Twig

My piece for the @royalcrownzine

Make sure to check out all the other wonderful people who worked on this amazing project!

I’m just curious how many people at some point in their lives have played/learned to play an instrument of any kind.

I included a nuance button bc I know there might be some folks who might be like “well I played the recorder in grade school but idk if that counts” — count it if you want or hit nuance if you’re unsure! 😊

To be clear, if you studied an instrument to any level of proficiency, even if you’re out of practice now, please select yes!

Back in my sophomore year of high school, my English class was reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and our teacher had the idea to have us act out the assassination scene. I don't think most of us were all that invested in the story, but no one was going to pass up an opportunity to do some stabbing. So the teacher divided the roles amongst the class, with himself playing Caesar. He also handed out wooden rulers to everyone whose character participated in the stabbing. I was playing Brutus, and as a result got a yardstick as a sword instead. We were of course told to not actually hit or stab with them, despite the subject matter.

We got the scene started, and set the kid playing Casca, the first to stab Caesar, to sneak around the back of the room, ruler in hand while the rest of us did our lines. Now, the scripts we were reading from were our bulky English textbooks that never wanted to stay open on the page you wanted. As Brutus, I had it balanced on one knee, struggling to keep it open and also hold my yardstick sword as I kneeled for the scene.

The kid who played Casca, however, had left his behind in favor of his sneaking. Honestly, I don't know if having the script in front of him would have changed how things turned out at all.

When Casca stabs Caesar, he does it with the line "Speak, hands for me!". This isn't what happened in our reenactment.

Instead, he yelled, "Speak hands, idiot!" and slammed the ruler into the teacher's back.

In a manner truly befitting the context, things dissolved into chaos after that, as everyone playing a conspirator scrambled forward to stab our teacher while we could.

As for me and my yardstick, I was the last to stab, and had to wait through the frenzy to do so, but I did get my chance, and did get "et tu"-ed, which was pretty satisfying, if I do say so myself.

Afterwards, when things had calmed down some, our teacher had us do the scene again, actually entirely following the script this time. I also heard that he did this again the next year, so I guess no lessons were learned for anyone.

sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff

A Brazilian guinea pig (Cavia aperea) with a pup in Sao Paolo, Brazil

(I added a short little summary for each Class explaining the basic gist of it. Although obviously you can also look them up to get more detailed info)