A Weekend at Erin's is Almost Entirely Unlike a Weekend at Bernie's

Friday, en route to Amy's to cut her hair, Molly, Jake and I spotted a cute, well-shaped green and blue sofa on the curb labeled 'Free!' We popped it into Molly's car and then remembered to actually /ask/ Amy if she wanted this couch we'd decided was perfect for her apartment: luckily, indeed she did. Molly repaired the butchery Cost Cutters had wrought on Amy's head with some hipster bangs. Their force is legend: when she swings her hair you swear you can hear Of Montreal songs drifting ever so faintly on the breeze. Were you gaze too long at these bangs, you would turn not into stone, but into a twee shoulder-strap messenger bag carried by someone named 'Sven.' Don't do it guys, Sven has like, nine bags now, he doesn't even need those.

Then we went to Heather's and tried an alcohol so tasty and amazing that I no longer remember its name. But it was a beautiful name. And Heather is a beautiful woman. And those were some truly, truly gorgeous salt and vinegar chips I left in her apartment, unguarded, among drunk boys, so that was probably the end of our love affair, there. I'll miss you, chips. We'll always have the Super Walmart.

Saturday I cleaned The Closet Of Infinite Horror for freaking hours. It's beautiful, though, I may like, post some pictures and make you all suffer through photos of a clean closet, because this is what miracles look like. I've still got to do a LOT of laundry and then go through those clothes, but largely it's done, and the Goodwill is about to be enriched by many bags, shoes and weirdly large t-shirts.

Then Amy picked my up and we went to Community Theater!Taming of the Shrew: it was pretty alright. Cut the baggy frame narrative. They went with a more 'partners in the joke' than 'subservient wife' interp, which is richer and more fun, but they could have pushed the physical chemistry more than they did to make that sing out? The delivery of the problematic end speech could have been more sly. It's been said before that Kate and Petruchio are ur-types for Beatrice and Benedick, and this is far from my favorite Shakespeare play. If you had really lively, good actors and great staging you could give them as a couple an awesomeness all their own, but on the page it's so--amorphous, I guess.

God I hate that dull, smarmy Harold Bloom essay on Taming, though. His praise almost made me dislike Kushner's adaptation of Dybbuk, which I adore. He loves what I love all wrong, dammit, and that's so much more insulting than just hating it.

Then we cleaned Amy's fridge and watched Kiss Me Kate, which I'd never seen before and really really loved. Except for the unfortunate info-dumping first scene where someone pretending to be Cole Porter pretends to be interested in a woman. And a bit of "From This Moment On" where someone lost a bet to Fosse and the contorted choreography got Too Crazy. The central couple's lovely--although Katy points out the songs in the original are a bit too long for their own good.

Today poor Katy felt wretched, and so we lolled about, watching some Simpsons and the first half of He Knew He Was Right. Trollope, like Elliot and Thackeray, is one of those period novelists I really should have read and never have. There was some discussion of trying him, though, because this adaptation's is great, and I generally love that era. The miniseries appears to have every notable British actor ever. I know Tolstoy liked Trollope (he's mentioned in Anna Karenina), and I love Tolstoy, so there could be some happy overlap here. If anyone's read Trollope and has a recommendation for where to start, I'd love to take it: with 47 novels his canon seems impregnable.***

Then Amy, Molly and I had very good spicy veggie bean soup, and Amy and I got to work. ( Das Gradskoolplan proceeds apace.* )

If you know anything about grad school application, particularly in England, I'd appreciate your insight or tips. I'm going for a taught masters program rather than research, and full time rather than part.**

*Since English-speakers do comedy!German, do German-speakers ever do comedy!English? In English we use it to make something sound comically foreboding/serious/efficient--what would be the semantic flavor of English appropriation?
**Because as an international student, I have to: working whilst matriculating in order to pay the billz is for native Englishmen, apparently. That's totally cool. I'll just go shake my money tree then, shall I? Oh, oh wait. I don't have that tree. Bummer.
***When Louis Trevelyan talks about the Colonel visiting his wife, he (perhaps unconsciously) uses such intensely sexual language. The Colonel's thrusting himself upon Emily. With the Colonel visiting Emily at her Uncle's, Louis speaks of Emily letting him in as if the house were her body. It's really well done, but I wonder if that's due to Andrew Davies's adaptation, or if Davies is preserving this increasingly sex-fixated vocabulary from the source text?

A Weekend at Erin's is Almost Entirely Unlike a Weekend at Bernie's

Friday, en route to Amy's to cut her hair, Molly, Jake and I spotted a cute, well-shaped green and blue sofa on the curb labeled 'Free!' We popped it into Molly's car and then remembered to actually /ask/ Amy if she wanted this couch we'd decided was perfect for her apartment: luckily, indeed she did. Molly repaired the butchery Cost Cutters had wrought on Amy's head with some hipster bangs. Their force is legend: when she swings her hair you swear you can hear Of Montreal songs drifting ever so faintly on the breeze. Were you gaze too long at these bangs, you would turn not into stone, but into a twee shoulder-strap messenger bag carried by someone named 'Sven.' Don't do it guys, Sven has like, nine bags now, he doesn't even need those.

Then we went to Heather's and tried an alcohol so tasty and amazing that I no longer remember its name. But it was a beautiful name. And Heather is a beautiful woman. And those were some truly, truly gorgeous salt and vinegar chips I left in her apartment, unguarded, among drunk boys, so that was probably the end of our love affair, there. I'll miss you, chips. We'll always have the Super Walmart.

Saturday I cleaned The Closet Of Infinite Horror for freaking hours. It's beautiful, though, I may like, post some pictures and make you all suffer through photos of a clean closet, because this is what miracles look like. I've still got to do a LOT of laundry and then go through those clothes, but largely it's done, and the Goodwill is about to be enriched by many bags, shoes and weirdly large t-shirts.

Then Amy picked my up and we went to Community Theater!Taming of the Shrew: it was pretty alright. Cut the baggy frame narrative. They went with a more 'partners in the joke' than 'subservient wife' interp, which is richer and more fun, but they could have pushed the physical chemistry more than they did to make that sing out? The delivery of the problematic end speech could have been more sly. It's been said before that Kate and Petruchio are ur-types for Beatrice and Benedick, and this is far from my favorite Shakespeare play. If you had really lively, good actors and great staging you could give them as a couple an awesomeness all their own, but on the page it's so--amorphous, I guess.

God I hate that dull, smarmy Harold Bloom essay on Taming, though. His praise almost made me dislike Kushner's adaptation of Dybbuk, which I adore. He loves what I love all wrong, dammit, and that's so much more insulting than just hating it.

Then we cleaned Amy's fridge and watched Kiss Me Kate, which I'd never seen before and really really loved. Except for the unfortunate info-dumping first scene where someone pretending to be Cole Porter pretends to be interested in a woman. And a bit of "From This Moment On" where someone lost a bet to Fosse and the contorted choreography got Too Crazy. The central couple's lovely--although Katy points out the songs in the original are a bit too long for their own good.

Today poor Katy felt wretched, and so we lolled about, watching some Simpsons and the first half of He Knew He Was Right. Trollope, like Elliot and Thackeray, is one of those period novelists I really should have read and never have. There was some discussion of trying him, though, because this adaptation's is great, and I generally love that era. The miniseries appears to have every notable British actor ever. I know Tolstoy liked Trollope (he's mentioned in Anna Karenina), and I love Tolstoy, so there could be some happy overlap here. If anyone's read Trollope and has a recommendation for where to start, I'd love to take it: with 47 novels his canon seems impregnable.***

Then Amy, Molly and I had very good spicy veggie bean soup, and Amy and I got to work. ( Das Gradskoolplan proceeds apace.* )

If you know anything about grad school application, particularly in England, I'd appreciate your insight or tips. I'm going for a taught masters program rather than research, and full time rather than part.**

*Since English-speakers do comedy!German, do German-speakers ever do comedy!English? In English we use it to make something sound comically foreboding/serious/efficient--what would be the semantic flavor of English appropriation?
**Because as an international student, I have to: working whilst matriculating in order to pay the billz is for native Englishmen, apparently. That's totally cool. I'll just go shake my money tree then, shall I? Oh, oh wait. I don't have that tree. Bummer.
***When Louis Trevelyan talks about the Colonel visiting his wife, he (perhaps unconsciously) uses such intensely sexual language. The Colonel's thrusting himself upon Emily. With the Colonel visiting Emily at her Uncle's, Louis speaks of Emily letting him in as if the house were her body. It's really well done, but I wonder if that's due to Andrew Davies's adaptation, or if Davies is preserving this increasingly sex-fixated vocabulary from the source text?