Althouse: With the sky so cloudy, the yellow hoodie must stand in for the sun.

August 13, 2022

With the sky so cloudy, the yellow hoodie must stand in for the sun.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

52 comments:

Bill Crawford said...: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/10/72520/

Sorry I do not know the html for a link.; 8/13/22, 7:01 PM
Lurker21 said...: Somebody took your space?

What were sins, crimes, and abominations in premodern times, became pathologies in modern times, and consumer choices in postmodern times. Fortunately, we postmoderns have come up with our new sins, crimes, and abominations.; 8/13/22, 7:36 PM
Humperdink said...: Temujin was on the earlier thread mentioning dealing with people steeped in ignorance. I was engaged in a short verbal skirmish with a retired teacher. She was prattling on about white supremacy and white terrorism as the biggest threat to the country. I reminded her that inner city black-on-black killings were a larger issue, by a wide margin. That's racism she responded. Debate concluded.; 8/13/22, 8:01 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Did you know the first French Fry wasn't cooked in France?; 8/13/22, 8:14 PM
gadfly said...: Brad Neaton writes in Euphoric Recall substack blog that "Thucydides, writing in the third book of The Peloponnesian War some 2,400 years ago, warned that it’s dangerous for the rulers of a democracy to prosecute an opponent after defeating him in a political election. The argument in question was titled "The Mar-a-Laga Brouhaha."

Sorry Brad but the term "democracy" is derived from the Greek language spoken by Thucydides and means "rule by the people". I scanned the Thucydides cite given by Mr. Neaton using Google only to discover that the ancient Greek historian didn't even use the word "democracy" or "election."

The Peloponnesian War seems to pit the white chess pieces on one side wanting political equality of the people while black opposition chessmen and the queen on the other sought "moderate aristocracy" whatever that oxymoron could ever possibly mean.

Back and forth the battles, unless standstills occurred, were winner take all and the losers were always included the moderates from both sides. I suppose, just for interest, we could declare aces and eights to be wild.; 8/13/22, 8:41 PM
Saint Croix said...: Is that Meade?; 8/13/22, 8:48 PM
narciso said...: Except athens reverted back to oligarchy from the brief generations it had held democracy this was the consequence of an ill considered forever war that it lost as well as a plague (either sound vagueky familiar); 8/13/22, 8:53 PM
Saint Croix said...: hey Bill, it's real easy. I don't code but this is a simple one.

(I googled it when Althouse yelled at us for not doing links, this was years ago)

instructions; 8/13/22, 8:58 PM
Saint Croix said...: hey Bill,

thanks for that article, super interesting discussion about pro-life feminism; 8/13/22, 9:02 PM
Jaq said...: Ya gotta hand it to them for moxie, claiming that reporting the conduct of the FBI creates “outrage” that puts agents’ lives at risk. Maybe it’s the conduct that creates the outrage, and not informing Americans what has been done with the power we entrusted to them.; 8/13/22, 9:11 PM
Drago said...: What our resident idiot gadfly just did in this thread re: Thucydides and his history of the Peloponnesian War should forever be mocked. And brutally.; 8/13/22, 9:13 PM
Saint Croix said...: I've got a Shakespeare DVD sitting on my TV. It's been sitting there for months. (I'm still using DVDs, the kids laugh at me).

This one is Much Ado About Nothing. I've seen the Branagh version, it was okay. This is by Joss Whedon (The Avengers, Serenity, The Cabin in the Woods). That's why I put it in my queue.

Althouse fans might really enjoy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Whedon did that for free during a writer's strike, I think.

Anyway, I love Whedon. And I love/hate Shakespeare. So I can't send the stupid movie back, and I can't watch it either, apparently. Haven't even tried! Months! I'm in no hurry.

I think why I love/hate Shakespeare is that he's commercial and cool -- like Spielberg back in the day -- but the language is so convoluted your brain has to decipher everything. So emotionally it doesn't work for me like it should.; 8/13/22, 9:25 PM
Saint Croix said...: Here are my favorite Shakespeare adaptations, in order, from my book...

1. Spider Castle (1957) This is Kurosawa’s first adaptation of Shakespeare into Japanese culture. A few years later he would do a Japanese version of Hamlet, and two decades after that, a Japanese version of King Lear. This is his interpretation of Macbeth, and it’s arguably the finest cinematic version of Shakespeare ever filmed. Kurosawa steals the plot, themes, and characters from the bard, while he abandons all of his language. The result is an astounding work of cinema. And his visuals are amazing. It’s one of Kurosawa’s most haunting films. (Released in the USA under the title, “Throne of Blood”).

2 Shakespeare in Love (1998) Good ol' Will. I love this movie. I love when he's talking to some quack, "I can't write, I can't have sex. I can't do anything." And doc asks him, "How long's it been?" And Will holds his hands about six inches apart. That kills me. I love how dirty the streets are. I love how dishonest everybody is, and how commercial the artists are. How Will owes everybody money. And personally, I think Ben Affleck might be the best actor in the universe if you limit him to five minute gigs. "Who are you?" "I'm the money." "Well, you can stay, but shut up." Dude, there's romance, and bad teeth, and swordplay, and lovers in disguise. How can you not love Shakespeare?

(I would update this by saying if Shakespeare is the screenwriter, and you're trying to follow ye olde english, it might be possible not to love him, which is why this DVD has been sitting on my TV for months. Fear!)

3. The Bad Sleep Well (1960) Kurosawa does Shakespeare better than anybody. I think it's because he re-imagines it for a different culture. This is Hamlet, and man, is it dark. Instead of setting it in feudal Japan, like you'd expect, Kurosawa makes it a modern corporate intrigue. Mifune plays the mad prince.

4. Shakespeare Retold: Much Ado About Nothing (2007). This is a BBC adaptation of Shakespeare set in the present day. They kept the structure and characters and rewrote everything else, including (almost) all the dialog. It's light, breezy, and laugh out loud funny, and then goes dark in the third act. Shakespeare is so cool as a screenwriter because he is oblivious to all our narrative formulas. Two minor characters step up and take major roles in the third act, and our two protagonists are relegated to minor roles. You can't do that! It's impossible! And it works.

It's really brave to toss out all of Shakespeare's words like that. You know going in that the lines you write are going to be inferior compared to what Shakespeare has written. On the other hand, you immediately make the story more accessible and easier to follow. The humor leaps out at you, and the laughter is stronger.

"Beatrice, I'll do anything for you. Anything, anything, anything."

"Kill Claude."

"What?"

I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh's movie version--which retains Shakespeare's language--but there's way more laughter in this version. And the Tom Jones song is perfect. Kudos.

I'm going to stop there. I got to watch that damn Shakespeare movie sitting on my TV. Maybe tomorrow.; 8/13/22, 9:27 PM
Ambrose said...: Sometimes a hoodie is just a hoodie.; 8/13/22, 9:30 PM
Saint Croix said...: That is a spunky interview. Love it!

Many socially conservative women...reject the label “feminist.” Why do you embrace this label, and how do you define it?

EB: Well, in part, because I’m just trying to be a good Catholic! After all, Pope John Paul II wrote in 1995 that it’s up to women to “promote a ‘new feminism’...

I think I've read her book. She seems super familiar to me. Does she have a book?; 8/13/22, 10:08 PM
Saint Croix said...: Yeah, I'm 90% sure Althouse blogged on her.; 8/13/22, 10:10 PM
Saint Croix said...: Yeah, she did, back in December.; 8/13/22, 10:16 PM
Rollo said...: I loved the Branagh version, but that was a long time ago. The Whedon version is more spare and spare, not so lush and expansive as Branagh's.

I loathed Shakespeare in Love: Harvey Weinstein stealing the Oscar from Private Ryan, and all the faux cute wordplay. Also, there was no Virginia colony to carry Gwyneth off to in the year when the movie is set.; 8/13/22, 10:25 PM
narciso said...: Shakespeare was supposed to be popular enteetainment not the elite pretense; 8/13/22, 10:31 PM
gilbar said...: i like
10 things i Hate About You
which is based on Will Shakespeare's adaptation of Kiss Me Kate; 8/13/22, 10:33 PM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: I finished installing 1,300-sq-ft of wood-plank flooring today. It took 10 days to do the 1,300-sq-ft. The high outside temperatures were in the 80s and low 90s, so it was pretty warm inside. Opening windows helped a little, but still warm work.

Installing the flooring when working front to back and left to right is fairly easy, because that's the way the planks want to snap together. There are three areas where it has to be installed back to front. The best way to do that is to install 4 columns at a time so that the columns don't develop a curve, which is easy to do. The 4 columns provide rigidity and the planks overlap so they lie in a straight line,

Unfortunately, it was only on the third back to front section that I figured that out. The other two sections have slight gaps where the columns curve. I'll caulk those gaps so the floor will remain watertight. The planks have plastic baffles that snap together to create a watertight seal.

Pictures at https://tokulacres.com/.; 8/13/22, 10:34 PM
narciso said...: An interesting take was corolianus wirh ralph fiennes done by the one that did titus andronicus its set in the modern timez with the war ocurring in a balkans type environment the protagonist is banisged by some in the political clas and he sides with the volsces the enemy faction; 8/13/22, 10:47 PM
Maynard said...: What our resident idiot gadfly just did in this thread re: Thucydides and his history of the Peloponnesian War should forever be mocked. And brutally

With all due respect, anyone who reads gadfly's comments is an idiot.

gadfly is obviously a DNC hack and likely an associate History prof at some loser school.; 8/13/22, 10:49 PM
chickelit said...: Gadfly mentioned The Mar-a-Laga Brouhaha.

But did you follow up on that coincidence? Seems like you mentioned something interesting but then dropped like a hot potato.; 8/13/22, 11:11 PM
Saint Croix said...: My Dr. Horrible link only had the first two acts for some reason.

Here is Act 3.; 8/13/22, 11:24 PM
Jupiter said...: "Back and forth the battles, unless standstills occurred, were winner take all and the losers were always included the moderates from both sides. I suppose, just for interest, we could declare aces and eights to be wild."

It would appear that gadfly has found the solution to a problem that has perplexed thoughtful historians for millenia. Good work, gadfly!; 8/13/22, 11:30 PM
Bender said...: CDC has memory-holed an important claim it previously made - that the mRNA substance and spike protein stays in the body only a short time before breaking down.

That assertion is no longer on their webpage.; 8/13/22, 11:45 PM
Readering said...: DVD's are great. But I'm also old. Watching Big Cill, Criterion Collection edition.; 8/14/22, 1:01 AM
Saint Croix said...: My review of Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

It’s a movie about three sisters. And Michael Caine goes from one sister to the other sister and back to the first sister. And Woody Allen goes from one sister to another sister. The men in this movie really love those sisters. That’s what family is in this movie, the sisters. And the men in this movie are on the outside, isolated from intimacy and love. Woody Allen is a doubter, an infidel, the master of infidelity, trying to get in, trying to believe. He jumps from faith to faith like he jumps from sister to sister. He’s a bad man but he wants a family, he wants to believe. And then at the end of the film there’s a miracle. What a beautiful, beautiful film.; 8/14/22, 2:12 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Thanks for the link to the place that shows us how to make a link: link text

But lately when I try to comment it won't accept my links.

If this goes through then it did work and I don't know what I've been doing wrong.; 8/14/22, 4:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Hmm.

Okay, when I do it by memory, this is what I do.; 8/14/22, 4:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Hmm!!!

Okay, then, the method at that link ought to work for me. Thanks!; 8/14/22, 4:26 AM
Ann Althouse said...: So, thanks, Saint Croix, and to answer your other question, about the photo, yes.; 8/14/22, 4:27 AM
jaydub said...: "Shakespeare was supposed to be popular enteetainment not the elite pretense"

Then how, pray tell Narciso, are the plebes supposed to come to appreciate the innate superiority of the elites if elites are denied the use of cultural pretense?; 8/14/22, 4:47 AM
tim maguire said...: I find that embedding the link works about half the time. The other half, blogger rejects my post, claiming that “https” isn’t recognized. Which, of course, it is. The other half of the time.; 8/14/22, 6:11 AM
Rusty said...: Saint Croix.
The language makes the plays interesting, enjoyable. You have to think that even the people who paid to stand and watch understood the jokes and the plot. I had a class on Chaucer where the professor would digress from middle english and expound on the language of Shakespears plays.; 8/14/22, 6:56 AM
Saint Croix said...: I loathed Shakespeare in Love: Harvey Weinstein stealing the Oscar from Private Ryan, and all the faux cute wordplay.

ha ha ha

You can't win our Siskel/Ebert rivalry (I might be showing my age here) by bring up fucking Harvey Weinstein! That is not fair.; 8/14/22, 9:09 AM
Saint Croix said...: Yeah, Rusty, I think that's right. His language is beautiful! People still quote Shakespeare.

Nonetheless, when I watch it, I have to translate it in my head as it goes along, to understand it.

This process turns a feeling medium (cinema) into a thinking medium (literature). If that makes sense?

When I was in school we read Shakespeare. There are entire classes about reading Shakespare.

But he was not a writer in that sense. He didn't publish his stuff to be read. He wrote plays to be acted out in front of an audience. So it makes sense to me to translate his language (as beautiful as it might be) into modern argot so that people can laugh at his wit. If that makes sense. It's more effective in cinema.; 8/14/22, 9:19 AM
Michael McNeil said...: I basically never have a problem entering html links into postings — it always works (sometimes the posting itself doesn't take with Blogger, but if the post “takes” then the link(s) work — barring a typo). I post using my iPhone (12) together with Safari browser.

I have noticed from comments people have made here in the past, that if you wish to place double quotes around the http string to delimit it (which you have to sometimes if there are odd characters in the link string), then folks get tripped up by the difference between “smart” (curly) quotes and "straight" quotes. Only straight quotes work for delimiting the http string in your html code. (On an iPhone it's easy to enter the correct kind of quotes: one can either turn off the “smart quotes“ default in settings, or if your want the default left on, then enter straight quotes specifically by holding your finger down on the quote key, then selecting the straight quotes when the menu comes up.); 8/14/22, 9:19 AM
Lurker21 said...: The Athenians did make a point of banning and exiling politicians that they thought were too powerful. Ostracism was a kind of election, and though they filled many offices through a lottery, the Athenians did elect generals and men who had to handle large sums of money.

So now the government is trying to ostracize Trump. The difference is that it's not the whole people acting to ban a former leader, it's the elite officeholders who want to do so. The problem with ostracism is that it can exclude really talented people, people who may be needed at some point, leaving only mediocrities available for high office.

Pericles, who became a great war leader, was ostracized for a year. A case could be made either for or against that -- Great men do great things and also make great mistakes --- but on balance if the ostracism had been permanent, Athens would have suffered.; 8/14/22, 9:19 AM
Saint Croix said...: Also, for what it's worth, I think there's a fair amount of pretense about famous art and famous artists. Mark Twain once defined a "classic" as a book that everybody owns and nobody reads.

I'm kind of guilty of the same thing. I give several movies based on Shakespeare high marks in my book. But sitting on my TV for months is kind of an admission that I know that watching Shakespeare can be a lot more work than play (at least for me). And my attitude towards art is that it should be fun. I should like it or admire it or enjoy it or it makes me cry or laugh or get mad. I should have some emotional reaction. If I'm just sitting there, not feeling anything (Battleship Potemkin is like that) I downgrade, definitely.; 8/14/22, 9:20 AM
Saint Croix said...: Battleship Potemkin (1925) Eisenstein is the big name in Soviet cinema, and he's up there for a reason. His Odessa steps sequence is priceless cool. What they don't tell you is that to get to this incredible scene of artistic brilliance, you first have to sit through a good hour of utter crapola. A+ for the fantastic climax, minus a couple of letter grades for jamming it into this unwatchable pile of cinematic goo.

You know all those Sight and Sound people who rate Potemkin as best movie ever are either seriously delusional pinko twits, or their finger is jammed down hard on that fast forward button. I bet it's the latter. Even Commies hate Commie movies. I mean, they suck.

Man, that's a great climax, though.

(the grade was a C-); 8/14/22, 9:24 AM
Saint Croix said...: Casablanca is the best propaganda movie ever made.

It's so damn good, we don't even realize it's propaganda!

Americans are masters at propaganda. I'm not talking about our politicians. Nor am I talking about our modern filmmakers. They suck at propaganda.

I'm talking about the golden age of filmmaking. I'm talking about Casablanca and Stagecoach and Across the Pacific

Dude. This is high end propaganda. Put forth by artists, on their own, without any government mandate. Look at the American cinema in this time span (1939-1941) as an attempt by artists to wake up the American people to what's going on in Europe and Asia.

I guess I'm a jingoistic American who loves American propaganda and hates Soviet and Nazi propaganda. But I think we were way, way, way better at narrative. Way more effective. And we won, so there.; 8/14/22, 9:31 AM
Michael McNeil said...: Within the last decade (a first season in 2013, then again in 2016) there has been an excellent production of Shakespeare's 7 English-history plays, known as The Hollow Crown — in sequence, Richard II, Henry IV (parts 1 & 2), Henry V, Henry VI (parts 1 & 2), and finally Richard III — played by top stars. For instance, Tom Hiddleston (Loki, in recent Marvel films) plays Henry V; Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange) plays Richard III.

There's also a recent production of Shakespearean commentary known as Shakespeare Uncovered (2012) covering some of the same plays (Macbeth, Richard II, The Comedies: Twelfth Night & As You Like It, Henry IV & Henry V, Hamlet, and The Tempest), by some of those same stars (respectively, Ethan Hawke, Derek Jacobi, Joely Richardson, Jeremy Irons, David Tennant, Trevor Nunn).; 8/14/22, 9:34 AM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/14/22, 9:36 AM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/14/22, 10:36 AM
n.n said...: The hood draped over his back, the identity of the man... woman... person is revealed. This reminds me of The Nanny episode.; 8/14/22, 1:28 PM
n.n said...: This is ponderous, man. Real ponderous.; 8/14/22, 1:28 PM
Saint Croix said...: Another great show that I recently watched...

Fleabag

"I sometimes worry that I wouldn't be such a feminist if I had bigger tits."

(2 seasons, well worth your time); 8/14/22, 4:31 PM
Saint Croix said...: You've Got to Be Fucking Kidding Me; 8/14/22, 4:34 PM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/14/22, 4:34 PM
Saint Croix said...: Watching a Liam Neeson movie instead of Shakespeare.

Maybe tomorrow.; 8/14/22, 4:43 PM