Brush up your Shakespeare. Start quoting him now. Brush up your Shakespeare, And the women you will wow. – Cole Porter, “Kiss Me, Kate” Name a play written by Bartley Campbell. Of course you can’t, nor can just about anyone else alive today. Yet Campbell (1843-1888) was a popular American playwright whose giant ego […]
William Shakespeare shuffled off his mortal coil (died) more than four centuries ago, yet his characters continue to entrall and entertain us today. Commemorating the Bard’s birthday on April 23, I offer a humorous and instructive quiz to test your knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays. Match each Shakespearean character with the appropriate tune. Banquo’s theme […]
This past Sunday, on the U-T editorial page, Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Steve Breen presented one of his signature political cartoons. On the left, labeled whistle-blower, was a whistle and above it the word “Sound.” On the right was a caricature of an apoplectic Donald Trump yelling, “. . . and fury signifying nothing.” Steve […]
William Shakespeare is alive and well and living in America’s Finest City. The San Diego Shakespeare Society will soon be presenting its 18th annual evening of Celebrity Sonnets. On Monday, October 7, starting at 7:30 pm, local celebrities and performers will dramatize the Bard’s sonnets to a vast audience. This year’s program will celebrate […]
This past February 8, Walter Munk, arguably the world’s greatest oceanographer, shuffled off his mortal coil at the age of 101 and made his last dive into what William Shakespeare called the “unpathed waters.” Dr, Munk was at the epicenter of the Golden Age of exploration and research, which transformed the Scripps Institute of Oceanography […]
William Shakespeare is alive and well and living robustly in America’s Finest City. On Monday, October 8, starting at 7:30 pm, the San Diego Shakespeare Society will present its 17th Annual Celebrity Sonnets. Through readings, comedy, music, song and dance, local celebrities and performers will dramatize sonnets to a Bard-loving audience. The venue is […]
For centuries a debate has raged about who really wrote the majestic plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare, born in the English country town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Many authoritative voices — including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Henry James, Sigmund Freud, John Gielgud and Derek Jacobi — have proposed alternative candidates, among them rival playwrights […]
William Shakespeare is alive and well and living robustly in America’s finest city. The San Diego Shakespeare Society, on whose board I sit, will soon be presenting its 16th annual evening of Celebrity Sonnets. On Monday, October 9, starting at 7:30 pm, local celebrities and performers will dramatize the sonnets to a vast audience […]
Dear Richard Lederer: Would you please write a column about the use and misuse of the word fulsome? A recent story from the Washington Post, reprinted in the Union-Tribune, began, “President Donald Trump offered a fulsome defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” I can’t tell whether the Post’s reporters are using the word correctly, to […]
Brush up your Shakespeare. Start quoting him now. Brush up your Shakespeare, And the women you will wow. – Cole Porter, “Kiss Me, Kate” Name a play written by Bartley Campbell. Of course you can’t, nor can just about anyone else alive today. Yet Campbell (1843-1888) was a popular American playwright whose giant ego towered […]