SJ,

I'm too uncouth to be up on the classics. Enjoying your write-ups. Maybe they'll be an intro class for me to get into them someday.

In your reading and analysis, do find any any evidence for or against the allegations that Shakespeare's works have multiple authors?

Play poker god dam it!

Thanks golddog!

I'll stop being lazy and trying to avoid the research involved with revisiting the "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare" theories, so here we go--I'll try to keep it short.

I believe that Shakespeare did some collaborations, like with Titus Andronicus above, but I don't believe that someone else wrote his stuff.

Shakespeare's plays had his name on them right from the time when they came out, and he received some good contemporary reviews, for them and for his poems.

The most common theory says that it was a member of the nobility using a pen name in order to avoid the "stigma" of being a playwright, but most plays back then did not have the playwright's name on them, so that supposed noble could have just left his or her name off the plays and no one would have noticed.

On top of this, William Shakespeare was a real person, with family, legal and property records that are still around, some of which point to his involvement in the London theater scene. It would have made a lot more sense for an anonymous writer to make up a pen name, instead of using a real one from an existing theater guy.

If we get our $1400 checks, I'll put some of that on the table. For now, I'm just trying to bink an online tourney, and hoping for the best.

You should go try global poker. The site is so much softer than winning network lol.

I've looked into Global and WSOP, and I'm on Carbon and Ignition as well, but no US facing site except WPN has the big "home run" tournaments where you can buy in for $6.60 and win >$4k. The flip side of that is that you have to fade 4000 other entries.

The movie Henry V in full and to the end I did see.
A glorification of blood and gore and violence, I found it most pleasing indeed.
But be it I have the most peculiar tastes, I admit,
It might not be everyman's cup of tea.

Nice! I was writing before about how Shakespeare would just write down Alarums and Excursions for the battle scenes, and that would leave it to the director to run with it however they wanted, depending on their production values--anything from 2 guys hopping around fighting with tinfoil swords up to full-on Peter Jackson Siege of Gondor set pieces.

Still some value to be found on WPN.

I had just been transferred to this table and didn't know yet what UTG was on about, otherwise I might have put in the call.

Yatahay Network - 3500/7000 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 28.7 BB
UTG: 53.06 BB
UTG+1: 8.23 BB
MP: 61.82 BB
MP+1: 86.95 BB
CO: 29.92 BB
Hero (BTN): 32.63 BB
SB: 26.84 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 7 7

UTG raises to 52.93 BB and is all-in, UTG+1 calls 8.1 BB and is all-in, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (18.7 BB, 2 players) 5 A T

Turn: (18.7 BB, 2 players) 7

River: (18.7 BB, 2 players) A

UTG shows J 2 (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 30%, Flop 14%, Turn 7%)
UTG+1 shows Q K (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 70%, Flop 86%, Turn 93%)
UTG+1 wins 18.7 BB

Here I'm pretty sure the dude (or dudette) would have called me with top pair on the river, but they got there this time, bless their heart.

Yatahay Network - 40/80 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 42.94 BB
UTG+1: 137.42 BB
MP: 50.51 BB
MP+1: 91.92 BB
CO: 92.77 BB
BTN: 59.85 BB
Hero (SB): 53.41 BB
BB: 64.26 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 8 8

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 5 T 8
Hero bets 5 BB, BB calls 5 BB

Turn: (16 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero bets 13 BB, BB calls 13 BB

River: (42 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero bets 32.79 BB and is all-in, BB calls 32.79 BB

Hero shows 8 8 (Three of a Kind, Eights)
(Pre 67%, Flop 93%, Turn 82%)
BB shows J 5 (Flush, Jack High)
(Pre 33%, Flop 7%, Turn 18%)
BB wins 107.57 BB

I've decided a to stop giving hand analysis a while ago SJ, after I realized there are so many professionals here, duh, who could do a better job, but I think you played the 88 hand perfect. Just got really unlucky. Sick.

Edit: I prefer sometimes trying to go all in these situations on the turn. Or making over bets on the Turn; to maybe induce villains to make mistakes, ( bad call, bad fold). But I'm sure your approach is the more conventional approach and I'm sure , Turn or River, result would've been the same.

I don't hate villains play either, if he pegs you as aggressive.

Note - last hand of poker I played was 2 years ago.

End of the day, it is all about roi and hourly. But good luck.

After some study, I can see that the flop is a lot wetter than I gave it credit for in the moment. We were blind vs blind, so that means more semibluffing on the turn from me, especially with Axs and Kxs, both spades and diamonds, as I probably would have c-bet Axdd and Kxdd on the flop with the overcard and the backdoor flush draw, given our wide ranges pre.



So he only needed around 31% on the turn with his pair and flush draw and he had that and a lot more, plus implied odds.

The Comedy of Errors

The play is about the accidental meeting of twins separated by a shipwreck when they were babies, which is a trope that Shakespeare revisits in his superior Twelfth Night. It's a remake of an ancient Roman play, and the noble twins each have a slave instead of a paid servant. Their slaves are also twins of each other; they were purchased by the noble's parents just before the shipwreck.

The nobles' names are Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse, and their slaves are Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, and no, there is no in-story explanation as to why anyone would give twin babies the same names, we're asked to just suspend our disbelief on that detail.

I realize the necessity of the main characters having the same names for all the hijinks and slapstick to arise from their mistaken identities, but a lot of that slapstick involves things like Antipholus of Syracuse smacking around Dromio of Ephesus for telling Antipholus that his wife wants him home for dinner, when he doesn't have a wife, or Antipholus of Ephesus smacking around Dromio of Syracuse for insisting that Antipholus hasn't gave him any money for a necklace, just after Antipholus had given the other Dromio the gold.

I mean, I don't mind slapstick. Like 95% of American men over 35, I think the Three Stooges are hilarious. As we know, Moe constantly smacks around Larry and Curly and sometimes Shep, but those three hang out with Moe because they want to. It's a voluntary madness.

The other Stooges have decided that Moe is the smart one, even though he's just as dumb or quite possibly dumber than all of them, and that's where a lot of the humor lies. Often, Moe can't use his words because he's too stupid, and Larry and Curly and Shep keep coming back for more, though occasionally they'll dish it back to Moe, realizing from time to time that they're ostensibly Moe's equals and that they have a right to fight back.


Contrast that with The Comedy of Errors, where we're asked to warm up to a pair of protagonists who beat up their slaves whenever things take a turn they don't like or understand.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

This comedy is thought by many to be Shakespeare's first play, in part because it's not very good, and the themes, the drama and the dialog are not as developed as they are in later plays. Some of the themes he'll revisit in later, better plays are the bumbling and sarcastic servant, the female main character who dresses up as a man to travel in secret and be with her true love, and the calamity of being in love with someone who is in love with someone else.

The main theme of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, however, is bros before hos. I'm not being particularly flippant here; it is that crude. Oxford and Cambridge had been around for a few hundred years by this point in history, but it would be another two centuries before frat boys would be invented; nevertheless, the two gentlemen of the story, Proteus and Valentine, could be considered as early douchebro prototypes.



In the play, Valentine wants his best friend Proteus to travel with him to Milan in order to seek adventures together and find their places in the world, but Proteus is in love with Julia in Verona, and he can't be convinced to leave, so they part, reluctantly.

On the day that Proteus finally wins over Julia in Verona, his father ships him off against his will to Milan to join Valentine. Julia dresses as a boy and secretly follows after him, signing on as Proteus's page after she finds him in Milan. Before she can reveal her true identity to Proteus, however, he confesses to his new "page" that he's fallen in love at first sight with Valentine's new girlfriend Silvia, and that he has no idea what he ever saw in Julia back home. Disguised Julia hides her grief and keeps her secret identity in order to moon around with Proteus as his page in the hopes that he'll change his mind.

Proteus gets Valentine banished to the woods outside Milan in order to get at Silvia, who then roundly rejects Proteus, chiding him for betraying his best friend. Silvia runs off to the woods to be with Valentine, who has taken up with a band of highway robbers. Proteus follows after her, and Julia--still dressed as a boy--tags along.

Silvia is captured by Valentine's bandits, but Proteus and Julia rescue her. Then we have this scene between Proteus and Silvia, watched by Valentine, who is unseen until he pops out.



I'll break that last part down into Modern Douchebro.

Valentine: Dude! You just tried to rape my girlfriend. I don't know if I can be like...friends with you any more.

Proteus: Brah...I'm so sorry. My bad.

Valentine: You know what? I can't stay mad at you bray. **** it. You can have her, if you want.

Some scholars have argued that when Valentine says "And, that my love may appear plain and free, / All that was mine in Silvia I give thee" he doesn't actually mean "you can have her," but instead he's offering the same level of love to Proteus as he has for Silvia, but even if that were the case--which is uncertain--it's still bros before hos all the way down, given how quickly he forgives Proteus for being an atrocious villain and a would-be rapist.

Anyways, after Julia passes out from the sheer shittyness of that exchange, they revive her and discover her true identity, and they wave a magic wand or something and convince Proteus to fall in love with Julia again, and the Duke of Milan unbanishes Valentine and they all live happily ever after.

So, yeah, not a great play. But we now have two of his bad early plays out of the way, and fortunately there aren't many bad ones left. Next we have Love's Labour's Lost, which isn't terrible but isn't one of my favorites. After that we have Romeo and Juliet, which is a big favorite of mine.

Love's Labour's Lost

The play carries almost no plot and has little character development in it. Most of the humor is predicated upon dense and archaic wordplay, puns, malapropisms and references that only an Elizabethan theatergoer or an Elizabethan scholar would catch, so it's way beyond me; I can't even figure out the function of the second apostrophe in the title.

If you sat down a reasonably bright and curious Elizabethan playgoer and you showed him an episode of M*A*S*H or Seinfeld--but you also removed the laugh tracks telling him which parts are supposed to be funny--you would get about the same level of comprehension from him as I got from reading Love's Labour's Lost.

The story has the King of Navarre and three of his nobles swearing an oath to spend the next three years in monk-like study and meditation. Immediately following this oath, the daughter of the King of France and three of her ladies show up and instantly captivate the king and his men. In between the intricate pursuits on one side and the playing hard to get on the other, a lot of witty repartee passes back and forth, most of it opaque to the modern English speaker, and eventually the lords and ladies agree to pair off and get married in a year's time.

There's also a love triangle between a clown named Costard, a Spanish hedge knight named Armado and a peasant woman named Jaquenetta.

Shakespeare's clowns and fools show up in many of his plays. They're almost always of the peasant class, and they're often quite clever, though uneducated. Clowns are free to address both the characters and the audience, often breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to the latter. They provide a number of things to the play: mainly comic relief, exposition, and an often sardonic viewpoint from a common person as a contrast to the upper-class main characters.

One other of Shakespeare's other favorite tropes also shows up in Love's Labour's Lost, and that is the play within the play. Shakespeare has a real affinity for these short, meta interludes, and he writes them into more than a handful of his plays.

In this case, the local boys: Costard the clown, Armado the hedge knight, his page, and a schoolmaster named Holofernes put on a show for the King and his men and the Princess and her ladies. The show in total is the locals attempting to pull off some brief character sketches of historical figures like Pompey, Alexander the Great, Judas Maccabeus and Hercules.

They're not good. They mess up their cues and they flub their lines, which are insipidly written to begin with, and their audience of lords and ladies mock them, loudly and relentlessly.

There may be no larger theme in these aborted skits than "Look at these morons trying to put on a show," but I've been thinking about the crowds who used to show up for Shakespeare's plays, and I think it's possible that this play within a play might be directed at them, specifically at the groundlings, those common folk who paid a penny to get into the theater for the entire day and then milled around in the pit below the stage.


Over the course of the day, the groundlings would more than make up for their cheap admission by buying copious amounts of beer at the concession stand. The crowd etiquette back then was somewhere between WrestleMania and soccer hooligans. The groundlings were loud and rude and drunk. They cheered and booed and talked loudly among themselves and they threw stuff at the stage.

My hypothesis on the theme of this particular play within a play is Shakespeare saying to the groundlings, "Hey, you see these idiots? This is you. This is what you would look like if any of you tried to put on a play. But we are professionals. So stop throwing **** up here and try to enjoy the show."

I'm taking a lot of liberties with this hypothesis, but that's an advantage of writing in a blog, and not in a peer-reviewed journal.

Next: Romeo and Juliet

Ahh, those French woman!

Menu of the day? Can’t read the last part.

I guess like French women, I married one. That being said I don’t necessarily like French women but find most American women to be annoying.

"Menu du jour" which effectively means "menu of the day".

No real message there; I just thought it was a nicely composed shot, if a little blurry--possibly a picture of a TV screen. I like the color palette and the lighting and Audrey whatshername is a cutie.

Ha, I couldn’t decipher the last part but it obviously would’ve been jour. I suck at Wheel Of Fortune.

Audrey Tautou.

Romeo & Juliet: Part I

The Part I suffix is mine, not Shakespeare's. If you've read or seen the play, you'll know that Shakespeare does not make room for a sequel.

On my first exposure to Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet, in 9th grade English class, I was most impressed with the lines that seemed to be pretty clear in modern English, but which actually meant something completely different in Elizabethan English: the first example of which being when Juliet tells Romeo "You kiss by the book" after he kisses her twice, no more than 25 seconds after they meet for the first time.

In modern English, 'by the book' means standard and routine, but that's not what Juliet means. Romeo's opening line to Juliet is that he is a pilgrim and she a holy saint's shrine, imbued with the miraculous ability to cure his sins with a kiss. 'By the book' in context is a play on the Bible, in line with Romeo and Juliet's playful religious riffing during their first encounter, but it also brings up the idea of fairy tales and epic romances. Romeo's kiss is that of a legendary knight or a prince, sweeping up the fair maiden into a grand tale for the ages. And it's fun to know in a meta sense that Romeo and Juliet would itself become a grand romance for all time.

Another misunderstood phrase comes from the famous balcony scene, where Juliet--overheard by Romeo hiding in the orchard below--asks 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?' She's not asking where he is, she's asking why he is. Why does he have to be Romeo?

It's more than that. 'Wherefore' is an enhanced version of 'why'. It's a four-dimensional query, seeking explanations from the past, tallying issues in the present and following them into the future.

Romeo and Juliet's families have been fighting, seemingly for generations. The past has defined Romeo as her enemy. Why does this have to be? Why has she fallen so deeply in love with him so quickly? Is it because he's forbidden? What possible future could they have together, given their families' unceasing enmity? Wherefore all this?

I was intrigued, on discovering at a young age through Shakespeare that English had a past, a present, and by deduction a future. By that time in my life I already knew that if I wrote something down, people would be more likely to pay attention to me, rather than if I just tried to tell them the same thing. When I really wanted something, particularly from parents, teachers or other adults, I would write them a note. I know that's weird, but I was a weird kid, and more importantly it got results, in spots where talking to to people did not.

I'd already found a power in the written word, and to know its history, I thought, would help me to unlock more of its power.

The next time I would read Romeo and Juliet would be in my senior year of high school, when I was lost at sea in my first serious relationship. I think I may have idealized Romeo and Juliet's connection, and I was looking for pointers, but I remember being impressed in that second reading by how nonstandard one of the most famous romances in English happens to be.

More on that in Part II.

I'm curious how they teach Joan of Arc's biography in French schools.

I’ll ask.