Showing posts with label English Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English Literature. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

THE INTERNET NEVER FORGETS (But It Could Die)

"The internet never forgets."
 
But, it could die.
 
 
Just in case, herein below (stupid lawyers) is what I could scrape from the interwebs, the remains of my written, posted work from blog posts over the last, oh, say, 14 years.  I will always contend that much deep thought went into these rants, some were even fully captured. These thoughts, framed by bits of time, have been fueled by one American citizen's concern -- for both ourselves and our posterity.
 
With my mother-in-law's funeral service coming next week, what I can honestly say is that I have done and what I have done here to express, despite the degrees of separation the internet creates, what I know to be true, good, and consistent. 
 
In the words of Nathaniel Benchley, "Only Earth and Sky Last Forever."
 
I'm not trying to top "mean Tweets," because it is the Divine Comedy that keeps me laughing.
And with all our years of accumulated experience, and purported wisdom, boomers like us may need to re-consider that in the eyes of our children, we are simply fools, who care too much to simply quit. 
 
Consider this body of work --- 
 
and remember --- 
 
whether at age 65, or any age, we are always a work in progress.
 
/initialize Time Warp  
 
[some links may be missing --- if so, they didn't die, they just faded away . . . ]


FROM THE ARCHIVES

"Wit, Gun, and Stein" (2009 - 2011) 
and
"English Swill" (2012 - 2019)

*HUMOR*


¤ "That's Not Funny, That's Sick ..." - When Sincerity Becomes Absurdity
by Roy Santonil (May 5, 2009)

by Roy Santonil (May 20, 2010)
 
 
*CULTURE*
 
¤ "Fool Me Twice" - Sorry, Not Sorry
by Roy Santonil (September 12, 2009) 
 
by James Bowman (October 25, 2009) 
 
by Roy Santonil (January 30, 2010) 
 
¤ "The New Paradigm: You're Welcome" - Last Refuge or Last Resort?
by Roy Santonil (April 19, 2010)
 
¤ "A Tribute to Snail Mail" - Literally, An Internet Post
by Roy Santonil (June 9, 2010) 
 
¤ Word Wars - Care for Some Tea?
by Roy Santonil (November 2, 2010)
 
¤ "Creepy Misfits and Multiple Losers" - Let Me Keep My Precious Self-Loathing
by Roy Santonil (November 22, 2010) 
 
¤  "The End Of The Trail James Earl Fraser (1915)" - I'm Done (3 Final Essays)
by Roy Santonil (December 26, 2010)
 
(March 12, 2011)  
*LAW*
 

 
by Roy Santonil.(January 23, 2018)

¤ "The High Road" - Remember Prohibition?
by Roy Santonil (September 3, 2009) 
 
*GOLF*

¤ "On Respect" - Why the FedEx Cup Sucks
Golf Press Association Article (published August 22, 2007)

¤ "On Golf" - A Must Read For Every Golfer 
by John Updike, author of the Everyman's Library, The Witches of Eastwick, Marry Me, Brazil, The Coup, and Terrorist (originally published in The New York Times, June 10, 1973)

by Roy Santonil (March 26, 2009) 
 
¤ "Tiger's Moral Hazard" - A Game of Sorrows
A New York Times Essay by Robert Wright (Posted March 31, 2010)
 
¤ "Putters of Distinction" - Bulls Eye!
by Roy Santonil (April 18, 2010) 
 
¤ "Pinetuck Golf Course: Old School" - Golf Course Review
by Roy Santonil (May 11, 2010)
 
 ¤ "The Divide Golf Course: Cart Golf" - Golf Course Review
by Roy Santonil (June 2, 2010)
 
by Roy Santonil (June 5, 2010) 
 
by Roy Santonil (June 14, 2010) 
 
by Roy Santonil (June 22, 2010)

¤ "The Tradition: Demons vs. Aces" - Golf Course Review
by Roy Santonil (June 26, 2010)

¤ "The Art of Distraction" - No excuses.
by Roy Santonil (July 24, 2010) 
 
by Roy Santonil (August 10, 2010) 
 
¤ "TPC Piper Glen: Show Me The Money" - Golf Course Review
by Roy Santonil (August 18, 2010)
 
 ¤ "A New Low" - 72
by Roy Santonil (October 13, 2010)

by Roy Santonil (October 23, 2010)

*MUSIC *
 
¤ "Deacon Blues" - Steely Dan (1977) - I Cried When I Wrote This Song
by Roy Santonil (February 10, 2010) 
 
¤ "Hey Nineteen" - Steely Dan (1980)  - She Thinks I'm Crazy
by Roy Santonil (November 5, 2010)

LUKE 10:2
 
You Don't Have to LIKE it.
 
SHARE it so you get an objective thought.
 
SUBSCRIBE if you want more.
 
© 2024 by Roy Santonil

 

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Thursday, February 24, 2022

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




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