A dozen Oberon members gathered in the garden room at Hogan's restaurant on Twelve Mile last evening for our annual holiday get-together. Richard Joyrich toasted Oberons present and absent. We spoke of beads, books, grand-babies, work, travel, Anonymous, the SAC rebuttal to SBT, and where and when we will meet in the future now that the Farmington Hills Community Library is not available to us. Rosey Hunter spoke of support by friends and family and we felt the loss of our dear friend, Tom, so very much. Tom Townsend shared that he is preparing a version of his and Tom Hunter's joint paper on Romeo and Juliet -- that he delivered at the 2011 SOS/SF conference -- for a future edition of The Oxfordian. We are grateful to Tom Townsend and Richard Joyrich for making the arrangements to allow us to share fellowship on a rainy night in Michigan and we all wish our readers the joys of conviviality this holiday season.
James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said. “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.” She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out...