Shakespeare Holds Up You Are a Dog Japanese on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

When I go to a site like Technorati looking for Shakespeare stories, a bunch of Flickr photos that have also been tagged as Shakespeare show up down the side. So when I saw this one entitled “Shakespeare Holds Up You Are a Dog Japanese”, I said “huh? What?” I had to click it. Was it some weird translation from Japanese to English?

Nope. It’s the author of a book entitled “You are a dog” who has taken a picture of her (his?) book leaning up against a Shakespeare book. It’s a silly joke about the position of her book in classic literature (kindof an updated “Shakespeare’s not fit to shine my shoes”, the way I read it), which she recognizes is silly. What she did do wonderfully though, and the reason she earns a link from me, is that with some creative tagging she’s getting a bunch of people like me to go check her book out on Amazon. I like creative ways to generate traffic that aren’t misleading, and technically there’s nothing misleading about this. I may not have understood what it was, but when you look at it, everything is right there.

I’m not sure if the audience for my blog right now is primarily Shakespeare experts, or people with Shakespeare questions looking for help. I’m hoping it’s a mix of both. So let me try an experiment. If you’re out there and you’ve stumbled across the blog because you have a question that you’re looking to get answered, tell me about it. I’ll post it up here and we can get some discussion going among those who might have the answer. Very often you’ll find that the answer isn’t cut and dried, yes or no. It’s a matter of personal opinion and interpretation. Was Hamlet truly mad, or just acting? No one really knows. But it’s fun to ask and throw your two cents into the mix.

I can’t promise that I’ll post every single question, because my other site used to get a regular trickle of the same question over and over again (“wherefore” means “why”, in case you were planning to ask). But if it hasn’t already been discussed to death, I’ll try to get it up here. If it has already been discussed to death, I’ll point you to it.

Also note that we’re not really into doing anybody’s homework for them, so come prepared with an answer to your own question. “I think Act 2 Scene 3 is really about….” is a much better way to start than, “Can somebody tell me what happens in Act 2 Scene 3? I need it by 10am tomorrow.”

shakespeare

Lexington Herald-Leader | 08/25/2005 | Author takes her series seriously
I like Rita Mae Brown after reading this article. Not only does she say cool literary things like “Genre books are a sonnet…if you stay inside the format, you can say anything you want,” but she also says uber-cool things like “any reader would have to be a ‘blithering idiot’ not to be thrilled by the pyrotechnics of Shakespeare.”

To be fair, I’m not taking “blithering idiot” as particularly insulting. I think that she’s pointing to people who never read Shakespeare and just assume that he was dull and boring. There are plenty of people out there who really do try, and want to understand, but sometimes find it hard. That’s not the same thing.

Technorati: shakespeare

I found this story funny about Tom Cruise “being happier in a previous life, when he was Shakespeare.” Turns out that the whole interview with him and all the quotes is a big hoax, but it’s being picked up and reported as truth, and he’s all upset over it. Maybe he should take some anti-depressants or something.

Tag : shakespeare

JESSICA SIMPSON – SIMPSON SETS SIGHT ON SHAKESPEARE

Not really sure what joke to make here. I find it none too surprising that such an announcement from Jessica Simpson comes hot on the heels of revelation that Marilyn Monroe had wanted to get into more Shakespeare as well. Once again the standard question, what role would she play? What evidence has there been in anything that she’s ever done to give a hint that she can play something with depth?