My earliest memory of Shakespeare was way back in 1993 when our driver, nicknamed “Shakespeare”, barged into my room in the middle of the night when I was asleep and- wait. Not that.
My other early Shakespeare memory was when I did my grade three book report on Romeo and Juliet. No, seriously. Well, actually, I was supposed to do my book report on Hardy Boys Casefiles #1: Dead on Target, but I saw that old, battered copy of Romeo and Juliet on the shelf right next to Rambo: First Blood. Yeah, leave it to me to pick up a sissified love story over Rambo awesomeness.
Yeah, I was stupid. As stupid as this:
So I read the play, and I understood it as much as a grade three student would: not much. So i ended up writing a book report which I was saying “What the fuck am I doing” every three minutes or so. I mean, seriously. “Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast not there for the goose”? What was Shakespeare smoking?
Also, I flunked the book report.
So began my lifelong hatred of anything Shakespeare. Sorry William, I know we share the same birthday, but you bore me to death. The fact that I saw an extremely lifeless and boring rendition of a Filipino translation of As You Like It back in college didn’t help. Read the rest of this entry »
