As I was digging up background on Shakespeare's biography and criticism of "The Tempest," I became fixated on the question of what drink to serve to the gangsters. Dark n' Stormy, duh. I started digging up recipes, learned that Gosling's Brothers have actually a trademark on the drink, which they require to be served with 1.5 oz of their Black Seal rum (ginger beer to taste, lime optional). The island of Bermuda is involved in this somehow. On BookGang island, though, trademark violations are encouraged. We drank Meyer's and Bicardi, and we talked about the play and the Caliban poems from Virgil Suarez's Guide to the Blue Tongue. Poetry and drama! Bookgang firsts.
In the last book we discussed, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Lord Henry remarks that interesting people make poor artists, while uninteresting people make for geniuses. As an interesting person, I hope this isn't true. But this may be true in Shakespeare's case. That is, whether or not he was interesting is lost to the past. He wasn't brawler like Ben Johnson or a political double agent, like Christopher Marlowe. We're never going to know much about Shakespeare as a man, besides what we know already: he had a wife, a few kids, he acted, he ran a successful theater. He wrote memorable poetry and 38 genius, immortal plays. "The Tempest" is generally regarded as the last play the Bard wrote by himself, and so it's almost easy to read Prospero's final address to the audience almost seems to be Shakespeare's valediction to the theater, to his own art: release me from my bands / With the help of your good hands... / Let your indulgence set me free.
We clapped and set to work on our own dark arts.
-J
