3/15/2015 Books on Tape

Aleathia says:

I have never been a fan of books on tape or books in any form other than the traditional sense of a book.  The thought of it felt like cheating.  If you didn't read the book then it didn't count.  If you don't read the words then they mean less.  This sort of thinking comes from being young and possibly snobby.  I will forever be a book in hand kind of girl.  There is no other wonderful feeling (besides love) than how the binding of a book rests in your hands, the sound of pages turning, the smell of ink and paper, and the pleasure of closing the book at the end knowing you completed a journey.  I cannot get behind the Kindle revolution.  I just can't.

Having said that I am reconsidering books on tape.  This week I was walking past the audio book section and I found myself wandering down the aisle.  What could I possibly find down here in this tiny section?  What I did find is a shit ton of Shakespeare.  I have only ever been able to appreciate his work once in high school when the entire class had to have a part in Macbeth and we read it aloud.  When I try to read plays by myself there is a certain kind of chaos and insanity that happens in my brain.  I have to have different voices for each character in order to understand it and frankly I look like a person with split personality disorder trying to read a play.  It makes me frustrated and then I put it down and have that bad yucky Shakespeare taste in my mouth.  Who wants that?

Today, while I was on the floor trying to fix the vacuum, it came to me.  How is an audio book any less than a book?  What if I were blind, would the content of the book mean any less to me if I listen to it or if I read it in braille?  Wouldn't I want to be able to have books read to me when I am old and can't see so good?  Didn't we all love when our parents would read us books when we were children? They were OUR books on tape right there in our beds.

So this week I celebrate growing up and opening my book snob borders to the likes of audio books.  First on my list.....The Merchant of Venice.

Let's Go Somewhere-1/6/2015 Ideas of Youth, India and a Cemetery Tour

Aleathia says:

I think it is the affliction of most young people to want to travel and see the world.  We think we are invincible.  We want to run to far away places and be a part of a culture so separate from the lives our parents laid out for us.  This is growing up.  This idea is so much a part of creating our own identity in this time and space.

My love of books exposed me to many far away places that all sounded so exciting and exotic.  They were places so out of my reach except on the pages, but deep inside I told myself I would get there someday.  The older I became the more reality set in and I understood that it was going to be hard enough to feed myself and provider shelter on a daily basis and that traipsing across the globe was going to be expensive. I traveled in my own country.  I have gone to Mexico and Canada.  In 2008, I finally made it to England and felt pretty damn fulfilled.

Recently, some acquaintances set off for India and I have watched their progress and adventure through Facebook postings.  Some small part of me is envious.  In my 20's, India was the place I wanted to go most.  I had a guide book that I carried back and forth across the country in hopes I would make it there sometime.  In the end I gave the book to someone who was going to actually go there and use it.  I am not sure why India was the place of my destiny all those years ago.  I didn't know anyone who had ever been, or anything about the country besides what was in that book, but I had an innate need to be there.

Today, traveling to these far off places isn't as enticing as it was.  If given the opportunity, I would love to tour Europe and see the world's most wonderful art galleries, but those days of saving the world, living like a pauper in a foreign land have left me.  These days I am in love with the idea of traveling my own country.  There is so much to explore in my own state that I have not managed to see.  I think in our young days we all have the idea that the grass is greener on the other side and then when we get older, we realize the quality of life is mostly dependent on how you live it, not where you are.


Ally says

To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.
                                                                             – Charles Baudelaire

I’ve always like cemeteries, even as a kid. Maybe it’s cause they’re quiet and sad and beautiful and you rarely see other people. They’re good Thinkin’ Places.

The more I travel, the more I go looking for old graves and old homes and over the years I’ve seen quite a few famous ones. So here’s a few of my favorite graves, in no particular order.

Since he got the opening quote Baudelaire gets to go first.

Charles Baudelaire – Poet (Paris)

Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir – Philosophers (Paris)

Samuel Beckett - novelist/playwright/poet (Paris)

Marie Antoniette – Queen of France (St. Denis)

Jim Morrison – singer/songwriter/poet (Paris)

Oscar Wilde – novelist/playwright/satrist/poet (Paris)

Charles Bukowski – Poet/Novelist (San Pedro, CA)

John Keats – Poet (Rome)

Percy Bysshe Shelly – Poet (Rome)

Galileo Galilei – physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher (Florence)

Julius Caesar – Emperor/Soldier (Rome)

Jean Michel Basquiat – Painter (Brooklyn)

Jack Kerouac – novelist/poet  (Lowell, MA)

Mozart (Vienna, Austria...yes, he was buried in a pauper's grave and no, no one is really positive where it is, but this was close and it's a makeshift marker made from other graves and it's beautiful and quiet and amazing).

Beethoven (Vienna, Austria)

Gustav Klimt (Vienna, Austria)

and of course, Shakespeare (yes that's scaffolding and yes that's as close as I got. Read more about that here.)

Let's Go Somewhere-7/15/2014 Stratford Upon Avon

Ally says:

I'm a bardolater. I would be a card-carrying bardolater if any of us bardolaters bothered to make cards.

Bardolatry is defined as the facetious idolatry or excessive admiration of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the English dramatist and poet. 

So back in 2009, I went to London and then up to Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. It’s an amazing place and going there is like stepping back in time. If you have the opportunity to go, I highly suggest you visit the Garrick Inn.

It’s Stratford’s oldest pub. And considering how old Stratford is, that’s OLD. The building apparently dates back to the 1400′s. And, according to the plaque inside, it’s where the plague started in 1564, the same year old Will was born.

The whole town is amazing. You can tour his home, including the room he was born in. 

Not to mention the home of Anne Hathaway’s cottage, including the bench they sat on when Will proposed and promised her his second best bed. Such a charmer!

It was an amazing trip for me – not only because I am a self-proclaimed Bardolater but also because it was Shakespeare and specifically his grave that inspired my first novel, Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb. William Shakespeare has the best epitaph in the world:

“GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE TO
DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLEST BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES AND
CURST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES”

It’s cursed for heaven’s sake!

So Shakespeare is buried at Holy Trinity Church inside the chancel. When my husband and I arrived at Stratford, his first question was “What do you want to see first” and without hesitating I said, “His grave.”

Off we went, crossing down the cobblestone streets, weaving through centuries of history. I could barely believe I was about to see Shakespeare’s GRAVE. The greatest playwright – nay, greatest writer – who ever lived. It was  a dream come true.

Until we reached the church and right there at the door was a sign informing us that they Chancel was closed due to repairs.

Remember that scene in Vacation when Chevy Chase's family finally arrive at Wally World and the damn thing is closed. It was like that, only with a transcontinental flight.

My husband, ever the diplomat, pulled aside the lovely gentleman who ran the church and explained in no uncertain terms that we had to see Shakespeare’s grave. That we had crossed an OCEAN to see Shakespeare’s grave, that it was the most important thing to his wife, who was standing there slightly gobsmacked, to which the lovely British man answered in his lovely British voice:

“I’m sorry, sir. Couldn’t be avoided.”

“Sorry folks! Shakespeare’s grave is closed. Moose out front should have told you!”

So the closest I got to seeing Shakespeare’s grave was being about 20 feet away from the Chancel ledge, but in a way, it was close enough. On the way out, I took a stone from the garden which I keep on my writing desk.

There it is, behind all the scaffolding.

My husband, always my partner in crime, suggested we jump the scaffolding and risk imprisonment - after all I was already kicked out of Monaco at the age of 16 - (long story) - so why not? But in the end we decided to save it for another time.

We’ll go back, I know that. And this time I’ll make sure the church repairs are finished. In the meantime, at least it won’t be me who moves those bones and gets cursed.