Happy 400th Shakespeare Day...........

Today we honor the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth and/or death with six images of theatrical productions and filmed version of his fabled plays; somehow, we didn't find any room for "Romeo and Juliet."

The six images are of: 1) The Merchant of Venice; 2) Hamlet; 3) Othello; 4) MacBeth; 5) Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" (based on Shakespeare's "King Lear," the Japanese film starred Toshiro Mifune, pict) and 6) "Much Ado About Nothing."

http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/

http://www.folger.edu/

https://www.ncshakes.org/

Special Quote of the Day/Week-William Shakespeare

Since Monday was Talk Like Shakespeare Day, and it was the day in which the Bard died in 1616 (conversely, Willy Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564).

The North Carolina Shakespeare Festival takes place in High Point every year, and this year, the troupe will bring Shakespeare's most famous play "Romeo and Juliet" (editorial comment: I personally prefer "Othello" and "Macbeth") in a modern setting. That performance will run from Sept. 9-30.

Here is the quote from the beloved playwright:

"Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man."http://www.ncshakes.org

Things We Learned on the BBC Today- Fidel Says It's Good to Be Alive

According to the BBC, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who is reportedly sharing a Cuban cigar with Glenn Beck in Provo, Utah, as we speak, says that he was at the grim reaper's door during his long illness.

Castro actually made those comments in an interview with the Mexican newspaper "La Jornada" in which he also said that it was difficult for him to aspire to live much longer.

The long-time Cuban president, who many have deemed to be a dictator for his long-standing human rights abuses, first got sick in 2006 when he suffered from intestinal illness.

But, Castro says that he's made a full recovery and that he can now walk without a cane.

One can always hope that he may venture from Havannah to Frederick, Md., (an hour from Washington, DC) to see a minor league Frederick Keys game with right-wing pundit George F. Will, who will probably still believe global warming doesn't exist when it's 98 degrees in Bethesda in late January. The Keys are actually having community food drive from now until Sept. 3. Last night, the team lost a home game to the Kinston Indians by a 9-2 score. The two teams plays each other again tonight.

As for Castro, there are always a number of interesting musings about him on Cuban-American blogs which generally lean to the right politically. There was this quite radical one we used to glance at now and then that pretty much compared President Barack Obama to Gargamel (the villain in "The Smurfs").

We lost track of that particular blog, but we did find one today called BabaluBlog (http://www.babalublog.com) which is also understandably quite critical of Castro, but we have no idea if they have compared Obama to Gargamel, Iago or Ming the Merciless. But, if they do, we will kindly remind them that George W. Bush was as bad as Gargamel, Iago and Ming the Merciless!

Today's GeoQuiz- What's the Weather Like in Mexico City?

Today, we ask a simple question for our Friday GeoQuiz.

It is simply, what's the weather like in Mexico City today?

Is the answer:

A) 68 degrees

B) 71 degrees

C) 74 degrees

D) 79 degrees

Amazingly enough, it is cooler there than is here along the Virginia-North Carolina border!

Mexico City was the host to the 1968 Summer Olympics.

I visited the city in 2007, but we didn't do much traveling around the area because we were afraid of going out at night due to the city's reportedly high crime rate.

We dedicate today's entry to the students at Northridge High School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where Dr. Isaac Espy is the principal. Somehow, we doubt that ESPN's awards the ESPYs were named after him.

SIDEBAR:

Wanna see some Shakespeare this weekend? Well, The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va., (editorial comment: we prefer their old name Shenandoah Shakespeare) is performing "The Taming of the Shrew" on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. In the evening, they will be performing my favorite Shakespearean play, the great tragedy "Othello," which takes place in Cyprus. "Othello" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Rene Thorton Jr. takes on the title role while Sarah Fallon plays his wife Desdemona and Benjamin Curns plays everybody's favorite villian Iago. In a recent fictitious Internet survey, Iago placed third behind Gargamel ("The Smurfs") and Darth Vader when it came to the most lovable basterds* of all time.

*- We didn't spell it right on purpose!

SIDEBAR 2: The answer to last week's quiz is B) Santiago

Shakespeare Over Soccer?!

Yesterday afternoon, I had an interesting situation as I got tickets for a production of William Shakespeare's play "All's Well That Ends Well" before knowing that Turkey, my late father's homeland, was going to be playing the American national men's soccer team in Philadelphia which was also broadcast on ESPN-2 at the same time!

But, since America won the game 2-1 and I essentially pulled a "Benedict Arnold" by rooting for Turkey (well at least I'm not playing for another country unlike Italian-American Guiseppe Rosa from New Jersey who not plays for Italy but he scored two goals for them in a game against The United States!), I guess I could say it was perhaps for the best.

So, I thought I would list my ten favorite Shakespeare plays. I am certainly no authority on The Bard, so if you are an English professor at my alma mater Radford University in Radford, Va., or anywhere else, please pick on your own kind!

1. "Othello" (pictured)

2. "Macbeth" (love the Polanski film version too!)

3. "Hamlet"

4. "12th Night"

5. "King Lear" (wasn't that a Kurosawa film too?!)

6. "The Merchant of Venice"

7. "Richard III"

8. "Romeo and Juliet" (what's this with unhappy endings?)

9. "Rosencrantz and Guilderstein Are Dead"...........oh wait, that's a Tom Stoppard play.....make that "Taming of the Shrew"

10. "All's Well That Ends Well" (what else?!)

For more info on the production schedule of the American Shakespeare Center, one can log on to www.ASCstaunton.com or call 1-800-MUCH-ADO