Get a Life

     The other day in class we discussed the need to get a life. I have noticed over the last two months I have been giving the same response to anyone who asks--I give the same cookie-cutter response to regulars at work all the time when they ask how things are going--I tell them "I have no life, all I do is go to work, go to school and study." 
     Talking about this in class made me think about the what I had actually been saying. I had been using my words incorrectly. I should have said, for the first time in a long time, I actually have a life. Rather than just going through the motions and taking things day by day, I am now thinking and pushing myself daily. This is not to say I wasn't using my brain before, I might have been, but now there is a purpose for my thoughts. I not only want to push myself, I feel the need to push myself for the first time in years.
     I have been the worst student over my college career which started in the late 90's. I was always going through the motions, faking my way through to get my rare A, most often B, better yet C, D or F. Not to mention the endless classes I have dropped before things became difficult or the numerous W's I have taken over the years. So I say, for the first time in a long time, I have a life. I cannot wait to hang out with my friends, play golf and do nothing. But that will have to wait. First I must live.

From a King to a Pimp

We were asked to blog about this passage, seeing that my previous blog was on a similar subject I decided to do some translation to the lowest form of speech. If I remember correctly we were asked early on in the semester to do a translation, if not, oh well, here is some strange stuff.

 From a King to a Pimp.
Oh, reason not the need! Our basset beggars
Are in the porrest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs, 
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous, 
Why, nature deeds not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
Which scarcely keeps the warm. But,. for true need--
You heavens, give me that patience; patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, 
As full of grief as age, wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts 
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's wopons, water drops, 
Stain my man's cheeks. No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall--I will do such things--
What they are yet I know not, but they shall be 
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I'll weep. Oh, Fool, I shall go mad! 

Shit, don't tell me about need.
Some of them hobos be havin'
Shit that they don't need.
You best stop thinkin' about all that
Worthless shit you don't be needen
And spy on that mangy mutt that
Makes it just fine wit nuttin but nuttin.
Why you be wearin' those damn uncomfortable
heels, you best get some sneakers, them be practicle.
God, give me the time, man I need time!
God you see me, beat down, no money havin'
As old as I am pissed off.
If it be you God that make these bitches
Go against their Daddy, Stop playin'
Don't let them bitches tears keep me from my money
I ain't cryin' You old ass street walkers,
You gonna see the wrath I be bringin' on you.
Everebody be knowin' what I be doin'
Shit, I don't know what I be doin' yet
But it gonna be some ruthless shit, hear me.
You think it hurt me,
It ain't hurtin' me none
Man I should be hurt like a mathafaka
But no, rip my heart outta ma chest
before you see me a hurtin
Damn fool, shit makin' me crazy!

A Storm Makes Nothing Matter

     Lear, out in the rain banished from his land and stripped of his former self comes to the realization that what he once believed to be "nothing" has value beyond his wildest dreams.
The art of our necessities is strange
And can make vile things precious.
In his days past, Lear would have laughed at someone seeking shelter in the miserable hovel. But now it is his savior, his castle, his everything. Lear begins to realize how bad of a king he has been. How he has treated those with no provisions, no home. Now that he has nothing, he sees how much nothing is worth.
     Similarly, finding value in what before had none, this line, And can make vile things precious, translates directly to his daughters. Cordelia not professing her love for king Lear made her vile, dead to him. The storm, his having nothing makes him realize the true value of what he once had. Cordelia is once again precious. He once again sees things for what they are. It is as if this storm is one of truth, for it allows the king to see things for what they really are. In the same way the king allows his jelly to view vile things to be precious, the rain from this tempest clarifies what has been vile for Gloucester. He now realizes Edgar to be his true and thoughtful son, while his reservations for his bastard once again grow strong.
     It is as if the storm is not only bring the rebirth of parent and child together, but the storm cleanses their vile thoughts allowing for the realization of their wrongdoings. Once their thoughts are cleansed, they can see things for what they are and should be. Funny that Gloucester sees the truth about his son just before his vile jelly is ripped from his sockets; similarly, Lear's mind becomes clear while he fights with insanity. It is as if Puck is the storm sprinkling his potion down onto the ones who need it the most. The trickster wants to see order and love once again.

Ten Minutes

     I listened to an NPR broadcast awhile ago where children were put in a room with one chair, a table and a plate with one cookie on it. They were told that they could eat the cookie at any time, however, if they did not eat the cookie for ten minutes they would receive two cookies as a reward. Some children had no care and ate the cookie right away, instant gratification never giving thought to the prize they missed out on. Others lasted the ten minutes with no problems or fuss, received their two cookie prize and were on their way. While some children struggled throughout the entire ten minutes. One boy walked circles around the room frantically repeating "TEN MINUTES" over and over again. Yet another girl made it nine minutes and fifty eight seconds before she broke down and ate the one cookie, losing what she was so close to achieving.
     I bring this up because we were asked to read Vladimir Nabokov's Signs and Signals, "which is short and should take only ten minutes". It took me right around ten minutes to read the short story and upon completion my mind wanted more time. "TEN MINUTES" is how I felt, for this would  never be enough time to try and piece together what the hell is happening in the story. Now I could have reached for the cookie and ate it, meaning use this handy thing called the internet to see what others could tell me about what the hell was happening in the story. But I chose to take another route. I reread the piece, thought about it, told my roommate to read it--he was as mind boggled as I was--thought about it some more and decided to read King Lear to not only get my mind off of Signs and Signals, but to see If I could find similarities between the two.
     Referential mania is not exactly what I was experiencing, I do not feel as though I am more intelligent than other men nor do I see conspiracy in everything around me. But something has happened, I have read and reread the material, looked over our notes from class, looked up words I did not know all in an attempt to figure out some sort of meaning to what I had been reading. We were told in class to find something in the story and that we will be led astray from the true meaning. Look for the hidden meaning. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, and three times is Mythology. Then we were told about the jelly jar, the one that seems the most trivial is the most important. Now I read the piece twice before I looked over my notes and now felt as if I had a direction in which to focus my search. Or did I?
     Each sign or symbol I see takes me in a new direction. I think I am mything the point. I looked closely at the text, scribbling a few things that stuck out. "Nature shadows him wherever he goes...clouds in the sky start transmitting to one another by means of slow signs...more intelligent than other men...manual alphabet...(running water, storms) are hysterical to the point of insanity...horrible masklike grimace...mirrors...knives would have to be kept in a locked door". This was just the beginning, I had read the short story over and over again paying close attention to every detail of which there are many. The phone rings three times, the jelly, the playing cards, but what I noticed after awhile was the similarities to Shakespeare: shadows, clouds, masks, insanity, mirrors...Then sadly, I had to go to work.
     When I got home, I decided to look back at my notes for the entire semester. I wanted to look over shadows--reflections of the reality they represent--and clouds--in the process--looking for answers to what I could have missed. While turning from page to page scouring my scribbled notes, I noticed in the middle of one page I had written flowers and storms p. 50 and for some reason it stuck out to me. So I pulled out Ted Hughes to see what he had to say. It was as though Hughes was not only describing Shakespeare but Nabokov as well:
"In the last plays, which explore the salvation of the lost heroine and the redemption of the tragic hero, a new language appears. In this third language, the metaphorical density dissolves but the sense of complexity, and of packed, many-layered richness, remains. The complexity of knotted metaphor melts, that is, into a musical complexity, a sinuous, melodious orchestration of tones where words have resumed their simple directness without losing their amplitude. Again, this change corresponds to a major change in subject matter on the mythic level. The fatal collision of different worlds, dramatized in the tragedies proper, and in the compacted language of those plays, has been resolved in this new phase, where the hero, instead of causing the heroine's death and thereby bringing about his own, is reborn to her as she is to him. Their rebirth, wherever it occurs, is characterized by brimming passages of this new, simplified, yet enriched music, usually describing storm (the storm of death and rebirth) or flowers (the flowers of death and rebirth), or an ultimate transcendence" (49-50).
I looked at the jelly jars and came upon quince, not knowing what it was I looked it up and saw a picture of the flowering shrub. Now I can see both the flowers of death and rebirth as well as the storm throughout the story being the storm of death and rebirth. The parents, or the father sent his child to the sanitarium where the young man flirts with death multiple times. Similarly, the old man says he cannot sleep because he is dying. Yet blood begins to flow once again through his veins when revelation of bringing his son home hits him. It is the rebirth of father and son. Their lives together will be lived locked in their two bedroom flat. Imprisoned together until their death.
    There seem to be many correlations between King Lear and Signs and Symbols yet I am not sure if Nabokov had this in mind for his short story. Ending my thoughts with this connection between flowers, storms, death and rebirth, left many of my theories swinging in the wind. I still have many questions about the meaning behind this short story, but I chose not to eat the one cookie and look up what others could tell me. I wanted to see what I could come up with on my own. As for the "TEN MINUTES" I am fairly sure I spent a little more than ten minutes on this one.
     
    

When Hamlet Met Hamlet

     While working the other night, the Hamlet of no action had the rare pleasure of meeting Bipolar Hamlet. A gentleman walked in the door, took a seat at the bar and mumbled the need of a shot of Jameson and a Budweiser. I looked at him, realizing his intoxicated state and asked how his night was going. He once again mumbled, Jameson and a Budweiser. I looked at him and let him know that I was unable to serve him and that I was sorry for that. As a true gentleman would, he stated that if I would not serve him, he would go somewhere where they would. He stood up from his bar stool exited the building. After a five minute period, the same gentleman walked in the door and chose a seat five stools away from where he had previously been sitting. I walked over and asked how his evening was going. He only said Bud this time. I responded by telling him about our previous conversation, reiterating that I was unable to serve him. This is when Bipolar Hamlet presented himself. He called me a Communist, Nazi, with a flail of his arm said hail Hitler. I was caught off guard and asked him what he had said? His response was the same, Communist,  you Nazi...Now at this point, what I should have said was "Thou mangled onion-eyed death token," but what I said was you need to get the f*&# out of here. He slowly stood up, mumbling obscenities as he made his voyage out the door. He raised his hand and extended his middle finger, professing his love to the Hamlet of no action. At this point, my anger got the best of me, I reached for my sward and began my attack. I took two steps in his direction, stopped and thought to myself that this was not the time. I will plan my attack for when he next comes into the bar. My thoughts were on what I will do to him the next time he comes in. The answer is most likely nothing. I just wanted to share my Hamlet meets Hamlet experience.

I Don't Love You, Weight, I Do!

     From Hamlet back to Turner. While reading Hamlet, the scale became present in two different instances. Though this time, it is not a feather and a globe or smoke that is being weighed. Rather, Shakespeare finds equally difficult items to weigh, yet the visual he gives us is striking. In the first instance, Laertes is talking with Ophelia: "By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight, Till our scale turn the beam" (301). Here Laertes speaks of Ophelia's madness weighed against Laertes' revenge. Two items not easily weighed, yet what I see is an empty scale. Both side balanced equally. However another take could be Ophelia's brain on one side with a poison tipped sward on the other. Either way, the scale remains balanced for they both find the same end. Ophelia's madness drives her to the water where she finds her tragic end. Laertes on the other hand is driven by revenge. His inability to control himself, that is to say, act, something Hamlet is unable to do, drives Laertes to his doom. Yet another way to perceive the scale is Ophelia standing on one side, Laertes on the other. Ophelia's traditional burial allowing her passage into Heaven lifts weight from her side, in turn offering Laertes and his revenge a quick passage to Hell.
     For the second viewing of the scale, Laertes is once again present. As a matter of fact, forty thousand of him piled onto one side of the scale, verses the love of Hamlet for Ophelia on the other. The scale will not move from Hamlet's side as one by one a new Laertes stands upon the scale. Hamlet keeps the scale bottomed out as each Laertes joins the other until forty thousand have done no better than one. It is an interesting visual, for love cannot be weighed. But, at this point, Hamlet has more love than can be imagined. Yet this brings me to his Manic Depression. Just a few days earlier Hamlet expressed his love by saying to Ophelia, "You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not" (195). From I love you, to I love you not, back to I love you. Hamlet's emotions may never be understood. He cannot express his love face to face except when wrestling with Laertes in her grave. Love is a tricky thing, who knows if one is in it, love is difficult to express and impossible to weigh.