AUDIO EXCERPT FROM WELLES' "JULIUS CAESAR" Pt.2

Here's part two of that post, the one that contains what I believe is the best expression of friendship in all of English literature, the best I know of, anyway. Brutus and Cassius are allies and close friends but they have irreconcilable differences and they clash just before the play's final battle. The way Shakespeare has them reconcile is nothing short of brilliant.

It's a pity that I had to trim this to bare bones so that it would fit into YouTube's 10 minute limit. Now I have to decide whether to put up part one. It contains Marc Antony's speech to the crowd after the assassination of Caesar. It's probably the best speech in the English language, and this is a terrific version, but it depends on Brutus's speech to set it up, and I had to cut that for time. I put up this awkward,too-lean version on YouTube but I might refrain from running it here.

Aaaargh! I just watched the clip again and realized I said Marc Antony met with Brutus when I meant to say Cassius! Sorry, my mother had a stupid child!

HARLAN ELLISON'S TERRIFIC RADIO SHOW

Sorry about the excessive chatting. I'll try to make these introductions shorter. Also, I haven't given up on outdoor photography and printed posts. I just can't stop playing with the new built-in camera, but that won't last forever.

Eshniner wrote in with a link where Ellison damns to perdition all who would use his material without paying for it. I don't know if that includes blogs like this one but just to be safe I'll have to refrain from putting up more of the radio show. Too bad. It might have introduced the man to some people who didn't know about him before.

Ellison isn't only a writer, he's a performer. You can tell from listening to the video excerpts. Those clips were beautifully orchestrated to take advantage of Ellison's unique style of delivery. It's important to hear things like this because you get a lot more out of his written work, especially the essays, when you can imagine the way he'd read them.

More Ellison, more authorized Ellison, can be found on YouTube interviews and on his unofficial fan site: harlanellison.com/

A CHEWING GUM COMMERCIAL!

Here's a "tiurF yciuJ" chewing gum commercial done in the Kovacs style. Sorry for the bad sound edits.

MUFFET vs. BO PEEP

The story of Little Miss Muffet is so delightfully primal and the spider is such a great symbol of maleness. I can only imagine what it must be like when a sheltered little girl wearing frilly petticoats and lace, fresh from a pink bedroom stuffed to the gills with glass unicorns, suddenly encounters the ultimate symbol for hairy, salivating, low-rent men. The experience is evidently so traumatic that it's found it's way into what might be the most frequently memorized poem in history.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCERS AND CHARLES DICKENS

This is about the golden age of newsreel and racetrack announcers, though I only have one example to cite. This guy was a genius! His fast style was all business. He flattered the audience by making it seem like their time was valuable, not to be wasted. He savored the odd names of the racehorses and made the names seem aristocratic and musical. He seemed to have deep knowledge of the sport, and the way he talked about it invested it with enormous dignity.

My guess is that Walter Winchell invented this style in the twenties. It was perfect for newsreels.

Just for fun, I also include the opening narrative of the recent film, "Nicholas Nickleby," the Alan Cummings-Anne Hathaway version. It describes the birth of Nicholas. Dickens manages to be playfull with words at the same time he's serious and sentimental.

A QUICK VIDEO ABOUT BULLYING

Here's a quick, un-edited video on the subject of bullying. I made it for LadyMaryJay who's a schoolteacher in the UK, and who works for an anti-bullying program there. I almost didn't put it up here because it didn't seem relevant to a theory site, but I changed my mind when I realized that coping with bullies is actually a philosophical problem as well as a practical one.

The video's over nine minutes long. I should have have said it much faster. Oh well, here it is....

I GOT A REPLY TO MY VIDEO!

Somebody on the net "replied" to the French clip with a video of his own! The guy's kind of ugly, and he's pretty stingy with the compliments, but I was still glad to get it!