Republicans versus Christians

"1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism; and
(2) the House of Representatives condemns the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s distorted message." [click here for link]

Free speech, religious speech, Christian belief are being attacked, and an attempt to silence and suppress them is underway. Some twenty trump worshiping congressmen are co-sponsors of this resolution. Deplorables voted in by deplorables.

At a time when so many men are cowards, or worse, it is good that some women are willing to be brave. Bishop Mariann Budde acted in the spirit of Jesus. She spoke for those in danger to the individual most responsible in creating the danger.

Shakespeare knew human character. Here Richard is sly enough to be tricky with syllogism. Anne here comes to the correct comparison, she went beyond to-day's Bishop Budde.

Lady Anne: No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Richard: But I know none, and therefore am no beast. Richard III (I.ii.71-2)

Trump is merciless. Moses spoke to faro, and faro was hardened to be more hardened.

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foto: New York Times

2022 Miscellany #16

WBWC 88.3 FM, Baldwin Wallace U [foto: jz]

Shakespeare's Casca and Cassius knives ready, room 177 Loomis Hall Baldwin Wallace. Very, quickly paced in 13 scenes. Actress, Emily Polcyn played Cassius. She was fantastic. [foto: jz]

a Caesarean cake [foto: jz]

part of a mural outside of a Lakewood saloon

On Detroit, in Cleveland, near La Sagrada Familia; replaces an earlier mural.

Statue in the style of buried Chinese terra cotta warriors of first Qin emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, c. 221-206 b.C., found in 1974; in front of a house on Florian in Cleveland.

John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cathedral Parma Christmas tree lot

Lincoln Park Cleveland O. on a cold November day

a personal greyhound (Cassius) in motion

screech owl in a sycamore, Red Lock on Towpath in Summit County

Gorilla surrounded by mini conveyor belts, Cleveland Zoo.

Giraffes may be the favorite animals of children.

madness of Macbeth

Well, i was waiting to see this as soon it was announced that Washington was playing Macbeth. The film was delayed for at least a year. No one is mentioning the cultural appropriation here. An actor can be cast in any role. Washington gives glances as he did in August Wilson's Fences, where he played Troy Maxson. With Shakespeare, one can watch the same play in different productions and be satisfied. In this one, it is early when Macbeth is insane. The ambition causes the madness, and murder follows. When Macbeth sits on the throne, he is mad.

Filming in black and white was good, the visuals were surprising and well done. There is fog, strong light, shadows, and dark, and the sound of a light's pull chain. The director can shade the story when doing a play. The author often does not give much more than words, a naked text. Choices are made in presentation, and different presentations can be well done. The castle is beyond huge (but void of ornamentation), as large as any in a silent movie spectacular. Some scenes the travel within are as in Citizen Kane. The pillars of the castle imitate the trees in the forest, and vice versa. Birnam Wood grows its trees in straight ranks, which match the columns of men carrying boughs. The leaves fall without wind until Macbeth opens the window, and then sits again on the throne and waits. When he stands and walks, the columns and the trees are in the same hall. 

Ross appears again and again, he does not narrate, but he is a catalyst to action and as a witness to the action. The Macbeths are around sixty in this version. Why would their murderous jealousy be directed at Banquo (who is prophesised never to be king)?

There is no cauldron. The three witches were played by one actress, and they would turn into corbies (ravens). Corbies scavenge human carrion. Magpies, rooks, and ravens are all corvids. Here, the Ghost of Banquo is one. At the very end, a flight of these birds end the movie. There is that odd poetic word for a collective of these birds—murder.

Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest play, and this movie finishes the story in about 100 minutes, and they come quick. When a movie flows in viewing, that one is surprised it's already over, it is a good movie.

the shark has been jumped

 Tulsa rally site, largely unoccupied

Trump revels in the spotlight. He has added a 4th law to Kepler's planetary motions, "Everything revolves about me". The Donald wants to be in the public eye. He and his first wife did a cheesy commercial for a pizza chain, he was on the cover of Playboy magazine, he was on episodes of  The Jeffersons, and so on. Mark Burnett talked him into a "reality game show". Trump thought the genre crap, but Burnett told him he would be the star, and the publicity would add dollars to the Trump Empire. Donald was on 186 episodes from 2004 to 2015, he brought on his three issues from the first wife, and the third wife and her issue onto the show. Some people from the show (Omarosa Manigault) came with him to the White House.

Trump during his 2016 campaign enjoyed the adulation of the crowd in jammed, small arenas. After inauguration he continued to have them. The last had been on March 2nd in Charlotte North Carolina. Then the awareness of he coronavirus took the nation's attention. He shifted to daily briefings on the virus, where he would babble, and brag, and bullshit on, and on, and on. April 23rd, Donald spoke about light and cleaning chemicals...

"Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light? And I think you said, that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting.And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that? By injection inside or almost a cleaning. As you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that."

Well, after telling America to drink bleach, and to shove a light bulb up the a$$...that pretty much ended the live television updates on the virus. He was ridiculed, he does give comedians material: [click]

Donald needed a stage. Some evilton proposed June 19th Tulsa Oklahoma. That was a provocation which the press could not ignore.  June 19th is also called, Juneteenth, Emancipation Day, it was a Day of Jubilee. On June 19th, 1865 word was read by a Union general that the slaves of Texas were free men. The next year, the freemen celebrated the commemoration. It is a yearly event, although many in America did not realise. Tulsa is an oil town in a very, very Republican state. It is a place where the surrounding populace would be full of trumpsters. In 1921, it was the site of a massacre. The Greenwood part of town contained the successful bourgeoise section of black residents of Tulsa. Black people were shot with machine gun, and fire bombed by aereoplane. [click] The choice of Tulsa on the date was done with purpose. Black lives do not matter at all. After public protest, the Trump campaign changed the day to Saturday the 20th.

Donald Trump arrives at the backyard of the White House, post Tulsa. 

"Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe a moment when something that was once widely popular, but has since grown less popular, makes a misguided attempt at generating publicity that instead only serves to highlight its irrelevance....The phrase derives from an episode of sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984), in which the character Fonzie jumps over a shark while on water-skis."*

Trump had his coronavirus rally in Tulsa, 6,200 came in a place that seats 19,000, and after his campaign manager claimed a million ticket requests. This foto by Patrick Semansky of Trump walking from heliocopter to the White House shows a dejected Trump carrying his MAGAt cap, and his tie undone (never seen that picture before). People have snagged a video of the walk, and attached it to music. One had "Ashokan Farewell", another had Chris de Burgh's "The Lady in Red", and so on... Exactly, watching the video of the walk, it looks like a man coming home after a long and/or hard day. Donald's face looks better than his acting face, there is no fake smile, no pouty fish lips, no full of hot air pretense—just a tired man walking; but for him, it is defeat, and perhaps a moment of recognition of humiliation; but to-morrow will come, and he will be his mean, cranky, obnoxious self.

                                   ...Who knows himself a braggart,
                                   Let him fear this, for it will come to pass
                                   that every braggart shall be found an ass. 
                                                         —Parolles, All's Well That Ends Well  IV. iii
________________
*  from Wikipedia
postscriptum: noon 2 August 2020. Herman Cain, a prominent black Republican, attended Trump's Tulsa rally.  Nine days later, he was diagnosed with coronavirus. 30 June he was hospitalised. 30 July he died. Cain ran Godfather's Pizza for Pillsbury. Tombstone is another pizza company.

cultural appropriation, or Oscars too white

Other than Othello, there should only be white actors in Shakespeare plays. How ridiculous is there to have a black Romeo, or Juliet in Verona? Why does not someone complain about "cultural appropriation"? In truth, the profession of acting is to display yourself as someone else. Many historians believe there were no female actors in Shakespeare's plays, in his lifetime. Since then, there has been Shakespeare performances with all female casts. That is acting.

To-day is Oscars night. Some of the arguments used are not honest. I have read, a new Macbeth is to be filmed with Denzel Washington. Washington is a fine actor, he has played some great rôles, and he has won two Academy Award Oscars. Why should he not play the mediæval Scot?

When Kevin Kostner played Robin Hood, Morgan Freeman had a major rôle in the movie. His character escaped from a Moslem prison in Jerusalem with Robin. That was stretching the legend.

Hollywood is run for the desire of profits. Unsavory business has a long history. Only so many good movies are made each year, and their subjects are not evenly distributed. Fair practices are not universal, but to expect a certain number of nomination, and award picks is demanding a quota. There may be a year which has three black women nominated for leading actress, and they may all have given great performances, but black population of the United States is not 60%, it is not even 20%.

In recent years, many American films with American rôles have been played by non-American actors. When the actor is interviewed, people are surprised with the accent they speak with. Ruth Negga played a Virginian woman in Loving, and was nominated in 2016; she is Ethiopian and Irish. Lupita Nyong'o is a Kenyan, and acted in 12 Years a Slave, and was nominated in 2013. Naomie Harris was born in Jamaica, and grew up in London and was nominated in 2016 for Moonlight. Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor was born in London to Nigerians, he was also nominated for 12 Years a Slave. Cynthia Erivo, another black Londoner, is nominated for to-night's Oscar as Harriet. Then there is Marianne Jean-Baptiste, another black actress born of émigré parents in London nominated for Secrets & Lies in 1996 playing a Londoner. Charlise Theron, a white South African, has been nominated for to-night, and twice before, winning once.

It is true that discrimination and favoritism has been rife to-day, and throughout American history, but every action and moment is not to be put to its account. The Oscars is not a good battleground for this argument.

Dogberry

temporary watchman, Verges the constable, Dogberry the master constable

Shakespeare's play, Much Ado About Nothing, takes place in Italy; but Italy is really England. Shakespeare places his comedies, and tragedies abroad, in part, for his own safety. Too easily discerned criticism, or mockery of English society would be punished by government. Comedies have an happy ending, where everything is resolved, and people are married. 

Beyond the romantic comedy aspect, there is additional humour in the police force (farce). Dogberry is the master constable, and a fool, and is described as "an ass" in the play. Dogberry Allen Branstein) repeats the insult directed at himself, as evidence of a civil infraction.  

CONRADE:  Away! You are an ass, you are an ass!

DOGBERRY:  Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? Oh, that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass, though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.  

The local police force in England was rotated amongst the citizens. Here you see someone dressed like Chef Boyardee with comic moustaches, and a thick and silly accent. The cook is joined by a butcher, and another town conscript.

Dogberry attempts over serious legalese, that his tongue trips and twists, and confuses rather than explains. Something that is familiar in contemporary police. Dogberry charges his two prisoners with the same crime (lying) six times: 1-accusation, 2-"moreover" (same accusation), 3-"secondarily" (same accusation), 4-"sixth and lastly" (same accusation), 5-"thirdly" (same accusation), 6-"to conclude" (same accusation). Police and prosecution still do the same multiple charges on one action.

Saturday evening at Lakewood Park, the three watchmen with Borachio and Conrade.

3 conscript watchmen (butcher, baker, bearded man dressed as a granny), 

and Borachio (Spanish: borracho, drunkard; English: borachio, drunkard [obsolete])

Margaret

Ursula, Hero, Margaret, Beatrice

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

Went on Tuesday, for the first time to Oberlin Summer Theater, and saw Measure for Measure. Sofie Rejto was marvellous as Isabella (a novice of the Poor Clares). She was the object of the temporary ruler's indecent proposal:
 
Measure for Measure Act II, Scene iv 

    Isabella: Ha! little honour to be much believed,
    And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!  
    I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
    Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
    Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud
    What man thou art. 

    Angelo: Who will believe thee, Isabel?  
    My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life,
    My vouch against you, and my place i' the state,
    Will so your accusation overweigh,
    That you shall stifle in your own report
    And smell of calumny. I have begun,  
    And now I give my sensual race the rein:
    Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
    Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,
    That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
    By yielding up thy body to my will;

    Or else he must not only die the death,
    But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
   To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
   Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
   I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
   Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true.
    ...
    Isabella: To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
    Who would believe me? 


Shakespeare wrote this play over four hundred years ago, and it is topical here and now.  Many women have said they were assaulted by Donald Trump, and they are either attacked or ignored.


In the last scene Escalus says:

    Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander 
    Lord Angelo? they have confessed you did.   
    ...
    Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar,
    Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women
    To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth...

Legal and religious terms are used throughout the play. The title is about justice, but when Jesus talks of justice, he also speaks of mercy.

For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. – Matthew vii. 2. (3rd part of the Sermon on the Mount)

In Act V, the long final scene, Duke Vincentio says:

    Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE.
    Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested;
    Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
    We do condemn thee to the very block
    Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
    Away with him!

Angelo is a wicked man, a hypocrite, and dishonest. His public persona is very proper. He is a prude in public, and a pervert in private. Since this is a comedy, he is forgiven, and married off. Claudio is released from prison, and married. Lucio is married off.

Isabella does not want a marriage, and she wants to be forever chaste. She not only wants to be a religious sister, but a cloistered nun. Shakespeare was part of a recusant family, and in his plays the monks and sisters tend towards integrity. At the very end of the play, Isabella is twice again given an indecent proposal by the ruler. This time not the acting Angelo, but the Duke Vincentio. Shakespeare gives her no word, so if she responds it is by body language. The actress gave the right response with her arms and face [really, how could you ask that?]. The Duke set all the trouble in motion, and he played a part in disguise to intervene, instead of showing his true person and ending the trouble.

 

Lucio, a rakish fop with two whores

 Juliet

This theater was formally opened in December. In the early part of the play, i snapped a few pictures to see how they would come out. The light worked very well close by, but a few feet further the stage light washed out the actors' faces.

♀ Henry V ♀

Cleveland Shakespeare is doing an all female Henry V.  The second of nine performances was Saturday night in Lakewood. About the only fellow to be seen, runs and climbs to the stage and identifies himself as an "old man".

Emphasizing comedy often, the Archbishop of Canterbury unrolls a scroll.

Except for Henry, the actors all play more than one character. These two: Kimberly Martin, and Sara Katrenich (as well as Page Cummings) were excellent throughout.

 The French embassy brings the Dauphin's gift for the king of England — tennis balls.

 
    Henry the Fifth, the actor played him as being pompous.

enjoying the play with a greyhound

 

 Near the end, Fluellen (a Welshman) makes Pistol eat a leek.

...and a quick walk after the play, the sun fell in the lake right near on an extension of the solstice line.

 a fine Dalmatian near the solstice steps

One World Day 2018

Bhutanese 

This festival is usually the last Sunday in April; but, i think, the construction of a new bridge over Doan Brook may have delayed the date. Three weeks later in summer, and it was still 86°F. The parade of gardens starts at noon. Some nationalities marched who do not have a garden, or one pending: Catalan, Bhutanese, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Uzbek, and Indonesian.

  Mexico [no word of whether Trump has an opinion]

It has been 100 years since World War I ended, and some nations became states again. The Latvian group, and the Lithuanians made it a point to have that written on their banners. The Lithuanians had the largest contingent in this parade.

The marching in these parades is often start and stop walking. Precision is not a concern, but the Chinese carried a dragon, and that  is worth seeing.

Aleksandr Sergejevich Pushkin, Natalia Nikolajevna Pushkina with Cassius

In the Shakespeare Garden, actors from Rubber City Theatre performed scenes and speeches from (at least) Taming of the Shrew, and Hamlet.

Cassius is driving a Karachi bus.

Twelfth Night

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival is presenting Twelfth Night, as a c.1938 radio play. It works well. One of their adaptations is a minor character, Fabian, a servant to Olivia is doubled as the Fabian Sisters, who recite some of Toby Belch's lines. [aside: Toby Belch sounds like a Dickensian creation]

Orsino (Meshal Al Sunaid), Valentine (Natalie Grace Sipula)  

the back of the card reads, "Western Union Telegram"

Andrew Aguecheek (Chris Ross) presents himself to the audience before coming to the stage. His performance i found more likable than a 1996 film performance, i recently viewed.

Toby Belch (Joseph Milan) and Feste (Amy Scwabauer) drunkenly sing, as Malvolio is awakened and disturbed.

 The costuming of this version looked good.

Malvolio (Allen Branstein) displays cross gartered yellow stockings. I just had watched the 1996 Trevor Nunn/BBC film, Nigel Hawthorne played the role. I found Branstein more entertaining.

 Captain America watches the play

Antonio ((Keith Kornajcik) under arrest