Once again on my explorations of Youtube I came across a video produced by the Alternate History Hub (and I must admit that they produce some really interesting videos that inspire me to explore much deeper) speculating what would have happened if Persia had managed to invade Greece. The problem that I find with a lot of their productions is that their conclusions tend to be ‘this was so long ago it is impossible to know what would have happened’. Well, there is a whole field of counter-factual history where historians explore the ‘what might have been’ with regards to these particular historical events.
Prometheus and the Quest for Fire
Originally I was going to incorporate some thoughts on the recent Aronofsky film Noah in this post, but I ended up dedicating an entire post to that… Read more “Prometheus and the Quest for Fire”
USSR – An Alternate 90s
My first forays into Youtube was simply to upload videos of trains (for the benefit of my brother, who happens to love trains), and this basically continued for a while until I discovered a channel called The Alternate History Hub. Okay, to be honest with you, I had watched some videos, usually some of the older movies and the BBC Shakespeare episodes that were available (and I did try a couple of cat videos, but to be honest with you I really don’t like watching videos of cats being cats, because cats being cats are so much better in real life, and as for trains and trams, well I basically uploaded them as opposed to watching videos of them, well, usually). Anyway, it was through the Alternate History Hub that I really began to discover some of the many, short, wonders that Youtube had to offer (and in fact I ended up spending an hour today watching some of these short clips).
War, Bloodshed, and Political Intrigue – Tacitus’ Annals
I remember when I was studying Greek and Roman Literature at University and our lecturers asked us if they should consider looking at any other works beyond the ones that we had studied and I immediately put my hand up and suggested a history such as Plutarch. My lecturer liked the idea of looking at a history but didn’t seem to be all that keen on my suggestion of author and instead suggested Tacitus. I immediately blew off Tacitus thinking that he was boring (and I had only just discovered Plutarch) however years later I picked a copy of his Annals of Imperial Rome from my shelf and gave it a read – and discovered that is was really good. It then went onto my ‘have already read’ bookshelf and promptly forgotten about. However, with the rise of social media, and in particular sites such as Goodreads and Booklikes, I decided that I would trawl through all of the books that I read and write a few thoughts on them along with the books that I was currently reading.
Mad Max: Fury Road – The Art of the Action Film
I have come to realise that this whole debate about the illegal downloading of movies is little more than a storm in a tea cup. The reason I say this is because if the movie studios were not making any money because everybody was downloading the movie over the internet for free then they wouldn’t make any more movies because it would no longer be profitable. The thing is that even in the age of the internet movies are still very profitable, and Mad Max Fury Road is a prime example. Costing $150 Million to make, as of 19th July it has had a world wide gross of $367.2 million, which isn’t a bad effort.
The Inverted War Hero – Arms and the Man
Okay, this may not be the first Bernard Shaw play that I have seen performed, however the previous one, Man and Superman, was a performance by the National Theatre that was filmed and then distributed to various cinemas around the world. Okay, while it may not have been live, it was close enough, and seeing Ralph Fiennes performing on stage was an experience to say the least.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet – The Dysfunctional Family
Well, this year the Bell Shakespeare Company decided to put on a performance of Hamlet, quite possibly because it is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. This sort of baffles me though because Hamlet happens to be one of those plays that school kids have to put up with studying, and we all know the story about books that we are forced to study in school – they are hated.
Power Games – Shakespeare’s Tempest
I initially suggested that I have seen the Tempest three times on my Goodreads and Booklikes posts that is) but now that I think about it I believe I have only seen it twice before I saw this production (and I believe that both of those previous productions were also by the Bell Shakespeare Company). Anyway, when I discovered that they were staging another production (this time only in Sydney) I pretty quickly booked my tickets because it happens to be one of my favourite Shakespearian plays.
Power Vacuum – King Lear’s Resignation
Well, it seems as if Sir Ian McKellan is in the position where he can simply do what ever he wants, well when it comes to the theatre at least. Apparently the Chichester theatre approached him and asked him if he would like to do a play, and then proceeded to ask him what play he would like to do, considering he is one of those actors that has probably played every role out there. Anyway, he said that he wanted to give King Lear another shot, and fortunately for me, this particular production appeared on the National Theatre Live listing.
Harsh Criticism – The Misanthrope
Honestly, I’m not really all that sure whether I appreciated the Bell Shakespeare Company bringing this play into the 20th Century in much the same way that they do with quite a lot of their plays. The thing is that while the idea behind a lot of plays are timeless, somethings seeing a performance set in the original setting is so much better than having to sit through another modern Australian adaptation.
Art & Literature with the Sarkologist 