You may have seen the NY Times article going around, but Slate’s got a quick summary if you prefer. A bunch of authors (James Shapiro among them – is he our James Shapiro?) get together and argue that only through the invention of the paybox, so that authors could profit from their works, did the world see the likes of Shakespeare, Marlowe, etc…. If they weren’t getting paid for their work, they would not have existed.
That may be a gross summary of a summary, but I don’t have time to get into it right now. The whole point of the article is pro-copyright, anti-Web (at least, the aspect of the web that says “blah blah blah everything should be free”).
Discuss.

Regularly I get offers to review product. Got one today, as a matter of fact. Sometimes the request will come with, “And do you know any other Shakespeare bloggers who might be interested?”

It dawned on me today that while yes, yes I do, I do not always have contact info for those people. (I’m looking most directly at you, Bill from Shakespeare Teacher. Hint hint.)
So, fellow Shakespeare bloggers – if you’d like to be considered when publicists come knocking on my door, please take a moment and drop me a note saying so. I’ll tuck it away in a list someplace so I can find it next time I need it. I can’t promise anything about when such offers might come along, but I can say that if you’re not on my list then you won’t get mentioned – that way nobody’s wasting anybody’s time if you’re not interested in doing reviews.
You all know me, you know I’m not going to go spamming you. In general my method has always been to forward the publicist’s request to the blogger, and let you make up your mind, rather than just randomly handing out your address to whoever asks for it.
If you’d like to be on the list, please specify the URL of your web site so I can tell people about it. Thank you.

Just had a great idea. This weekend my kids spotted actual Gnomeo and Juliet merchandise! In this case, one of those sticker books that we get to keep our kids happy – 12 pages of like 100 stickers, and half a dozen blank scenes to fill. At the time I had no interest in dropped $7 each on 3 copies of the same book, though I was pleasantly surprised to see at least some attempt at merchandising.
But then, just this morning in fact, I had an idea. Why don’t *I* get one of those books for myself, and then plaster the stickers all over town? A little guerilla marketing?
What the heck, can’t hurt, right?

The most interesting bit about this article on Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus movie is his plan for more Shakespeare!

Fiennes may not be done with bringing Shakespeare to the screen; he says he could imagine taking on “Antony and Cleopatra.”

“Not only is it an extraordinarily great love story, but it’s written arguably quite cinematically,” he said. “I can’t help feeling (that), if Shakespeare was alive today, he would write very easily for the cinema.”

Nice. We could use another A&C.

I always read lists like this. Always. Because you knew never know if it’s going to be a rehash of all the standards we’ve seen before, or if there’s going to be maybe 1 that’s new to me — or, like this list, be almost entirely new content!
We’re talking about adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, by the way. And I can honestly say that of the 15, I had no idea that about 10 of them were Romeo and Juliet stories. That doesn’t mean I’m interested in going to hunt them all down, of course (some are even foreign films), but it’s nice to know there are journalists out there who are still actually researching their stories and not just churning out the cut and paste jobs for Valentine’s Day.
Bonus – #12 on the list is local favorite Sealed With a Kiss, which the reviewer calls, “one of the modern Romeo & Juliet adaptations that most respects the original’s text” and “almost a retelling more than a revision.”
#13 of course is Gnomeo (why else would they be publishing such a list?) and I agree with the summary here, as well:

Nor does it prevent them from arrogantly boasting to their audience that their film, Gnomeo & Juliet, has a more exciting opening than the original play, and a better, happier ending. Apparently gnomes know as little about humility as they do about tragedy.