http://todayshistorylesson.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/the-pride-of-shakespeare/ I don’t fully understand the connection here, but I’m intrigued.  This history web site tells us about Ie Shima, a small island near Okinawa that apparently fell pretty easily during World War II.  Big deal, you say?  Fair enough.  But the island “has a Shakespearean tragedy-legend all its own”, we learn.  A girl named Hando-gwaa wanted to marry her love, named Kanahi.  But it turns out he’s already married, so she climbs Tacchu Mountain and hangs herself with her long hair. …and??  There’s nothing else in the post about this story.  So I’m a little confused on why the author makes the leap to associate it with Shakespeare.  While our man in Stratford did write a few doozies, he does not have a monopoly on tragedy.  I’m hoping that there’s something else to the story to merit the Shakespeare connection. Anybody got more to the story?  Should we throw a yellow card on Today’s History Lesson for unnecessary Shakespeare references?

http://legendsofamerica.blogspot.com/2008/03/shakespeare-and-new-mexico-border.html Seriously. It’s a ghost town, named Shakespeare.  I knew about it’s existence, but I don’t think I’ve ever linked to it.  Technically has nothing to do with the real Shakespeare, as far as I can tell, which would normally break one of my rules (I don’t, for instance, blog references to Shakespeare fishing rods), but it seems like it *should* be related to the man, and I can’t see any evidence that it’s not.  Be sure to follow the links that describe the history of the town, it’s actually pretty fascinating. I have a brother out in New Mexico.  If I ever get out there to visit him, I’ll have to check this place out.

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1208248384292160.xml&coll=2 I just happened to see a review roll through my feeds today.  This one was in Cleveland, and neither the production nor the source material get a particularly good review.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/14/theater.patrick.stewart.ap/index.html Great article (by CNN, no less!) on what Patrick Stewart does when he’s not playing Macbeth.  Answer?  He reads Hamlet. For fun.  The man is far more a “Shakespeare freak” than I think even his biggest fans give him credit for. “What I’m doing now is all I ever wanted to do. I didn’t have any other ambitions,” he says. “Once I’d been accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, I was perfectly content.” He stayed for an eyebrow-raising 14 years, playing everything from Mark Anthony to Henry IV to Shylock to Oberon. “People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?’ ” he says. “Telly?”

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10996471 Apparently “World Book Day” is coming up?  Some crafters specializing in bookbinding are jumping all over this day (I wonder why?).  In the link above someone has made a pretty cool looking Shakespeare-themed notebook.  I wasn’t really sure at first what it was, hoping for some original content, but eventually I figured out that it’s just a nicely crafted blank 50 page notebook.  The backs of the pages are actually printouts, in various forms, of assorted Shakespeare content including pictures, biography and other bits.  Check out the pictures, that’s really the only way to explain what I’m talking about.