Yea Aulde Library

When I was in high school* I often went to the library after school, before going home. So much so that to this day I can't set foot in my library (the same one of my youth) without needing to go to the bathroom--since that was the first thing I would do after school. I'm 42 years old and still conditioned.

I'm on a bit of a Shakespeare bender right now, which brings me back to those high school library visits. Sometimes I would take the gigantic tome of complete Shakespeare, and just sit at a table and read. Eventually my parents bought me my own.

But I also loved to borrow the VHS and LP productions. I remember sitting in my bedroom by the LP-tape player my mother bought me, under head phones, listening to Shakespeare and opera.

I watched the tapes of the BBC's 1970s TV series of Shakespeare. I don't know if I watched all of them; and as my college Shakespeare teacher rightly pointed out, some of the productions were quite stilted. But it was about all the library had, so it was good enough for me. And there were lots of great actors, like Alan Rickman, Derek Jacobi, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, Tim Piggot-Smith, John Rhys-Davies, Claire Bloom, Julian Glover, Kate Nelligan, Sinéad Cusack, Patrick Stewart, John Cleese, Jonathan Pryse, Anthony Hopkins, Penelope Wilton, Bob Hoskins, Ben Kingsley, etc.

I'm watching Shakespeare Uncovered (once again, borrowed from the library--I recommend) and they show clips from those old versions, which is what got me thinking about them.

...I don't have anything heavy-deep to say. Just revisiting an old love, rediscovering an old part of myself.

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* Meaning grades 7-11. We only have one level of secondary school in Quebec, and it only goes to grade 11.