French
Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta lume,* pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu.

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de lume, je suis dans mon lit.
Va chez la voisine, je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine, on bat le briquet.

Au clair de la lune, l'aimable Lubin
Frappe chez la brune, elle répond soudain
"Qui frappe de la sorte ? ", il dit à son tour
"Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour"

Au clair de la lune, on n'y voit qu'un peu
On chercha la lume, on chercha du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu'la porte sur eux se ferma.

English
Under the moonlight, my friend Pierrot,
Lend me your light, so I could write a word.
My candle is out, I've no more light.
Open your door for me, for the love of God.

Under the moonlight, Pierrot replied,
I've no light; I'm in my bed.
Go next door, I believe that she is in,
For in the kitchen, someone lit a match.

Under the moonlight, friendly Lubin
Knocks at the brunette's door, she suddenly replies
"Who's knocking this way", he says in his turn
"Open your door, for the god of love."

Under the moonlight, little can be seen
The light was looked for, fire was looked for
Searching this way, I don't know what was found
But I do know that the door, on them was shut.

*In modern versions, this word is "plume", meaning pen. "Lume" is derived from "lumière", meaning "light".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de_la_lune

This should be the last post about my recent trip to London. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I visited Westminster Abbey. Photographs were not allowed inside and I'd previously taken some photos of the outside on another trip, so I only took one on my visit there this time. It would probably be better to post this on Monday or to have posted it on Thursday, but this photo is a portion of the wall above the main door at Westminster Abbey displaying the statues of 9 "martyrs," according to the tour guide. I've captured 3 of them here, the one in the middle being Martin Luther King, Jr.:

( Cut for photo )

I think I mentioned in my last post, too, that I'd gone to the Novello Theatre Saturday night, which was the closing night, to see whether I could get a return ticket for Hamlet, but there were none to be had by the time I arrived. So, I wandered around central London fairly aimlessly on Saturday night (coffee shop, bookstore, etc), but returned to the Novello Theatre, which really was on my way back to the hotel anyway, at the time the play was due to be over.

( Read more about chasing David Tennant )

If there is anyone reading this who might like to see Hamlet on DVD, please sign this petition. (For those on Facebook, joining the group on Facebook isn't the same as signing the petition. I think the Facebook group is mainly for updates. According to the latest update there, though, Michael Boyd, the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has been in contact with the petition's author and is reading the petition with interest.)

Sunday, which was my last full day in London, I went to see Twelfth Night. This is the story of a twin brother and sister who are shipwrecked and find themselves in an unfamiliar land, each thinking the other is dead. The sister, Viola, passes herself off as a boy to work for the local duke, Orsino, and is sent on his behalf to court Olivia. Unfortunately, Olivia falls in love with Viola (as the boy, Cesario) while Viola falls in love with Orsino. There are several other characters in the households of Orsino and Cesario involved in side storylines, one of which involves making Olivia's steward, Malvolio, believe that Olivia is actually in love with him. (A mean trick, I thought, but I guess it would have played well to people who were victims of a class system.) It turned out that my ticket for Twelfth Night was very good, row K in the stalls, and I really enjoyed it.

( Read more about Twelfth Night )

Overall, the Shakespeare audience seems tougher than the musical theatre audience. Neither of the 2 Shakespearean plays got a full standing ovation, but Oliver! did.

Sunday evening, I was sent to a French restaurant at the Covent Garden Market for dinner by the hotel's concierge, who was French. As I was looking around the Market area for the restaurant, I came across a sextet who were performing in an open area of the Market near a pub. (Some of the pub's patrons were actually eating and drinking outside, despite the cold.) I sat and watched them for a few pieces (something by Mozart, "The Can-can", and the opening of Carmen) and gave them a couple of pounds. I also took a picture:

( Cut for photos )

Hamlet closed with its last performance last night. I thought I'd try to see whether I could get a return ticket because...why not? However, I later heard that people had lined up for return tickets beginning the night before, so it's not surprising that I didn't get one when I went to the theatre only 45 minutes before the show was due to start.

When I met Peter De Jersey from Hamlet the other night, I asked whether he'd miss it when it was done. He said that he wouldn't because he was bound to work with everyone from the production again at some point or another and he was excited to be moving on. Not being very gifted at small talk, at the time it didn't occur to me to ask what he would be doing next. Instead, I asked whether that indicated that the community of actors here was small. He responded that he didn't think so, but that there were a lot of projects over the course of time. Now, I'm wondering how true that is...

As I mentioned previously, after meeting Julian Bleach and having him tell me that he was playing Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver!, I had the tune for "That's Your Funeral" running through my head all day Friday, though I couldn't remember most of the words. So, I figured I'd try to go see it. Why not, eh? I was able to get a ticket to the matinee performance yesterday. It turns out that it was starring Rowan Atkinson, whom some may know as Blackadder or Mr. Bean, as Fagin. It also starred Burn Gorman, whom I know as Owen Harper from Torchwood and jaderabbit knows as Mr. Guppy from Bleak House, as Bill Sikes. (I have yet to see that version of Bleak House, but intend to watch it sometime.) Although neither Blackadder nor Mr. Bean fit my sense of humor exactly, Atkinson was quite funny as Fagin. I really enjoyed his rendition of "Reviewing the Situation" and there was a new twist to Fagin being concerned about Oliver seeing his stash of jewels. He seemed to be enjoying wearing the jewels, including a tiara, quite a lot, so when he discovered Oliver awake, it seemed as if he was as concerned about Oliver having seen him try on the jewels as he was over whether Oliver had seen where he kept them. *lol* Bill Sikes as a character is harder to judge because there's nothing humorous or subtle about him. I will say, though, that I thought Gorman had the presence to pull it off, which surprised me. The woman playing Nancy, Jodie Prenger, had been chosen for the part in a competition similar to "American Idol." She had a good voice and wasn't inappropriately bright or cheerful as Nancy, unlike what cynodd and I noted in our old high school's production of Oliver! this past spring. (To be fair, I'm not certain that any average high school aged girl would really understand Nancy's situation. I certainly didn't when I participated in Oliver! many years ago.) At the production I saw, Oliver was played by Harry Stott and the Artful Dodger was played by Ross McCormack (based on their photos in the program). I thought that the boy playing the Artful Dodger was particularly talented and fun to watch.

But, back to Julian Bleach...it turns out that he played both Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, and Dr. Grimwig, the doctor (obviously). I was sitting as far back as row S in the stalls, but I'd never have known him to be the same person I met the other night, if he hadn't told me. Knowing it was him, as I did, I could say that his nose was the same. Otherwise, he looked very cadaveric (which fits an undertaker, I suppose) and moved as a nimble charicature of an illustration in a version of Dickens's book. He was very funny, too, as Mr. Sowerberry. When I got back to the hotel, I decided to look him up on the internet to remind myself what he really looked like. Here is a photo of him from the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest a few years ago. As I was looking for a photo, though, I came across his "filmography" and discovered that I'd seen him before on television: he portrayed Davros in the finale of Doctor Who, series 4, and the "ghostmaker" in a series 2 episode of Torchwood, "From Out of the Rain" (the evil circus episode). It's a shame I didn't know that at the time I met him or I'd have told him how creepy I found him in Torchwood. Hopefully, he'd have taken that as a compliment. ;-)

So, given the number of overlapping actors in just these few shows, it's hard for me to believe that the theatre community is really that large...

ETA: I said there was nothing humorous about Bill Sikes, but that's not entirely true. The way he pulled his loot out of various hiding places on his person to give it to Fagin was done in a very amusing way... Also, Gorman received quite a few boos from the audience during the closing bows. However, he smiled at it, so hopefully that was a good thing...traditional or something.

As I'm spending this evening in a hotel room, I thought I'd take some time to write about my trip to London, so far. I'm here to see Hamlet and Twelfth Night. On arriving Wednesday morning, my main goal was to make sure I was rested enough to enjoy the performance of Hamlet last night. Fortunately, even though I arrived at the hotel hours before their normal check-in time, they had a room for me and I was able to take a nap. I have to say that I didn't do much else on Wednesday - just wandered around central London on foot (everything is so close that I wouldn't have bothered with the Tube in the past had I known), had dinner, and stopped in at a Waterstone's Book Shop to get a copy of Twelfth Night. I had plans to read it before I saw the performance, as it's been more than 15 years since I read it. (Although the Royal Shakespeare Company's Manifesto on learning Shakespeare emphasizes active involvement in the plays, either acting or watching, which I don't dispute is a good thing, I personally learn better by reading than I do by hearing. Given the rapidity of speech from good actors, the accents, and the difficulty of this older version of English, I'd like to make sure I understand it.) However, I haven't yet started reading it...I felt too tired for Shakespeare Wednesday night, so I just read a bit further in A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, which jaderabbit and her husband gave me to borrow when I visited them in November. (I'd have gotten to it sooner, but I was reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and was very busy with the holidays. So, I'm about 150 pages into it and was interested to see that lunas_ceiling just posted her thoughts on it. I don't want to read what she wrote until I'm finished with it, though. Unlike cynodd, I never skip to the end! *lol*)

( Read more... )

Continuing from this post, I thought I'd update my vacation photos. I selected and uploaded photos from Orkney last night.

I was hoping to be able to write "Orkney" in runes for this post, but unfortunately it seems that the standard fonts don't have runic characters. That may sound a bit random, but while I was in Orkney, I bought a T-shirt that says "Orkney" on it in the Roman alphabet and, underneath, it has something in the runic alphabet. norbertha's hobby is looking for runes and she can read them pretty well, so I asked her what the T-shirt said. She replied, "Orkney," to which I said, "I can read that, but what do the runes say?" Of course, they say "Orkney," too, as norbertha then patiently told me. *blush*

( Cut for photos and descriptions of Orkney... )

We were on the road by 8:00 am, but I'll save the details of the roadtrip (stops at Fountains Abbey and Snape Castle) for another post. This one is already too long!

( Cut to comments )

I made it home from Edinburgh yesterday. After getting up at 3:30 am BST, I finally made it to Detroit at 12:30 pm EDT. Unfortunately, my luggage didn't arrive with me. I got a call at 7:30 this morning that 1 of my 2 bags has made it - the other, who knows: Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Timbuktu? *sigh*

Directly after reporting my luggage missing, I headed off to a cousin's house for a family reunion, which was fun. There were a few relatives from out-of-town who I always enjoy seeing. My grandmother even went, which was an accomplishment - we couldn't get her to leave her apartment for the family Christmas party last year.

After the reunion picnic, I returned to my parents' house to visit awhile and, of course, get caught up on Doctor Who, which my Dad had taped while I was gone. :-D We watched "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End". I already knew that my Dad had really liked these episodes because when I'd called him from the Edinburgh airport to get the details on the family reunion, he had to tease me by saying, "Doctor Who was really good last night!" So, anyway, I liked it, but I think I need to watch it again when I'm less tired to get everything. Also, I might need d_84 or cjmr to explain the history of Davros in relation to Sarah Jane Smith. If I'm remembering correctly (I was awfully tired), "The Stolen Earth" is mainly set-up...moving all the pieces into place. I was pleased that Rose's presence in "Turn Left" was partly explained by these episodes, although I'm still not clear on how she knows what she does. ( Cut for more significant spoilers )

Orkney is a very quiet place, so I thought I'd take this opportunity of having an early night back in the hotel room to post about my trip, so far. After 12 hours of traveling, I arrived in Edinburgh early on Saturday morning, where I was to meet alisel_kat at the hotel. Her flight was coming in several hours later, though, so I took a nap for an undetermined amount of time. I didn't use an alarm and was so disoriented when I woke up, I couldn't figure out how long I'd been asleep. But, it was before alisel_kat arrived and still early enough for us to do some sightseeing around Edinburgh.

( Read more and see pictures... )

It's bad, I know, but I just couldn't wait until I got back in 2 weeks to see the new Doctor Who episode broadcast in the US on Friday, "Turn Left", so I watched it on YouTube last night. I'll pretend I haven't seen it when I get back home and watch it on video with my Dad. *evil* (Sadly, it seems that Doctor Who is not available for purchase on iTunes here...) Anyway, I thought it was a very interesting episode with an even more interesting ending, but I didn't enjoy Rose as much as I was expecting. I think this is because I didn't really understand her presence. She obviously knew a lot about what was going on, but I didn't understand how. Hopefully this will be explained in the next 2 episodes. Also, I didn't feel like Rose was given enough to do in the story.

It did make the following exchange from "The Fires of Pompeii" (episode 2) very interesting, though:

Lucius: And, you, daughter of London, there is something on your back.
Donna: What's that mean?

*squeamish*

It's always strange running into someone in an unexpected place. Last night, I ran into the Redheaded Girl at the airport. I was on my way to Chicago and she was returning from Green Bay. We didn't talk long because, as usual, I was running very late and about to miss my flight. It's a very short flight to Chicago - from the time the plane reached an altitude at which electronic devices may be used until the time the plane was descending and they needed to be turned off, I was able to listen to a whole 5 (!) songs on my iPod. They were: "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "Ray of Light" by Madonna, "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, "Witchy Woman" by The Eagles, and "All Because of You" by U2. I also heard the first few bars of "Shut Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol.

Of these songs, I imagine that "Red Right Hand" would be the least known. One of my classmates once had to leave our office because it was playing on my computer and he found it too disturbing. *lol* (He didn't ask me to turn it off, but just announced he was leaving because of it.) Anyway, here is the song:



This version features scenes from the TV show, Profit, which I have never seen. However, I know this song because it was used in The X-Files and is on the CD from the show, Songs in the Key of X. It's used in the episode, "Ascension", and is the song Duane Barry hears on the radio while driving, after he's kidnapped Scully and has her locked in the trunk of his car. ( Read more about The X-Files )

Going back to what I said in my last post about how I think David Tennant would have been good for Snape, here are a couple of screencaps from GoF that show him as Barty Crouch, Jr.( Cut for pictures )

I finally made it home! My flight arrived about 30 minutes late, which wasn't bad, but then it took forever to get to the gate (it seemed) and they couldn't get the jetway to work. ( Read more... )

Last week, JK Rowling's seventh copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard (the "Moonstone Edition") was auctioned at Sotheby's and sold for £1,950,000, with the proceeds going to charity. Thanks to sander123, I've learned that it was bought by Amazon.com. If anyone is interested, they have posted about it on their website here. I haven't really had a chance to read much of the website's content yet - mostly, I've looked at the pictures. It seems that they've posted a summary of the stories?

My song for today is the remix of "Clocks" by Coldplay with the Buena Vista Social Club. This video features ballet and until seeing it, I'd never considered how strange ballet actually is:


from DELIMA45

Tonight I went to a dinner lecture. While there, one of my work colleagues told everyone about her family's pet mice. Her son bought them from a pet shop a couple of months ago and named them "Petie" and "Pee Wee". It turns out that Petie was named correctly and is a male. Pee Wee is female. Together, they're very prolific. She was telling us about how Pee Wee just gave birth to a litter of 19 mice! The mice are <1-cm long when they're born. However, over the last 9 weeks that they've had these mice, Pee Wee has given birth to a total of 62 baby mice! They've tried to separate them, but Petie has managed to impregnate Pee Wee within 2 hours of her having given birth! I'm glad I'm not a mouse! *lol* When I asked what they did with all these extra mice, she said that they've mostly been giving them back to the pet store to feed to the snakes there. I'm really glad I'm not a mouse! *shudder*

Does anyone else remember that news story about the python that ate the queen-sized electric blanket?

Stolen from cynodd, here is a map of all the places I've been in the world:

( Map )

I've included states that I've only driven through because I figure that I've at least seen them, if not their tourist sites. I didn't include Maine, because I was only driving there after dark and didn't really see what it looked like. I notice that the District of Columbia is missing from the places in the US. I also didn't include having been to the Netherlands because I never left the airport there (same with Nevada).

My song for today is "Dance Me to the End of Love" by Madeleine Peyroux. This video features stills from American film noir:

*trying to get video to work. please check back later.*

ETA: For some reason, LJ wants to replace the map with the YouTube video whenever I try to embed the YouTube video, so I've put it in another entry here.