This topic came up in our discussion of foreign languages last week, and I thought it reduced down nicely to a topic that anybody could weigh in on. Allow me to snip from Wikipedia for a moment:

Weeks after Hitler took power in 1933 an official party publication
appeared entitled Shakespeare – a Germanic Writer, a counter to
those who wanted to ban all foreign influences. At the Propaganda Ministry,
Rainer Schlosser, given charge of German theatre by Goebbels, mused
that Shakespeare was more German than English. After the outbreak of the
war the performance of Shakespeare was banned, though it was quickly
lifted by Hitler in person, a favour extended to no other.

While the Nazis were banning all “foreign influences”, Hitler himself gave Shakespeare a pass, something they did for no one else.

My question is this – how do you feel about that?  Does it say more about Shakespeare, or about the Nazis? Is it possible that there is a germ of something in Shakespeare’s work that reinforces what the Nazis believed in?  Or is the other way around, is there something so universal in Shakespeare’s work that it still managed to touch whatever shred of humanity might still be buried inside them?

I suppose there is a third option, which seems the most likely the more I think about it — that the Nazis were just very, very good at corrupting whatever they wanted to say whatever they needed.  Just because they found idea that they liked in Hamlet does not in any way suggest that Shakespeare meant for them to be there.  Or is that just hindsight, protecting our literary idol?

Thoughts?  Is it even possible to have a rational discussion about Nazis?

Sorry for the interruption, folks.  Some of you may have seen me note on Twitter that I was laid off from my day job on Friday.

On the one hand this can be a good thing. There’s plenty of Shakespeare-related stuff that I want to do and just never have time for, so maybe in the coming days I’ll actually get to some of that.

On the other, let’s be realistic – there’s nothing I can do with this site, even under the most generous of circumstances, that would pay my mortgage and health insurance. So I need a day job.

Thus my interruption and temporary plea.  If you happen to know of anybody in the Massachusetts / New Hampshire area, your company or otherwise, hiring folks in the “software architect” space, particularly the Java/Rails flavor, please hook a geek up and send me details.  I’ve got 20 years of experience as a professional software engineer, web and otherwise, and have touched more modern technologies than I could name (it would be shorter and more accurate to just say “all of them”).  Please do not just send links to your friend-who-is-a-recruiter, I have plenty of recruiters on the case already. What I need now are the leads that are more often filled by word-of-mouth that never make it out to the agencies.

Thanks very much! 

On a related note, just because the site isn’t my main source of income doesn’t mean that your generosity goes unappreciated.  My sincere thanks to the people that have been hitting that Tip Jar button and those buying merchandise! I shall do my best to invest it all back into improving the site’s quality and adding new features.

Ok, back to Shakespeare.  Have I said thanks?  Thanks!

For those that haven’t noticed in the comments, one of our own is getting married! I’ll deliberately leave her name out of it for the moment in case she doesn’t want to be the center of attention, but if you’ve been paying attention you’ll notice that one of our regular contributors has spoken of her wedding plans in recent weeks.

Even better? I threw out the idea recently of performing Pyramus and Thisbe during the wedding reception…and she tells me she convinced her groom to go for it! I still don’t know if she’s kidding, that is just too awesome to be true.

Now we have a favor (ahem) to ask about … favors.  I want to be in this wedding, because she wants to give out Shakespeare favors.  How cool is that?

Idea #1 is Mini Leather-bound Shakespeare. 

Need more ideas.  What makes a good “Shakespeare wedding favor”?  I swear this has nothing to do with my Shakespeare wedding book, although I will almost certainly add a section on favors now that it’s come up. 🙂

Thanks to Facebook friend David for this pointer to a show that’s right down the street from me (if you count 2 hour drives as right down the street), not sure if I’ll be able to make it:

Plimoth Plantation invites you to a lively, hour-long live performance of snippets of Shakesperean songs and scenes. Shakespeare in a Song is a unique production combining the words of Shakespeare set to modern and traditional tunes, interspersed with performance excerpts from some of the Bard’s most popular plays. The Unicorn Singers, an 18 person-chamber chorus, will be joining The Plimoth Plantation Players (a 6 man Shakespeare production company) for this unique performance of historic words coupled with contemporary music.

http://www.plimoth.org/calendar/index.php?ev=2455360&mo=6&yr=2010

I wish I could say that this Angelina Jolie to play Cleopatra story is about the Shakespeare play Antony and Cleopatra, but alas it is not. The movie is based on an upcoming biography of the Queen of the Nile.

Still, though, nice to imagine.  Although I don’t think I’m ready for her to play Cleopatra, I’d like to pretend she can still get away with Helena/Hermia in Dream, maybe. Or she’d make a killer Shrew. Work her way up to Lady M.

If we got Angelina doing Shakespeare, what role would you give Brad Pitt?