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| With apologies to the 1961 American musical romantic drama directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins |
By Moristotle
“Or what” applies: I was on vacation in the Central European Summer Time zone, 6 hours ahead of the U.S. Eastern Time zone. It wasn’t the middle of the night in Paris, or Cologne, or Lübeck, or Kiel, or Nice, or Orange, wherever I was at the time. A seeming 2 a.m. posting in Mebane was in reality an 8 a.m. posting for me, my usual time to be up and about. N’est-pas? Nein?
In the coming weeks, I hope to write about some of the things I was up to. Thanks for your concern. It was all good: good to go and be in the cities listed above, good to come home to Mebane.
| Copyright © 2022 by Moristotle |
Goines has been sick with a “bad cold” most of his week back, but I hope he can manage to cobble something together soon from his extensive travel diary.
ReplyDeleteI did not notice, but you know I've been a bit busy. I once called a cell number to schedule a service at a home and a groggy voice answered. "We're on vacation in Hawaii." Being a complete idiot, I asked "So how is sunny Hawaii?" "It's not very sunny right now because it is 4 o'clock in the (bleeping) morning!" True story.
ReplyDeletePaul Clark commented via an email to me: "If I hadn't known you were in France I would have assumed there was some new Shakespearean something on late night that you just had to stay up all night for, so you would know how it ended. Ha."
ReplyDeleteWhat's that Paul Clark guy have against Shakespeare? And Shakespeare fans? Seems a recurring theme. Is he some sort of malcontent?
ReplyDeleteI think that Paul has expressed a number of reasons for opposing Shakespeare exaltation, but maybe he’ll review his main points for us. Paul, would you do that? I myself still don’t understand what troubles you.
DeleteGoogle "the real Macbeth" and compare the true story with Shakespeare's slanderous version, and you have the beginnings of my issues with the bard. I dismiss him as a savvy businessman who curried favor with wealthy backers by churning out pointless and historically inaccurate drivel to line his pockets at the expense of the truth. He was basically the Rush Limbaugh of his day, for lack of a better comparison, although calling him "the Donald Trump of his day" might also be apt.
DeleteYes, I realize millions of people adore Shakespeare and are huge fans of his work. Millions of people are also fans of soap operas and slasher movies. All of which may prove nothing except bad taste is timeless, but if you can think objectively about the comparison instead of being caught up in the gilded haze of literary tradition, you may see more commonality between Shakespeare and those two modern genres than would seem at first blush.
Btw: This is paul, forced to reply anonymously because I won't accommodate Blogger by lowering the security settings on my computer.
Paul, though I have long brushed your denunciations aside as your way of excusing your personal dislike for (and maybe inability to appreciate) The Bard, I find myself this morning worrying whether, in fact, I and other Shakespeare appreciators may have been taken in, hoodwinked by our Shakespeare-adoring professors? You are no dummy, but are sharper than I am. I may even have lost my supposed ability to appreciate Shakespeare. Thanks for tipping the scale. I owe you.
DeletePaul, what I now have to share will hardly seem a payment on my debt to you for challenging my appreciation for the power, the humor, the psychological insight, the verbal pyrotechnics, and the dramatic inventiveness of William Shakespeare. But a sharper-minded man than me (and maybe than you) responded to your comment above in this wise:
DeleteMo,
I think it is extraordinarily difficult for anyone of our generation to understand or appreciate the history plays. Who said they were accurate history? Paul’s annoyance is understandable but intolerant of creative license.
It seems presumptuous to assume, indeed, that Shakespeare’s audience did not appreciate his plays. How else do you account for his success? That’s who they were written for. Not for us.
For me, plays like Othello, Lear, Macbeth, and others of his tragedies have power and humanity that still resonate, whatever the lack of historical accuracy. What other body of plays have been created in the last 400 years that are anywhere near comparable or inspire as many performances?
The comedies also continue to speak to the human condition and our foibles.
My grandaughter’s HS drama group just did a contemporary update of As You Like It, set in the 1980s, with great success and to the considerable enjoyment of audiences and players alike.
Shakespeare must have been smiling.
Neil [Hoffmann, Moristotle & Co.’s Shepherd’s Crook, ever tending his flock back to their senses]
Neil added that it’s easy to be “annoyed at academics, like our classmate [Stephen Greenblatt] at Harvard, who made a career out of telling us what the plays mean, who Shakespeare was, and what we should think about him.
Delete“Paul is right that Shakespeare was a self-promoting entrepreneurial business man. Author, producer, director, actor, perhaps architect, he probably did it all. But the plays had to attract a loyal following. They must have spoken to his audiences, perhaps in ways we can't appreciate today. It could not have been simple entertainment like today’s soap operas or slasher movies. Do we or don’t we know anything about his audiences? The intellectual and artistic elite?
“Shakespeare’s colleagues published the First Folio in 1623, not long after the King James Bible (1611). No doubt very expensive for elite purchasers. Prefaced by Ben Johnson’s poem: ‘not of an age, but for all time’. Shakespeare’s genius was recognized by his peers.”
Hilarious. Does it ever matter what time someone does something except something with a schedule restriction? OMG, Morris if you want to work at 3 in the morning, by all means get busy. 🤣
ReplyDeleteLol, well, as someone raised in Europe, I get the time difference. As a recent retiree, I have only recently stopped getting up at 4 am to get work done. There have been times since retirement that I've called people early in the morning on a Saturday - asking if they're working yet. No schedule in retirement, just do as you please whenever. Haven't got a clue what time or day it is. God help me when they start running cognitive tests. "What day is it, Ms. Sperry?" "I only use calendars as needed, ma'am, and certainly not every day." So, yes, very hilarious!
DeleteBettina, I have of course sometimes just slept until whenever, but getting up by alarm, even after so-called retirement, has just been my (and my wife’s) way. One continuing reason in both our cases has been our meds schedules. But another, in both our cases again, but maybe more in mine since I manage a blog, is that we haven’t really retired. Each day has its tasks, even if we assign and schedule them. I DO prefer this form of work to having an employer with his or her hours for you to keep. But, then, that wasn’t bad either; I enjoyed my paid jobs, I regarded and performed their projects in ways that satisfied my desire to do good and do it well.
DeleteBoth my wife and I do, though, more and more often, have to consult each other what day it is!