Philocrites: Bush and Colbert, Lear and the Fool.:

Did everyone Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent’s dinner by now? The man was brilliant, but the performance was so cringeworthy that I almost felt bad for him. The humor was vicious. And Bush was sitting about 4 feet from him.

I’m happy to see Philocrites’ comparison of this situation to Lear and his Fool. Many people don’t understand the Fool as comic relief, wondering where the goofy, fall on the floor hysterics are. The Fool’s lines are usually much darker, and more along the lines of “When the king makes a mistake, I will show it to him.” I like this line : ” Their exchanges aren’t funny haha, they’re funny oh-no.” Yes, that sounds about right for Colbert’s routine.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare, stephen colbert

QCTimes.com – The Quad-City Times Newspaper Features:

When I saw “Write mom a sonnet for Mother’s Day” show up in my Google alerts I got an evil grin on my face, rubbed my hands together fiendishly and prepared to blast whatever article I found for surely thinking that a sonnet was little more than 12 lines of iambic pentameter and a rhyming couplet. I get there and see that the article is written by Garrison Keillor, who has a little bit more experience as a writer than I do. 🙂 There is no dissection of what a sonnet is all about. The article is essentially a smack in the side of the head to tell people “Your mother deserves something for Mother’s Day that shows how much you appreciate her, and there’s no excuse in the book good enough because with just pencil and paper you can make like Shakespeare.”
(His sample first line doesn’t really scan, but I think he was in it more for the punchy ending ;))

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Lady Macbeth on Ambien.:

Nothing special to say, it’s just cute and worth a link. To Mickey D’s!

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Sorry I haven’t been getting more posted lately. Got a new baby due any day now, and my evenings are filled up with painting nurseries, going to furniture stores and so on. This’ll be our third – and first son. Already got two girls :). I wrote a sonnet for the last one, but not sure that a boy would ultimately appreciate that :).

‘Gnomeo’ Doth Have a Producer:

I really want Disney to do a version of The Tempest. I think it’s got all the makings — a young girl as the heroine, her relationship with her dad, bad guys who try to take over the island, comic relief, and magical creatures. But alas, I know of no plans.

However, they are working with Elton John’s production coming on “Gnomeo and Juliet, an animated version of Romeo and Juliet that takes place in “the world of tacky garden gnomes.” That’s different. But I’ll happily take my kids to it, if they manage to make it rated G.

Technorati Tags: puppy, Shakespeare