The bear is back.

I am back in semi-sunny California.

Part of me is compelled to write about the past 2.5 months. I feel that I owe many of you an explanation, of sorts. What the hell have I been doing? Where have I been? Who have I been with?

The other part of me is loathed to, for the simple fact that much of my experience is completely indescribable. I could answer the questions above, but would so completely fail in my retelling that the attempt hardly seems worth it.

So what do I do?

I give you answers in the form of pictures.


Meet Julius Caesar....


...and part of his senate....


Uh Oh. Cassius is upset about something. Brutus listens...


Now they're laughing at Casca.


Cassius and Casca talk about the portentous storm...that they're in.


Conspirators in cloaks...like Death Eaters. Oooooooo....


Brutus & Portia ...


Caesar & Calpurnia


The conspirators get nervous....


But they kill him anyway.


Ouch.


Cassius hands Brutus the sword...



Et tu, Brute?


Enter Mark Antony.



Cassius wishes they had killed Mark Antony, too...



Mark Antony mourns Caesar's murder, and vows revenge!
"...Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice, cry, 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war! That this foul deed shall smell above the earth, with carrion men groaning for burial."



...and reads the will of Caesar to the Roman People...



...who go crazy and arrest and hurt Cinna the Poet. Because her name is Cinna.


The forming of the second Triumvirate: Mark Antony, Octavius, Lepidus



Trouble in Liberator Paradise...



and four pages later, they make up...



Octavius and Mark Antony: pre-battle bad asses!



Cassius & Brutus say goodbye: "Forever, and forever, farewell."



BATTLE!



MORE BATTLE!



In an act of desperation and defeat, Cassius commits suicide with the help of Pindarus.



Brutus finds Cassius dead, and in an act of honor, commits suicide as well.



The Triumvirate is victorious, order returns to Rome.

Images from the Fall Festival of Shakespeare:


Audience from the floor to the rafters...for all 10 shows.


My boss, the Director of Education at Shakespeare & Co., Kevin Coleman.


We stop at nothing to raise money. Yes, he's dressed as a Mountie.


The closing of the Festival, a dance called The Reverance.


Sunset before our last school performance.

This is the culmination of 10 weeks of work. This is what I've been doing, where I've been, and who I've been spending my time with; proudly.

The honest answer, in as brief as I can provide, is that this project is the best thing I do. Bar none. It's the best use of my creativity, my intelligence, my stamina, my patience, and my self. I am infinitely lucky.

I was on a research binge last night on wikipedia, and I was reading about Dante's Inferno, from The Divine Comedy. Having only read selections in college, I had completely forgotten that Brutus & Cassius are two of the three traitors chewed in the three mouths of Satan. The ninth and deepest level of hell is reserved for Traitors, says good ol' Dante. In case any of you forgot, or did not know, the third traitor occupying Satan's middle mouth, is Judas Iscariot.

As I was reading about this, I thought about Shakespeare, and how he probably read Dante's Divine Comedy in school, or at the very least had a working knowledge of the content. Then I thought about Shakespeare's play, and how brilliantly Shakespeare avoids having an opinion as to which side, the conspirators or the Triumvirs, were "right," and how humanly he writes Brutus and Cassius.

Then I pictured Shakespeare giving the middle finger to Dante, and I smiled.

More to come...on other things.
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