Month: January 2009

http://ca.askmen.com/entertainment/special_feature_200/226_special_feature.html Here’s an odd place for a Shakespeare article, a magazine called Ask Men (the kind of barely safe-for-work site that if I’m caught looking at it I will have to plead I only read it for the Shakespeare).  The title is 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Shakespeare. Let’s look: 1) The sonnets were written for men.  Specifically it goes on to cite sonnet 18 as an example, and says that 126 of the 154 are definitely between dudes. 2) Danielle Steel has been translated more than Shakespeare.  This point is just plain stupid, as it goes on to explain that Danielle Steel has *written* more than Shakespeare, so the math works out.  He’s been translated into 80 languages, she only 28.  3) Shakespeare invented "torture".  No he didn’t, he just “invented” the word of course. 4) Shakespeare’s grave is cursed.   Again, no, and badly written.  Yes, there’s the epitaph that reads “cursed be he who moves my bones”, but no one has moved them, so that’s a poor interpretation of “his grave is cursed.” 5) Shakespeare was rich.  Yes, he had a stake in the company, blah blah blah, owned property in London and Stratford.  But was he ever “rich”, in the way we think of it today?  I’ve always understood that not to be the case.  As a matter of fact I thought he was on the cheap side, spending much of his later years in small claims court collecting debts.   Points to the commenters, for the most part, for pointing out the mistakes in the article.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21414 Mental Floss has a list of “bedroom quirks” of literary greats.  Nothing fancy about our boy Will, just the old “William the Conqueror” story – but the other ones are amusing enough to forward along.

http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2007/01/valentine-day-is-coming.html Almost two years ago I made this post on some Cupid references in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Since then my readership has grown, and I know I’ve got some regular readers who are well versed in the sonnets. So I thought I’d ask the question again that is detailed in the above link: Sonnets 153 and 154 appear to me to be nearly identical, except for the ending: Cupid falls asleep, the nymphs come and steal his little bow and arrow and shove it in the water to cool it off.  Only instead of cooling it off, it produces a hot spring that men come to soak in.  153’s ending makes clear sense – Cupid see’s my mistress’ eyes and that is enough to light his torch again, and the cure for the poet’s ills is not the hot bath, but his mistress’ eyes as well.  But what’s 154 mean?  He went to the bath to try to stop thinking about his mistress, and it didn’t work for him? Somebody got the story on this one?  Surely there’s something to it.

Sometimes I wonder what the Zen-like concept the word Shakespeare conjures in my 4yr old’s brain.  She knows that he’s a person, but yet she also uses his name like an adjective (remember the story of the “Shakespeare flower”?)  She seems to associate it with this abstract notion of, “good thing that makes Daddy happy.” Tonight, the kids put on a dance recital.  This is where the 4yr old dresses up in random accessories and dictates who does what, my 6yr old (who has more dance training) tries to demonstrate her skills, and the 2yr old boy spins around in circles until he falls down.  Perhaps the most surreal part was when the 4yr old, who is a girl for my new readers, proclaimed “I’m Joseph!” “Joseph who?” I asked. “Joseph, Jesus’ Daddy?” Oh, of course.  This apparently had something to do with the fact that she was wearing a veil backwards on her head, so it draped down the back of her hair. I think she saw a connection to the depictions of what Joseph wears in the nativity scene. But anyway, that’s not the point of my story :).  After the recital when everybody was taking a break, the director explained to me:  “Daddy, tomorrow is a different show.  Tonight was the recital, tomorrow is gonna be the shouting show.” “A shouting show?” I said, “I don’t think I like the sound of that very much.” “No!” she said, “You will.  It’s got Shakespeare in it.” “Oh, a shouting Shakespeare show?” “And lots of BOOM noises!” “Like Henry VIII?”(*) It’s at this point that the 4 and 6 yr olds are different, because the 6yr old is actually listening to me and would assume I was making a joke she didn’t get. The 4yr old is so busy planning the show in her head that she has no idea I’m talking.   (*) That’s the one where the cannons ended up burning down the Globe, you see.

It just so happens that my daughter, who is in first grade, is in the “1B” class.  You can almost see it coming, can’t you? While cleaning the counter I happened to flip over a “pinch pot(*)” she had made in school.  Carved in the bottom were her initials, and what turned out to be 1B.  “1B?” I asked. “1B,” she said.  “That’s my class number.” “1B.” “Yes, 1B.’” “2B?” “No, 1B.” “Not 2B?” “1B, Daddy!” “2B or not 2B, that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.  To sleep perchance to dream aye there’s the rub for in that sleep what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil…”(**) “….let me guess, that was Shakespeare, wasn’t it.” I’m getting predictable.   (*) I think in the old days we would have called it an ashtray. (**) I realize that’s not an accurate quote, I was bluffing.  She’s not at the point yet where she’s going to correct my delivery.  Although maybe one day :).