Results of Ruminations

A friend tapped me for a project that he knew I couldn't refuse: make a cut of Hamlet  for a BYU student production to produce. Actual video footage of my friend, right before talking to me. ( Source ) The catch? This production was going to be James Bond themed. But not as a gimmick; every instance, word, intonation, and gesture that pointed toward spying had to be included in the cut. The focus, then, was that the world of Hamlet was one in which deception and subterfuge reigned, and it was my job to draw that out as much as possible. Thus I gained the unpronounceable title of dramaturge . My job was to not only edit the play (the longest in Shakespeare's canon, at over 4,000 lines, always requires a hefty cut) but to omit the specific parts of the play that didn't remain focused on the spying. After some back and forth--with me trying to make the piece as lean as possible, yet still putting in all that the director wanted--we finally landed on a cut that is curre...

About 2,400 years ago, a chap dismissed writing as being, at best, an unworthy successor to speech, and at worst a tool for reminding that gives people the feeling of being wise without distilling wisdom. While Socrates has a point --discussing writing, what is written, and why it was written are worthwhile aspects of my pedagogy and the way in which people live and learn--I think, in this case, Socrates underestimated the purpose, point, and power* of writing. There are a lot of lessons to learn from Socrates' points--which is why he's still popular, still quoted, still discussed, still taught--but the takeaway from me is actually one of a cautionary tale. For Socrates--an illiterate--the concept of reading and writing was insufficient. In many ways, the latest technology had no immediate purpose to Socrates, and as a result, he insisted its flaws outweighed its benefits. Today I saw a TED talk about audience being held captive by the darkness . Part of Mr. Cohen's com...