Before sleep, before dreams, some photographs. Take them for what they’re worth (by which, of course, I mean not very much).
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Day: October 23, 2001
Tracey and Henry went on a school trip to the pumpkin patch last week. On the way home he says, “When pumpkins wanna communicate they turn into jack-o-lanterns.”
From Henry’s Diary. Found via Metafilter.
As I’ve said before, I sometimes like to read the lousy customer reviews over at Amazon.com. If I like a book and someone who can’t string two sentences together doesn’t…well, I guess that makes me feel a little better about myself and my opinions. It’s always interesting, too, to see why literature beloved by so many is vehemently hated by so many more. Take, for example, William Shakespeare.
A reader from New York calls Hamlet “one of the worst plays ever written, Shakespeare or no Shakespeare….The plot makes no sense,” he or she continues, “the character[‘]s motivations are contrived, and the jokes fall flat. I have read this play hundreds of times, seen umpteen productions and films, and am astonished at the plaudits universally accorded to it. The modern English translation by Daniel Nystedt, however, corrects many of these flaws (by eliminating the ghost and such unneccesary characters as Claudius, etc.) and overall is much more worthwhile.”
I have not heard of this translation, and my attempts to track it down online have so far yielded nothing. Can anyone out there help me? Remove the ghost, and the play easily becomes the tragedy of Claudius, murdered without cause by his adopted son Hamlet. Remove Claudius and…well then what exactly does Hamlet spend five acts worrying about?
A reader from Texas claims that Romeo and Juliet is “simply sensationalist trash” and “the Shakespearean equivalent of ‘Party of Five’ and the Spice Girls.” Who knew?
Personally, I prefer this tongue-in-cheek review by someone called “bruce banner from USA-A-OK”:
This was by far the worst science fiction novel I have ever watched. While the story of two lovers may seem romantic to some people, the use of spaceships and alien robots was very unneccesairy. The worst part of this play had to be the end where both charaters joined up with Marty McFly to save the universe. Thumbs down to you sir! The remix WAS better.
At least I hope that was tongue-in-cheek.