Today's Big Thought
As You Like It was lovely. Better than I thought it was going to be. I've got my share of quibbles. But just seeing live Shakespeare is, for me, almost universally a treat.
Today's Big Thought: Odd how you read a book and then see the movie and as often as not it's a downgrade. Yet when you read a play and then watch the play performed it's more often than not a splendid experience.
So ends Today's Big Thought.
On a more mundane note, seeing Shakespeare always makes me think of Irby Cauthen, the man from whom I took several Shakespeare courses in college. Everybody can think back to a handful of teachers who really got under their skin in a good way. Irby Cauthen was one of them. Mrs. Coakley from grade school. Charles Chieffe from Fairfax High School. Loretta Rubio, who taught me calculus in college, but she sticks in the mind only because: a) she was extremely hot (I mean smokin'), and b) I walked into her office one day and she was sobbing about something. Sobbing. We exchanged a long hug while she cried on my shoulder.
What kind of teacher is that?
The bad kind, if you're in high school. But I was 18 or 19 and I doubt she was more than 23 or four. I thought it was grand.
Coakley is likely dead; I just saw Chieffe's obit; and Rubio's a 60+ year old woman. Cauthen's dead too, but at least he got to be Chairman of the English Department and Dean of the College -- College being what the University of Virginia calls it's liberal arts curriculum. He, according to an article I just read, also painted in his spare time. So what's not to like?
And what a teacher he was. Shakespeare's a bit of a mouthful, even in small doses. Particularly at 19. So to have somebody lay it all out, take it apart, put it back together, and make you love it. Well, what a gift that was.
When I buy a redbone coonhound I'm going to name it Irby, which will be short for Urbig, which is a condensed version of the phrase "You're big", which is one of the things we tell all our pets in the Raymond family as we thump them on their sides.
Today's Big Thought: Odd how you read a book and then see the movie and as often as not it's a downgrade. Yet when you read a play and then watch the play performed it's more often than not a splendid experience.
So ends Today's Big Thought.
On a more mundane note, seeing Shakespeare always makes me think of Irby Cauthen, the man from whom I took several Shakespeare courses in college. Everybody can think back to a handful of teachers who really got under their skin in a good way. Irby Cauthen was one of them. Mrs. Coakley from grade school. Charles Chieffe from Fairfax High School. Loretta Rubio, who taught me calculus in college, but she sticks in the mind only because: a) she was extremely hot (I mean smokin'), and b) I walked into her office one day and she was sobbing about something. Sobbing. We exchanged a long hug while she cried on my shoulder.
What kind of teacher is that?
The bad kind, if you're in high school. But I was 18 or 19 and I doubt she was more than 23 or four. I thought it was grand.
Coakley is likely dead; I just saw Chieffe's obit; and Rubio's a 60+ year old woman. Cauthen's dead too, but at least he got to be Chairman of the English Department and Dean of the College -- College being what the University of Virginia calls it's liberal arts curriculum. He, according to an article I just read, also painted in his spare time. So what's not to like?
And what a teacher he was. Shakespeare's a bit of a mouthful, even in small doses. Particularly at 19. So to have somebody lay it all out, take it apart, put it back together, and make you love it. Well, what a gift that was.
posted by Geoffrey at 9:40 AM
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