Monday January 28 2013

Hamlet continues to dominate our Shakespeare activities and it’s accelerating.  We should finish reading it this week and then starts the hard part.  But that’s then and this is now and it’s Monday once again and there a few other things happening.

From Gregory Doran's Shakespeare Almanac:

• On January 24, 1594, Philip Henslowe wrote in his diary that a new play, Titus Andronicus, had been performed at the Rose Theater and brought in three pounds eight shillings. The following week The Rose closed down because of the plague.

Shakespeare sightings:

·         Amy Farrah Fowler in The Big Bang Theory finds herself in the unusual situation of feeling sexual lust for a hunk named Zack. Slightly more socially competent than Sheldon she doesn’t just suggest to Zack that they engage in coitus, she suggests “making Shakespeare’s metaphorical beast with two backs.”  Unfortunately, Zack is not a Shakespeare enthusiast and this is not a turn on for him.  Poor Amy.

·         It’s been a long time since I did an English crossword but this week I did and came across the clue “King ‘more sinned against than sinning’.”  And the answer is…?

·         Getting back to Steven Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought after reading other things for awhile I found that once again he brings up the definition of William Shakespeare as the man and also as his works.  He also quotes Hamlet to show how clever we are at climbing stairs and riding bicycles: “In form, in moving, how express and admirable.”  

Further, since the last report:

• Continued reading with Hal: Hamlet. We’ve come to the scene with poor Ophelia passing out flowers.
• Watched The Glass House, To Be or Not to Be and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. We only have one more movie about Hamlet to watch before we get to the actual Hamlet movies. Eight of them.

Posted this week:

·         Review of Gabriel Egan’s Shakespeare and Marx.

·         This Monday report