Free Shakespeare from Canada

Shakespeare from the Stafford Festival on Line

Free during the long social distancing season

Did William Shakespeare really write the masterpiece King Lear while under quarantine during the plague year 1606? Yes, along with other great plays like Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Starting the previous year people were expected to remain in their London homes except when genuine need forced them to seek food for medicine. Sound familiar? Just like now, it helped save countless lives.

The Shakespeare Festival of Stratford, Ontario is offering free viewings of twelve films beginning with King Lear. It started on April 23, but I only know learned of this. So here is the schedule

“Each will debut with a 7:00 p.m. viewing party and will be available free-of-charge for three weeks afterwards on the Stratford Festival website.”

https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/

Coriolanus debuts today! Lear remains available through May 14.

stratford festival free shakespeare onemanz.com COVID-19 soical distancing

The films have received four Canadian Screen Awards and 16 nominations, including Best Performing Arts Program for King Lear.

The schedule is as follows:

King Lear: April 23 to May 14

Coriolanus: April 30 to May 21

Macbeth: May 7 to 28

The Tempest: May 14 to June 4

Timon of Athens: May 21 to June 11

Love’s Labour’s Lost: May 28 to June 18

Hamlet: June 4 to 25

King John: June 11 to July 2

Pericles: June 18 to July 9

Antony and Cleopatra: June 25 to July 16

Romeo and Juliet: July 2 to 23

The Taming of the Shrew: July 9 to 30

 

More Information Here

Happy Shakespeare Day!

Shakespeare to watch at home that is absolutely thrilling!

See clips of recommended watching below

Four-hundred and four years ago today, the world lost William Shakespeare. And if it weren’t for a small group of dedicated friends and colleagues half of the known plays he wrote would have been lost forever. Since the drama, comedy, and history that is the NFL draft starts tonight, I am putting off my Will Fest a day or two. But I will be watching the following this weekend.
 
Mark Rylance’s all-male production of “Twelfth Night”, the stage production from the Globe Theater, Ian McKellen’s “Richard III” set in a 1930s England beset with Fascism, and Kenneth Brannah’s lavishly adorned “Hamlet. Marvelous stuff! And you can see some short clips of them below.
 
And here is a list of the plays that were only known because of the First Folio that his friend published in the poet’s honor:
 
All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Henry VI, Part One
Henry VIII (All is True)
Julius Caesar
King John
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale
 
Amazing, really.
Check out this opening sublime sequence of Ian McKellen’s 1930s Fascist version of Shakespeare’s Richard III. A $3 HD rental on Amazon, or free on YouTube.
And this glimpse of the lavish spectacle of Kennith Brannah’s Hamlet. Free on Amazon!
And Mark Rylance’s hilarious all-male cast of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Available for the U.K. on line https://globeplayer.tv/videos/twelfth-night
And available DVD for the U.S. and worth every farthing!

How Weather and Environment Might Impact a Coronavirus

Corona Virus and weather onemanz

A learned friend speculates on the contribution of environmental factors, such as lightening, in the spread or recession of a coronavirus such as influenza

The mechanics of a coronavirus can be explained through the metaphor of a vinyl record player

Consider how a record player works. There’s a record with grooves of various frequencies and amplitudes spinning around. There’s a tonearm with a phonographic cartridge in it that tracks the record. This phono cartridge holds a tiny diamond tip on the end of a shaft, attached to the cartridge body with a flexible joint.

Being a mechanical system, the tonearm and cartridge have resonances. The two major resonant modes are 1) the diamond tip resonating at high frequencies; 2) the tonearm resonating at low frequencies.

High frequency resonances occur when the diamond tip is tracing out grooves on the record that are heavily amplitude-modulated at high frequencies – like loud bell strikes. At resonance, the diamond tip is destructive to the grooves of the record, operating like a tiny jackhammer.

At much lower frequencies, e.g. cannon-shots on the 1812 Overture, visible movement of the tonearm occurs, and even cases where the tonearm jumps out of one grove and into another. Lateral displacement.

Now think of the influenza virus mechanical structure: little masses on stalks (viral spikes) attached to a much more massive viral body. This is another grossly bi-modal resonant mechanical system. There will be at least two resonant points that correspond to frequencies that excite the spikes and the bodies.

The spinning record for the virus is thermal energy. Within the host body, what matters most is the thermal energy that comes from the temperature of the host. A fever is both a defensive mechanism and the result of a body combating an infection. A virus can cease to function beyond a certain temperature, but sometimes lethal damage occurs regardless.

Viruses have evolved to take advantage of natural processes like absorption (a liquid or other material being absorbed by another liquid or solid) and adsorption (atomic or molecular material adhering to the surface area of some material or other.) The latter comes into play because of how viruses stick to metal or plastic surfaces and resist being washed or blown away. But they stick even better to our organic skin and hair, etc. so they leave the metal, porcelain, or plastic, and adhere to us. Fortunately, they stick even better yet to the fatty lipids in common soap.

Outside of a potential host body, the thermal energy source that matters most to the viral structure is sunlight. Water vapor, being the most abundant greenhouse gas for Planet Earth, is a nearly ideal medium for converting photons of infrared light into mechanical energy. Its absorption spectrum is so broad that it is referred to as an absorption continuum.

Mechanical resonances will be set up at various partial pressures of the water vapor, due to the gas spring nature of the vapor. Within tiny pockets of water vapor, mechanical movements of water molecules will become synchronized, resulting in coherent movement of those water molecules. When this coherent movement occurs, ion generation due to collisions is minimized. Whereas incoherent movement results in more ions – even gross-level electric charge build-ups in the water vapor. This is the basis for lightning strike conditions in clouds.

The mechanical system of the virus is tuned to the resonances generated in the water vapor, under the right conditions (vapor pressures.) Small resonances result in movement of the viral spikes. Large resonances result in movement of the bodies as a whole. Sunlight provides for vapor resonances at higher frequencies. Host body thermal energy provides for resonances at lower frequencies.

Host body thermal energy might also provide for resonances at lower frequencies. Vibrating viral spikes might lead to penetration of host cell membranes. Jumping viral bodies might lead to attacks on adjacent host tissue cells.

Poor conditions for generating this movement of the spikes maybe be signified by electrical discharges, i.e. lightning. Global hot spots of influenza infection such as Southeast Asia and the east coast of the U.S. show fewer lighting strikes. Global areas where outbreaks of influenza are virtually non-existent, such as Africa and the Tropics,  show higher rates of lightning strikes.

Seasonal weather variations can likewise be characterized by lightning activity. It is low in the cooler months when outbreaks are more likely, and higher in warmer months when lightning occurs more frequently, and incidences of flu drop off dramatically. These differences may be explained by differences in humidity, leading to differences in water vapor pressure. [ed. – while not proven, this is a fascinating claim, and well thought out.]

Host body temperature differences infer varying internal thermal radiation patterns. For example, a dog’s body temperature is higher than that of a human. Dogs and humans contract different viral infections. But the human body’s temperature rises during viral infections. Different internal thermal radiation occurs.

There are many implications for humidity and temperature differences leading to different viral behaviors. H2O resonances at different vapor pressures, and thermal radiation at different frequencies and intensities, create together complex mechanical systems that can be exploited by different strains of coronaviruses, with different spike and body construction.

But while the mechanics of a phonographic record player are a metaphor, a coronavirus like influenza plays a deadly music, composed by thermal radiation, pressed onto a record made of water vapor. It seems likely that other deadly viruses might be found in the same record collection.

About the writer:

David Plummer is a self-titled propellerhead who studied mathematics at Harvard University, before concerning himself with hardware and software systems. The math rock star he admires most is Alan Turing.

These days he spends his time doting on his granddaughters, Grace and Zoey, with assistance from his beloved wife of 40 years, Joan, their children Devon and Nathan, and their inspirations, Vivian and Kate.

David has been known to read papers about mice that have Alzheimer’s and then build stuff for experimenting on himself. Really.

T Spoon Phillips Music for a Socially Distant Audience

Spend and Hour with Your Humble Spoon

T Spoon Phillips Live Every Wednesday!

T Spoon Phillips Live Social Distancing

Live from Brooklyn.  On YouTube Live, that is!

Each Wednesday at 3 PM Eastern (7 PM British Summer Time) and 8 PM Eastern (5 PM West Coast.)

Go to Youtube and search for onemanzguitar if you are not already a subscriber.

If the first video listed doesn’t say “LIVE,” keep refreshing your screen until it does.

T Spoon Phillips Live TODAY – 2:30 and 8:30 EDT Social Distancing

Music for a Social Distancing Audience – T Spoon Phillips

Same set, for different time zones

REMINDER: I will be performing on YouTube Live for the first time today. 2:30 PM Eastern time (7:30 British Summer Time) on channel tspnyc. And again tonight for Americans at 8:30 EDT on channel onemanzguitar.
Here is the link to tspnyc.
 
And the link for onemanzguitar.
T Spoon Phillips tspguitar.com