Alberty's Blah Blah Blog

Okay, in the last installment of this burgeoning family cookbook, I did my Dad’s Rummyrummy Rumcake. I mentioned that it is one of only three things he asks for.

Well, here is the second thing he asks for: Nutty Chocolate Sheetcake.

I also love this cake. It has a flavor that I can’t quite pin down. I think that the buttermilk is what does it. There is a chocolaty tartness to it that is almost exotic.

And the thing that I like most about this cake is that it is so easy to play around with.

You can add cinnamon, nutmeg, a little cayenne and you have a Mexican chocolate cake. Better yet, substitute crema for the buttermilk and Hazow!

You can substitute all kinds of nuts. Or you can exchange the nuts for dates.

You can add raisins to the batter. Or chocolate chips. Or mint. Or you could swirl in ribbons of cherry jam. Or, or, or you could put a thin layer of apricot jam over the cake before you pour on the liquid frosting.

Wow, I think I just messed myself.

Anyway, it is a rare thing that I go to my parents and happily find leftovers of this cake sitting in the kitchen. But when I do, I grab a bowl, slam a hunk of the cake in it, and douse it in milk. Then I say, “Hi,” to my parents.

Anyway, enjoy!

Dad’s Nutty Chocolate Sheetcake

Ingredients:

The Cake

2 C. Flour
2 C. Sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 c. water
1 stick margarine
3 1/2 tbsp cocoa
1/3 c. buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Icing

1 stick margarine
1/3 c. milk
3 tbsp cocoa
4 c. confectioners (icing) sugar
1 1/2 c. nuts
1 t. vanilla

Directions:

For cake:

1   Preheat oven to 400°.
2   Bring to boil the water, 1 stick margarine and cocoa.
3   Mix with the dry ingredients.
4   Add buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla.
5   Pour batter into sheetcake pan.
6   Bake at 400° for 20 minutes.

For Icing:

1   Bring to boil 1 stick of margarine, cocoa, and milk.
2   Add confectioners sugar, vanilla, and nuts.
3   Pour over cake.

Seriously, this may look like a complicated cake, but it really isn’t. And it is tay yay yasty!

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This time a shirt goes to Wes for this suggestion.

So last Thursday night we began our last weekend of Rabbit Hole performances. It is perhaps the most fulfilling and enriching production I have participated in as an actor. I will miss it terribly. I will miss the show because it is a beautifully written script, a gorgeous and intimate venue, and deftly directed. I will miss the people, not only because I love them, but because I feel totally safe with them.

Which brings me back to Thursday.

During the final scene of the show — a beautiful and softly tense scene between a husband and wife trying to navigate their own and each other’s sense of loss — I went up.

“To go up,” in acting parlance means “to forget one’s lines.”

Yup. My acting partner and I were rolling along in this beautiful scene and I simply went blank. She sat there waiting for my next line and all I could do was watch her picking at an open aluminum foil parcel of zucchini bread. We looked at each other and smiled.

She said, “Would you like a piece?” — not an actual line in the play, by the way.

I took it and ate it and said, “Thanks.” Another non line in the show. Then I said, “It’s so quiet,” which was, in fact a line. However, I skipped about half a page of pretty important character material that sort of puts this scene into perspective. Both of us knew it, but neither of us panicked. That cool-headedness does not always prevail in shows. In fact, it rarely prevails.

But I trusted her and she trusted me. We wove our back to the important info and, by the time this emotionally draining scene was over, I’m pretty sure we only really missed one line. We got everything in, it made sense, and it didn’t harm the emotional arc of the scene. That is what can happen when you trust your scene partner and you trust yourself. There is a certain love for your fellow actors that an experience like this can instill in you.

I am not always that level headed. Especially in my daily life. And especially when I was younger.

I remember the first time I went up, I mean really went up. It was high school and, quite strangely, it was during a choir concert.

We were singing this raucous sea shanty (yes, you read that right, “sea shanty”) called “Jack was Every Inch a Sailor.” Our choir director, who was kind of like a demi-god to us, had added a couple of verses because he wanted to have several of us sing little solos between the chorus of:

Oh, Jack was every inch a sailor,
Five and twenty years a whaler;
Jack was every inch a sailor,
He was born upon the bright blue sea.

I was embarrassingly excited, because I had had a verse bestowed upon me. I believe the verse was:

When Jack returned to port he found a mermaid on a pier.
(Bah da da!)
He took her home and she became his wife for forty years.
(Bah da da!)
To buy his wife some furniture caused Jack to scratch his head.
(Bah da da!)
That’s how he was the man who did invent the waterbed.

As you can see each line is punctuated with the virile all-male chorus singing through their manly smiles the phrase “Bah da da!” It was actually a really fun song.

But, alas, that fateful night. Alas!

We began the tune and it was a manly barrage of shantysong. One by one, the other soloists stepped forward and belted their verse and we Bah-da-dad!

It came my turn. I stepped forward, and this is what the audience heard:

When Jack …
(Bah da da!)
Ahh …
(Bah da da!)
…
(Bah da da!)
Um…

And even more horrific, the chorus did not come. Our choir director redirected the pianist to loop the verse. I soon realized, and this is what the audience saw and heard:

Jason’s head cocked to the right, his eyes swiveled left, trying to comprehend
(Bah da da!)
Jason took a step forward toward the choir director.
(Bah da da!)
Jason whispers desperately, “What are the words?”
(Bah da da!)
The choir director, grinning like a madman, shakes his head no.”
(Bah da da!)

Oh, that’s right. You saw an extra Bah-da-da! at the end of that four line phrase. Bah da da! He just rolled it right on over. Bah da da!

It became my own personal little Telltale Heart. Bah da da!

What’s that fat kid doing?
(Bah da da!)
I’ve never seen anyone sweat so much in my life!
(Bah da da!)
God I love watching people die on stage!
(Bah da da!)
Is this the third time they’ve rolled through this verse?
(Bah da da!)

Finally, I think it was the fourth time around I was able to get out

When Jack…
(Bah da da!)
Yea, Jack!
(Bah da da!)
I believe it is at this point that I began to dance a jig. A little blond fat-boy jig.
(Bah da da!)
Go, Jack!

It was at this point that I forced my director’s hand, because I slipped back into the hopeful anonymity of my choirmates.

Mercifully the chorus rolled into my ears.

I was, as you might imagine, devastated. Dev-a-stated!

I think when the men’s chorus was done I actually hid under the stage.

But, evidently, it was the hit of the evening. At that point I didn’t know how funny a jig dancing fat boy was. Apparently…HI-larious!

I suppose that painful moment launched my performing hobby in earnest.

Thanks, Wes, for reminding me of this moment. It was tucked into one of the old dusty pigeonholes in my mental rolltop. It took a while. But it has become a fun memory.

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Sorry, gang. Kids, a show, and general life. I’ll have something Monday.

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I’m imagining that this post will be a short one. Mostly because it embarrasses the hell out of me, and I don’t even know why I’m writing it. Okay, I’m writing it because it embarrasses the hell out of me, and I’m writing it to get it off my chest.

For the first time in at least fifteen years I, with great malice and total loss of control, flipped off another driver…in my mini-van…with my wife and kids in the car…with NPR blaring on the radio. Okay, it wasn’t blaring…but…

I mean, seriously?! I am forty-two years old! I’m not some twenty-year-old Phillies fan.

But I have to tell you, I was filled with a road-rage that consumed me, split my shirt wide open, and turned me green to boot.

I may have said the phrase, “Damned kids.”

Side Note: This incident came just hours after a doctor’s appointment about a growth, a possible hernia, and bad knee, when my doctor’s diagnosis was, “Well, you’re just getting old.”

Side Note’s Side Note: To top it off, while my doctor was checking for a hernia (which I don’t have) he said, “Any problems with your penis?”

I said, “Yeah, doc. I’d like a larger one.”

He said, “Well…just be happy it still works.”

I mean, seriously?! I am only forty-two years old!

But these kids, a couple of girls, were a good forty feet behind me when they gunned the car to pass me and swerve in front of me just to skirt some oncoming construction. For some reason, I nearly lost my mind. It was such a blatant, I-am-out-to-kill-myself-or-someone-else bit of driving, that I actually wished them ill-luck. For that I feel badly. But not for the vigorous extension of my middle finger. For that I just feel a little silly.

My wife said, “You’re just lowering yourself to their level,” which really was not the thing I needed her say. What I needed her to do was to say, “Fuck, yeah! Take that, bitches,” high five me, then turn up All Things Considered to a volume of 12 on our radio dial. But that she did not do. She said, “You’re just lowering yourself to their level.”

I said, “Maybe, but it makes me feel good.” Then I gave them the finger again before nearly rear-ending them because the guy in front of them slowed down (I think on purpose).

We then turned into Coldstone for some ice cream.

Just another family outing.

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I love language, and it is something that is so utterly fascinating, so all important to our survival, that it pulls me like a little snake might pull the fascination of a bird. I think about it a lot. Especially etymology: the study of words, their history, and how they form meaning. The word “etymology” comes from the Greek, meaning, “the study of true sense.”

I used to teach a unit on language: the history of the English language, the melding of Anglo-Saxon and French, little snippets of Middle-English, and the construction of new words, compound and blended words, acronyms, euphemism. All that stuff. I loved it. And I think my love for it carried over to my students. Thus my excitement when it was suggested that I write about the last few months of the year: the embers.

Imagine my utter disappointment at the rather pedestrian etymology for the last few months of the year.

Apparently, there were originally 10 months in the Roman calendar, the one we basically use today (although we really use what is called the Julian calendar, but whatever, stay with me). There were only ten months:

Martius: the first month of the year in the Calendar of Romulus (Don’t get too excited Trekkers!). It was the first month because the weather was good enough to celebrate the god Mars and go out and kill some people who weren’t Roman. Yea, Rome!

Aprillus: the second month. Some people say that its name derives from the Latin word for “to open,” like flowers and stuff. I like the idea that it is named after the Greek goddess Aphrodite. She is not really the goddess of love, as we think of her —mostly because of Puritanical high school teachers. Oh no, she is goddess of lust. Her Roman equivalent, Venus, gave us the root for “venereal.” I would like a season named after her.

Maius: the original third month, named for Maia, the goddess of fertility — I bet these Romans would love our reality shows. Their year literally began with violence, lust, and pregnancy. Jersey Shore meets Caligula.

Iunius or Junius: the original fourth month was named after Juno, wife of Jupiter and goddess of marriage. That’s why there are so many marriages in June today. It goes back a long way and has nothing to do with seasons or contemporary religion, people.

Now we get to the last six months: Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December. And what do those mean? Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth.

Seriously? Isn’t that a bit like naming your kids, Jim-Bob, Joleen, Bubba, Natron, Five, Six, and Seven, just because Natron blew your creative naming wad for the rest of your procreative life? Come on, Rome!

Thus, the “ember” is just a “ber” and is only a numerical qualifier. What a bummer.

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Sorry, Gang. The wife is back to work this week, so I’m soloing with the two boys for the first time. Trying to get a handle on the world. Also had a show open this week.

Thus, I did not get a post for today.

But the reviews are in for Urban Theater Project of Iowa’s production of Rabbit Hole.

Here are the links:

Rabbit Hole a Rare Treat

Peter Brook said he could take any empty space and call it a bare stage. Urban Theatre Project brings this claim to life in a very practical way. As Cedar Rapids’ “gypsy theatre,” UTP will create theatre anywhere someone will let them land for a few weeks. The aesthetic dispenses with all the spectacle of a proscenium stage and a dazzling lighting rig, focusing instead on the basics: actors performing powerful scripts with intention and clarity.

Go See “Rabbit Hole” Right Now. Seriously.

I just came from seeing Urban Theater Project’s opening-night performance of “Rabbit Hole.” I see a lot of theatre, and I don’t usually wrote Facebook notes about it afterward. But I am today. Because, seriously, people. This is one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time … and hardly anyone even knows it’s happening. Which blows my mind.

Okay, I’ve done what I can. I think it’s the best acting work I have ever done. It’s a brilliant tight cast, lead by a very smart, very thoughtful director, in a beautiful setting. Come see it if you can.

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Okay, gang, the Urban Theater Project of Iowa production of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole opens tomorrow night!

This thing won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for a Tony. The New York Times called it “a wrenching new play,” and said, “the sad, sweet release of Rabbit Hole lies precisely in the access it allows to the pain of others, in its meticulously mapped empathy.” The review ends with, “Jokes and cute anecdotes only wound; kindly advice is received as if it were a slap in the face. Family conversations are shaped by a spastic pattern of recrimination and apology, of irritation and misdirected comfort.”

This is the best new script I have read. And, if you follow my blog, you may have read in my post for August 5^th, “Rabbit Hole,” how important this experience has been for me.

I’m loving finally acting with one of my good friends, a joy in itself. But the other actors that people this family and the seminal event in their lives really makes this something to see. It’s difficult for me not to watch my acting partners work. I need to force myself away from the set to prepare for next scenes. That is always a good thing.

As per UTP/Iowa’s mandate, we are in a non-theatrical space. It’s gorgeous. Locally known as the Cook House, we are in the brick mansion, just off the Brucemore property: 222 Crescent Street SE.

This brings me to an important topic. Yes: the thing has been made into a movie — a good one, as I hear, though I have been waiting to watch it until after our run. But it’s a movie. And a play is much, much different. And with our beautiful venue, a person in the first row of the audience is so close they could reach out and touch the actors. This closeness affords actors the ability and the opportunity to create a performance that is closer to themselves, more open, more vulnerable. It is a rare treat for both actors and audience.

Finally, again with the UTP/Iowa mandate, each night there are only 30 seats available. Urban Theater is all about presenting powerful shows in non-theatrical venues for small audiences at a reasonable price ($10 tickets) . This one really fits the bill. And to top it off, it puts two actors, Leslie Charipar and I — who are usually directors — into roles they might not normally perform.

I really hope you can come see it. I am as proud of my work in this show as I have ever been.

To reserve seats (remember the limited seating) call 319-431-2110.

Shows run from August 18-20 and 25-27.

Show begins at 8:00, but there is mansion open house that begins at 7:00.

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This one’s for Martini. She is a great and goofy friend of mine who has issues with wheat — gluten, to be more encompassing. But she is such sunshine whenever I run into her that I always think, “I’m going to make her the best gluten free (insert something here) she could ever eat!” And I meant it. But then the day would continue and the thought would be overwhelmed by so many other things.

Well, Martini, today is the day!

My wife’s best friend and her mother stayed at our house for three nights last week. And her mother has Celiac’s Disease. That means if she eats anything with gluten in it, she doubles over and wishes she were dead. So I was forced — and I really do mean this in a good way — to make gluten free stuff.

I knew very little about non-gluten stuff. Who am I kidding, I still know very little. But I know one thing now: clafoutis is best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long, long time.

Just say the word: clafoutis (Kla-foo-tee). It’s fun to say. My wife nearly lost her mind the day I discovered it. Clafoutis clafoutis clafoutis! It’s just plain fun to say.

I think I happened across it on one of my crazy cooking shows. And I thought, I bet there has got be a gluten-free version of that bad boy. Well, there are about a gazillion (Martini’s word, not mine).

I found one that sort of looked good, whonked around with it a bit and here it is. It is soooooo good. I can’t even tell you. And, even better, it’s dangerously easy.

Martini’s No Gluti Clafoutis

Ingredients:

3 cups any fruit or fruit mix*
2 tablespoons honey**
1 1/4 cup milk or milk like product***
1/3 cup sugar / vanilla sugar / cinnamon sugar ****
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup rice flour^
1/4 cup tapioca flour^
1/4 cup sugar^^

*Traditionally clafoutis is made with cherries. I make mine with 2 cups of blueberries and 1 cup of pitted, split cherries.
**The first time I made this I used basswood honey. I love this honey, it has a funky minty taste to it. But I didn’t think it worked so well, so I just use your basic clover.
***Almond milk is quite delicious as a dairy substitute for this dessert.
****I use vanilla sugar. Super easy: Split a vanilla bean. Scrape out the seeds. Fill a container with 4 cups of basic sugar. Toss in the seeds and shake. Toss in the empty pods. Close container. Let sit for week or more before using.
^You can substitute ½ cup of any blended gluten free flour mix. But I really love the texture that the tapioca flour gives to this thing.
^^I use a mix of cinnamon and sugar for this.

Directions:

1   Preheat the oven to 350°.

2   Wash the fruit and cut it up, if you need to. Toss it all with the honey and set it aside while you proceed.

3   Put everything else, but the last ¼ cup of sugar, into a blender and whir it up for a minute or two. It will look like popover batter…if you’re into that sort of thing.

4   Pour a thin layer of batter into a medium casserole dish. Make sure it covers the bottom, and bake it until the layer has set. This might take about 10 minutes. Jiggle the dish. If the batter doesn’t jiggle, or jiggles just a little bit, then it’s ready.

5   Spread fruit over the bottom layer of cooked batter. Sprinkle on the last ¼ cup of sugar. Pour in the remaining batter. Shake it to let the batter settle a bit.

6   Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the top brown and crispy.

7   Let this thing cool, at least to just a little over room temp. That is where the custardy magic happens.

This stuff is great on its own. But if you are a devout over the topper, I suggest a little cream or half-and-half or crème fraiche. Mmmmmmm.

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Okay, so we got this new Dragon Dictation thing for our iPad. And it seems pretty cool. So, I decided that I was going to start dictating some blog posts onto the iPad. The first one I did was Wednesday’s “The Bard is My Boy” posting. It was, as you might imagine, both exciting and infuriating.

So, I have decided that this post, beginning with the next paragraph, will be an unvarnished, unedited blog post. What you see is what Dragon Dictation heard. I don’t know, it may totally suck. It may be the least interesting thing you have read since your last grocery list. But I am going to try it. Here it goes.

I became interested with voice activated typing programs several years ago. I dabbled in a couple of different programs. But I found that typing made me feel more in control of the content. Strange but true. But, I thought I would give it another try. Mostly because I have so very little time to sit down and type, like I want to.

This Dragon Dictation thing is pretty cool. Mostly because it’s free. Well, at least this version for the iPad is free. But I think that free app comes at a cost. I would like to believe that the more expensive version of the application can actually read your voice with greater clarity . Up until this point I have been speaking quite slowly and clearly pronouncing each word. I feel a little like Stephen Hawking’s voice box. The machine, not the actual muscular apparatus – okay, pretty cool. I just checked the last few sentences. Nice job getting Stephen Hawking’s correct.

But now I am speaking at my normal speed. I’m not exactly sure how this is going to out because, one of the problems that I have, is that this version of Dragon dictation does not allow me to see what is being typed as I speak. And sometimes, like I’m guessing just a few seconds from now, it’s going to abruptly stopped

So it actually stopped just after I said the phrase abruptly stop. That’s kind of like magic to me. A little bit of gold in this odd little experiment. Nonetheless, often times it will stop in midsentence to process what is just been said. I don’t know if this is because the processor is lagging behind or if it is run across some word that it does not recognize and want you to check it out. Hard to say, because I’m the kind of schmo that doesn’t read manuals .

I think the word quotation mark schmo” caused it to process suddenly. But it’s pretty cool because it got the word quotation mark schmo” correct. That’s pretty impressive.

So a couple of things that I find a little bit troubling are the use of the word period. So if I need to say the word. As in the phrase quotation mark Gretzky scored in the second. Of the game. Quotation mark oftentimes it will just put the little tiny dot that represents. I wonder right now if you just put a period or if it actually put the word period. Because, as I said before, I can’t see what it’s typing as I’m speaking. That to me is an issue..

So after reading the preprocessed paragraph, I discovered that sometimes it uses the word. Rather than the dock that represents a period. I don’t understand that at all.

So the next thing that I might have an issue with is the phrase quotation mark

“. What if I am writing a review of some text and I want to say in the

Such and such happened. (the real Jason here: I had to stop and type this myself simply for the sake of clarity. First of all, when the text shows the phrase quotation mark, what I really want it to show is “. Okay, so that’s confusing. The second issue is that I am talking new paragraphs. But when you say “new paragraph” it automatically creates a new paragraph. Interesting conundrum, if you want to use it as a teaching device. Okay, back to dictation only.)

Well, this was in interesting experiment. I’m guessing that, if your still reading, you found it modern it lea interesting. But, I can tell you, if I choose to use Dragon dictation again, I will definitely edit, edit, edit.

Until then, have a grape dime leading this bog toast.

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If I were to get a tattoo — and I kinda want one — I know exactly what it would be. I don’t know where I would have it etched into my soft pink skin, but I know what it would be. I have actually already designed it. It would be an image of what many academics call the Stratford Man, specifically from the Droeshout portrait. I love Shakespeare. I’m sure that comes as no surprise.

I recently taught a class called Understanding Shakespeare to a small group of middle schoolers. It wasn’t the first time, yet it always comes as a shock to me how difficult it is. Mostly because I adore Shakespearean language. It’s so difficult for me to understand, or even wrap my mind around the idea that people don’t like him. I mean, I know they do. In fact, I’m sure more people don’t like Shakespeare than actually like him. And, while teaching this class, I saw faces lower, and I saw eyes glaze, even as I delved deeper into my giddy joy for his language.

Shakespeare hits me viscerally. I mean it gets inside me and sloshes around, seeping into my entrails like a savory marinade. There are moments from his plays that I could see or read over and over again, each reading or viewing nuanced differently, washing over me in a new way, bringing me a slightly different understanding.

In the aforementioned class we worked on monologues. I chose a speech from Henry V. It was the one generally known as the Crispin Crispianus speech. Other people refer to it as the “Band of Brothers” speech:

…
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

What a gorgeous sentiment. What a spiritual speech. What sublimity in the face of certain death . That is how I want to live my last moments. Of course it did not end up being their very last moments, but many of them sure thought it was.

I guess that’s what Shakespeare has done for me. He has given me models by which to live my own life. Look at Macbeth. In the beginning of the play he was the warrior paragon. He was the best, the brightest star in the king’s retinue. The king continually dropped praise on him. But Macbeth’s ambition, his weak moral compass, allowed him to destroy his own soul. Oh, the things we can learn from this play. Trust me, I taught it for 12 years, and I had the privilege to direct the show for the Classics at Brucemore.

There are just a couple more moments I wish to discuss. They are the ones that I come back to time and again. They root me to who I am, to who I want to be.

The first comes from The Tempest. That play many scholars feel to be Shakespeare’s swansong, the last play he meant to write. Of course, he wrote a few after that, but those were certainly commissioned and written with other authors. In this play Shakespeare’s protagonist, Prospero, conjures up a play — Shakespeare’s classic little motif, the play within a play — as the final entertainment for the wedding of his daughter. But the speech he gives here has always been for me a melancholy self-reflection:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Shakespeare visits this theme often. Hamlet is, of course, filled with it. But the brother-passage to Prospero’s self-reflection comes from Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

What a powerful, if depressing, self-reflection on the meaning of one’s own life. Even Hamlet states, “the rest is silence.”

So where does this little foray into depressing metaphysics take me. Well, it takes me to what I think is one of the most powerful passages in all of Shakespeare, at least for me. It is truly the one I try to live by. It is the one I want, desperately want, my sons to live by. It comes from Julius Caesar. And it is not necessarily, contextually, a nice passage, as it comes from a discussion among the conspirators toward killing Julius Cesar. But the sentiment is gorgeous:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

If he has given me nothing else, he has given me this. The understanding that sometimes you must shove off from the safe shore of comfort and all that you know to embrace the deep and roiling sea of unknown potential. And, even if your bark is tossed and lost to Neptune’s kingdom, you may, as happenstance or as design, find yourself on the sandy shore of an enchanted kingdom you never before new existed. But if you turn your back on the tide and face again toward the known city of your past, you chain yourself to a life of changeless predictability.

For Shakespeare, to truly live, you must, must get on the boat. That’s just one reason why I love him.

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