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Miss Louise Might Be Turning Over in Her Grave

October 13, 2006

Miss Louise Might Be Turning Over in Her Grave
. . . But Dr. Pilkington’s Not Dead Yet, As Best I Can Tell

I have studied with some storied professors both at Ole Miss and at Columbia University in New York. I have also benefited from study with my most erudite mom, Miss Louise. (No, this isn’t about Nashville as I had promised previously . . .)

One of my professors, Dr. John Pilkington, is perhaps best known as a Faulkner scholar and lecturer at the Yoknapatawpha Conference held annually in Oxford, MS on the campus there. Yet it was the Pilkington graduate courses in Shakespeare for which I remember him most. Seems like another life . . . or two or three ago . . .

Now, my little dance with Shakespeare actually precedes Dr. Pilkington because none other than Miss Louise herself was a devotee of the bard . . . and I never could escape her influence . . . her nudging me along toward one goal or another . . . her quoting of favorite lines from Hamlet, MacBeth and King Lear, when she wasn’t quoting Beowulf or The Wife of Bath, that is, or telling me about rules of grammar . . . her teaching me at an early age to pronounce the names of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

@ Such is life and such was when my bell got rung just yesterday here in this life . . . here, now, today . . . by a suggestion from one of our Betty’s List frequent flyers, Karen, who has herself a bit of a habit of flying in and out as she pleases . . . I have alerted homeland security.

“Any who,” as they say . . . the suggestion came our way from this reader and sometimes contributor, the aforementioned Karen, that we take yet another look at yet another YouTube video . . . and behold . . . I’m in the presence of a most unique rendition of Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii, featuring . . . cats! It's none other than the Cat Head Theatre, already viewed 436,782 times!

If you are a dog lover who cares not a hoot for cats, just don’t go! If you are like me, one who marvels at all-things-feline, then by all means, do!

Furthermore . . . as one who has spent considerable time and energy promoting the idea of teaching with original or authentic ocuments, I have to say this Cat Head Theatre is one piece I’d very much want my students to watch and enjoy. (Yes, I confess to having taught Shakespeare too.)

Truth be known, I’d love for my students to spend much time on YouTube because the darn thing’s so instructive in addition to being just plan fun. Make haste! Go there!

Now then come to think of it, I do recall Miss Louise had a fondness for things feline too. I dare say she would have laughed at Cat Head Theater. Sometime I must tell more . . . about what "cat head bisquits" are . . . and how it is I came to know . . .