So my trip to Stratford Upon Avon is fast approaching!  I will be in Shakespeare’s birthplace Monday, Aug 19 through Wednesday, Aug 21. This is a big deal for me, and for my family. I don’t want to be just another tourist. Surely, after running the original Shakespeare blog for fourteen years now and looking at social media audience north of twenty thousand users, surely  I can figure out some ways to make it something that only I could do.

Here’s my first idea. I have mentioned once or twice that I’ve got Shakespeare Geek Merchandise for sale. 🙂  My family all have some, as you can no doubt imagine. I hope you have some, too.  It’s not about the money, I do it to put more Shakespeare out in the world. I’ve often said that the dream is to randomly spot one of my own t-shirts in the wild. Then I could say, “Hey, I like your shirt! Shakespeare Geek, right?  Me too!”

Where’s Waldo?

So let’s do that.  When I’m in Stratford I’m going to be wearing my own merchandise.  If you’re in Stratford, and you have any SG merchandise, do the same. Make it Shakespeare Geek Day.  Because if I spot you I am going to come up and say, “Hey, I like your shirt!” and you’re going to be all, “Dude, wait, are you Shakespeare Geek? That’s awesome.”  And then we can take a picture and I’ll post it on social media, and my kids will be all, “Wait, people actually *know* you?” and I’ll be all, “Yeah, happens all the time.”

I might even be armed with Shakespeare Geek stickers or something to give out. That’s something else I’ve always wanted, to have swag to hand out to fans.

I have no idea the cross-section of “people who own Shakespeare Geek merchandise” and “people who will be in SUA on those days” with “people who are reading this post and want to play”, but hey, that’s part of the fun.  I don’t plan on running up to everybody with a Shakespeare t-shirt because I expect that there’ll be more than a few.  But I can recognize my own merchandise, I’ll know immediately which ones are mine.

And just in case you never realized that we have merchandise, click here now! 🙂

Loyal readers may remember a little over three years ago when we got to help with a very cool request.  A reader from Canada wrote in to let us know that his new purebred Doberman puppy needed a full show name to be part of the Shakespeare theme of his litter.  It seems that these dogs get an “everyday” name, such as Toby, but also a full name from the breeder (in this case, Braebrook), so Toby’s full name was actually “Braebrook’s To Be Or Not To Be.”

After some back and forth and digging through texts, with the opening restriction that her everyday name would be River, we ended up on what turned out to be obvious, yet perfect, “Braebrook’s Sweet Swan of Avon”:

Well I got to thinking the other day (when Twitter analytics told me that “dogs” is the most popular interest of my followers), what’s River look like now?  I reached out to Keir, River’s owner who made the original request, and he was happy to provide us with a new picture. Take a look at River now!  Keir told me that River’s on the left, but I’m relatively certain that’s Keir.  So we’ll assume that River is the one in the middle 🙂

That’s her brother, Rancher, on the other side. Keir’s update:

River has become her papa’s little girl. She and I are nearly inseparable, only breaks away from me long enough to boss her older, and bigger, brother ‘Rancher’ around. Seriously, she’s the boss! At the same time, they too have a relationship bonded by love and devotion.

It only just occurred to me while writing this post that I want to know Rancher’s full name.  If he’s part of the same litter (being her brother, and all), he should have a Shakespeare name as well!  I’ll update the post if/when I find out.

Thanks for the update, Keir!  That’s a very, very good girl you’ve got there. Please feel free to keep in touch and send more pictures!