So this weekend we’re on vacation at a little touristy bookstore, browsing around for easy reading (I’ve finally finished Shakespeare Wars, and though I brought it with me, Asimov’s is just too much a brick to bring to the beach).  So we walk in and this little old lady greets us.  “The great this about history,” she says, noting that we are standing next to the history section, “Is that today it’s being written to be readable.”  Great.  We’ve shown no interest in history, it’s just where she cornered us. Having announced that, she then spots one of our group who has moved to the next section, which is actually Mathematics.  “The other day,” she tells my friend, “Someone came in and purchased one of our math books.  He said it was for the beach.  So now I never question it when somebody wants something for the beach.” And on it went, with this woman spouting random things about random sections of her store.  Well, I find the Shakespeare section, and a book I don’t have – something like “Everything I Need To Know I Learned From William Shakespeare.”  It’s in hardcover and appears to be $19.95, but you never know about markdowns so I go up to the desk and ask about the price.  “I love Bill Bryson!” she says, and begins flipping through the book. “I do too,” I say. “But that’s not Bill Bryson’s book. Though I have read that one, it was very good.” “The one that just came out?” she asks. “It came out last year, I got it for Christmas,” I say. “Wonderful,” she says, and hands back the book. I don’t take it from her.  “Could you tell me how much this one costs?” “Oh!” she says, “You did ask me that.  Let’s see….$19.95.” I thank her and put the book back, then take my other purchases up to the desk.  My friend calls out, “You’re not going to get that one?” “Nah,” I call back.  “I like reading about the man, but you can only read so much, especially when it’s the same biographical stuff over and over again.” “Who?” asks the lady behind the counter. “William Shakespeare,” I say, and wait for my amusing anecdote. “Do you know who the man is who’s been more written about than any one else?  Lincoln.  When Doris Kearns Goodwin wanted to write about Lincoln she didn’t know what to do, so she wrote about all the men who had campaigned against him….” And that’s what I got for my Shakespeare references, a story about a Lincoln biographer (whose name I may have messed up).  As we left I leaned over and told my friend, “You know, Lincoln had a secretary named Shakespeare, and Shakespeare had a secretary named Lincoln…..” 🙂 We decided that a) she was clearly a retired librarian, given her desire to teach about books without anybody asking her too, and b) she was a robot who was trained to spot people in front of section X and then tell a story relevant to section X.

http://ils121.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/how-to-memorize-a-sonnet/ This professor from UW-Madison is apparently doing a unit on the Sonnets, as I just got a whole bunch of links from that site in my reader. I don’t agree with the “learn every meaning of every word” part, especially when it comes to memorization.  There’s a famous example known as The Great Panjandrum that demonstrates the words don’t even have to make sense for you to be able to memorize them.  I did challenge an actor friend of mine with that one once, and he did successfully memorize it. I do, however, agree with the “put it to music” thing.  I know three sonnets by heart – 17, 18, and 29.  17 because I recited it at my wedding, the other two because I have them as music. As a matter of fact, it’s so easy that even a three year old could do it. I also agree with the overall point of understanding the thing, and not just learning a sequence of words.  Technically you can memorize a sequence of random words, but I’m not your professor, and I’d much rather you actually walk away with an understanding of what the sonnet is about.  I have sonnet 29 pinned to my wall.  I like to think it means, “Sometimes I’ve having a really lousy day and thinking about how my life sucks, but then I think of [in this case, my wife] and realize that I’m the richest man in the world.  I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Hey, who linked me from TheNest.com?  I can see you in my logs but I can’t get in to their boards to see the actual post!  That drive me nuts :).  I’m familiar with The Nest, it’s a huge favorite of our company president, he’s pretty much patterned our company on what they do. However you got here, welcome!

http://www.chasingthebard.com I may have mentioned this podcast/podiobook in passing when I first tripped over it. Let me now get back to it. I love it. I love it love it love it, I think it might well be my favorite podiobook yet (and that’s saying something, as I’ve gone through several dozen of them). Imagine a fantasy story that opens with the birth of one William Shakespeare. The event is attended by none other than Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck) himself, who witnesses it as a magical event of great significance. Thus begins this crossover story between the world of the “Fey” (the fairies), and the human world in which Shakespeare, gifted with “bardic” fairy powers, lives. If that’s not enough to hook you, I’ll say more. It’s not just good because it’s got Shakespeare in it (sounds like a Monty Python skit, “It’s all got Shakespeare in it!”) It’s good because it’s well written and well produced, too. There’s the appropriate amount of sound effects and music. The voice acting is appropriate. The narrator/author, with her New Zealand accent, is just exotic enough. She writes very well. The characters are excellent. She writes Elizabethan London well. She writes the fairies well. She even writes the battle scenes well. Perhaps the best thing of all, as far as I can tell, is that she hasn’t rewritten any of Shakespeare’s bio yet. She’s actually working inside the missing pieces. She still has him raised in Stratford, married to Anne Hathaway, and then heading off to London leaving behind her and the kids. She’s showing respect for the source material, she’s not just borrowing it where it suits her. Why are you still reading? Go get it, right now, so we can discuss it. Disclaimer! She’s up to chapter 14. It is a serialized work, so you cannot get the whole story yet (although I believe you can buy the completed print book if you like). Also note that there’s a sex scene in Chapter 13, which comes with a great deal of warning ahead of time, in case you like/loathe that sort of thing.

http://beyond-school.org/2007/09/22/to-curse-or-not-to-curse-on-teaching-the-f-bomb-and-other-colorful-words/ I find this unit interesting its discussion of cursing in Shakespeare, most notably since he doesn’t go for the obvious Taming of the Shrew or Romeo and Juliet, but rather King Lear!  First he presents some Lear style “cursing” (whoreson, knave, etc…) and then gets into his students’ own “street” rewriting.  It’s personally not to my taste, I don’t think you have to sprinkle liberally with swears to get your point across, but who knows, maybe that’s exactly how his kids talk in their regular life?  There’s discussion at the end, too.  For instance in one Cordelia rewrite she drops an f-bomb while talking to her dad, and people question whether that’s realistic for her character.   Warning, if it wasn’t obvious – dirty words abound.