Ok, when I saw a Roman Polanski story turn up in my newsfeed filters I assumed there’d be some reference to his 1971 Macbeth. Nope.  In this case it’s a Shakespeare In Love reference.  It seems that producer Harvey Weinstein was at the forefront of recently circulated Hollywood memo of support for child rapist Roman Polanski.  Weinstein was also the producer for Shakespeare in Love. But wait!  The connection is deeper, the article suggests.  We Shakespeare geeks know that Shakespeare In Love won the Oscar for best picture in 1999, beating out Saving Private Ryan, which many people still scream is the greatest tragedy in the history of that particular award.  So be it. Gary Thompson argues that Weinstein is typical of Hollywood’s growing insular nature, where it no longer cares about anything but itself:

…its story of a theater troupe outsmarting censors reminded all of the writers and actors who vote for the Academy Awards how wonderful they are.

He then goes on to suggest that this is Weinstein’s method – make movies that flatter actors and writers, because they’re the ones that vote.  They don’t want to be reminded of WWII, they want to be reminded of how wonderful they are. I don’t know if I agree or not.  But I do know that the next time the topic comes up I’ll have a point to make. 🙂 http://www.philly.com/dailynews/features/Gary_Thompson_Why_Hollywood_doesnt_get_the_Polanski_thing.html

I haven’t done one of these in a little bit, and the growing number of Shakespeare sites out there reminds me that maybe I should. A blog’s only as good as its content, and as much of that content comes from the comments, as from the original articles.  I can’t take credit for that.  Nor do I want to single out individuals, since missing folks would be a huge faux pas and I’m not typically good at that sort of thing anyway. So I regularly like to open it up for folks to introduce themselves and their projects.  Free plug time.  Who are you, and what’s Shakespeare to you?  Actor, director, teacher, student?  Got a site of your own?  A show?  A book? Let’s hear it.  I’m officially giving permission to include links.  It’s not much, but the least I can do as a thank you for your contributions is to throw a little traffic your way. Ground rules : It’s gotta be a Shakespeare thing, if that’s not obvious.  I’m not so much with the spamming.

I must be getting old because I don’t understand about 9o% of this “Candy Council of Cool” blog post.  But one bit did catch my attention (more specifically it caught my filter’s attention, and then mine :)).  I don’t fully understand what sort of initiation they’re talking about, but the challenge sounds fun:

First, they had to memorize and exchange Shakespearean lines (Act II, Scene 1 of “The Merry Wives of Windsor”) in 10 minutes; and Second, they had to eat the most number of donuts in 10 seconds!

Memorize Shakespeare and eat donuts?  I think I want to join. The fact that they picked Merry Wives, featuring our loveably corpulent Falstaff, makes it that much more enjoyable.  I wonder if they did that on purpose? http://www.candymag.com/coc/2009/10/mini-mag-bts-series-celebrities/

http://www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk/ Well I’m not in the UK so it’s not technically my nation, but Shakespeare’s home turf is celebrating National Poetry Day today (Thursday, Oct 8).  It didn’t feel right to not mention it just because I’m over here across the pond. Anybody want to offer up some poetry for the occasion? I’ll forego the sonnets and offer up some Ariel, instead:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.