Mike Dressel

I think I’m ready to address that TCG article by John McWhorter on adapting of Shakespeare for modern audiences.  So, TL;DR/scroll-by caveats are in effect, otherwise here we go.  I guess the easiest answer to “It’s been 400-plus years. Is it time to translate the Bard into understandable English?” is “We haven’t thus far, so why start now?”  But that is glib.  And as much as I wanted to dismiss the article outright, it is too well-reasoned to do so.  (Which does not mean that it is entirely correct.)  Perhaps the initial distaste is a matter of tone.  Starting out with the hypothetical production of King Lear does the reader no favors.  It is shoddy point of entry to speculate that some imagined audience members might *gasp* be bored, or “wishing they had brought a magazine” to this imaginary production.  Guess what?  I get bored at Shakespeare, and I, contrary to the author’s assertion, am one of the people who “digs him.”  It takes about ten or so minutes for the ear to get comfortable with the rhythms of speech.

“The problem with Shakespeare for modern audiences is that English since Shakespeare’s time has changed not only in terms of a few exotic vocabulary items, but in the very meaning of thousands of basic words and in scores of fundamental sentence structures.” Yes, and?  Plays written in the last century sometimes have inscrutable phrases and passages.  Granted they are mostly colloquialisms. Still!  We still use many of the words Shakespeare coined to this day, and in the meaning he ascribed to them.  For the thousands that may have changed, there are arguably more that have not.  As for “fundamental sentence structure,” the article already acknowledged the fact that the majority of the text is written in iambic pentameter.

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Amy Sedaris is following up her successful and cheeky hospitality guide with a book of crafts for poor people.  According to the Amazon description:  “You will discover how to make popular crafts, such as: crab-claw roach clips, tinfoil balls, and crepe-paper moccasins…create your own craft room and avoid the most common crafting accidents (sawdust fires, feather asphyxia, pine cone lodged in throat); and cook your own edible crafts, from a Crafty Candle Salad to Sugar Skulls.”

Brilliant!  (via)

Miscellaneous Quotage

On discussing a lady acquaintance, whose relationship with her long term, live-in boyfriend could be construed from the outside as vaguely Stockholm Syndrome-y:  “She’s like Patty Hearst in a two-bedroom closet.”

Florida is like a twenty-four hour hidden camera show, and the joke is on the rest of the country.  “As authorities nationwide warn motorists of the dangers of driving while texting, Florida Keys law enforcement officers add a new caution: Don’t try to shave your privates, either.”