Laughing all the way to the Cartoon Bank

Thanks for the suggestion! book/daddy especially appreciates your friendly tone. Just tone of the reasons many people love the collective wisdom of the internet. book/daddy checked the entry in question and it seems all he's guilty of is a bad link, now repaired.

But because book/daddy assumes some literary knowledge on his readers' part -- this is a book blog, after all -- perhaps he should simplify things. Like this:

book/daddy is married. His wife, Sara, teaches school kids. She is trying to adapt a play by William Shakespeare for them. This is hard. See Sara work. Lots of people have tried writing kid-targeted adaptations of Shakespeare's plays -- most notably Charles and Mary Lamb. They lived in the 19th century. But most of these adaptations don't age well.

Jamila Gavin recently reported on her efforts in adapting Measure for Measure. Measure for Measure is a "dark comedy" by William Shakespeare. Such an adaptation wouldn't be easy because Measure for Measure is a "problem play," notorious for its tricky, unpleasant questions about morality and character. In addition, Measure for Measure would be hard to adapt for children because of its brothels, rape and general air of diseased sexuality.

One aspect of Measure for Measure that makes it a problem play is the character of Antonio. He's a judgmental puritan put in charge while Duke Vincentio is out of town. Yet when Isabella appears before him to beg for the life of her brother (caught in one of Angelo's "sex sting operations"), Angelo is willing throw out his entire reputation as a heartless. moralizing enforcer in order to sleep with Isabella.

Doesn't this sound familiar? Yes it does. In fact, book/daddy wrote an earlier post about the similarities between Angelo and Eliot Spitzer, the recently disgraced governor of New York, who gained a reputation as a moralizing enforcer, even while he consorted with prostitutes.

And these are similarities that Jamila Gavin has now also seen! Huzzah!

Thanks for pointing out the bad link.

This post is incomprehensible. And that Eliot Spitzer link requires a log-in in order to see it, which is lame. Try again, this time with an idea toward other people actually understanding what you're trying to say.