Presume not that I am the thing I was... (Hen IV 2, V.v) #ShakespeareSunday

How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness everywhere! (Sonner 97) #ShakespeareSunday

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving with your relatives, may your family gathering be less awkward than Karoline Leavitt's.

"Merry” and “tragical”? “Tedious” and “brief”? That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow! How shall we find the concord of this discord? (AMND V.i) #ShakespeareSunday

Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; a' parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide... (HV, 2.3) #ShakespeareSunday

*But when I came, alas, to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, By swaggering could I never thrive For the rain it raineth every day." (TN, V.i) #ShakespeareSunday

Immortal gods, I crave no pelf; I pray for no man but myself: Grant I may never prove so fond, To trust man on his oath or bond; Or a harlot, for her weeping; Or a dog, that seems a-sleeping: Or a keeper with my freedom; Or my friends, if I should need 'em. (ToA 1.2) #ShakespeareSunday

2020: Well, DJT may have been a bad President, but at least he didn't start a nuclear war, amirite? 2025: Umm...

I suppose it's not every family who imitates Disney characters performing Hamilton excerpts over dinner. My Mickey Mouse rendition of the lines, "Uh-oh, you made the wrong sucker a cuckold! / Time to pay the piper for the pants you unbuckled!" was pretty menacing, if I may say so myself.

ROSS And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain), Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would Make war with mankind. OLD MAN ’Tis said they eat each other. (Macb 2.4) #ShakespeareSunday

ROSS And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain), Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would Make war with mankind. OLD MAN ’Tis said they eat each other. Macb 2.4 #ShanespeareSunday

"I have almost forgotten the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t: I have supt full with horrors." (Macb, V.v) #ShakespeareSunday

AUTOLYCUS I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your Worship and to give me your good report to the Prince my master. SHEPHERD Prithee, son, do, for we must be gentle now we are gentlemen. CLOWN Thou wilt amend thy life? (WT, 5.4) #ShakespeareSunday

Archie Bunker served during WWII. Even he was Antifa.

8 AM meetings are more tolerable when your coworker brings a homemade French toast casserole and a bottle of maple syrup.

"I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love, And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium." (2GoV, II.vii) #ShakespeareSunday

"Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are.* (Sonnet 104) #ShakespeareSunday

What if the files reveal that Amelia Earhart's plane crashed on Epstein's island?

I feel something like pity for someone who brags about hating.

"But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale." (AMND, I.ii) #ShakespeareSunday

Back in 1999, when he was appearing on both Win Stein's Money and The Man Show, did you suspect Jimmy Kimmel one day would be a casualty in the War on Free Speech?

"A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind, Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind." Comedy of Errors, III.i #ShakespeareSunday

"...To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." KJ, 4.2, #ShakespeareSunday

NYT gave the possible solution to yesterday's Letter Boxed "HASHTAG GLAMORIZE". I had solved it with "MOHELS STRATEGIZE".

"Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally..." (H6P2, 4.7) #ShakespeareSunday

"True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings." (Richard III, V.ii) #ShakespeareSunday

1ST MURDERER Where’s thy conscience now? 2ND MURDERER O, in the Duke of Gloucester’s purse. 1ST MURDERER When he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out. 2ND MURDERER ’Tis no matter. Let it go. There’s few or none will entertain it. (Rich III, I.iv) #ShakespeareSunday

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: (Ding-dong.) Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell. #ShakespeareSunday

Why am I seeing so many posts about #hashbrowns ? Did someone famous make a memorable comment about them, or is this just like the time everyone spontaneously posted pictures and gifs of Kevin James for no obvious reason?

as Friar Be absolute for death. Either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep. (MfM III.I) #ShakespeareSunsay

Remember how when he ran casinos, he always stiffed the contractors? Maybe one will get his revenge by working on the new White House ballroom and wallpapering it with the Epstein files.

"If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work, But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents." (Henry IV P. 1, I.ii) #ShakespeareSunday

I think it's okay to mourn for a celebrity from your childhood even if they turned out to be a terrible person. You may simply be mourning a time in your life that you miss, and there's nothing wrong with that.

First Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? Second Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants. (Hamlet, V.i) #ShakespeareSunday

I'm old enough to remember when another alleged r*pist told us to try the new Coke.

"It touches us as France invades our land, Not bolds the king with others whom I fear Most just and heavy causes make oppose." (Lear, V.i) Act V was fun to play Albany in. After I spent 4 acts mostly in the background while other actors carried the weight, the play became Albany vs. Edmund.

Pop sci-fi has always been "woke". Yes, there are exceptions to that, but pop sci-fi is like good comedy: it punches up. Isn't it easier and more fun to root for the scrappy underdog rebels than the fascist empire? The original Star Trek used political allegory that was about as subtle as a (1/)

O, for a muse of fire that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! (Henry V, Prologue) #ShakespeareSunday

Some don't feel like celebrating Independence Day this year, and I get it. And some, just as disheartened by recent events, are still determined, perhaps more than ever, to celebrate something, some dream of the "great unfinished symphony", still unfinished 250 years in. And I get that too.

"I have seen tempests when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen Th’ ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds; But never till tonight, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire."-JC (1.iii) #ShakespeareSunday

"MESSENGER I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. "BEATRICE No. An he were, I would burn my study." (Much Ado, I.i) #ShakespeareSunday

Here's a Father's Day PSA: deciding how to divide your estate among your children (and their spouses) by asking them to give speeches about how much they love you is a bad idea. Don't believe me? Watch the cautionary tale of King Lear, opening this Friday. scp.booktix.com/dept/main/e/...

MIRANDA Alack, what trouble Was I then to you! PROSPERO O, a cherubin Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile, Infusèd with a fortitude from heaven... (Tempest, I.ii) #ShakespeareSaturday

"Thou art armed, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound. If none appear to prove upon thy person Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons, There is my pledge. I’ll make it on thy heart, Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less Than I have here proclaimed thee." (Lear, V.iii) #ShakespeareSunday

This moment was inevitable. When two divas each always have to be the star, they can share the stage for only so long. I'm mildly surprised their relationship lasted as long as it did. Will it matter in the long run? Maybe not, but I'll squeeze whatever ounce of schadenfreude out of this I can get.

"That handkerchief...She told her, while she kept it, ’Twould make her amiable and subdue my father Entirely to her love. But if she lost it, Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye Should hold her loathèd, and his spirits should hunt After new fancies " Othello, III.iv #ShakespeareSunday

"Get you gone, you dwarf, You minimus of hind’ring knotgrass made, You bead, you acorn—" (AMND, III.ii) #ShakespeareSunday

"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." (Hamlet, II.ii) #ShakespeareSunday

TOUCHSTONE: This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them? ROSALIND: Peace, you dull fool. I found them on a tree. TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. (AYLI, III.ii) #ShakespeareSunday

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion..." (Lear, I.ii) #ShakespeareSunday