#AntonyandCleo_2026 Antony: Come, good fellow, put thine iron on. If fortune be not ours today, it is Because we brave her. Come. (IV.4.4-6) Thou fumblest, Eros, and my Queen’s a squire More tight at this than thou. (IV.4.20-21)

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 27, 5/27- Loc. Outside Alexandria. Act IV s5 - Antony's camp. SOLDIER. Thee gods make this a happy day to Antony! Act IV s6 - Caesar's camp. CAES. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.

#ForsyteSaga26 "In this search, who knows what he thought and what he sought? Bread for hunger—light in darkness?"

The pear tree makes another appearance, “bare of leaves before its time…with gaunt branches” #forsytesaga26

#Dickens2026_DC Day 8, 5/26- Ch. XI. I Begin Life on My Own Account, and Don't Like It. At Mudstone & Grinby's warehouse, London, Blackfriars. The Micawber family & child's cup of ale. "...me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences & sordid things."

#Dickens2026_DC Day 7, 5/25- Ch. X. I Become Neglected, and Am Provided For "See how our house and church are lessening in the distance, how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening object, how the spire points upward from my old playground no more, and the sky is empty!"

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Antony: Perchance tomorrow You’ll serve another master. I look on you As one that takes his leave. (IV.2.38-40)

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 26, 5/26- Loc. Alexandria, battle day. Act IV s3 1ST SOL. Brother, good night: tomorrow is the day. Act IV s4 ANT. Eros! Mine armour, Eros! to CLEO. He goes forth gallantly. That he & Caesar might Determine this great war in single fight! Then Antony--but now...Well, on.

Tick, tick, tick. A Hill House moment ... Interior detail. Charles Rennie Mackintosh. 1903. Photo: Paul Brunsdon.

His greatest comfort was to go to Winifred's, and take the little Darties in his carriage over to Kensington Gardens.... P3C2 #Forsytesaga26 Immediacy and innocence of young children who are a welcome distraction from adult worries.

My childhood: the elevator at Macy's in Manhattan (the escalator had wooden steps and hand rails!). Recently: tiny elevator (capacity: 3 persons!) in an old mansion in New Orleans' Lower Garden District.

OPHELIA There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it “herb of grace” o’ Sundays. You may wear your rue with a difference. Hamlet IV,5,204-207

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 25, 5/25- Act IV s1 CAES. He calls me boy, and chides as he had power Act IV s2 ANT. He will not fight with me, Domitius?

ENOBARBUS. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood The dove will peck the estridge Act III s13 #AntonyandCleo_2026 Antony now reduced to a dove. 🧐 *estridge: ostrich/goshawk

LIFT IT UP ©️

End of 2025-2026 season, Arsenal (f. 1886) are number 1. TWENTY-TWO YEARS. (2003-2004 year, "The Invincibles") #TopoftheTable #Arsenal #WestSideGooners #Gooners

CLEO. Not know me yet? ... From my cold heart let heaven engender hail And poison it in the source, and the first stone Drop in my neck: as it determines, so Dissolve my life! Act III s13 #AntonyandCleo_2026 Panicky Antony; steely, clear-eyed Cleopatra. #Breakup

“let the old ruffian know I have many other ways to die; meantime Laugh at his challenge.” #antonyandcleo_2026

#ForsyteSaga26 Of their seaside holidays... "Each section, in the vineyard of its own choosing, grew and culled and pressed and bottled the grapes of a pet sea-air." This wonderfully strange metaphor is so oblique, yet so exact.

#Dickens2026_DC week 2 starts 5/25/26- A medium-fast read of David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens. Mon. 5/25 (U.S. Memorial Day). X T. 5/26. XI W. 5/27. XII Th. 5/28. XIII F. 5/29. XIV S. 5/30. XV Sun. Catch-up day

Imagine reading this in installments back in 1850- on the edge one one's seat literally! I am going between Modern Library 1950 ed (falling apart) and Signet ed 1980: both are unabridged whereas other versions are from the abridged/edited version from the initial installment publication!

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 24, 5/24- Act III s13 line 104 [Enter Antony & Enobarbus.] ANT. Favours? By jove, that thunders! What art thou, fellow? to end of sc., ENOB. ...When valour preys on reason, It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek Some way to leave him. [Exit]

“To be furious Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood The dove will peck the estridge” #antonyandcleo_2026

#Dickens2026_DC Day 6, 5/23/26- IX. I Have A Memorable Birthday. "I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among creatures with whom I had no community of nature. ... but I held back, and moped in my corner..." "a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom"

I had to search if she was inspired by a real person but, alas, she was 100% made up by Galsworthy! Such a vivid, rounded character-

And a bit medical or food-related too. I'd have chosen smudge or spodge.

affiliated, not precisely perhaps by manner, but by birth, breeding and the true, the secret gauge, a sense of property. The daughter of a Bedfordshire solicitor, but the daughter of a clergyman, she had never...lost touch with the requirements, beliefs & inner feeling of Society... (2/2)

She took her rights unconsciously, they came natural to her, and she knew exactly how to make the most of them without executing anything but admiration amongst that great class to whom she was (1/2) P3C1 #Forsytesaga26 Mrs MacAnder (no first name), writer, plays the stock market, liberated woman.

I'm glad you asked because I didn't quite understand it myself until answering you! I just realized this connects to architecture and houses, too. (Of course Soames is having one built!) In this scene he's in a functional, useful part of a house, tho not a room one lives in. Reminds me of purgatory.

CLEO. Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear The doom of Egypt. THIDIAS. 'Tis your noblest course: Wisdom and fortune combating together, If that the former dare but what it can, No chance may shake it. Act III s13 #AntonyandCleo_2026 Wisdom lost out for them, this time. (3/3)

ENOB. I see men's judgments are A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them To suffer all alike. That he should dream ... Mine honesty and I begin to square. Act III s13 #AntonyandCleo_2026 *square: to be in conflict (2/3)

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 23, 5/23- Act III s13 Loc. Alexandria. CLEO. What shall we do, Enobarbus? ENOB. Think, and die. to 103, CLEO. As it rained kisses. [Enter Antony & Enobarbus] (1/3)

Before the evil merde-stone siblings return from wherever. (Dickens and his names!! Murdstone, Creakle, Mell, Sharp, Barkis, Peggotty, Copperfield.) #Dickens2026_DC

#Dickens2026_DC Day 5, 5/22/26- VIII. My Holidays, Especially One Happy Afternoon. "'And, Peggotty,' says I, 'I shall be glad to see you and I'll make you as welcome as a queen.' 'Bless your dear heart!' cried Peggotty. ... We sat round the fire and talked delightfully."

CAESAR (To Thidias) To try thy eloquence, now ‘tis time. #AntonyandCleo_2026 Act III s12 (26)

So, start with the voices, then. Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness (2021). Looking forward to hearing her speak- Los Angeles Literary Series #ALOUDLA on June 11th! Her new book is THE TYPING LADY. #Ozeki #TheTypingLady 📚

In a rage he lifted his foot to kick in the panel; the thought of the servants restrained him, and he felt suddenly that he was beaten. P2C14 #Forsytesaga26 Soames' superficial, insincere decency- crueler men do not care. Compare with the horrible Murdstone in David Copperfield. #Dickens2026_DC

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Week 4 begins May 22- Shakespeare was a realist as well as a romantic, a skilled politician as well as a supreme poet…perpetually both inside & outside the action, both an emotionally involved participant in the world he created & a wryly detached commentator upon it. RSC intro.

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 22, 5/22- Act III s12 Loc. Caesar's camp outside Alexandria. CAES. Let him appear that's come from Antony. Know you him? to end sc., CAES. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw, And what thou think'st his very action speaks In every power that moves. THID. Caesar, I shall.

#Dickens2026_DC Day 4, 5/21/26- VII. My "First Half" at Salem House. "...like a giant in a story-book surveying his captives."

#Dickens2026_DC "He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to say that he hadn’t a word to throw at a dog."

#forsytesaga26 All cards are out on the table between Soames and Irene in this chapter. The pacing of conflict escalation is impeccable here. The way the men control power here is so blatant, and Irene is all the more remarkable for holding her own...

ANTONY Pray you, look not sad, Nor make replies of loathness; take the hint Which my despair proclaims. Let that be left Which leaves itself  #AntonyandCleo_2026 III,11,17-20 William Shakespeare Arden, London/New York 1967

#AntonyandCleo_2026 Day 21, 5/21- Act III s11 Loc. Unspecific. ANT. Hark! The land bids me tread no more upon't It is ashamed to bear me. to end of sc., ANT. We scorn her most when most she offers blows.

Ch. III was lovely!! Reading about Yarmouth reminded me of the marshy shorelines in The Essex Serpent (2022 limited series starring Claire Danes).

SCARUS I never saw an action of such shame: Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before Did violate so itself. #AntonyandCleo_2026 Act III s10 (22-24)

So many bad things happen in books that I always try to remember to say something about solidarity of feelings -- basically, oof, yes, this was rough! -- when I heart/like a comment about something like the nasty Murdstones. BTW, their surname with "murd-" and "-stone" feels awfully, hm, meaningful.

Gotta see the words he so carefully selected! And my 1950 edition from my mom has the most amazing illustrations by a "Phiz".

#Dickens2026_DC Day 2, 5/19/26- III. I have a change. "Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called The Willing Mind." Davy & sweet Em'ly! IV. I fall into disgrace. "If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could give evidence...." Evil Mr Murdstone is here.

#Dickens2026_DC Chapter 2 "I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray sheep—I don’t mean a sinner, but mutton—half making up his mind to come into the church."