Bruce Springsteen fans out there on the list should know that Madame Marie, the boardwalk fortune teller Springsteen wrote about in the song "Fourth Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," has died at the age of 93</b>.

Springsteen's comment:

""I'd sit across from her on the metal guard rail bordering the beach, and watched as she led the day-trippers into the small back room where she would unlock a few of the mysteries of their future," he writes. "She always told me mine looked pretty good - she was right.

"Over here on E Street, we will miss her."

Here is quite a nice article, because she turns out to be an interesting lady.

For Madame Marie, for Danny Federici, and, because it is in fact the Fourth of July, for all our American friends out there:

I'm reading the Anne Boleyn book and have one about Katherine of Aragon on my to-be-read pile. But I just went and requested two books about Henry V from the public library.

I blame the guy with the insults.

I tried to watch Anne Of the Thousand Days last night but the library DVD wouldn't play properly. Either those things are very fragile, or my DVD player is having trouble, or both.

I must do some research on whether a faulty DVD player ever gives the "skipping bad disc area" signal, or if it's just when the DVD is messed up.

Oh well. I can always watch Henry IV Part II this weekend.

I picked this up from the library last night, and it's a DVD! For some reason I thought it was a VHS. I think it was listed as "lost" when I originally placed the hold, so maybe they bought a new copy? I was about tenth on the holds list so there is obvious interest.

It's a two-movie set with Mary, Queen of Scots, I think with Vanessa Redgrave. We'll see what I think of that!

Speaking of the public library--my hold for Anne Of the Thousand Days just came in. If anyone wants to have a Tudor-movie party, just let me know!

In addition to the Anne Boleyn book I have not started yet, I got one about Catherine of Aragon out of the public library over the weekend. It was published in 1967 and is firmly in Catherine's camp, so I don't expect much sympathy for Anne. However, Catherine is an interesting character herself.

Over the weekend I watched Henry IV Part I--well done, I thought. Only I kept looking at the actor who played Thomas Percy and thinking, Damn I should know who that guy is!

And then it hit me: Richard Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances. I don't think I've ever heard him utter a complete line of dialogue before, since Hyacinth kept interrupting him. It was funny and weird to see him as a military leader!

We spoke of Tudor history last week and carmine_rose pointed out a biography that looked interesting. I got hold of it through document delivery this week, and here is a nice meaty review. Sounds like, if you're interested in Anne, this is one you have to read.

Done!

I just dropped off my last book about the Tudors. For the next little while I will stick to my own story, as well as wholesome fictional vampires. (At least until the book on Anne Boleyn arrives on interlibrary loan...) We'll see what I think of 'em.

It is damned cold out! I like having four seasons, but the thing about having seasons is, by the time one is ready to end you are eager to move on to the next one. Spring will be very welcome!

And I'm over the cold, so I'm going to get some writing done tonight. (I'm working on the assumption that the SMU thing is for SMU folks, which is usually safe.) So let's see if I can get my characters to confront one more suspect, and if I really get moving I may even get my protagonist shot tonight.

(But I know he'll be fine, so that won't keep me up tonight...)

...although it doesn't give me calming thoughts, it did occur to me yesterday that even if my part of this conference is a clusterfuck of epic proportions... it's against the law to chop my head off.

So really, what am I worrying about?

...I have only just now figured out there may be a connection between my recent reading material and the fact that when I wake up at night lately I feel a little freaked out and have some trouble getting back to sleep. I know I'm waking up partly because of the cold (which is pretty much gone now, thanks) and partly because of Bojo waking up and wandering around, but I definitely have this problem with anxious "monkey thoughts" about the conference.

Well, it occurred to me yesterday afternoon that it's also possible that all the Wives-of-Henry-VIII stuff, what with the beheading and the disembowelling and all that kind of good stuff, is not the most restful material to read of an evening.

So I think I'll stick to nice fictitious murder mysteries, and possibly try out those Barbara Hambly vampire stories as well.

( But, since it's broad daylight now, about those Tudors... )

Again, I feel sorry for Catherine, and certainly for Dereham who received the full sentence for treason. Culpepper? Eh. And Lady Rochfort? Again--WTF? I mean, really.

As for Jean Plaidy, whose novels started this entry, I might check out a few more of her books. Because if nothing else, she could certainly create an atmosphere of dread.

And here I am back at the library, returning three of the holds I picked up yesterday. Coach Girl's party was postponed due to the weather, but today is just beautiful. Snowy, but lovely.

I actually read the three books I just returned--one was large print and a very cursory fictionalized overview of the life of Catherine Howard. One was a highly sentimenal but still pretty gripping fictionlization of the lives of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard--too much to stuff into one book, really, except that in many ways the main character was Henry, who begins the book as a monster and gets progressively more monstrous as the story goes on. (Murder Most Royal, by Jean Plaidy. 1949, I think.)

The last was a biography of Catherine H, published in 1961. They say no man is a hero to his valet. Well, the poor queen was certainly no heroine to her biographer, whose kindest term for her seems to be "imbecile." Okay, she was by no means wise, but on consideration I object to the biographer's scornful comment that, unlike Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, nobody spoke up for Catherine, which tells us something about her qualities. There must have been a reason she inspired no loyalty.

Because naturally the fact that, after Katherine and Anne, everybody realized exactly what Henry was capable of, could not have been a factor in courtiers' efforts to distance themselves from the disgraced Queen. No, no, it must have been her fault nobody rushed to stick their heads into the same noose.

From a 21st century perspective it was amazing to me that the great families remained eager to throw their daughters to the monarch, but it does appear that after Catherine Howard's fall, when Henry made it a crime to present the king with a less-than-maidenly bride, the families were a bit less eager. I guess it's one thing for your daughter to get her head lopped off, but quite another to suffer the same fate yourself. It was indeed likely then to die in a fall while social climbing.

Next time I read online discussions of how dissolute society is now...

Right. On to the barn...

So. I currently have two library books checked out: Those Who Hunt the Night and Traveling With the Dead by Barbara Hambly (and no, that second one has nothing to do with San Francisco rock bands!) If I find myself unmoved by either of them we can conclude for sure that vampires are Not My Thing.

I also have four items in on hold, three about Catherine Howard, the other one of Henry VIII's wives he had beheaded. And one that's been described as sort of Real Person Fanfic about Richard III and the author's idea of who the mother of his illegitimate children was. I wasn't going to check that one out because after my experience with The Other Boleyn Girl (and Mary actually existed!) I figured my patience for medieval Mary Sues might be wearing thin. But hell. If I can't be bitchy on cold meds, when can I be bitchy?

When I feel like myself again I'll get back to writing about present-day non-vampires, but it's anybody's guess what influences will reach out from this stuff to my own...

I picked this up yesterday and started reading it last night. I've got to stop myself from skipping around in it to find the fictional take on incidents that interested me from history and just read it through, but so far it's quite absorbing.

The title, incidentally, refers to Edward IV, the "Sun of York," which is interesting in a novel about the life of Richard. But it makes sense, given that as far as I can tell the author is arguing that Richard was a good man but not a great one. For that value of "great" that might be painful and even dangerous to try to live with. Her portrait of Richard is of a man pretty much created by God or nature to be someone's utterly reliable strong right hand, and when he's let down by or otherwise loses his leader, he's not as able to cope. I'm putting this badly--he's an able general, for instance, but even in the early parts I'm reading now he's not at all suited to be a king, and he seems to know it.

As my brother remarked of Gimme Shelter, this shit is not going to end well. And there's the bad thing about reading historical fiction based on real people. No matter how well-prepared you are for betrayal and death and stuff, it's still hard to read about.

I've also been reading my history of the wives of Henry VIII today, by Antonia Fraser. Incidentally, when Henry was at his most deeply paranoid, he executed George's of Clarence's nearly-seventy-year-old daughter, among other women, not to mention children. I can only assume this activity is not considered as shocking as the deaths of "the little princes" because we already consider Henry a monster.

Fraser refers to Margaret as the daughter of "the murdered Duke of Clarence." Yes, poor innocent George, whose only fault was rising in armed insurrection against his brother the King. Twice.

Imagine how the Tudors would have dealt with the like of that.

And on that note, I'm out of time...

I mentioned that I went ahead and ordered the DVD set that includes my favourite Richard III. When I did, I didn't look as closely at the rest of the included plays as I should have and I was under the impression that the Henry VI cycle was included.

It isn't. It's Henry IV.

*sadface*

But Henry IV is the one that includes Falstaff, one of the great characters in English literature, and someone I've always meant to get to know!

*happyface*

Also included in the set are Richard II (which we read in that same undergraduate Shakespeare class, and if the professor had been the type who confiscated notes passed among his students he'd have learned the front row vastly preferred Richard III for our kingly requirements) and Henry V, which Dad cited as his favourite history play.

Henry V includes the St. Crispin's Day speech, which is one of those speeches--the kind you can declaim in the Voice Beautiful or act properly and it sounds sublime either way.



Kenneth Branagh performing it--I'd lose the background music, which is trying to force you into an emotional reaction. It's completely unnecessary.

How unnecessary? I like to read Shakespeare, but I understand it best when I read it aloud. Last night I thought I'd refresh myself on the speech so I looked it up... and I barely got through it. I kept choking up and my voice kept breaking. It was like--okay, it was like when you read the speeches of Winston Churchill, and you feel like you should be shouting the words at the top of your lungs, and you're surprised to find out when you hear the broadcast that he delivered them in a level tone of absolute assurance.

St Crispin's Day is like that. It shouts, although the actor doesn't have to, and I frankly do not know how many rehearsals it would take an actor of any emotional susceptibility to get past

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;

and especially

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

without frankly bawling.

Go ahead. Try it. I'll wait.

*Waits*

See?

And while you're at it, you might want to refresh yourself on Churchill's speeches as well. Note the full text of each speech is given and in many cases they're quite lengthy updates to Parliament on the war situation. The immortal parts are in there, in some cases grace notes at the end.

Hmm. At this rate my next reading project will be The Second World War, which I snagged in hardcover from my parents' library when they moved to the apartment...

Right--Richard again. I spent the weekend reading Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall. I'm nowhere near through with it (just flipping between the text and the end notes can slow you down considerably) but I have a few comments.

I remembered this book as being pretty thoroughly pro-Richard, so I was a little surprised in reading The Murders Of Richard III to find some of Peters' Ricardians referring to Kendall almost as bitterly as they do the old anti-Richard historians who were ridiculously influenced by Shakespeare and the tame Tudor historians.

Well, I get it now.

( And so will you! )

And now, since I've been working on this endless entry since early this morning, I think I'll let it go for now.

But! Expect more when I finished the Kendall book. It's a good book, really it is. It just seems like he has moments where he refuses to see what conclusion he is actually drawing, or he goes a little too far in interpreting evidence in an anti-Richard way, to the point where it stops making sense. (I suppose he doesn't want to be identified with the more extreme pro-Ricardians any more than with the extreme "he was an evil hunchback" gang.)

And also when The Sunne In Splendour arrives at my local library!

As planned, I watched Acts IV and V of Richard III last night and...

Well, the production was as great as I remembered it, and it was a treat to finally see Act V, but I am sorry to report that any historical knowledge whatsoever is incompatible with really enjoying the play. I kept having all these intrusive thoughts about the real Richard, who by all trustworthy accounts was at a minimum an earnest administrator and a would-be good king, and I just felt sorry for him.

Okay, and the other factor was this: my old university copy of Shakespeare notes, in the introduction to the play, that Richard is one of the first of Shakespeare's characters to have a distinct and personal voice (this is a relatively early play) and that means you get to know him and, evil or not, you sort of identify with him. Which I guess means that this version of the play treats the anti-hero in a modern way. So, having followed him along all this way, it's hard as a viewer who is not a subject of Henry VII's granddaughter to get up a really good hatred for Richard. He's just been such good company all along.

Also, Richmond (later Henry VII) is portrayed as such a shampoo model of a perfect plastic hero that it's very difficult for a modern viewer to see him as anything but funny. Not to mention the whole issue of the play putting him heroically in the forefront of the battle, which he actually was not.

Which makes sense, naturally: the last thing you want as a soldier is for the King's (or Pretender's) army to win the day only to discover that--oops!--the King or Pretender himself has been killed in battle.

Richard, in fact, fought in the thick of things and died in battle, but given what is known of his character it's easy to believe his attitude was along the lines of, "Fuck it, if I'm King by grace of God, then God will protect me. And if He doesn't, well, then apparently I had it wrong."

Excuse the modern language, I am not good at writing forsoothly, as it were.

I did amuse myself with wonder what the historical verdict would have been if Edward IV had not died, or Clarence had managed to get hold of the throne, and then Henry VII had successfully invaded. The play doesn't beat up on Richard's supposed victims, so it's easy to imagine that under other circumstances Richard would have been one of the unfortunate and well-meaning victims of the machinations of the evil usurper Clarence.

I'm about out of time but I assure you there will be further entries on this subject, especially once I finish reading the Kendall biography and The Sunne In Splendour, the which I have on hold.

Later.

So. Richard.

I put the VHS of the play on hold at the public library, and it turned out there was a copy at my local branch so the hold came in on the same day. Oh, the nerdish giddiness.

The only thing that worried me was this: there was no cast or crew information given in the catalogue record, so I could not be sure it was the right production. And when I picked it up (and we're talking a big old two-VHS set in a plastic case, hello Wayback Machine!) the cover just had a portrait of Shakespeare and the information that it was from the "BBC Education and Training" series, so I had this momentary vision of some cheesy thrown-together-for-schools product.

( But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave; And then return lamenting to my love. )

What was maybe sort of funny is this: ordinarily, Coney likes to hang out upstairs while I watch TV or listen to music. Vladimir and I had been snuggling on the couch for quite a while, enjoying the mayhem, when I realized we were alone. Coney and Bojo had both adjourned to my bedroom downstairs, and showed no signs of coming up to visit. Which is not unusual for Bojo, but it was for Coney, the cat who watches U2 Live In Boston and Festival Express with every sign of enjoyment. Apparently nice old hippie cats have to draw the line somewhere.

Poor old man, he'll have to be patient a little while longer, because I am definitely watching the rest of this tonight!

Although perhaps I should be concerned at how much Vlad appeared to enjoy it, given that it is the story of three brothers, and the middle one is murdered by the youngest. I'm thinking Bojo had better watch his back...

Oh, yeah. It's the right Richard, all right.

Much more on this later!

Okay, one of the things I forgot until I looked up the clips yesterday is this: the Olivier version irritated me on first viewing because it's at least based on Colley Cibber's adaptation. Remember that post where I complained about people who compare their writing to Shakespeare's? How about people who add stuff to Shakespeare with the aim of improving on him???

It doesn't work, to put it mildly.

I mean, watch both soliloqies: the second one, with Ron Cook, is terse and tense and gives you the setup and the character. And the Olivier one just goes on and on, sagging under its own weight of words and destroying the dramatic tension. Who thought that was a good idea? And how did the Cibber version of this play hang around for so many years after the rest of his adaptations were rightfully forgotten??

Although I appreciate the Wikipedia description of his talents: he "had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed."

Sounds like the Ed Wood of his era, really.

And now, thanks to green_knight, as well as to a fortuitous YouTube foray, I have two more Ricardian videos for you. Starring Peter Sellers!

( And here they are! )