From A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V Scene 1
By William Shakespeare
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
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The Shakespeare is because my older son is reading A Midsummer Night's Dream in school, so we watched the Michael Hoffman film...because with Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stanley Tucci, David Strathairn, Anna Friel, Bernard Hill, Sam Rockwell, and naked Dominic West and Christian Bale, plus cinematography that makes reference to many famous Pre-Raphaelite and Neoclassical paintings, what's not to like, even if it does have Calista Flockhart struggling to make her dialogue sound natural? It was a pretty quiet day; wrote reviews of The Da Vinci Code for GMR and "By Any Other Name" for TrekToday, had a long conversation with my
1. Where did you grow up? In the suburbs outside Washington, DC.
2. Have you ever been to Indiana? Several times, though besides one night in Indianapolis before a Colts-Redskins game, I don't know that I've ever slept in Indiana; we lived in Chicago for four years and would take day trips.
3. Describe yourself at age 18: Geek. Well, thinner geek than I am now.
4. How do you deal with pain? Seek medication if it's physical pain and cry if it's emotional pain. (I have never experienced the sort of "good pain" that supposedly releases endorphins, or I would be a lot better about exercising.)
5. When is the last time you screwed up? According to my son, five minutes ago when I told him he was not allowed to play video games even though it's the weekend because he got in trouble at soccer practice yesterday.
1. How many places have you lived in your life? Childhood in two different DC suburbs, college in Philadelphia, grad school in Chicago, now back in the DC suburbs.
2. Which was your favorite and why and what street was it on? It would be impossible for me to pick a favorite, as they were such different times in my life; I have happy memories from all of them. I suppose my favorite view was the lake out my window on Lake Shore Drive in Hyde Park, Chicago.
3. If you could live anywhere for the rest of your life, where would it be? In the Cotswolds.
4. What would your ideal home have in it? My husband, my kids till they're of college age, cats, parakeets, gerbils, plants taken care of by someone other than me, great big windows, candles, a view of some body of water, big comfy couches, lots and lots of bookcases with lots and lots of books, more than one really awesome computer, the bathtub from the Prefects' Bathroom at Hogwarts.
5. Can you describe your current crib? Total disaster area mess with lots of junk I love.
Test scores are in: Northeast still has dumbest drivers! DC finished second to last in the nation! "Approximately one in three drivers said they usually do not stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. At least one out of five drivers did not know that pedestrians in a crosswalk have the right of way." Well, I could have told them that this is true in DC, but sheesh, I was hoping that maybe people were just jerks and not entirely ignorant! Graar!
...geese in the water...
...and coming ashore...
...and being generally adorable.
Saturday an old friend from both college and grad school is in town from Chicago so we are all taking our kids to the Spy Museum! Will not be around much!
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