Shakespeare rubber stamp on Etsy

When I was a kid I loved rubber stamps and wax seals and all those things you could use to decorate letters. (I'm one of the last hold-outs when it comes to written communications. I don't do e-cards, usually, and I always send hand-written thank you notes.) I saw this very cool item on Etsy today and once again reflected that Etsy is a wonderful website that not only connects artisans to buyers (enabling buyers to feed their fantasies of being patrons of the arts) but also an excellent place to while away an hour or two (or three).

More Shakespeare Memes

I have to think the Bard would be totally tickled to know that he's found his way into pop culture by way of any number of memes. (And yes, since you asked, there IS a Grumpy Cat Shakespeare meme or two out there.)

The first time I heard a Most Interesting "Man in the World" commercial, I started laughing so hard I thought I was going to have to pull my car to the curb. So of course, it made perfect sense that there would be a "Most Interesting Man in the World" meme. If more teachers took their cue from this guy, there would be fewer high school students who hate Shakespeare.

A shakespeare Meme

Shakespeare's death mask

I missed this story when it came out in 2012. The death mask of William Shakespeare (age 52) has found a permanent home at the University of Edinburgh's Anatomy Museum. (Also on display are Sir Isaac Newton's death mask and Sir Walter Scott's.) Read the story here.

Shakespeare's World Cup

Yes, you can relate Shakespeare to any topic or any event if you put your mind to it. I typed "Shakespeare" and "World Cup" into Google and came up with about a bazillion references to a play that was performed at a Canadian fringe festival in 2002. You can download the script, hook up to the play's database, and read interviews with the creators. It's a kick. Shakespeare's World Cup.  Here's a link to this year's Shakespeare's World Cup line over at No Sweat Shakespeare.

did Shakespeare ever get writer's block?

Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and maybe more, if scholars are right about his authorships of plays like Edward III and Thomas More.  That's a lot, and I find myself wondering how he would have fared in today's fast-paced publishing world. It used to be that only writers like Stephen King published a novel (or more) a year, but nowadays it seems like everyone from Amanda Hocking to the novelist next door is writing at a blistering pace. that doesn't apply to stageplays of course, unless you're talking about a community playhouse where the players are creating new material for each season, but still. Could Will have kept up?  I suspect the answer is yes. 
True, not every Shakespeare play is a Hamlet (seriously, does anyone ever go see King John except out of curiosity?) but if your other work includes Richard III and Romeo & Juliet, and Othello, you really don't have to write Hamlet every time.

Everything old is new again--Shakespeare and the supernatural

Every so often I think about how lucky we are that we have the wisdom of the ages at our fingertips. when I was a kid, my parents bought us a set of encyclopedias one volume at a time from the supermarket. These days, I have almost two thousand books in my kindle, and access to a bazillion more at the click of a mouse. And of course, there's Wikipedia. that day Wikipedia went dark in protest of possible changes to the Internet, I ... did not fare well.

If I were writing a term paper on any facet of Shakespeare now, I'd never have to leave my bedroom. Books that I would have had to request through inter-library collections are available just for the asking, many of them free and many of them the kinds of books that would have been housed in the rare books collection of any college library back in the day. For example, there's T. F. Thiselton Dyer's Folk-lore of Shakespeare, which was published in 1883 is available to download for less than $5 and if you type in various queries, the specific answer will, more often than not, show up in Google Books. The answer may not be the exact answer you want--i queried "mermaids in Shakespeare" and got a quote about Shakespeare and fishing, which made me think of my own story," Wild-Caught."