I am often fascinated by my children’s interest in the stories of Shakespeare.  I can typically answer all of their questions off the top of my head, since they are really just variations on the classic “Why” game (i.e. “Why did the bad men put Miranda and her Daddy on the ship” and so on).  But sometimes one comes out of left field that is truly a surprise. “Daddy,” my 5yr old recently asked, “If Miranda and her Daddy and Caliban and Ariel were the only people on the island, and Miranda and Ariel did not like to play with Caliban because he was mean to them, then does that mean Caliban did not have anybody to play with when he was growing up?” Ok, so, wait.  Even though he is the acknowledged bad guy sea monster who is mean to everybody and wants to take over the island, my daughter is concerned that he not be lonely.  I think that makes me kind of proud. “I don’t really know,” I tell her.  I try very hard not to lie to my kids.  If you stall, sometimes they answer their own question. “Maybe he played with the animals?” she asked.  That’s certainly a common theme in the kinds of movies she’s seen. Seeing my opportunity, I embellish.  “You know, I think that’s exactly what he did.  I bet he played with all of the animals that Miranda and Ariel didn’t like to play with, like the snakes and the spiders and scorpions and the other scary creatures.  Because he wouldn’t be scared of them, they would be each other’s friends.” “Yes,” she concurred, “I think that’s how it happened.”

The Effing Librarian muses on how Shakespeare could liven up a game of Scrabble.  Because he made up words when he needed them, you see.  I like it.  It’s short, it’s funny, go read it.  “There, now it’s a word.  Triple word score.  I win.  I’m Shakespeare, motherf**ker!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xwHdTPwm3U It’s short, but cute.  And I think she gets the quote wrong in the middle, it sounds like she says “and no longer be a Capulet.”

About a year ago I blogged excitedly about a virtual Shakespeare world by Edward Castronova.  Who am I kidding, I immediately wrote to them and begged to be a beta tester.  I couldn’t get in :(. I see an update on the blog, but alas it’s not great news:  they’re out of funding.  So he has no idea when there will be any new milestones to report.  Which means I shouldn’t hold my breath for a public beta?    Oh well.  I would love to see this project reach completion.  Even though he manages expectations by saying to “expect small Dungeons and Dragons world with a Shakespeare layer” rather than “World of Warcraft with Hamlet”, I say, “Who cares, I’ll take it!”  If it’s an academic project and he’s out of funding, I wonder if he has any open source options?  He could put key portions up in Creative Commons license, I’m sure that there’s more than one Shakespeare geek out there that would love to dig in and help generate some content.  

http://www.oomsa.com/node/412 I was going to roll right past this picture of a plain old “Everytime you see a 2B you’re obligated to mention Or Not 2B” joke, until I thought about the paradox.  It’s graffiti.  Deliberately vandalizing the property of someone else.  With a quote from Shakespeare.  I’m curious about the sort of brain that is both capable of holding knowledge about Shakespeare and somehow lacking the bit that says “Don’t do that.”  I suppose the answer is that the whole to be or not to be thing is just so darned generic at this point that you don’t need a brain in your head to recognize it as Shakespeare.  Whoever wrote it probably didn’t even know what he was quoting, just heard it someplace.