Author: Phoebe Gleeson

What’s Pun Is Pun: Shakespeare’s ‘Original Pronunciation’ and the Fight for the Bard’s Wordplay

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

Same with “ace” and “ass,” formerly homophones that allowed Demetrius, playing a card game at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to mock a fellow player with the following observation: “No die, but an ace for him, for he is but one.”

What all that means is that contemporary audiences, often taught to approach Shakespeare’s work with the hushed reverence of ceremonial celebration, can also miss its jokes—and, as a result, can miss its full range of ambiguity and meaning. And also, quite often, its fun. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/loves-labours-found-saving-shakespeares-puns/471786/

test time

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

Faith, by age a sophomore, and Abby, a freshman, will be taking their first Real Test™ soon. Not officially, just at home. I’m going to give them each the ACT. 

I found four full-length ACT tests online. That should be enough. Since we’re not going for a true college entrance feel, I’ll probably give them one section a week so they can come at it fresh.

They will be reluctant and nervous, I bet. But I think they’ll do well, and getting the results will be a real thrill. No one has any college aspirations, really. Mostly they like to draw and write, which they do very well. I think they will likely do something related to drawing or writing or both for the rest of their lives. Abaigeal in particular aspires to be a graphic novelist, and Faith’s goals, while more unformed, are somewhere along those lines too.

So that will be, well, not fun exactly. Interesting. It will be interesting.

Between the Hipsters and the Hasids

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

…that starry-eyed longing for a binding community can become yet another way of surrendering to this world. Rather than living and working where we are, we dream of where else we might be. A vision of pristine community becomes yet another “option” in the endless parade of vintage, artisanal, and local things that excite our desire without demanding our love. 

I was just talking about this with my husband and, last night, my friend. I have of late been reminded of the petty nature of people, and hurt a bit by it. I joked with Sean that I was considering conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy so as to get a fresh start, but then realized there were probably just as much petty meanness amongst them as any Church. And then what?

So I guess I’ll stay.

NB: author describes some blasphemous vulgarity he encountered.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/03/between-the-hipsters-and-the-hasids

just a day

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

I’m so tired! It’s the early pregnancy exhaustion. I forgot about it. I told Sean how tired I was, and how baffled, and he said, “Have you considered that you might be pregnant?” Oh. Yeah. That’s right!

I also have to pee a lot.

Tomorrow is the primary here in OK, we are a Super Tuesday state. I’m still waffling over which candidate to vote for. I have forgotten to register out here for the last two years so I get to vote in OKC, and I’m taking the kids with me like I always do. I think it’s important for them to see us vote, see the process. They say that democracy is the worst kind of government – except for all the others. So, here’s to that!

Faith is baking cookies and listening to music. She’s very useful to have around. I recommend everyone have a Faith.

Airships. Yes, really.

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

Igor wondered what the holdup was. He read the article again and again. He spent the summer in the library, studying the history and the aerodynamic principles of blimps. One day, on the way there, he looked into the sky, and the emptiness seized him.

Where are all the airships? he asked himself. The world needs airships.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/a-new-generation-of-airships-is-born

Man in Seattle women’s locker room cites gender rule

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

According to Seattle Parks and Recreation, a man wearing board shorts entered the women’s locker room and took off his shirt. Women alerted staff, who told the man to leave, but he said “the law has changed and I have a right to be here.”

No one was arrested in this case and police weren’t called, even though the man returned a second time while young girls were changing for swim practice.

“Sort of works against the point they’re trying to make. They’re causing people to feel exposed and vulnerable with the intention of reducing people feeling exposed and vulnerable,” said pool regular Aldan Shank.

“Don’t be so silly!” the transgender activists told everyone. “Nobody will ever use the bathrooms or locker rooms of a given gender unless they really, really identify with that gender. You’re just a hateful bigot.”

http://www.abc10.com/news/nation/man-in-seattle-womens-locker-room-cites-gender-rule/45435945

Seeing the God by David Bentley Hart

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

Whatever the case, what pagan and Christian culture shared in this regard was the conviction that the vision of God is possible because it is somehow continuous with the entire reality of life within the spiritual economy of the natural world. For pagans and Christians alike, the entire cosmos is already a revelation of divine glory, a mirror of transcendent beauty and power, shaped and illuminated by a truth that shines through it in every instant.

As a pagan convert to Catholicism I can agree with this heartily.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/02/seeing-the-god

ubuntwo

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

Today I installed Ubuntu! Again! My last experience with it was when Windows 8 came out, and it was so bad it made me cry. Literally. So off to Ubuntu I went.

I know this will rankle some of my more technical friends but I am not particularly fond of Ubuntu. I liked it better than Windows 8 – but I liked Windows 8.1 better than Ubuntu. I just don’t like how much fooling around I have to do to get it to work, and I don’t know where anything is, and yada yada yada, I never used it after that.

But a few months ago our house was burglarized, and several computers were stolen, mine among them. I have limped along by stealing time on the computers allocated to the children since then, but that gets old. I remembered that I had some old Windows 7 netbooks lurking in a cabinet, and I thought, hey! Ubuntu! It wasn’t so bad, right?

I spent the last two hours installing and configuring it, and I can confirm that it is indeed not that bad.

It is still a pain in the ass. Sean saw my emotions ebb and flow in realtime as I texted him things like “I think it’s working!” to “Hmm. Hit a snag.” He responded with

 

zn2us

But I think… it works now! Good enough.