[ There’s an actual question for y’all at the end of this anecdote, just so you know. 🙂 ] Funny thing happened last night. I brought the kids to the library, and “my fan” the children’s room lady is working. She and I discuss Shakespeare whenever I’m in, and we worked together to bring Rebel Shakespeare to the library for two performances this summer. Anyway, I give her my new business card to keep in the files. She thinks my job is to be a full time Shakespeare geek (I wish!) and mentions a radio program she’d heard where a man spoke of having a 9-5 day job in the computer world, and then in the evening shopping around his book of poetry. “Funny you should say that,” I tell her. “I just published a book myself.” Being a librarian she immediately puts her hands onto her little computer keyboard to look it up. “It’s not available in print yet,” I say. “It’s an e-book.” “It’s not available for my Kindle,” she says, half asking. This is the first time I’ve ever met a Kindle user, and it surprises me. But I’m prepared. “Why yes, as a matter of fact it is very much available for the Kindle!” I tell her. She grabs a piece of paper and a pen to write down the name. “It’s a collection of Shakespeare wedding quotes,” I tell her, not that she appears to care. Her head pops up again. “My son is getting married!” she beams. Moral of the story: Talk about yourself and your projects, often. You never know who you’ll meet. I wrote a Shakespeare wedding book for Kindle and I met a Kindle owning, Shakespeare loving mother of the groom. Ok, on to the question. As I mentioned, I’ve never seen a Kindle (or a Kindle owner) in the wild. I’m more of an Apple guy, and know several iPad owners. But a librarian owning a Kindle? Made all the sense in the world. So, a quick poll – how many of my regular readers have a Kindle? And what’s the Shakespeare experience like on it? I know that in the iPhone world we have all sorts of applications and interactive browsers to play with, but I really don’t know what a Kindle can and can’t do. Do you carry complete works around on it? Can you? How’s the searching, and highlighting? They are both battling it out for the ebook market, but I think they’re really positioned to be very different things. I’m wondering if even the best dedicated book reader can win.
Month: September 2010
Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.
I’d never heard this one, and just saw it go by on Twitter. Didn’t sound like Shakespeare.
It’s not, it’s Oliver Wendell Holmes. Specifically, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.
Have a nice day!
Why You Can’t Just Google Love Quotes
I knew when I set about collecting Shakespeare wedding quotes that it’d be tricky to set myself apart from the many “love quotes” sites on the net. Not in terms of quality, of course – they have none. No, it’s explaining this to people that’s tricky. Just now, for instance, while Googling for “wedding quotes from Shakespeare”, I found a site (that shall remain nameless) that claims to have a Top 100 Shakespeare Love Quotes. Ready for a few samples? “A young man married is a man that’s marred.” “I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine” “You cannot call it love, for at your age the heyday in the blood is tame” “Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion.” Great stuff, there. I’m surprised they didn’t throw in that Capulet line about our dancing days being in the past. Try pulling one of these out during a wedding toast and see what happens. Hear My Soul Speak: Wedding Quotations from Shakespeare contains over 100 selections from across all of Shakespeare’s works, specifically chosen for their positive thoughts on love, marriage and romance. Available now in Kindle, iBook and PDF format.
See first that the design is wise and just; that ascertained, pursue it resolutely.
I find no evidence that Shakespeare wrote this. I see no use of “ascertain” in his work, and only three unrelated uses of the word “resolutely.”
The question remains, however – who said it, if Shakespeare didn’t?
How about Aesop, the guy from all the fables?
This is the only reference I can find that suggests Aesop, and even then the context is a little weird – the quote in question stands out in the middle of the page, somewhat unrelated to the rest of the context.
Pitch This : Kill Shakespeare
Kill Shakespeare is a popular new graphic novel that pits a number of Shakespeare’s heroes against his villains. I’ve not yet seen a copy, but i hear it’s doing quite well. So well, in fact, that they pitched a movie version at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the $10,000 prize! http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tiff/story/2010/09/14/f-tiff-pitch-this-kill-shakespear.html From the article:
Shortly after their win, the two Toronto men told CBC News they came up with the idea about seven years ago, when Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill was in theatres.
Though they were kicking around ideas for a video-game project, they began discussing the Tarantino film and Del Col joked about replacing David Carradine’s reclusive titular character with William Shakespeare and inserting his iconic heroes and villains as the film’s key players.
I love it. I hope the prize money helps move them one step closer to making the movie version.