Vangelicmonk: April 2020

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Hamlet and Spider-Man

With Great Writing Comes Great Parody

Some my know that today is Shakespeare birthday. And While I'm more an Oxfordian or believe that at least someone or a group of someone's actually wrote the plays of Shakespeare, twitter made this event fun and special with Spider_Hamlet.

@TheRSC My Shakespeare-sense is Tingling! #shareyourshakespeare pic.twitter.com/L9aUzvniqQ
— Spider_Hamlet (@Spider_Hamlet) April 20, 2020

Then I started to think about Spider-Man and he is, in a sense, a tragic figure but it's that tragedy that propels him towards heroics rather than towards revenge and tragedy.

via GIPHY

Then this made think of Spider-Man as a play and then I remembered that Spider-Man was a MUSICAL. Well a Rock Musical, Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark . While it was apparently a big failure, there were some great songs from Bono and Reeve Carney that came out of it.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Covid Culture goes Pop

(Nighthawks go home!)

Thinking about when this Covid19, Corona Virus, CCPVirus passes as to our world wide lock down, this event in history will not only be embedded in our collective psyches but also it will play out in various plots of tv shows, movies, books, art, music and plays for years to come.

In many ways it already has:

Love them or hate them, Twenty One Pilots song Level of Concern hits the right notes visually and lyrically.

Some may not like the falsetto voice of Ryan O'Neal from Sleeping At Last, but his rendition of It's a Small World is fitting to remember with this pandemic we are all dealing with the effects. The song has always had a creepy, annoying tone with kids singing it so I never really listened to the lyrics. It was interesting.

Finally, I read The Stand by Stephen King years ago in high school. This isn't recent pop culture but it is old pop culture in a new light of Covid in the U.S. Draw the parallels if you like today. Here's a great interview of Stephen King on NPR Fresh Air and talking about writing and how Covid 19 changes settings set in 2020. This novel is worth reading as your stuck at home.