Annotations and comments

Gerald Berg has posted 413 annotations/comments since 4 March 2013.

Comments

Second Reading

About Thursday 5 December 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Off topic I know, but with regards to Hamlet:

Horatio was not a friend to Hamlet. He was in the pay of Fortinbras. One of the Danish guards had an uncanny resemblance to Ham's old man -- esp. at night during a storm. So a plot was hatched on the emotionally susceptible Hamlet. One would have to believe in ghosts otherwise. Shakespeare certainly didn't. A perusal of Shakespeare's use of ghosts show in none but Hamlet do others see the victim's apparition.

It was all a Norwegian ruse to regain Denmark. Gertrude and Claudius recognised the threat so hence the hasty marriage. Hamlet was a stooge.

About Thursday 5 December 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

What is up with Paynter? First, what great name for a painter! Only thing better would be if his first name was Poytrate. Second, why is he letting SP see it before it is finished? Nothing worse that having an over the shoulder critic. No self respecting painter should allow it.

About Sunday 1 December 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Wot, (as Vicente would say) nothing about the queer phrase "clapping up"? I recall it being around in my youth on the Canadian west coast but not since...

About Friday 8 November 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

"scholler" A most unusual spelling! I wonder how a curious spelling (such as this) is worked out via SP's shorthand?

About Thursday 7 November 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

In the film The Great Train Robbery there was a fantastic scene with ringside bets being placed on how long it would take a terrier to kill a set amount of rats. That dog wasted no time! Grab it by the neck, shake vigorously till it snaps and move on.

The film Paint Your Wagon had a sign announcing an upcoming ringside event of a bull versus bear fight. Unfortunately (or fortunate) you don't get to fully appreciate the battle royale. It also has a most edifying scene of Clint Eastwood trying to sing a song. He loses.

About Sunday 3 November 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

In Cuba most meats are (were?) under government control and so inaccessible to all but the few. Chickens were not. However, they were so skinny that the locals referred to them as being "pre-cooked".

About Monday 30 September 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Best ever!

"But I, as I am in all things curious,.."

I would surmise the chains brought out the guns. Very clever Spaniards...

About Tuesday 10 September 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

linkman et al
Henry Fielding: Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great.

Noodle:
I mean, my liege, Only to grace my tale with decent horror;
Whilst from my garret, twice two stories high,
I looked abroad into the streets below,
I saw Tom Thumb attended by the mob,
Twice twenty shoe-boys, twice two dozen links,
Chairmen and porters, hackney-coachmen, whores;
Aloft he bore the grizzly head of Grizzle;
When of sudden through the streets there came
A cow, of larger than the usual size,
And in that moment---guess, oh! guess the rest!
In that moment that cow swallowed up Tom Thumb.

About Friday 23 August 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

What? No comments about Sam taking the wife to see a play? This is first from my recall.
RE: simple
Sam had not much good to say about his deceased uncle's wife either...

About Tuesday 13 August 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Smallpox has killed more people than any other disease. No other can compare. Extinct --outside the laboratory -- due to vaccination. I say this only to remind how ignorant and ahistorical the anti-vaccination movement of today is and how important it is to insist that this is so.

About 16, 17, 18, 19 July 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

I have trouble seeing anyone signifying hay solely by the word 'crop'. Rather 'hay' or 'hay crop'. Too early to be harvesting much else. However, there could be grain stored in silo. Hence "upon the ground" (to me) would be the present ripening field crop being let out. If one doesn't wish to spend the remaining growing season tending to the crop, letting out would be optimal.

About Saturday 22 June 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev has a spectacular scene sequence involving the casting, raising and ringing of a bell. Been a long time since I had watched the scene -- pre internet -- and here it is on youtube! From around 18:40 mark and runs to around the 40 min. mark. Was great to see it again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ…

About Tuesday 18 June 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Thank you Andrew Hamilton! I was wondering how long the stairs were taking to build. 3 months and counting! The stairs to my basement took 2 days.

Turret-garden. So is this a first example of a garden folly? Very early for what became an 18th C. must have. Visionary...

About Monday 10 June 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

"persons of condition" !? What, a group of pregnant women getting together? That's the only condition I now know. Well, one other sort. I always did love the Kenny Rogers line: 'Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.'
I know exactly what he means.

About Thursday 6 June 1661

Gerald Berg  •  Link

"...keeping time to the musique while it plays..." That would be simple and completely pointless to boot. Unless she were a listener grooving to the vibrations and not a conductor. A conductor, I assume, is what she was. It being so very hip and new, the latest sensation coming from France! I don't think SP understands what a conductor is for. That is, the one whom the music keeps time to, not the reverse formulation as he puts it.