13 Comments

The antidote to a cautionary remark about the "moral" of The Old Man and the Sea; one that saddened and flummoxed a thirteen-year-old: "Sometimes one can go too far to follow one's dream."

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Such a signal thought;

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?”

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I wish I lived in London

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to see the Globe?

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Yes and to write and to talk and to live around people who appreciate letters and arts and ideas. I'm surrounded by morons in pricy cars and pinched faces.

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ah well yes it can be good for that but the internet is also great :)

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And to smoke the smoothest cigarettes and to drink the sweetest ales

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I love Shakespeare for many reasons, but one of them is it’s often about the receipts!

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The rings in All’s Well, the chests in Merchant, and others — the material objects that come back to reveal the truth.

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Wdym?

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I was waiting at the Los Angeles airport when I wrote that quickly — to clarify, an object is often a type of receipt that exposes a lie. And it’s the ring in Merchant not the chests as it is in All’s Well and Taming of the Shrew, the Handkerchief in Othello — material items tend to be what trips up devious plans and lies.

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Also I think that is true in real life. More often than not it’s the material trail that holds the liar and the cheat responsible.

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Hooray for your Christmas Santa. This is an awesome book. I first heard of it in one of many notes within English Teacher Weekly this year. And that got me on a Judi Dench tangent, watching her recent videos about this. There is also a Romeo & Juliet play book at Royal Shakespeare with comments from her great Juliet performance. Of course I had to re-watch Best Exotic Marigold Hotel after Maggie Smith’s passing, but Dench’s performance there was so good. Finally, I discovered Thinking Shakespeare by Barry Edelstein, famous teacher of the stage. That surely opens up the teaching of Shakespeare to everyone. Lucky you to live in London, a true theatre town. All this from discovering her recent book . . .

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