Here’s one for the historians in the crowd, because honestly I don’t know and I’m asking: What would Shakespeare have been doing on his birthday?  Presumably as a child, though that’s not a requirement.  Would they have done some notion of cake (with or without the candles)?  What other celebratory food would accompany such an occasion?  What toys or other presents might have been the type gift given? I suppose of course that it was a lousy time for everybody and they were just glad not to die of plague, but I thought I’d ask.  Shakespeare was a kid once, and it’d be nice to think that kids get birthday parties that are at least a little different than the day to day routine.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For Further Information, Contact Alida Szabo, Director of Audience Development
Ben Frick, Public Relations Assistant
Chicago Shakespeare Theater – 312.595.5633 MAYOR RICHARD M. DALEY PROCLAIMETH TALK LIKE SHAKESPEARE DAY April 23, 2009—Shakespeare’s 445th Birthday New Web Portal Online at talklikeshakespeare.org Chicago—April 20, 2009—Mayor Richard M. Daley announced that April 23, Shakespeare’s 445th Birthday, will be Talk Like Shakespeare Day, an occasion for Chicagoans to bring the spoken words of Shakespeare into their daily lives. "On his 445th birthday, Shakespeare still speaks to the people of Chicago through timeless words and works," said Mayor Daley in his formal city proclamation. "On April 23, I encourage citizens to celebrate Shakespeare by vocal acclamation, through his words." Citizens can prepare for the occasion by brushing up their Shakespearean, and joining the conversation, at TalkLikeShakespeare.org, which will go live as the Bard’s birth week begins on Monday, April 20. Visitors are asked to contribute stories, photos, videos, and quotes to the site’s live tumblr feed. The web portal features the online instructional How to Talk Like Shakespeare, activities for incorporating the Bard at the office, at home and at school, Shakespeare’s Twitter (a live feed from the Bard who, magnanimously, has offered to help translate any visitor’s request from English to Shakespeare), a Coined by Shakespeare Quiz to test visitors’ knowledge of words and phrases invented by the Bard, a "best of the web" collection of Shakespeare on YouTube (with cameos by the Beatles, the crew of the S.S. Minnow, Sesame Street, Captain Jean Luc Picard and others), among a variety of other resources. Shakespearean rappers The Q Brothers (creators of Bomb-itty of Errors and Funk It Up About Nothin’) will release to radio a new anthem highlighting, in hip-hop, the finer points of speaking Shakespearean. Finally, on April 23, schools throughout the Chicagoland area will take part in Talk Like Shakespeare in the Classroom activities, as teachers participate in inventive games and exercises to help students talk like—and engage with—Shakespeare. Chicago’s own Tony Award-winning Chicago Shakespeare Theater will mark the occasion as well. "We’re asking our artists and audiences to find a moment to bring Shakespeare into their daily discourse—even if it’s just asking a coworker to pass ‘yonder stapler,’" said Artistic Director Barbara Gaines. "This is someone who literally, single-handedly, introduced at least 2,000 words to the English language that we still use today. We wish him a very happy birthday."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123998633934729551.html Bunch of people sending me this WSJ article.  It’s funny, I actually saw it last night around 11pm – on the new WSJ application for my iPhone.  But I was in no position to blog about it at the time. Anyway, the article is about Justice John Paul Stevens, 34 years on the Supreme Court and an admitted Oxfordian.  While it is interesting to see actual justices arguing the point – after all, they’re supposed to be some of the best at the art of the debate – I still disagree with some of the foundational points:

"Where are the books? You can’t be a scholar of that depth and not have any books in your home," Justice Stevens says. "He never had any correspondence with his contemporaries, he never was shown to be present at any major event — the coronation of James or any of that stuff. I think the evidence that he was not the author is beyond a reasonable doubt."

He was never shown to be present is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he must not have been there?  Really?  The fact that correspondence is lost means it never existed?  Because if that’s true then there’s no such thing as the Ur-Hamlet. I also hate the argument that people who “like to think that a commoner can be such a brilliant writer,” which seems to imply that the authorship people think this can *not* be the case. Then they just turn stupid, in my opinion.  Justice Stevens, upon realizing that the nearby Folger owns a  Bible that once belonged to De Vere (Oxford), makes this wild case that “since the ‘bed trick’, (where the man thinks the woman is someone else) came from the old testament, then Oxford would have underlined those passages in his Bible.”  Ummm…. what?  Given that they found no such underlining, should we therefore argue this as evidence that the author was NOT Oxford? I think all this article ends up showing us is that our justices, while likely very smart men who can form a persuasive argument, are admittedly not as well schooled in their literature.  Stevens himself refers to his wife as “a much better expert in literature than I”, and she thinks he’s wrong. The article fails to mention that Oxford died before several plays, including The Tempest and Macbeth, were written.

http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/spring2007/audio-rude-mechanicals-by-kage-baker/ Someone mentioned this book in the comments, and I apologize for losing the original reference.  This short book (about 10 chapters, under 3 hours audio) by Kage Baker is apparently part of a series, and deals with the (mis-)adventures of a couple of time travelling cyborgs. Why do we care?  Well, because in this installment they’re both stationed in 1934 at the Hollywood Bowl, working on and around Max Reinhardt’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Mickey Rooney turns up briefly, and I realize that we’re ultimately talking about a sort of alternate history version of the movie. The adventure itself is a bit slapstick, putting the prim-and-proper cyborg (who cares only about not getting his company car dirty) together with the Sam Spade wannabe with a closet full of trenchcoats who can never seem to stay out of trouble, and sticking them both into a big mess as they try to recover a diamond that keeps falling into the wrong hands over (and over and over) again. This all plays out amid rehearsals for Dream, and we get a fair share of hearing the lines delivered (albeit in a somewhat nasally narration that I didn’t love).  The most interesting portrayal in the story is that of the director, who has such a perfect vision for his faerie wood that he sends workmen to go out and dig up more trees from the surrounding area and bring them to the set.  While complaining that he wished he’d gotten WC Fields and Charlie Chaplin for crucial roles, he still manages in mime to demonstrate some key scenes, such as Bottom’s great awakening.  It is telling that I would rather hear a description of a director who loves his craft miming what he wants (since he speaks only German and his actors do not), than to hear the actual lines delivered by someone who has no idea what he is saying. It’s a cute story, it entertained me.  Now that I know it’s a series I will actually go check it out, although I highly doubt that she’s in the habit of doing Shakespeare crossovers.  But you never know.

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/displaypr.php?ID=179 Ooooo, this looks interesting.  A 4DVD set of “actor’s workshops” including Judi Dench, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley…

Anyone who has ever appreciated Shakespeare will find startling new insights in these nine intensive acting workshops. In an intimate, informal setting, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s John Barton shares ideas with 21 world-renowned performers. Together they explore hidden direction in the verse, character motivations, and fresh approaches to classic speeches.

It’s stuff like this, and the recent Age of Kings collection, that make me wish I did this stuff for a living.  I have no way near the money or the time to buy these collections every time I see them.  Ah well, maybe somebody else out there wants to jump on something like this and tell us how it is.  Comes out in June 2009.