Technical Difficulties

1. I have work again. Yay!

2. Clarkesworld: Year Three is now available (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.). "White Charles" is in it if you're trying to find print versions of the uncollected Booth stories, and in general Clarkesworld is made of awesome.

3. This month's Apex Magazine is Shakespeare-centric; I contributed an essay about Hamlet and the Reformation, "Welcome to the Reformation, Bitches," which explains why pepole saying Hamlet's fatal flaw is indecision gives me a homicidal nervous tic.

So, Julie Taymor is directing The Tempest, with Dame Helen Mirren as Prospero. (I am ignoring the change from Prospero to Prospera, because honestly (a.) not necessary, (b.) what's wrong with some good old-fashioned genderfuck?, and (c.) to me it kind of suggests we don't think Dame Helen is up to the challenge of playing Prospero, which is nonsense. But if that's the worst mistake they make--and hopefully, this is really a very carefully thought out feminist statement that will persuade me of its rightness when I see the movie--we are all so very golden.)

The Tempest is not my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, nor even my favorite of Shakespeare's late plays, but I have to tell you, the trailer goes a long way towards persuading me to rethink that opinion:


Because:
1. Helen Mirren.
2. Alfred Molina.
3. HELEN MIRREN.
4. This, seriously, is what CGI is for (check out those hellhounds, OMFG), and if there was ever a Shakespeare play that could take the bling, THIS IS THAT PLAY. I am really almost deliriously grateful to see that here, finally, is a production of The Tempest that takes Prospero's magic seriously.
5. Hard to tell from the tiny clips we get, but it looks like they're also taking Caliban seriously. Which not all productions do.
6. And did I mention, HELEN MIRREN.


glvalentine has some excellent discussion of the costuming (which is where I lifted the still from). Zippered doublets FTW.

It also looks like, from the trailer, they understand what Stephano and Trinculo are in the play for (again, not all productions do, nor do all Hollywood versions of Shakespeare understand what the clowns are for. See Much Ado About Nothing, re: Michael Keaton.). The casting of Alfred Molina, aside from rocking my socks, is a good sign.

And, in conclusion, HELEN MIRREN.

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ETA: if anyone else would like a very simple Helen Mirren icon, you may feel free to use this one:

And don't hesitate to add text if it pleases you. Currently, my only image-editing software is, um, Paint.

(found via matociquala)

Article in Time.

Stanley Wells is a respected Shakespearean scholar (as opposed to a crackpot of any of the multihued stripes of Shakespearean crackpot out there), so whether or not this is really Shakespeare, I believe that there are good reasons for investigating.

The portrait reminds me strongly of an Elizabethan other than Shakespeare, but I cannot for the life of me tell you who.

UBC #21

Nelson, Alan H. Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003.

(Thanks to matociquala for the loan.)

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Monstrous Adversary is the epitome of academic biography. It is exhaustively researched and consists almost entirely of primary source material: Oxford as revealed through his own words and those of his wife, father-in-law, daughters, friends, enemies, dependents, superiors ...

It is not a flattering picture.

Nelson effaces himself almost completely, although his loathing for his subject can't be entirely suppressed. In fact, the biography is a little frustrating to read because Nelson so utterly refuses to supply any kind of a narrative framework. He gives facts and contexts, but no interpretations. And there are a lot of places where I found myself asking, "But why on EARTH did Oxford do THAT?" If it's not in the primary material, Nelson doesn't attempt to provide answers, and even though that's frustrating, I admire him for it very much.

The seventeenth Earl of Oxford was a selfish, greedy, vain, profligate man, who lied and cheated and murdered his way through an utterly undistinguished life, routinely betraying his friends and dependents and treating those who tried to help him with the utmost ingratitude.

I'll take the glover's son from Stratford, thank you.