And Fortinbras, knee-deep in Danes, lived happy ever after

[sovay]

I am starting to lose track of days again, which never says anything good about my sleep. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with sairaali, first looking at classical depictions of Medusa and Gorgons and then walking from Davis to Union Square, and in the evening rushthatspeaks and I made steak for dinner with chimichurri and broccoli roasted with cumin and paprika and watched the pudding episode of the first season of The Great British Bake Off, which left us researching forms of pudding we had never actually heard of at an hour of the night when it was completely impractical to cook them. Tonight gaudior was around for dinner, so we made a savory bread pudding with half a loaf of challah and various refrigerator-handy ingredients—feta, avocado, sweet potatoes, and last night's chimichurri—after which I ran to the HFA to see Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet (Гамлет, 1964) for the first time on a big screen. I had watched the film on DVD in 2009; the subtitles annoyed me, but Innokenty Smoktunovsky was instantly my favorite Hamlet on film. He inspired my poem "Heaven and Sea, Horatio" (Mythic Delirium #22, June 2010) and a cycle of drowned Hamlet poems from my friendlist that I still wish someone would collect and publish. He remains my favorite, with his intense, ironic, intelligent face and his vivid movements. I don't like any of the photographs I can find of him because they make him look too handsome. [edit: Got one!] He's not dreamy; he's not romantic. He dies by the sea, as he should: he mused on his death there. The film closes as it opens, with the music of a funeral rite and the whitened waves beneath the bright grey sky of Elsinore; murdered kings and sweet princes come and go, but the sea is always there and someday it will take the stones of Elsinore more finally than any usurping brother or Norwegian successor. I don't care about the cuts to the text. I like the emphasis on politics and public space, on Elsinore as a real place with courtiers inside and peasants outside and visiting diplomats who talk in worried French and German and cold rooms where the sea-draft stirs the tapestries rather than a theater of the mind. I spotted nineweaving in the audience afterward and we went for ice cream at J.P. Licks. derspatchel and I have finished the second season of Agent Carter (2015–) and I really hope there's a third one, because I think the show is just getting better as it goes on. I would really like to sleep more than five hours a night again.

Comments

[yhlee]

I hope you get some good sleep soon.

*support support*

[sovay]

I hope you get some good sleep soon.

Thank you! You, too, if it helps.

[tam_nonlinear]

I know it's a really minor thing, but I feel like it's helped me get my sleep-wake cycle at least a little better- do you use any programs like flux or night shift to reduce the bluelight exposure from your electronics after sunset? I still get terrible insomnia on a regular basis, but I feel like it's at least helped me get to sleep the first time a bit better. I hope you get some rest soon.

[sovay]

I know it's a really minor thing, but I feel like it's helped me get my sleep-wake cycle at least a little better- do you use any programs like flux or night shift to reduce the bluelight exposure from your electronics after sunset?

No, but rushthatspeaks just talked to me about f.lux last night! Traditionally I have just tried to stay off the computer for at least two hours before going to bed, but that hasn't been working out for various reasons. Thank you.

[tam_nonlinear]

Yeah, I tend to turn to my phone or laptop for distraction when I can't sleep, and if it's screwing up your brain's perception of daytime, it doesn't help that much. Another suggestion- and I know this may just be idiosyncratic to me, and might not work for you or for your circumstances- but I have a playlist of songs I find comforting and soothing, and when nothing else helps me sleep, I put it on at a very low volume, just enough that I can barely hear it. For me, it takes away just enough of my attention that it's like a tiny tap of the breaks on the spin cycles my brain gets into when I wake up with anxiety. It's quiet enough that it doesn't stimulate, and I can not listen to it if I'm drifting off, and with it all being songs that I listen to for reassurance, it's soothing and familiar if I do listen to it. I guess it's like my own lullaby list. It helps me, so I'm mentioning it in case it might help you.

[gwynnega]

I would love to see that version of Hamlet on a big screen.

[sovay]

I would love to see that version of Hamlet on a big screen.

I very highly recommend it! It made some aspects of Kozintsev's interpretation snap into focus in a way I hope to write about, someday when I can actually sleep again. [edit] Also it's just very beautiful to look at, which never hurts.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

So glad I got to see this. And you!

Nine

[sovay]

So glad I got to see this. And you!

Likewise!

So where does it stand in your estimation of Hamlets?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I loved that flurry of poems too; it was like a mini (very mini) version of the nine-things-about-oracles poems.

[sovay]

I loved that flurry of poems too; it was like a mini (very mini) version of the nine-things-about-oracles poems.

This is the kind of thing for which I want a very small press; then I also need the time and energy to make anything happen with it!