a region where people referred to that particular furniture item as a "sofa."
2. I am almost certain he also remembers my mother, but that story is embarrassing.

I'm thirty years old today (assuming you are in Central time or eastward), so here, have some vaguely relevant Lord Byron. See, I am still capable of posting things that are not about hockey or fanfic. (Speaking of which! You have four more days to sign up for Histories Ficathon II!)

I'm not sure whether this poem exhibits differing conceptions of age/youth or, as is entirely likely, considering, just Byron taking the piss. I have not, myself, spent any of my twenties in any particularly Byronic pursuits, but I do have more white hair than a thirty-year-old should. It doesn't seem fair. (Also, I now understand the reference to Friar Bacon's Brazen Head, having seen that particular scene in an acting workshop at SAA. The role of the head was played by a rather well-known critic. It was awesome.)

from Don Juan
George Gordon, Lord Byron

But now at thirty years my hair is grey--
(I wonder what it will be like at forty?
I thought of a peruke the other day--)
My heart is not much greener; and, in short, I
Have squandered my whole summer while 'twas May,
And feel no more the spirit to retort; I
Have spent my life, both interest and principal,
And deem not, what I deemed, my soul invincible.

No more -- no more -- Oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new;
Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee.
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?
Alas! 'twas not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of the flower.

No more -- no more -- Oh! never more, my heart,
Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!
Once in all, but now a thing apart,
Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:
The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse,
And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment,
Though Heaven knows how it ever found a lodgement.

My days of love are over; me no more
The charms of maid, wife, and still less widow,
Can make the fool of which they made before,--
In short, I must not lead the life I did do;
The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,
The copious use of claret is forbid too,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.

Ambition was my idol, which was broken
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;
And the two last have left me many a token
O'er which reflection may be made at leisure:
Now, like Friar Bacon's Brazen Head, I've spoken,
'Time is, Time was, Time's past': a chymic treasure
Is glittering Youth, which I have spent betimes--
My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their 'midnight taper',
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture and worse bust.

What are the hopes of man? Old Egypt's King
Cheops erected the first Pyramid
And largest, thinking it was just the thing
To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid;
But somebody or other rummaging
Burglariously broke his coffin's lid:
Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.

But I, being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, 'Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You've passed your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again -- 'twould pass --
So thank your stars that matters are not worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.'

THAT IS MORE LIKE IT.

JUST ONE MORE, GUYS.

Also, anomilygrace sent me this, which is rather sweet.

Just a reminder that you only have nine more days to get your signups in for Histories Ficathon II! We've already got quite a few people on board, and it is going to be AWESOME.

If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, go peruse some of the entries from last year. Because they rock.

This is in fact not, as the word count reveals, a drabble at all. Also, I think it is the purplest piece of prose I have ever written.

Title: Scarlet Indignation
Fandom: Shakespeare Richard II
Character(s)/Pairing(s): King Richard, solus
Rating: PG
Word Count: 458
Warnings: self-injury, theorizing about kingship, anachronistic heraldry, excessive referentiality
Summary: But soft, but see, or rather do not see / My fair rose wither...
Notes: For gileonnen, who requested Richard II and land magic. This isn't quite what you asked for -- apparently I have a subconscious resistance to writing the fantastic -- but I hope it will suffice.

( It is August and the roses have withered, their petals blackened and curling, the lingering remains moldering upon the ground like the dead after a battle. )

WINGS WIN 3-1

ONE DOWN, THREE TO GO

//DOES HAPPY DANCE

MY NERVES CANNOT HANDLE THIS

I WILL HAVE NO FINGERNAILS LEFT BY THE TIME THE FINALS ARE OVER

Borrowed from faithhopetricks and tatterpunk, who altered the meme thus:

I jiggered with this meme a bit; I took off Two Kinsmen (pfffft) and tried to put one "*" for every professional performance I could remember off the top of my head....Hmm, now I wonder what demarcation could indicate plays I've been in/ performed pieces from.

Italicize the plays you have read, bold the titles you have watched (TV/film) and * the ones you have seen in performance.

I put Two Noble Kinsmen back and added Edward III. Mostly because I've seen it. And I am keeping the whole "add one star for each stage production" thing, because it's neat and I'm a showoff. I am also stealing faithhopetricks' schtick and designating BBC productions I've seen with a [B].

( long meme is loooooong )

faithhopetricks also alerted me to this:

An imaginative interpretation of the bear came in Michael Bogdanov's 1990 modern dress production for the English Shakespeare Company. Here, Michael Pennington's elegantly suited, urbane Leontes had erupted with fury and bitterness against his loved ones. As Antigonus laid the baby carefully down on the seashore, Leontes silently strode down behind his crouching figure. Standing behind him, Leontes slowly withdrew one hand from behind his back to reveal a huge bear's paw, armed with ferocious claws. This he drew down the back of the unsuspecting Antigonus who dropped to the floor before him.

THAT IS SO FUCKING AWESOME.

As much as the idea of running away to become an FAO Schwartz piano dancer may be appealing, the fact that I cannot dance to save my life is a bit of a problem (I'm not a very good pianist, either).

However! I could always become a piano dancer whose signature piece is John Cage's 4:33.

EAT YOUR HEART OUT, TOM HANKS.