HELENA Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world. Then how can it be said that I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me? #MidsummerND2026 Act II s1 (223-26)

HELENA Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd: Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase #MidsummerND2026 II,1,230-231 William Shakespeare Arden 1979

„Also etwas Philanthropisches, nicht wahr?“ „Du willst hier gleich etwas Schlechtes sehen. Nein, nichts Philanthropisches, sondern eine Angelegenheit des Herzens.“  #Tolstoyreadalong VII,9

. . . the spring, the summer, The chiding autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. #midsummerND2026 Act II s1 (111-14)

#MidsummerND2026  II,1,115-117 William Shakespeare Arden 1979 TITANIA And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original.

„… trotz des Wunsches Stepan Arkadjewitschs, den sie beide teilten, hatten sie einander nichts zu sagen und fühlten das.“  #TolstoyReadalong VII,8

FLUTE Nay, faith, let not me play a woman: I have a beard coming. #MidsummerND2026 I,2,41-42 William Shakespeare Arden 1979

“Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude, before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding-day at night.” #midsummernd2026

„Alle, so schien es, hatten mit ihren Hüten auch ihre Sorgen und Aufregungen in der Portiersloge zurückgelassen und waren dabei, in aller Ruhe die materiellen Güter des Lebens zu geniessen.“  #Tolstoyreadalong Anna Karenina VII,7

Why, even a deathless god who came upon that place would gaze in wonder, heart entranced with pleasure. Hermes, the guide, the mighty giant-killer, stood there, spellbound . . . Homer / The Odyssey Bk 5

#MidsummerND2026 Is this the most musically poetic play we've read? Hermia: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Helena: Oh, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! Hermia: I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Helena: Oh, that my prayers could such affection move! (I.1.198-201)

HELENA Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. #Midsummernd2026 Act I s1 (234-35)

#MidsummerND2026 I,1,168-170 HERMIA My good Lysander I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head OVID Metamorphoses I That which causes love is of gold, and is brilliant, with a sharp point; that which repels it is blunt, and contains lead beneath the reed.

„Natürlich ist mir das alles gleich, aber trotzdem schäme ich mich—es ist ja so unbeschreiblich dumm, dachte Lewin. Er tröstete sich nur damit, dass alle es geradeso machten.“ #Tolstoyreadalong Anna Karenina VII,6

La ciudad ideal. Anónimo florentino, c. 1470.

“This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man’s revenue.” #midsummernd2026

#MidsummerND2026 (I.1.32-37)

Ahoy, Shipmates & Friends! Happy #MelvilleMonday ! 🐳 “A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.” ~ Moby-Dick, C 16, “The Ship” Illustration by Patrick Benson

langersehnt 💦

„Lewin führte den Nachweis, dass der Fehler Wagners und seiner Schüler in dem Bestreben bestehe, mit ihrer Musik auf andere Kunstgebiete überzugreifen, womit sie genau so in die Irre gingen wie die Poesie, wenn sie etwa die Züge eines Gesichts beschriebe, was alleinige Aufgabe der Malerei sei.“

Wood, night, imagination, dream. These are the coordinates of the second form of sight…magical thinking. ... Magical thinking answers a deep human need. It is a way of making sense of things that would otherwise seem painfully arbitrary--things like love and beauty. (2/2)

THESEUS Hippolyta, I wood thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling. #MidsummerND2026 I,1,16-17 William Shakespeare Arden 1979 1+

Happy #MelvilleMonday 🐳! „Es ist sozusagen der Roman, an dem festgemacht werden kann, was das spezifisch Amerikanische an der Hochstapelei ist. Bei den Amerikanern heisst es ja Confidence game, also man schenkt jemandem Vertrauen. Im Gegensatz zum deutschen ‚Hochstapler‘ geht 1

#MidsummerND2026 begins July 13, 2026- A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's truly essential works…nowhere else is his double vision more apparent than in this play’s movement between city & the wood, day & night, reason & imagination, waking life & dream. RSC intro. (1/2)

Haw! Haw! Haw! . . . Of all the laughs that strictly speaking are not laughs, but modes of ululation, only three I think need detain us, I mean the bitter, the hollow and the mirthless. Beckett / Watt

When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the true son of Odysseus sprang from bed and dressed, over his shoulder he slung his well-honed sword, fastened rawhide sandals under his smooth feet and stepped from his bedroom, handsome as a god. Homer / The Odyssey Bk 2

#Tolstoyreadalong „Es sind ja so begabte Kinder. Die Hauptsache ist die moralische Erziehung. Das ist es vor allem, was ich lerne, wenn ich mir Ihre Kinder ansehe.“ “Sie sprechen von der Erziehung zu einem gesitteten Lebenswandel. Es ist kaum zu glauben, wie schwierig das ist! 1+

„Es schmeichelte seinem Selbstgefühl, dass ein so gelehrter Mann so gern und mit so lebhafter Aufmerksamkeit vor ihm seine Gedankengänge entwickelte, ihm eine umfassende Kenntnis der Materie zutraute und sich manchmal nur auf Andeutungen glaubte beschränken zu können.“  #Tolstoyreadalong VII,3

"There is one whose path is the narrowest, and she is happier and better than I." #GeorgeMoore #AMereAccident

„Ob die Arbeit, die zur Erwerbung des Geldes erforderlich gewesen war, dem Genuss entsprach, den man sich dafür verschaffen konnte—diese Frage machte ihm jetzt bald keine Kopfschmerzen mehr…“ #Tolstoyreadalong Anna Karenina VII,2

„Es war ja ein so quälender Gedanke, dass es einen Menschen gab, der einem fast als Feind gelten musste und dem man am liebsten aus dem Wege ging“, sagte Lewin. „Ich bin sehr, sehr froh.“  #Tolstoyreadalong Anna Karenina VII,1

To spare him therefore she also avoided discussion; she kept him down by refusing to quarrel with him. #WingsOfTheDove #HenryJames

His Majesty desired . . . nothing less than reducing the whole Empire of Blefuscu into a Province [but] . . . I plainly protested, that I would never be an Instrument of bringing a free and brave People into Slavery: Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels

Monday Miscellanea, 7/6/26 ☀️ What’s been happening? Not much, to be honest. katenread.wordpress.com/2026/07/06/m...

#Tolstoyreadalong VI,31 „Aber es war mehr als nur der kalte und böse Blick eines sich verfolgt fühlenden, erbitterten Menschen, der bei diesen zärtlichen Worten in seinen Augen funkelte. Sie bemerkte diesen Blick und erriet instinktiv seine Bedeutung. 1+

Ahoy, Shipmates & Friends! Happy #MelvilleMonday ! 🐳

“In 1841, the earnest young man sneaked out on his unpaid landlady and signed on with the New Bedford whaler Acushnet, bound for the South Seas. He was 21, eager and shockingly open-minded, yearning not just to see but to live.” #MelvilleMonday

For in truth the same things happen to us all, especially to men in our situation, whatever that is, if only we chose to know it. Beckett / Watt

#AsYou2026 Day 27, 7/6- Act V s4 from 129 JAQUES DES BOIS. Let me have audience for a word or two I am the second son of Sir Rowland to end of play. Thanks for reading with my mom & me- Did you like this play too? I plan to watch it soon. Hope to see you for #MidsummerND2026 on July 13th! 📚

“”I charge you , O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women, (as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them,) that between you and the women the play may please.” #asyou2026

Satie until July 13th for #MidsummerND2026 🎶🥰 @christina500.bsky.social youtu.be/AuuQGV3hqtM?...

Lewin „begriff nur, dass es sich hier um irgendeinen Winkelzug handelte, aber es langweilte ihn, darüber nachzudenken, worin er eigentlich bestand.“  #TolstoyReadalong VI,30 Anna Karenina

ROSALIND I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you.  #AsYou2026 EPILOGUE 11-12

„Le jour tombait, un humide crépuscule agaçait les nerfs; il regarda la tombe et y ensevelit sa dernière larme de jeune homme, cette larme arrachée par les saintes émotions d'un cœur pur, une de ces larmes qui, de la terre où elles tombent, rejaillissent jusque dans les cieux.“ #BalzacTogether

Meditation over kindness received seemed to have softened him something, too, it may be, beyond what might, perhaps, have been looked for from one whose unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act of being aided, might have appeared to some not […] [Original post on mastodon.social]