Might as well combine these stories :).

It turns out that not only can’t your average teenager tell the difference between Justin Bieber and William Shakespeare, they can’t tell the difference between William Shakespeare and Batman, either.

The Bieber thing is relatively new, and I find it relatively ridiculous.  Everybody knows that the only person who could have written a timeless quote like, “And I was like baby, baby, baby oh!” is Edward de Vere.

The Batman thing, however, goes back to a Sporcle quiz that I think a lot of us have seen, since it’s been around since 2012. What’s giving that one some extra Google juice, however, is that the results of the quiz were analyzed by none other than Nate Silver’s site FiveThirtyEight, because apparently they got bored analyzing US political races. If you’ve never heard of them, they’re known for their mad statistical analysis skillz. So it’s interesting that they’d turn their machinery onto something as innocuous as an old Sporcle quiz.

The coolest thing to me is that Sporcle themselves sent me the latter link.  I’ve been playing their stuff for years, and consider their site to be something of the grandfather of viral quizzes.  I asked whether they accept submissions, so maybe we’ll get to generate some new Shakespeare quizzes of our own?

Any Marlowe fans in the audience? Take note!  A new fictionalized account of Kit’s life is now available from Endeavor Press:

Christopher Marlowe: poet, playwright, lover, brawler, spy. 

Protestant England is threatened by Catholic powers on the continent. Catholic conspirators plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, and a planned invasion of England has the backing of Rome. Absolved of allegiance to the Queen, whom the Pope has excommunicated, papists in England are persecuted and priests who minister to them are publicly tortured and executed. 

Sir Francis Walsingham, chief of the Queen’s secret service, maintains a spy network to monitor the activities of Catholics in England and on the continent. Many of his spies are students recruited at Cambridge, and Christopher Marlowe, known as Kit, is one of them.
Kit Marlowe’s first assignment is to infiltrate a conspiracy to assassinate the Queen. He wins the trust of the conspirators and is instrumental in exposing them, then witnesses their ghastly execution at Tyburn. Determined to give up the dirty business of spying, Kit returns to Cambridge 

He acquires a patron, Tom Walsingham, cousin of Sir Francis, and begins his meteoric rise as a dramatist. 

Through his rising reputation as a dramatist and his connections, Kit becomes a member of circles that include such prominent figures as Sir Walter Raleigh and the so-called School of Night. One evening he meets William Shakespeare and his dark mistress.
But while he enjoys the friendship of some powerful figures, his quick temper, barbed tongue and fearlessly open mind earn him the enmity of others, including someone who plots his assassination. 

Horses of the Night is a magisterial work of historical fiction, vividly bringing to life both this turbulent period of history and the multi-faceted life of one of Britain’s most revered literary figures.

Now available on Amazon!

This is a bit of a silly topic for a post, but I’m intrigued.

Sometimes I’ll cruise through the “Shakespeare” credits on IMDB to see what kind of movies are coming up. There’s always a large selection of shorts and indie movies being generated but every now and then you see a star-studded one to watch, so I’ll often just open up a bunch of them and scan through the credits to see what’s interesting.

We’ve got several Hamlets, Macbeths and Love’s Labour’s Losts coming (odd, that last one).  A Lear, a Measure for Measure, a Taming of the Shrew, a Twelfth Night and … wait a second.

I’m looking at the credits for Measure for Measure to see if I recognize anybody. I don’t.  But something looks familiar.  Natalie Richardson.  Getting a weird sense of deja vu…

That’s because she’s also in the upcoming Twelfth Night.

Now I’m curious. I check her bio and I see that she’s got a Macbeth to her credit as well – last year. And those three Shakespeare credits are literally the only things in her bio.

Part of a series, perhaps? Is there a production group out there that is doing all the works?  Not at all, as far as I can tell. They are completely unrelated, except for this woman. This mystery woman just appeared in three back to back unrelated Shakespeare movies.  How can we let that go?

I really, really want to interview this woman now.  There’s got to be some connection between these production. I’m dying to see what she’s going to do for her fourth IMDB credit! Hey, it’s a small world, maybe somebody out there even knows exactly who we’re talking about?

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it either!

Watch our Marvel Universe! Gnomeo and Juliet 2 : Sherlock Gnomes is scheduled for January 2018, according to IMDB.

I had to get my head around that one.  At first I thought, “Ok, it’s a different literary genre that takes place in the same talking-gnome world.” I could live with that.  Lots of room to work.

But no – it’s the same characters.  They’re just adding Sherlock Gnomes, played by Johnny Depp of all people?!

I’m going to put this on my list to keep an eye on, and see if I can’t get some plot.  If they do any kind of mashup where the “missing gnomes” are actually more Shakespeare characters, then I’m all in.  But if there’s literally no Shakespeare in this other than the two title characters, it’s a big missed opportunity.

I thought a story with a headline like “How Shakespeare’s Works Were Nearly Lost To Us” was going to be about David Garrick, honestly.  But I was wrong. We all know that the First Folio was published by Heminges and Condell seven years after Shakespeare died.  But how often do we get to hear the details of how it all went down?

I’m not going to recap the story here, because I think you should go read it. Bonus points to the author who lists the official number of “known” folios as 235 because apparently he’s been keeping up with the news :).

The FF is about as close to a Shakespeare Bible as we have.  It is not just the text, it is “The Text”. I have a copy on my bookshelf, and recently my daughter asked if I ever “use” it.  No, I don’t pick it up and flip through it like Asimov or Shapiro.  I treat it like a work of art.  Opening it for me is like a visit to the museum.  When a question comes up about what Shakespeare said or Shakespeare meant, it is the first place I go.  I like seeing the old typeface and non standard spelling that makes me sit and think for a minute before I understand what I’m looking at.  I like that connection to history.

I’ve also been in the presence of Folio #1, The Most Beautiful Book In The World, estimated to be worth over $10 million.

“You look so happy!” she said.  “Look how happy you look!  It must be amazing to be that passionate about something that it can make you that happy.” 

Yes.  Yes it is.