Been slow here at Shakespeare Geek, because it’s been crazy in the real world.  Christmas with three little kids, as some of you can imagine, gets crazy. There’s travelling to be done, vacations to take advantage of, toys to buy, then wrap, then unwrap, then open, then play, then throw into a corner and move on to the next one … I hope to get back on track shortly.  I’ve got at least one book (Actors Talk About Shakespeare) and movie (Teller’s Macbeth) to write about, and that’s not counting the new stuff. For Christmas I got the DVD collections “Playing Shakespeare” and “Age of Kings”, both highly recommended here on the site.  So those will keep me busy for awhile.  I also got a book, “Letters to Juliet” which looks pretty cool, it’s a very nice looking coffee-table style of book with lots of pictures. I was looking for Tad Williams’ “Caliban’s Hour”, but it is out of print and nobody wanted to get me a used copy for Christmas.  Fair enough.  But now that I know a sci fi author I like did a Tempest story, I have to have it. How’d everybody else do?  What’s new under the Shakespeare tree?

Ok, that’s a terrible title, but it’ll get more clicks than “Shakespeare and The City.” Since I’m behind in my links you may already have seen that Kristin Davis, most famous for playing the “nice” girl Charlotte in Sex and The City (get it now?) wants to do some Shakespeare.  If this were Kim Cattrall we were talking about, the one who plays the slutty Samantha, I’d make a “do Shakespeare” joke right here.  Oh, well. Davis has specific plans, too.  At 44, she wants to play Viola from Twelfth Night.  I appreciate that she’s got that level of understanding about the plays, and doesn’t want to get into them just because she’s got this vague notion that “Shakespeare” equals “be taken seriously as an actress.” http://entertainment.malaysia.msn.com/Celebrity/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3764010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/may/30/top10s.shakespeare See, lists like this are the stuff I crave.  From the opening quote:

Vivien Leigh once said that acting in a Shakespeare play was like ‘bathing in the sea – one swims where one wants’.

You get the idea that the author has at least some clue of what they’re talking about.  Drawing upon the themes and characters of Shakespeare still leaves infinite flexibility in *what* you write.  It is a tremendous playground for Shakespeare Geeks. So we get the “Top 10” Shakespeare inspired novels, although it’s a bit more like a sampler than a top 10.  We get relatively new David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” (1996) and the classic Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1931).  I’m familiar with “Gertrude and Claudius”  and “A Thousand Acres”, though I’ve not read them.  “Money” and “Wise Children” are really the only ones completely new to me. But then the list goes and discredits itself with the inclusion of Lunar Park, by Bret Easton Ellis.  I read this one.  It’s been years since I admitted it.  It is terrible.  I mean, seriously, this is a book that I chose to throw away rather than to let someone else read.  It’s horrible.  I’m embarrassed for it to have Shakespeare content. Still, a top 9 list’s not that bad.

A guestbook for visiting pilgrims to Rome.  A handful of signatures containing references to “Stratford”, circa late 1500s. Hmmm…who do we know that was from Stratford, living around 1585 or so? Intrigued?

“Arthurus Stratfordus Wigomniensis” signed the book in 1585, while “Gulielmus Clerkue Stratfordiensis” arrived in 1589. … A third entry in 1587, “Shfordus Cestriensis”, may stand for “Sh[akespeare from Strat]ford [in the diocese] of Chester”, he said.

Other than the Stratford pointer, you have to get creative.  “Arthurus” is supposed to be “King Arthur’s compatriot”, they say – is that supposed to be some sort of “I’m from England” reference?  The second one, although it’s apparently in Italian, is a more straightforward translation – “William, clerk from Stratford.” It’s always fun to find “evidence” like this, and see how it fits in the grand scheme of things.  I like the idea of accounting for Shakespeare’s lost years more than I like jumping on the “secret catholic!” bandwagon, I’ll say that much. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6964480.ece

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1220227 As a Shakespeare Geek and a New England native, I couldn’t pass up this story of what might become of Tom Brady’s two sons, told with allusions to Richard III … although I wonder if King Lear might be more appropriate? For those who don’t follow the sports – or gossip – page, Tom Brady’s first son is John Edward Thomas, with former girlfriend Bridget Moynihan, who lives off on the Other Coast and was the subject of so much speculation when he was first born (post-breakup) that the rumor going around was that his mother deliberately chose the initials JET, for the long hated rival NY Jets. Just this past week however saw the birth of second son Benjamin to current wife Gisele Bundchen.  Benjamin will be the one that grows up with the luxury of playing catch with all-star quarterback dad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, getting a bunch of pop psychologists together to weigh in on somebody else’s family life without even a quote from any member of that family, well, that’s pretty much the definition of “waste of time”.   But for those who dig a good story and don’t mind speculating what sports might be like in another 20 years or so?  This stuff is gold.  These boys are not about to grow up like Peyton and Eli, you can be pretty sure about that.