It’s that time of year again (actually, it’s very late for that time of year).  Anybody giving good Shakespeare gifts for the holidays? Personally I’m a little overwhelmed.  I’ve got a One Page Book sitting in the tube, waiting to be put up.  And I’m in the middle of both Will and Nothing Like The with no end in sight, and that’s not even counting the random couple I picked up on vacation a few months ago. I was hoping that Ian McKellens’s King Lear would be out on DVD for the holidays, but I haven’t seen it. I should find something Shakespearean for the kids.  But last year Santa gave them a Shakespeare book and it’s a little old for them, I don’t want to push it.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/switch-hidden-inside.html Or in this case, a Batman-style bust of Shakespeare with fliptop head and secret switch.  I actually blogged about this product years ago, like 2005, but the store I linked to at the time seems to no longer have the product.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/hamlet-dvd.html Personally I’m not really into this one, as not being a big Dr. Who fan translates to me not really caring much about this Tennant fellow.  But others seem to be falling all over themselves, so  I thought I’d send this petition some link love. Keeping in mind, of course, that in the history of things online, no online petition has ever made a difference to anything anywhere…ever. 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LAiQ6fZXBE I don’t know exactly where this footage comes from, but wow is it cool!  Anybody know when the DVD is out?  I was looking for Christmas presents :).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/books/11masl.html I was unaware that Marjorie Garber, she of “Shakespeare After All,” had a new book out.  “Shakespeare And Modern Culture” seems to cover quite a bit : makeup, movies, songs, motivational speakers, and so on.  It’s one of those “Shakespeare everywhere” things. I might like this one.  I found Shakespeare After All to be a hard read, the kind of thing that only the hardcore Shakespeare fans would truly appreciate. I’ve mentioned before, I’m always on the lookout that I could recommend to others to make them fans, you know? Shakespeare’s work, in her opinion, is so constantly mutable that it always exists in the present, whatever that present might be. The ways in which Shakespeare is interpreted in different eras say as much about those time periods as they do about the writing itself. I mean, that’s great.  I can totally get behind that.