"T Paine and Lil Hamlet"

Rarely posting now, but decided to put this up. Hilarious. Class agreed. (Just finished teaching Hamlet again. FYI. Since of course you would no doubt be wondering about that).

Recently put a site meter up. Happy to report people are finding this site from as far away as Turkey, Israel, India, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain, Venezuela, Argentina. Someone recently used google-translate to read the "memento mori" post in Dutch.

Polonius

R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet + Hamlet = "Polonius in the Closet." Posted on youtube by "poloniuscloset." This in fact hits key plot points/subtext and is freaking hilarious. Class loved it.

Random Hamlet sighting.

Random instance / Hamlet being used as metaphor:

I found this article from the newspaper The Hindu, (or as it says under the paper's logo) "India's National Newspaper." The article uses Hamlet as a metaphor throughout, in this case about the content of the World Bank's flagship publication, the World Development Report -- published once a year with recommendations about reducing poverty. In this case, the report was apparently controversial, since although it did talk about economic growth, it presumably didn't emphasize growth enough to placate the U.S., but rather focused more on the need for greater asset equality/redistribution (yeah--god forbid).

Quotes:

"In a speech last March, Mr. Lawrence Summers, U.S. Treasury Secretary, said 'discussions of poverty reduction that do not lay primary emphasis on economic growth are like Hamlet without the prince.'"

"In the intervening months, the head of the team preparing the WDR quit because of pressures from inside and outside the World Bank to change the emphasis in the report. We now have, in a manner of speaking, Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark."

"All that we have by way of evidence is a reference to just two research studies. (One of the two - 'Growth is Good for the Poor' - was prepared at the World Bank in March 2000, i.e. after the draft WDR was put out, and is widely believed to have been an in-house criticism of the Hamlet-without-the-prince version.)"

Favorite Hamlets.

Ben Brantley reminisces about the Hamlets he's seen. Cool interactive feature with sound & pics, from NYTimes.

Blog on hiatus....

(except perhaps for an occasional entry).

Country Hamlet

Country songs from Hamlet:

It Is Most Retrograde to Our Desire (I.ii.114) , modern translation = Honey Don't
Grapple Them to Thy Soul With Hoops of Steel (I.iii.66) = Never Let 'Em Go
Hot Love on the Wing (II.ii136) = Hot Love on the Wing
Bisson Rheum (II.ii.496) = Tears
His Occulted Guilt (III.ii.76) = The Guilt He's Hidin' Away
She'll Tax Him Home (III.iii.31) = She's Gonna Get Him
Do Not Spread Compost O'er the Weeds/
To Make Them Ranker (III.iv.175-58) = Don't You Be Spreadin Shit on Shit
Country Matters (III.ii.110) = Fuckin

Hamlet is back and he is not happy.

"To be or not to be...."
(pause, light a cigar, explosion in background)
"Not to be."