Month: October 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6434582/Agincourt-was-an-even-fight-claim-historians.html This one caught me off guard.

Henry V’s “happy few” were not outnumbered five to one by the French at the Battle of Agincourt, as traditionally believed, but were in a much more even fight, according to new research.

I don’t think it’ll change my opinion of the speech at all, but this new research suggests that rather than 4 to 1 odds (24,000 French against 6,000 English) it may have been closer to 12k to 9k.  By the way who’s the genius that clearly states the 24k and 6k figures, but also says “5 to 1” earlier in the article?  Am I missing something?

http://www.freep.com/article/20091025/COL36/910250322/1037/ENT02/Lions-coach-has-a-thing-for-the-arts I suppose this is a nice article about a particularly well rounded football coach who is happy to share with you his favorite kids’ shows, heavy metal band, and even Shakespeare plays – he’s partial to Henry IV Part II, an interesting choice. Here’s the thing, though.  We’re talking about Jim Schwartz, coach of the Detroit Lions – the worst team in football.  No, seriously.  This is the team that set the record for going winless last season (to be fair, Schwartz was just hired this season), but who are starting out something like 1-5 so he’s got a long road ahead of him.  Maybe a little less time watching Phineas and Ferb and reading Dan Brown, and more time watching video of the game.  I don’t see anybody doing one of these profiles on Bill Belichick. [ For the curious, Schwartz was hired away from the Tennessee Titans, who now hold the dubious distinction of losing 59-0 to the New England Patriots last week. ]

I’m not quite sure what I just watched, but I like it.  Narrated by Christopher Walken, this little movie tells the story of Romeo and Juliet from Cupid’s point of view.  Of course, Cupid is voiced by John Madden, Romeo is Nicholas Cage, and a few other surprise “guest” voices.  Neat.  

http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=542&CFID=10093650&CFTOKEN=eb7b337932dff79c-7D20A232-0C57-5164-C75FA98846868D39 Folger’s reporting on a call for papers for a special issue of the Shakespeare Quarterly called “Shakespeare and New Media”:

Shakespeare’s works have provided launch content for new media technologies since the seventeenth century, as Peter Donaldson has observed. At the turn of the 21st century, we are experiencing particularly rapid transformation of our basic tools for studying, teaching, learning, reading, performing, editing, archiving, and adapting Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Quarterly invites submissions of essays on the impact of media change, now, in all these arenas of Shakespeare studies. Submissions that make innovative use of new media publication modes, such as hyperlinks to the Folger Shakespeare Library’s digitized collections, are particularly welcome.

I know I made it into somebody’s PhD thesis once upon a time (they requested permission to cite the blog), and somebody over in the Oxfordian camp used some material from Shakespeare Geek in their recent newsletter as well.   Maybe we’ll make this issue as well? :)  Hint hint?

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/10/22/gerard-butler-goes-shakespearean-in-coriolanus/ Ok, that meme is long dead, but it’s true that Gerard Butler is still pretty much known as “the screamy guy from 300, the Sparta movie.”  Well pretty soon he can add Coriolanus to the list, which when you think of it is probably not that much of a stretch.  I expect Coriolanus to wear more clothing.  And I never saw all of 300, so I’m not quite sure what Sparta guy’s relationship was to his mother.  Kicking people into bottomless pits could maybe work in both. UPDATE : Ralph Fiennes is actually slated to play the lead, no word on who Butler will play. Thoughts? UPDATE 2 : Thank you, Twitter!

“It looks like I might be doing Coriolanus, the Shakespeare play, the movie version… the adaptation of. Ralph Fiennes will be directing and playing Coriolanus and I’d be playing Tullus Aufidius his nemesis!”