I mention Dr. Seuss on this blog. A lot.  I think that there are places in the text where Shakespeare and Seuss practically overlap.  Not in tragic storyline, of course, but in mastery at using rhyme and meter to make their point.

Last year for Seuss Day we had a grand old time mashing up our beloved poetic heroes over on Twitter with the #SeussSpeare tag, and repeated the effort this year.

Here, for your enjoyment, are the best of the bunch:

• Did you hide him here, or there?  I hid Polonius under the stairs.  #SeussSpeare
• “And To Think That I Saw It At Elsinore Castle”.  No, wait, that wasn’t Seuss, that was Horatio.  #SeussSpeare
• And cut him out into little stars, which those Sneetches o’er thar shall wear upon thars. #SeussSpeare
• I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees! Which are marching to Dunsinane quick as they please! #SeussSpeare
• Stop! You must not Hop On Top of Pop! Or divide his kingdom between yourselves and send him out alone into a raging storm. #SeussSpeare
• I would not wish any companion in the world but you. And, of course, Thing One and Thing Two. #SeussSpeare
• Big M, little m, what begins that way? Macbeth Macduff and murder, all in a Scottish Play. #SeussSpeare
• Today was good, today was fun. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow are other ones.  #SeussSpeare
• He meant what he said and he said what he meant, faithful Iago’s word is one hundred percent. #SeussSpeare
• I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where Oxlips and the grickle-grass grows. #SeussSpeare
• Lear’s shoes are off, his feet are cold, he has a Fool he likes to hold. #SeussSpeare   (One of my favorites :))
• “Regan doth not fear mere Lear sneers…”” #SeussSpeare
• Cordelia is more near dear Lear’s sphere.  #SeussSpeare
• I may be certain there’s a Yurtain in my curtain, but I really might embarrass the old Polonius in my arras. #SeussSpeare
• O is very useful, you use it when you say, obsessed Othello offed his obedient one and only today. #SeussSpeare
• Who’s that, who’s there? I said, who’s there? Is that Horatio on the stairs? #SeussSpeare
• Rest now, prince, let angels sing. Fortinbras shall be our king.  #SeussSpeare
• Cup is up, Gertrude’s down!  Claudius heads out of town.  #SeussSpeare
• I lay there with Julie. We lay there, we two, and I said, “How I wish I had poison to drink.” #SeussSpeare  (courtesy @bardfilm)
• Unbated and envenom’d, too? Tell me, Laertes, what you planned to do? #SeussSpeare

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Some people get road rage when the traffic is too heavy, or when somebody cuts you off without a directional, or any of 100 other reasons.  I bet I’m the only guy who gets road rage in this situation:

I’m driving to work, listening to the Steve Jobs biography on audiobook.  I come to this passage:

“I started to listen to music a whole lot, and I started to read more outside of just science and technology – Shakespeare, Plato. I loved King Lear.”  His other favorites included Moby-Dick and the poems of Dylan Thomas.  I asked him why he related to King Lear and Captain Ahab, two of the most willful and driven characters in literature, but he didn’t respond to the connection I was making, so I let it drop.

You…let it drop?!  I will kill you.  Yeah, in the course of my book research the single most brilliant technologist of the last century who created an empire focused on integrating the humanities rather than ignoring them, just told you he loved Shakespeare and you let it drop. 

Man, way to make me sad.  I would read an entire book of Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Shakespeare.

By the way, true story — the original NeXT computer (by Steve Jobs) came with the complete works of Shakespeare.  How do you not love that?  Sure, at the time it was just one of those “Because we can” opportunities, but have you ever seen it since then?  Why doesn’t your phone come with the complete works of Shakespeare built in?

I wrote about this potential Shakespearean trainwreck of a movie last year, and it appears that nobody’s yet put it out of its misery.  Now we’re starting to get casting details.

Let’s just jump right to the good stuff, since it’s hidden in a comment on the original post.  Here is the Amazon summary of the book – the *debut* *electronic book* no less – that this movie is based upon.  This woman’s got to have connections in high places.

“Rosie knows that she and Rob are destined to be together. They are best
friends, next door neighbors, and the soon-to-be cutest couple in their
senior class. Rosie has been waiting for years for Rob to kiss her–and
when he finally does, it’s perfect. But just before their relationship
becomes completely official, Rosie’s cousin Juliet moves back into town.
Juliet, who used to be Rosie’s best friend. Juliet, who now
inexplicably hates her. Juliet, who is gorgeous, vindictive, and a
little bit crazy…and who has set her sights on Rob. He doesn’t even
stand a chance.

Rosie is devastated over losing Rob to Juliet.
This is not how the story was supposed to go. And when rumors start
swirling about Juliet’s instability, her neediness, and her threats of
suicide, Rosie starts to fear not only for Rob’s heart, but also for his
life. Because Shakespeare may have gotten the story wrong, but we all
still know how it ends.”

Am I just getting old? Does that story sound appealing to today’s teenagers?  It sounds like one of those wannabe trashy young adult novels that I used to see girls carrying around the high school hallways 20 years ago.  Sweet Valley High, was it?

I don’t know what’s the worst part of the story – that somebody’s butchering Shakespeare in the name of a cheap high school soap opera, that somebody’s paying good money to make a movie out of it, or that this woman whipped up an ebook (something that pretty much anybody with a computer can do, trust me on this one 🙂 ) and somehow got a movie deal out of it on her very first try. 

This is probably one of those “you have to be there” stories but I’m enjoying the heck out of it.  I set up my kids with MicroShakespeare on their Kindle devices.  This includes a Shakespeare trivia game.  It’s unfortunate that a number of the questions have incorrect answers (as discussed in my review, and responded to by the developer) but it’s still a hoot.

So, you have to picture the scene.  I’ve got 2 little geeklets (the boy, at 5, doesn’t quite have the reading skills yet to play properly) wandering around the house shouting out Shakespeare questions to me, usually simultaneously.  You ever see one of those sitcom episodes where the character dreams he’s on a game show and you get that scene where it’s just question and question being blasted at him, and he answers them all correctly?  That’s my house this morning.

“When was the First Folio published?”

“Where do the words Curst be he that moves my bones appear?”

“How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?”

“What was the last play Shakespeare wrote before he died?”

“1623! His grave! 154! The Tempest!”

I’m loving it. 🙂

Oh, and the best part? The part that they don’t even realize is happening?  That’s the part where the 7yr old asks a question, and the 9yr old answers it instead of me.  They’re learning!

It suddenly occurred to Bardfilm that he had never taken the elementary step of asking Shakespeare’s characters the simple (but telling) question “Why did the chicken cross the road?” That has now been rectified:

Why did the chicken cross the road, Falstaff?

You mean I missed one?

Henry V, why did the chicken cross the road?

Proclaim it through my host that any chicken which hath no stomach to this fight may depart. We would not die in that chicken’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us. We few. We happy few. We brood of chickens!

Why did the chicken cross the road, Tybalt?

I do not know. I hate the bird, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.

Why did the chicken cross the road, Ophelia?

She . . . she made it? Then there’s hope! Hope! Hope! {Splash.}

Mark Antony, why did the chicken cross the road?

Because she was an honorable bird. So are they all—all honorable birds!

Why did the chicken cross the road, Hamlet’s Father’s Ghost?

Because she escaped me. My general policy, as you know, is to murder most fowl.

Macbeth, why did the chicken cross the road?

Is this a chicken that I see before me, the beak toward my hand?

Why did the chicken cross the road, Hamlet?

Well, it was going to cross the road, but halfway across it began to think, “If I cross this road now, while it is a-praying, won’t the road end up going to heaven?” so it turned around and headed straight back. It struck me as pretty reasonable.

King Lear, why did the chicken cross the road?

To die, insane, having lost everything.

Why did the chicken cross the road, Rosalind?

To get to the Forest of Arden! But to get there, she had to dress as a rooster.

Antigonus, why did the chicken cross the road?

She simply exited, pursued by a bear. Wouldn’t you?

Macduff, why did the chicken cross the road?

Did you say all?

No, just the one chicken, Macduff.

O hell-kite! All?

No—listen. It just a joke. One chicken, one road.

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?

Oh, nevermind.

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.