This is my life

From alarm clock to leaving for work in five minutes.  Just like Tomonori Jinnai.

(Note:  even if you don’t follow all of Jinnai’s techniques, note his superior tie knotting technique.)

Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qin4UptOEsI

We would be as happy as Larry if it were not for the rats

This is favorite April Fool’s post so far.

Another good one.

Mathematical models for brain tumors and divorces

James Murray at Oxford describes two mathematical model exercises:  one to model brain tumors and one to model the success of marriages based on a 15 minute interview.

The description of the talk is here.  The official stream page is here.  The actual real media stream (if you wish to download the lecture) is here.

Resurrection

From the Washington Post:

Accepting a plea bargain that her attorney described as unprecedented in American jurisprudence, a 22-year-old Maryland woman yesterday agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of other defendants in the death of her son under the condition that charges against her be dropped if the child rises from the dead. 

“It also is specifically noted,” Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Timothy Doory said in court as he described the plea bargain to the boy's mother, “that if the victim in this case, Javon Thompson, is resurrected, as you still hold some hope he will be, you may withdraw the plea, and the charges will be nolle prossed [withdrawn] against you.” 

The boy's mother, Ria Ramkissoon, is shaping up as prosecutors' star witness against a 40-year-old Baltimore woman named Queen Antoinette. Prosecutors allege that Queen Antoinette led a small cult, called One Mind Ministries, based in a West Baltimore rowhouse. In early 2007, prosecutors say, Queen Antoinette instructed Ramkissoon and others to deprive Javon of food and water because he didn't say “amen” before breakfast. . . .

Online stopwatch

Here is a simple, but quite useful, stopwatch web page.

Shakespeare on DVD news

IAN MCKELLAN’S KING LEAR

The Trevor Nunn/Ian McKellen King Lear (shown last week in the US) is coming out on DVD in the US on April 21 (current Amazon price $22.49).  The work is currently available both on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK (the Amazon price for both is £12.98, minus the VAT refund if you are ordering from the US).  I liked this production quite a bit, but Louise Kennedy (in the Boston Globe) states that it is merely “pretty decent”:

For better and worse, this isn't a film of the live performance, but an adaptation made especially for television. It’s better because codirectors Trevor Nunn (who helmed the stage version) and Chris Hunt can use the strengths of TV, such as closeups and intimately pitched conversational tones - ideal for the intrigues and family quarrels swirling around Shakespeare's aging king. But it’s worse because it robs us of the chance to see McKellen as a stage actor, rather than as the familiar filmic presence of, say, Lord of the Rings. More troublingly, it also transforms Lear from one of the world's great plays into a pretty decent TV movie. . . . That tradeoff, along with some fairly heavy cutting in key scenes and some odd choices in others - showing us the Fool’s hanging, for example, though Shakespeare has Lear mention it only late in the day - diminishes the power of this performance. Still, it’s better than not having McKellen's Lear at all.

AGE OF KINGS

The classic BBC Age of Kings series (15+ hours presenting the Richard II, Henry IV (parts 1 and 2), Henry V, Henry VI (parts 1, 2, and 3), Richard III is being released tomorrow on DVD in the US (Amazon price $34.99).  J. Hoberman in the New York Times gives a review and a personal memory of watching the series as a child:

A 15-part chronicle that drew upon Richard II, the two-part Henry IV, Henry V, the seldom staged three-part Henry VI and Richard III, the project was conceived by Peter Dews, a 30-year-old stage director and former schoolmaster, who persuaded the BBC to embark upon its first extended Shakespeare series. Mr. Dews’s production would be additionally remarkable for being broadcast live, with a continuing cast of young, largely unknown players, including Sean Connery as the fiery Hotspur, Robert Hardy (known these days as Harry Potter’s minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge) as Prince Hal and Judi Dench in the role of his flirtatious future bride, Katherine of France.

Mr. Dews divided the cycle into 75-minute episodes, each with a dramatic title — The Hollow Crown, The Band of Brothers, Uneasy Lies the Head — and an opening fanfare composed by the master of the queen’s music, Arthur Bliss. Cuts were made, particularly in Henry VI, the actors’ delivery was rapid and prompted by a percussive score, even a bit rushed.  The mise-en-scène was modest, if not frugal; the action was staged on an artfully cramped set that served variously as royal bedchamber, battlefield and Eastcheap tavern. There seems to have been only two cameras. Close-ups were common, and a number of scenes were shot as if through a window or against a grille.

In short, An Age of Kings was quintessential early television, immediate and intimate. (“Great men in small rooms,” was Mr. Dews’s motto.) The shows were broadcast live in Britain, beginning in the spring of 1959. If this was Shakespeare as soap opera, the British critics did not complain. On the contrary: reviews were supportive, praising both the acting and the direction. (“You are certain to have seen far, far less good at the Old Vic,” a reviewer for The Observer wrote.) The first BBC series imported to America, An Age of Kings would be telecast in the United States in a somewhat more cinematic form as a series of edited kinescopes, black-and-white 16-millimeter films shot off the original television monitor. . . .

Viewed today An Age of Kings bears little resemblance to public television as we know it. There’s nothing genteel about Mr. Dews’s production; there are no elegant drawing rooms or scenic locations. The series’s success may have made television safe for Masterpiece Theater, but its true successors are Mad Men and The Wire, serial dramas that strain the confines of the small screen with their large characters, compelling situations and narrative density, if not the power of Shakespearean English.

On the same day, there is a US DVD release of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (Amazon price $13.49) starring Ian McKellan, filmed from the 1969 Edinburgh Festival production.  This production was notorious for including the first kiss between two men on British television.  (This is not to be confused Derek Jarman’s affected 1991 film version.

JOHN BARTON’S PLAYING SHAKESPEARE

The DVD set of a legendary set of acting workshops is coming out on June 2 (Amazon price:  $71.99). Previously, the sessions were available in video tape in very expensive editions (it did have a showing on educational television in the early 80’s).  The workshops are lead by John Barton of the Royal Shakespeare Company and featuring actors such as Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and David Suchet.  An edited transcript of the sessions was released as a book.

DAVID TENNANT’S HAMLET

The Telegraph is reporting that David Tennant’s aborted Hamlet will be coming out on DVD:

The 37-year-old Dr. Who actor and the entire cast of the RSC production are preparing to make a film version of the play in June to record for posterity his portrayal, which was described by some as the greatest Hamlet of his generation.   Speaking at a lunch held at the Haymarket Hotel, Oliver Ford Davies, 69, who was nominated for his portrayal of Polonius, tells me: “We are intending to film it over two or three weeks in June. It won’t be a full feature film as there isn’t time but it will certainly be more than just the filming of the stage. It will be fantastic to work together again.”

(HT:  Shakesepare Geek)

David Tennant also participated in a reading of some of the Sonnets recorded by Naxos.  The CD is coming out shortly (Amazon price $11.01) or via download for £6.00.  Here is an audio sample:  Sonnet 2.

Keeping things real

Microsoft has just launched a particularly powerful advertisement (click on the link to see it) against its foe Apple – a very real presentation by a woman who – being limited to a $1000 budget, says “I’m not cool enough to be a Mac person.”  Ouch, that line completely deflates the Mac pretentiousness.  (Me, I run a combination of Windows, and Linux, and if I could, I want to run all Linux, the operating system I most love.)

It’s important to keep things real.  Some of us take pleasure in having computers with a cool logo – and some of us take pleasure in playing a role playing something we aren’t.  I’ve recently been watching someone who desperately wants to play the role of the scholar, and he has been duly generating posts on a short book in the Bible – drawing heavily from the Anchor Bible commentary and a few remarks by celebrated Harvard professor written in a Study Bible.  There’s nothing at all wrong with that:  but it is important to remember that typing an idea doesn’t make one the discoverer of an idea.  I value most those who bring something new to the table, some originality, some creative thought.  Those are my heroes.

The Apple computer is nothing short of brilliant.  However, choosing to use it does not make one brilliant.  Shakespeare was a brilliant author – watching one of his plays does not make us brilliant.  The Bible is full of many deep truths and profoundly beautiful language – but reading it does not make us wise or eloquent.  For me, it is only by fighting, fighting, fighting with the text, with ideas – but fighting honestly – not playing childish one-upsmanship games – that I can truly learn something and prepare myself to bring something new to the table.

So rather than spewing out cliches, I want to read, understand, argue, and come up with deeper insights.  So much of what I see on blogs is prejudging – as if one could measure the quality of a book without reading it – and in the end, that sort of posing comes off as so much stoogery. 

These Microsoft commercials will powerful because they are honest.  I hope we can all be as honest.  That’s the first step towards real scholarship.

Das Kapital on stage

There are numerous productions of Das Kapital coming to a stage near you.

In Beijing (see also here): 

Drawing inspiration from a best-selling Japanese manga adaptation of Das Kapital, Chinese theater producers are planning to bring Marx's masterpiece to the stage.

Yang Shaolin, general manager of the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, told the Wen Hui Bao that, together with Fudan University economics professor Zhang Jun and other experts, he is preparing a dramatization of Das Kapital. They've already decided on a director: He Nian, who directed the stage adaptation of the hit martial-arts spoof My Own Swordsman (武林外传).

He Nian says he will combine elements from animation, Broadway musicals, and Las Vegas stage shows to bring Marx's economic theories to life as a trendy, interesting, and educational play.

In Tokyo:

Delivering this timely staging is the cutting-edge Berlin-based Rimini Protokoll company, beloved of audiences at last year's Tokyo International Festival (TIF) for its searing exploration of the lives of model-train obsessives in Mnemopark. This time, as TIF morphs into Festival/Tokyo, the troupe is back with its 2007 masterpiece, Karl Marx: Capital, Volume I.

But there is more – look for revivals of this classic 1931 version:

As bizarre as this may sound, a theatrical Das Kapital is not an unprecedented undertaking. Japanese writer, translator, and civil servant Sakamoto Masaru (阪本勝) wrote a mammoth stage adaptation of Marx's masterpiece (戯曲資本論, 1931) that was translated into Chinese by Fei Mingjun and published in 1949 as A Dramatic Capital (戏剧资本论).

In comic books, Das Kapital is on top of the charts in Japan (see also here).

(If you are interested in experience Das Kapital in the old fashioned way – and in English translation, I recommend this volume.)

Quoted (another reason people hate professors)

From a New York Times story on controversial Joseph Biederman who violated ethical guidelines:

In a contentious Feb. 26 deposition between Dr. Biederman and lawyers for the states, he was asked what rank he held at Harvard. “Full professor,” he answered.

“What’s after that?” asked a lawyer, Fletch Trammell.

“God,” Dr. Biederman responded.

March 17: Speaking up for snakes

Today is a traditional day to honor the contributions of Ireland – and surely, they are many.  I salute the many Irish writers who have deeply influenced my thinking, among them:

• John Banville
• John Bell
• George Berkeley
• Samuel Beckett
• George Boole
• Robert Boyle
• William Congreve
• Oliver Goldsmith
• William Hamilton
• Seamus Heaney (my friend!)
• Chaim Herzog
• James Joyce
• Iris Murdoch
• Edna O’Brien
• George Bernard Shaw
• Laurence Sterne
• Bram Stoker
• Jonathan Swift
• John Millington Synge
• John Toland
• Oscar Wilde
• William Butler Yeats

But I want to speak up for snakes.  I disagree with Patrick’s decision to drive them out of Ireland.  Snakes are a marvelous creature of God, and not to be treated as something to be discarded or harmed.

Now of course, there is the historical fact that there were no snakes in Ireland – so the story of Patrick is really a story of religious intolerance:  perhaps Patrick launched a mission of ethnic cleansing against the Druids of the time, who often used snake symbols.

And if this is the case, then we must admit that in many quarters of America, we are not much further advanced than Patrick.  Those who launch invective against free-thinkers are miniature Patricks, spreading a message of intolerance.  I am thinking in particular of a set of messages urging individuals to launch a jihad against Unitarians (which in this case is broadly interpreted – really it is a message of intolerance against free thinkers). 

The first use of “free thinker” was, according to some accounts used by the Irish philospher George Berkeley to describe the Irish philosopher John Toland, who was, in fact, what we might call a Unitarian – in his dramatic and important works Christianity Not Mysterious and Letter to Serena. 

So, on this marvelous anniversary, I side with the snakes, the free thinkers, the great Irish intellectuals, and the Irish people.  And may our modern intolerant Patricks be enlightened.