Neanderpundit

I haven’t read all of the new one yet, I started but I had to stop; I’m now revisiting the earlier one which has been updated and is available for Kindle for $3.

The “earlier” edition includes a good deal of the biography written by his daughter Susy, as well as his comments about it.

If you ever liked Twain the author, you should read this, to get to know Twain the man, the father. If you have a heart, this will tug at it, if you have a soul, this will enrich it, if you have a mind, this will stimulate it.

The “new” autobiography shows a little more of the man, but I stopped because I chose to remind myself of his better angels before I read the one that seems to contain more of the demons.

Not the Fishburne one, which I haven’t seen, but the Sir Lawrence Olivier one, with Derek Jacobi. I’ve been listening to it over my shoulder all morning.

I have as part of my regular desk reference a decent Shakespeare, everyne should. So much of our language and idiom is due to it, after all. It is, for me, like nails on a chalkboard for reading. I just can’t do it. but to see it? to hear it done, and done well? oh, my god. I could do that forever.

Of course, R&J has been way overdone, so that gets on my nerves, but The Merchant of Venice? Brilliant. The Taming of the Shrew? both the Richard Burton verson and the John Cleese version make me glad to be alive. Others, like The Tempest- well, if Shakespeare had had robots, he’d have written it like Forbidden Planet. Titus, with Anthony Hopkins, is wonderful to listen to, not so much to watch.

And Othello, with Olivier’s beautiful voice and acting chops, and a very young Maggie Smith… What a way to start a lazy midwinter’s saturday.

millions of midwesterners managed to deal with the “Disaster” and almost no federal funds or aircraft carriers full of supplies were required.

of course, none were forthcoming.

And nobody decided to rebuild the midwest as a “vanilla” city.

Could it be that Wingnuthead hates white people?