Month: June 2022

Arrived today! Last year I got a copy of the Marvel 1961 omnibus that published the November 1961 comics published alongside Fantastic Four #1 (and before the company was even called Marvel).

This omnibus is perhaps more significant as it presents the comics published coverdated June 1962. In that month the company presented the first Spider-man, first Ant-Man and first Thor. Browsing through the omnibus shows how varied the comics Marvel published were: alongside the five superhero titles were seven girls’ romance, one western and two science fiction.

Teaching A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Year Seven this term. These are my go-to books when planning Shakespeare: Rex Gibson’s indispensable Teaching Shakespeare, which always offers some new idea or insight, and Marchette Chute’s retellings of the plays, Stories from Shakespeare. My approach is to nail down the main characters are, the plot outline and act out some quotes (usually 10) before reading the text. I definitely don’t “front load” context or The Life of Shakespeare.

Played some KotOR this afternoon (as a break from Mass Effect). Not keen how the Series X doesn’t seem to play it full screen.

I’m not entirely sure what I made of the installation of a giant spinning globe in the nave of Rochester Cathedral. It certainly looks better in photos than in real life and the crowds certainly enjoyed their selfies and Atlas-like shots of family members holding the Earth up. Two things did strike me, though. First was how the whole thing seemed to remove the usual sense of awe and mystery you get when entering a church. It could have been any indoor space. Second was how incongruous it seemed that such a non-Christian spirituality of Earth-worship, Gaia, was placed at the centre of a Christian place of worship. Noticeable was the lack of priests… and in their places people tending to the secular congregation in yellow hi-viz jackets.