Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in a_t_rain's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, May 20th, 2012
1:35 pm	the English-speaking busboy left under a cloud... So, I have been reading old travel journals, all in the name of research. Possibly not entirely relevant research, as I have never been to Greece or Turkey before; I have been to Bulgaria, where I was thinking of possibly spending a few days this summer, but it was for four days on a job interview* and anyway I can't find the notes I took at the time. That leaves Ireland, but I'll be with my dad for the Ireland part of the trip and he seems to have pretty definite ideas where he wants to go. So mainly, it's less research than idle retrospection. I may post some more substantial excerpts later if people are interested in reading them, but for now, have an entertaining English-language restaurant menu from Telc, Czech Republic, in the summer of 2001. ( MEALS TO BE FOUND HERE ) * I wonder what my life would look like now if I'd gotten the job. It was a three-year contract position, so it would have been over two years ago, and as 2010 was not a good year to look for academic jobs, that probably would have been the end of having a career in my chosen field. So it's just as well that I didn't; but it would have been incredibly cool while it lasted, and I would have been competent by now at travel in the southern Balkans, rather than utterly clueless. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 19th, 2012
11:01 pm	a random and idle thought... I wonder if it would be possible to visit all of the places where Shakespeare's plays are set (and if so, how long would it take?) Off the top of my head, I have certainly been to London, Windsor, Warwickshire, Paris, Florence, Venice, Verona, Rome, Vienna, Bohemia, and Illyria. (Also several islands, and since we're never given any specific setting for The Tempest, I guess any old island will do.) I have certainly not been to Athens, Cyprus, Ephesus, Elsinore, Tyre, Mytilene, Pentapolis, Rousillon, the Forest of Arden, Milford Haven, Dover, Padua, Messina (or Sicily in general), Antioch, Troy, Philippi, or Egypt, although I could potentially do something about some of those this summer. I don't think I have been to Navarre or or any of the places in Macbeth, although I might be wrong, since I've certainly been to some parts of northern Spain and some of Scotland. I also don't have any specific memories of having been to Gloucestershire, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if I had been. (ETA: No, I have not been to Navarre; I have been to Pais Vasco, Asturias, and Cantabria. Gloucestershire, however, is a probable yes.) Pericles is the one that really makes things difficult, isn't it? (ETA again: Pericles potentially makes things impossible in the current political climate, as it appears that Pentapolis is most probably in Libya. However, there are several other places called Pentapolis; one possible alternative suggestion is Knidos, which looks quite doable and rather nice.) (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 13th, 2012
9:59 pm	Pseudonymous, Part Four ... Yeah. Sorry I've been so bad at updating the Hamlet-fic. I have been crazy busy, and I've been feeling pretty tapped out. However, one of my former students stopped me in the hall a few weeks ago to ask me if I had seen Anonymous and told me it was sooo good, and I thought, "DID I TEACH YOU NOTHING?" so that gave me a bit of a push. Parts 1-3 are here. If you're wondering what the heck the English players are talking about, see here for a brief account of Essex's rebellion. ( Chapter Four: The Actors Are Come Hither ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 10th, 2012
9:23 pm	Canterbury tales ficlet For angevin2, who gave me the idea in a comment some time back. ( Father Gerard's first day in Canterbury was not going well ) (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
7:52 pm	Pseudonymous, Part 3 In which Hamlet tells a very peculiar story. Parts One and Two are here. ( Chapter Three: I Could Condemn It As an Improbable Fiction ) (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 7th, 2012
10:26 pm	So, I finally got to see Julie Taymor's The Tempest... ... And I liked it a lot, with some quibbles. ( Rambly thoughts ) (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
8:07 pm	Pseudonymous, Part Two More off-the-wall Hamlet AU, in lieu of doing actual work. Part One is here. For the record, I would like to note that I started writing this before I saw Bill Cain's play Equivocation, which features Shakespeare's daughter Judith as a touchy and presumably unpaid laundress and assistant-of-all-work to the King's Men. That's about as far as the similarities go, and they are purely coincidental. However, DC-area people should totally see Equivocation, because it is excellent. ( One Man In His Time Plays Many Parts ) (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
7:57 pm	As promised, daft authorship theory fic Title: Pseudonymous Fandom: Hamlet Summary: Clearly, only a Danish prince could write a play about a Danish prince. Notes: This is meant to be both a takedown of silly Shakespearean authorship theories and a semi-serious AU exploring the possible consequences if one character had made a different decision in Act 3 of Hamlet. (Which character, and what decision, will eventually become apparent; for now, I will just say that it is not Hamlet, who in this story is reacting to Circumstances Beyond His Control.) The Life of St. Crispin is based on Thomas Deloney's The Gentle Craft (c. 1597), which inspired at least two theatrical adaptations in real life. The History of Amleth, Prince of Denmark is inspired by Saxo Grammaticus. ( Pseudonymous, Part One ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
5:27 pm	theater meme from fuunsaiki, in lieu of actual work NT2000 One Hundred Plays of the Century N.B., the original rules say "Bold if I've seen a production, italic if I've read the play, and underlined if there's a forthcoming production I'm planning on seeing," but I don't actually have any forthcoming productions of any of these I'm planning on seeing, so I shall underline ones where I've seen a film adaptation. ( Apparently, I need more Modern Drama Cred ) (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 6th, 2011
11:18 pm	a good thing about the movie Anonymous The various discussions about it have led me to this completely awesome movie, in which Leslie Howard plays a mild-mannered archaeology professor who fights Nazis (with wit, style, and SHAKESPEAREAN AUTHORSHIP JOKES) in his spare time. (N.B., this film is occasionally cited as evidence that Leslie Howard actually believed that the Earl of Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare, which rather suggests that Oxfordians have a hard time grasping the concept of a joke, of context, or even of fiction.) Also, I am writing daft-authorship-theory crackfic instead of grading papers, which may or may not be a good thing. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
8:37 pm	Australia travelogue, Part 4: Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park ( in which I visit some Very Big Rocks ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 9th, 2011
10:02 am	Australia travelogue, Part 3 Somewhat belated, but now that it's fall break I actually have time to post pictures and stuff... ( Adelaide to Alice Springs ) (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 7th, 2011
7:51 pm	Sometimes I forget to finish what I What the hey, have a fic meme, courtesy of angevin2 and likeadeuce. I will post the names of all the files in my WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Choose one (or a few, I don't care), and I will post a random line or two. It should be noted that I don't actually have a WIP folder, because that would involve organization, which is a thing I never do. Nonetheless, here are the file names of various scattered and forgotten projects. Beau Jest breakingbread dantefic goldenageau hamletsnape3 hamletsnape4 llwfic poinsfic shaxkids shrewfic shxinlove snapeau (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
11:15 pm	Great Expectations fic: Star Whew. The Dickens-fic that has been eating my brain for the last four months is done, and posted to femgenficathon. May I just say that it was insanely difficult to write, and I hope I don't get any more foolish ideas about writing sequels to Victorian novels. Star, Part One. Part Two. ( Extended author's notes, on the off chance that anyone's curious ) (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 10th, 2011
10:35 pm	Ficlet: Oranges and Spice For tree_and_leaf, who requested Hamlet/Horatio Wittenberg fluff at the Big Gay Hamlet Ficathon. I'm not entirely sure this qualifies as fluff, and it kind of stops short of actually being Hamlet/Horatio, but this is what came... ( Oranges and Spice ) (32 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 27th, 2011
5:03 pm	They need to change their name. I am very afraid. Remember No Fear Shakespeare? Well, I went to Barnes & Noble today, and it seems they have a new product out. It is a translation of The Scarlet Letter. Into English. Because apparently high school kids these days aren't capable of figuring out that it is already in English. Or something. Some examples. I'm not making any of these up. Real Hawthorne: It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. No-Fear Hawthorne: It’s not appropriate to spill your guts, even when you’re writing impersonally. Real Hawthorne: “I feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child!” No-Fear Hawthorne: “I was worried that the woman was simply trying to make her child look like a clown!” Real Hawthorne: Then, all was spoken. No-Fear Hawthorne: And when she'd said that, she'd said everything there was to say. Also, for some reason, No Fear translates "malefactresses" as "hussies" but "hussies" as "sluts." (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 15th, 2011
9:33 pm	Australia travelogue, part 2 ( Melbourne, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 13th, 2011
11:41 pm	Australia travelogue: part 1 OK! So, as promised, pics and storytelling to follow. ( Part One: Sydney to Melbourne ) (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
11:18 pm	home again Back from Australia. It was awesome and fabulous and there will definitely be cute kangaroo and koala pics in the near future, but there are unmistakable signs that my laptop is on its last legs and I don't want to take them off my camera until I get a new one. It was also ridiculously expensive at the current exchange rate, but hey! you get to visit a whole new continent no more than six times in your life, so who's counting? Classes start a week from tomorrow. SO not ready for this. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 22nd, 2011
7:00 pm	Saw my first wild kangaroos today! They were pretty amazing! (2 Comments |Comment on this)