What’s Your Favorite Sonnet?

I’ve asked on Twitter, I’ve asked on Facebook (* so if you’ve answered there no need to answer again :)) so now I’m asking here for people that only read the blog:

What’s your favorite sonnet?  The catch : you can’t answer 18, 29, 116 or 130. 

Everybody and their mother has been inundated with those particular sonnets over the years.  What I’m looking for is the next group, the ones that the Shakespeare geeks love that, with a little more exposure, we can get the rest of the world to acknowledge.

So, hit me.  Other than those famous four, what’s your favorite sonnet, and why?  To make the results the most objective, try to come up with your answer before you look at the comments, otherwise you’ll never be able to tell if your vote was swayed.

Theme Song Shakespeare : All (But Him) In The Family

Ok, I’ve been busy.  But Bardfilm’s been doing double duty, manning both his own blog as well as queuing up the quirky stuff for my return.  May I happily present you the Return of Theme Song Shakespeare?

All (but Him) in the Family

My name is Brabantio.
Where’d my Desdemona go?
She eloped with O-thell-o.
This is that play.
I’ll allow no buts or ifs—
Nor those crazy handkerchiefs.
Senate, we could use a man
Like Cassius as Ensign.
But Othello sure was great—
Did some service to the state—
Now he’s certain of his fate:
This is that play.

(For those youngsters that need a hint, click …….. here. )

Shakespeare App Idea

My list of projects is already so long that it’s not terribly useful for me to keep adding ideas to it.  So every now and then I’ll just post them, and maybe somebody else runs with it.

Shakespeare Meme Generator

  1. Get a collection of Shakespeare quotes.  Easy peasy.  Could be romantic, motivational, funny – your choice.
  2. Get a collection of Shakespeare-related images.  Harder by definition, but not impossible.  Screen shots from well known movies?  Flickr tags?  Couple different ideas.
  3. Combine random quote with random image to make a new shareable/pinnable thing.
  4. Show it to the user.  Offer user options of generating a new one, or sharing/pinning/tweeting this one.
  5. Keep track of how popular each one is.  Set up a link to a gallery to reinforce browsing through them (thus making them even more popular).
Could work as a web app or a native app (although it’s a little light for a native app).  Almost certain that similar “put a piece of text on a desired image” sites exist, though I don’t have a pointer to one.  The work would be in creating the database of quotes and images.

UPDATE Something like this, but not this.  This is “Here’s a database of images, put whatever text you want on it.”  If anything I’m thinking of more the opposite – it’s the words that are important, and it’s really a matter of taste what image you use.

King Lear, for Kids

The Royal Shakespeare Company has got a 75 minute version of King Lear, aimed at 8 year olds.

I think you all know how I feel about that.  I have, on the fly, retold the tale of King Lear to my 5year old son – at his request.  I will never forget this moment:

Well, her father the king was not happy with this answer at all. He got so mad that he said she would not have any share of the kingdom, and he banished her. 

…at this point a choked little voice asks me, “But did he still love her?” And I am caught so by surprise that I don’t quite know what to do with myself. My little guy has been hanging on every word, and he’s an emphathetic little bugger. 

“Oh, he absolutely still loved her,” I told him, “He was just really really mad because he thought she was saying that she didn’t love him. He didn’t understand her answer. Are you sad?” 

He nods, unable to get any words out. 

I squeeze him a bit tighter and remind him that this story has a happy ending, remember? “We’re going to find out that she loved him most of all.”

The fact that I know that that’s only half true?  That she did love him most of all, but that the story doesn’t have a happy ending?  I’m lucky I didn’t get choked up like he did trying to pretend like it all works out.

I have always believed that you can expose children to elements of Shakespeare, literally, from birth.  Go ahead and name their stuffed animals Romeo and Juliet, or Beatrice and Benedick.  Throw around random quotes when you can.  Bring up plot points.  It will be a long long time before they “get” Shakespeare in an academic sense.  It’ll also be a long long time before they understand physics and gravity and parabolic arcs, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn how to catch a ball.

Stop! Parent Teacher Time

It’s that time of year again, where we get to sit down with our children’s teachers and have them tell what a joy they are to have in class, how everything is fine, how we’re raising little geniuses.

Well, except the boy.  The boy’s a terror.

🙂

Nah, not really.  They’re all doing well.  But that’s not what I’m hear to talk about.  I’ve made it my mission to, how to put it, offer up my Shakespeare services? to my kids’ teachers over the years:

So here’s how it went:
1) My son’s first grade teacher?  I did not offer.  Having failed to climb the wall last year for second graders, and having had less than stellar luck with first graders in the past, I was not ready to volunteer to get into it again.  He’s got more years in the school system.  And, just because I didn’t offer now, doesn’t mean I can’t change my mind and offer later.   (I’ll actually be his class’s “Junior Achievement” speaker, which will be more about computers than Shakespeare)
2) My daughter’s third grade teacher.  This is an interesting one.  Last year we were really excited to try Shakespeare in her second grade class, until I got Bowdlerized into non existence by the principal (who is not my pal).  Well this year my daughter’s third grade teacher also happens to be the “head teacher”, in charge of all sorts of things.  She’s also a world class geek (though she won’t admit it) who talks a mile a minute, assumes that whoever she is speaking with understands everything that she is saying, and gives more the feeling of being a teller than a listener, you know?  Not any of those things in a bad way, just that’s the way she is.  I call it a geeky personality.  I know people like that.  I probably am people like that.
Anyway, as we are done with our whirlwind check in for our daughter and being ushered to the door, I make my pitch – “Just wanted to throw this out there, I’ve done it for all my kids teachers over the years.  My kids have been raised on Shakespeare.  So if there’s ever any sort of unit you’re doing in the classroom that might overlap with that subject, be it poetry or memorization or even English history or drama or performance, I’d be happy to help out with something like that.”
Well she *loved* it.  “Yes.  Yes yes. Let’s do this, let’s make this happen.”  No real plan for what or when exactly, but it’s a start. I warned her that I’d tried a similar project last year and gotten shot down by the principal himself.  She smiled (smirked?) and suggested that there were benefits to being head teacher.  I love it.  I’m a little nervous about what her expectations might be now that I’ve opened this door, but when has that stopped me?
3) My fifth grade daughter.  I tried to do something with her Brownie troop last year, since they’re the oldest and could most easily pick up a script and give it a shot, but that particular event didn’t happen.  So, again, I make the pitch to her teacher.  And got back a totally different response?  “That’s great! In the past we actually did a unit on the sonnets, and I had the kids memorize Sonnet 19.”
…really?  “Sonnet 19?” I asked.  “No you didn’t.  Really?  Nobody does Sonnet 19.”
“Sure we did,” she said.  “When in disgrace with fortune in men’s eyes…?”
For a minute I confused that with 18, before remembering that it is 29.  I told her that I thought that was a great idea and would happily come in to do something like that or, as I mentioned to the other teacher, anything on biography, english history, or even drama/performance.
She asked whether she could put a link to my site up on her teacher’s page for the kids, but alas I had to disclaim myself and acknowledge that since the site is not deliberately geared for that age group, that they would see some occasionally PG-style language.  I don’t mind when teenagers find the site on their own (and they often do), but I can’t willingly tell a teacher to tell her 10yr olds to come read this stuff.
So it looks like I might have at least two different opportunities to get back into the classroom this year! Keep your fingers crossed.