The Play's the Thing

Start here.  

How many of us dozed off in the middle of high school English class whenever we had to read Shakespeare, or Milton, or especially, Dante?

 

Not me.

 

I knew that the Adam West Batman accessed the Batcave through Shakespeare.

This week I'm focused on a particular line from the play Hamlet, where the protagonist Prince plots to avenge his Father's death at the hands of  Claudius, the terrible uncle who then married Hamlet's mother -- after killing Hamlet's dad! 

 

Jerry Springer must have studied classical literature, ha ha. Interestingly, Hamlet's father's name is also Hamlet, but in the play, whenever he speaks he is called "Ghost."

 

Here's the full quote in context: 

"Out of my weakness and melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds more relative than this. The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King [referring to Claudius]."

What the heck is he talking about?

"Ain't it just like a friend of mine ..."

I'm going to assume you have a passing knowledge of the plot, since it is at its essence a story of revenge sought by a character whose mind is conflicted, indecisive, and therefore, paralyzed. He asks for all of us, the legendary question, whether "to be or not to be?" 

 

As he goes about proving his uncle's guilt, Hamlet arranges to perform a drama before the king's court. The play is written in a way that portrays the actual killing of his father, and Hamlet believes that in examining the king's reaction, he will prove his case. 

 

Hamlet's father was poisoned while sleeping in his garden. Likewise, the play was written to portray just that event. It (the play) is high art, to me, in that it presents an artist's reality, and serves no purpose other than to obtain knowledge from its audience. 

Unsponsored art is inherently subversive.

Sponsorship, OTOH, requires the artist to encode his message, because I believe, the ultimate aim of the artist is less the object, less the painting, the sculpture, the movie, or the novel, he/she creates.

What is being overtly created is a REACTION. For the artist, what happens on stage is secondary to how the audience reacts. Such is the "theatre" of war, but more about the Ukaranian money-laundering, drug-running, and child trafficking, anti-Nazi clean-up operation later.

This is oversimplification. Hamlet's use of a stage play as subterfuge for detective work is a topic covered by shelves and shelves of volumes of scholarly studies regarding Shakespeare's work, and the deeply humanistic questions posed by the characters and events in not only Hamlet, but WS's entire body of work. The play has been studied and interpreted over an over again, yet it remains rich with material profitable for reproof, study, conjecture, and revelation about our human condition. What a piece of work.

If you caught the reference, then you truly belong here, because some things are just True and they stay True. So I will keep stirring the swill here at Boomers Anonymous -- in English. 

 

Let me paraphrase:

 

This goodly frame, the earth, is more than some sterile promontory, and this most excellent canopy, the air, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire will appear to you -- and be more than just a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.

 

Enjoy the show.

Welcome back

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 © 2022 by Roy Santonil

Code Breakers (Part 1 of 3)

Start here. 

I'm not lazy, dammit. 

I'm efficient, and to some that looks lazy. Of course it doesn't help to be middle-aged and (slightly) overweight. Some stereotypes are justified. But even if 60 is the new 40, that doesn't affect my work. 

I happen to think that stereotypes serve a comedic impulse. Unfortunately, when misused, they exacerbate improper discrimination. Clearly, a person's immutable physical attributes are an awfully unreliable predictor of their attitude. Fellow Boomers, my prevailing attitudes about life were shaped in a crucible of American military tradition. 

Have you identified your crucible?

This week's comment (BTW, yours are welcome, too) deals with codes. No, not the millions of lines of mathematical computer codes that people smarter than me write in exotic languages like Python, Perl, Pascal, Forth, Frink, Erlang, Haskell, C, C+, C++ (D), Eiffel, Oberon, Occam, ChucK , or one of many scripting codes such as Beanshell or Mondrian (a combination of Haskell and Java). These codes, whose names resonate like Pokémon creatures, are written to create the programs and algorithms that let us play video games, text messages to friends, schedule dental appointments, write blogs, surf porn, order sandwiches, and catch car rides via your computer, telephone, and tablet screens. 

I'm talking here about linguistic codes, utilized by so-called humans, media types, and public policy advocates. You know. The "cheat codes" are used formally and informally, suggesting a manner that is, let's say, less than direct, and often misleading. Weasel words, wiggle words, any way you put it, abuses of language, forked tongues using cheat codes are the oldest tool the devil uses to deceive and defraud. 

The unwary must suffer the swampy mendacity of professional psychopaths who conjure black into white, up becomes down, male and female become indistinguishable, putting future generations at risk. And probably the worst effect of all is that evil and corruption disguises itself as something worthy and good. It is a way of talking without speaking. It slips past your common sense, hypnotically. It washes brains clean of natural caution and slithers into the listener's unconscious mind to open paths for itself, turning half-asleep audiences into victims of mass fraud and craven deceit. (Hello, Doctor Fauci.)

Sure, we are all guilty from time to time, but when you realize the extent to which language is, and always has been, manipulated for nefarious ends, it's easy to become disheartened. Again, I emphasize that we are all guilty in limited and varying gradients of degrees, but here I hope to wring out some of the most obvious examples, if for no other reason than that someone may spot them in common parlance. If you find it helpful, humorous, or even enlightening, I am so good with that

Anyway, stop calling me lazy. To do so would be a grave mistake of ethnic proportions. Thirty years after passing the California bar exam, I am confident when I assert that corporate lawyers are overpaid tricksters, playing games with language cheat codes. And to me, that has been the cause of even greater harm than the current digital "pandemic." And as for you medical doctors, I say, "An apple a day."

I no longer seek clients, but I did not quit "the Law." I just changed my number and address.  So here goes.

Whenever you hear the phrase:

 "With all due respect,"  

. . . simply substitute this phrase: 

"I do not respect you,"

See? 

Once you break their codes, then the true meanings become clearer.

I am talking about cheat codes for language games. Contrast oxymorons, which are combinations of words with opposite meanings. Language cheats are those occasions where weasely lawyers, and their ilk, use words in seemingly complementary, but ultimately meaningless, fashion. Spin doctors and lawyers can amplify, but more often they obscure, true intentions and hidden agendas. Language codes are a purposeful, sinister, spell casting, dark, political, art.

And the Road to Hell is paved with . . . good linguistic cheat codes.

Wise Men Still Seek Him

Now you may ask yourself, how do I discern a speaker's or writer's truthful intended meaning? 

Aye, there's the rub! Before say, 2001, we could pay closer attention to a person's non-verbal physical cues. Full body, face to face, implied meanings carry great effect when your are in person.

However helpful, those non-verbal cues only matter when your gather with other humans, outside of digital space. We are destroying humanity, one cyber-meeting at a time. The Spoken Word carries subtle and I think unmeasurable variations of tone, volume, pitch, and inflection, some are obvious, most are subconscious. You don't receive the full import of that from a Zoom call or a chat room. We can talk about the tyrannical impulse of muzzle mask mandates, and the unhealthy effects of remote learning on child development -- later.

Whenever you hear, "It doesn't matter." Be careful. Be very careful. It might. And you may someday have to justly and precisely assert why something does. And unless words matter, all Honor is lost.

Our multiverse is baked in with innumerable message transmissions which are accessible or inaccessible at different levels of reception. Decades ago, TV and radio broadcasts of "Your Show of Shows," "I Love Lucy," "Happy Days," "Charlie's Angels," "Mission: Impossible," "Paul Harvey," "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." or more recently "Breaking Bad," Game of Thrones," and "Super Bowl LVI" were transmitted and continue to transmit their electromagnetic wave signals throughout Space. 

Ham radio hobbyists, walkie-talkies, CB truckers (!) and two cans on a string -- all have provided a method for humans to transmit messages across the divide, messages now ethereal, persisting long after their senders have exited the stage. Waves and particles from the past are now light years away. 

The intention of the sender's message becomes less urgent as Time passes and Nature reclaims. 

The emotions and the agendas necessitating cheat codes dissipates. Motives die. 

All that remains is Content. Thank the Lord.

Discern for yourself whether or not to give credence to random speakers to whom you may be listening (including me). Whether they come from the left, right, or center, whether justified or wrongful, whether on-screen or IRL (in real life) -- the fact is, if you pay attention, you will spot the lies.

 Got Content? 

 © 2022 by Roy Santonil

 

Nice Work If You Can Get It (Fugue State)

さとり

the sea is parting.

was Pandemic a real thing?

payback coming soon

***

ever write a poem?

haiku can get you started

neat quick and easy

***

this Japanese style

can sometimes get annoying

but writing is fun

***

this is what I do

Nice Work If You Can Get It

time to hit the course

***

one more for the road

words are cages for your thots

I dislike spell check

***

subscribe to my blog

humor will lighten the load---

dad jokes for the win

*** 

seventh stanza here

don't want to use too much Time

another post Done

***

fingers help me count

the syllables i needed

two finish this Peace

***

/end fugue state

 © 2022 by Roy Santonil

Don't Dream. It's Over. (2022 Update)

Start here. 

What a difference a dot makes.

OK, Boomer, do you remember this MTV hit by the band Crowded House? 

That song, "Don't Dream It's Over," used the same words as those in the title of this post. Because we are speaking and writing in English, spacing and punctuation rules are less strict than many other languages. Unless we practice writing in Far Eastern or Cyrillic characters, we don't have to bother much with diacritical marks, where, for example, the French circonflexe (the little hat) means the difference between jeune (young) and jeûne (fast). More on foreign tongues later. For now, let's just agree there's a place in the world for old and slow.

One dot, one period, one space bar, one programmer's keystroke, and POOF!, meaning changes. A glitch occurs in the matrix, and hordes of weasels begin to libel and slander your character. What's worse is they openly criticize your hair color and tan lines.

Meaning is interpreted through a reader's preconceptions. So if a single dendrite misfires in the synapse between pen and paper, between thought and expression, the message is too often received bereft of the writer's intended meaning -- a variant of the writer's idea, if you will. One fat finger fault can lead to a divine comedy of misunderstanding. As the eminent writers Page & Plant once put it:

"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven." 

Other times, fortunately, the reader or listener indeed "gets it." 

And the messenger lives.

The original song meaning, as I heard it, was one of uplifting encouragement, a hopeful message in the face of numerous and divisive intrusions. The artist is telling you in so many words, "Don't give up. Keep on going, even when you are surrounded by idiots trying to separate you from the bonding spirit of family and friends. Despite forces rending your true soul from your original self, despite day to day annoyances like fixing the hole in the wall, towing your car, rumors of war and waste, despite all that, they won't win. The world comes in, like a deluge to build a wall between us, but they won't win.  

There is Freedom within, there is Freedom without. 

Play.

 

But then --- one dot and one space --- and the message changes. Punctuation turns something once promising and hopeful into a sad anthem of disillusion and finality. We boomers, we've been there and done that.

IT'S OVER. 

Don't dream those dreams . . . of long-haired hippies . . . of chimeric Lennonist utopias. 

Get back. 

To life. 

Get back.

To what is real.

Put simply folks, in order for us boomers to mature gracefully, we must own our generational bias. Step up to your chronological demographic. Challenge the invaders, embrace your misanthropy, your latent liberal racism, your depleted sexism, and hilarious homophobia. Recognize those so-called social injustices of which you have been accused wrongfully, and sometimes, accurately. Pay them no heed. And if you are game, prepare yourself for an occasional slice of humble pie. 

Same goes for the kids out there. Romantic ideals are dead.  

Don't dream. It's over. 

Let Truth be your Master, not pixelated myths from the Reagan era. The Eisenhower era may be okay. Either way, past presidents become dead presidents, but your Time is always your Money. Isaiah 11:6

Remember the Hank Hill cult meme? 

The Liam Neeson warning?

It's over.

Face it. 

EVERYONE DISCRIMINATES. (but not everyone is prejudiced).

To discriminate is to select. Discrimination has been vilified, though merely an expression of intent.

Prejudice OTOH assumes facts not in evidence. It's an infantile state of mind, a sort an inverse Dunning-Kruger situation, where a person jumps to conclusions with faulty logic or false facts. Or narcisstic hubris. (Hello, CNN)

Well, the music break is done.

It's been so long since I'd seen the ocean, I thought I should come to California. As is so often the case, the best expression about my trip borrows from well-known lyrics. 

Watch the video (3:58) and see. We can ALL see through the corporate bullshit -- it's over.

You may let them in, but we won't let them win. 

Hey now. Hey now.

Subscribed yet?

 

 © 2022 by Roy Santonil