BAAB's Artist of the Week: Katelan Foisy

Mermaids are a win-win!

Robots are cool too.
As are big Klimt snakes.
Tragic operas
and Shakespeare too.



The crowded future stings my eyes
I still find time to exercise
In uniform with two white stripes

Unlock my section of the sand
It's fenced off to the water's edge
I clamp a gasmask on my head

On my beach at night
Bathe in my moonlight

Another tanker's hit the rocks
Abandoned to spill out it's guts
The sand is laced with sticky glops

O' shimmering moonlight sheen upon
The waves and water clogged with oil
White gases steam up from the soil

I squash dead fish between my toes
Try not to step on any bones
I turn around and I go home

I slip back through my basement door
Switch off all that I own below
Dive in my scalding wooden tub

My own beach at night
Electric moonlight

There will always be a moon
Over marin

Of Koi and Sledgehammers

Ophelia by ^cosmosue

I am pleased to announce that Nietzsche Koi has inspired something resembling an intellectual conversation over at Shakespeare Geek:

Saturday, May 03, 2008
The Bard Never Would Have Let Me Use A Sledgehammer
http://nietzschefish.blogspot.com/2008/05/bard-never-would-have-let-me-use-sledge.html
[Note, image NSFW]
The above link just goes to a not-safe-to-work, albeit artistic image, with the following caption:
Shakespeare only really wrote with two views on women - the conniving sexualized and the innocent virgins. The guys I work with in construction see me as either a sexual object or an incompetent child, so they aren't much different than Shakespeare. Except the Bard never would have let me use a sledge hammer.
Discuss.
Posted by Duane at 11:38 PM

3 comments:
Craig said...
No, absolutely not, and really quite indefensible. Exhibits for the rebuttal:
Portia
Rosalind
Viola
Helena (All's Well that Ends Well version)
Margaret of Anjou
Lady Macbeth
Mistresses Ford and Page
Elinor of Aquitaine
Tamora
Neither "sexual objects" nor "incompetent children," any of them. There is a great deal we would take issue with today with Shakespeare's presentation and treatment of women, to be sure--and "Shrew" looms large in that presentation in my mind--but Shakespeare also wrote about strong and capable women many times--some "good," some "bad," some pretty hard to categorize (Queen Margaret, one of the most remarkable characters in Shakespeare). A number of these characters are the "cross-dressers," the phenomenon of which must be central to any discussion of gender roles in Shakespeare, as it is highly suggestive that the "limitations" of womanhood are as much a social construct as dresses versus doublets. The argument you quote is the grossest kind of over-simplification of a quite complext topic. It bugs me to see this kind of argument--Shakespeare is picked up like a football and run towards whatever goal the writer is seeking.
11:54 AM

Akubi said...
It bugs me to see this kind of argument--Shakespeare is picked up like a football and run towards whatever goal the writer is seeking.
I completely agree. I'm glad to see some real discussion over a Nietzsche Koi post.Nonetheless, I still find it somewhat difficult to imagine Tamora working construction with a sledgehammer.
11:51 PM

Alan K.Farrar said...
Just re-watched Two Gentlemen - where there is a long list (Launce's) of the qualities needed in a good wife ... rather a lot of hard physical labour (from milking cows - which, unless you've ever tried it, don't mock - to beer making - again, something of an extreme sport). Modern presumptions and not knowing the plays I'm afraid.(And if Greer (bbke) is right, he had his wife working on a building site - as foreman.)
12:18 AM

Further thoughts or OT meanderings...?

Vote for the 6 Degrees of Casey Serin to Shakespeare Winner!

Hey Kidz,
It's finally time to vote for the 6 Degrees of Casey Serin to William Shakespeare winner! Woohoo! Win-win!

6 Degrees of Casey Serin – Casey to William Shakespeare

Hey Kidz,

It’s Friday and time for a new 6 Degrees of Casey Serin game!
Woohoo!
Yesterday’s post inspired this week’s challenge:
Casey to William Shakespeare.

Given the number of fools featured in Shakespeare's work, one should find plenty of gold nuggets! Win-win!


Since I chose Shakespeare over a Karl Rove replay, I'd like to share this inspiring passage from Thank God You Are Not Karl Rove with you:

...This is the moment we are in and this is the one that matters and it is just too delightful to repeat: You are not Karl Rove and I am not Karl Rove and therefore we can join hands right now, you and I, we can connect across this vast media chasm and via these very wires and we can, together, find a deeper understanding, a shared universal truth, a more profound coming together over the fact that, no matter how bad things might get, we will never have to be Karl Rove.

Branching Titus Andronicus

William Shakespeare's play that may or may not have been written by someone else...

Mother's Nature art found here




Stupidly funny bad acting version of the situation...