I’m Back, And I Brought Maple Candy!

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

[ Maple candy available at my desk. ]

Did you miss me?  I’m back from my New England road trip vacation, which for the curious included stops in (the commas are about the crucify me here) Augusta, Maine, Chesterville, Maine, White River Junction, VT and Williston, VT, with stops along the way at Clark’s Trading Post, Polar Caves, Lost River, The Vermont Teddy Bear Factory and Ben & Jerry’s, with a special visit to Burlington, VT which I like to think of as time travel back to 1969.  Had to love the hippie dude on the neon decorated bicycle with the sign that read “Flower Power” on one side and “Police are Scumbags” on the other.
I found something for you!  One of the great things about wandering around the little towns of New England is always stopping to stick my head in used bookstores and ask if they have a Shakespeare section.  My find?  The out of print 1982 “Shakespeare Games” by Robert Fenster.  This is exactly what it says, and right up our alley – a book of all kinds of different games about Shakespeare and his source material.
If the book wasn’t long out of print I’d have much more worries about occasionally printing a game, but given that it’s been 30 years, it’s the only title by this author, and the used Amazon price on it is a penny (come on, I paid four bucks!), I think we’re safe to enjoy it.
Should we play a quick one?  I’m just back at the office so I don’t have a lot of time right now to shepherd over a longer one.  Let’s see…..(flip, flip, flip)
Game 15, A Caldron Boiling
Name the correct Portion of the Potion.
e.g.   _____ of newt.   (Answer: eye)
Ready?  No fair digging up the script, you have to test your memory of the famous spell.
 A.  ______ of newt
 B. ______ of hemlock
 C. ______ of salt-sea shark
 D. ______ of frog
 E. ______ of dragon
 F. ______ of goat
 G. ______ of Turk
 H. ______ of blaspheming Jew
 I. ______ of birth-strangled babe
 J. ______ of wolf
 K. ______ of dog
 L. ______ of yew
 M. ______ of bat
 N.______ of a fenny snake
Ok, enjoy.  I’ve got a week’s worth of links and posts to catch up on so hopefully I can get some more stuff up soon.  I hope Bardfilm doesn’t think I missed his whole “Yes Shakespeare Said That” game on Twitter while I was gone, I’ll get him for that one.  I’m working on a post detailing the parallels between Merry Wives of Windsor and Manos, The Hands of Fate.

Whedon’s Much Ado Movie — Release Date!

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

For those not following on Twitter, a representative from Bellwether Pictures (Whedon’s production company) tweeted the following this morning:

Looks like some of you might have heard that a little film, #MuchAdoTheMovie, will be premiering at #TIFF12 Sept 6-16. More details soon.

TIFF is the Toronto International Film Festival. They are holding a press conference as we speak, when the full fall lineup will be announced (currently their site appears to only have summer listings).

UPDATED – More details, including a video, now available.  Strangely I do not hear Whedon’s name mentioned in the video but he’s clearly included in the writeup (along with a hint that his movie will likely be one of the biggest hits of the festival).

The App’s The Thing

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Everybody knows that I’m a software developer by trade.  Over the years we’ve periodically discussed how Shakespeare can crossover with technology to produce new and exciting ways of teaching, learning, and performing.  They’re actually coming so fast and furious at me now that I can’t even keep up – I had to turn down an offer to be part of a test group for a new app because I only have Android devices, and everybody insists on developing for iPad first :(.

But!  Let’s talk about this Fast Company story on a new $9.99 iPad version of The Tempest.  It looks to have lots of things I’ve always wanted:
  • combine the text with the audio book so you can read or listen at will, your choice
  • add comments and notes that will be shared with other people reading the book so that you can create a sort of virtual book club for discussion 
  • switch over to video to actually see performances of key scenes 

Ten bucks for what will be be seen as a “fancy multimedia book” is no doubt pretty high and I don’t expect it to take over the world.  Ten bucks for a single play?  My brain immediately does math for how much it’ll cost me to go through all the plays I’d like to read this way.

Whether you read the story or not, what would you like to see in the ideal “Shakespeare on Mobile” (tablet or phone?) app?  Is it all about the text, or the video?  Is it about the source material, or the centuries of commentary and footnotes?  Or would it be about collaborating and creating new things?  Would you rather have fewer plays in the app and have the app do more things, or is the desire for a “Complete Works” the stronger force at work here?
For years I’ve wanted a way to connect every kid in the world reading Hamlet with every Shakespeare Geek in the world who wants to talk about Hamlet, and I think we’re finally getting closer.  My idea, since before the Kindle and the iPad (when I had a “Rocket eBook Reader”) was for the reader to post a question on a page and say “Wait!  Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius here?”  That, so far, has always been easy.  The trick is that there would be an army of people out there who have signed up to listen for these questions, who get a little notification blip on their device that says, “There’s a new question to answer.”  So you go and you answer it, right there in the text.
I think we’re getting closer.

The Shakespeare Olympics

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

Is anybody else getting excited at the thought of Shakespeare playing a role in the upcoming Olympics?

My kids are old enough to understand the idea of the Olympics, and they’ve been preparing – watching the qualifying events for swimming and gymnastics, etc..  Tonight my daughter asks me, “When is the opening ceremony?”

“Friday night,” I tell her.  We’re going to be away in a hotel, but I plan to be riveted to a television. “And at some point during the ceremony, Kenneth Branagh is going to read some Shakespeare, and Daddy is going to lose his mind.”

“Why?” she asked.

…How do you explain it?  For starters it might not even be true, the replacement of Mark Rylance with Kenneth Branagh was just a rumor, and I have no idea what part he will play.  But I can dream.  So how do I explain to my 10yr old geeklet that what I’m excited about is that, for a brief period of time, one of *our* representatives is going to have the attention of the *entire world*.  How often do Shakespeareans get that?  It’s not as if President Obama dropped a Henry V quote into a speech and then all the talking heads on CNN rushed to discuss the context of how he used it and what it could mean.  Pretty soon the whole world is going to look at London and say, “What have you got for us, London?  What makes you so special?”  And at least to some extent, what they’re going to do is trot out Shakespeare.  I couldn’t be more excited.  How many of us dream for such a captive audience?

In honor of the Olympics I’d like to point people to a post I made four years ago on the subject of sports in Shakespeare.  This particular post holds a very special place in the history of this site, and you’ll see it play out in the comments.  Dr. Carl Atkins literally wrote the book (ok, well, *a* book) on the sonnets.  I have it.  Yet during the conversation, former contributor(*) Alan Farrar drops in a comment that the “master mistress” in Sonnet 20 is actually a reference to the sport of bowls (is that the same as bowling?) Dr. Atkins has never heard such a thing, so he researches it … and *confirms* it, noting reference to the fact in a 1971 article and pointing out that at least eight editors missed it.  Only through a chance meeting on this blog is the record set straight.

(*) I say former because I have not heard from Mr. Farrar in years.  It is my belief that he has passed away. I know from watching his other blogs that he had significant health difficulties.  I never did find any sort of confirmation of his passing, I just know that he disappeared from the yet a good number of years ago.  RIP, Alan.  I can only hope that those flights of angels have long since sung thee to thy rest.