I’m not sure I know what a “Bard-a-thon” is, but it sounds like fun.  A free, round-the-clock public reading of all Shakespeare’s works.  The thing is, it’s in Alaska.  There is a call-in number, though.  I’m tempted to call in just to see how it works – do they give you a part to read?  Do you get to hear a recording back of how your part fit in with everybody else’s?  Or is it a live thing where whoever is on the phone at the time is told, “You’re Anthony, we’re in Act II Scene 3, go!” Anybody ever been to this thing?  Anybody involved with it watching for links and want to chime in with more info?  Sounds pretty neat.  

Anybody ever wondered what Shakespeare Tarot cards would look like?  Wonder no more.  Pretty cool.  I used to be able to read Tarot cards way back in college, but I typically couldn’t keep a straight face long enough and usually ended up telling people as I read the cards, “You realize I’m just doing a cold reading, right?  I mean, you just told me not 5 minutes ago that you’re having trouble with your boss at work, so of course I turned up a card that says you have problems with a person of power over you.”  The fact that no one cared, and still listened to every word I said, was troublesome to me.  

Anybody want to read 200 pages of PDF that claim to “crack the code” of Shakespeare’s sonnets?  Maybe summarize for the rest of the class?  I don’t have time for this.  Here’s a sample: In other sonnets, the doubled (and multiplied) code words may reveal new, autobiographical details, other identities, and evidence of Shakespeare’s sense of humor and the depth of his language play. In addition, Sonnet 52 is found by the same doubled word and letter code to be a Summer Solstice sonnet. If we count back to Sonnet 1, we arrive at May first (our calendar). If we count ahead to Sonnet 126, we arrive at September third. If we assume that Sonnets 40 and 133 are contemporaries, both revealing when Will first admits that the youth and the dark lady are having an affair, we can give them both the date of June ninth. Then, Sonnet 127, the first dark lady sonnet, becomes June third (along with Sonnet 34), thus starting one possible twenty-eight day (14 times 2) lunar cycle within the 126 day (28 times 4.5) summer solar cycle of the youth’s sequence. If any year is referred to, it might be 1592, but Shakespeare probably wrote and revised the Sonnets over the twenty-year period (1589—1609) that spans the main years of his wonderful career as a dramatist. A more complex view of this great sonnet sequence than any of us has to date is called for.   The author is Peter Jensen, Instructor of English at Linn-Benton Community College.  The link is directly to the PDF, I do not have a link to a hosting HTML page.  

Like all good geeks I’m familiar with Neil Gaiman, mostly through Good Omens but I do have Anansi Boys on the shelf waiting for my time.  What I did not realize is that he’s got enough of a Shakespeare background to a whole section of his Wikipedia page.  I’ve only ever heard about “Sandman”, never read it, but knowing that Shakespeare himself shows up in 3 episodes, one dealing with the inspiration for The Tempest, I may have to go seek those out!  

Via LiveJournal I caught this reference to a song by Dream Theater called Pull Me Under that is apparently about Hamlet.  Consider me intrigued!   Hmmm…I’d like to know where the original poster got the reference, because the only lines I can find that are not totally generic are these:

I’ll take seven lives for one
And then my only father’s son
As sure as I did ever love him
I am not afraid   Anybody else got good songs based in Shakespeare that we might not already know about?