My husband is a man of simple pleasures: give him a Mariners game on TV and/or a movie that involves a timeless, yet medieval- tinged setting where men behead each other (i.e. Highlander), and he's good. I was a little surprised the other day when he reminded me that he likes the almond butter with flaxseeds and not the peanut butter with flaxseeds from Trader Joe's that I'd bought. Looks like someone's getting a bit of a diva complex.
As you can imagine, he's been waiting with bated breath for the "Game of Thrones" series to start on HBO. His face lit up like a little kid's on Christmas morning when he realized it was finally on last night. Being the good wife that I am (and having caught up on all my Real Housewives trash), I watched it with him at his request. It featured topless wenches with lots of flowing hair, a conniving dwarf, a riotous banquet scene, and—yes—frequent and gratuitous beheadings. In other words, it was exactly like every other medieval-tinged action flick I've sat through with him in the past 15 years.
So, Shake-Ball, what do you think? Should I keep supporting him in this habit? I don't ask him to join me in my reality TV binges. Plus, watching all of these topless nubile lasses is giving me a complex about my, er, hair.
Answer: "I wonder men dare trust themselves with men. Methinks they should invite them without knives: Good for their meat, and safer for their lives. The fellow that sits next him, now parts bread with him, pledges the breath of him in a divided draught, is the readiest man to kill him." (Timon of Athens 1.2. 43-45)
Interpretation: Wow, you sound just like the show! I swear this is exactly what the bastard son of the King of one the Seven Kingdoms told the angry dwarf just before the big banquet scene. Oh, Christ, now I can't even enjoy my Shakespeare without channeling the ghost of Dungeons and Dragons games gone by. That settles it. No more sitting next to him through this. It sounds like someone's going to get knifed if I do. There can be only one.
Sorry to say, but you only have a little more time to pull together an emergency rescue plan for that stringy mop on your head because THE HOBBIT has just begun filming. If you're at all interested in banking some good will with that blood-thirsty man of yours, tell him about the just-released 10 minute behind the scenes look at the production, hosted by the King of Middle Earth himself, Peter Jackson:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-20054071-10391705.html
It's not 16th century England, and not everyone stands above five feet, but there will be plenty o' beheadings, lots of shimmery broadswords, meats and ales clinging to scraggly beards, stinky men embracing each other for battles won, one particularly important piece of jewelry, and in this clip, a Maori Blessing Chant. And not to rub salt in your pork, but my wife CAN'T WAIT for it.