#shakespeare for squirrels

[abybweisse]

HPB haul from 9/22/23

Back on the 22nd last month, I made another run to Half Price Books.

I've never read or watched The Handmaid's Tale, so here's a chance to read it, at least. I've watched The Princess Bride many times, but I've never read it, so when I saw this I had to get a copy. And I'm hoping the cult, serial killer, and Tesla books come in handy for Black Butler analysis. I recently teased about Scalzi's latest book here, but it honestly sounds like a fun read, so I picked up a copy of that, too.

Flame Tree publishing puts out some effing beautiful book editions and journals. The copy of Moby Dick at the top, the two small myth books to the lower right, and the two journals (one is open) are all by Flame Tree. They publish all those lovely Epic Tales, Gothic Fantasy, and Classic Stories books I have a large collection of, too. The smaller copy of Moby Dick is from that other large collection I've been buying up, published by Chiltern. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is part of the Chartwell editions I've started collecting. The Homer box set is quite nice, and I also broke down and bought these Jane Austen and Shakespeare paper dolls with sticker sets.

I'm just not sure what to do with the dolls. I might place them on sturdy backing, cut them out, and give them supports to stand on the shelves.

Also hoping the Arthurian myth and Egyptian myth books might prove useful in Black Butler analysis, though I do have other books about those topics.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The holiday book haul is mostly (not completely, but Canadian customs are ******) in, so here are the books coming up!

1. Christopher Moore's Shakespeare for Squirrels, which apparently also features pirates.

2. F.C. Yee's The Rise of Kyoshi, which frankly looks very fun. As I've said in other posts, we stand novelizations and tie-in novels in this house.

3./4. C.E. Murphy's The Cardinal Rule and The Firebird Deception. Looking forward to getting further into this author's work!

I hope y'all had happy book hauls over the holidays!

[sweetiepie08]

And the winner is!

Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore!

I’m actually really excited to read this! It’s the 3rd book in a series I love! (Which I highly recommend if you like Shakespeare retellings, comedy and clever jester characters.)

[billherbert23]

Sometimes images just fly together from all four corners of the collage consciousness: the images we knew we were going to use and why we were going to use them; those we didn’t know why but used anyway; those we thought we weren’t going to use, but still did; and those we really thought we were going to use, knew exactly why, and for some reason still didn’t use. This latter group isn’t of course in the collage, but nonetheless sits just outside it and may, like the Bad Fairy in the tale, burst in at any moment.

So, approximately, it was with the first collage in The Iconostasis of Anxiety, which in draft was called ‘Doubting Saint Thomas Didymus Keats’. (Thankfully, none of the draft titles were needed for the pamphlet.) Here I knew I wanted to shake up Severn’s somewhat pious image of Keats reading, and thought giving him an octopus head might help. The octopus in question is one you may may seen sprinting across the ocean floor in a YouTube clip.

For some reason, I was obsessed at the time with the creatures that Alexander the Great was supposed to have taken with him in the first ‘submarine’, a mythical glass barrel in which the cat comes along to sweeten the air. There’s also a chicken, or perhaps a rooster, perhaps to tell the time - I did know this, but part of the process of collaging, indeed part of the process of composition, is forgetting just enough of the right stuff to become, unlike Saint Thomas, ‘capable of being in uncertainties’. The look of this particular cat had always seemed to me genuinely to be that of a cat who had looked at Alexander the Great.

On the wall in the Severn portrait is a smaller portrait of Shakespeare, acting as a sort of guarantor of Keats’s greatness, and it dawned on me that I had another collage with Shakespeare in it, only with the top of his head replaced by that of a squirrel. So in it went, along with the text, perhaps illegible in the print version, ‘the pie is left to find its own shapespeare:’

I really liked the idea of there being a Shapespeare, and this sort of balanced the bathysphere with the cat in it. Then I remembered that the squirrel’s head had come from yet another collage, an autumnal image in which I had first had a go at the Severn (which, ironically, I actually quite like), severin’ quite a bit of Keats in order to turn him into a beer-guzzling sciuridean chimera, if that’s the right expression, and even if it isn’t. This is the one which both sits outside and, in various helpful ways, bursts in.

[transfemmbeatrice]

hello! I loved reading your interpretation of much ado's beatrice... I think it makes a lot of sense. on another note, as someone who enjoys shakespeare, do you have any adjacent media like literature classics to recommend? I need to find a classic work of fiction to analyze I think... no pressure though, answer if you want.

i have been giving this ask some thought and i have a number of answers for you! though i don't know if they're exactly what you're looking for, it's what came to mind.

Les Mis. my favorite book of all time!! there is SO much there to chew on, Victor Hugo is an incredible (if incredibly unsubtle) writer. the unabridged version takes some real work to get through, but it's worth it imo. even a good abridged version is still really excellent! i have some opinions on english translations you're free to inquire about if you're interested. whatever you do, don't read Denny. and the brick also still has a great, active fanbase on tumblr!

2. Twelfth Night (2017) dir. Simon Godwin. idk if you're already a twelfth night fan, but this production puts a little twist on it in a way that i am still thinking about years later. it works best if you're already familiar with the play so you can understand how its being subverted; if you're interested, hmu and i can hook you up with any number of productions to watch (which is true of any shakespeare, really. i collect them.)

3. The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie. not classic lit, but the best contemporary scifi i've read. leckie is an incredible writer; there is nothing she's done i haven't loved and i would recommend all of her work, but this trilogy is my favorite. (if you want to try a sample of her writing, she released a short story collection this year called Lake of Souls.) the radch trilogy deals with empire and resistance and colonialism and language and gender and bodies and technology and identity and personhood and so much more!! they're one of my favorite books of all time.

4. other well-written scifi that really gets into it and has given me a lot to think about: the unraveling by ben rosenbaum (which does such a good job, imo, of feeling really alien) and a memory called empire by arkady martine (which has a great sequel as well).

5. crush by richard siken. not to be a cliche, but his poetry is fucking amazing. reading crush was the first time i understood poetry. i went my entire school career never clicking with it--i was a prose girlie and it felt like my brain just shut off every time i tried to engage with poetry, but crush fucking rewired my brain and i've read it so many times. if you haven't checked it out, i can't recommend it highly enough; the language and themes are so intricate and well done and it feels like a coherent whole in a really compelling way.

6. the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas. it's been over a decade since i read it, but i know i loved it and so do many other people so i trust my own past assessment. i remember drawing a character map about how everyone was connected because it was so complicated (i may still have that somewhere, actually) and it certainly has some strong similarities to les mis but is focused on being a revenge story. i watched V for Vendetta recently and it comes up in that movie a bit and it made me really miss it.

7. Be Good and Rewatch It: Pride and Prejudice. Waypoint (rest in peace<3) did some media rewatch podcasts on this feed, and the star of the show is their series on the 95 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. altogether, their podcasting is more than twice the length of the show itself, but it is so incredibly worth listening to all of it. the adaptation adheres pretty closely to the book so a lot of what they get into relates to the original work as well. there is some fantastic insightful analysis like the difference between english and french relationships with nature and how its reflected in their gardening trends and what it says about lady catherine that her estate is done in the french style--and also there's darcy/peter b. parker fanfiction. extremely well done and also very, very funny, i cannot recommend this more highly!

8. In a similar vein, Shelved By Genre is an excellent podcast if you like sinking your teeth into literary analysis! they focus on genre literature, and have done Book of the New Sun, the Earthsea books, works by Junji Ito, a series by Mercedes Lackey, and I think next are doing Neuromancer? I'm very behind, but they do really excellent work. it's a touch more serious than the last one i mentioned, but it's still a LOT of fun. all three come from academia and i always feel like i'm learning so much when i listen to them.

9. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. it's a shortish memoir that i really enjoyed, and there was an interview at the end that i can't stop thinking about because of how she talked about her craft and her story's place in a larger context. i recommend at least reading the interview (which i posted here). i'll also throw Alan Davies' memoir "Just Ignore Him" in here, because i loved it so much and also have a lot of thoughts about how it is written and structured which that interview made me think about again. i'm very biased on this one because i'm a huge fan of his, but i think it's still pretty good if you're not familiar with him. it should be noted that both these books deal with some dark stuff, so feel free to reach out to me for content warnings if you like. alan's audiobook is excellent; heart berries' audiobook is horrendous.

10. this list could not be complete unless i recommended Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. genuinely the work they do is some of the best stories i have ever encountered, in my entire life, in any medium. there's a shit ton of it and i'm always happy to give recommendations on where to start, whether you're ready to dive in totally or just try a sample. i could never even begin to put into words how good this show is or how much it means to me. it makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it makes me laugh until i cry, it haunts me (positive), it has led me to meeting so many cool people and introduced me to lots of other great and compelling media and philosophy and political ideology. and that's not even getting into my fascination with how game mechanics shape a story, and the sheer joy of things coming together based on chance rather than convenience--it's such an interesting way to tell a story! i'll shut up now but as i will continue to say up to and including when i'm on my deathbed--please listen to friends at the table.

[detectivedrewshouldgetaclue]

“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio…”

💀🐿

[anotherfallenchild]

Sometimes I wish I understood Themes and Motifs less and didn’t have a degree in literature and history I would like to Normal Like my media sometimes instead of having it Consume Me.

[irishmammonagenda]

"So the rumours are true...well 'tis an honour, a great one at that; to have met the most fabled human of the the Devildom." The demon comes up to you, his horns glistening in the light of Diavolo's royal ballroom. You swallow the cupcake you had stuffed into your mouth like a squirrel moments prior, wiping the icing on the lace of your dress, pretending like you didn't see the demon's nose twitch at that action.

"Oh uh-yeah..." You nod, before deciding to be fancier. "Alas, 'tis I, MC" You say, being forced to learn Shakespeare really paid off.

The noble nods, his hand snaking around your waist, he smiles, showing sharp fangs "Pray tell, how did you manage to make pacts with the most powerful demons?...Forgive my nosiness, but rumour has it-"

You tilt you head, something stirring in your gut. "Rumour has what?"

"Rumour has it you managed to seduce them." The demon's eyes gleam. You don't have to be Asmodeus to feel the lust radiating of this man. Eugh.

"Oh! Well-" You begin feeling uncomfortable under his predatory gaze.

The demon smirks, "-Well, I would love to see what you've got-"

A deep chuckle sounds from behind the Noble, a dark, jewel-adorned hand places itself on his shoulder, the demon stills at the sight of the Prince.

Diavolo smiles a strained smile, golden eyes flashing with a fury that would send tsunamis ashore in the Human Realm.

"M-my Prince." He bows suddenly. Diavolo crosses his arms, speaking something in a language long dead. The demon's face completely pales, and he scurries off like a rat in the night.

Diavolo wraps a comforting arm around you, "Are you okay, MC?" His eyes soften as he examines your form." You lean into him.

The dragon in him preens.

Nodding you reply, "Mhm! I'm okay! He was really weird though....like I thought he'd whip out a Mikasa bodypillow. Bro had no rizz whatsoever."

Diavolo chuckles, pinching your cheek in his confusion. "Oh your human world slang.....would you care for a dance?"

You grin, nodding.

And so you move to the centre of the ballroom, Diavolo's arm almost stained into the small of your back as you glide alone the marble floors.

The Demon Prince finds himself glaring at any bystander who's eyes wrack up and down your frame for too long. He gives them a silent warning. Marking you as taken. Marking you as his.

Even if you didn't know it yet. :)

[transit-fag]

If infinite monkeys typing on infinite computers can write the entirety of Shakespeare why can one crackhead squirrel not paint Van Gogh?

It has no oil paints

[live-laugh-legolas]

Hello!! Could you do headcanons of the fellowship + Faramir and what art they like/do as a hobby? Like painting, music, knit, and so on. Thank you!!

I was working on this but it got pushed to the back as I try to prioritize asks so this is perfect!

Hobbies of the fellowship (+Faramir)

Aragorn:

-Whittling

-He has a lot of downtime during his time as a ranger

-And he is surrounded by sticks and stuff and was probably already fiddling with a knife

-He often doesn’t take the little animals he makes with him so he either gives them to kids in a village he is near, or just leaves them around for someone to find

-I can also imagine him keeping a guitar with him so he can play around a fire at night during his travels

-A very humble player but also not shy about playing or singing if asked

Legolas:

-Anything physical really

-Climbing, swimming, gymnastics, etc

-He just needs to be moving

-He also has a habit of taking in orphaned or injured animals to nurse them back to health

-Would just have a squirrel in his pocket like Bob Ross

-His father has had to tell him multiple times that bunnies are not allowed on the dinner table

Gimli:

-He plays the flute

-Don’t ask how I know because no one will ever see him playing

-But he does

-He also enjoys jewelry making

-He’s a dwarf who appreciates a pretty piece of metal work or a perfectly shiny jewel

-I have an uncle who will sharpen knives at family gatherings because he doesn’t really want to talk to anyone (and I can’t blame him) but he also loves glitter and stuff, and that’s loosely how I picture Gimli

Boromir:

-I love that you mentioned knitting because that is exactly what I picture this man doing

-He’s not particularly good, but also not bad

-Mostly just makes scarves to relax

-Faramir has so many scarves and hats

-He definitely donates the extras that aren’t given to his brother

-Side note, he cannot crochet despite trying to

Frodo:

-Learning languages

-We know he has learned elvish to an extent and I think that this is a passion of his

-Loves to teach his friends “swears” that are actually compliments

-He also likes making origami

-Nothing too extravagant, just little cranes and stars maybe

-But he makes so many he doesn’t know what to do with them

-He will hide little cranes all around the shire for other hobbits to find

Sam:

-I mean this one is obvious…

-He loves gardening!

-He feels so accomplished when he gets to watch his plants grow, and eat fresh food from the ground

-Potatoes

-I also think he would secretly enjoy writing poetry

-I’m pretty sure Bilbo taught him how to read and write and he makes sure to put it to use so he doesn’t forget how

-He may not be Shakespeare but it is always sweet and from the heart

Merry:

-Riding

-He loves to take his pony around the shire

-He also likes experimenting with cooking and drink making

-It’s not always good, in fact it often isn’t, but it’s the process to him that matters

-If he were in modern days he would love the movie Ratatouille

Pippin:

-He is a very musical hobbit

-When he’s not stuffing his face he’s playing instruments and singing at the Green Dragon

-I also think he would really love making pottery

-The feel of molding the clay on the wheel really quiets his mind which frankly he really needs from time to time

Gandalf:

-Ok hear me out

-Ik this isn’t technically really a hobby but he likes napping

-He wants to find the most peaceful spot and just close his eyes for a little

-He’s a man who is always on the move so being able to take time to relax is always important to him

-(One of my favorite things to do is take a nap on the couch with my cats and I’m insistent that this is a hobby lol)

*Bonus Faramir:

-I think he likes to draw

-He doesn’t really paint, but he likes to sketch with charcoal and pencils

-He carries around a little sketchbook so he can just sit somewhere and draw

-Boromir loves to see his brothers art because he is so proud of his little brother

[justforbooks]

Dame Maggie Smith

A distinguished, double Oscar-winning actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to Harry Potter

Not many actors have made their names in revue, given definitive performances in Shakespeare and Ibsen, won two Oscars and countless theatre awards, and remained a certified box-office star for more than 60 years. But then few have been as exceptionally talented as Maggie Smith, who has died aged 89.

She was a performer whose range encompassed the high style of Restoration comedy and the sadder, suburban creations of Alan Bennett. Whatever she played, she did so with an amusing, often corrosive, edge of humour. Her comedy was fuelled by anxiety, and her instinct for the correct gesture was infallible.

The first of her Oscars came for an iconic performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Miss Brodie’s pupils are the “crème de la crème”, and her dictatorial aphorisms – “Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life” – disguise her intent of inculcating enthusiasm in her charges for the men she most admires, Mussolini and Franco.

But Smith’s pre-eminence became truly global with two projects towards the end of her career. She was Professor Minerva McGonagall in the eight films of the Harry Potter franchise (she referred to the role as Miss Brodie in a wizard’s hat) between 2001 and 2011. Between 2010 and 2015, in the six series of Downton Abbey on ITV television (sold to 250 territories around the world), she played the formidable and acid-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham, Lady Violet, a woman whose heart of seeming stone was mitigated by a moral humanity and an old-fashioned, if sometimes overzealous, sense of social propriety.

Early on, one critic described Smith as having witty elbows. Another, the US director and writer Harold Clurman, said that she “thinks funny”. When Robin Phillips directed her as Rosalind in As You Like It in 1977 in Stratford, Ontario, he said that “she can respond to something that perhaps only squirrels would sense in the air. And I think that comedy, travelling around in the atmosphere, finds her.” Like Edith Evans, her great predecessor as a stylist, Smith came late to Rosalind. Bernard Levin was convinced that it was a definitive performance, and was deeply affected by the last speech: “She spoke the epilogue like a chime of golden bells. But what she looked like as she did so, I cannot tell you; for I saw it through eyes curtained with tears of joy.”

She was more taut and tuned than any other actor of her day, and this reliance on her instinct to create a performance made her reluctant to talk about acting, although she had a forensic attitude to preparation. With no time for the celebrity game, she rarely went on television chat shows – her appearance on Graham Norton’s BBC TV show in 2015 was her first such in 42 years – or gave newspaper interviews.

Her life she summed up thus: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.” That was it. She first went “public”, according to her father, when, attired in pumps and tutu after a ballet lesson, she regaled a small crowd on an Oxford pavement with one of Arthur Askey’s ditties: “I’m a little fairy flower, growing wilder by the hour.”

Unlike her great friend and contemporary Judi Dench, Smith was a transatlantic star early in her career, making her Broadway debut in 1956 and joining Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre as one of the 12 original contract artists in 1963.

In 1969, after repeatedly stealing other people’s movies, with Miss Brodie she became a star in her own right. She was claiming her just place in the elite, for she had already worked with Olivier, Orson Welles and Noël Coward in the theatre, not to mention her great friend and fellow miserabilist Kenneth Williams, in West End revue. She had also created an international stir in two movies, Anthony Asquith’s The VIPs (1963) – she didn’t just steal her big scene with him, Richard Burton complained, “she committed grand larceny” – and Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater (1964), scripted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Penelope Mortimer.

Before Harry Potter, audiences associated Smith most readily with her lovelorn, heartbreaking parishioner Susan in Bed Among the Lentils, one of six television monologues in Bennett’s Talking Heads (1988). Susan was a character seething with sexual anger; the first line nearly said it all – “Geoffrey’s bad enough, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to Jesus.”

And the funniest moment in Robert Altman’s upstairs/downstairs movie Gosford Park (2001) – in some ways a template for Downton Abbey, and also written by Julian Fellowes — was a mere aside from a doleful Smith as Constance Trentham turning to a neighbour on the sofa, as Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello took a bow for the song he had just sung. “Don’t encourage him,” she warned, archly, “he’s got a very large repertoire.” Such a moment took us right back to the National in 1964 when, as the vamp Myra Arundel in Coward’s Hay Fever, she created an unprecedented (and un-equalled) gale of laughter on the single ejaculation at the breakfast table: “This haddock is disgusting.”

Born in Ilford, Essex, she was the daughter of Margaret (nee Hutton) and Nathaniel Smith, and educated at Oxford high school for girls (the family moved to Oxford at the start of the second world war because of her father’s work as a laboratory technician). Maggie decided to be an actor, joined the Oxford Playhouse school under the tutelage of Frank Shelley in 1951 and took roles in professional and student productions.

She acted as Margaret Smith until 1956, when Equity, the actors’ union, informed her that the name was double-booked. She played Viola with the Oxford University dramatic society in 1952 – John Wood was her undergraduate Malvolio – and appeared in revues directed by Ned Sherrin. “At that time in Oxford,” said Sherrin, “if you wanted a show to be a success, you had to try and get Margaret Smith in it.”

The Sunday Times critic of the day, Harold Hobson, spotted her in a play by Michael Meyer and she was soon working with the directors Peter Hall and Peter Wood. “I didn’t think she would develop the range that she subsequently has,” said Hall, “but I did think she had star quality.”

One of her many admirers at Oxford, the writer Beverley Cross, initiated a long-term campaign to marry Smith that was only fulfilled after the end of her tempestuous 10-year relationship with the actor Robert Stephens, with whom she fell in love at the National and whom she married in 1967. This was a golden decade, as Smith played a beautiful Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello; a clever and impetuous Hilde Wangel to first Michael Redgrave, then Olivier, in Ibsen’s The Master Builder; and an irrepressibly witty and playful Beatrice opposite Stephens as Benedick in Franco Zeffirelli’s Sicilian Much Ado About Nothing, spangled in coloured lights.

Her National “service” was book-ended by two particularly wonderful performances in Restoration comedies by George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer (1963) and The Beaux’ Stratagem (1970), both directed by William Gaskill, whom she called “simply the best teacher”. In the first, in the travesty role of Sylvia, her bubbling, playful sexuality shone through a disguise of black cork moustache and thigh-high boots on a clear stage that acquired, said Bamber Gascoigne, an air of sharpened reality, “like life on a winter’s day with frost and sun”.

In the second, her Mrs Sullen, driven frantic by boredom and shrewish by a sodden, elderly husband, was a tight-laced beanpole, graceful, swaying and tender, drawing from Ronald Bryden a splendidly phrased comparison with some Henri Rousseau-style giraffe, peering nervously down her nose with huge, liquid eyes at the smaller creatures around, nibbling off her lines fastidiously in a surprisingly tiny nasal drawl.

With Stephens, she had two sons, Chris and Toby, who both became actors. When the marriage hit the rocks in 1975, after the couple had torn strips off each other to mixed reviews in John Gielgud’s 1973 revival of Coward’s Private Lives, Smith absconded to Canada with Cross – whom she quickly married – and relaunched her career there, far from the London hurly-burly, but with access to Hollywood.

She played not just Rosalind in Stratford, Ontario, but also Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra to critical acclaim, as well as Judith Bliss in Coward’s Hay Fever and Millamant in William Congreve’s The Way of the World (this latter role she repeated triumphantly in Chichester and London in 1984, again directed by Gaskill). But her films at this time especially reinforced her status as a comedian of flair and authority, none more than Neil Simon’s California Suite (1978), in which Smith was happily partnered by Michael Caine, and won her second Oscar in the role of Diana Barrie, an actor on her way to the Oscars (where she loses).

Smith’s comic genius was increasingly refracted through tales of sadness, retreat and isolation, notably in what is very possibly her greatest screen performance, in Clayton’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), based on Brian Moore’s first novel, which charts the disintegration of an alcoholic Catholic spinster at guilty odds with her own sensuality.

This tragic dimension to her comedy, was seen on stage, too, in Edna O’Brien’s Virginia (1980), a haunting portrait of Virginia Woolf; and in Bennett’s The Lady in the Van (1999), in which she was the eccentric tramp Miss Shepherd. Miss Shepherd was a former nun who had driven ambulances during blackouts in the second world war and ended up as a tolerated squatter in the playwright’s front garden. Smith brought something both demonic and celestial to this critical, ungrateful, dun-caked crone and it was impossible to imagine any other actor in the role, which she reprised, developed and explored further in Nicholas Hytner’s delightful 2015 movie based on the play.

She scored two big successes in Edward Albee’s work on the London stage in the 1990s, first in Three Tall Women (1994, the playwright’s return to form), and then in one of his best plays, A Delicate Balance (1997), in which she played alongside Eileen Atkins who, like Dench, could give Smith as good as she got.

The Dench partnership lay fallow after their early years at the Old Vic together, but these two great stars made up for lost time. They appeared together not only on stage, in David Hare’s The Breath of Life (2002), playing the wife and mistress of the same dead man, but also on film, in the Merchant-Ivory A Room With a View (1985), Zeffirelli’s Tea With Mussolini (1999) and as a pair of grey-haired sisters in Charles Dance’s debut film as a director, Ladies in Lavender (2004). Smith referred to this latter film as “The Lavender Bags”. She had a name for everyone. Vanessa Redgrave she dubbed “the Red Snapper”, while Michael Palin, with whom she made two films, was simply “the Saint”.

With Palin, she appeared in Bennett’s A Private Function (1984), directed by Malcolm Mowbray – “Moaner Mowbray” he became – in which an unlicensed pig is slaughtered in a Yorkshire village for the royal wedding celebrations of 1947. Smith was Joyce Chilvers, married to Palin, who carries on snobbishly like a Lady Macbeth of Ilkley, deciding to throw caution to the winds and have a sweet sherry, or informing her husband matter-of-factly that sexual intercourse is in order.

She had also acted with Palin in The Missionary (1982), directed by Richard Loncraine, who was responsible for the film of Ian McKellen’s Richard III (1995, in which she played a memorably rebarbative Duchess of York) and My House in Umbria (2003), a much-underrated film, adapted by Hugh Whitemore from a William Trevor novella. This last brought out the very best in her special line in glamorous whimsy and iron-clad star status under pressure. She played Emily Delahunty, a romantic novelist opening her glorious house in Umbria to her three fellow survivors in a bomb blast on a train to Milan. One of these was played by Ronnie Barker, who had been at architectural college with Smith’s two brothers and had left them to join her at the Oxford Playhouse. Delahunty finds her new metier as an adoptive parent to a little orphaned American girl.

She was Mother Superior in the very popular Sister Act (1992) and its sequel, and her recent films included a “funny turn” as a disruptive housekeeper in Keeping Mum (2005), a vintage portrait of old age revisited by the past in Stephen Poliakoff’s Capturing Mary (on television in 2007) and as a solicitous grandmother of a boy uncovering a ghost story in Fellowes’s From Time to Time (2009).

As this latter film was released she confirmed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone an intensive course of chemotherapy, but had been given the all-clear – only to be struck down by a painful attack of shingles, a typical Maggie Smith example of good news never coming unadulterated with a bit of bad.

Her stage appearance as the title character in Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 2007 was, ironically, about death from cancer. She returned to the stage for the last time in 2019, as Brunhilde Pomsel in Christopher Hampton’s one-woman play A German Life, at the Bridge theatre, London.

Cross, who was a real rock, and helped protect her from the outside world, died in 1998. But Smith picked herself up, and went on to perform as sensationally and beguilingly as she had done all her life, including memorable appearances in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films (2011 and 2015) and two Downton Abbey movie spin-offs (2019 and 2022). Her final film role was in The Miracle Club (2023), co-starring Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.

She had been made CBE in 1970 and a dame in 1990, and in 2014 she was made a Companion of Honour. Her pleasure would have been laced with mild incredulity. A world without Smith recoiling from it in mock horror, and real distaste, will never seem the same again.

She is survived by Chris and Toby, and by five grandchildren.

🔔 Maggie Smith (Margaret Natalie Smith), actor, born 28 December 1934; died 27 September 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[thetisming]

i doubt it but i truly hope

i submitted all my special barbecue squirrels <3

Lovely to hear, I hope there are other people who have them as their barbeque squirrels <3

[cantheykillmacbeth]

Squirrel girl! Already gender clause but can also qualify for unique exception when it's funny

Yes, Doreen Green aka Squirrel Girl from the Marvel Comics could kill Macbeth!

She applies for the Gender Clause. As for whether she is a Unique Exception as well, I surprisingly couldn't find much that said it was anything more than a meme that she was truly unbeatable/the strongest character in the Marvel Comics. She did defeat several big-name foes known for having phenomenal cosmic power, and has been shown to break the fourth wall, so it's certainly possible that that is meant to be the implication, but since this is the Marvel Comics, the continuity is very inconsistent between writers. Since she would be able to kill him either way, though, due to applying for the Gender Clause, I'm comfortable enough marking her as a Unique Exception- in the sort of scenario where the Gender Clause did not apply for whatever reason, whoever is writing a confrontation between her and Lord Macbeth from Shakespeare's Macbeth would probably write in some way for her to still be able to do it.

Squirrel Girl was also submitted by @a-salty-alto. Thank you both for your submission!

[izzywantscheesecake]

sick day-hobie brown

Today was a bad day.

You thought you had gotten rid of your sickness for good yesterday, but that was just the appetizer in the huge buffet of nausea your body was preparing especially for you.

You had begged your parents a second time to let you stay home from school, and they let you, albeit slightly skeptical about how sick you claimed to be. You hoped whatever was in you would disappear by the next day, because they told you after today they wouldn’t let you commit truancy any longer.

Nobody was in the house with you, everyone you lived with had work and their own personal things to deal with, so you had to treat yourself.

You stayed in bed all morning, not getting anything done and occasionally using your energy to get up and use the bathroom or go to the kitchen.

It hadn’t even hit you how much time had passed before it was around 3, the usual time your school ended. You wiped a bead of sweat off your forehead, annoyed about how lazy you’ve been all day even though it really wasn’t your fault.

Succumbing to your low energy, you began to feel your eyelids droop and your body relax. Just before everything went black, a sudden banging at your window caused you to jolt awake.

You shifted up in your bed, thinking the source of the noise might’ve been a squirrel or a pigeon, but a tall silhouette standing by your balcony told you otherwise.

Slowly pulling yourself out of the sheets, you walked towards your window, eyes beginning to sparkle once you recognized what was standing there.

It was your friend, Hobie Brown, from 6th form. He still had his uniform on, indicating he came to your house immediately after school ended, and he was holding about three bags, evenly spread out on each arm.

You unlocked your window, giving him access to your room, and he stepped in, his boots gruffly making contact with your wood tiled floor.

“Hey, Y/N. A little birdie told me you were feeling a bit iffy this week.”

“A bit? I’ve been bedridden all day. I only just got up to let you in,” You replied, swiftly pulling yourself under the warm sheets of your bed again.

Hobie examined you for a few seconds, before letting out a snort.

“Man, you look terrible. But not to fear, Hobie is here. And he’s brought you a whole lot of sacred scroll texts from the lost city of Atlantis.”

Hobie placed the first bag down, and took out a purple folder, which he then handed to you in a mock regal manner.

You opened the folder, and saw exactly what you expected to see in there. Three worksheets of linear algebra, and a packet containing some Shakespeare text with short response questions.

“Wow, thanks. My maths and literature homework.”

“I know, I’m amazing, right? Tell me why when I went to collect your work from maths, the teacher said she didn’t even think I attended school anymore.”

“Well, that lady’s always been quite senile. But then again, you’re constantly skiving so I also can’t blame her for thinking that. What’s in the other bags?”

“Some gifts.”

He opened the second bag, and you were delighted to see a pack of Cadbury chocolate bars, accompanied with a teddy bear and other various confectionaries.

Just as you were about to go all in, he stopped you.

“Wait. Have you eaten any real food all day?”

“No.. I’ve just been laying here.”

“I thought so.”

He opened the third and final bag, which was chicken broth, some spices, and a pack of noodles.

“Why did you..”

“I’m going to make you soup, silly. Consider me your private nurse.”

“You have too much free time. I’ll be fine, just go home.”

“Mmm, no. Any road, direct me to your kitchen. I’ve only ever seen your room.”

“It’s down the hall to the left. But I can show you, just follow m-”

You made a few attempts to stand up, and every time you did, Hobie would just gently shove you back onto the bed.

“Nuh uh. You stay here, let me take care of you.”

Eventually, you realized it was no use trying to fight him and you felt yourself sinking deeper down into the bed as you listened to him cook in the kitchen, humming some tune you’ve never heard of.

After maybe 30 minutes, Hobie re-entered your room with a tray of soup accompanied by tea. Also on the tray was a thermometer you assumed he must’ve stolen from your bathroom.

He gently placed the tray of food down, grabbing the thermometer and setting it closer to your lips.

“Okay, now open your mouth.”

“You’re serious about this nurse thing, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Now say, aaah,” He replied.

You opened your mouth and closed it once the thermometer was in. The both of you waited about a minute, before Hobie pulled it out of your mouth and examined the temperature.

“Holy shit, 38 degrees celsius. You’re burning up, Y/N.”

You shrugged as he put the thermometer down on your bedside table and picked up the tray of food, placing it gently in front of you.

“Start eating this while I get you a warm towel.”

The broth of the soup was better than expected, probably because Hobie also added additional seasoning. The tea was also good, you could taste a hint of honey which was helpful for your sore throat.

Hobie came back with the warm towel and placed it on your forehead to relieve congestion.

For the next hour, the two of you sat together, laughing and joking. Hobie told you about the latest drama at school that you’ve missed, and also talked about things he did over the weekend.

It was a very simple conversation, but you enjoyed it a lot, Hobie really had a way of making uninteresting things interesting.

Suddenly, you heard the sound of a car pulling up to your driveway, and immediately snapped your head up to check the time on the clock.

It read, “16:46.”

“Hobie, you gotta get out of here. My parents didn’t want anyone to show up to the house today.”

He quickly nodded, cleaning up as much as he could before unlocking the window. Before he jumped out, he gave you a glance.

“And don’t forget, that’ll be £150.”

You scoffed jokingly. “I said, get out of here.”

He smirked, before jumping out the window and taking off down the street.

As soon as Hobie was out of the picture, you heard your room door open, and your parents walked in.

They questioned the soup and tea on the counter in the kitchen, and you told them you had started to feel better, and made it for yourself.

Today might’ve actually been a good day.

[acting-pterygii]

crazy things are being cooked up in the hamlet, prince of denmark discord server right now…

last year we subjected our characters to the hell of the Hunger Games— and this year, we’re putting them through hell again! although, hopefully murder-less. Welcome to Bards High, the official hamserver summer 2024 roleplay. where we take our favorite little guys (including a certain childrens’ cartoon icon??) and force them to go through the highs and lows of the American Educational System! no, i have no idea why it’s in america. we unanimously decided, i suppose (freedom democracy oil 🇺🇸🦅🔥) it’s shaping up to have so much fluff, suspense, good banter, gay pining, not-gay pining, missing parents, dead squirrels, and DRAMA already, and i can’t wait to see what WILD things we come up with this time around.

although, i may have gotten a little ahead of myself with the “no murder” part. this is a shakespeare-themed rp, after all…

more of the cast + bonus art below the cut!

@cleverclove plays Laertes, Rosalind, Dora, Lady Macbeth (not pictured) and various side characters, should the need arise

@moonlarked plays Horatio

@withasideofshakespeare plays Hotspur, Kate, and Malcolm (latter two not pictured)

@veil-of-exordia plays Polonius and Reynaldo (not pictured)

@hamletthebrain (predictably) plays Hamlet and Richard

@lost1ndaydream plays Margaret and Hal (not pictured)

@angel-of-fallen-dreams plays Mercutio, Ophelia, Osric, Rosencrantz, and Moth (latter two not pictured). also, probably important to mention that this ophelia design is NOT canon! college au ophe is much more goth, I just based her design off my memory.

@acting-pterygii, otherwise known as myself, am playing Benvolio and Beatrice

this is definitely missing characters, but these are the main and most active players for now! have a good day, oh, and whatever you do, DON’T touch the big yellow bucket.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Feeding Alligators 63 - I'll Cry if I Want To

You get drunk. Guess who comes lurking?

On AO3.

Getting shit-faced. That is what wine’s good for.

The night’s real pretty. Y’all are inside the grove, all the goblins’re fucking dead, and the druids ain’t gonna let…let fucking wargs or mean bears in here. So it’s safe. There’s a rock digging into your left ass cheek, and you cannot be fucked to do nothing about it. But you’re safe! So it’s fine.

You take another gulp. People say when you got enough alcohol, you don’t notice then taste no more, but those fuckers’re lying liars who fucking lie, and it still tastes like bitter…bitter piss.

Bitch burns, too.

“Shit is gross,” you say to nobody. “The fuck do people drink this?”

Probably cause it makes you warm. And vaguely floating. Your muscles seem to burn a lot more, but you’re still kinda happy. Not like, sing and flail around the living room happy, but happy enough the last…week? Ish? Whatever. The night is pretty. An owl hoots and squirrels run along branches. Bugs creak and hum and a crow in the trees above lets out a sleepy “crk.”

“Sorry!” you say. Realize you’re shouting. Whisper, “Sorry.”

Crows keep grudges, huh? You heard about that. Should let the little dude to back to sleep.

Probably shouldn’t be out in the woods by yourself?

Whatever.

Another gulp. Your whole face wrinkles.

“I thought you didn’t drink?” says a fucking rat man.

You turn. The woods spin a little, and you gotta blink before the two, pale silhouettes become one bastard man.

“’Sa party,” you say. “Errbody’s drinking.”

Why’s he here? You ain’t been gone long. Right? You’re pretty sure.

“How’s Lae’zel?” you say.

He winces. You’re shouting again.

You pitch your voice back down. “How’s Lae’zel?”

He gives you a look. It slides right on past you. “Jealous, dear?”

Your chest hurts again. Still for no fucking reason. “Pff. No. Just surprised how quick it was.”

For some reason, he pulls back in outrage (yeah! you recognize that one!). “Excuse me?”

“It ain’t nothing bad!” You only flail a little. Almost throw the wine bottle and then have to clutch it to your chest. Next to your soul flask. They clink through your shirt. “Just…y’know. ‘Fficient. You’re very efficient.”

He stands there like he’s trying to parse out what you’re saying. Did the potion wear off again? You gotta study more.

And who the fuck cares. You ain’t out here for him. You ain’t out here for nobody except to get shit-faced.

“Why are you out here alone?” rat bastard man says.

It probably ain’t supposed to be funny. Or maybe it just ain’t funny to him. Or anyone but you. But for you? You don’t drink, you don’t hookup, but you do plonk your ass down and get sloshed off a bottle and a half of wine all by your lonesome.

You want ice cream. You would literally kill a man for ice cream.

“If I didn’t know any better,” the bastard fuck boy says, “I’d say you look like you were trying to drink away your feelings.”

You squint up at him. White hair a silvery halo around his head in the moonlight. Eyes shining like new pennies in the low light. Fucker asks your opinion on who he ought to bang, and then finds you afterwards to…to fucking needle you?

You ain’t never been drunk like this. You flirted with getting mildly buzzed. Got borderline tipsy that once when Ryan fucking Meadows ghosted you and you ugly cried onto Sasha’s only clean work shirt.

None of that really processes, though. You ain’t really up to the whole “processing” thing right now; that barn door is long open and them hogs already sprinted for the hills.

“You’re such a dick,” you say, clicking the “k” at the end extra hard. “Pompous goddamn mess of a…of a man dick.”

He blinks like you just sprouted a beak and began reciting the entire works of Shakespeare in chicken.

And you ain’t done. “I got all the fucking reason to be off my damn ass out here, you shit. I lost my whole fucking family. Again. My whole fucking world. Fucking demons and brainworms and your ass. Maybe I just wanted to get drunk all by myself.”

You feel how dry your mouth is, and chug a few more swallows.

“Tastes like shit,” you say and try to scrape your tongue on your teeth. “Don’t know why anybody drinks it.”

Astarion still stands there. Fucking creepo. He’ll get all huffy and leave; toss you some snide bullshit before he goes. Jackass.

Only he don’t. He…lowers himself down. Not right next to you, but within kicking distance.

You think about doing just that.

“What even is that swill?” he says.

You look at the label. At the swirly-spiky letters all swooping together. Turn to him, with the most deadpan expression you can muster, and say, “What’s up, I’m Jared, I’m nineteen, and I never fucking learned how to read.”

It is, hands down, the best joke you ever made in your whole life. You bend over laughing. You cry, laughing. Your bladder twinges and you keep laughing.

But then something happens. And you’re still laughing, and your eyes is watering, but now it hurts. Now you can’t breathe and nobody else is laughing with you cause they don’t get the joke and never will because your world is dead. Not like, actually. But they might as well be.

And like hell you want Astarion to fucking see that. So you shove the bottle at him and turn away like it’s just the giggles. Ain’t nothing to see here. Just a giggly drunk.

No one is ever gonna get your jokes. Ain’t nobody gonna know what “Wednesday my dudes” is. Or the helium balloons. Or the yoga grinch.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck.

Wine sloshes in the bottle. Astarion somehow gives an audible grimace.

“I think you grabbed the worst of them, darling. This is pure vinegar.”

You don’t turn around. You try to shove the goddamn sniffles back in your face. You don’t cry in front of other people. That shit ain’t safe. It’s how everybody knows how weak and stupid you are, and you are not gonna give this jackass that ammunition.

But it keeps coming. The smell of the red dirt after a hard rain. Homemade pecan custard pie. Uncle Randy was gonna take you to the Cherokee Days this fall. You was gonna try to learn basket weaving. The old style.

And you up and disappeared on him. On all of them.

Again.

Only this time, you ain’t coming back. This time, you ain’t gonna find no pink bicycle waiting for you cause you ain’t never gonna come crunching back over that red gravel. Never gonna smell them rich pecan trees, and bitch about Uncle Randy’s nasty cigarettes.

This is what you do, ain’t it? You disappear. You run off. You leave your family. All of your family, even the piece of shit parts over and over and over.

The tears coat your cheeks. You swipe at them furiously.

The wine sloshes again.

“Our gith friend had other plans for the evening,” Astarion says after…you don’t know.

You glance up and the sky spins above you. Fuck, you’re gonna make yourself sick you keep this up.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“That sucks,” you say.

He makes a startled, snorting sound. “There was none of that, actually. And that’s the problem.”

Ah. Ye-awp. That’d do it. That’d be why he’s here with you. His prospect failed, so now he’s come back to you. The easy one.

You sigh and finally lose your fight with gravity and flop onto your side. You wave vaguely over your shoulder.

“Go find one of them tieflings, then,” you say. “They can’t all be paired off.”

You’re tired, actually. Desperately so. The grass is nice and soft, and it’s safe out here, right?

Something shuffles. A rhythmic swish of grass. It’s the change in the air that alerts you. He don’t radiate body heat cause he don’t got none. But he is…surrounded by something a lot like a static field.

You look up to see him on all fours over you, peering down. Not like, over you, over you, it’s just his head. He wears no expression. Just…looks at you.

Have you ever seen him like this before?

“You didn’t seek any playmates of your own,” he says. And who the fuck talks like that?

“I got.” You start to lift your hand to waggle your remaining wine bottle, but your hands is empty. Ah fuck. “I had wine.”

“But you didn’t need to drink by yourself, darling. Both the cleric and the wizard would have gladly followed you out here.”

Well he certainly did.

Still, that blank face. Not, like, shuttered blank. Just…open. Or empty. It’s just his face.

…you should just tell him. All’ve this would be so easy if you just fucking told him. But he dumped you. He’s probably one of them guys who gets real weird when he finds out you’re thirty-five and are the sole provider of your own orgasms.

And it shouldn’t fucking matter.

“Didn’t want to,” you say. And do not elaborate.

Leaving the ball in his court. He fumbles with it. Stares at you like you just tossed him a soggy potato.

You’re kinda curious to see what he does with it.

His eyes narrow. You think he frowns. But it ain’t a pissy frown. It’s a thinking frown. And too late you remember that this bastard clues in on your plans real fast. That he seems to have a decent read on things (that ain’t trying to get into your pants).

Oh fuck.

“You haven’t dabbled with any of our merry band,” he says. Is that thoughtful? He sounds thoughtful. Shit on a goddamn cracker.

Um.

“And you saved me back at that goblin camp,” you say. And give yourself a mental high five, cause if he wants to delve into shit you don’t wanna talk about, take a reverse fucking uno card, jackass!

But he don’t dodge or parry, this time. He fucking leans in. You breathe in some of his own exhale and feel your cheeks begin to warm (through the booze).

“And what if I did?” he says, voice just shy of a whisper.

Oh. You didn’t expect that. Shit. What’s the play here? Uh.

“I’d thank you,” you say.

The sky spins above him. He’s the only steady thing in your vision.

“Is that all?” he says. Y’all are totally sharing lung air now, and his whisper gives you a goddamn ASMR shiver.

Except you’re drunk. And he’s way too close. And the shivers quiver down to your belly. The sky spins faster.

“What if I told you,” Astarion breathes, “that I’ve been thinking about our night together ceaselessly—”

Your stomach lurches.

Oh. That ain’t a shiver or a booze buzz or Astarion. You make some awful gagging sound, wrench up and to the side, and bring up about a bottle and a half of wine.

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