I knew from Shakespeare class that ears were sexual.
Ears, you say?
I’m sorry, what? I love that I’ve been doing this for almost thirteen years now and I can still find new things to talk about. I’ve definitely never heard the argument made that Shakespeare sexualized ears, nor can I immediately think of any examples where this might be the case. (Checks Sonnet 130 just in case … eyes, lips, hair, cheeks….nope.)
All that comes to mind is, “Lend me your ears!” which makes me imagine an audience shouting back, “We’re using them right now, give us five minutes!”
But seriously folks. Have I overlooked something obvious? What could the author possibly be talking about?
Recently I spotted The Enchantress of Numbers, a novel about Ada Lovelace. If you’re unfamiliar with that name, she’s often credited as being the first computer programmer because of her relationship with Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference Engine (often heralded as the first modern programmable computing device). As a lifelong computer geek and now the father of two daughters, I’m always interested in the stories of women in science and engineering, so this was a no-brainer.
I would say that I don’t usually like historical fiction, because it’s exactly that, fiction. Where’s the pleasure in reading about stuff that didn’t happen to people that really did exist? I started to say to someone, “It’s not like I’m seeking out Shakespeare historical fiction either…” but then I realized that I quite liked that Will television series that was on this past summer:
When Shakespeare, Kemp, Burbage and the other “moderately historically accurate” characters are on screen, I am enraptured. I could watch it all day. I’ve been telling people it reminds me of the recent “Jobs” movie starring Michael Fassbender, which was basically two plus hours of a universe centered on Steve Jobs. To the degree that this show will be a universe centered on Shakespeare and his circle, you won’t be able to tear me away from the television.
I’ve never actually read anything like that. The only Shakespeare fiction I know is usually young adult stuff to introduce my kids to Shakespeare. People travel through time to meet Shakespeare, or people discover a long lost Shakespeare manuscript. At least once I think I read something from Anne Hathaway’s point of view. But never “Will and the boys.”
So I’m asking. Does anybody know of historic fiction that’s set around Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Jonson and their fellows? Ideally something that’s not completely young adult, but I’ll take what I can get. Something that attempts some degree of historical timeline accuracy, but I’m totally ok with filling in the missing pieces.
I may turn out to hate it, who knows. But it dawned on me that I might also love it. Anybody got something that fits the category?
I’m in the middle of a book right now, The Idiot by Elif Batuman, and while I can agree that it’s a very well-written book that deserves that praise it’s getting … I’m not enjoying it. It feels like homework. If I was back in college and this was required reading? Fine. I can read some chapters and then come to class ready to discuss the relationship between Selin and Ivan. But I’ve been out of college twenty plus years, I read things because I want to, not because I get a letter grade.
I was thinking about what to say to my book club at work and my first thought was, “I’m not about to go reading War and Peace for fun, either.” Then I thought about that for a second and realized, “But for me, King Lear is pleasure reading.”
We often talk about the difficulties of reading Shakespeare and trot out the old “see the play!” cliche. But what about actually sitting down to study a play? How many of us get the chance to do that once we’ve left school? I suppose if you’re active in a theatre group you can do that, but I’m certainly not. Most of my friends (barring my online following) barely get my references, let alone have interest in discussing the symbolism in The Tempest. I feel that once you’ve missed your window to study certain pieces of literature, you’re unlikely to get another shot at it. (In my adult life I also went back to read Catcher in the Rye and, more recently, The Great Gatsby. Both had that same feeling of, “Ok, I can see why this is good, but … I don’t love it.”)
Most of us probably have easy access to all the plays (the text, at least) and can read them at will. But which did you *study*? Where a group of students sat with a teacher and went through the deeper intricacies of the play? More interestingly, which *didn’t* you get a chance to study, that you wish you did?
For me, it’s Richard III. Never seen it live, and can only say that I’ve read it in the sense that twenty-five years ago I read all the plays. Never “studied” it, and certainly never had anybody walk me through the finer points. I feel a gap in my understanding of Shakespeare’s works as a whole, because of that.
Who else? Tell us in the comments which play you want to go back and study like somebody was going to quiz you on it.
I think that, as a general rule, if you know more about Shakespeare than the average person, chances are that’s also true of a broad number of categories. You’re likely to be good at general knowledge stuff. Which also, if you’re like me, means that people want you for their trivia team. I always hope that Shakespeare questions are going to come up, just to watch the other team throw their hands up in the air in exasperation like ‘Seriously?? He gets a Shakespeare question?!’
If I’m right so far, then is everybody out there playing HQ Trivia yet? It’s the latest mobile app craze (literally, they don’t even have a site for me to link to) that’s gaining in popularity faster than Pokemon Go. The catch is it’s free to play, and you win real money. Got your attention yet?
The app/game’s about as simple as it gets. They play roughly twice a day, at fairly predictable times – 3pm and 9pm in my experience. This is a live streamed game. A video host comes out and talks to you. If you’re not logged on within a couple minutes of the start time, you get to watch but not participate. As one newspaper article commented, “It’s like the next evolution of what used to be called appointment television.” Now instead of being on your couch at 9pm on Tuesday to watch Seinfeld, you’ve got to be on your phone, surrounded by your smart friends.
12 questions, 3 multiple choice answers for each. Get just 1 wrong, you’re out (but then you’ll want to watch the rest of the game to convince yourself that you did in fact know all the other answers). But! There’s a way you can get extra lives to keep playing. More on that in a moment.
Get them all right, you split the prize with other winners. That’s the other catch. The prize, typically $2000, sounds great! But on average over 200 people are going to complete the game and you’re going to get a share somewhere south of $10. When you have over $20 in winnings, you can get a real payout of real money. They’ve also had several special event games where the prize is much higher. I think the New Year’s Eve game was something like $18,000 in prize money.
It’s frustrating as heck, and you’ll spend the entire time saying ‘Why am I doing this?’ but you’ll get hooked just like everybody else. The process is unnecessarily long — did I say the game starts at 3pm? I meant, “You have to fire up the app at 3pm, and then the game starts … and some point in the future, once their algorithm has determined that the number of people joining has leveled off.” So you might wait 5 minutes, or 15. But then, the game st….well, no, not yet. Because here comes the video host to talk to you! It’s a game show. They’re cheesy, it’s what they do. And just like for all game shows he’s going to explain the game as if you never played. But at least it does add some variety to the game, as it is live (so they’ll do things like comment on the chat window) and sometimes surprising – last night, Jimmy Kimmel hosted.
Eventually though you do get to the game, and being as simple as it is, it’s hard to mess up. Question with three answers comes up, click an answer within 10 seconds, get told if you’re right or if you’re eliminated. No special preferences, really only one screen. Basic basic. But oh so addicting.
I haven’t actually had any Shakespeare questions yet, though I did have a Harold Pinter one.
Ok, so! About those extra lives. That’s how they get ya, as the saying goes. It’s a referral program. If you sign up because I convinced you, then you can put in my name (which is, of course, ShakespeareGeek) and I’ll get an extra life – which means, basically, another strike. There’s no collecting them or anything, no choice. If I get a question wrong, but I had an extra life, then I keep playing – and my extra life count goes down. So what I’m hoping is that I’ve intrigued a bunch of you out there to try your trivia brains for a shot at some real money, and you’ll hook a brother up by remembering to add ShakespeareGeek as your referral code. Of course, once you’re up and running, you can share with your own friends and have them use your name. Pay it forward, yo.
How Do I Get It?!
Ok, here’s the links. It’s been out on iTunes for awhile, but only recently showed up for Android. Sometimes it’s a little buggy on both sides, but in general I haven’t had a problem (my kids use iTunes, I use Android, and side by side they’re near identical).
HQ Trivia Android Link
HQ Trivia iTunes Link
That’s it! Get to downloading, remember to add ShakespeareGeek as your referral code, and I’ll see you in the next game!
I’ve often spoken of how, once people meet and get to know me, Shakespeare is in their lives forever. Months or years later, regardless of how often I might see them, I’ve now got that connection. So I’ll get Facebook messages or texts with links to something Shakespeare and a note, “Saw this and thought of you!”
So there’s this friend of mine who I worked with for five years, who actually went off to pursue his dream project and started a school (you don’t hear that too often). He texts me yesterday to let me know that one of his humanities professors has a Shakespeare book (well, chapters in a collection) coming out.
Given the guy’s name I went googling. I saw his bio for the school, but I also saw an Amazon author page. Click. Blah blah blah, thirty year veteran of stage and screen, award winning script writer … seems like this could be the guy.
He’s also got a couple dozen ebooks, the first of which is described as “an erotic fantasy, two souls in one body.”
Well that’s different, I think. But hey, it’s not my business. What people do on their own time doesn’t bother me. I figure they did their due diligence, they know what their employees are up to, they made the same call.
“I think I found his author page on Amazon,” I text my friend. “Little surprised to see the erotic fantasy pop up, I have to say.”
“HOLY SH*T!” comes the response.
Apparently not 🙂
“Maybe I have the wrong guy,” I reply. “Australian fellow?”
My friend confirms, with great relief, that I’ve got the wrong guy. But for a minute there I thought Shakespeare was about to get some dude fired who I never even met!
