http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10996471 Apparently “World Book Day” is coming up?  Some crafters specializing in bookbinding are jumping all over this day (I wonder why?).  In the link above someone has made a pretty cool looking Shakespeare-themed notebook.  I wasn’t really sure at first what it was, hoping for some original content, but eventually I figured out that it’s just a nicely crafted blank 50 page notebook.  The backs of the pages are actually printouts, in various forms, of assorted Shakespeare content including pictures, biography and other bits.  Check out the pictures, that’s really the only way to explain what I’m talking about.

http://bookdweeb.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/enter-three-witches-by-caroline-b-cooney/ Last week we spoke of a young adult novel about Ophelia, only in that version apparently she’s pregnant and runs off with Horatio, or something like that. This week I see “Enter Three Witches”, which revolves around Lady Mary, the 14yr old daughter of the Thane of Cawdor.    Since in this case the character is entirely made up, I’m not sure if that will make people feel better or worse about butchering of the story.  I suppose if you love this stuff you’ll like it, and if you hate this stuff you won’t.  To each their own.

So again this weekend somebody asks me my favorite Shakespeare play, and again I give my standard answer, “No favorite, they’re all good for different reasons.” But she wants to argue it with me, saying I must have a favorite.  I point out that if you ask me what I think the best play is I will say King Lear, but that I have read The Tempest to my children as a bedtime story and had my 3yr old quote it back to me, and that offers a value that I can’t get anywhere else.  They are different. I’ve decided to change my approach.  Now, when somebody asks me that question and does not take my honest answer, I’m going to name random Shakespeare plays and see what sort of response I get.  “Favorite play?  Oh, gotta be All’s Well That Ends Well.  Do you know it?  Great stuff.”  Be interesting to see if I get anybody who actually wants to pursue the question after that. 🙂

I have not watched this yet, but whenever I saw that the Flying Karamazov Brothers (jugglers extraordinaire) were doing The Comedy of Errors, it was an immediate download!  

http://geek.shakespearezone.com/?p=2348 Starting with one of my favorite quotes (“Each line in Shakespeare is an atom. The energy that can be released is infinite – if we can split it open.”), Alan K. Farrar sits down to review what, I’m not quite sure.  The transcript of a lecture given by Peter Brook in 1996…but does that mean it’s newly published and only just now available, or something he’s just gotten his hands on?  Perhaps he’ll tell us. Anyway, I’m becoming more and more fascinated with this Brook character, a name I’d never heard until Rosenbaum’s lavish praise in Shakespeare Wars.  I mean, seriously, the man spends the first 50 pages travelling around the world and asking people if they’d seen Brooks’ production of Dream, and then saying “Wasn’t it awesome?”  Obviously I’ve got to learn more about Mr. Brook and his influence on our modern understanding Shakespeare. Why isn’t Shakespeare Out of Date?  Alan tells us that this is the question Brooks’ short (32 pages) hopes to answer.  I love that question.  I think it’s one of the most important questions, as a matter of fact.  At least as far as justifying why we’re all still sitting around talking about the man. I know he hangs out here, so perhaps Alan will tell us a little more about the book.  Unlike us whoring Americans, he doesn’t put any Amazon links in his post :).