So, news of the week is this superdy-dooper high-resolution scan of what might be a newly discovered Shakespeare signature:

A professor and his students have identified a probable new Shakespeare signature in a 16th century legal text. Using a 50-megapixel multispectral digital imaging system, members of The Lazarus Project have tweaked the status of the autograph from “who knows” to “possible.”

Highlights — the signature’s been known about (1942), it’s not like they just *saw* it.  What we’re talking about is confidence levels over whether in fact it is Shakespeare’s autograph and not a forgery.  In particular the use of super cool new technology to do it.  They call it a “multi-spectral fingerprint,” and are working to compare this multi-spectral fingerprint of the signature against the same fingerprint for the Ireland forgeries.  That’s an interesting idea — if it’s a near-perfect match to known signatures that would be good evidence, but if it turns out to be a near-perfect match to a known forgery that would be evidence as well.

The bigger question would be what it means if this is a real signature.  It appears in a legal text.  How would it have gotten there? What would that say about Shakespeare’s access to such books, and knowledge of the law?

…you know, just writing that paragraph makes me think that we’re going to decide it’s not his signature.  I don’t know why.  Just a feeling.

UPDATE – Lifted from the comments, here’s a link to Folger’s article on the topic with lots of pictures.

So the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) is having its annual conference here in Boston this weekend!  If anybody’s at that show and actually reading this, Hello!  Enjoy my town.

I am not a member, but I did head into town to at long last meet my partner in crime KJ – owner, operator and chief rabble-rouser of the world-renown Bardfilm blog. If you’re not subscribed over there (not to mention following him on Twitter), what are you waiting for?  Where precisely do you think I get all my best ideas?  He’s like my own Holinshed’s Chronicles.

Anyway, three funny stories come out of the night.  First, we’re trying to decide where to go grab a drink.  I point out that despite being born and raised here in Massachusetts I did not attend college in the heart of Boston so I’m about as lost as the next guy.  We end up at a place called, are you ready for this?  The Globe.  I mean, come on! How could we *not* go there?  I joke about showing up and having 500 Shakespeare conference attendees all thinking the same thing, but when KJ asked the concierge for directions she said, “Surprisingly, you’re the first person that’s asked.”

So we’re hanging out at the bar, having a few pints of Guinness. (I tell KJ that had I known he had a preference for Guinness we could have gone to a more traditional Irish spot just so I could hear him ask, “Do you have Guinness?” and see what kind of reaction it got :). )  He shows me the program for the conference and we’re discussing the “Shakespeare in New Media” presentation which is likely to be the one nearest and dearest to my heart.  There are no abstracts for each presentation but they do each come with a laundry list of authors/presenters. 

Son of a gun, I see the name Erin Presley from Eastern Kentucky University. I know her!  In fact, once I got back to my computer to dig it up, here’s the February 2006 comment she posted, asking for permission to cite me in a paper she was working on.  While sitting at the bar I fire up Facebook (where I have her linked) and post a comment on her wall.  Wondering whether she’ll see that, or this post.  Small world!  Hi, Erin!

Lastly, I wasn’t going to add this one but it just came up this morning and I found it hysterical.  When I got home and filled my wife in on our summit meeting, she’s the sort who wanted to hear less about the Shakespeare and more about Mr. J – how old are his kids, will he be home for Easter, all that good stuff.  So this morning over IM we’re talking and I fill him in on that story.  He agrees that our wives would probably get along as well as we do.

“Question,” he asks, “Did your wife make you promise not to meet me in any dark back alleys behind the hotel?”

“Yes!” I write back, and then I wonder whether I tweeted something about that.  “What made you ask that?”

“Oh, my wife told me the same thing,” he replies.

Wives.  What’re ya gonna do. 🙂

I am happy to report that my experiment in creating Android apps is complete!  I pushed the Publish button today on my very first app for the marketplace.

Insults for Shakespeare Geeks is exactly what you think it is, a spin on the old “pick 1 each from column A/B/C” Shakespeare Insult Kit.  My particular twist on it is that mine also offers an “Insult my friend” option where you can text (or tweet or Facebook) your favorite insults to someone you love.

You folks know me and you know my commitment to the quality of
Shakespeare stuff. There’s already a handful of insult generators in the
market, but from what I can tell they are all the exact same thing – just insult after insult after insult.  I try to go a step beyond that.  Besides, one of the great things about the world of apps is that updates are automatic, so if people like and download this first version I plan to keep cranking out new and exciting enhancements to it. 

I’d love it if folks could take it for a spin, and possibly do me the favor of leaving a positive review. The hardest part about making a dent in the marketplace is getting your app noticed.  There’s already over 800 hits for the word “Shakespeare”, so that alone isn’t going to get me noticed.  I need my Shakespeare-loving fans, followers and friends to help a fellow geek out by spreading the word. 

If you don’t have an Android device, please at least consider forwarding/tweeting/sharing this message around so that your friends who do have Android devices get a chance to see it.

The entire purpose of this experiment was to learn the type of effort it takes to get an app created and published into the market. Now I know.  Based on the reaction to this app I can start planning my next great idea!

Thanks everyone for all your help!  Ya bunch of venomed, boil-brained puttocks!

My heart’s never in it when the good holidays (Shakespeare’s Birthday, April Fool’s Day…) fall on a Sunday.  I whipped up a quick “Is Lady Gaga doing Shakespeare?” post for fun to see if I could catch any interest on Twitter, but alas there was already a “Gaga Had A Baby” trend going on :).  Or maybe I just made it too low key and people actually believed it.  Or just didn’t care.  Either way, it wasn’t true.

Anybody see any good Shakespeare-related jokes this year?  Geek site reddit.com had some amusing stuff where they did a joke spin on Facebook’s “timeline” — the trick was that the timeline let you go forward and backward hundreds of years, and sure enough if you headed back to the Elizabethan era you started seeing posts from and about Mr. Shakespeare.  Along with comments!  Well done.

Once upon a time we had a discussion of a sequel to Othello. This week we have the opportunity to interview Nicole Galland, co-founded of Shakespeare for the Masses and author of the upcoming historical novel I, IAGO (William Morrow Paperback Original; 978-0062026873; April 24, 2012).

Shakespeare’s classic Othello features literature’s most infamous villain: Iago. But despite Iago’s leading role and almost incessant chatter throughout the play, he becomes suddenly silent near the end leaving generations guessing as to why he committed such heinous crimes. Now just in time for Shakespeare’s birthday, Nicole Galland’s meticulously researched reveals the true motivations behind the character whose name has become synonymous with evil.

A successful young soldier and adoring husband to Emilia, Iago’s desire to rise in rank and good regard under the command of General Othello informs his actions and begins to cloud his thinking. Gradually, Galland introduces all of the celebrated characters Shakespeare lovers know well—from Roderigo and Othello to Desdemona and Cassio—and in a fascinating manner, we learn about Iago’s intricate relationships and dynamics with each of them. Nicole says, “When creating the characters in I, IAGO, I relied on information in the original Othello text. Although the play appears to be about innocent people being tragically duped and destroyed by the villain, a closer look reveals that there are few real innocents in this story.”

The author has graciously agreed to answer questions from the Shakespeare geek audience.  What would you like to know?  Ask your questions in the comments and I’ll send them along to the author at the end of this week.

I’ll start.  I for one would like to learn a little bit more about the expected audience for a book such as this. How much does the story suffer if the reader has never seen or read Othello? In a situation like this does the publisher know that such a book goes right to the heart of the hardcore Shakespeare crowd, or do they hope for a wider appeal?