Author: duane

How'd you get here? This page is boring. Did you find the easter egg yet? (Click on that banner over my head!)

Shakespearean Pick-up Lines for Valentine’s Day

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

You all know that Shakespeare Geek has produced a great book (Hear My Soul Speak: Wedding Quotes from Shakespeare) on how and why to incorporate Shakespeare into a wedding. But how do you get to that point? Can Shakespeare help you get a date so that, sometime in the future, you can use Shakespeare (and Shakespeare Geek’s book) when you tie the knot?
You have to start somewhere, and Bardfilm has come up with a list of classy lines (with considerable additions and emendations by Shakespeare Geek himself) to enable you to introduce yourself to that special someone—just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Shakespearean Pick-up Lines
If I said you were the most beautified, would you say that beautified was a vile phrase?
Can I just tell you, your eyes are nothing like the sun. And what’s up with that wiry head of hair you got going on? Wait, where you going? Come back, it gets better! Your breath reeks! Call me!
You’re like a good production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  You both have a nice Bottom.
To be or not to be? With you, the former. Without you, the latter.
Hey, that guy de Vere wrote you this sonnet and told me to put my name on it. No, wait, no he didn’t, he’s dead. 
Now is the winter of my discontent. Won’t you make it glorious summer by going out with me?
I noticed you hitting it off with that fair youth. Care to make it a three-way?
You look like an angel. Or at least a minister of grace. 
You must know Shakespeare ’cause my heart just did a swan dive. Because he’s, like, called the Swan of Avon sometimes. Get it?
Ever seen a beast with two backs? Want to help me make one?
If you were a statue, I’d wish I were Leontes and you were Hermione, who was pretending to be dead for sixteen years. And not really a statue at all.
If I start behaving like an ass, will you start behaving like Titania?
I bet your phone number ends in 1599 because that’s the most probable date for the composition of As You Like It.
Hi. My name is Julius, and when I saw you, I said to myself, “Julius, seize her!”
God hath given you one face, but you made yourself another. You didn’t need to. I mean, the first one was fine.
Let’s go back to my place and tear some sheets, Doll!
O, somebody bring me a bucket of water ’cause I just found my muse of fire! Hey, baby, did you ever ascend the brightest heaven of invention?
You. Me. Dance floor. Now. Don’t give me no ado about nothing. 
The fault is not in our stars but in your eyes. I mean, the stars are in your eyes. Or something.
They must have left the gates of purgatory open—look who walked out! Besides Hamlet’s dad, I mean.
There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so – and I’m thinking you look good.
I’d LIKE for YOU to PLEASE go OUT with ME. Ever been picked up in iambic pentameter before?
I’d rather compare thee to a summer’s NIGHT, if you don’t mind and if you get my meaning.
I don’t want to brag, but I did once hear my last girlfriend referring to our sex life as the “sound and the fury.” I didn’t catch what she said after that. Or immediately before.
Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

Ghost Guy Hamlet

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Here’s a different spin on the Hamlet story – Hamlet (and his female pal Veronica Horatio) as modern-day ghost hunters.

It’s brand new so I’m not sure where it’s going to go, but I wanted to give a boost to some obvious Shakespeare geeks who are trying to do something a bit out of the ordinary.  Check it out, and subscribe so you can see how future episodes turn out!

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare—in Haiku (Guest Post)

~ duane ~ 3 Comments

Several years ago, kj (of Bardfilm fame) happened upon a haiku competition. The competition required joining Twitter, and Bardfilm’s first tweet (which won second prize) was a haiku containing the entirety of Hamlet. Since then, kj has periodically added to his collection of Shakespearean haiku—until he created this astonishing set of poems. Let the world take note: The Complete Works of Shakespeare. (Haiku by Bardfilm).

The Complete Works

The first folio.
Thirty-seven Shakespeare plays.
Not one Pericles.

Hamlet

A wandering ghost.
My dead father cries, “Uncle!”
I must have revenge.

The Winter’s Tale

Much like Othello,
I drink—and see the spider.
Perdita is lost.

The Tempest

Thunder, tempest, calm.
Old enemies reconciled.
Caliban remains.

Macbeth

The three weird sisters:
“When shall we three meet again?”
Macbeth: “Don’t ask me!”

Richard III

I want to be King.
So many stand in my way.
King Richard the Third.

As You Like It

All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women
Are merely players.

King Lear

Which one loves me most?
Nothing shall come of nothing.
Foolish, fond old man.

Romeo and Juliet

Running late, of course.
Not that it’s really my fault . . .
What? Juliet’s dead?

The Comedy of Errors

Double, double twins.
Ephesus or Syracuse?
Confusion . . . Resolved.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Four men disdain love.
Four lovely ladies arrive.
And now—the sequel.

Love’s Labour’s Found

Where did I put that?
I swear, it was over here.
It will turn up soon.

Titus Andronicus

Endless violence.
Hamlet:  The rest is silence.
Lavinia knows.

Julius Caesar

On the Ides of March.
Which one is honorable?
Brutus was a man.

Othello

Honest Iago.
A magical handkerchief.
I loved not wisely.

Timon of Athens

Hating flatterers,
The greatest of misanthropes—
He can’t not find gold.

Antony and Cleopatra

Rome in Tiber melts.
Infinite variety.
At least the asp lives.

Coriolanus

Coriolanus:
For Rome; against Rome; for Rome.
A circle of blood.

Merry Wives of Windsor

Queen Liz liked Falstaff.
“Write one with Sir John in Love.”
It wasn’t his best.

Richard II

Royal throne of kings,
This sceptered isle, this England,
Deposes bad kings.

Henry V

Take one muse of fire,
Add an Agincourt rally:
Make bands of brothers.

Pericles

Shakespeare plays lined up.
Pericles, the Prince of Tyre,
Nearly forgotten.

1 Henry VI

Triumph on the stage
With ten thousand spectators.
It joyed brave Talbot.

2 Henry VI

Jack Cade steals the show.
Henry Six Ain’t Henry Five.
Kill all the Lawyers.

3 Henry VI

“O tiger’s heart wrapped”
(Runs the play’s most famous line)
“In a woman’s hide.”

1 Henry IV

Young Hal in Eastcheap.
Banish not sweet Jack Falstaff.
Kill Hotspur instead.

2 Henry IV

I know England’s King!
But I know thee not, old man.
Falstaff deflated.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Who is Sylvia?
Valentine’s no gentleman.
Nor is Proteus.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The course of true love.
Forests, donkeys, love potions.
Puck restores amends.

Measure for Measure

Such hypocrisy.
His urine is congealed ice—
Yet he loves a nun.

Merchant of Venice

Gold, silver, and lead.
The will of a dead father.
And one pound of flesh.

Henry VIII

The Maiden Phoenix.
Her ashes create an heir.
The play burned The Globe.

The Taming of the Shrew

Old Petruchio,
At the end of his life, thinks,
“Wait. Was I the shrew?”

Two Noble Kinsmen

Two master writers.
Whose narrative is better?
Frankly, Chaucer’s is.

King John

Eighteen ninety-nine.
The first Shakespeare play on film.
Beerbohm-Tree’s King John.

Much Ado About Nothing

Merry war of wits.
Much ado about nothing.
Sigh no more, ladies.

 

Troilus and Cressida

Prium, King of Troy–
Troilus and Cressida.
Wiley Ulysses.

Twelfth Night

Wear yellow stockings.
Have greatness thrust upon you.
Malvolio’s mad.

All’s Well That Ends Well            

Problem comedy:
The bed trick marries Bertram.
Love ever endures.

Cymbeline

Imogene is dead.
Golden lads and maids all must—
Hang on—she’s alive!

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

Poetry By Heart

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

I love this story about the difference between memorizing things “by rote” versus “by heart”.  Although I don’t see much reference to Shakespeare in the text, it’s not hard to extrapolate.  How often do we use the tired old example of your high school English teacher who forced you to memorize, just for the sake of memorization, the balcony scene?  And the generation of students that can recite it but still hate it, or worse, hate it all the more because of that?

So there’s a thought that if you learn by heart it means you take the poem right into yourself, it becomes part of you. And it remains with you, probably for the rest of your life. I think a lot of us can remember bits of poetry that we learned when we were very young. So it’s something that lives with you forever.

What bits of Shakespeare have you memorized “by heart”?  I can do some rote bits of Dream or Macbeth or even the dreaded balcony scene, but other than as a “go to” bit of text when I need it, there’s no love for those passages.  I know Sonnet 18 by heart because for years I sang it to my children at bedtime.  I know Sonnet 17 by heart because I recited it to my wife during our first wedding dance.  I’ll admit that I don’t know “by heart” many longer passages, just some turns of phrase here and there that truly resonate just right where you need them.

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/19/169731110/u-k-asks-students-to-learn-poetry-by-heart-not-by-rote

Can There Be Too Much Shakespeare?

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

Honestly I never thought I’d ask this question.  Part of the life of this blog has been spotting every random tv commercial and sitcom that decides to mix in a Shakespeare storyline (hello, Cosby show…) and, in general, we come away with a “Hey, any exposure to Shakespeare is a good thing” feeling.


But lately I wonder.  I’ve been reading the Giver series with my daughter lately. There’s a scene in one of the later books where two children, both poor children in impoverished communities who were never given the chance to read, grow up in different villages.  Both learn to read independently.  When they meet up again after several years, the boy shouts, “I can read Shakespeare!” and the girl shouts back, “Me too!’

Come on, the author’s not even trying there.  I think I’d like to see Shakespeare’s name invoked for a reason beyond just some generic “I’m smart now” measuring stick.

“Hey, see that 6 year old over there, he’s really smart.”
  “Really, how smart?”
“Oh, he reads Shakespeare.”
  “Wow, that is smart!”

It’s not really all that different from an episode of Cosby where Theo and his buddy don’t want to do their homework, so they try to skip out on Julius Caesar by getting the Cliff Notes.  The difference comes in the fact that the episode in question was full of the text, as well as Christopher freakin Plummer doing a guest spot pretty much solely so he could do some Shakespeare.

In The Giver books I see no use of Shakespeare other than the aforementioned “Look how smart I am” checkbox.  Yes there’s a quote about Macbeth, but it’s thrown in so randomly that I can barely tell you which quote (something from Lady M, I believe) or even where it came up.