President Biden took a special dosage of reanimating medications, and emerged from a daytime nap to address the nation. The Capitol was sparsely attended with masked politicians, their confidence bolstered by the hastily erected 12-foot-high barbed wire wall they recently placed between themselves and the citizenry they claim to represent. Shakespeare constructed this very same farce in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when, in Act V, the “mechanicals,” a handful of dim-witted Athenian tradesmen who had been rehearsing a play for the Duke of Athens, were permitted to present their entertainment. …

‘Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!’: Biden’s SOTU Address and A Midsummer Night’s Dream Read More »

I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale through this link. And I’m giving the e-book version away free today and tomorrow, April 25 and 26. If you do read it, please consider leaving a review. The book reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, …

‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision – a recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election’ now on sale at Amazon Read More »

It’s not an easy question to answer. We wrote a whole book describing him as the usurping King Claudius in Hamlet, after all. And after 9/11, plenty of Shakespeare buffs, including many who didn’t like President G.W. Bush, agreed that he was a modern incarnation of Henry V, who started out as a carousing wastrel, but who rose to become a successful military leader. The resemblance even included a shared enthusiasm for foreign invasion, although Henry V was quickly successful in France, while GW got us into Afghanistan where, now …

Which of all of Shakespeare’s Characters is Joe Biden, Our New Tragicomic President? Read More »

Anthony Fauci, the CDC shutdown czar, must be Iago’s cousin. The CDC shutdown czar has given the nation whiplash on issue after issue concerning the Virus from the Country that Shall not be Named, which is just what Iago does when trying to identify the source of his hatred for Othello. Iago may be Shakespeare’s premier villain, but even so, he’s more fun than Fauci, so we’ll start with Iago, explaining that he hates the warrior-hero of Venice because he denied him a promotion: Iago: “Three great ones of the …

‘For that I do suspect the lusty Moor’: Iago and the shifty Anthony Fauci’s shifting positions Read More »

They used to ask you to kneel. Now they are asking you to bend over. The Middle Kingdom for centuries insisted that foreign visitors prostate, sorry, I mean prostrate, themselves before the emperor at court. While we might have thought this impulse would weaken in modern times, it now appears it has grown stronger instead. Visitors to China are being required to submit to a COVID-19 test conducted through anal swabbing. And our leaders seem quite willing to comply. Here’s Benvolio in Romeo & Juliet, describing how smitten with love …

‘As maids call medlars when they laugh alone’: Mercutio, Romeo, and China’s Anal Swabbing of Foreign Visitors Read More »