Like all good geeks I’m familiar with Neil Gaiman, mostly through Good Omens but I do have Anansi Boys on the shelf waiting for my time.  What I did not realize is that he’s got enough of a Shakespeare background to a whole section of his Wikipedia page.  I’ve only ever heard about “Sandman”, never read it, but knowing that Shakespeare himself shows up in 3 episodes, one dealing with the inspiration for The Tempest, I may have to go seek those out!  

Via LiveJournal I caught this reference to a song by Dream Theater called Pull Me Under that is apparently about Hamlet.  Consider me intrigued!   Hmmm…I’d like to know where the original poster got the reference, because the only lines I can find that are not totally generic are these:

I’ll take seven lives for one
And then my only father’s son
As sure as I did ever love him
I am not afraid   Anybody else got good songs based in Shakespeare that we might not already know about?  

Just found this.  Not sure if it’s going to be entirely posted online, or if it’s an ebook in the making or what.  But I spotted the Shakespeare references and grabbed it 🙂  Maybe the author will spot the link and chime in.  I notice that happens sometimes ;).   The Crime of the Crimea — A Swann and Parker Novel In 1882, on the stage of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon the much loved actor, Henry Donaldson, is brutally murdered. But is there more than murder afoot? Enter Detective Inspector Herbert Merriman Swann, an ex-cavalry officer and New York cop, and his trusty number two, Detective Sergeant John Parker, a young policeman with a bent for science, who, like Swann is also a fine marksman. Just a handful of years earlier, in 1879, Swann and Parker had been responsible for creating the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at Scotland Yard; so what were they doing in the relatively quiet backwater of Stratford-upon-Avon? Quiet that is until the murder of Donaldson opens up a stinking, squirming, can of worms.  

For the curious, the easily missed new movie “Arthur and the Invisibles” is apparently loaded with Shakespeare references.  I was surprised to discover that.  The opening code that the kid has to solve on his way to the treasure is supposedly a Shakespeare quote: “Some words hide other words”, or something like that.  The problem is that I can’t find anything close to this quote in any of my Shakespeare sources.  Anybody recognize it?  I find it hard to believe that they’d make up a quote and call it Shakespeare, that’d be pretty amateur.  (Although it is signed ‘Will S’ and one character says, “Who’s that, Socrates?”) Later, a battle weapon is launched in the form of two small animals named Romeo and Juliet.  Something about their love for each other and their need to be together being a powerful force.  I thought it was interesting, but unfortunately at this point my kids were getting too squirrely (it’s a fairly scary battle scene for a 4yr old), so we ended up leaving. Has anybody seen this movie?  Is there more Shakespeare?  Do they come back later and say the “Some words hide…” thing isn’t really Shakespeare after all, and that’s why it says Will S and not Shakespeare? 🙂  

I blogged about The Shakespeare Chronicles when it first came out.  It’s the story of a Professor Quandary, a meek little man who happens to trip upon the discovery of all time, the true author of Shakespeare’s works.  “Eh,” I thought, “I’ll pick it up, just to see if there’s any new theories that might be interesting.” Well, within the first few dozen pages I was ready to put it down and call it a day.  No real surprise – it’s Edward de Vere.  He doesn’t pick somebody that we’ve never heard of.  It’s something of a disappointment, and I definitely moved through some pages at the beginning saying, “That’s it?  Surely there has to be more than that.  It’s hardly like the de Vere theory is revolutionary.” Ah, but see, here’s the twist.  Dear Professor Quandary is nuts.  As in, a bonafide paranoid schizophrenic.  He speaks of himself in the third person, often referring to the Changes as an always capitalized event in his life that caused his true self to shine through.  There’s one point in the middle that I won’t spoil where I literally had to pause and say “Wait a second, he just did what?? That’s … well, crazy.” It is this “altered” Quandary who goes off on the path of discovery.  Think about that.  A paranoid schizophrenic who finds himself on the path of one of the great all time conspiracy theories.  And he thinks he’s solved it.  It actually becomes quite fascinating to read the progression as the story becomes less about Shakespeare and more about how his insanity progresses, all in the name of Shakespeare.  He sees evidence of his theory quite literally everywhere.  Everything you’ve ever heard all fits nicely into place.  The sonnets in particular are quoted heavily as keys to the puzzle.  Yes, there are new theories, it’s not just “deVere wrote them, that’s that.”  But as they’re revealed, you realize they’re being revealed by a nutcase.  So…does that mean that they’re incorrect?  Even if they make sense? So overall, I’m quite pleased.  Not quite finished yet, on about 160 out of 200 pages, and it’s dragging a bit.  But unlike the beginning where I was ready to give up on it, he’s now got my trust enough that something fascinating still has plenty of time to happen, and I’m anxious to see it through to the end.