Tidbit No. 24
It’s LOL CATS for history geeks over at LOL Manuscripts, where Renaissance history PhD student Sarah Redmond photoshops Early Modern printed materials with a history-nerd wit that strikes a chord with me. (BA in History in 2002, focusing on the social history of women in 18th and 19th century Britain.) Like a giddy, punch-drunk student cooped up in the stacks too long, Sarah’s got a great way of making something so ancient so irreverent.
Now that I see the idea, it seems almost too easy to insert new words into the mouths of Early Modern prints, with their stiff formality and cartoonish nature.
“I IZ SUFFERIN LAWTS!” I love it. And if that makes me an even larger nerd than most of you already thought I was, so be it. I just can’t help laughing when someone so artfully brings academic scholarship down to my snarky level. Keep it up, Sarah. If I were your Prof, I’d totally award highest honors for this creative dissertation.
Also great? The LOL version of Shakespeare:
Tidbits |Hamlet (an LOLCat Translation)
2 BE, OR NOT 2 BE : DAT IZ TEH QUESHUN:
WHETHR TIS NOBLR IN DA MIND 2 SUFFR
TEH SLINGS AN ARROWS OV OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE,
OR 2 TAEK ARMS AGAINST SEA OV TROUBLEZ, AN BY OPPOSIN END THEM? 2 DYE: 2 SLEEP;
NO MOAR; AN BY SLEEP 2 SAY WE END
TEH HART-ACHE AN TEH THOUSAND NACHURAL SHOCKZ
DAT FLESH IZ HEIR 2, TIS CONSUMMASHUN
DEVOUTLY 2 BE WISHD. 2 DYE, 2 SLEEP;
2 SLEEP: PERCHANCE 2 DREAM: AY, THARS TEH RUB;
4 IN DAT SLEEP OV DEATH WUT DREAMS CUD COME
WHEN WE HAS SHUFFLD OFF DIS MORTAL COIL,
MUST GIV US PAUSE: THARS TEH RESPECT
DAT MAKEZ CALAMITY OV SO LONG LIFE…