I have the honour of presenting D-let, Prince of Acerbia, Act II, Scene ii.
GUILDENMARK
My honoured lord!
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
My most dear lord!
D-LET
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenmark?
Ah, Rosenblography! Good lads, how do ye both?
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
As the indifferent children of the blog.
GUILDENMARK
Happy, in that we are not over-happy;
On Blorgy’s cap we are not the very button.
D-LET
Nor the soles of her shoe?
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
Neither, my lord.
D-LET
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?
GUILDENMARK
‘Faith, her archives we.
D-LET
In the secret parts of Blogger? O, most true; she is a strumpet.
What’s the news?
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
None, my lord, but that the blogworld’s grown honest.
D-LET
Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true.
Let me question more in particular: what have you,
my good friends, deserved at the hands of MoveableType,
that she sends you to prison hither?
GUILDENMARK
Prison, my lord!
D-LET
Uborka’s a prison.
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
Then is the blogworld one.
D-LET
A goodly one; in which there are many cocktails,
words and deletions, Uborka being one o’ the worst.
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
We think not so, my lord.
D-LET
Why, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
it is a prison.
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
Why then, your ambition makes it one; ’tis too
narrow for your posts.
D-LET
O God, I could be bounded in a Livejournal and count
myself a king of infinite webspace, were it not that I
have bad readers.
GUILDENMARK
Which readers indeed are ambitious, for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a reader.
D-LET
A reader itself is but a shadow.
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a
quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
D-LET
Then are our readers bodies, and our monarchs and
outstretched heroes the readers’ shadows. Shall we
to the MT login? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.
ROSENBLOGRAPHY, GUILDENMARK
We’ll wait upon you.
D-LET
No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest
of my readers, for, to speak to you like an honest
man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the
beaten way of friendship, what make you at Uborka?
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
To comment upon you, my lord; no other occasion.
D-LET
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I
thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are
too dear a halfpenny. Were you not linked to? Is it
your own inclining? Is it a free comment? Come,
deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
GUILDENMARK
What should we comment, my lord?
D-LET
Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You were linked to;
and there is a kind of confession in your sidebars
which your modesties have not craft enough to colour:
I know the good Pete and Karen have sent for you.
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
To what end, my lord?
D-LET
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by
the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of
our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved
sites, and by what more dear a better proposer could
charge you withal, be even and direct with me,
whether you were linked to, or no?
ROSENBLOGRAPHY
[Aside to GUILDENMARK] What say you?
D-LET
[Aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.
July 9, 2004
To D or not to D
Shakespeare-themed cocktails today. Requests in this lovely comments box, please.
I’m glad you said that in the comments, cause I got lost in the post.
Can I get Juliet please? Bent over a cask of ale.
I’d like a Julius Caesar, please. That’s vodka and tomato juice, wearing a toga.
A Coors! A Coors! My kingdom for a Coors!
Mine’s a a stoup of wine! – as in Twelfth Night Act II, scene III
SIR TOBY BELCH: A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can. To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is
early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our life consist of the four elements?
SIR ANDREW: Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.
SIR TOBY BELCH: Thou’rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say! a stoup of wine!
I don’t care what I have, really. But I’m going to drink it in the style of Malvolio, i.e. cross-gartered yellow stockings. I’m sure the rest of the office will be distinctly impressed.
Porter: ‘Faith sir, we were carousing till the
second cocktail; and drink, sir, is a great
provoker of three things.
mclean: And what three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Blogging, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes
away the performance: therefore, much drink
may be said to be an equivocator with blogging: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and embarrasses him; makes him hit ‘publish’, and
reach for ‘delete’; in conclusion, ridicules him
in a Uborka parody, and, giving him the aching cheeks wot come from much grinning, leaves him.
MacClean: You’re pissed, aren’t you?
Tankard of ale please, barkeep!
And a roast ferret on a stick.
2 shots,
or not 2 shots?
That is the question.
Bucket of tequila is the answer.
Adrian, “lost in the post”? The Royal Mail have really gone downhill recently haven’t they – don’t worry, you were just mis-delivered here; I’ve readdressed you, but it was a bit hard getting you back in the postbox…
Guess I should order something too. Is a pint (or three) of Porter a tenuous enough Shakespeare link?
i suppose i shall order wine. red wine, when spilt, dost create the most nasty spots that won’t come out, despite my repeated attempts at washing. thank you my dear sir!
I’ll have a flagon of whatever Falstaff’s drinking. That should be enough to keep me from sobriety until the morn.
Let me not to the marriage of true grapes Admit impediments. Wine is not wine
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed snobberie
That looks on bad beers and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering drunk,
Whose BA Level’s unknown, although his stumbles be taken.
Wine’s not Time’s fool, though full body and a hint of blackberry
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Wine alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of vinegar.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever pissed.
Uh, anyone fancy a pint?