Author: duane

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ShakespoWriMo

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

[ Or maybe, NaShaWriMo? ]

If you spend much time online (and, duh, how are you reading this exactly?) you’ll probably run into some references to NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month.  In short, the idea is to commit yourself to finally writing that novel.  Sign up at the site and publish your results as a way of motivating yourself to make it happen.  Tell everybody about your progress daily, and get support in return on your way to completing that particular item on your bucket list.
As somebody who starts many, many projects and only finishes a portion of them, I approve this message.  I don’t really have a novel in me, but that doesn’t mean that the idea can’t still work.  Maybe I’ve got something about Shakespeare that I could finally write? Or maybe an app?
How about you?  Anybody out there got any Shakespeare writing projects in the works, either lying half finished in a desk drawer (remember those days?  when we actually used a real typewriter to write on real paper and you really could have a half-finished project in a desk drawer?) or still an idea forming in your head?  Now’s the chance to join up with thousands of others who are all running the same race!

What’s Your Favorite Sonnet?

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

I’ve asked on Twitter, I’ve asked on Facebook (* so if you’ve answered there no need to answer again :)) so now I’m asking here for people that only read the blog:

What’s your favorite sonnet?  The catch : you can’t answer 18, 29, 116 or 130. 

Everybody and their mother has been inundated with those particular sonnets over the years.  What I’m looking for is the next group, the ones that the Shakespeare geeks love that, with a little more exposure, we can get the rest of the world to acknowledge.

So, hit me.  Other than those famous four, what’s your favorite sonnet, and why?  To make the results the most objective, try to come up with your answer before you look at the comments, otherwise you’ll never be able to tell if your vote was swayed.

Theme Song Shakespeare : All (But Him) In The Family

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Ok, I’ve been busy.  But Bardfilm’s been doing double duty, manning both his own blog as well as queuing up the quirky stuff for my return.  May I happily present you the Return of Theme Song Shakespeare?

All (but Him) in the Family

My name is Brabantio.
Where’d my Desdemona go?
She eloped with O-thell-o.
This is that play.
I’ll allow no buts or ifs—
Nor those crazy handkerchiefs.
Senate, we could use a man
Like Cassius as Ensign.
But Othello sure was great—
Did some service to the state—
Now he’s certain of his fate:
This is that play.

(For those youngsters that need a hint, click …….. here. )

Shakespeare App Idea

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

My list of projects is already so long that it’s not terribly useful for me to keep adding ideas to it.  So every now and then I’ll just post them, and maybe somebody else runs with it.

Shakespeare Meme Generator

  1. Get a collection of Shakespeare quotes.  Easy peasy.  Could be romantic, motivational, funny – your choice.
  2. Get a collection of Shakespeare-related images.  Harder by definition, but not impossible.  Screen shots from well known movies?  Flickr tags?  Couple different ideas.
  3. Combine random quote with random image to make a new shareable/pinnable thing.
  4. Show it to the user.  Offer user options of generating a new one, or sharing/pinning/tweeting this one.
  5. Keep track of how popular each one is.  Set up a link to a gallery to reinforce browsing through them (thus making them even more popular).
Could work as a web app or a native app (although it’s a little light for a native app).  Almost certain that similar “put a piece of text on a desired image” sites exist, though I don’t have a pointer to one.  The work would be in creating the database of quotes and images.

UPDATE Something like this, but not this.  This is “Here’s a database of images, put whatever text you want on it.”  If anything I’m thinking of more the opposite – it’s the words that are important, and it’s really a matter of taste what image you use.

King Lear, for Kids

~ duane ~ 1 Comment
The Royal Shakespeare Company has got a 75 minute version of King Lear, aimed at 8 year olds.

I think you all know how I feel about that.  I have, on the fly, retold the tale of King Lear to my 5year old son – at his request.  I will never forget this moment:

Well, her father the king was not happy with this answer at all. He got so mad that he said she would not have any share of the kingdom, and he banished her. 

…at this point a choked little voice asks me, “But did he still love her?” And I am caught so by surprise that I don’t quite know what to do with myself. My little guy has been hanging on every word, and he’s an emphathetic little bugger. 

“Oh, he absolutely still loved her,” I told him, “He was just really really mad because he thought she was saying that she didn’t love him. He didn’t understand her answer. Are you sad?” 

He nods, unable to get any words out. 

I squeeze him a bit tighter and remind him that this story has a happy ending, remember? “We’re going to find out that she loved him most of all.”

The fact that I know that that’s only half true?  That she did love him most of all, but that the story doesn’t have a happy ending?  I’m lucky I didn’t get choked up like he did trying to pretend like it all works out.

I have always believed that you can expose children to elements of Shakespeare, literally, from birth.  Go ahead and name their stuffed animals Romeo and Juliet, or Beatrice and Benedick.  Throw around random quotes when you can.  Bring up plot points.  It will be a long long time before they “get” Shakespeare in an academic sense.  It’ll also be a long long time before they understand physics and gravity and parabolic arcs, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn how to catch a ball.