I don't really "dig" the Three Stooges either, Judy - either the Marx bros
or W.C.Fields - of the talking comedians - are more to my taste. And laurel
& Hardy, natch.
Stoppard has written at least one moving play: "The Invention of Love",
largely about A.E.Housman, and the Joyce/Tzara/Lenin play in limericks is
hilarious.
Ignotus Rex
_______________________________________
But I am but a nameless sort of person
(A broken Dandy lately on my travels)
And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,
The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels
- George Gordon, Lord Byron
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judy Prince" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: How poetry is writ
> Hey, Martin. a dear brilliant well read male friend and I were discussing
> Stoppard, and one of our conclusions was that appreciating him is a 'man
> thing', [sort of like appreciating The Three Stooges ;-)].
> My view of 'man things' [is that they're wonderful, but that's a nother
> topic]....is that menfolk challenge one a nother, whereas femalefolk try
> to
> get everybody to understand everybody else ['make nice', in other words].
> Hence, males will drop obtuse refs like dandruff to see if anyone's bright
> enuff to 'get' them and give some back. I do see the value in that
> process;
> it guarantees that folk are on their toes, at the top of their game, ready
> to do battle, win the fair maiden, and so on. And, quite frankly, no,
> quite
> judily, I think it's a damned effective mechanism.
>
> I saw SIL in Pest, the subtitles in English, and it was followed by The
> Godfather. I was so demoralised at being in my 'mother country' and
> seeing
> its devastated economy and ground-under magnificent culture, that I wanted
> to vomit. Hence, I may've missed some of the subtleties of that damned
> Stoppard. I also saw [can't recall title] his play that begins with a
> not-told-to-audience play within a play and unfolds with an adulterer who
> doesn't understand why his wives keep cuckolding him. Stoppard,
> reasonably,
> declines to explain his plays to the adoring audiences; he's been accused
> by
> some critics who say he blatantly 'borrows' ideas for plays [we're not
> talking about clever subtle hidden 'refs' that are made to challenge our
> brainfiles]. Fundamentally, I think he's a fake, or at best an
> under-mediocre playwright. But, then, he's not trying, apparently, to
> give
> us profound plays.
>
> Mary Sidney was, tho, a writer of profound plays [that is, the works often
> attributed to Shaksper].
>
> Who are Schlegel and Tieck? Re German: One summer before going on one of
> those really cheap Around The World in a year flights and being allowed to
> stop ANYWHERE you wanted as long as you didn't backtrack, I decided to
> learn
> German and Hungarian, and renew my Chinese and French. I ended up
> understanding how to read and pronounce Hungarian, as well as being
> fascinated with the differences between French and German socio-culture as
> evidenced in what they most preferred talking about. Ended up being a bit
> like a friend auto mechanic [native Hungarian living in the USA] said:
> "If
> your car breaks down in France, have it towed to Germany."
>
> j balizs prince
>
> 2009/4/4 Martin Walker <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> Ms. Judy Prince >>Besides you and Droo
>>
>>> and MW, tho, who on petc has a weird-enough mindset for >>it?
>>>>
>>> Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered. I *know I should order
>>> a
>> new one, it makes all kinds of rude noises and dribbles some strange
>> greenish lube over the settee.
>> PS I liked the Steinian bit at the beginning of SIL: some guy is
>> haranguing
>> listeners in a populous thoroughfare about abolishing the theatres: "A
>> Rose
>> is a Rose is a..." (it's very faint, I think the guy is attacking the
>> corrupting effect of plays, it disappeared altogether in the German
>> dubbing
>> according to those I've asked. Germans, my mountaineering Hausarzt
>> fr'instance, tend to love SIL, it sort of defuses the oppressive weight
>> of
>> Schlegel & Tieck). That was Stoppard's contribution, rather UTT (under
>> the
>> threshold, since you asked) than OTT...
>> Goo'night, sweet Prince...
>> _______________________________________
>> But I am but a nameless sort of person
>> (A broken Dandy lately on my travels)
>> And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,
>> The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels
>>
>> - George Gordon, Lord Byron
>>
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