Anon and on

And from our own inimitable ron_drummond : "I suppose that's mean of me to say, but honestly, Anonymous feels like the work of men who have forgotten how to shit."

To which the twice-inimitable sovay has replied: "That is a judgment worthy of Mozart."

Amen. It should be set as a cantata.

Jonathan Kay goes gleefully for Freud:

"De Vere was a spoiled, hysterical, and violent man. But for Freud, his saving grace was that he'd 'lost a beloved and admired father while he was still a boy and completely repudiated his mother, who contracted a new marriage very soon after her husband's death.' How convenient! Thanks to this conspiratorial sleight of hand, Freud repaired this crack in the Shakesperean bedrock of psychoanalysis."

And James Shapiro writes:

"Perhaps the saddest thing about Anonymous is that Emmerich and Orloff, like every supporter of De Vere I have ever encountered, would hotly deny that the class-obsessed and anti-democratic roots of the De Vere movement have influenced them in the slightest, or that its DNA runs through their arguments."

Unsurprisingly, his excellent essay has drawn the comments of every venomous self-righteous crankshaft in the galaxy. (Or one guy and his Punch-and-Judy show.) Like Paul Offit for the anti-vaxers, Shapiro is a locus of resentment for the anti-Shakespeareans. Brave men, both of them: though the pro-disease crusaders are far more dangerous.

This one is magnificently catty, and I want to have its kittens:

"If I were to ... try to judge Anonymous as a nail-biting thriller of court intrigue, lies, and rebellion, I would be forced to admit that, yes, Lisy Christl's costume designs are really pretty goddamn good ...

"One grand 'fuck you' to common intelligence."

Antagony & Ecstasy

Nine