Keats and Yeats are on your side, but you lose

I wish to register a complaint with the universe that I had no idea that Eddie Shields—the beautiful Gaveston of the ASP's Edward II—was playing Christopher Marlowe in a local stage adaptation of Shakespeare in Love until tonight, otherwise known as too late. I know it's my own fault for not reading the arts section and I appreciate that other Boston-area directors have recognized his obvious affinity for Marlowe; it bodes well for his appearances in future. But I would have liked to be able to take advantage of this one!

I spent the afternoon with my cousins and Fox for the first time since before Arisia. It was good. Assorted links.

1. Dr. Kate Lister debunks the Victorian vibrator myth, with entertaining commentary and horrifying illustrations: "Once you have moved past the fact that the doctor and patient strongly resemble escapees from Area 51 . . ."

2. My brother and his family are planning to drive across Canada next summer. I have commended them to the stone dragon of Alberta.

3. This entire issue of poetry from Aotearoa/New Zealand is very good, but at the moment Kate Camp's "Gulls," Nina Powles' "Some titles for my childhood memoir," Tim Upperton's "The Truth about Palmerston North," and Gregory O'Brien and John Puhiatau Pule's "Song of the coral brain" and "Canticle of the hydrosphere" are especially sticking with me.

4. I feel that I should not discover people by their obituaries, but I think I need to hear the music of Coco Schumann.

5. I know people with this aesthetic: Ruth Maddison, "Women's dance, St Kilda Town Hall, Melbourne, 1985."