Category Archives: Books

“It doth forget to do the thing it should”

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This week’s been hot for my research.

The buzz of being onto something is really incomparable.  There’s a nervousness compounded with an anticipation and a rush of adrenaline when you realize that you’ve found some topic that other people don’t seem to be talking about.  Then there’s this fear that well, maybe they’re not talking about it because it’s SO OBVIOUSLY OBVIOUS and EVERYBODY knows that and you’re a complete idiot for even thinking that there may be some unanswered question as to what you’re working on.

I’m stuck right now in a valley of no return.  I can’t go back because, well, I’m walking an (as far as I can tell) unforged path, but at the same time I’m wondering how very far I’ll be able to leapfrog down this path and where it may take me.  I have some vague notions, some of them more exciting than others, but in my experience with research (as with life) you never really know until you get there.

This week I was trying to articulate said feeling to a colleague of mine.  We were having the

oh hello, Hogwarts, I didn't realize that you were in Boston! (courtyard at the BPL)

inevitable “where are you with your projects?” moot during a trip to the Boston Public Library (BEAUTIFUL and WONDERFUL by the by, and totally worth checking out if you like books or pretty architecture or reading books while surrounded by pretty architecture).  I mentioned that I had found something… something that I wasn’t quite sure what to make of.  Something that no one else seems to have worked on yet.  Something that I was getting somewhere with.

And he asked me the dreaded question which sent me into a Southward tailspin.  “Is it important?”

I blinked at him a few times, taken aback by the question.  It is important?  Oh the implications of this!  First off, I couldn’t understand how I had gotten so far stuck down the hole of research that I had lost track of the outside world.  How could I lose sight of some bigger picture?  How could I be so focused on such small details that I failed to see the whole?  Of course no one’s written about it, it just may not be all that important!

Then I found myself in this semantic existential crisis questioning everything I knew.  What

Is this the end of zombie Shakespeare?

was “important”?  How do you define “important”?  I mean, forchrisakes, we spend our days reading and writing about theatre.  Theatre never made dinner.  Theatre doesn’t even really make money.  And what’s worse, most of us spend more of our time talking about theatre rather than making theatre these days.  We’re intellectual hacks.  In the eventuality of zombie holocaust, we’re pretty much the top of the list of “zombie bait” because we have nothing to add to the post-apocalyptic human existence and we don’t even have any practical skills.  So really, “important”?  How can anything we do (or fail to do) really and truly be “important”?

Then I began to come up with excuses to justify my research.  It has to do with Shakespeare and Shakespeare is obviously important!  Everyone knows Shakespeare!  Everyone loves Shakespeare!  He’s the most-quoted creator of literature the world-over!  Just about every nation has appropriated him as their own!  Without Shakespeare, the English language wouldn’t exist as we know it today, so clearly what I’m doing as a small subset of this gigantic whole is obviously extremely important.

Then I wondered why it even mattered.  This is a seminar paper for a research methodologies course.  More important than what I find is how I managed to find it.  How did I solve my problems along the way?  What tactics did I use to solve these problems?  If I make a breakthrough and manage to produce something landmark, that’s frosting on the cake (what’s a cake without frosting?  Maybe I should be making a landmark breakthrough… everyone will be disappointed if there’s a cake with no frosting…. Wait, hang on, maybe it’s angel food cake which does not require frosting to be good… I can live with that).

though apparently my man Will can handle the zombies for me.

So I answered the only way I knew how.  “I don’t know.”  It was truth.  Pure and simple.  At this stage of the game, my research could be anything.  The important thing is that it’s interesting, it’s engaging, it keeps me busy, and I’m not chasing my tail as I grind grind grind away.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the archive to do some more digging.  Maybe in a few

weeks I’ll get back to this question of importance.  For now, I’m glad to have had the reality check and I’m super glad that there are no zombies at my window.

Girl Power

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It’s a gray, rainy day in Boston.  The kind of day when you just want to curl up on the couch with a good book, a kitty, a cup of tea, and a fireplace.

Also, the kind of day when you really just don’t want to bother with anything.

In my world, I call them Bartleby Days.

Allow me to devolve into a girl for a few moments.  I will be the first to admit that I’m usually fairly picky about my appearance.  One of the many virtues I picked up from working as a Ballroom Dance instructor (story for another time, folks) is a certain finickyness about my appearance.  I rarely leave the house without doing my makeup (certainly never when I know that I’m going somewhere… yes, class counts as “somewhere”), I at least put a token effort into my hair, and I’m never caught dead in requisite school sweats and ugg boots unless I’m walking around the corner to the drugstore on my day off (I get days off?  Okay, afternoon off).

But one of the key functions of a Bartleby Day is the understanding that, no matter what you do, your hair is simply not going to co-operate.

(…I promise, this is going somewhere quasi-scholarly, bear with me for another moment…)

Growing up, I had many role models.  Most of them were characters from books.  Perhaps one of the most enduring role model of my young life was a certain Hermione Granger.

Here’s the awesome thing about being a frizzy-haired chick in academia: on Bartleby

Me this morning at my most unglamorous (hair Hermione style, sweatshirt, glasses, and *gasp* not even wearing lip gloss!)

Days, I can simply rock the Hermione look.

And I feel okay about that.

As a bookish chick, I find “rocking the Hermione look” comforting.  Hermione is a great role model.  She’s never afraid to be herself (even when that’s not the most popular thing to be), she’s strong enough to not hide behind anyone else, she’s wicked smart, and she always (if indirectly) manages to be the hero.  Harry Potter wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without Hermione proving, once more, that it takes a woman to truly be able to accomplish anything.

Geek girls rule the world and, today on the most Bartleby of days, I wish to salute a few fictitious geek girls who have made my life a better place:

Seriously... get me a library like this, and I'll happily skip about your house singing songs as your trophy wife

*    Belle from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”.  Say what you want about Disney (it’s probably true), but a brunette heroine who is outcast from society because, despite the fact that she’s pretty, she’s simply too nerdy to get along with the popular girls?  A heroine that requires (instead of the requisite gift of roses) a LIBRARY to be wooed?  A heroine who’s more interested in a bookstore than a pair of rippling pectorals?  Yep.  If I were a Disney Princess, I’d be Belle.  Hands down.  Talking clock and teapot and everything.

*    Mina Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Despite her degradation into generic pretty female love interest in just about every Dracula re-telling, Mina was actually pretty badass in the original.  She was the secretary for what became known as “the crew of light” and so kept all the notes and things tidy.  Without her, the fictitious narrative never would have come to be.  It was Mina’s work in compiling notes, letters, diaries, that made the final volume.  Okay, so maybe the boys didn’t let her go out on the “dangerous missions”, but what do you want from Victorian men?  Mina bound the group together and it was her efforts which ensured that they were able to accomplish their goals and defeat the mighty beast.  Perhaps more importantly, it was her efforts which ensured that documentation of this even survived.  Boo-friggen-yah.

 *   Jo March from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.  When I was a kid, I would read books and eat apples because that was Jo’s favorite thing to do.  Jo reads and writes to an extreme which makes her unladylike (much like the harried author of this blog).  Despite having her nose stuck in a book, Jo also manages to bag the guy at the end and balance being a woman with being ambitious in the nineteenth century.  Yea… I may identify a little bit with this clumsy, tom-boyish, not-as-pretty-as-her-sister literati… just a little.

*    Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.  Yes, I know, this book

Totally badass

comes up all the time, but it’s because I LOVE LIZZY.  Oh my god, if you could bottle Lizzy and sell her she’d be in my cabinets all the time.  I’d bathe in her, I’d cook with her, I’d even spritz a little on my pillow every night.  Maybe it’s a stretch to call Lizzy a literati (she’s not really depicted as reading any more than any other strong heroine of the time), but she definitely is smart and (as such) I’m going to label her as a nerd.  She’s clearly focused her time on something besides painting, drawing, playing music, and sewing (she says so herself), so let’s assume for the sake of my list that that something is reading?  Please?  …plus… she fights zombies…

This is by no means a comprehensive list, just a selection of my favorites.  Hopefully it’ll help you get through your gray dreary day.

And remember; Bartleby days happen to everyone.  If the weather (or extenuating factors) have put you in such a slump as this, just think: What would Hermione Granger do?

Also… watch this.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY]

I know that always makes me feel better.

Follow the Yellow-Brick Road

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Have you ever been working on something for so long and so hard that eventually the result simply feels like a dream?  Dreamt about something enough and, when it becomes a reality, you feel as though you’ve fallen asleep in class rather than brought the castle down from its cloud?

To make any claim other than I feel like I’ve been wandering the land of Oz for the past month and a half would be an outright lie.  I’m not in Kansas anymore and, while Jerry may not be Toto, he is rather fuzzy.

This week, two things happened which worked to either cement the Oz fantasy or prove to

of course, I'd need some stylish ruby slippers... though they aren't quite practical for lugging library books

me that yes, this is really happening, and I am exactly where I’ve pictured myself for so very long.

Thing number one: I wrote (or rather co-wrote) and submitted a course application to the experimental college at Tufts.  This included drafting my own syllabus.  I selected books.  I assigned readings.  I thought about pacing and assignments and grading!  I even went through and tried to pick my favorite edition of Shakespeare (it’s like picking a favorite child for me… I kind of collect Complete Works).  And at the end of it, there it was, my name at the top of the syllabus listed as “instructor”.

Well that’s a rush.

At this point in my life, syllabi have become more than pieces of paper; they are a way of life.  My first syllabus was gifted to me my Senior year of high school by my humanities instructor (a certain Susan Sabatino at the Professional Performing Arts School in New York City…. Yea, I went to the fame school.  Yea, it was kind of exactly like the movie.  Yea, I have some stories to tell…).  This is perhaps made more poignant by the fact that my partner in crime for this endeavor is an individual whom I roamed those hallowed halls with.  But I digress.

When Ms. Sab passed the syllabus out that first day of class, she said “this bit of paper is worth its weight in gold.  No, not gold, platinum.”

And thus my relationship with the syllabus began.  I don’t think one can possibly understand the impact that those little bits of paper can have on one’s life.  At first they seem odd; assignments?  Due dates?  A plan for the ENTIRE SEMESTER?  What is this?  Eventually, though, one begins to love the syllabus.  It dictates one’s schedule for the week, month, year.  It lovingly reminds one of course expectations in one’s hour of need.  It benevolently smiles down at one from on high with vital information about office hours, contact information, and due dates.  It holds the answers to the questions that govern one’s existence like “do I ever catch a break?” and “what week can I plan to sleep in a little bit?”

As one proceeds into one’s higher education, one lives by the syllabus and dies by the syllabus.  A lifeline.  A sword.  A shield.  Everything one needed to know about class but was too afraid to ask.  The gatekeeper.  The keymaster.

Those stone tablets sent from on high brought down by a holy messenger anointed by the Glorious one.

But oh look how those tables have turned.

In writing a syllabus, we were inscribing the tablets.  We were creating destiny.  We were being deified.

behold the glory

As I printed the applications (including these diagrams of the future), I couldn’t help but be elated.  This was, perhaps, real.  I had, perhaps, arrived.

…or maybe I was just with the Scarecrow on the Yellow Brick Road.

So my printer needs a vacation in the Bahamas for its service this past week (five copies of an application plus all sundry materials… each application ran about 20 pages… my poor baby).  But… it’s done.  And I am so very excited.

Thing number two:  I received my first ever review copy of a scholarly book of which I shall be writing a review sometime in the next few months which will (gods willing) be published!  Words cannot express my jubilation.  No, seriously, every time I try I wind up devolving into some high-pitched girly squealing of exhilaration and jumping around a little bit.

I don’t want to say too much about the book, or about the journal (you know, in case things don’t work out or something), but I will say this: Shakespeare (that’s kind of a duh for me).  The book (or books, rather, it will be a double review) are about Shakespeare.  They’re both new, interesting, and engaging scholarship.  One is probably more in line with my specific research interests than the other, but I am open, willing, and ready, to love both of them.  There is space in my heart (and on my bookshelves) for anything that doesn’t grind my man Will into the dust (Oxfordians, you have no power here, be gone before someone drops a house on you).

Skynet

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One of the things about being a graduate student that they don’t really warn you about is a tendency to accumulate library books.  Seriously.  These things breed like rabbits.  I’m thinking of investing in little book-prophylactics to see if it doesn’t alleviate the problem.  Just the other day, my desk was clear and devoid of books.  Today?  Oh, today.

I woke up this morning and there they are, staring at me.  I don’t really know how they got

lurking on my desk right now...

there.  I don’t remember taking that many home.  Maybe they followed me?  I’d like to think that I don’t look like that much of a sucker… that I don’t look like the kind of girl who would open her home to strange drifters… but maybe I’m wrong about myself.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

Past experience has dictated to me that once they start, you simply can’t stop them.  They continue to pile up, continue to build, continue to wait for their moment.  And it’s nearly futile to resist.  You go to return one or two and realize no, you need those books, you require those books, those books are your new friends.

And that is how they infiltrate their way into your life, your home, your family.  That is the insidious workings of their minds.  That is how they ingratiate themselves into your research, indoctrinating themselves into your way of life.

And soon, you can’t do without them.  The more you try, the more you realize that you are utterly dependent upon them.  They have you in the palm of their hand and you just don’t know if there’s any way to escape.  They’re so dependable, so trustworthy.  Always waiting obediently by your desk, always willing to provide some tidbit of information vital to what you are doing.  And if you got rid of them, you would need that tid bit sure as an actor needs work.

So you wait.  And they wait.  And one day you find yourself stepping over towers of them on your way to your desk.  And one day you realize that you can’t work at your desk anymore because they’ve covered every available surface.  And one day you realize that you’ve just got to do something about this because you can’t find anything anyway and what’s the point in having books when you can’t get to the information you needed in the first place?

 

look at them so innocent on those shelves...

So you pack them in a rolling suitcase and you bring them to the library, the whole while feeling sick as you hear their helpless little cries erupt from your trunk.  “But we were so HELPFUL.  Don’t you want us anymore?  Don’t you need us anymore?”

And you drop them off, waving a bittersweet goodbye as you try not to look over your shoulder that last time.  Trying not to care.  Tying to harden yourself against the inevitable.

Because you know. It comes in cycles.  You’ll be back.  Oh yes, you’ll be back.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.  Maybe not for those books, you’ll likely never see them again.  But you can’t escape it.  This is the nature of your job.  This is the nature of your life.

You, the books.  The books, you.  Clung together in a downward spiral.  Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.

Not all Bookstores are Equal…

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Last week, I realized that I hadn’t ventured out of a two-block radius of my well-trodden flight path in my new home for some time.  While the road to the grocery store and a few choice old friends’ houses were well trodden, pretty much every other road in the area was not.  So, I called up my favorite partner in crime and we went bookstore spelunking in Cambridge.

We started in Harvard Square where we hit Raven Used Books which was a small-ish basement store.  Their premises in Northampton is much more impressive both in terms of shelf space, as well as selection.

We then proceeded to the Harvard Book Store which I perhaps should have been more impressed with.  Mixed amongst your standard textbook sections are varying fiction sections as well as a large stationary area.  Downstairs are used and overstock books, which is wonderful for those of us who just like to browse the tomes.  Also, I was rather

One of these shelves is not like the others....

amused at their… er… extracurricular section.  Somehow I felt like anywhere associated with a major university, much less a major university as prestigious and snooty-by-reputation as Harvard, would have left said shelf out of their plans… or at least designated it to the back of the room where hopefully the casual observer would miss it entirely.  The fact that said shelf was there seemed like a coup against society and amused me thoroughly.

We then proceeded to Rodney’s in Central Square which was, by far, the best find of the day.  Two entire floors of used and rare books, some awesome hand-crafted shelving units for sale, nifty post cards and note cards, and way cool vintage theatre posters along the wall in the upstairs.  In terms of location, selection, and atmosphere I would say that Rodney’s took the cake for the day.

But then… adventure struck.

Sometimes you know when you are about to walk into an adventure.  More often than not though you just have to be open to the possibility and it will find you.  This was one of those second-case scenarios.

You may have determined by now that my partner-in-crime and I are absolutely and wonderfully obsessed with used bookstores.  So, naturally, we leap at the opportunity to investigate a new one.  On our way home from Rodney’s, I noticed a sign on the side of a building proclaiming “Revolution Books”.  My partner and I waffled slightly about whether another bookstore was called for on that particular day, but then I noticed that there was a parking spot DIRECTLY in front of the building.  I turned to my partner, the query in my eyes, and he nodded.  We both knew what we had to do.

I pulled the car into the spot and we got out, curiosity overcoming perhaps our better judgment.  We glanced back at the sign and realized that it was not a storefront or really over any recognizable entry into what looked like your run-of-the-mill retail-space-ground-floor-with-offices-above Boston building.  There was a barber shop and an assortment of other normal things occupying the space where our bookstore should have been.

Then we noticed a white sheet of paper with the words written in thick marker: “Revolution Books open: second floor”.  It hung over a door which we recognized led to the next level of the building.  I looked to my partner and he assured me that it would be fine.  Of course it would be fine.  We were in Cambridge, for crying out loud, not some third world country.

I opened the door to let him in and he took point, ensuring that we weren’t about to be jumped upon by bookstore boogies.  I reached to close the door after me, but realized the entry way was so small that we would have to climb several of the stairs before us before we could be out of the door’s way.

Perhaps the narrow hallway and tiny entry was simply to deter those who were not of stout enough heart to brave the shelves of what would surely be the greatest used bookstore ever.

We walked the stairs and crested the top into a small hallway that held several offices which advertised various private practice style services: a therapist, an accountant.  We looked to each other, our certainty wavering, but the candle of excitement still burning behind our eyes.

That is when we saw another hand-printed sign which pointed our way to “Revolution Books”.  We followed it to the second door, tucked into the back corner of the floor.  Judging by the size of the building, whatever was behind this door couldn’t be much larger than a one-room place…

The door was cracked open and we did see bookshelves behind it.  There was a giant portrait of Che Guevara plastered on the door.  Before I had a chance to back-peddle, wondering what kind of place this truly was, we were beckoned in by a man who sat directly across from the door.  “Come on, in we’re open.”

it was, you know, that famous poster

My companion, too polite to decline the advance, led the way in.

The room was probably the size of my bathroom.  There was a single double-sided bookshelf creating two rows of books, and a second bookshelf against the far wall.  A grizzled aging hippie sat at a table with a red tablecloth and piles of pamphlets.  “Small place you got here.”  My companion said.

“Small place, with a big message.”  The man replied with a smile.

I began to look around.  Suddenly something clicked.  The red tablecloth.  The Che portrait.  The titles of these books.  The name of the store.

I had somehow managed to stumble into the underground base of militant Communism in Boston.

And my Partner in Crime is a Republican.

I was standing in the underground base of militant Communism in Boston with the only Republican in Massachusetts.

Needless to say, we had to get out…. Fast.  My partner and I exchanged looks out of the sides of our eyes and tried to noncommittally sidle closer to the door.  This would have been easier if the man behind the table hadn’t been eagerly watching our every move.  As it was we were lucky to escape with our ideals intact and without any pamphlets to throw out on our way down the stairs.  I don’t quite know what would have happened if we had actually been forced to speak while in the bookstore.

Not that I don’t admire Che Guevara, just that I’m sure those who frequent said bookstore wouldn’t want anyone revealing the secret location of their underground base.  Rest assured, that secret is safe with me.

…Hopefully they won’t read this.  And if they do, they should know that I’m ready for them when they come for me.  My roommate has cats.  Large cats.  Large attack cats.  And I haven’t yet mounted my sword collection on the wall (hush, I’m a geek, it’s useful in case of zombie holocaust, rampant scary liberal hit men, or Mormon missionaries).

Adventures in Bookland

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In the latest greatest episode of my literary adventures, the other day I took a road trip with my favorite book-hunting companion.  The journey was both arduous and epic (not the least because we first had to swing through New York State to deal with some post-move housekeeping).  However, our final destination proved itself more than worth the trek.

Picture a quaint stretch of land in the middle of nowhere Connecticut.  Add paths, flowers,

resident kitty posing for a shot in front of the Haunted Bookshop (and pirate ship!)

goats (yes, GOATS!), and free-roaming cats.  Now, add books.  Carts and buildings and shelves full of used books.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you have just pictured yourself The Book Barn in Niantic Connecticut.  The Book Barn has been on our radar for some time as a point of interest and, as avid used-bookstore-goers, we have been wanting to take a trip down for ages.  The opportunity finally presented itself and I have to say this place is truly impressive.

The mountains of used books, of course, make it a find in and of itself.  They have three premises; the Original Book Barn, Midtown, and Downtown.  Midtown and Downtown are traditional bookshops (worth a visit in their own rights as long as you’re in the neighborhood), but the Original location is the real reason to drive out.

Path with gargoyle and bridge

Used bookstores are places with organic character.  As books are fetish objects in their own right, lop a bunch of them together in any one place and you’re bound to create something.  There’s something mysterious and wonderful about a pre-owned book.  One always wonders where it’s been previously, why that scrap of paper was important, whose initials are scribed into its inside.  The older the book, the longer the story.  Yellowed pages with torn binding deserve as much respect as octogenarians and have almost as many stories to tell.  I can’t help but imagine piles and piles of books as whispering bastions of archaic wisdom, simply waiting for someone to listen to them.

Every used bookstore is unique.  Each finds its own way to display its treasures, but most share a few common elements: over-stuffed shelves, that unique smell that only old books have, a fair amount of dust (even if the place is clean), and (believe it or not) cats.  It is the way these elements are combined which give a true feeling for the place.  I’ve been in dank corners brimming with so many books that you have trouble getting to any of them, cavernous warehouses with multiple floors, and one-room hole-in-the-walls which still manage to pack in so many objects of interest that it’s difficult to find your way around.  However, until this week, I had never been to a used bookstore that manages to create and instill the sense of magic which I feel is pivotal to the experience of purchasing a book.

Every corner of the Book Barn has something you wouldn’t expect to find; and not just the books.  The buildings and carts carry uncanny names (like “The Haunted Bookstore” and “The Outhouse”).  Flowering garden paths beckon you to stay a little while and explore, while shaded benches with free-for-use games invite you to sit down with a book and read for a bit.  The local cats add their own spontaneous character (pointedly referenced to the casual observer by the complete-with-pictures “Book Barn Cat Hunting Guide” provided at the Book Barn’s entrance).  Refreshments are offered free (with suggested donation, of course) in the main book barn building (they only serve regular coffee and laugh at those requiring decaf).

Perhaps most importantly, the place doesn’t take itself seriously.  Signs and quotes are

...there wasn't actually a dinosaur section. Somehow it didn't detract from anything.

plastered on unexpected spaces, usually with amusing additions which make them worth reading.  The sections are noted with a certain degree of loving irreverence.  Themed props remind you if you stand in “Purgatory”, “Hell”, or “The Haunted Bookshop”.  And GOATS!?  …. did I mention the goats?

In any case, this place is a hike from just about every corner of the civilized world.  It is, however, well worth the travel time.  We are most certainly planning a return trip (though perhaps this time will find other sources of amusement around the book shop so that our time spent at the destination will at least equal our travel time).

Have a happy weekend, folks!

Next week, by the by, I will be vacationing.  I may or may not get around to posting about pertinent anecdotes, but I will most definitely return the week after.  Stay cool!

GOAT!

 

That Dirty Water

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In an effort to become acclimated to my new home, earlier this week I took a nice, long, historic walk around Boston.

You might have heard about it.  It’s called the freedom trail.

The current Statehouse

For those not in the Boston know, the freedom trail is a walking tour around central Boston’s most famous historical sites.  You can pay money to follow a costumed historian around town, or (what we did) you can simply start at the beginning and walk yourself.  Perhaps the part that most appealed to my dramatic sensibilities was the fact that you, literally, follow the yellow brick road.  A red brick line (sometimes painted) leads you from one stop to another, so for people who are new to the city (or tourists) it becomes an easy way to spend your afternoon while learning your way around, not spending a great deal of cash, and getting an edumacation.

I have always been drawn to cities with a deep sense of history.  Yes, New York is historical, but you have to delve pretty far past the modern skyscrapers and stick-straight streets to find its place in the history books.  Without entering a museum, it’s difficult to remember that Old New York (or was it New Amsterdam?) was, in fact, Old New York.

Boston is nothing like that.  On a certain level, this town may be obligated to flaunt the

inside Park Street Church

value of its monuments.  It’s difficult to page through American History and avoid Boston, much less New England as a whole.  This place is like Mecca for history buffs.  You can’t turn a corner without finding yourself face to face with Franklin or Adams in some capacity.  Most importantly (and perhaps appealingly), the old is blended with the new here.  Much like in Rome where the Coliseum sits at the end of a long row of modern shops and office buildings (yea, I know, I kind of pictured it on top of a lonely hill too before I went there), Boston has chosen to incorporate its monuments into the creation of its modernity.  In perhaps the most amusing show of this, the State Street T stop is actually located inside the Old State House.  The semiotic critic in me is going NUTS with this realization.

As we wound our way through Boston, I felt a certain gravity sink in.  I watched the tourists pass us in droves and my New Yorker spidey senses tweaked at their presence.  I was annoyed that they moved slowly, I was frustrated that it was difficult to take pictures, and I resolved to re-walk the trail in the fall after school had started when, undoubtedly, it would both be cooler and less crowded.  The realization that I could very easily accomplish this in turn led to the next realization: I was no longer a tourist in this city.  I am a resident.  I live here.  I can come back whenever I want.

Commonwealth Books -- the inside

To cement the jubilation, we promptly discovered one of the best used bookstores I have ever entered.  First of all: it looks JUST LIKE my grandmother’s basement; books stacked precariously on mismatched shelves, the smell of aging paper, the books themselves unable to be bound to any single category of age or size.  The place is absolutely crammed with old tomes.  It’s a little on the pricey side, but they have some GORGEOUS original-print fancy-shmancy leather-bound books.  They also have comfy chairs and a space heater designed to look like a fireplace which, while not much use in the summer swelter, will prove unendingly comfortable (and comforting!) during the long chilly months.  Also, they have a resident kitty.

The trail nears its completion down at the USS Constitution.  If there’s one thing that I love as much as used bookstores, it’s old ships.  They make me imagine being a pirate.  Shut up.

Mostly, the afternoon went a long ways towards backing my assertion that Boston is, in

Resident Kitty! (taking a nap)

fact, a great little town.  It still ain’t New York, but what is? (Besides London, of course, that’s a whole ‘nother love affair…).

….p.s. I went back to taking my own photos, don’t steal them!

An Endangered Species in its Natural Habitat

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Yesterday, I organized my new library.

As academics go, I am a burgeoning book collector (but that’s okay since I’m also a burgeoning academic), but for a normal person I certainly have acquired a great many books.

As I was ripping everything off the shelves and stacking into neat piles sorted by subject, I couldn’t help but wonder if I truly am living on the edge of an era.  With e-publishing and e-readers gaining so much popularity (and I’ll be the first to admit: they are damned convenient), are my proverbial children doomed to live book-free existences?

Some time ago, I was made aware of the following video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4BK_2VULCU]

This is most definitely a situation in which I am uncertain whether to laugh or to cry.  Slightly too true to be comfortable, this statement echoes my 1984 vision of a futuristic totalitarian universe in which books are disbanded from the common practice and no longer things that people are familiar with.

The true tragedy is this: books are more than just their contents.  Anyone who has become enraptured with a series or author, anyone who has studied literature, anyone who has depended upon a book for companionship (hush, I was a lonely child) will tell you that books are actually fetish objects.  Yes, a book is a collection of words, but more than that it’s something sturdy to hold onto.  It’s something you can (and do) take with you anywhere to provide solace, comfort, or camaraderie.   As I organized my books, I wasn’t just putting objects on shelves.  There was also a part of me that was re-living the sundry times of my life which these icons represented.  I was remembering the vacation when Harry Potter IV was released and I spent the last two days holed up racing to finish the book before returning to school and my friends (who, obviously, would have done the same).  I was reminiscing about the corner bookstore in Dublin which sold only books in Irish where I acquired my Gaeilga/Béarle dictionary because you can’t really get them in the United States.  I was thinking about the day when I rescued my great-uncle’s complete matched set of Dickens from a slow painful death by mold in my Grandmother’s basement library.

I have mixed feelings about the epub revolution.  While I certainly am going to be grateful that my leap to the iPad will mean far fewer boxes for my next move (I go through trade paperbacks like you wouldn’t believe), the fact that personal (and even public) libraries may have numbered days saddens me. I think my feelings on the matter can best be summed up by Mister Charles Lamb:

“What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labors to these Bodleians were reposing here, as in some dormitory or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.”

Borders’ closing really cements the true beginning of the end for people who, like me, get a thrill out of browsing the shelves.  Of course, the bookstore and the library are two very different places, but somehow the permanent destruction of any bastion of oak shelving seems like a coup to the literary world at large.

In any case, I take small comfort in the fact that my library is safe and organized.  It may not have matched oak shelving yet, but it’s not going anywhere.

The Potternomenon

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Over the weekend, I engaged with my brand spankin’ new housemates (hi, Boston!) in the cultural phenomenon currently sweeping that nation that has members of my generation weepy-eyed and reminiscing.

I saw the last Harry Potter movie.

It’s no secret that Rowling’s series has made an immense impression upon the culture of the times.  I am of the generation who grew up with Harry Potter and, now that it’s “over”, are facing down a blank Potter-less existence punctuated by random bouts of nostalgia triggered by wands and quasi-Latin.

I think the question on everyone’s mind is “where do we go from here?”.  What do we do with our Potter-less existence?  How do we keep on living with no new book or movie to look forward to?

But this is not a new feeling for Potter fans.  Flash back to the summer of 2007.  I was in Conservatory at Shakespeare & Company (the first round).  Despite the fact that the book was released mid-week for us (we only had one day off, Monday; thereby Thursday counted as “mid-week”), despite the fact that we had rehearsed and trained for twelve hours that day, despite the fact that the next day was another twelve-hour marathon of soul-searching, a small die-hard contingent of us still marched ourselves to the only bookstore in Lenox, Massachusetts and waited on line at midnight for the release.

I remember thinking at the time “this is it”.  Then I read the book.  As I turned that final page, teary-eyed (yea, I’m a girl, so what?), I remember thinking the same thing.  “This is it.”

So as I sat in the theatre, I couldn’t help but wonder if this really was it.  And if it was, why did I care so much?

The sheer impact that this series has had on our culture is fascinating.  In a world of e-publishing and instant gratification everything, we are facing down a generation of young adults whose lives were significantly affected by a series of books.  How did this happen?  Why did this happen?  And, perhaps most importantly, is it possible that this may happen again?

My thoughts on Pottermania are several fold:

1) Harry Potter is a brilliant adaptation of Campbell’s Hero Cycle which succeeds in evoking classical tales and appropriating them into its own innovative mythos.

fantastic chart of the Hero Cycle

2) Harry Potter occurs in a world of urban fantasy which, in my opinion, is the most engaging genre of fantasy.  Urban fantasy invites us to imagine that the fantastic is all around us, just beyond the borders of our perception.  It invites the reader to look deeper at her surroundings and invent the links between magic and reality.  This genre has always appealed to the unsatisfied creative soul, the series’ primary demographic.  Moreover, the world at large has embraced the Potter possibilities (likely in an effort to capitalize upon the series’ popularity, but okay, we’ll overlook the rampant show of consumerism).  If you go to King’s Cross Station in London, you can visit platform 9 ¾.  Qudditch has become a popular-enough sport on college campuses that it warrants its

Visiting Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross London

own international organization.  Believing hard enough in the illusion has fostered its own sense of reality and this is outrageously appealing to those who, like Harry, feel that they simply don’t belong in this world.

3) The series’ hook is one which latches into a fundamental aspect of its target demographic.  Recall all the way back to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Harry, as a “normal person”, simply doesn’t fit in.  His family doesn’t understand him, the other kids tease him, and his life (on the whole) pretty much sucks.  Suddenly he is taken away from all of this into a world where he fits in, where he is normal, and where he’s a celebrity.  Isn’t this every misfit child’s dream?  The belief that there is “somewhere else” more betterer than here (be it Hogwarts, Oz, or Wonderland) propels the angsty pre-teen through a jungle of hormone-induced nightmares.  Harry Potter is a lifeline for misunderstood geeks, a veritable treasure-trove of “get me through my day”.  This feeling of companionship fosters Pottermania and encourages fanatical devotion to the escapist fantasy.

As to the potential for this occurring again, I am honestly not entire certain that it can.  I mean, we all know that there are books which have similarly captured pre-teen imaginations in the past ten years (ahem Twilight cough sputter), but who can say anything about the longevity of such fans?  Harry Potter is a series which I believe will be read generation to generation because of the important life lessons it teaches (if you have any doubt about that, just check out this week’s post secrets).  Twilight, not so much.

Who can say when someone will tap into this sort of cosmic vein?  Throughout history, there have always been artists who manage it… and some, for whatever reason, don’t.  We don’t have fifty million Marlowe festivals across the Globe, but we do perform Shakespeare at every possible opportunity.  Will someone eventually be the cosmic muse for Potter-scale fandom?  Probably.  I certainly hope so.  I am dubious at best, however, that my kids will be able to grow up with future-Potter like I did with past-Potter.

But you know what?  That’s okay.  It’s one of the most beautiful things about true art.  It’s lovely, it touches you, it shapes you, then it’s gone.  The fleetingness of the moment is what makes it so heart-wrenchingly wonderful.  We can’t re-create it, we can only live it.

How Shall I Share Thee on a Summer’s Day?

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Alright, fine, I’ll admit it.

After writing a list of summer reading that included absolutely nothing on or about my man Will, I’m tweaking out a little bit.  In my incredibly biased opinion, summer isn’t summer without a requisite dose of Bard.  And, since I’m still making up for my little indiscretion with Jane Austen last year  (he just won’t drop it!), I’ve decided to create a second list.

Will is rocking a summery look with his D&G glasses and ruff by Hermes

Here is my Shakespeare-centric summer to do list.  Since I am a firm believer that plays should not be read except by those with a true penchant for masochism (academics mostly, literary flagellation is a requisite skill for the wanna-be literati), I am re-focusing the primary task of my list.  There will be reading on here, certainly, but only as an added bonus to alternate activities.  This is a three dimensional interactive list which, hopefully, will provide you with some Shakespearey goodness and me with a much-needed break from a long-dead playwright breathing down my neck.

Enjoy!

1) Go see some Shakespeare!  ‘Tis the season for the free outdoor variety!  If you’re in New York, obviously you’re going to want to see Shakespeare in the Park.  This year, they are re-vamping last year’s popular repertory style and performing All’s Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure (a theme, by the way, which will repeat itself…).  Performing a season in “repertory” means that one cast rehearses and performs two or more productions simultaneously (before you start having visions of a Midsummer Night’s Hamlet, allow me to clarify that I mean “simultaneously” in a fairly cosmic fashion in that the shows are performed at separate showtimes during the same season).  Back in the day (Elizabethan times, that is), this was how all theatre was performed.  A company would have a bag of plays from which they could pull on any one given night and all the company actors would be used in whatever production was performed.  In my opinion, repertory is the most robust and interesting way to produce theatre.  It keeps the actors hopping, keeps the moments fresh, and really allows everyone involved in the process to flex their theatrical muscle.  You haven’t learned lines until you’ve learned them for two shows… in meter… simultaneously.

If you happen to live in Boston, they have their own version of this time-honored summer tradition.  This summer, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company will be performing All’s Well that Ends Well.  This year will be the first year that I’ve had the opportunity to attend a CSC performance and I am very much looking forward to it.  As such, I cannot currently vouch for quality of production, but I will report back to you as soon as I can.

My good friends at the Rhode Island Shakespeare Theatre will be putting up a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor this summer, so stay tuned for further details there.  In case you missed my rave review of their Henry VIII last summer, you should be made aware that Artistic Director/Executive Producer/Everything and a bag of chips man Bob Colonna is a true-blue GENIUS.  I would watch someone read the phone book if he directed it.  Make every effort to see this show.

If you’re looking for something further North, on Sunday, August 14th Lowell Summer Music Series brings back the New England Shakespeare Company to perform Measure for Measure.  NE Shakes is an interesting company with a unique production style.  They perform in what they claim is a more authentic style (I could dispute this claim, but that’s another entry I think…) and don’t do much rehearsing at all.  They read roles from scrolls carried into performance and focus on a “rough and ready” aesthetic which allows them to perform just about anywhere (usually in parks and things like that).  I would highly recommend catching a performance of theirs just to experience the quirkiness.

If you live in one of the ten million places that I haven’t mentioned above, I advise you to employ the services of google and find somewhere near you offering such an evening’s entertainment.  These places exist just about everywhere and I can nearly guarantee that you will find something suitable.  Free Shakespeare?  Outside?  Bring a picnic and catch a show.  It’s culture!

2) Read some Shakespeare fan-fic!  Okay, so you shouldn’t read a Shakespeare play, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t soak up some bardy goodness from the page.  Many authors have appropriated Shakespeare’s stories (and even Shakespeare himself!) into their work and it makes for a cute little nerd-read.  Here are some of my favorites:

*The Shakespeare Stealer Series by Gary Blackwood; This is a YA trilogy designed to introduce young audiences to the nuts and bolts of Elizabethan theatre.  I LOVE YA books and thus absolutely adored them.  Blackwood’s research is well done and the stories he crafts are engaging (if predictable).  So cute!

*Interred with their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell; The Da Vinci Code meets The Eight.  It’s a Shakespeare mystery set in present day and sure to give any geek who thinks they know their Shakespeare a run for their proverbial money.  The plot isn’t exactly inspired, but it’s fun to follow the Shakespeare mystery!

Gaiman's Shakespeare along with Morpheus

*A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Neil Gaiman (third comic in Sandman volume 3: “Dream Country”); Gaiman is an EXTREMELY literary writer and hides allusions to various texts within his work all the time.  There’s a great deal of Shakespeare in Gaiman if you look for it, but the most blaring example is this little ditty.  I’m not a huge comic fan (something about the genre just doesn’t jive well with me), but this one is totally worth it.

3) Watch a Shakespeare movie!  Despite the fact that I am still angry at Julie Taymor for

Imogen Stubbs as Viola and Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia in Trevor Nunn's film

her egregious behavior surrounding her Giant Broadway Flop Money Sink, she did make a pretty good Titus.  There are also a plethora of Kenneth Branagh films to choose from (some of the best are Henry V, Much Ado about Nothing, and (snobby academics be damned) Love’s Labour’s Lost).  Trevor Nunn directed a Twelfth Night which ranks pretty high on my Bard-o-meter (and stars Helena Bonham Carter and Imogen Stubbs… how can you go wrong?).  If you want to go more classic, you could watch the Zeferelli Romeo and Juliet (not to be confused with the Baz Luhrman Romeo and Juliet (you know, the one with Leo and Claire where nobody knew how to speak verse?)).  Find one, rent one, grab some microwave popcorn and a glass of wine to class things up.  A good way to hide in the air conditioning on your own couch for an evening while still soaking up culture.

4) Memorize a Sonnet!  The sonnets, since they’re poems, break the don’t read Shakespeare rule.  Read the sonnets!  Love the sonnets!  Pick your favorite sonnet and learn it!  Guaranteed to improve your snob factor by at least 10%, and really, everyone should know at least one poem by heart.  It builds character.  (My favorites, by the by, are 43, 50, 97, 98, 110, and 118)

5) Play a Shakespeare Game!  Yes, they make Shakespeare games.  My favorite so far has been Shakespeare: The Bard Game.  You’re going to want at least three people to play it, but don’t be shy!  Knowledge of Shakespeare, his works, and his times is helpful, but not crucial to enjoying this game.

Go on.  Let your inner geek show.  I promise I won’t tell anyone.