Newsie Miscellany! (11/4/09)

This just in from the playground
Social networking is totally fun! It's what all the cool kidz are doing these days. And if you haven't seen the Pride and Prejudice incarnation of it, go to Austenblog and read Lizzie Bennet's status updates! Whee! (Hat-tip to Don't Worry, Drink Chai!)

Also, I assume you're aware of Sarah Schmelling's Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float, an entire book of literary reductions presented as Facebook newsfeeds. But if you weren't, now you are. And there are excerpts at Maidens Who Don't Float! (By the bye, Schmelling was responsible for McSweeney's Hamlet newsfeed.)

Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float…'cause she drowned, geddit?

Now for the depressing bit of today's program
In the very first Anglotastic post, I talked about Moira Cameron, the first lady Beefeater at the Tower of London, and how warm and fuzzy it is that the Tea-Drinkers are considering the possibility of thinking about instituting gender equality a mere 500 years after the Beefeaters were established.

Well, for some reason, everyone is shocked—SHOCKED—that Moira Cameron has been harassed at work and made to feel unwelcome in the 500-year-old boys' club that is the Tower of London. Because gender inequality is dead, right? Right!

But for reals, dudes, Beefeater bullying is NOT COOL.

Beefeater Moira Cameron is adorable: Confirmed

Back to the positive, by which I mean the negative: Shoes!
I recently launched a temporary new blog (hello, school project!) called Shoes Only a Mother Could Love, in which I say mean, not-always-school-appropriate things about cugly shoes.

I bring this up here to tell you that I tried, and failed, to be sufficiently mean about Britty shoe company Dr. Martens, on account of Docs are so damn cute. Well, except for one of the pairs in this post. Seriously though, kidz, the ones here are oddly fabulous. Brits and gastronomy—maybe not so much. But Brits and shoes? Hellz yeah.

Oh, Doc Martens, your fabulousness gets me every time.

And now for international news
English ex-pat Hugh Laurie is doing quite well for himself indeed! According to this month's Foreign Policy cover story about how TV will save us all, House is the most-watched TV show in the world, clocking in at 82 million viewers. Jeeves & Wooster global represent, what what!

Hugh Laurie as Dr. Sexypants on House = Global Win

Prime Minister Update
If you didn't get the memo, Gordon Brown is, like, a total failure as Prime Minister. Oops! Maybe he should use the totally rad, weirdly accurate Barack Obama Quote Generator to give his speeches a little sumthin'-sumthin'. I bet that would fix everything!

"Okay, Gordie, what you gotta do, see, is give the people hope for their futures, for the tomorrow that could be so bright if we all take responsibility for ourselves. Now, give it a shot."

Problem = SOLVED.

Merchant of Venice. Al Pacino. Gut-wrenching. (8/12/09)

Okay. We need to talk.

This isn't about us, readers—I mean to say, this isn't a relationship issue. Actually, I think things have been going pretty well between us thus far.

But you need to know something about me before we take this any further.

I kind of don't exactly like Shakespeare all that much.

*hunkers down in shame*

I know that it is illegal in all fifty states and also Puerto Rico for an alleged lover of all things literary to feel this way, but I don't know what to do about it. There's some Shakespeare that I like; there is some that I love, even. (Hello, Cleopatra! Could you BE more of a ball-ripping badass?) But there tends to be an overwhelming expectation that the audience will be willing to suspend its disbelief.

I don't, on the whole, really go in for suspension of disbelief. And, on a closely related topic, all of the Bard's love-at-first-sight bullshizz makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

Occasionally, however, I absolutely go to pieces over something Shakespearean, and the 2004 Merchant of Venice is the big winner this time around.

Allow me to introduce you: Jeremy Irons is Antonio, the anti-Semitic merchant. Al Pacino is Shylock, the moneylending Jew. The beautiful Joseph Fiennes is the lovestruck Bassanio, and Kris Marshall (Colin from Love, Actually, y'all—the "American girls would really dig me with my cute British accent" guy) provides comic relief as Gratiano.

Kris Marshall as Gratiano with Charlie Cox as Lorenzo

Then-newbie Lynn Collins, who has since made appearances in True Blood and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, turns out an excellent Portia (and gives a cool interview about the experience here), and the gorgeous Zuleikha Robinson (whom you may recognize from Lost) is willful Jessica. And canals abound.

Lynn Collins as Portia

The play revolves around a hideous anti-Semitism, but the movie is beautiful, so it's like watching a really gruesome, truly gorgeous train wreck. Obviously, the entire premise is utterly offensive to modern sensibilities, and I don't know what Shakespeare's angle was when he wrote it in the 1590s, though I suspect his sympathies were not in line with my own.

Jeremy Irons as Antonio

But this interpretation of it is superbly executed. The indignity of the treatment Shylock suffers at the hands of Antonio—Shylock's unflinching desire for revenge, so heartlessly sought but rooted in such oppression—the sympathetic portrayal of Shylock's ultimate fate—all are heartbreaking. And when Jessica leaves—!

Zuleikha Robinson as Jessica

I've never seen Pacino in anything before. He's been in all sorts of things I'm supposed to have seen, I think, but I almost always pick comedies over dramas. All I know is that he is AMAZING in Merchant. I would say all of my sympathies lay with Shylock were all of the characters not given such depth; I feel for all of them.

Al Pacino as Shylock

Also noteworthy is the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio; Antonio is obviously in love with his friend, a sentiment that seems to be written into the play and is not merely a product of this interpretation. Their relationship is handled with finesse and really humanizes Antonio.

Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio

I definitely recommend watching this, however you feel about Shakespeare. But be prepared: You'll be dwelling on it for some time afterward. And your musings may not be pleasant.