Category: Uncategorized

Most of the posts in this category are simply leftovers from a previous era before the site had categories. Over time I plan to reduce that number to zero and remove this category. Until then, here they are. I had to put something in the box.

Reasons To Get Netflix #1million : Christopher Plummer’s Tempest is Streaming!

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Just spotted on my “New Releases” email this morning, Christopher Plummer’s 2010 The Tempest is now available on Netflix Streaming!  I’ve not even had a chance to watch it yet, but I know what I’m doing tonight!  Act fast, as Netflix constantly rotates their streaming library and you’re never guaranteed that the movie you always told yourself you’d get around to watching will still actually be there when you get time to watch it!  I’m looking at you, Ian McKellen’s Richard III….

Did anybody see this one, either live or when it came through on its brief cinema tour?  It played in my neighborhood just one night but I was unable to make it.

Shakespeare on Boston Common 2013 To Present … Two Gentlemen of Verona!

~ duane ~ 3 Comments

The announcement’s been made, and Commonwealth Shakespeare this summer will be performing Two Gentlemen of Verona on Boston Common.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I’ve never seen the play, so I’m excited to see something new.  But it’s rare that I’ve ever heard anything positive about the play.  Is it that it’s early?  Or just bad?  Is this the one with the rape in it?

I love love love Shakespeare in the park every year.  Hearing the words echo out into the night sky?  Shivers.

I’m not sure how the company chooses the plays, but they’ve definitely been going through a… lesser? phase.  That’s not fair, Coriolanus was in there.  But Two Gents?  Before that Coriolanus, before that All’s Well That Ends Well.  I’m wondering whether Troilus and Cressida or Timon of Athens is coming up next?

In the 18 years they’ve been going, only one show has been repeated — Midsummer.  I’ve seen 9 years worth of shows, and it kills me that Hamlet is the only year I missed (since I’ve been going).

Last year the host actually told one of my knock-knock jokes on stage.  Didn’t really get much of a laugh.  But I felt the damned giddy fool telling everybody around me, “That’s my joke!  I wrote that!!”

Orson Welles’ Screwed Up Macbeth

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

“To lie in restless ecstasy. Restless, restless, goddamnit son of a bitch.”

– Macbeth, Act III, Scene 2
Here’s something that’s going on my playlist!  A YouTube user named “ApeBack” has uploaded a huge set of audio clips from the old Columbia Workshop radio show, including many performances by Orson Welles – Hamlet, Lear, Merchant, Richard III, you name it.   (This link points to all of ApeBack’s videos, from which you can select your favorite Shakespeare play.)
For fun I’ve chosen an outtake where Orson Welles screws up Macbeth – and it only gets worse from there.  It’s fun to hear the man laugh like that.  He’s quite infamous for, shall we say, not being quite so patient with the mistakes of others.UPDATE : Sorry for the confusion, I left out a link in the initial post.  Above, the “outtake” text links to the audio only version of Welles’ screw up.  Below we have the infamous “peas” meltdown that I was referring to above with “not being quite so patient”.  I should have made that more clear.

Collaborating with William Shakespeare

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If you’ve ever used Google Docs you might be familiar with the idea of multiple people viewing, and possibly editing, a document right before your eyes.

Well Google’s decided to have a little fun with that, and made a demo where the likes of Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson and yes our dear friend William Shakespeare all watch you as you type … and offer up their edits.  I keep trying to force it down certain paths, but detecting plagiarism is not its thing.  You can’t just start typing “To be or not to be” and expect Shakespeare to jump in.

The idea is cute.  I’ve always loved natural language generation and computer assisted personality.  I wish they did more with it — like if you edit someone else’s edit, they get all mad and start fighting with you or something.  Who knows, maybe they’ll do some more with it.  Love to get a look at the source code behind the idea.

Each colored vertical line represents an edit by a collaborator. Here, Charles Dickens is offering a writing prompt.

Do The Harlem Shake(speare)

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Ok, ok, I know, everybody wants this meme to die.  But surely I can’t be the only Shakespeare geek who was hoping for the obvious Harlem Shakespeare version?  I combed through a bunch, mostly kids sitting in their English class with little to no Shakespeare content.

Then I found this.  I love this.  A group trying to drum up attention for their Midsummer production.  Bravo.

It’s a shame that the show they’re advertising has apparently come and gone.  Had I seen this earlier I would have done what I could to help them out.  Bottom does the opening, wearing his ass head?  Brilliant.