Monday, September 12, 2011

How Can You Catch the Sparrow?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," paper stress edition! I am not cut out to be a school teacher. The paperwork befuddles me. Love the kids, hate the dead, white trees.

Other than yesterday's navel gaze, I tried to stay as far away as possible from the 9/11 memorials. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that an estimated 125,000 civilians died in the Iraq War. That's 40 for every American in 9/11. Little reality check there.

At the Shrine of the Mists we light candles for all children killed in warfare. No discrimination. It's how we roll.

Ah, well. On to brighter and lighter topics!

My three regular readers enjoyed the little clip below of "Mr. G's World," a day in the life of a high school drama teacher.  It must be very special to be a drama teacher/coach/director. How wonderful it must feel when you choose your favorite kid for the lead ... butcher Shakespeare like a pig roast ... pick a good-looking boy who can't act ... don't have to grade so many papers!

It's really eerie how the "Mr. G's World" clip mirrors the Snobville drama teacher, who (ironically) is also Mr. G. What a coincidence! Uncanny, really. If Snobville's Mr. G had an Aussie accent, I would swear it was one and the same man.

Last week I noted that Mr. G (the real one) and a trusty Snobville mom had taken a cleaver to "Romeo and Juliet," of all things. Readers, I am not exaggerating. They took out Tybalt. They took out Mercutio. And they took out Benvolio. Never mind overlooking the beautiful and truthful "Queen Mab" speech about faeries. They axed the whole character! How can you perform "Romeo and Juliet" without Tybalt and Mercutio?

Maybe I'll shuck out ten bucks to find out. Um, maybe not.

The cast list was made public today, and I must say that Mr. G (the real one) is as predictable as Old Faithful.

In our humble borough of Snobville live a family by the last name of Sparrow. There are several stair-step daughters, and they have had itty bitty roles on Broadway and in t.v. shows. Not because they're extraordinary (so far as I can see), but probably because their mom is plugged in to these things. Some moms are like that. They ought to be in the back yard building shrines, but they're calling agents and private acting coaches and making long treks to Manhattan.

It's gotten to be funny. If your last name is Sparrow in Snobville, Mr. G will give you the lead in the play. He pals around with this family, and even though the most recent Sparrow is a freshman, she lapped the other 30-some auditioners for Juliet as if she were Sea Biscuit and they were a pack of winded ponies.

Before the Sparrows arrived on Snobville's high school stage, Mr. G's daughter was still in the school. Needless to say, she got the lead in every play while she was there.

I. Kid. You. Not.

So Spare and I ran down how the last few years of Snobville drama have looked:

Mr. G's daughter
Mr. G's daughter
Mr. G's daughter
Mr. G's daughter

Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow
Sparrow

I think this provides a valuable lesson for all aspiring thespians in Snobville. Might as well get used to it now, kiddos. It's who you know. And after all, Hollywood has plenty of "royal families," doesn't it?

Oh, but Mercutio! Mercutio! If this post wasn't running long, I'd type in the whole "Queen Mab" speech!

I'll do it tomorrow.

Not since Mr. Bigwand has a personage come along who so richly deserves excoriation. We'll be having fun in Mr. G's world this year!

5 comments:

Intense Guy said...

I'll save you some work... if you explain to me what it means. :)

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she —

Anonymous said...

It sopunds like something that should be brought to the school board's attention.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Yeah, that's how the real world works, isn't it? Valuable lesson, etc.

John Beckett said...

I think you need to gather Spare and some of her friends for a showing of "Addams Family Values"...

River Bend Family Medicine said...
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