Month: September 2009

Sutter has even hinted that he plans a five-year run for the series, with each of the five seasons mirroring the corresponding act in Hamlet. Consider that gang leader Clay (Ron Perlman) killed his friend and business partner before marrying that dead man’s wife and raising the woman’s troubled, haunted son (Jackson "Jax" Teller, played by Charlie Hunnam), and you’ll see the clear connections to Claudius, Gertrude and their troubled son.

Why is it that I never learn about these shows until they’re well into their run? 🙁 In this case we’re talking about “Sons of Anarchy”, the FX series about a motorcycle gang….errr, “club”.

"When you look at the fifth act of Hamlet, nobody gets out of that mother alive."

Well put.  Nobody tell him about Horatio and Fortinbras, let it be a surprise. http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/09/18/set-visit-sons-of-anarchy-revs-up-season-two/

Finds like this send chills up my spine.  The Shakespeare geeks likely know, though others may not, that a certain Booth – Mr. Edwin Booth, to be precise – was a much heralded Shakespearean actor in the late 1800’s.  If the name sounds familiar, you are correct – he is the brother John Wilkes Booth, and hopefully we all know what he did. Would you have ever thought in a million years that you could hear what Edwin Booth sounded like?  Here’s a portion of his Othello, courtesy Michigan State:

  Of course the quality is terrible – it’s from a wax cylinder!  The fact that it exists at all is amazing.  You’re listening to a guy that was alive when Lincoln was  shot. How do you like his delivery, what you can make of it?  He seems a little … I dunno, spooky to me.  Bela Lugosi?  I’m trying to remember which of the horror movie actors was famous for that ghoulish sort of elongating of the vowels.  Like the narration on the old “Monster Mash” variety song. What a horrible comparison to make.  Sacrilege, I know. 🙂

“Who put their handprint on Mommy’s nice clean glass door that she just Windexed this afternoon?”  said Mommy. “Not me,” said three Geeklets in Sound-Of-Music unison. “Line them up and have them each put up a hand,” said Shakespeare Geek.  “See which one fits.” “Don’t do that!” said oldest Geeklet. “I think oldest geeklet did it,” says Daddy Geek. “Why?” asks she. “Methinks she doth protest too much,” quoth I. “Huh?” respondeth she. “It means that when somebody did something wrong, the person who says NOT ME NOT ME NOT ME NOT ME is usually the one who did it,” summarize I. “*squit* *squit* *squit* *wipe* *wipe* *squeaky* *squeak*,” says Mommy’s Windex, onomatopoetically. “Too late now,” says too-observant-for-her-age oldest.  “Mommy cleaned it, now we’ll never know.  But I didn’t do it.”

"In the first place, I don’t think for a moment that Macbeth did it." I looked at her blankly. "Did what?" I asked. "I don’t think for a moment that he killed the King," she said.

I’d not read this short story by James Thurber, about a woman who reads Macbeth as if it’s a regular old murder mystery.  It’s satire of course, but quite amusing. I love the bit about Lady M’s dad.  Who’da thunk it? [ For some reason I cannot connect to the original site, so rather than lose the momentum of discovery I’m linking to the Google cache version.  Safe diff.  It’s short enough not to matter, and n0 images. ] The Macbeth Murder Mystery (via Google Cache)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gAdRKDfYXXMbGMeAciSWPIJPSTqAD9ARLNNO0 It’s long been known that the church where Shakespeare is buried needs work.  Lots of work.  They’ve raised nearly a million pounds over the years to do it. Now it seems things are even worse, as the main beam keeping the roof up is rotting faster than they thought. I don’t understand why the church is in such trouble.  We’re talking about a national landmark, no?  Wouldn’t the government want to throw them a few bucks?  I have to believe that at least a tiny bit of tourism is thanks to Mr. Shakespeare and his grave.