That’s right, you heard me. Hanks and Winfrey are teaming up to produce the movie version of Edgar Sawtelle, which is based on Hamlet:

"Edgar Sawtelle" is about a mute boy who runs away from home after the murder of his dog-breeding father and other subsequent misfortunes. He travels through the wilderness of Wisconsin and Canada followed by three pups from a litter he’d been raising himself until he decides to return home and face the man he suspects is the killer.

I’ve been looking at that book, wondering whether to pick it up, but I always skip it.  I’ve got a stack of books I’m not reading already, I don’t need to make it bigger.  This one will definitely go in the “see the movie instead” pile.

So the other day during a meeting we notice that the boss’s clock is not out of batteries, it is in fact broken.  “Did they have clocks when Shakespeare was writing?” he asks, knowing me to be a Shakespeare geek. “Funny you should say that,” says I, and tell him the story of the Julius Caesar anachronism, how Brutus hears the clock chime three times when, for ancient Rome, there wouldn’t have been such a clock. (*) We can debate whether that’s a mistake of whether Mr. Shakespeare knew what he was doing and just went with it, but it’s no fun to say “What’s your favorite anachronism”? What are some other “mistakes” Shakespeare might have made?  Little things that, once you draw attention to them, don’t make a whole lot of sense?

Ran into one of my older daughter’s teachers (who I knew only by site, have never spoken with her) at McDonald’s the other day.  She recognized me though as well, because she said, “So I hear you’re a Shakespeare geek.”  (Actually she said “afficionado of the bard”, but afficionadoofthebard.com is too hard to spell. :))  I informed her that yes, yes I was, plugged shakespearegeek.com, and said, “My kids know Shakespeare as well.” “I know,” she said, “I was helping your oldest look for books in the library when she pointed at one and said Oh look, Shakespeare’s on that one.” This morning, oldest says to me “Mrs. M knows you’re a Shakespeare geek.” “I know,” I respond, “I saw her at lunch.” “I told her you’re a Shakespeare geek.” “Dot com, sweetie.  Shakespearegeek.com!” Hey if the girl’s gonna shill for me she might as well plug the website!

Those of you with young children will know this, but the little ones love a good joke.  They just don’t fully get how a joke works.  So they’ll often take the structure of something else they heard, swap in a few different words, and expect it to be equally funny. “What did the cow say to the Martin Luther King guy?” was one such joke my 5year old started, but she couldn’t think of a punchline so she changed it and we got this instead: “What did Queen Titania say to King Oberon?”

”Umm….I know a lot of things Titania said to Oberon, sweetie, but they’re probably not in your joke.  So I don’t know,what did Titania say to Oberon?”

“Will you marry me?”

“I suppose after she started speaking to him again, maybe.”

🙂

You’d think that “Shakespeare” is a relatively unique name, but trust me, if you monitor the newsfeed like I do, you’d realize just how wrong that is(*).  For months I’ve been distracted by headlines like “Shakespeare is Missing” and “Foul Play Suspected in Shakespeare Disappearance”, and more recently “Digging for Shakespeare’s Body.”  That last is a particularly tricky one, since there is in fact an archaeological dig going on over in Stratford as we speak. This story, though, is the unfortunate demise of lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare, who disappeared some months ago.  His body was just recovered this week.  Cases like these are sad, as you realize that his body was found under a concrete slab.  Meaning that somebody put it there.  Meaning that, no doubt, somebody killed the poor guy.  I mean, it’s sad when you find remains anyway – but it’s different if somebody falls in the river, or gets lost in the woods, or other unfortunate but accidental deaths.  This guy was murdered, almost certainly having to do with his money. Hope they catch whoever did it.  Apparently there’s a suspect in a neighbor/”friend” who claims he gave her a million dollars.   (*) I’ve learned to ignore the ironically named Shakespeare fishing rods.  When I think of people who take their fishing seriously, I do not picture them bringing a copy of the complete works out on the boat with them to read while they wait.