Tipping waiters in the US tonight

Like minds, Dead. I'll start with the sonnet first, as THAT WAS MY SONNET! - early training at Shakespeare & Co., we were to have a particular sonnet to work on, and by god, that was mine...too funny. A great piece.

I am fully with you on Gielgud...it is Shakes & Co.'s philosophy that until the word is made a bodily thing, literally, it won't make sense to the actor and certainly won't make sense, therefore, to the audience. Too much of Shakespeare, I fear, is either made this precious, pedantic thing - an academic piece of dessicated nothing - or the language is tossed out of fear and we have over-directed pieces with motorcyles and a hatchet job on the text ("to fuckin' be or what? know waddimean? I mean, that is THE question, idnit?..." speech ends, cigarette tossed, walks downstage through the audience, hops on a motorcycle...exeunt). What I love about Shakespeare is that it is all there - the word is all...even emphases, or his intended emphases, are there, in the word....Warre at the end of a line is something more than war in the middle....

beautiful work.

As to the "I will wait awhile," I'm stumped...the only thing that comes to mind is when Hal disses Falstaff, on taking the throne...but then, I played Hal, so I might be blind. Is this it?

 

Nope, not it... But the name "Hal" rings a bell. Something about 'when accidents happen'... Hah!!! "And nothing pleaseth but the rare accident!!!" Is this real Shakespeare??? Or was it Marlow maybe?

North, is there a kind of internet concordance available on Shakespeare, something like blueletterbible.com which will take a word or so and find the rest?

And thank you thank you so much for taking the time to answer as you have. I very much appreciate it, north.

 

Oh, thank you, buddy. Brings back a lot of happy memories. Broke, gypsy, strapping young buck and wanton rogue...in other words, Born under the Star of Saturn and loving it.

Man - that's funny. I had a brief run as both Hal and Hotspur in Henry IV 2 (died from and killed my "other" on alternate nights - that was a blast), but should have remembered this, as the speech was one of my favorites; I later played Henry V and this very speech was close to heart. Too many years and too much sack m'self, it seems!

Henry IV, Part 1; 1:ii

I haven't seen a searchable concordance, but I'm sure it's out there. If you can, grab a folio version - in it are all the spellings, punctuations, etc., that I fully believe the Bard (whether the cobbler's son or the Seventh Earl of Oxford) intended - not typos, but a kind of early stage notes...

 

Am I wrong if I say that tipping makes no sense at all?

It's a sort of an unwritten rule which has no fundament whatsoever.

You give money to someone for being nice to you while working for someone else who already pays them, to whom you already paid what was due..?

Yes. Kinda contorted.

Try to step out of the concept itself and look at it from an outside point of view: it just makes no sense.

And, even if you accept this madness, why isn't tipping applied to any form of payment to any kind of professional?

For those who don't get it, yes I do give tips, yes I do know it's a cultural 'custom' and it's well radicated in most occidental societies. I just wanna read interesting responses.

 

That's it north!!! That's the one!!!

Hey, thanks for that. I am leaving right now to open that venue I was telling you about. First day!!! When I come back tonight I will answer you re: Augustus, i mas

But the short answer, without doubt is "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves. Not only is it insanely good writing, but Graves, besides being a fantastic writer, was also an Historian of note. He kept very close to the extat texts you made mention of. Suetonius, Tacitus, then there was the Pliny boys, etc. But Graves magnificently conveyed the extent of Augustus's impact on the world at large and gives us such a good read in the process it can hardly be over-rated. I beg you to read it.

 

From an ex-actor, break many legs, Dead. Wishing you every success.