"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind"

I will do my best to have this be the only post I ever do that is about Shakespeare. This being said, I have to cover all my Shakespearean history and all my thoughts on his work.

As a child, I don't know how young, my favorite VHS tape was A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Michael Hoffman, and I have been told that I watched it constantly. I suppose that I understood the plot or I would have not liked it much. Maybe I only liked the costumes of the fairies and the easily understood comedic elements of parts. Being young, I probably didn't fully understand the plots of any movies that were not made by Disney, anyway.

In 7th grade, English class required the reading of this play. I enjoyed the reading of it, and had fun with the small part of the combined roles of Cobweb, Peaseblossem and Mustardseed in the scene my group was assigned. Playing 3 different fairies at once, I found out a way to duck behind objects in the room to make it seem, at least I thought, as if I really was different fairies appearing from all directions.

That year, I met my best friend who is a Shakespeare fan and had been in her elementary school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream as Puck. Her favorite plays by Shakespeare, besides A Midsummer Night's Dream are As You Like It, and Twelfth Night.

I remember being taken to see Hamlet at some point many years ago. In 9th grade, English class had us read Romeo and Juliet. I really liked it. 10th grade, we read Macbeth. I really liked that too.

Last summer, my best friend once again starred as Robin Goodfellow as she had in 6th grade, this time in a production not tied with the school. She earned herself the front page of the local newspaper. Her performance was amazing, showing brilliant understanding and interpretation of the text, and letting her own personality, very fitting to the role, shine through in her manner enough for my personal viewing of the part be extremely comical.

Just recently I went to see the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was not especially wonderful. I have dislikes of some of the acting styles of the regular students whom appear in the school plays and musicals. Some actors I was quite impressed with. Helena and Demetrius have been accused of having an offstage infatuation with each other, which made the kiss they shared near the end of the play quite interesting, play aside. Not to mention the acting of the two, which nearly stole the show from Puck, who was quite accomplished in her interpretation of character.

While studying Macbeth, English class watched a movie that explained why Shakespeare is a genius playwright. The plays were targeted towards the "groundlings", it said. These were the poor, uneducated people who paid only one penny to be admitted to a play, allowed to do this to fill up the space right before show time. Because the plays were written for the groudlings, the easily understood jokes and the catchy descriptive phrases were repeated in homes and therefore used for centuries afterward.

Shakespeare seems complicated because it is written in a language that we barely understand today. When we are able to finally understand the meaning of the words, it seems ingenious still for it's mastery of rhyme and syllabus*. After we get past this, perhaps even think it is stupid, there is still the matter of plot. Maybe the meaning of the words that is being used to show the plot seems simplistic and exaggerated, which is offsetting when trying to extract what is happening and why, but the meaning of what is happening, and the way it describes life is intriguing. These plays may have been written to attract approval of an audience, but when analyzed, the literal actions of characters explain and question human nature and and thought.

If the obvious moral or idea that is shown from the play is only how deep the meaning goes, I am not sure. For me, it is often hard for me to even get this far with these plays when I have to go through the steps of even understanding what they are saying and who is who.

Anyway, that is all I have to say on the matter on Shakespeare.

* note: not a real word in this context

9 years ago

I hope my inner child does not resent me for this. I am about to reveal her inner most thinking and beliefs to the world, and she has no power for it is in the hands of her very different, older self. I have talked of my younger self before. But that was interpretation of something I showed to my parents, not something which I kept hidden and secret.

When I was 6 years old, apparently I kept a diary. Not every day, but I have quite a few entries. After quite a bit of deciphering of childish handwriting and sentence structure I have gotten to a pretty good understanding of what I meant by everything I wrote. Not necessarily why or how, but in most cases what. I do not really feel like scanning them and letting you decipher it for yourself, so I will give you my best translation. Things unsure of in translation in brackets, while present-day comments are in the pretty color.

December 14, 1999

When the birds go
flying, you go to bed
and when they go
sometimes you go to
mountain.

This is interesting. It's like I have a weird misconception about how things effect each other. I would assume that "when the birds go flying" I would be awake, the birds signifying morning, but not according to this. Was I reflecting on how I never seem to see the birds? Do the birds represent something?...or are they just birds?

December 15, 1999

Jon's house is up.
They helped us.
The secret part [is to go]
up and up to get there.
There is Jon's house.
Where I love to play.

I really like this one. Obviously, I have a playmate named Jon, and his parents helped my mother find their house via phone directions. This was my simplistic view of directions...."up". I love it so much.

January 13, 2000

Animals are wild.
"Very wild"
"Daddy, why are animals wild?"
"Because they are born that way."

Apparently this is a conversation with my dad. I am not sure who was saying the first dialogue, maybe my dad. I should ask him to see if he recalls telling me this.

January 17, 2000

On a day like this
I'll be having a picnic
On a day like this
(there are more verses in this song)

I am pleasantly surprised to see that I wrote songs way back when, I wish I recalled or notated the melody. But ignoring that aspect, I really like the word choice. It not just "today I will" or "yesterday I did" or "someday i should", it's on a day like it. Maybe not today or tomorrow or any day in conceptual knowledge or realistic speculation, just some day, like this.

January 18, 2000

This poem is called When I go to school

When I go to school,
everything feels so different
because school gets harder every way.
It is fun for me.
Is it fun for you?

This is a little discombobulated and not much of a poem, but it really shows what I thought about "when I went to school". I admire that in a title of a poem.

January 19, 2000

This poem is called When I go to bed

When I go to bed,
I hope to dream
A [?] if I do
Because I love my dreams.

Again this "When I ___" formula of a poem. It's quite interesting and matter-of-fact. I am glad that I hoped to dream, and I wish I knew what that word I could not decipher said.

January 21, 2000

A family's a brother,
a father, a mother,
a sister, a grandma,
a grandpa and
everyone in your family.

Although I did not have a sister, I still included it in the definition of family, so I was more than saying "this is who is in my family", or "you only have a full family in you have these people", I was saying that if you have some of these people, you have a family. The perspective is still in child-form of course, no daughter or son or granddaughter or grandson or niece or nephew in the list, but that is expected.

January 31, 2000

Laughter, ho, ho, ho
One day I was drinking some milk and my brother made a funny sound and it came out of my nose.

This was my idea of funny...and it kind of is. When finally I understood what I wrote here I actually did still laugh.

April 10, 2000

Today we got to go to Hebrew school.

May 22, 2000

It is time to go to Hebrew school. I do not have a class but my brother does. He knows how to write Hebrew and read Hebrew. It is cool. Well, I do [think that], but my mom and brother do not.

June 16, 2000

A song I made up.

Baby fly into my heart.
Take it out, put it in your hat.
Put the hat on, feel the [?]
You should see me go bad.
All right now, all right now,
I don't know the way to my heart
but you do [a-huh?]
The end.

It seems very Edgar Allan Poe crossed with Britney Spears. And cute how I end with "the end".

June 16, 2000

This is a poem

Summer is coming
The sun in near
Take out your hats
And they'll be blown away.
See the sun shining in the earth.
Will we feel it's heat here next year?
The end.

June 24, 2000

Today I went ice skating. I glided until I landed on my bottom. It was cool. I cried 1 time. I fell on my bottom 7 times--well, around 7 times. I love to skate. [It is] my favorite [thing to do].
The end.

June 30, 2000

The world

Is it good or
is it bad?
The little seed in
the earth.
How does it get to me
When I am not earth?
The end.

A profound one... I would love your interpretation.

July 7, 2000

Parents are so great. They kept us safe through the years and gave us joy. I'll love it through 7, 12, 2073 and all the days.
The end.

Now, was I prophetically telling the date of my death at 79 years of age or was I just making up a random, arbitrary, far away number to signify a very long time comparable to forever?

Some of them are moving in their simplistic nature. Some of them make no sense and others are so true to someone of that age it is hilarious. I hope you enjoyed the window into my younger self's life, for this is the only way I have to accurately show it to you or to myself. These are not hazy memories, they are explicit ideas directly from my brain then to my brain now, and they are simply fascinating.

one of my best poems

True Happiness

admire the simplicity of life
and weep of it's complexity.
mother the world
with your watchful eye.
take the world in
with deep breaths.
calmly fix your mistakes.
allow your frowns
form to smiles.

poetic mindset

Inner monologue the other day: "An empty blue hallway. Six blue doors open simultaneously, and out they come. The people are going to their jobs, in their clothes. The dead cat on the sidewalk is trampled by their incoming shoes. Lights come into sight over the top of the hill, and through mist a roaring mass appears. The bus is desolate. The driver still yet announces location. Ambition and purpose, meaning and attempt is no longer relevant. It's just them, on their bus, going to their job, in their clothes."

I know what you're thinking, I must have been depressed when I was on the bus. I don't think so though, I was just being cynical and entertaining myself with what I saw in an internally verbally descriptive way.

delayed interpretation

There are some things that you do not question. There are some things you have gotten so accustomed to from your entire life that are so familiar that even if they are not entirely understood, you're never shocked by them. The Star Spangled Banner is one of those things. I don't think I ever have tried to understand why they are saying the things that they are in the song, but I have now. I don't know why I began thinking about it, but I did.

"Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

I never really saw the true patriotism in the lyrics. I never saw the pride and the happiness the author must have had. The last line is truly poetic. The image of a giant flag waving over the entire country, land of the free and home of the brave, is so inspiring and fantastical.

I've had pride in my school before, sometimes even my city, but never for my country. And I'm not saying I do now, but how could one not have any shred of patriotism for their country? On some level, even if I know the entire world hates the United States and that we are in an unjustified war and our economy is plummeting to the unfathomable deep, I see the aim when the country started, and I respect it. There are a lot of things and people I completely disagree with, but do honestly respect. And I think the emphasis on war in the Star Spangled Banner is a little unsettling in theory, but puts such a nice spin and view of it that it's OK.

At the minimum, I respect the author.

It's kind of a shame how lackadaisical so many Americans, including myself, are about their country. Sure, we may have good reason, or maybe it is influenced by the fact that so many of us are only 1st or 2nd generation Americans, but is it not righteous to root for your team even though it is a cheating, obese, oil guzzling team? Although the fact that so many different cultures are able to come together in "peace" and "harmony" is what emphasizes so much pride in our "free" country.

At the most, I love my country.