On the Hollow Crown

So, this morning, when everybody have left the house, I have put on my Mercutio hat, helped myself with some red velvet cake ice cream, got out my Oxford Shakespeare, and - long live the Pirate Bay! - sat down to watch The Hollow Crown's Henry IV Part 1.

One word - mainstream.

There was some great acting going on, the decorations and costumes were amazing, and I loved of the some blocking solutions. But they have butchered the text!
They have done a very nice job doing it, though, changing the sequence of the scenes for dramatic purposes, and cutting out everything, that wasn't clear as the summer day. That, I am sorry to say, includes a great deal of Falstaff.
Henry IV is really all about Falstaff. And Shakespeare is all about the words, the words and people who speak them.
Here BBC tries to make the four plays that were, most likely, never planned as a single dramatic unity, into an epic story accessible for the masses and still fundamental for English-speaking culture. I understand why they make these choices. But, uh, great expectations. I think I'll go and watch the Globe production then.

And again, nice job. But now the tag "shakespeare" on my tumblr dashboard is full of Tom Hiddleston.

Raison d'être

Hello, people.
My name is Xenia (a Greek word for "hospitality" and a pretty common Russian name).

About year ago my family and I moved from Vladivostok, Russia (an odd and awesome place), here to South Florida, not much less odd in a way.
I have had a blog before (if anyone reads Russian and cares), but a couple of month ago I have gotten to a point, where I would rather blog about some things, that demand me to operate with English-speaking thought, or cultural concepts, in English. So here I go...
I am very curious to see the relationship between the posts in English and the ones that demand Russian from me.

As for what I am:
I am sixteen, looking forward towards my junior year in high school. Yeah, and I'm in IB, if it means anything.

For about a couple of years now my whole world revolves around one word, philology. It's old fashioned in English, but the definition, given by Marriam-Webster, is perfect: "the study of literature and of disciplines relevant to literature or to language as used in literature". 
I love Classics, and the whole span of Greek literature/language to death, adore and know my Russian lit, and have recently dug into Shakespeare. I am eager to learn and understand any part of the humanities, because eventually it all will work out to be some concept I will have my Ph.D. on.
All this stuff is so important to me, not only because it amuses me beyond any proper rates, but helps me to become a better person, and, eventually, it will be my way of making world a better place. 


For the other things I care about, they are the typical mass culture/geeky things. American mass culture is awesome and also tends to amuse me beyond any proper rate.
Art, I love art to: theater, baroque, posters of any age.
I am very happy to see people, who are enthusiastic about something, and are willing to share their enthusiasm with the world. I love learning from them. 


Stuff I'll blog about:
The nerdy stuff, the geeky stuff, some high school stuff (don't worry, nothing too sixteen year old), and a bit on my emigrant's fate (I detest in defying me so much, but it does, so I have to accept it, and work with it).