Starship Asterisk*

Ann wrote:
So... it was Shakespeare's 450th birthday just the other day, wasn't it? Assuming he was the glover's son... from Stratford. The blogs and chronicles and other texts that I have read about good ol' Shaxper lately all root for the man from Stratford.

http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-droeshout-engraving.htm wrote:
<<The 1623 First Folio engraving of William Shakespeare was given to two tailoring journals: 'The Tailor and Cutter', March 1911 and 'The Gentleman's Tailor', April 1911 . Both these trade journals agreed that the figure was clothed in a coat composed of the back and the front of the same left arm. This was proved by cutting out the two halves of the coat and showing them shoulder to shoulder.>>

geckzilla wrote:
Being unable to feel confident in the true identity of the author of what is commonly known as the works of Shakespeare, I say we throw it all out and replace all studies of the works with study of modern works whose authors are well-known and accountable for.

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/ketzan_simpsons.htm wrote:

---

Literary Titan Thomas Pynchon Breaks 40-Year Silence
– on The Simpsons! By Erik Ketzan

<<When news broke in July 2003 that Thomas Pynchon would lend his voice to an upcoming episode of The Simpsons, it seemed so surprising, wacky, and surreal, in other words, so trademark Pynchon, that it simply had to be true. To his most ardent fans, Pynchon is nothing less than a prophet, a literary genius of such prodigious talent that every sentence he writes seems almost gospel, his least utterance a potential revelation. To these devoted literati, finally hearing Pynchon’s voice is comparable to Moses descending Mount Sinai.

While guest stars on The Simpsons are obviously nothing new, Pynchon is unique among authors in that he has maintained absolute privacy throughout his entire career. He has never given an interview, allowed himself to be photographed, or appeared on television, a decision he has stuck by since 1963, when Time sent a photographer to meet Pynchon in Mexico City. (As the story goes, to avoid being caught on film, Pynchon jumped out his window, in good slapstick fashion, and fled to a remote Mexican village.) For decades, Pynchon has so adamantly maintained his aversion to cameras that what pictures of him exist are mostly culled from his 1953 high school yearbook, in which he appears as a buck-toothed kid with a goofy grin and a pompadour.>>

More at http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/ke ... mpsons.htm

Beyond wrote:
I vote we replace Shakespeare with The Simpsons. Heck, they both start with "S", and The Simpsons are 'fronts' for assorted voices, including one mysterious personage that seems to be well hidden, that no one is sure of what he looks like now, which just adds to the mystery of how the Simpsons could possibly have lasted so long.

http://hankwhittemore.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/1230/ wrote:

• Titian’s Painting of “Venus and Adonis”
  Reason No. 13 Why Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford was “Shakespeare”
  Hank Whittemore's Shakespeare Blog

<<The author of Venus and Adonis (1593) by "William Shakespeare" describes a painting by Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian, in which Adonis wears a bonnet or cap. This was the only Titian painting with that detail and, during Shakespeare's time, it could have been seen only at Titian's home in Venice. William of Stratford had never left England, but Edward de Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford had traveled throughout Italy during 1575-1576 (at age twenty-five), making his home base in Venice, where Titian worked until his death on August 27, 1576.>>

More at: http://hankwhittemore.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/1230/

• --------------------------------------------------------

  

  ---

  • Venus and Adonis (1593)
  He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
  Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
  And with his BONNET hides his angry brow;
  Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,
  Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
  For all askance he holds her in his eye.
  ....................................
  Now was she just before him as he sat,
  And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
  With one fair hand she heaveth up his HAT ,
  Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:
  His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,
  As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint.
  ....................................
  'BONNET nor VEIL henceforth no creature WEAR!
  Nor sun nor wind will EVER strive to kiss you:
  Having no fair to lose, you need not FEAR;
  The sun doth scorn you and the wind doth hiss you:
  But when Adonis lived, sun and sharp air
  Lurk'd like two thieves, to rob him of his fair:
  ....................................
  'And therefore would he put his BONNET on,
  Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;
  The wind would blow it off and, being gone,
  Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep;
  And straight, in pity of his tender years,
  They both would strive who first should dry his tears.

Ann wrote:
Thanks, Art, that was a very interesting TED talk about skepticism. I'm sorry I reacted to your post the way I did, and I thank the moderators for deleting my inappropriate reply.

• ...but REALLY, Ann, how could you have said such things

Ann wrote:
The reason why I reacted the way I did was that you posted your video in the "10 reasons" thread, which made me think that you were talking about Shakespeare again. Also, you used a very strange heading for your post and no other explanation.

Ann wrote:
If it had been me, I would have used the actual name of the TED talk, Rethinking Doubt: The Value and Achievement of Skepticism, to help people understand what my post was about.

Anyway, the video you posted is certainly worth watching!

• ____ Actaeon by hounds
  ____ Dirce by a bull
  ____ Orpheus by Maenads
  ____ Lycurgus by horses
  ____ Pentheus by Maenads
  ____ HYPPOLYTUS by horses

• THE TRUTH COULD BE SHOWN TO THE WISE AND
  AT THE SAME TIME VEILED FROM THE UNKNOWING

geckzilla wrote:
A new citizen science project has been started, called Shakespeare's World. I'm not sure whether it will annoy or intrigue Art. Possibly both or neither.

http://www.shakespearesworld.org/

• It would have to be:
  
  "Transcribe handwritten documents
  by Shakespeare’s contemporaries"

geckzilla wrote:Apparently I need to go back and take a proper AP English class. One which correctly attributes Shakespeare's plays to the Earl of Oxford?

geckzilla wrote:
It's not much easier to read the contemporaries' writing, if you ask me. I just spent a good number of minutes debating over the first word of the page I landed on. Still not sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s wrote:
<<The long, medial, or descending s (ſ) is a form of the minuscule letter s, which was formerly used where s occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word (e.g. "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness"). The modern letterform was called the terminal, round, or short s.>>

https://michaelshermer.com/2001/11/baloney-detection/ wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Baloney Detection
Michael Shermer November 2001

To detect baloney — that is, to help discriminate between science and pseudoscience — I suggest 10 questions to ask when encountering any claim.

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?

2. Does this source often make similar claims?

3. Have the claims been verified by another source?

4. How does the claim fit with what we know about how the world works?

5. Has anyone gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has only supportive evidence been sought?

6. Does the preponderance of evidence point to the claimant’s conclusion or to a different one?

7. Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and tools of research, or have these been abandoned in favor of others that lead to the desired conclusion?

8. Is the claimant providing an explanation for the observed phenomena or merely denying the existing explanation?

9. If the claimant proffers a new explanation, does it account for as many phenomena as the old explanation did?

10. Do the claimant’s personal beliefs and biases drive the conclusions, or vice versa?
---------------------------------------------------

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Waugh wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<Alexander Waugh (born 1963) is an English eccentric, businessman, writer, critic, journalist, composer, cartoonist, record producer and television presenter. He is the grandson of Evelyn Waugh, the eldest son of Auberon Waugh, and the brother of Daisy Waugh. Alexander Waugh was the chief opera critic of the Mail on Sunday (1990–91) and of The Evening Standard (1991-1996). His books on music include Classical Music: A New Way of Listening (1995) and Opera: A New Way of Listening (1996). He reviews non-fiction books for the British press and has contributed cartoons to The Literary Review and The Daily Telegraph.

Waugh is an advocate of the Oxfordian theory, the belief that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford wrote the works of William Shakespeare. He claims to have found surreptitious allusions embedded in 16th- and 17th-century works revealing that the name "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym used by Oxford to write the Shakespeare oeuvre.>>

neufer wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 9:04 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Waugh wrote:
<<Alexander Waugh (born 1963) is an English eccentric...

Waugh is an advocate of the Oxfordian theory, the belief that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford wrote the works of William Shakespeare. He claims to have found surreptitious allusions embedded in 16th- and 17th-century works revealing that the name "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym used by Oxford to write the Shakespeare oeuvre.>>

neufer wrote: ↑Fri Nov 03, 2017 2:48 pm

https://michaelshermer.com/2001/11/baloney-detection/ wrote:
Baloney Detection
Michael Shermer November 2001

To detect baloney — that is, to help discriminate between science and pseudoscience — I suggest 10 questions to ask when encountering any claim.

3. Have the claims been verified by another source?

...

5. Has anyone gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has only supportive evidence been sought?