Jack Sparrow again.... with a segue to John Fletcher

[fajrdrako]

The lamp in my bedroom has stopped working. How annoying! I hate being literally in the dark.

I went to the 3 Tarts early this morning, Ottawa's most wonderful bakeshop. They used to be near my place, but moved to Westboro - a good two-hour walk, possibly more. (No, I didn't walk the distance today.) I bought pies for Thanksgiving dinner: one pumpkin, one apple-berry tart.

After lunch, I went to The Cave, a comic book store up by Hunt Club and Bank, to search out more issues of "Catwoman". I found some... the hunt is on. It's fun to have a comic to search out again. It's been a while. Last time I was actively looking for back issues was about three years ago, when I was looking for back issues of "Wolverine".

I went to Chapters, and bought a book i've been meaning to get for a while: Simple Steps: 10 Weeks to Getting Control of Your Life by Lisa Lelas, Linda McClintock, and Beverly Zingarella. I could like someone named Zingarella. I looked at Bartending for Dummies and made a few notes. I was very, very tempted to buy it, but I've been spending too much this week - yup, obviously not Getting Control of my Life yet! Basically, I spent my Bartending for Dummies money at the comic book shop. So it goes. Why is it that, needing a new lamp, I end up buying comics instead? That's so typical of me.

I met squashed and oldblackbird and we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I enjoyed it as much as ever, especially when Jack Sparrow was on the screen. I confess, this time I dozed a little during some of the skeleton fight scenes, and almost the entire time that Elizabeth is initially on board the Black Pearl. There were about a dozen people in the theatre (this at a Saturday matinee on a holiday weekend), all of whom seemed to be enjoying it, though they seemed to be mostly people who hadn't seen it before and sometimes they laughed at odd places.

It seems to me that this would be a good movie for a Rocky Horror Picture Show type of viewing, prompting characters and shouting at the screen. Waving wooden eyes and corsets and passing round the rum.

Afterwards, we had dinner at the Outback with four other slash-fan friends. A good time was had by all, I think, not to mention a good dinner, though I have some problems with the Outback - I keep forgetting to ask them not to put their regular spices on the meat when I order. I had the rack of lamb, and had to cut off the peppery edges. I don't like pepper. The lamb itself was tender and delicious and the salad, with blue cheese dressing - wonderful!

None of us had any dessert, but I did have a drink before dinner - in honour of Jack Sparrow. Something called Rum Yum. I had to give instructions to the bartender how to make it, but it was easy enough to remember from leafing through Bartending for Dummies: one ounce each of Bailey's Irish Cream, rum, and cream or milk, served on ice. They put a maraschino cherry in mine for colour, which at first I thought was too coy and un-Sparrowlike, until I saw it was skewered by a white sword-shaped toothpick. That was delightfully apropos and could even be taken as a double entendre. I enjoyed that drink mightily.

We toasted Hugh Jackman: it's his birthday tomorrow. One of our company had recently been to see him in his new musical in New York. I'd love to see it, or even just get a chance to read the script.

We talked more about theatre than anything slashy or fannish. We discussed last season at the Stratford Festival; next season at the Stratford festival; our assessment of Richard Monette, the Artistic Director there; then we got on to discussion of King John and Timon of Athens and how to stage The Taming of the Shrew so the problematic final scene can be made to 'work'.

We discussed Two Noble Kinsmen, which some of our party had actually seen on stage (amazing!) and that led to a discussion of Henry VIII, which will be on in Stratford next year, and of John Fletcher, Shakespeare's co-writer for these plays. I pulled out the only vague fact rattling around in my head about Fletcher: that he was gay. Where did I read that? I wondered how they knew, and what they knew about him. I didn't speculate aloud about whether it was possible he and Shakespeare were lovers, though I almost did. Have I any problem with historical RPS? No, not me.

I was charged with looking him up. Well, my copy of The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage doesn't even include him. I found a few interesting websites, such as The Taming of the Tamer. This site has a rather charmingly unflattering description of his plays:

If [his plays'] popularity does not catch our attention, the plays do: in The Woman-Hater, A Wife for a Month, Cupid's Revenge, The Mad Lover and many more such, misogyny, chastity, rape, necrophilia and nymphomania are given every possible comic and tragic twist, often at the same time.

I didn't find much more about Fletcher's life than his works and dates (1579 - 1625). Many of the references to him described him as "Shakespere's younger collaborator" and such terms that made me think there was more age difference between them than fifteen years. Fletcher isn't listed in the lists I found on the net of gays in history, though the lists were fairly short and unhistorical. I guess John Fletcher is small potatoes compared to the likes of Alexander the Great and Shakespeare himself. Ah well. It can be a quest: to learn more about this man, famous in his time but unknown or ignored now. Surely someone has at some point written his biography? All amazon.com lists under his name is Two Noble Kinsmen.

Funny how the more I fail to discover information about someone, the more intrigued I become by them.

A last note: my beautiful new Clark icon is by latxcvi and I love it.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hmm... 3 Tarts hasn't changed its name, I guess they figure it's traditional. Have you tried their pumpkin pie? It's amazing! Don't reming me of their butter tarts.... possibly the most delicious thing I ever tastes.... And waaay off my diet!

I wish I'd caught "The Two Kinsmen" when A Company of Fools did it!