I’m still trying to find some evidence for this story, but this morning after church I get into the car, turn on the radio, and here the end of an interview where somebody’s singing the “You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong, Come not near our fairy queen” song from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Then some generic Sunday morning radio host voice comes on and says “Lady Gaga, on her upcoming Shakespeare project.  We’ll be right back.”

I have no idea what this means. Nobody ever followed it up!  It just went straight into a commercial and then I never heard another word of it.

Anybody know what that’s all about?

I’ll update later in the day if I find out more information.

I have to admit that as far as “entertainers” go, I find the idea interesting.  Whether you like her music or not, you have to acknowledge that she very theatrical about it already.  If she wants to do something with a spin on a Titania character?  That would be highly cool. Not to mention the crossover audience! My kids are exactly the right age group for her kind of music. I’d be all over this.

Howdy, y’all!

What do you think the greatest works of literature in the western world would sound like if we’d given William Shakespeare a big ol’ cowboy hat, some boots, and stuck a guitar in his hand? I think it woulda gone a little somethin’ like this.  One!  Two!  One, two, three!

• Strangled My Wife Because My Best Friend Told Me She Was Cheating But He Lied
• My Girlfriend’s Gone Crazy And My Mom Married My Uncle
• I’m Swearing Off Women, At Least Until The Next One Comes Along
• My New Best Bro Turned Out To Be A Broad
• Her C’s, U’s and T’s Made An F’ing A Outta Me (explicit)
• Those Weren’t Her C’s After All (The Yellow Stockings Song) (radio friendly)
• Called My Girl A Ho On Our Wedding Day
• Never Drug Your Wife To Win An Argument (She’ll Sleep With The First Ass She Meets)
• You Only Say You Love Me When I Offer You A Third of My Kingdom
• Who’s Taming Who Here Anyway?
• Don’t Tell My Fool, My Achy Breaky Fool
• My Drinking Buddy Is King Now But All I Am Is Banished
• Proud To Be Syracusan (Where At Least I Know I’m Not Ephesian)
• My Boyfriend Killed My Dad, I’m Going Swimming
• Hitchhiked My Way To Dunsinane On A Tree That Was Going My Way
• Never Listen To Witches, Or Your Wife
• I Want My Kingdom Back, This Horse You Sold Me Stinks

Thanks to my co-conspirator Bardfilm for his contributions to this list!

Mornings in my house…

We’re getting ready for the day, one of the kids has put on a new tv show, Olivia, about a pig who goes to school.  Fits the usual pattern, rambunctious little girl who always wants things to go her way, gets bent out of shape when they don’t, learns a lesson and everything works out in the end.

Scene: A classroom.

Teacher:  I am happy to announce the name of our next school play!  It will be …

Me:  (throwing up my arms and taking a wild guess)  Hamlet!

Teacher: …The Faerie Queene!

Me:  Spencer?  Really?

Of course they didn’t mean the classic, they meant some generic “play with fairies in it”.  I just thought it was funny that I’m joking about them tackling Shakespeare and for at least half a second it sounds like they’re tackling one of sources.

Had I guessed Dream instead of Hamlet that would even funnier ;).

There’s something you don’t hear everyday.

I knew about Eleanor Brown’s The Weird Sisters, her debut novel about a father and his three daughters who spend a good chunk of their time quoting Shakespeare.  I actually have a copy around here someplace that was sent to me as a gift (thanks!)

I just assumed that it followed the standard format, where somebody took a bunch of Shakespeare as foundation and then wrote a story around it.  I mean, after all – weird sisters? Father and his three daughters? Seemed obvious. But this interview with the author is where I spotted the “second fiddle” thing, because it’s here that she comes right out and says that all the Shakespeare content is not an homage, but rather the “workhorses” for getting her bigger point across.

I wonder about that.  Like I said, I’ve not yet read the book.  Is it even possible for Shakespeare to play second fiddle?  You have to imagine that most of the press she got was for the Shakespeare connection.  And I’d bet that most of the people that read it, did so for the Shakespeare.  So is she really saying that she gave us the ol’ bait and switch, dangling some Shakespeare and setting the readers’ expectations, only to deliver something different?

Any of you read the book?  I’m curious what the dedicated Shakespeare geeks thought of it.  Did you come for the Shakespeare and leave disappointed?

Hey all!

I feel like I haven’t posted in over a week (mostly because I can see my own post dates and know I haven’t posted in over a week :)), but I feel like I can’t let a Shakespeare day like the Ides of March go by without at least checking in.

How’s things?  Any bad luck?

Just so everybody knows, even when traffic on the blog is low we’re usually hanging out on Twitter.  On the busiest days I find it’s easier to toss out a quick link here or there, or write up a joke or two, then to sit down and write up an entire post on a topic.  I have to be at least somewhat inspired to do that, you know?  To feel like I’m adding some sort of value and not just talking for the sake of talking.

Remember, the moral of Julius Caesar is, “Listen to your wife.”