Did you say something?  No? OK.

I’ll be over here playing with my big dog. Or maybe…

I’ll drag my monkey onto your lap and look at you with my old western style moostach… Hey whats that?!..

 Are you looking at my butt?! I’m trying to investigate something and you are looking at my butt? How rude.

Oh its just your sock. I’m going to take a nap now. Please stop photographing me.

To continie the debate of Harlequin’s politically correct censoring and altering of reprints of their old books, and the above-board objection from readers, I wonder how Harlequins’ bright and culture-savvy editors would have “changed” Chandler’s The Big Sleep if they got their dainty little hands on the text…

Surely they would not use the above cover art from the 1950 Pocket Books edition.  As you can see, Philip Marlowe is abound to backhand a pensive blonde — is she staring at his digits in fear or waited excitement?  Does the famous private eye need domestic violence and anger management counseling?

On the back cover, in large red letters, is:

I SLAPPED

HER HARD

“Come on,” I said brightly. “Let’s be nice. Let’s get dressed.”

Before anyone claims I condone violence aganst women in fiction, I do not…but the point of contention here is: these PC editors have no sense of the history of noir, and the elements that make up the vintage books from the 1940s-60s.  Sure, they were sexist, mysoginistic, brutal, crass, caddy, heel-bound, with women’s sexuality often the cause for a man’s downfall — but that was the point. That’s part of the genre.

Changing such things is offensive to the genre’s roots, and to assume readers would be appalled or shocked is just plain stupid.  A disclaimer or foreword would have worked, as wel as being informative concerning the views of women some men had in books, or at least their characters did.  Just because  Marlowe feels the need to slap a dame now and then for her own good doesn’t mean Raymond Chandler did this in real life.  He was writing to the specs of his hero and the genre.

I suspect, however, that the day may come when a politicaly correct version of The Big Sleep — and any other books with offensive terms, such as the workls of Joseh Conrad, Hemingway, Faulkner and even Nancy Drew — will be “toned down” for modern day sensitivity.

Wait…what if the book has a woman slapping a man?  Does that need to be changed in some eyes, or is that “culturally acceptable”?

I just realized that I had a few minutes to update, since both kids are sleeping.  Sort of.  Ivan keeps saying, “It’s not nighttime!”  He has a point, but still.  He needs a nap.  Hopefully he’ll just get bored and fall asleep.  He’s in his new tent from Aunt Shannon, which he LOVES, so hopefully being in there will help.

We’re going to Diana’s later for Thanksgiving dinner, which is great.  Dave is making a special creation involving green beans, asparagus, mushroom soup and choux pastry.  You’ll have to get him to explain it to you. 

MARLOWE
She’s awesome and happy, but it’s been a rough month with her, sleeping-wise.  She’s waking more than she ever did as a newborn and taking longer to get back to sleep.  It’s common enough to have a name– four month sleep-regression– so at least we know there’s nothing to worry about.  I’m just really tired.  She likes to talk to us in the middle of the night, which  is a lot cuter when she does it in the daytime.  She’s napping pretty well.  Last night she seemed to be in a lot of pain, and I can’t figure out why…  I’ve stopped eating straight milk, ice cream, oranges, all beans, and broccoli, all of which seem to give her gas.  I’m not sure what else I can give up. 

She is a cuddle monkey and smiles at everyone.  She has a fantastic giggle.   And she still has red hair, but I think it’s starting to fall out. 

Oh, and she’s teething.  Ivan got his first tooth at four and a half months, and she’ll be four months on Monday, so the early teething isn’t very suprising. 

IVAN
He is mostly a sweet boy, but he’s been  more aggressive lately, mostly verbally.  His newest thing is to say to me or Dave (usually me), “I’m not your friend!  I’m DADDY’S friend!”  He’ll also call me “penis” and then claim to have said “Venus.”  Hmm.  Or he’ll call me “fake.”  He must have gotten that at preschool.

In general, though, he’s s pretty interesting conversationalist.  I tell him stories (Three Pigs, Cinderella, etc.) on the way to preschool and it’s pretty fun to hear him tell them to Dave later.  My favorite is when I tell him to do something he doesn’t want to do and he says, “My dear, I don’t want to fight about this.”  HA!  Also, Dave was disciplining him for something the other day and Ivan said, “Daddy, you made me cy! On PURPOSE!”  He is certainly learning what buttons to push.

“Disciplining,” for the record, usually means sitting him on the stairs, talk about whatever the infraction was, and re-read the house rules. If he’s really out of control, we’ll carry him down to his room to cool off and let him know he’s welcome back upstairs as soon as he’s done screaming.  If he’s acting crazy because he’s tired, I’ll usually just hold him while he cries and that often helps.  We don’t really do time-outs, per se, though putting him in his room is basically the same thing.  I guess the difference is that we don’t tell him that he has to stay in his room for a particular length of time; he can come out once he’s calmed down enough to talk.  The amazing thing is, he’ll actually do this. 

We’ve shown him a couple of full-length movies, like Toy Story and a few of the Christmas classics, since he now has the attention span to sit and watch and the understanding to follow about the storyline.  But we have to be careful because we never know what will upset him.  The “monsters” in A Year Without a Santa Claus made him cry, but when the Abominable Snowman in Rudolph went over the cliff, he said, “I want the monster back!”  ???  He also cried at the scary parts in Horton Hears a Who, but has no problem watching the dinosaur stuff, usually, and that can actually be pretty violent.  He does yell at the dinosaurs when they eat each other, though.  He roots for the prey, not the predator, which is interesting.

Both Marlowe and Ivan are big and healthy and funny and sweet.  Dave and I got very lucky and are thankful for our beautiful children every day.

Being the lost verse from Dr. Faustus, with no credit to Marlowe…

Satan
How am I glutted with conceit of this?
Shall I make mortals fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all infirmities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I’ll have them seek in India for it,
Ransack the Ocean for a watery gate,
And search all corners of the new found world
For obscure lore and forgotten secrets;
I’ll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
I’ll have them wall all Germany with tears,
And make swift Rhine circle run Vermillion;
I’ll have them fill the public schools with death,
Wherewith my students shall be bravely clad;
I’ll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And seek the Gates of Hell in every land,
And reign sole king of all their provinces;
Yea, stranger servants for the ancient quest,
Than crows and bats in the mortal night,
I’ll make my servile mortals to invent.
Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,
And find my ancient door to your mortal world.
Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,

Enter Valdes and Cornelius.
Know that your words have won me at the last,
To practice magic and concealed arts:
Not for my gain only, but your own intention,
That will deceive my object and my deed,
And infiltrates my necromantic skill.

Also found in a glass case, obviously very old, and perhaps written in blood…

Hello again. Back by popular demand – Marlowe Monday week 21ish, what ever she’s 5 months old now and we’re moving on to chapters because it is easier to keep up with.

Marlowe is a dog now. She has a dog face.

She used to look like this:

now she looks like this:

dog face. (please disregard my wierd looking boob)

But the older she gets the more fun she becomes. Her little personality is HUGE and hilarious. She is really well-behaved for a 5 month old puppy. She responds to many commands, finally stopped biting, and will go scratch at the door when she needs to go out. No accidents since we returned from Europe!

My favorite thing lately has been watching Tim fall in love with this dog. He lurvs her!! Like 5 year old child with a pile of new toys on Christmas morning lurvs her. They will play and sit on the couch together and he is almost more excited to see her in the mornings and after work than she is sometimes. He misses her when we go out of town or when she has overnight play dates. So cute!

I hope he feels the same way about our children one day.

La organización de juegos olímpicos y saraos similares siempre ha sido terreno abonado para que florezcan chorizos de diverso pelaje dispuestos a redondear sus cuentas corrientes en un tiempo récord (y llegados a este punto casi hay que alegrarse de que Madrid no organice las Olimpiadas de 2016, porque de chorizos de diverso pelaje vamos bien sobraos por estos lares).

La novela negra, como fiel reflejo de lo que ocurre a nuestro alrededor que es, no podía permanecer ajena al fenómeno y así, a bote pronto, me viene a la memoria la tercera novela de la serie protagonizada por mi admirado Kostas Jaritos, Suicidio perfecto, con las obras de Atenas 2004 como telón de fondo.

Pero estas cosas ya pasaban 68 años antes, como nos muestra Philip Kerr en su último título publicado en España, Si los muertos no resucitan, con un Bernie Gunther en estado de gracia, ejerciendo de detective de hotel de lujo y envuelto en un asunto de contratos de obras para la construcción del estadio olímpico de Berlín en el que arrasó un tal Jesse Owens. Un Bernie que, por cierto, cada vez me recuerda más al angelino y cínico Marlowe pero con acento teutón.

Eso sí, el alemán (más exactamente su creador, Philip Kerr) se cuida muy mucho de citar en la novela al personaje de Chandler, ya que la primera parte de Si los muertos no resucitan está ambientada en 1934, justo el año en que Marlowe protagonizaba su primer caso novelado, El sueño eterno. Así que, a falta de angelinos buenos son los franciscanos, y es Spade (éste sí, nacido literariamente en 1930) el utilizado como elemento de comparación.

Marlowe, Spade, Gunther… Dios los cría y ellos se juntan.

Por cierto, ¿también Gunther tendría cara de Bogart si alguien lo llevase al cine?

The name “Marlow” or “Marlowe” carries with it at least three different important literal references. Christopher Marlowe was the  writer of Faust, the story of a man selling his soul to the devil. Charles Marlow is the name of the sailor in Conrads “Heart of darkness” who goes into the jungle of Congo to meet with Kurtz, and experiences “the horror! the horror!” Last but not least “Philip Marlowe is the name of Raymond Chandlers hardboiled, hard drinking, wise cracking detective from books like “The big sleep” and “The long goodbye”.

It is also the name of a up and coming Dubstep producer. Now I don’t know why he chose the name, perhaps he’s actually called  Marlow, or perhaps he’s from the city of Marlow. Still, i firmly believe taking such a name carries with it responsibility. You can’t call yourself Marlow without going into the darkness.

Theres been some hype around the artist lately, and my hopes were high as i started to listen. Dubstep is in general a quite dark genre, so it shouldn’t be difficult to make my preconceptions come true.  But instead it seems Marlow has tried to go in the exact opposite direction. “Bandwagon Junglist” hasa nice bass, but also a quite housy vocal sample and a cute little melody. “Back 4 more” is even more house, funky perhaps, i don’t know, dark it is not. I have to say i am utterly disappointed. I demand of Marlow a public apology for these tracks, and that he starts making the dark tracks that his name promises us.

shakespeare was but a mortal, marlowe did die

donne remins only of the occassioned bone, perhaps two

raleigh lives only in extravagant and glorified parchment

so does the blind seer, milton, – librarians have taken after him

pope still awakens primordial passions of the burning sort

yet his is not the land of the living – neither is johnson, nor hawthorne

and certainly not whitman – that poet of the body

what of the blessed keats or the amorous byron

yet how it stands that in death they yet speak with such vehemence and certainty

how that in death they all become into glorified instructors – even those spurned in their day

for we all be but the attending caretakers in natures vast burrial ground – even the library

for in reading pope, am at once transported into such glories that i dont count it strange to

find myself sitting by his bedside or rather grave

thus in return for elegant companionship – i offer my services even attending to their graves

All cultures that know them have found serpents fascinating. Indeed serpents are said to ‘‘fascinate’’ their prey, cast a spell on them with a look; human cultures seem to have fallen under their sway. Snakes can be extremely dangerous, being both venomous and ‘‘subtle’’ or sneaky; they strike without warning from grass or coverts; they can look beautiful in their glittering multi-colored skin; they creep on their bellies but can rear up; they shed their skin and seem rejuvenated; they sidle or meander; and in legend at least some can fly, some swallow their own tails, and some have a head at each end. The symbolic possibilities are rich and often ambiguous.

 The most important serpent for western literature, of course, is the one in the garden of Eden, who persuaded Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and thus brought about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden and the advent of death. He was ‘‘more subtil than any beast of the field’’ and simple Eve was no match for him (Gen. 3.1–7). St. Paul worries that ‘‘as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty,’’ the minds of Christians might be ‘‘corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ’’ (2 Cor. 11.3). The serpent was thus connected with knowledge or wisdom, though a false or even fatal knowledge, and with human mortality. Behind these connections may lie the notion that serpents are themselves immortal because they shed their skins; their wisdom might be due to their great age or to their intimate relation with the earth (they even look wise). In the Sumerian/Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, a snake denies Gilgamesh the plant of immortality by snatching it, eating it, and then shedding its skin; a structuralist would call this a variant of the Eden story. As for wisdom, despite the serpent’s evil connotations, Christ calls on his followers to be ‘‘wise as serpents’’ (Matt. 10.16).

 In the Christian scheme the serpent of Eden became ‘‘the great dragon,’’ ‘‘that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world’’ (Rev. 12.9); ‘‘Oure firste foo, the serpent Sathanas,’’ in Chaucer’s phrase (Prioress’s Tale 1748); ‘‘The infernal Serpent’’ of Milton (PL 1.34). Goethe’s devil Mephistopheles invokes ‘‘my aunt, the famous snake’’ (Faust I 335). The ‘‘dreadful Dragon’’ that Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight vanquishes after a terrible battle (FQ 1.11.4–55) is the dragon of Revelation, and the Knight reenacts the victory of Michael and the angels (Rev. 12.7).

The older belief that serpents are wise, and not just subtle or cunning, was revived in the gnostic sects of snake-worshippers, known as the Naasenes (from Hebrew nahas, ‘‘serpent’’) and Ophites (from Greek ophis, ‘‘serpent’’). They seem to have believed that the serpent in the garden was trying to bring true wisdom and divinity to Adam and Eve, who were trapped in the fallen world by a wicked creator god; as the embodiment of gnosis or wisdom the serpent descends again as Christ. Something of this inversion of Christian symbols may be found in Shelley, who stages an elaborate allegorical contest between ‘‘An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in flight’’: the Serpent, ‘‘the great Spirit of Good did creep among / The nations of mankind, and every tongue / Cursed and blasphemed him as he passed; for none / Knew good from evil’’ (Laon and Cythna 193, 373–76). Keats’s poem Lamia might be taken as another swerve from orthodoxy, for the lovely serpent-woman whom Lycius loves is defeated by a cold skeptical philosopher; the wisdom of this serpent is imagination and love.

Another biblical serpent is the one Moses made out of brass at God’s command, the sight of which cured the Israelites of snakebite (Num. 21.8–9). Much later this piece of magical homeopathy did not sit well with Hezekiah, who destroyed it (2 Kgs 18.4). Nonetheless John cites it as a type of Christ crucified, faith in whom cures us of all ills (John 3.14–15).

‘‘Serpent’’ comes from Latin serpens, serpent-, from a root meaning ‘‘crawl’’ or ‘‘creep.’’ A meandering river could be called ‘‘a serpent river’’ (Jonson, ‘‘To Robert Wroth’’ 18) without evoking Satan. The river in London’s Hyde Park is called The Serpentine, as several Greek rivers were called Ophis or Drakon. When Milton describes the early rivers of creation ‘‘With serpent error wandering’’ (PL 7.302), however, it is hard to rule out suggestions of the Fall. If to sin is to wander in error (Latin errare means ‘‘wander’’), a snake’s sidling, meandering motion seconds its evil associations.

 In Homer snakes are often omens. The Greeks recall a ‘‘great sign’’: a snake (drakon) devours eight sparrow nestlings and their mother, and the seer interprets it to mean that nine years must pass before they sack Troy (Iliad 2.301–30); it is as if the snake symbolizes time, or eternity, which swallows the bird-years. Another omen is the appearance of the eagle with a serpent in its talons; the serpent stings the bird, who lets it drop; the Trojan seer takes the portent to mean they will not drive the Greeks away (12.200–29).

A similar image grips Orestes in Aeschylus’ Choephoroe. He sees himself and his sister as fledglings of eagle-Agamemnon, who was killed by a deadly viper (echidna), Clytemnestra (246–59). The imagery continues in the play: the viper stands for underhand domestic treachery, as it does in Sophocles’ Antigone, where Creon denounces Ismene as ‘‘a viper lurking in the house’’ (531). Close to this sense of betrayal is Aesop’s fable of ‘‘The Snake and the Rustic’’: the peasant rescues a frozen snake by placing it in his bosom, but when it thaws out it bites him. ‘‘You are nourishing a viper in your bosom’’ (Petronius, Satyricon 77) became proverbial: ‘‘O familier foo, . . . // Lyk to the naddre [adder] in bosom sly untrewe’’ (Chaucer, Merchant’s Tale 1784–86); ‘‘O villains, vipers, . . . // Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!’’ (Shakespeare, R2 3.2.129–31). Racine’s Oreste warns Pyrrhus against raising the son of Hector in his home ‘‘lest this serpent reared in your bosom / Punish you one day for having saved him’’ (Andromaque 1.2.167–68). Dryden’s Antony accuses Cleopatra and Dolabella of being ‘‘serpents / Whom I have in my kindly bosom warmed, / Till I am stung to death’’ (All for Love 4.1.464–66). This snake thus becomes the emblem of ingratitude. ‘‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is,’’ Lear cries, ‘‘To have a thankless child’’ (1.4.288–89).

 The snake in the bosom grew more internal and metaphorical until it could represent an entirely mental pain or poison. In Envy’s bosom, according to Spenser, ‘‘secretly there lay / An hatefull Snake’’ (FQ 1.4.31), while Malbecco, followed by jealousy and scorn, was ‘‘So shamefully forlorne of womankynd, / That, as a Snake, still lurked in his wounded mynd’’ (3.10.55). Cowper seems to echo Milton on rivers as he begins his ‘‘Progress of Error’’ by asking the Muse to sing how ‘‘The serpent error twines round human hearts’’ (4). ‘‘Every mortal,’’ says Chénier, ‘‘hides in his heart, even from his own eyes, / Ambition, the insidious serpent’’ (‘‘Le Jeu de Paume’’ st. 15).

The most common snake in the mind or heart since the Romantics, at least, is remorse or guilt. Coleridge addresses a dissolute man who gaily laughs during nightly orgies ‘‘while thy remembered Home / Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart!’’ (‘‘Religious Musings’’ 285–86); later he dismisses his own ‘‘viper thoughts’’ of remorse in ‘‘Dejection’’ (94). Wordsworth writes of a man suffering from ‘‘the stings of viperous remorse’’ (1850 Prelude 9.576). Shelley imagines a bloated vice-ridden king trying to sleep, but ‘‘conscience, that undying serpent, calls / Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task’’ (Queen Mab 3.61–62). Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin is ‘‘gnawed by the snake of memory and repentance’’ (1.46); Pushkin himself, in the darkness, feels ‘‘the bite of all the burning serpents of remorse’’ (‘‘Remembrance’’).

 Homer compares Paris’ sudden fear at the sight of Menelaus to that of a man who comes upon a snake and suddenly steps back ‘‘and the shivers come over his body, / and he draws back and away, cheeks seized with green pallor’’ (Iliad 3.33–35, trans. Lattimore; see Virgil, Aeneid 2.379–81). Half a line of Virgil’s, ‘‘a cold snake lurks in the grass’’ (Eclogues 3.93), has led to a proverbial phrase. Fortuna, according to Dante’s Virgil (who quotes himself), shifts the world’s goods about according to her judgment, ‘‘which is hidden like a snake in grass’’ (Inferno 7.84). Spenser’s Despair comes ‘‘creeping close, as Snake in hidden weedes’’ (1.9.28). This image merges with the biblical account of the subtle serpent in the garden, and with the traitor cherished in one’s home, to yield the symbolism of King Hamlet’s murder. The Ghost tells his son ‘‘ ‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, / A serpent stung me’’ (1.5.35–36); young Hamlet has already felt that the world is ‘‘an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely’’ (1.2.135–37); the serpent turns out to be the king’s brother.

Work Cited: Ferber – A Dictionary of Allusions and Symbols

I went out to a Cornish Guy Fawkes, bonfire and fireworks party last night, organised for a local charity. The fire was well a-blaze by the time I got there, delayed by Yoda the cat, who insisted on “seconds”. If there’d been a “Guy”, he’d have been long gone but perhaps there hadn’t. The custom of burning his effigy has fallen out of custom in recent years, although one can easily imagine the effigies of a few latter-day Fawkes that might be ceremoniously sacrificed.Perhaps we could start a new custom of writing our victim’s names out on paper planes and launching them into the fiery furnace?

I placed a few pictures of the event on Facebook and an American friend responded immediately with the words, “Wish it was celebrated here.” She couldn’t quite remember the name of the song. “What is it?,” she texted, “Gunpowder, treason and… what?”

She said she couldn’t understand why the “Brits” would want to celebrate an attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament. I pointed out that it was an excuse to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, one of the plotters who were caught attempting it.

We British are a strange breed and when the Houses of Parliament actually did burn down in 1834, tens of thousands of London’s good citizens turned out to marvel and cheer at the event. Given the nature of recent scandal in the House, I’m sure there are those unkind enough to want to see the present buildings razed to the ground so we could all make a fresh start.

Some of the gunpowder plotters of 1605 were, as Shakespeare afficiandos know,distantly related to his Warwickshire family who, like so many people at that time were what we might now call “closet” Catholics. Although the Shakespeares were not proven to be directly implicated.

Often in his life, Shakespeare proved to be a slippery customer in what were dangerous times. But, by then, he was well established amongst the Elizabethan elite and protected by his patron, the Earl of Southampton and as my friend , writer Patricia Rogers has written, possibly by Queen Elizabeth’s love of the theatre and his plays.

An example of his slipperiness shows up during the events surrounding Lord Essex’s Rebellion in 1601. On the night before the event, Shakespeare’s Company were asked by some of the Essex supporters to perform Richard II, a play which deals with the deposition of a King, a very dangerous topic in Elizabeth’s lifetime. The relevent scenes had often been performed but never published. In fact when Elizabeth saw the play she remarked that it was really about her. One can almost hear the cries of, “Oh, no it’s not your Majesty.”

Essex’s ill-organised rebellion failed and he later paid with his life

Shakespeare’s Company were duly hauled up in front of the authorities and asked why they’d performed the play, given the nature of its content. They argued their way out of it by saying that they were poor players and could neither refuse the lords who asked them, nor the fee offered. They hadn’t played it for ages they said and even wondered whether they could remember all the words.One can almost imagine the phrase, “We wuz only following orders, guv,” escaping from their lips. Shakespeare didn’t put in an appearance at the hearing and, as far as we know,escaped public censure. But his patron, the Earl of Southampton spent a year in the Tower for his involvement in Essex’s rebellion.

The transcripts of the inquiry into the Richard II performance are preserved and still viewable. As, indeed, is much information from Elizabeth’s spys thanks, one imagines, to the thoroughness of the Queen’s spymaster and member of the dreaded Star Chamber, Sir Thomas Walsingham who was mainly responsible for turning the country into what we would call, “a police state”, rather like East Germany before the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.

The outspoken writer, Ben Jonson a contemporary of Shakespeare’s did get into trouble for some of the views expressed in one of his plays and only escaped having his nose and ears slit ( a relatively minor Elizabethan punishment ) by the gallant intervention of his mother. They branded Jonson with the letter “T”, for the  Tyburn gallows, on his thumb, to remind him where he’d probably be heading the next time.

Shakespeare was one of the few, some claim the only, play-wright of his period to escape some form of punishment. The definition of treasonous statements in those days was a broad remit.

Shakespeare slipped a crafty reference to the Cambridge  University educated, homosexual playwright/”spy”, Christopher Marlowe into  his play,”As you like it,” referring obliquely to Marlowe’s suspicious murder as, “A great reckoning in a little room.”  Nothing came of it. From the pen of Ben Jonson it might have meant a trip on a tumbril.

To be openly homosexual, a playwright and more than likely, a spy, couldn’t have been easy. But then it’s never been easy to remain an un-masked spy at Cambridge as 20th century history tells us gay or otherwise.

A settled, ordered life was never going to be Marlowe’s lot.

Certainly, Shakespeare’s wasn’t. But, touchingly I find, the shepherd’s life was the one he portrayed often as the life to aspire to. Romantic memories, perhaps, of a bucolic Warwickshire childhood walking across the fields to visit his grandparents in Snitterfield?

He even puts that lovely speech about the simple life into a melancholic Henry VI in Pt 2 Act 2 Sc 5 which begins,”O God! methinks it were a happy life, to be no better than a homely swain.” He always wrote of his shepherds, young and old, with affection, love, respect and humor.

You could, as the saying goes, take the boy out of Warwickshire but you couldn’t take Warwickshire out of the boy. He even went home to die there, having become rich and famous enough to buy one of the biggest houses in Stratford-on-Avon and even acquire a coat of arms for a family brought low by a father’s disgrace.

Like  his character,King Lear I hope he had moments when he felt free of all that Court intrigue and had time to laugh at the Court’s “gilded butterflies” and of “Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out.”

A million miles away from gunpowder, treason and plot.

P.S. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has, on display, the lantern being used by Guy Fawkes when he was caught.

Me gustan los guiños literarios, sobre todo cuando vienen tan a cuento como el que nos ocupa. Porque si en una novela policíaca cuya acción se desarrolla en la ciudad de Los Ángeles, a finales de los cuarenta, aparecen nada más empezar unas fotos pornográficas vitales para la trama, ¿qué mejor sitio que una librería llamada Geiger’s para ocultar al presunto fotógrafo guarrindongo?

Por supuesto, el viejo Geiger ya ha muerto y el negocio lo regenta ahora su sobrino, Calvin Saint George. Y John Ray Horn nada tiene que ver con Marlowe. Y, claro, la novela en cuestión no puede compararse con aquella en la que aparece por primera vez el fundador de la librería.

Eso sí, sirve para darse una entretenida vuelta por el Hollywood de posguerra, sus clubes, los estudios cinematográficos, los especialistas, los gángsteres de la época…

Nota: al parecer, hubo un ERE en la librería que afectó a la guapa librera de gafitas que nada sabía de libros.

La luna de Clea

Edward Wright

Ediciones Pàmies

killed Christopher Marlowe by stabbing him in the eye following the argument over the bill. OR DID HE…? Current conspiracy research suggests he actually killed Marlowe to allow Francis Bacon to take over pretending to be Shakespeare. (thus, Frizer was handsomely rewarded by Bacon’s patron/reputed lover, James I)

Merry Christmas, you murderous bastard:

“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” by Sir Walter Raleigh

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten–
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

written in response to Marlowe.

T.C.

[image]

Jeg er en av de som syns at Christopher Marlowe er undervurdert og har havnet i skyggen av
den store dramatikeren og giganten i europeiske litteratur -
William Shakespeare. Dette diktet her er en av Marlowes mest kjente dikt og det er typisk renessanse-poesi.
Temaet er som man kan lese ut ifra tittelen - trengselen etter kjærlighet.
Dette diktet ble også besvart av den britiske dikteren Walter Raleigh i hans dikt
"The Nymph`s Reply to the Shepherd".
Hvor "nymfen" besvarer den unge gjeterens kjærlighetserklæring med et krasst nei!

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

We went to Ivan’s preschool today for the Halloween party and parade and it was awesome.  There were about a million Disney princesses, several superheroes, four dinosaurs (including Ivan), and one Elvis.  We had a great time.

Ivan was a T-Rex, Dave was Captain Picard, Marlowe and I were lady bugs. 

My baby girl is three months old today. She is 12 lbs and 1 ounce. Yay for growing babies!

The English bard, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) seems to be a Man for all the seasons. Going through some of his works, I realized that any interpretation could be given to his expositions. Some have even described him as an Existentialist and have compared him to Leo Tolstoy or Albert Camus.

The smoking gun? Words found in his plays seem to suggest that Shakespeare saw life as a tortured existence in which Man was in a constant state of despair and dread. “Life was nothing but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is gone. It is like a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing”. These words are similar to that of the French existentialist, Albert Camus who saw life as a cycle of absurdity. Man was not absurd and the world was not absurd, but the fact that Man was living in the world was an absurdity. Or Tolstoy who described the concept of life as a mean trick played on him by a god.

In his Play,Alls Well that ends Well,Act 4 Scene 3,he states as follows; The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Shakespeare realizes that human existence was a hybrid of emotions and events, some good and others bad.

Shakespeare has been subject to lots of Myths and speculations. The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi even stated openly that Shakespeare was an Arab and that his real name was Sheik-ek-Speare and that he had lived and died in the Maghreb.A chap once announced on the BBC that Shakespeare might have been a Zulu warrior in the mold of Nelson Mandela (He had a version of Julius Caesar in his gaol at Robben Island).

The most realistic yarn that I have heard is that Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare are one and the same. There seems to be some credence to this because most of Marlowe’s works are frightening similar to the Bard’s, although Marlowe was to die in a Tavern stabbing incident in England. Shakespeare lived in an Elizabethan England that was a police state run by Francis Walsingham.Even Marlowe worked for the security services and gave valuable information when he was called upon to do so.

The mystery of Shakespeare will remain with us for along time to come. He will continue to be the subject of debates and conjectures. Shakespeare was an enigma in life. In death, the same applies.

Writing from the iPhone, since I can’t get to the computer right now.

IVAN
* He’s becoming much more interested in the words on a page, and often asks me what things say or will point out letters (signs) as we’re driving.
* We’re seeing some regression; lately he’s been wanting me to feed him breakfast. Sigh.
* I mentioned this before, but it is hilarious when he calls me “hon” in the same exasperated way I say it to Dave. . Example:

Ivan: My milk isn’t on the table.
Me: Yes, Ivan. It’s right here.
Ivan: No it isn’t, hon!

Heh.

* The morning preschool dropoff is getting smoother. Thank God. He usually has a really cranky period in the afternoon, though, which I’m sure is just his way if releasing tension, but it can be pretty stressful for all of us.
* Picture day at school was last Friday… hysterical.  Here’s a preview:

Picture Day!

MARLOWE
* She is outgrowing so many of her clothes! She’s in a lot of 3-6 month stuff now.
* At night when I try to sleep on my side and angle Marlowe away from me, she somehow manages to move herself enough to get right beside me again and I wake up with her fuzzy little head in my back.
* She is as smiley as ever. It is so sweet to see and wake up to; she is such a happy girl! Except when we are in the car. She still really hates the car seat and is unconsolable in there at times.
* Whenever we nurse, she ays with her hair and/or holds my hand.
* She still just catnaps in the day, but she is showing some consistency with her timing. Nights are generally pretty good, and she’s been going to sleep around 6:30 which allows me to put Ivan down as well. Yay! I have missed my special night time with him. If she keeps it up, I’ll be able to have special time at night with them both!

Marlowe Updates:
She still has red hair!  In fact, it’s redder than it was before.  She has outgrown some 0-3 outfits and may even be outgrowing size 1 diapers.  She fits into some of her 3-6 stuff, which is fun for Mommy.  Dress-up time!

Ivan Updates:
He still cries/ complains when I leave him at preschool, but is fine within minutes of my departure.  I’ve been very impressed with the staff and how quick they are to repsond to him/ help him out.  Turns out he’s fine after he’s had some milk, usually.  Very interesting. 

He has wanted more babying lately.  It’s fine, but trying at times.

 Some funny things he’s said lately:

* Where’s the heck, Mommy?
* This booger is KILING me!
* He’s been using the word “hon” a lot.  Like, “Come upstairs with me, hon!”  It’s hilarious.
* Watch out, Mommy!  You are driving too far!  (In the car.  Also, he always yells at Dave to drive with both hands on the wheel.)

The Laramie Project:  Ten Years Later went very well and Dave was busy but fine with both kids for 11 hours (noon to 11).  I’m really glad I got to do it… it’ll be the only theatre thing I do all year.

Every week day Marlowe gets dropped off at my sister’s house for doggie daycare. She runs around with my sister’s MinPin, Cayman, and has a grand old time barking at the neighbor dogs and terrorizing Elise’s cat. She has been doing this every work day since we brought her home. Marlowe + Cayman = BFFE!! Cayman loves having Marlowe around and when I show up to their house on the weekends without Marlowe, Cayman goes running to the garage looking for her. When he realizes that she’s not there he kind of mopes around and wants nothing to do with me. I hope Cayman isn’t too miserable while Marlowe goes on vacation.

 This week we will be driving Marlowe to Duncan USA to stay with my BFFE, Mrs. Wopsle, and Hemi, her 7 month old Miniature Schnauzer, while we are in Europe. Marlowe is quite a hand full and I’m not quite sure Amy knows what she’s getting her and her husband into with two Schnauzer puppies running around their house. But Tim and I are extremely grateful to the Wopsles for taking her in. Hemi even got fixed for the occasion.

 I’m sure Marlowe won’t miss us much, but we will certainly miss her.

Ack, I always think of stuff to write about and then forget by the time I can actually sit down to write.  Annoying.  I’ll just yammer on until I think of stuff.

Marlowe is great!  She’s in her first 3-6 month outfit today, and it fits (none of the other 3-6 stuff does).  She looks huge to me.  Whenever anyone sees her they ask who has red hair in our family!  I really hope it stays red.  I love it.   I have a good history with red-haried girls.  I think she’s a bit congested right now.  I’ve been trying to transition her into her co-sleeper and it’s going okay, but she doesn’t sleep as well as she does when she’s right beside me. 

Ivan’s first weekof pre-school was a qualified success.  He woke up crying a few nights and he cried when I dropped him, but had a great time all day after that.  His teachers were able to be pretty specific about wheat he did, how he slept, etc., and it’s comforting to know that they are already getting to know HIM and not just treating him like an anonymous child.  The other kids in his class are sweet and always talk to me when I show up and yell at me for being too early.    They’re pretty fascinated with Marlowe, too.

We have a meeting next Thursday evening that is an intro to Montessori for parents, and we’re looking forward to that.

The drive is long, but not as awful as I imagined.  You really do get used to it, and I have podcasts.  Round trip, including the time I spend getting him signed in and everything, it’s about an hour and ten minutes.  And it makes for a very San Francisco morning.  To wit:

*  Ivan eats breakfast looking at the water, boats and birds on the Bay
* Depending on how we go, he either sees a sweeping view of downtown San Francisco, OR
* The hills and character of the Castro and Noe Valley, OR
* 101.  Can’t really romanticize 101. 

That’s what is known as looking for the silver lining.

Dave has a long day coming up on Monday, when I’m at Berkeley Rep doing The Laramie Project:  10 Years Later.  I’ll be gone from about noon – 11PM.   I have plenty of milk pumped, and I think Uncle Brian is going to come help with dinner and putting Ivan to bed, but I’m still nervous to leave.  Marlowe has been away from me for about 3 hours total since she was born (I mean where I am out of the house, away from her).  I know Dave can handle it, but it’ll be hard to leave them. 

Dave and Ivan are at week four of swimming lessons… two weeks left!  It’s gone very well.  Ivan can’t swim, but he isn’t scared of the water.  I would like him to be able to float, but I don’t know if they’ll get to that or not. 

Actually, I think that about covers it.  Go me!