Peg Kerr's Journal

I decided to get a rush ticket to see a play at the Guthrie Theater: "Born With Teeth," a two-man production hypothesizing about the relationship between William Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe.

It was an impulsive decision, and I was almost startled by how much I enjoyed it.

I had to show up a couple of hours early to snag a rush ticket, but I managed to do so. The Guthrie is a mere two blocks away from my former law firm employer. I hadn't been back since the day I packed up my stuff and left after they let me go in 2016. I plucked up my courage and took the elevator up to the fourth floor, where I was greeted by a woman who had no idea who I was. "I worked here for twenty-three years," I informed her dryly. "And I just stopped by to see if there were still any familiar faces."

There was one familiar person available who came out to see me, and we chatted for a few minutes. The old place has changed a lot, given the pandemic. Most people now work from home--there were only five people in the office that day--and every attorney I had worked for has since left the firm. Still, I was glad that I stopped by. It gave me the chance to remind myself that I'm really better off having moved on, and I definitely laid some ghosts to rest.

Then I stopped at a Thai restaurant for a bowl of pad thai and then went to see the play. Hugely enjoyable. I stopped in the gift shop and bought a copy, as well as another Jane Austen mug to match the one I already have (I figured that Eric and I can have matching mugs for when he comes over for coffee on Saturday mornings). Finally, I walked three blocks to the Stone Arch Bridge and walked across it, as I did for mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks for exercise for years when I worked at my former job.

A day well spent. I need to do more things to really get out and enjoy the amenities of the city that the pandemic has made me rather forget.

Alternate collage ideas this week not used:

Dreams
Change

Image description: Background: an image of the Guthrie theater. Against this background, two men in punk/Elizabethan dress (actors in the Guthrie production "Born With Teeth") face each other, one sitting (Will) and one crouching (Kit). Kit has his hand under Will's chin. The logo for the Guthrie is behind Will's head. Lower left: sign for Mill Ruins Park/Stone Arch Bridge. Lower right: a Jane Austen mug. Upper left: logo for Peg's former employer. Upper right: logo for Kin Dee (a Thai restaurant).

Guthrie



Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.

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Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.

I had no idea this was coming!!


Edited to add: I was trying to post the trailer for Joss Whedon's upcoming film Much Ado about Nothing, but for some reason, the embedding feature isn't working. You can watch the trailer here.

here. Thanks to knitmeapony for the link.

As madrobins helpfully points out, today's Alan Rickman's birthday.

( To celebrate the occasion, under the cut there's a recording of him reading Shakespeare's sonnet 130. )

That voice . . . *swoons*

Inspired by my new CD When Love Speaks, which I have been playing on endless repeat ever since I got it, I have been reading Shakespeare's Sonnets on this website. I have taught Shakespeare at the college level. I have read many of the sonnets before, and memorized some of them, and I am probably much more familiar than most Americans with the plays; I was in a Shakespeare reading group that met every other week for years to read his plays aloud.

But although I have studied the sonnet form and I knew about the Youth and the Dark Lady, I have never sat down and read all the sonnets one after another in sequence before. I'm up through Sonnet 60 or so. I am finding it fascinating (and I like the commentary on this site). I did not realize that such a large proportion of the sonnets were about the youth, rather than the lady. I knew that many of them were bawdy, but did not realize how many of them were specifically homosexually bawdy. And I had not realized quite clearly that they are not discrete poems, but interlocking, some following in story sequence one after the other, telling a larger tale of several relationships, with careful attention to numerology. I am learning a lot. And I am ashamed of how little I knew about this.

Huh. It's never too late to learn.

In other reading notes: also reading scott_lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora, which is sucking me right in. And am listening to Jim Dale read the Harry Potter books as I work on Quicken to enter my financial accounts, stopping to take notes on any passages having to do with memory, in preparation for the paper I am to write for Lumos.

Rob went to the post office box yesterday and to my astonishment handed me two packages when he came home, shipments from Amazon.

I would just like to say that scott_lynch and guipago are true w00bies, and I thank you both for my early birthday presents. The packages included "When Love Speaks" that I mentioned in an entry earlier, as well as the Heidi Talbot album I've been pining after forever.

Thank you! I hope to be able to thank you personally at Minicon this weekend.

I could write about my reaction to the speeches at the Democratic National Convention. But I don't really feel like doing so. I was pleased, for the most part, with what I've heard, but enough ink is going to be spilled on that subject that I don't particularly feel like adding to the torrent tonight.

I could tell you about coaching the girls on the Genesis form, because they're going to test for their next belt tomorrow. Actually, I'm not entirely sure they are going to pass, because for some inexplicable reason, their classes didn't include the form instruction this past month until the very last lesson before the test this Friday, so we've tried to learn the form in one lesson and I've been drilling them on it since Tuesday. And it's tough: they obviously don't have all the moves down cold yet, despite our best efforts. My parents are coming to watch the test tomorrow, since they're in town, which is a cause of some excitement (my parents live in Georgia, and they've never seen the girls do karate before). But I'll give you a more complete report about all that after the test.

I was indulging in one of my habitual daydreams again today, and I realize that I've never told you about it. Once I realized that and thought about writing a post about it, I realized that this daydream is a bit odd, really, and I wondered whether you would think me really strange for indulging in it. But then I realized if you've been reading my journal for awhile, you already know that I'm rather strange.

I love to daydream about meeting Jane Austen.

For some reason, Jane Austen appears at my home, and it's my job to sort of shepherd her around for a day or two. Or if I'm lucky, for a week or more. I know who she is, of course, but she has no idea who I am. It's my job to introduce her to the life in the 21st century.

I've had more fun than you can imagine trying to picture her reactions to various things: microwave ovens. Riding in a car for the first time. Seeing an airplane. Computers. I imagine showing her the Internet, and clicking onto to www.pemberley.com and telling her, "This is a place where people from all over the world are discussing your books, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week." We could spend a weekend watching movies made from her books. ("That Mr. Colin Firth! Don't you think he is the handsomest man you've ever seen?") I want to give her a copy of Lord of the Rings and get her opinion after she's read it. I imagine her watching me exercise and gasping in horror at the shocking costumes worn by those brazen hussies on the FIRM DVD. Showing their legs! And their stomachs, and their -- no, she can't even say it. Where are her smelling salts?

I don't know why I keep embroidering on this daydream. I've thought of being Shakespeare's buddy for a day, but that doesn't have the same appeal. Perhaps because he's a guy, or an actor? As if once I showed him the Guthrie Theater, he'd disappear backstage and spend the rest of the visit ignoring me and talking shop with other actors. No, I keep returning to Miss Austen. (I can never imagine calling her "Jane." I want her to feel comfortable, so I address her as "Miss Austen." I imagine she would also be shocked because my children address my next door neighbor by her first name, or as Miss Austen would put it, her Christian name.)

I think I would prefer to spend the time with Miss Austen because I've always been fascinated by her observant eye and needle wit, and I can't help but wonder how they would manifest themselves if she turned her full attention to my life, to my foibles and my struggles (not that Shakespeare didn't have an observant eye and needle wit himself, but for some reason that I can't quite pin down, I've just always been more curious about her reaction). Would Miss Austen be kind? No, I rather think she would not. It pains me a little to say it, but as eager as I am to receive her good opinion, I fear she would be reluctant to give it to me. First of all, I work for a living, and am therefore not quite of her class. How to explain to her that in the time and place that I live, there are no servants for most people; we have all manner of labor saving devices, but that most people do work, and do not think any less of each other for doing so? I also have the bad taste to live in America, rather than dear old England.

I also fear my habit of wearing jeans would astonish and horrify her.

But what bothers me the most is the thought that I would not feel comfortable giving her my own books to read. Emerald House Rising--well, perhaps. She would perhaps be kind to someone else's first effort.

But I could never explain The Wild Swans to her. The relationship between Elias and Sean would, I think, be beyond what a 19th century clergyman's daughter would think proper to read about.

Could she be open to it? If I attempted to explain what the book was about before handing it to her to read, would she be brave enough to try it? What would she think about telemarketing calls and televangelists and light rail and skyscrapers? Would she think I was doing a good job raising my children?

I hope that there might be some small part of her that might learn to like me. Once she got over the shock of my short hair and my wardrobe, and the fact that I drove in a strange metal contraption every day and left my children with others so that I could earn my living. I would hope that if anyone could survive the jolt of being transported two centuries beyond her own time, it might be Miss Austen.

Who knows? Perhaps she might discover that she likes lifting weights or reading Tolkien herself, now that she's tried them.

I did my new Firm tape this morning: Firm: Strong Heart. It has the toughest legs section I've ever seen.

I am going to have the legs of a goddess!

If they don't fall off first.

Peg

("I conjure you by Rosiland's quivering thigh/and the regions that there adjacent lie" Two points to the first person (except for pameladean, of course, who probably would know it immediately without even trying) to recognize the source of that quotation!)

Later: Corrected. I realize I didn't have the quotation quite right. Here it is again (sorry!):

" [I conjure you]. . .by her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh / And the demesnes that there adjacent lie . . . Boy, you better believe I thought about those quivering thighs this morning when I was doing the abductor lifts. Whew!