Suzi Steffen's blog

This review comes out on Thursday in print.

Photo of Hamlet (Patrick O'Driscoll) and Claudius (Kato Bass) by Gretchen Drew

A Gutsy Hamlet
Or Not to Be turns the horror inside out
by Suzi Steffen

God, that Will Shakespeare was hilarious, wasn’t he? Especially around death. The final scene of Hamlet? Side-splitting!

Bad puns aside ... actually, bad puns not aside: John Schmor’s adaptation Or Not to Be, a collaboration between the UO theater department and the Lord Leebrick Theatre, distills both Hamlet’s humor and the play’s strong stench of the graveyard into a first-generation hybrid that needs tweaking but provides some spectacular moments.

Read more here.

Just clicked on the NYT website to see the headline, "Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82."

Here is the full article (4 pages online!) from the NYT. I don't know enough about RR to say a whole lot other than Black Mountain, Jasper Johns, combines, creative, smart, inspirational, genius, etc. But there are so many people who have said it so much better than I. At Bloomberg, an appreciation.

One of my faves of his is Bed, to the left. I love that since he was too poor to buy canvas, he used his quilt. I heard from art history profs, but again it wasn't my research area, that the quilt was furthermore from the bed where he slept with Johns, and so that was just as shocking or titillating to many in the art world. (Teh gay!)

And here's a nice blog post arguing against the dismissal of a wide swath of the country (Rauschenberg came from a small town in Texas) by coastal folks. Well, NY and LA folks. Oregon's just as much flyover country to them as Texas, Iowa, or Utah.

Here's a YouTube video in which the man himself discusses the famous Erased de Kooning:

R.I.P., Robert Rauschenberg.

Kind of hilarious, kind of horrifying story in The New York Times today.

Fave bits (and they're not made of some newfangled ceramics, either):

Now, tens of thousands of ceramic hips later — from Stryker and other makers that entered the field — many patients say their squeaking hips are interfering with daily life. ... It can interrupt sex when my wife starts laughing,” said one man, who discussed the matter on the condition that he not be named.

Hey, artificial hips can be like birth control (for those who need it). Who woulda thunk?

Also, the article links to this YouTube moment:

Back to grading and writing for the paper now. Thinking about the knee replacements I need. Sometimes my shoes squeak at the gym, but I'm not sure I need a few knee squeaks every time I take a step! Hmmmmmmm.

Might be time to pack up and figure out which Cabinet position you want.

The NYT explains how very, very little Oregonians' presidential primary votes really matter: Obama Pulls Even With Clinton in Superdelegates.

Even DaFaz finally made his choice:

On Thursday, Mr. Obama picked up the support of Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey, who told The Star-Ledger of Newark that he was switching away from Mrs. Clinton after thinking through “one of the most difficult decisions I have made.” Peter DeFazio, an Oregon congressman, also said he would back Mr. Obama.

Though hey, if it drives "turnout" (send-in?) for local elections, I'm for the belief that we can make some kind of difference in choosing the Democratic nominee. Because despite Jim Torrey's gag-inducing attempt to equate himself with Obama (is there enough laughter and scorn for those stupid effing signs that say, Yes, Eugene, We Can?), I doubt most Obama voters, or Clinton voters, will vote for Torrey.

And see Alan's posts about why voting for Torrey, who wants to fund more police (um ... check out the YouTube videos Alan is about to post to see why JUST MAYBE, more police aren't what Eugene needs), would be a very bad idea.

Anyway, point is, while I am not a big Obama fan, there's just no contest anymore.

So I love reading Virginia Woolf. Have all of the essays, diaries, novels, short stories and letters. Love them. The complexity, playfulness, command of language. The courage and intelligence, the glorious internal revelations (Cam in To the Lighthouse, for instance), the ... well. I've trekked to her childhood home and wondered why the only notice on the wall was for her father, Leslie Stephen. She was such a genius, and the force of her brain comes through most clearly in her essays and reviews.

But my god, I have never heard her voice before today.

And today, I am, I am, well, overcome with the weirdness of hearing the voice of this author who has always spoken in my mind, as I read, with some voice that must have been much closer to my own. (Do people hear other voices besides their own when they read? Hm.)

Hermione Lee, one of many Woolf biographers and one of the best, wrote, "If you listen to the only surviving recording of her, you hear a voice from another century, which to us sounds posh, antiquated, class-bound, mannered." Um, I think that's fair to say. Also? It's just weird. A weird experience, a voice that sounds ... weird. So unlike the playful qualities of Orlando, unlike the vulnerabilities in the diaries. Unlike the arch gossip of the letters. Ah. Just wow.

Want to hear it? You'll need RealPlayer.

BBC clip of a lecture on words.