March 19, 2012
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1 I absolutely loved the weather this weekend.
2 I missed completely the hail and the pour. Friday night was simply lovely. Caitlin was down for a Sunday night wedding, so everything was instantly topsy-turvy and remarkable.
3 Got over to Independence High School and enjoyed their closing night production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, starring Jaedynn and Jozlynn Ponticelli as Woodstock and Birdie 1, along the remarkable Molly McClelland as Birdie 2. I wish I were quicker on the draw, because I didn’t get any pics of them in their stunning Birdie costumes.
4 I’m still a novice at iPhone picture-taking. I was much more proficient with a normal camera, just haven’t been a shutterbug for a while. I got home and wanted to kick myself, because the girls were absolutely adorable, all three.
5 Charlie Brown is an adorable show anyway, even without the Woodstock family. The set was simple and beautiful: a sky-blue backdrop, a beautifully painted spot-on Snoopy dog house, and various benches and wing-and-drop cartoon trees, drawn with remarkable consistency to the Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip.
6 The show is so wonderful, and the music so simple that I wanted to sing every song in it. It brought back some great memories of when we did it all those years ago, my second show at YB. I think it was my second. And my sixth overall. Well, seventh if you include the disaster I directed when I was eighteen.
7 That’s a story for another time about another time. I like to live in the present, and Charlie Brown on Friday night was a remarkable present.
8 For one thing, I was finally able to get out and see a show. I was finally able to get out and smell the rain. I was finally able to, well, get out.
9 Ironically, what bought me that time was my involvement in our own production of Grease. Last week we had a nice long rehearsal in which we tightened the singing of the songs. I sat in the back grading literally thousands of papers. It worked beautifully. I didn’t miss a song, and knocked down about two-plus reams of papers, most of which I would never have gotten done at home.
10 After the show, I wanted some sort of post-show snack to go with a frosty root beer. I decided to blow dust off the old hot-air popper and pop me up some popcorn. I got carried away, using fresh garlic, freshley grated parmesan, real butter (Julia Child would have been proud!) and a slight sprinkle of herbs. I made an enormous bowl, just in case Caitlin and Josh flew in from a wedding rehearsal dinner. I did a small batch, and it was beyond good.
11 The timing was perfect! They drove up, came in, and we had a popcorn festival!
12 Those flavors crashed and splashed like waves on the beach.
13 Butter, garlic, parmesan, Italian herbs, and an icy beverage. I usually don’t do food brags, but this one was easy, and stunningly tasty.
14 High in fiber too.
15 Yesterday I couldn’t eat anything all day. That stuff stayed right through breakfast and lunch. I couldn’t eat, but I didn’t mind. I felt great, spent the morning working on my song, spent the afternoon reading Midsummer and making word lists of Shakespearean images, and laughed as the plot moved to the translation of Bottom, a wonderful scene in which the Rude Mechanicals discuss their fear of the audience thinking that the lion might be real, and how they couldn’t possibly bring a real wall to the production. Complete morons, and a merry.
16 Livin’ and lovin’ the Dream.
17 Moving On, Part the First: Researched a bit about Puck, and how he translated over to other cultures, including the Irish Pooka. I found a wonderful website called boldoutlaw.com that has a lot to say about the origins of Puck. This is from a wonderful article entitled Puck Through the Ages: The History of a Hobgoblin:
One of the most popular characters in English folklore of the last thousand years has been the faerie, goblin, devil or imp known by the name of Puck or Robin Goodfellow.
The Welsh called him Pwca, which is pronounced the same as his Irish incarnation Phouka, Pooka or Puca. These are far from his only names.
Parallel words exist in many ancient languages - puca in Old English,puki in Old Norse, puke in Swedish, puge in Danish, puks in Low German, pukis in Latvia and Lithuania — mostly with the original meaning of a demon, devil or evil and malignant spirit … Because of this similarity it is uncertain whether the original puca sprang from the imaginative minds of the Scandinavians, the Germans or the Irish.
-Gillian Edwards, Hobgoblin and Sweet Puck p.143
Indeed, Pouk was a typical medieval term for the devil. For example, Langland once called Hell “Pouk’s Pinfold.” And the Phouka was sometimes pictured as a frightening creature with the head of an ass. Truly a devil to behold. The Welsh Pwca also did not match our modern conception of dainty tinkerbell fairies. According to Louise Imogen Guiney, a peasant drew the Pwca as “a queer little figure, long and grotesque, and looked something like a chicken half out of his shell”.As a shape-shifter, Puck has had many appearances over the years. He’s been in the form of animals, like how the Phouka can become a horse, eagle or ass. He’s been a rough, hairy creature in many versions. One Irish story has him as an old man. He’s been pictured like a brownie or a hobbit. In a 1785 painting by William Blake , he looks like Pan from Greek mythology. In a 1841 painting by Richard Dadd , Puck looks like an innocent child. And a modern cartoon show portrays him as a silver-haired elf.
18 There is lots more to read, if you are interested. Here is the link, for all you Midsummer fans out there:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/puckrobin/puckages.html
19 In the whirlwind of Shakespearean geekishness, I looked to the stars for yet more inspiration, all of which came to me in a Facebook post from the immortal Rosi Hollinbeck.
20 Rosi dug up a grand little video of John Branyan, who informs us that Shakespeare “had a working vocabulary of 54,000 words. We have a working vocabulary of 3,000 words.” I don’t doubt the accuracy of those figures, although 3,000 seems a bit sparce. But this comes from a guy who had to correct a sophomore girl’s misspelling of “horse” to “hourse.” I could go into all sorts of questions about that one, but let’s just let it be. Let’s get back to Branyan, who is a self-proclaimed Geek Dad.
30 Geek Dad. I gotta love the guy for his rendering of The Three Pigs in a wonderful offshoot of Shakespeare. If you haven’t geeked out enough on the Puck stuff, have a dose of this:
http://biggeekdad.com/2011/11/the-three-little-pigs/#.Tt7qe3p6n5F.facebook
31 Quite fun. I’d show it, but I’m not sure which standard this is covering.
32 Thanks Rosi, for some awesome geekiness.
33 AnywayZ, I think I’m already exhausted from a dashingly incredible weekend, or perhaps I should call Saturday and Sunday my geekend. I wrote forty vocabulary words, and have been relentless in trying to help my students reach the magic 3,000 needed to understand simple stories. Branyan awoke an awakened giant, so hopefully I won’t drop a truckload of still more vocabulary on my students.
34 Those sorts of statistics change all the time, but it’s always in the mini-thousands for this generation.
35 Folks.The girl spelled “horse” “hourse.” I thought I had seen it all. It makes one’s head swirl to think that we have too many teachers and not enough jobs. Somebody has to explain that one to me.
36 So I think I’m going to go to now; I have an exposition of sleep suddenly come upon me.
37 I’m going to pull a comforter over my head and drift into a dream.
38 I have lots more work to do later today, and miles to go before I sleep.
39 I’ll travel the road not taken, and sleep first, and trod later.
40 Havest thou a geeky Monday.
41 Peace and Dreams.
~H~
