Erik Emery Hanberg

I've been negligent on posting here as well.

Music
Just discovered the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album. What an odd combination of musicians! And with a pretty great result. I've been listening to their cover of Gone Gone Gone by the Everly Brothers.

Here's the Everly Brothers performing it. It's a really fun pop song, though in this case the highlight is definitely the dancers.

Television
Mary's been watching Weeds and whenever I drop in for a few episodes I've really liked it.

I've been interested in Glee and FlashForward but have decided to save both for DVD. The only TV on DVD I've been watching is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is wonderful when it's on the mark and just so-so when it's off.

For current TV, I'm on a diet of just How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, and The Simpsons pretty much. Looking forward to seeing Lost start up again. Oh, and I TiVo'd "V" last night. We'll see how that is.

Theater
I forgot to mention that The 39 Steps in Seattle was a lot of fun. A good comedy built around a Hitchcock movie with an absurd premise.

Movies
I can't believe I wasted a Netflix rental on Supergirl.

Books
I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in about 24 hours, which is pretty common with his books. Like his others, it's high-octane, can't-put-it-down utter nonsense. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history or science can spot where he's twisted things to suit his facts. The science-y stuff is like a novelization of The Secret (which I didn't read) thrown in with a little Bible Code (which I did read). The book isn't as good as Angels & Demons, which is still Brown's best, I think.

And John Adams, of course, which will get its own separate post later.

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I just finished our last show here in Ashland--Much Ado About Nothing.

This might be the first Shakespeare I read, back as a freshman in high school.

Seeing it was very fun, though I had a problem with their artistic choice to set the play in 1945 Italy. My problem was that it seemed lazy. Any choice to move the play has to take into account the culture it's moving to and whether it squares with the context of the plot. In this case, I'm not sure it did. Claudio cruelly shames his bride-to-be at the altar--does that square with the setting? Would her maidenhood really have been so important to a soldier who had just been through WWII? It didn't work for me.

Still a very good production. But all through the final half of the play, I kept being distracted by the choice.

It was, however, my 11th Shakespeare production! Certainly not through the canon yet. But on my way!

For my own records as much as anyone else's, here's what I've seen (with a few notes added):

As You Like It (1997, Bellarmine Prep--of course, I didn't see the whole, since I was actually in it)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1998, Ashland; then again in 2006 at UPS)
Julius Caesar (1999, The Guthrie, Minneapolis)
Macbeth (1999, The Jungle Theater, Minneapolis--this was awful)
A Comedy of Errors (2000, Stratford)
Hamlet (twice, both in 2000 in London--one was great, one very much less so)
Romeo and Juliet (2000, London--with Chewitel Ejiofor as Romeo)
Two Gentlemen of Verona (2001, Carleton--possibly my favorite production of all of these. Also the first time I saw a Shakespearean play I hadn't read ahead of time, which convinced me thoroughly that this is the best way to do it)
Othello (2003, Vancouver BC)
Henry VIII (2009, Ashland)
Much Ado About Nothing (2009, Ashland)

Read But Not Seen
Measure For Measure
King Lear
Twelfth Night
A Winters Tale

Of course, there's plenty of Shakespearean movies in there too. Mel Gibson's Hamlet. Brannaugh's Love's Labor's Lost (don't know why I watched that). Plus a whole bunch of movie versions of Lear, including an interesting old Russian version which I had to watch because I was writing a paper on Lear's production history. Ah, the tasks of an English major ...

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This was the first time I've seen one of Shakespeare's English histories, and it was a start at the end of the line. Henry VIII was the last of the chronology, and the last play Shakespeare wrote. It was as close as he ever got to portraying characters who were still living.

The play ends with Elizabeth's birth, baptism, and a pronunciation of all the great deeds England can expect from her. I was hoping for more beheadings and court intrigue. Ah well. I still had a good time. It is a treat to be able to see a Shakespearean play that I haven't read and don't quite know everything about yet.

Much Ado About Nothing is Sunday night. And between then, we'll be rafting the Rogue River and descending 42--count them 42--rapids.

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