Results of Ruminations

The Utah Shakespeare Festival has an annual symposium, called the Wooden O , that is a place where scholars meet to discuss Shakespeare and to share papers that they've submitted. I've yet to go, but I'm trying to write a piece that (I hope) might be a contribution to the symposium. It's a large topic, and I'm still wrapping my head around what I want to do, but I thought I'd lay out some preliminary thoughts. Since I used up my writing time today on this, I figured I'd do double duty and post it here. So here's the first part of my proposed paper, "Hooking Up and Marrying Down: Relationships in Shakespeare." Marrying Down: As You Like It   Rosalind's charm is so pervasive and charming, Harold Bloom prefers to think of the play by an alternative title: As Rosalind Likes It (221). It's almost becomes a tragedy at the end of one of the highest comedies to think she marries a schlub like Orlando. In many ways, hers is the most conf...

I remember having waves of nausea (I'm only being slightly hyperbolic) at this comic when I first saw it many years ago: That last comment, tho... While Jason Fox has his geek cred residing firmly in the Math and Science  zip code, mine is just off Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon. I may have mentioned before that I use the hashtag #shakespeareiseverywhere  to document all the places that I find the Bard in my day-to-day life. It's not proprietary--others have used it, of course, both before I "coined it" and as time goes on. Still, I throw that around any time I see a reference, whether that's in a museum, a quote, or anything else. In other words, you replace the word "math" in that comic above with "Shakespeare", and you have...well, me. I see Shakespeare everywhere, and I have to admit, it's probably a little unhealthy. Three instances, all from yesterday. Instance the first: The lesson was on how Christ can help people who...

In 2014, I was accepted to a BYU-sponsored teacher training in Cedar City. There, I was to attend day-long workshops with Utah Shakespeare Festival. Before we went, we were tasked with reading the three plays that we would see performed that season ( Measure for Measure, The Comedy of Errors, and Twelfth Night ). I went with Gayle, letting her prowl around Cedar City (mostly at the fabric shops) while I attended the classes, then she came with me to the different plays. It was a delightful summer. The interesting thing for me was that I was in a very foreign situation. I was surrounded by drama teachers--almost no one there was, like I, an English teacher. And while a number of them liked Shakespeare in that squishy, "He's good so I have to like him" way, there were only a couple of actual Bardolators in the mix. That's been an interesting aspect to my experience with the Bard, and it's not a unique one. Shakespeare is adored in the academy because of the ...

I've mentioned Harold Bloom before. As the first serious literary critic I read of my own volition (having studied some of the postmodern theorists in college), I've found a lot of my early interpretations of Shakespeare heavily influenced by him. There's an irony there: One of Bloom's primary theses is what he terms "the anxiety of influence", a consciousness on the part of an author of where inspiration comes from. In this case, my early critical voice was influenced by Bloom, but, being young, I didn't sense--or care--that I was so emulative. It didn't become a large 'anxiety' until I started to reread some of my earlier work. Now I see that there is definitely something to his point. I won't deny that I'm still a little anxious about how much influence Shakespeare has had on me as a writer. As I mentioned while discussing Writ in Blood , I'm nervous about how the story comes across as an homage of the Bard. But the love of ...

Tonight I invited those students who had traveled to Europe with me to have a night of reflection, to talk about their experiences, and to reminisce about our shared experiences. It was touching to see and hear the various things that affected them, the variegated impressions and preferences. Each had a place, country, or moment that they felt would be something that they would carry with them. For many, it was the cemetery at Normandy. For others, it was completing something they have always wanted to do--go to the Eiffel Tower, see a London musical, visit the Louvre. It was gratifying to see the things that mattered to them, to know all of the work and stress and worry had paid off. It was a little different for me this time, however, as I had been in a support role throughout the trip, letting my coworker carry the majority of the effort. Despite that, I had been carrying a pretty heavy load of guilt about the fact that the trip had not been as consistent as I had hoped. We whipla...

We are all dying. It's no profound comment to say that life is merely the process of death. And that's why, despite the depression that has made me consider suicide more often than is normal, I still find so much worth living for. Because of the Great Inevitable, it gives all the more purpose to what time we have here. Famed atheist and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson once said that, given the chance to live forever, he wouldn't take it. "Death," he said (as I paraphrase), "is what gives me the motivation to learn, to grow. To get up in the morning." But because we are all dying, it can sometimes be hard to know how we can live. One of my coworkers, well into his seventies, will be retiring soon and moving south, where the cold is less biting and the snowdrifts all but impossible. He invited me to his home today--the first time I've been there--to pick up some of his books. He's now at the point in his life where holding onto every tome he...

Many years ago, I was enjoying this music video by Muse. The video is immaterial, save for why a lot of people were watching it: The song, "Supermassive Black Hole" was featured on the then-most recent Twilight  soundtrack. I made the nigh-criminal mistake of checking out the comments of the video--comments now so deeply buried that it isn't worth the effort to find them--and was bemused by one of the poster's worry. "Muse fans," he (probably a he...and I'm paraphrasing, despite the quotes) wrote, "we are being overrun by Twihards! We can't let them ruin good music!" I've thought about that sentiment a lot over the years, rolling over the implications of what the poster was trying to say. I find it bizarre that he thinks that this one of many Muse videos would be a rallying point for anti- Twilight  fans to congregate (I guess? To whom is he speaking when he writes "Muse fans"?). His use of the plural "we" is like...

The second of my "music video essays", I'm exploring the single from Red Hot Chili Peppers' newest album, The Getaway , "Dark Necessities". As I did before, I'm posting the video and the lyrics here on the essay, and encourage you to watch and read along. In the case of the Peppers, it's always a good idea to have the lyrics handy, as the lead singer, Anthony Kiedis, has a tendency of mumbling and/or pronouncing words uniquely to create a particular effect--or he's super high, either possibility is there.  The Set Up Here's the video: And here are the lyrics : Coming out to the light of day We got many moons than a deeper place So I keep an eye on the shadow's smile To see what it has to say You and I both know Everything must go away Ah, what do you say? Spinning off, head is on my heart It's like a bit of light and a touch of dark You got sneak attacked from the zodiac But I see your eyes spark Keep the breeze and go Blow...

In order to broaden my myopic interests, I asked for something a little out of my comfort zone: A book of English Renaissance drama that isn't about Shakespeare. (Surprise! They mention Shakespeare all over the place--the editors, not the original writers, of course.) Having already read two or three of the selections, I skipped to the first one of "Oh, I haven't read that  one," which was John Lyly's Endymion . The play itself is pretty light on plot and characterization--in fact, the synopsis on the above-linked Wikipedia page on the play is succinct and about all you need--but I felt like I should jot down my honest reading of the play. And, honestly...I kept wondering why I was reading this instead of more Shakespeare. (In the consideration of honesty, I think that often. And, with even more honesty, I should say that I finished 2 Henry VI, or the First Part of the Contention  the same day.) Characters Still, the play isn't without merits. It lacks t...

Writers, in their perpetual impulse to spell things out for their audience, have a penchant for advice. I don't know if other professions have this at the same level: Writers' worlds are words, after all, so the idea that they ought to share what they know by writing what they know and thereby both practicing what they preach ("write what you know") and help the next generation of writers at the same time is likely one that appeals to them. I know it does to me. One of the things that published writers ("real writers", as I think of them) often encourage others to do is consider the audience. In terms of technical- and academic writing, I do this with my students all of the time. Considering the audience is one of the bedrock starting places for anyone who wants to communicate. As a teacher of writing, I trot out obvious examples (and think I'm profound for weaving them out of my mouth as I go), things like, "Writing a text message is different th...

I have returned from my time in Europe, studying World War II with some of my students and my wife. It was a remarkable, painful, enjoyable experience--one that I tried to carefully document, in the hopes of remembering it better and longer. Returning home to a snow-drenched Utah was difficult, particularly when I remember that not 48 hours ago I was standing in Stratford-upon-Avon and feeling whole. It was illusory, of course, and temporary. Nevertheless, I'm glad I went. I'm happy to be home safely. There's much to return to, much to recall and to rebuild. I wrote in my journal daily whilst away, but I haven't put a lot of time into essays, save one on Sachsenhausen and another on Normandy . Being away from the daily effort of trying to improve my writing via the radical practice of writing more ended up a larger hardship than I expected. It was one thing to write, in the exhausted fugue of a jet-lagged tourist, the broad strokes and quick details of my day. It...

16 January 2017--The Beaches of Normandy The rain-slicked parking lot spread before the tour group as we disembarked. Signs in English (first) and French (second) urged visitors to treat the place as hallowed and sacred. We sloshed toward the entrance of the museum, shoulders hunched against the cold, and looked at the low-slung building. It was modern, sharp, and in some ways sterile, but it housed the museum and entrance to the cemetery itself. Gayle and I made our way through security and then walked downstairs. A short film clip speaking about some of the soldiers who died during the fighting rolled. We sat and listened, their names fading almost immediately. One man, however, was 32 when he left the British coast, gone to help heal the wounded. He died there, not far from where we sat, learning his story, and watching photos of him playing with his children flickered on the screen. I'm 33. Tears began to surface as the import of the place continued to swell within me. ...

11 January 2017--Sachsenhausen concentration camp As the bus trundled through the sleepy German village, snow fell in whispering piles, collecting on the steep peaks of the colorful houses. Gayle slept on my shoulder as we drove through an Advent calendar. On the German radio, American music played. The British band Depeche Mode came on, singing softly. "People are people so why should it be / You and I should get along so awfully?"  We were headed toward Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp about an hour outside of Berlin. The snow made navigating the narrow roads stressful, so I tried to pay attention to my window, rather than the front of the coach. The students dozed or chatted softly, playing with their phones or thinking their thoughts. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the future prisoners of the camp, who also arrived in cold and snow, but without the comfort of a warm bus, a recent lunch, or even a coat. We disembarked, the snow slicing between ...

Before I begin to finish my exploration of Shakespeare as a writer, I wanted to add a reminder/clarification: Shakespeare is a good writer. But there's a peril when looking at the Bard as an exemplar. "Shakespeare did it, so I can do it, too," is probably the wrong way to approach it. I feel like it isn't that Shakespeare wrote a particular way, therefore it's good writing; rather, good writing works a particular way, so Shakespeare utilized those techniques; therefore he wrote well. It's also important to realize that understanding how something is done is not the same as being able to do that thing. I understand how  Shakespeare wrote--I understand blank verse, classical allusion, and the difference between "thou" and "you"--but that doesn't mean I could create the same way he did. I find it similar to the guitar: I can learn how to play "Enter Sandman" or some other excellent piece of rock music, but I couldn't write ...