Month: October 2011

So today we had parent teacher conferences for all three of my kids. If you don’t know the drill, basically you sit down in your 15 minute window and the teacher tries to calm all your fears, say nice things, and generally keep optimistic.

So, I find out that my middle child (7yrs old) is off the charts on her reading skills.  “126 words per minute with 97% accuracy,” the teacher says, “Normally at this level we expect to see 50 word per minute and 70% accuracy.”  The topic turns to coming up with challenging books for her, and the difference between “reads a lot” and “can read complex things.”

The teacher explains that she’s not a fan of challenging kids to the point of making them hate reading, and that she’d rather then tear through books that are easy, yet fun, rather than harder for them but boring.  Then she hits me with it.  “It’s not like I’m going to assign them Shakespeare,” she says.  “I hated Shakespeare in school, it was so hard and so boring and I just hated it.”

“Funny you should mention him,” I say with an ear-to-ear smirk.

“Why,” she asks, “Are you a Shakespeare fan?”

“This is his thing,” my wife jumps in with, “He does Shakespeare on the internet.”

“Oh, really? How interesting!”

“I run a bunch of sites about Shakespeare, yes,” I say.  “My kids have been raised on Shakespeare.  Go ahead and ask Elizabeth about the subject, see what she says.”

“She could probably teach me!” laughs the teacher.

She probably could :).

“He could be one of your guest readers,” my wife suggests.

Long story short? I may end up teaching a unit on Shakespeare to my daughter’s second grade class.  Good times!

Long-time readers will remember that this is not my first rodeo — I went into my oldest daughter’s first grade class and tried reading them The Tempest. I think this time would go better.  Not only is it an older class, and not only am I more experienced at this game, but this time would be more about getting butts out of the seats and having *them* act it out, rather than trying to keep their attention while I read it.

I’ll keep everybody updated on where that plan goes.

UPDATE!  There’s a press release. Either that is new, or it was hidden or something because I didn’t see anybody mention it a few hours ago.

Looks like this is the real deal – contains the cast breakdown and everything.  Shot in black and white in just a couple of weeks, by a new studio that’s going to focus on exactly this kind of festival-friendly indie film.  Should be completed in the spring.  Awesome!

Geeks of all types are abuzz this morning about the news that Joss Whedon has managed to crank out a Shakespeare movie in secret, in his spare time:  Much Ado, The Movie


Whedon is legend among the geeky set for his work on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, and if this movie is the real deal he brings with him his regular cast of players including Nathan Fillion, Sean Maher, Tom Lenk and Amy Acker.


Here’s the thing, though.  Everybody’s wondering if it’s the real thing, or an elaborate joke.  Some points to consider:


* The man’s in the middle of The Avengers, the biggest comic book movie in a generation of comic book movies.  And he managed to sneak in a Shakespeare movie in his spare time?


* He did it entirely in secret.  Who does that these days? How does a cast of characters like that manage to evade all of the gossip rags for however long it took, without word getting out?


* The only evidence that we have is a screen shot (which, obviously, could be fake), and the cast all tweeting “It’s real!” which, of course, they would do if they were in on the joke.


* The screen shot, if you didn’t notice, never mentions Shakespeare.  It just says “Based on a play.”  So either that’s a very low key “Look at us, we’re doing Shakespeare!” or it’s part of the joke and this is not a Shakespeare project.


* Interesting choice of play.  The title itself could be the joke, no?  The world gets all excited about what they think is a Shakespeare movie, and it turns out to be something completely different?  Much Ado About Nothing, no?


One curious point — back on Oct 9 I spotted Nathan Fillion making Shakespeare references on Twitter.  That clearly came and went with no buzz (unlike last night), so maybe that wasn’t part of the joke, maybe that was real?  But if so, what the heck?  He’s reciting Shakespeare on 10/9 and by 10/23 filming is complete?  Does it really happen that quickly?


Here’s my guess, for the record – I think it is real. I think that it’s probably going to be a web project, like their Dr. Horrible from a few years back.  I think that, as a bunch of friends, they all basically got together in Whedon’s back yard (figuratively speaking) and banged it out.  That way it’s quick, it’s among friends – easy to keep it a secret and do it during downtime.  No one said it was a *big* project.


Let’s see how I do.

The more Shakespeare you learn, the more you see, and that is delightful—most of the time; however, as the brain becomes more and more filled with Shakespeare, the Shakespeare tends to get mixed up with everything else. As an example, Bardfilm has compiled a list of the Shakespearean’s most frequently misquoted movie quotes. Enjoy!

Love means never having to say you’re sorry. It also means drinking the poison right before your true love, the one you thought was dead, wakes up.

Is this a dagger that I see before me, the handle toward my hand, or are you just happy to see me?

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do you, Puck?

I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse: A pound of flesh for 3,000 ducats.

Hamlet: “Hello. My name is Hamlet of Elsinore. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Claudius: “Stop saying that!”

What we’ve got here, Yorick, is a failure to communicate.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give an incestuous, murderous, damnèd Dane.

I’m as mad as Lear, and I’m not going to take it any more!

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Then again, I thought that about Iago.

Show me the ducats!

Back to Milan, eh—with all this lot? You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

I see dead people. You know, the ghost of Lady Anne, the ghost of Hastings, the ghosts of the princes, the ghost of Buckingham—that kind of thing.

You had me at “Forsooth.”

Keep your Iagos close; but keep your Cassios closer.

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” “Shut up, Falstaff.”

Demetrius, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Athens anymore.

[Singing wistfully] Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. / But somewhere in her youth or childhood, / I must have smacked Cordelia good.

Striker: “S’blood, you can’t be serious!” Rumack: “I am serious . . . and don’t call me S’blood.”

“What is between you, Ophelia? Give me up the truth.” “The truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

Horses? We ain’t got no horses! We don’t need no horses! I don’t have to show you any stinking horses! So keep your lousy kingdom, which seems to be in a right shambles in any case.

Get your stinking paws off me, you incestuous, murderous, damnèd dirty Dane!

Of all the taverns in all the streets in all Eastcheap, she walks into mine.

Gertrude: [Flails about in agony, dies.] Claudius: I’ll have what she’s having.

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

We don’t discuss interpretation of the text enough these days. I really should make more progress in R3, but that’s a different story :).

The other day I answered somebody’s question on Macbeth, asking what this quote means:

I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent

I pointed out that this quote is only partial, and when you look at the rest it makes more sense:

I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

This quote comes from Macbeth himself, trying to pump up for the bloody deed he’s about do (namely, kill the king).  My best summary for this particular passage was, “Nothing personal, Duncan.  I don’t have to do this because of anything that you did.  You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I want to be king, and that means you gotta go.”

I know that’s a gross over simplification, but sometimes that’s all these kids want.  When I think of “translating Shakespeare into modern speech” this is what I think of.

Anybody want to help flesh out (or correct) that answer?  The next time somebody googles for the meaning of that quote I’d love for them to land here and see some interesting discussion about what that passage means.