Category: Uncategorized

Most of the posts in this category are simply leftovers from a previous era before the site had categories. Over time I plan to reduce that number to zero and remove this category. Until then, here they are. I had to put something in the box.

Alternate Forms for Sonnet 18

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Adam Bertocci, who brought us Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, just blew my mind. He didn’t just write half a dozen alternate versions of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnet, he wrote 22 of them.

Can you even *name* 22 different styles of poetry? I couldn’t.

Haiku version? Check.   Limerick? Of course. Petrarchan and Spenserian variations on the form? No problem.

How about one written in Abecedarian? That’s when you write your words in a____ b___ c___ sequence, and yes you include Q, X and Z, and stop at Z.

Or what about Pilish?  That’s a three letter word followed by a one letter word, then four, then one, then five… following the digits of pi (3.1415…)

Now realize that I’ve only named 6 of them. He wrote 22. Enjoy.  Very impressive, Adam!

Bad Reasons to Read Shakespeare

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

If you had to read that headline twice, don’t worry, so did I. I appreciate the acknowledgement that there are already so many reasons to read Shakespeare, but I had no idea that some of the reasons themselves might be bad.

The article first cites the whole “Shakespeare’s unusual word choice and structure makes your brain work harder” argument that came up a few years ago as the first of the bad reasons.  You want to know why it’s a bad reason?  Here, let me quote the article for you:

There are easier and quicker ways, I’m sure, to boost your neural activity if that’s what you really want to do.

I love the “I’m sure” thrown into it.  Is this your graduate thesis?  They love it when that expression comes up.  “Well no, I don’t actually have any evidence to support my case, but you know, I’m sure there is some.” Cite counter evidence or GTFO, as they say in the forums.

Second is the “easier and quicker ways” argument. I have no doubt that there are.  Not everybody evaluates their educational path by asking “What’s the quickest and easiest way for me to get there?”

The second bad reason is that reading great literature makes us more empathetic, compassionate, better people. At least, so says the 2013 paper she references.  But ha!  That paper is obviously ridiculous because there’s counter evidence … published in 1963.  Methinks the time-traveller doth protest too much.

Let me rephrase the second half of the article:  “This dude Copernicus says that the sun is the center of the universe, but I mean duh, come on, really, Ptolemy already proved that the Earth is the center of the universe, like, a thousand years ago.”

I’m all for scientific research, and if somebody publishes something that says one thing, it’s the job of those reading it to try and debunk it. I just don’t think this article does a good job.

Predictions for Julie Taymor’s Dream?

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

It looks like Julie Taymor has completed filming her upcoming A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I wasn’t a big fan of her Tempest and I’ve only seen pieces of her Titus, so I guess I’m not really into her directorial style.  But! I’m a big fan of Shakespeare on film so I’m always interested in new versions that will get some amount of distribution.

There’s not a lot of content in the article about what she plans, except for one thing.  A bed. She says that’s the “essential image” of this play.

My question is, what do you think she’s going to do with it? Is a bed supposed to work with the whole “dream” thing, or is it symbolic of some of the more sexual elements of the play?

I’m pretty sure this is just a filmed version of a stage production she directed. Has anyone seen that one?

This Story Shall The Good Man Teach His Son ( A Geeklet in the Morning Story)

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t done one of these in awhile. Bear with me as I tell the whole thing, it’s worth it.

My oldest, in middle school, gets up first to catch the bus. So she’s having breakfast and my wife says, “Who wants to take the garbage out?”

I suggest that perhaps Sarah might like to do it.

My daughter’s name is not Sarah. Neither of them get my joke. Sigh.

I fire up YouTube and begin playing Shel Silverstein’s classic Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout, would not take the garbage out. The only hint of recognition I get is when my daughter complains to my wife, “I’m trying to get out the door for the bus and daddy’s at the computer spicing hams.”

So off she goes, and soon the younger two come down for their breakfast. Because of the timing they have a much lower key breakfast, longer time to hang out and do silly things. So soon my Shel Silverstein playlist turns into Alan Sherman, which turns into Dr. Demento, and soon we’re listening to “Please Mr. Custer“.

I’m loving this, because the first record album (that’s right, I said record album) I ever ordered on my own, with my own money, from a tv commercial no less, was “Goofy Gold” that had all this great novelty stuff on it.

Anyway, my kids have no idea who General Custer is, so I explain.  In short, “He took his men out to fight the Indians but when he got there, there was like a thousand times more Indians than he thought there was, and they all got killed. This song is a joke about the night before the battle and how his soldiers don’t want to go.”

My son, who is eight, asks if we can see the Shakespeare one about the Americans.  I’ve got no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s asking about Shakespeare and I’m not about to let that opportunity go to waste.  He tells me, “The one where the guys have to go into battle but the other guys have more guys than they do and they think they’re gonna lose but they win.”

Oh!  He’s talking about Henry V St. Crispin’s Day Speech. Happy to oblige!  Where he got Americans I have no idea, I’m assuming he uses “English” and “American” interchangeably. He’s also actually remembered enough about this scene that a description of Custer’s Last Stand has him making the connection. I like it.

After the video he asks for the details of how much they were outnumbered and we google it.  He asks me if it would be possible for one army to just have one guy, and still win.

I paused, not believing my luck, and told him, “Actually that’s a different play. That’s called Coriolanus.”

So we start watching Tom Hiddleston’s Coriolanus. Actually I just fast forward to the scene before Corioli and explain, “He’s trying to get them riled up to storm into the city, but they’re all afraid to follow him, so he says forget you guys and goes all by himself. By the way, does he look familiar?”  I’m figuring that he might recognize Loki from the Avengers movie.

“Is that Adam Levine?”  From Maroon 5?  No, but great guess! 🙂

Tom is gone so I continue my summary, “Now all the soldiers think that they’re safe, they think that their leader is pretty much dead at this point, they can’t believe he was so stupid that he just walked into the enemy’s city all by himself.  Some of the general’s friends come in who think that maybe they should go after him and try to save him before he gets killed. Now watch.”

Enter Tom, looking like Walking Dead.  I’ve not seen this before, I had no idea he was covered in so much blood.  “See? He comes back and tells them ok you bunch of sissies, now I softened them up for you, *now* do you want to follow me?”

Eventually we have to walk to school, where I continue trying to explain Coriolanus to them. How awesome is it going to be months from now when some other random thing occurs and my eight-year-old references a Shakespearean tragedy that most adults don’t even know exists?

 

What Happened to Demetrius’ Far-Off Mountains?

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

A mystery!

For reasons that I’ll be able to go into at a later date, I’m eyeballs deep in some Shakespearean word origin research.  Currently looking into “far-off,” and while my initial sources pointed to Henry VI Part 2, I double checked OED and found them pointing to Midsummer Night’s Dream. So I always go back and see why I might have missed a reference.  I’m not counting the fact that OED Second Edition seems to date MSND at 1590, by the way, which is apparently odd – everybody else has it 1595-96.

Anyway, OED cites this line from Demetrius (IV.i):

“These things seem small and undistinguishable,
like far-off mountains turned into clouds.”

Here’s the thing.  That line is not in Open Source Shakespeare, which is where I’ve been checking all my references.

So I go back to my old source, the MIT version, which is really just the public domain Moby version.  Nope, not there either!

Ok, fine.  To the First Folio!

And there it is!

 So, what the heck?

Both Open Source and MIT have the same version where Demetrius’ line just drops off at “undistinguishable,” complete with the comma.

I did not realize that Open Source is, in fact, based on Moby as well. It’s certainly better than the MIT version with the markup, search and structure it provides, but it looks like all the errors have been carried over as well. That’s a shame.

I also guess this means I can’t use Open Source Shakespeare as my primary research source. That’s a bit of a bummer.