A-Team nightmares. That episode must have worried me more than I thought. Ugh...

Today I intended to do all those things I didn't do yesterday. But today, I'm going to go now to return books, and spend those extra hours between me and Spring Awakening in the Maughan, watching Querelle. I'm just awaiting the arrival of my Graze box. Maybe I'll hit Forbidden Planet, and Orbital comics, and amble on the Southbank a bit too to say bye.

I did some Greek over lunch, and listened to the radio. My mp3 headphones have gone missing, so my mobile radio is my only portable music source. But joy of joys! Classic FM were doing Chopin preludes, and indeed are doing Chopin at lunchtime for the rest of the week. Oh my, it was like drowning: that's how much I love those songs. It's one of my unfufilled dreams to go to an actual piano concert, and I'm keeping my eye out for a Chopinful one frankly because it would be like death and heaven afterwards. That distracted me from Greek, in favour of air-keying and ambling around the kitchen with a honeymoon expression.

Because the concert was still on, I took three busses to Russell Square. While waiting on the second bus stop the fanciest car I have ever seen passed, a real look-at-me-mobile. I was amused to note the numberplate was "DG 3". If Dorian Gray did achieve immortality with his bargain (as LXG theorises), then that's exactly how he'd be existing nowadays. The second bus took a long time to come. The Chopin went away in favour of tone-poems, a form I simply don't get. And then a second interesting sight passed - three police motorbikes escorting two black vehicles, one of them a van-thing, and both with subtle blue flashing lights also. I didn't spot anyone I recognised, but it was still an intriguing sight.

In any case, they'd moved onto some truly awful Shostakovitch by the time we reached Russell Square. I headed off to Senate house library. It was passing some academic building, an Institute or something, when I saw three police motorbikes parked outside with the three riders chatting, and two more guards on the door. It occured to me at once that it was the same group - there were two black cars on the pavement, although my observation wasn't great enough to prove they were definitely the same. Weird coincidence, and I continued to the wonderfully Gothamesque building for the returning of books.

I went to the Maughan by a long route. I couldn't tell you where I walked. I missed two comic shops and an Oxfam, that much is certain, so we can be thankful for small mercies. Popped into Forbidden Planet, more to say "hi" than to get anything. I went back via the Seven Dials "occult walk", a series of about six new age shops stuffed with crystals, candles and all such stuff. Still hunting for my perfect pack. I spent a long time in one of them, and made a decision - only to discover the pack was £25. Didn't really feel like spending that much, even if the energies were right...

I got back to Aldwych eventually, and had just crossed the road when a very loud police motorbike came past, whistling for the traffic to stop. It was almost before I'd understood what was happening when that same motorcade passed me for the third time in a day. Different configuration of people, I thought. Still, very very bizzare. I returned my books to the Maughan, and took out a stack of videos for the start of my Movie Marathon Week.

Which began in the Maughan itself, as one of the films I wanted to see most was a Short Loan. I do see the point of the Short Loan collection - if something is in high demand, tho' the films I need never seem to be covered by it. Or the DVDs to prevent them being loaned, copied and returned. It's still frustratingly random, especially when you want to watch something like Lagaan which is actually a little bit over three hours, and thus must be renewed halfway through viewing.

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THERE WAS ANOTHER SHAKESPEARE PLAY AS GOOD AS HAMLET?

Dear reader, my relations with Shakespeare are tortuous and tricky. Were it a Facebook status, we'd both put "it's complicated". I still think he's overrated, some of his speech is aukward, some of my objections are merely personal, and I suppose most damningly, it sounds awful when studied on paper: it really has to be viewed. Hamlet is my one, my love, I think the first three acts are incomparable. I've problems with the ending, though, but ach who cares - it's just wonderful. I've always been fond of Macbeth. I probably should have had this Othello obsession two years back, when I went to see it at the Globe. But I felt very sick after the interval and the warden would not allow me to sit down, so I threw up on his shoes and spent the second act in the Globe toilets. That was a bad evening.

I'd not thought about it since then, mostly peeved off as I'd been enjoying it til then, and what's a fire risk compared to art? I ran across this version and was instantly struck by the cast: I have a serious soft spot for Kenneth Branagh, and his "eternity version" Hamlet which cuts not a single line is one of my favourite films I've yet to buy on DVD. How could I resist?

I'm in love.

Othello himself, for a Shakespeare hero, is suprisingly non-irritating. He's not quite up to Hamlet on the poetry, but makes up for it by being a pretty decent bloke (albeit with a huge tragic flaw).
I'd rather spend half an hour with Othello than Hamlet any day of the week. It certainly obeys those rules of Greek tragedy I was discussing last week: we feel pity for his situation, but also fear that such misfortune could overtake us. Lawrence Fishburne is actually very good, better than I expected, the poor creature simply disintigrates. He has that talent necessary for a truly great Shakesperian actor: looking damn great in swishy sleeves.

But seriously. It's hardly his fault he has to play second fiddle to the play's real protagonist, the man who gets all the best monologues and more lines by far. You can tell Shakes got a little too attached to Iago too. What a genius role. It is very hard not to love him, especially in this production. He is the only one who gets to break the fourth wall for monologues, or sometimes just to give the audience a cheeky glance, making you horribly complicit. The pay off is the moment all those slow-laid threads of story come together in a traincrash, and you realise that everything is about to go very nasty indeed. Hamlet does this too - Will gets to the last fifteen minutes, realises he needs to wrap up now, and does so by killing every named character left on stage, and some who are offstage for good measure. But it really works in Othello, or in any case this adaptation, holding back and raising tension then releasing it in one wicked blow. It's very exciting watching him weave his little web, very Mastery I think. He just stands there and takes him to pieces with a single scene. I don't know enough about the play to comment on whether Kenneth Branagh made a good Iago, but he's always worth watching.

And at the end, he's simply too cool to say anything. I think that's powerful. His motive is pleasantly obscure - sure, he's been passed over for promotion, but that's no good reason to destroy a man's whole existance. Nor does Othello personally seem the type of person to make someone that offended. Maybe it's a race thing, maybe it is pure envy - he's as much succeptable to the "green ey'd monster" as anyone else. I'm tempted to think there's a strong element of pure malice in what he does - I mean, he's evidently enjoying himself. There must be a better reason, however, to make that enormous risk worthwhile. I've seen Christopher Ecclestone play him as having a repressed and crazy love for Othello. While we don't want to demonise the gay community too far, it would fit well with the central themes of the play - everyone else is operating on pure lust, so why shouldn't he? This movie doesn't go that direction, but it is a theory I hold some sympathy for: he's taking the thwarted love he won't admit and is deeply ashamed out by ruining Othello's existance. Makes sense to me *potential dates and suitors cough and take a hasty departure*

I like Desdemona, she has some real spunk. People always try to reclaim Shakesperian heroines for a modern audience, and it rarely succeeds cos they were written as wallflowers. I wonder what the feminist reading of Othello actually is, with it's big "you must be punished!" message at the end, and with Emilia being the undoing at the end. Oh, I liked Emilia. Poor dear. And the guy they had to play Cassio was very nice to look at.

Other thoughts? Everyone was a little odd in the accent department, in that manner of costume dramas. I'd also comment that the direction was terribly ordinary: not bad, just unremarkable. I loved the music, and had forgotten how much I loved these lines:

"She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I lov'd her that she did pity them."

Not a great basis for lifelong marriage, but still beautiful. And Othello's last monologue is just lovely.

I do hate viewing in the Maughan though. The chairs are uncomfy, and you're surrounded by distractions, and the reflections off the screen are appalling. Which is particularly bad for something like Othello, which is basically sex sex sex, and thus suitably shot in deep blacks and sweaty reds, rendering it impossible to watch. True, you're meant to be studying films not enjoying them, but I argue the enjoyment of film is as valid a mode of study as the purely intellectual. If you're just surveying it as a dusty text then you've lost sight of what it was originally intended for. Your emotional reaction is as valid as an intellectual one. I particularly hate it because you're so exposed, and I'm a very physical viewer - I cry, shout at the screen, curl up when things get scary. As the body count mounted, I cared less and less about onlookers.
I'm gonna leave you with the quote from the back of the box, which made me chuckle:

"Promote someone else to the rank of liutenant? Over Iago's dead body! And more pointedly, over the dead bodies of nearly everyone ensnared in Iago's plot of revenge..."

The other films in my marathon are:

• Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (western + buddy movie + Bob Dylan)
• My Own Private Idaho (road movie + buddy movie + queer cinema)
• Maurice (just read the book + more queer cinema)
• Querelle (oh, Fassbinder! + stunning use of colour + even queerer cinema)
• The Third Man (a true favourite film I've been missing, and one not even remotely gay, honest, to balance it all out...)
  

Home again, home again. I meant to go via HMV, didn't, and ironically enough it turns out that Madness were playing there and I missed them. Oh well. I went to Sainsburies on the way back, to stock up on food and in particular cereal; bought everything but cereal, but at least the half-price cookies will be an excuse to eat up the vanilla ice cream.

And spent the evening doing eveninglike things, in particular a Chopinful couple of hours in the music room. I also burnt my finger.

I'm worrying that these two weeks are going to make my reintegration into normal life even tougher. Last time I returned home, I sulked for about four days because having to actually be polite to people and spend time with them was an art I'd lost in my wilderness existance. I actually suit this solitary life very well. I do get a little lonely, but that's the genius of the campus existance - I'm not living with people, but in proximity to people. There's always someone around for a chat, just to ensure you don't revert to rudimentry grunts and sign language. And there's "lonely" on one hand, contrasted with "the freedom to do whatever, go wherever" which cannot be beaten. It's nice to get away from the noise of other people too - you get a lot of thinking time,

So these two weeks are wonderful. I'm just a little concerned how I'm going to go cope when I go back to Real People. If my house was a Tarot card, it'd be the Five of Wands. There's nothing wrong, nothing major, but it's packed with mundane quarrels, petty disputes, arguments and anger for the stupidest and smallest reasons. The house has got in on the act too - you've heard me talk about places having personality before, and even though it sounds a bit nuts and new age, I do hold it to be true. I have never liked that house, and find it hard to sleep there. Usually, I'm off like a shot and am impossible to wake - it takes me ages at home, and I always wake up grouchy. I'm positive the bad atmosphere is getting grained into the walls and floorboards, swept under carpets, making the whole thing worse. Or maybe I'm imagining it.

"There's nothing purer and more unsullied, Madam, than the desire for revenge..." ~the Master