Ten years ago tomorrow, September 30, I won the game. I asked, she said yes, and now I get to be the happiest geek in the world because I get to say stuff like “That thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love!” to a real person, in real life, and really mean it. People wonder why I love Shakespeare and wish that everyone else did? Because Shakespeare knew, man. If you can feel it, Shakespeare can give you the words to express it. A heaven on earth I have won by wooing her.
Last year I introduced Kerry to the site and we showered her in quotes. This year I went a little mushier, and wrote her a sonnet. I was going to include it here, but I’ve taken it out. It’s a gift to her, and if she wants it shared then that will be her choice.

Whenever politicians talk about education, at least here in the US, they focus on Math and Science. We’re falling behind on math and science, we need innovation in math and science.
What if they said Shakespeare instead? Or, more generally we’ll say, “The Classics”. I’d say Literature in general, but I’m not really interested at the moment in promoting new literature, I want to talk about improving the standing of existing literature.
Imagine a world, hypothetical though it may be, where the president announces a couple hundred billion dollars to be allocated toward advancement of Education in Literature. I’ve grown up to be president, and I want to live in a country where any four year old who knows the plot to Cinderella also knows the plot to Midsummer, and every parent could answer questions about it.
The actual numbers don’t matter, just assume that there’ll be enough that programs could be implemented on a national scale. Ignore the politics of “it would never pass”, “it would take longer than my lifetime”, “all the money would be wasted” and so on. We all know the unfortunate reality. These thought experiments are supposed to be fun :).
How would spend it? What would the title of your grant request be? Would you spend it on elementary education, or high school? Would you fund more new theatres? If you suddenly got a green light to focus on making people appreciate and understand Shakespeare more, how would you break it down?
I’ll start with an easy one : seed money for people who make movie versions of Shakespeare’s works. We already have all the superhero, horror, sequels and animated 3D movies we need, why not a sudden surge of Shakespeare films? While it’s true that this would not do wonders toward advancing actual education of Shakespeare (i would expect most of the projects to be more “mass market” than academic), but it would get the brand recognition out there and get people more appreciative of the body of work they may not even realize exists.

Cool find of the day (and by find I mean, “The inventor emailed me and told me about it” :)) is Play Extempore, a combining of Shakespeare with Dungeons and Dragons.

From the Game Manual (which, right now, can’t be read on OS X due to a font issue but I think that’s being fixed):

To play this game you will need someone to act as the Playwright, or gamemaster, and at least four Players. The Playwright runs the game. He chooses the genre that will be played or rolls for it (see Genres) and gives the play a title. He chooses the game’s setting or rolls for it (see Setting), performs the non-playing characters (NPCs—see Minor Characters), and sets the storyline according to the genre being played. He can also act as a Chorus to move the action forward in time or geographically.

The idea is to stage an improvised 5 act play. Players get character sheets just like in a D&D campaign.

I immediately sent this to an old friend who is both an active D&D player, as well as a working actor. His response (via IM):

“This is hysterical! I love it. random monologues! And duels and battle of wits! Fun.”

Looks like a work in progress (a teaching tool, recently released for free and looking for feedback). So if you’ve got a handful of Shakespeare geeks that you hang out with, take it for a spin. Or maybe a roll? Let us know how it goes!

I’m always looking for new angles on our favorite topic. Today while hunting around for new Shakespeare movies (I did not find any, I think we’re all caught up), I did find out that I can search the Internet Movie Database’s list of quotes from movies that contain the word Shakespeare.
This is fascinating to me, because it’s not quotes from Shakespeare movies, and it’s not people in movies quoting Shakespeare plays. It’s people in movies who used the word Shakespeare. In whatever context they needed.
So sometimes you get, “Shakespeare said blah blah blah.”
Other times you’ll get, “What are you, frickin Shakespeare over here?”
Sometimes you’ll get very large quotes, or very large paragraphs about the subject. It’s always different.
And that’s what fascinates me. Here in one shot is a way to cut across dozens of movies that you may have never seen, pull out a single reference, and then work backwards.
So there’s the game. Flip through the quotes a bit. Find a quote from a movie that you’ve never seen, that makes you say “Ok, now I want to see this movie to understand where this quote came from.” Maybe because it’s just a weird enough quote that you have no idea, or maybe it’s because the quote sounded so good that you can’t wait to see it the way it was intended.
Although it won’t make me run out and get the entire season on DVD, I can’t resist pasting this quote:
Full House (1987 TV Series)

Episode: Michelle Rides Again: Part 2 (1995)Duane here is a Shakespeare freak. Aren’t you, my little Hamlet-and-cheese?Duane, you’re into Shakespeare?

🙂 Yes, Yes I am. Had they only said “geek” it would have been that much more awesome.

Ok, who new that Google News actually allows you to search “news” from up to 20 years ago? I just had to type in Shakespeare and start poking around.
Here’s the first interesting article I found, showing the most popular required reading lists for high school (broken out by private, public, Catholic).

I don’t think there are many surprises (Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Hamlet show up on every list), but it does remind me a bit of our Catcher in the Rye discussion from a few weeks back. What was required reading when you were in high school?

I never read Scarlet Letter, Of Mice and Men, or Gatsby. But I did read some Thomas Hardy, I don’t see him on the list. And some Kafka, Hemingway and a few others.