Month: February 2009

http://www.premiere.com/Feature/The-65-Most-Romantic-Movie-Couples Nothing direct from Mr. Shakespeare, but I’ll assume that would be cheating.  However, we do get Shakespeare In Love (#54), and 10 Things I Hate About You (#32, re-telling of Taming Of The Shrew). Any others in that mix with a Shakespeare hook? I know that Never Been Kissed (#31) has a prom these of “famous romantic couples” but honestly can’t remember if anybody does Romeo and Juliet (or Anthony and Cleo).

http://pics.livejournal.com/reasonabsurd/pic/0004hx49 Is “Yo Dawg” the new “I Can Haz”? Seems like a bunch of these just went flying through my newsreader.

We had a couple of friends (literally – one married couple) over for dinner Saturday night.  I’m hanging out in the kitchen talking to the husband, the wives are in the family room chatting about something on the couch. We wander into the family room to be social.  “Tell neighbor wife what you wrote on the card for my flowers,” my wife tells me. “The bath for my help lies where Cupid found new fire, my mistress’ eyes.” I get a blank stare from neighbor wife. “That’s the closing couplet from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 153.” “This is the kinds of stuff I get,” says my wife.  “Underneath that he wrote You’re my everything.  THAT, I understood.  But I’m always getting these Shakespeare things.  What did you get?” Neighbor wife turns to her husband and says, “Nothing.” Mind you, the husband is your classic working man, general contractor, spends his days framing out houses and his nights brewing his own beer.  When he’s not wearing a flannel shirt it’s only because his wife made him dress up to go out somewhere.  I love the guy, and not just because I appreciate a good beer.  He’s a great guy, a good friend.  And I’m suddenly getting him in trouble because I’m quoting Shakespeare on Valentine’s presents. 20+ years ago that would have gotten me stuffed into my locker in high school.

Well isn’t this fun!  Congratulations to Josie, a high school student who just won a trip to NYC for the National English Speaking Union’s Shakespeare Competition!  She writes in the comments: I’ve given it my all,but next round is sure to be a challenge.i am to perform a sonnet and a 20 line monologue (tamora from titus andronicus act 1 scene 1 and sonnet 29)the only diffrence is i am also expected to be able to cold read a random monologe that they pick for me and i’ll only have but a minute to look over it 🙁 This competition is based more on the understanding of a piece than the actual performance i would like to know what advice you could give on cold reading shakespeare. Thank you,
Josie
I wish I was in a position to help, but I’ve never been a performer of this stuff so I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to deliver a “cold reading”.  Help from the audience? Here’s my best advice, with the above disclaimer in mind.  I’ll use Sonnet 29 as an example, since you have to do it anyway, and not only do I have it in my playlist (Rufus Wainwright, seriously, check him out), I have the lyrics pinned up on my wall at the office: Try your best to find what you feel is the essence of the passage, and then work backwards.  Surely, in 20 lines or so, there is guaranteed to be a passage that clicks with you, that you immediately think “Ok, that makes sense, I get that.”  Then reconstruct as much as you can around that – what came before, what after?  Why?  I once described Sonnet 29 to somebody this way:  “Some days I’m sad and hate my life and I don’t really know why, but you know what?  I think about having you in my life and realize I wouldn’t change anything for the world.” Where’d I get that?  Mostly from “Haply I think on thee.”  I get that.  Makes sense.  What’s right before it?  “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising.”  That’s the twist to be found in all the sonnets – the first half is clearly about these “self despising thoughts”, and it’s the “thinking on thee” that turns it all around from there. Maybe that’s a silly example, maybe it’s too trivial for what you’re going to do, I don’t know.  You’ve got more courage in you than I do, I’ll tell you that!  I could never get up on stage, much less compete at it. Good luck!!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10164117-2.html It’s stories like these that make me feel like I’m not doing justice to this blog.  Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Show (that I listen to), posed a challenge on his Twitter page (which I was not following) to come up with “Twittered” versions of Shakespeare and other classics.   This is classic geekery, Web2.0 mashup stuff at its finest.  And I’m late to the game.  Enjoy, if you haven’t already. (Twitter, for those now in the know, is the latest fad where you try to explain the current state of your life to your followers…in 140 characters.) • My no-good daughters are making me crazy! (King Lear) • Let’s invade France and marry their women! (Henry V )