Month: April 2016

Small Insults for Small People

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My birthday is next week, so it often falls that I get to see my family and celebrate my birthday on Shakespeare’s.  My mother doesn’t always understand everything that goes on in my life, but she knows two things for certain.  One is that I “do computers” – or at least, that’s what she’s told all of her friends since I was about ten years old.  The second is that I’m “into Shakespeare.”  

So, since it’s hard to just stumble across random but interesting computer things, she always tries to make it a point to find me something Shakespearey to add to my collection. Check out this year’s treasure!

Shakespeare insults have always been easy pickings, since there’s so many of them. That’s always the first thing to look for – are we talking about actual quotes from the plays, or something out of an “insult generator” that only sounds Shakespearean?

Here we’ve got a tiny (maybe 3″ high?) little edition of the former, with a single quote per page.  Perfect for keeping on one’s desk at work for random flipping through and hurling at one’s coworkers. I have insult mug and once made an insult generator app, but I did not yet have this little guy.

Thanks Mom!

Weird (But Mostly Well-Known) Shakespeare Productions

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I’ve seen most of these “weird” Shakespeare productions … except one. You know that Forbidden Planet is going to be on the list, and Klingon Hamlet (though I did not realize video productions exist). But Popeye doing Romeo and Juliet is a new one on me! I probably saw this as a kid forty years ago and never thought about it again. I’m pretty sure, though, that in the 10+ years I’ve been doing the blog, this hasn’t come up:

For something of more historical value, don’t miss the 1909 silent Midsummer Night’s Dream they’ve included.  I’ve got other posts up today looking at films of that era, so it was cool to see another one come up over here as well. Seems like they always had budget for costumes!

My Shakespeare

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I don’t know who Kate Tempest is, but I hope with a name like that this is not the only Shakespearean thing she’s done or will do. I’m  glad I found this, because on this of all days in particular, I take tremendous joy and comfort in the phrase “my Shakespeare”.  Enjoy:

Boston Public Library Opens Its Shakespeare Collection

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My kids are on school vacation this week and yesterday (April 22) we took the day off and went in town to do Boston things like go on a Duck Tour and have lunch in the North End (complete with cannoli from Mike’s Pastry).  

During the duck tour we passed by the Boston Public Library and I was reminded that they have quite a Shakespeare collection (which I have visited).  I had a fleeting moment to think that we should walk over when the tour is over and see if we can’t see it again, but the timing didn’t work, we were parked too far away, blah blah blah. I also had no idea if it’s normally open to the public.

Then I discover today that they’re opening their collection to the public for Shakespeare’s 400th. My first thought is, “Aw come on, and I was that close and missed it?!” Turns out they’re opening the collection starting in October.

So now we’ve all got plenty of time to plan a trip!   It’s a 10 minute drive from where I work. I wonder if I could make it on my lunch hour?

How Did Shakespeare Die?

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I mention in another post that my brother in law shared with me his newly acquired Shakespeare knowledge, that our beloved bard drank “contaminated water” and died 30 days later.   Of all the stories I’ve heard, I’ve never heard that one.  Unless he was mixing contaminated water with his alcohol.

Since this is the big anniversary of his death, it’s nice that others are doing the work to recap the details are Shakespeare’s death. Basically we know that he was out drinking a few days before, and carried home. Was this a normal occurrence? Plenty of people get carried home drunk and they don’t die.  Was Shakespeare already sick and would have been dead anyway, and the drinking thing is just a coincidence where he happens to have been seen by witnesses? We’ll never really know.

I did not see the television special that my brother in law was referring to, and I wouldn’t really be surprised to discover that contaminated water was generally a problem for everybody in a world of black plague.  But would it have sickened and killed him almost immediately?  I would assume that if it was that common to drop dead that easily from contaminated water, surely the historians of the last 400 years might have thought of that as well. And like I said, I’ve never heard that theory. It’s far more common to hear people suggest that he had syphilis.