Coffee, Hamlet, Lion King, Much Ado, world travel, used books, and a star-crossed windowsill

I went to coffee with the debaters last night. Josh talked about how his friends analyzed The Lion King and discovered it had the same plot as Hamlet, only with a happy ending. The king's brother murders the king, tries to marry the queen, and sends the prince off into “emotional exile”; an array of friends bumble around; the ghost of the king appears to the prince, says “Remember me,” and convinces him to confront his uncle; and there's a final duel. So then I shared how when my friends analyzed The Lion King we noticed how it was about growing up and becoming what you were born to be, rather than what you irresponsibly wanted to be, and further ended with an arranged marriage that made everyone happy. Quite a movie. We also analyzed our schools' productions of Much Ado and compared them to the Kenneth Branagh one. We immediately decided that our families needed to have a Much Ado fest.

I went to coffee with the Bible study girls this morning. One is leaving for Russia tomorrow, another is going to South Africa within a week, and a third is going back home to Texas with her husband and baby. It's impressive we all managed to be in town at the same time.

After that I spent $2.15 at the library used book store and acquired six books: The Tolkien Reader, Virginia Woolf (to be a well-rounded lit major), Edgar Allen Poe, Alistair McGrath, George Kennan, and the first Dune book. Life is good, though I mysteriously don't have any shelf space again. But I did take three bags of stuff to the thrift shop this afternoon.

In other news, I read how a visitor to a Cambridge museum tripped over his shoelace, fell down the stairs, and shattered an entire windowsill full of Qing vases. Apparently, they'd been there for the last 40 years and never quite made it to a display case. The museum expressed gratitude the visitor was not injured.