As I continue to struggle to memorize Lucky’s Speech from Waiting for Godot, there are two things on my mind: panhandlers and changes in absurdist theater.

Panhandlers

Lucky’s speech is of great value if you wish to navigate the great cities of America and avoid panhandlers. There is nothing like talking to yourself to keep panhandlers—who are generally rational and know that crazy people are both dangerous and unlikely to contribute—from bothering you. But what to say? “As a result of the labors left unfinished crowed by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard” of course! Trust me: I do it all the time. It works great.

Stage Directions

When I was still a boy, I discovered Eugène Ionesco’s plays like The Bald Soprano. And I loved them because I was young and pretentious (unlike now when I’m not young). One thing that bothered me was how much shouting was in these plays. The most common stage direction was “shouting.” But other than the filmed version of Rhinoceros, I had never seen any of the plays. And there was very little shouting in Rhinoceros.

The stage notes before Lucky’s Speech are definitely in this tradition:

That’s two references to shouting here! And yet, this is never the way the speech is given. This is clear in the following clip that was based upon Beckett’s notes from a production that he directed:

I think the whole “let’s have people shout on stage” aspect of absurdist theater was only thought to be a good idea as long as no one was performing the plays. Once the plays were performed, it was clear that even in revolutionary theater, you still want emotion and nuance.

The image in this article is a detail of an image (partially enhanced so you can read it) from the article Broke-Ass Career: Panhandling. It is well worth checking out, if only for the pictures.

I had heard that there was a Will Ferrell commercial for the greatest beer company ever: Pabst! Pabst Blue Ribbon! Okay: Pabst Brewing Company. And it does just so happen that Heineken sucks. Anyway, one of Pabst’s worst beer offerings is Old Milwaukee. This video consists of a number of these Will Ferrell/Old Milwaukee commercials. Unfortunately, they are all video recordings of TV screens. But they’re pretty well done. And the commercials are really funny.

This is the Super Bowl commercial, which I also think is hysterical:

Liberals like David Frum—they think of him as the Reasonable Conservative. But like any conservative, that doesn’t mean much. Yesterday, he wrote an excellent review of racist pseudo-scientist and conservative apologist Charles Murray’s (“Blacks are poor because they’re dumb!”) Coming Apart. (Sorry: I just can’t bring myself to provide a link to this fucktard’s book.) Frum savages the book and the author.

But as I said: Frum isn’t that reasonable. Murray writes in his new book that it isn’t unreasonable to hold ideological positions on issues that are resistant to data or facts. He provides such a list of positions. Frum counters:

In a general sense, you have to applaud Frum: thanks for being reasonably open-minded. However, it is clear that Frum needs an overwhelming amount of evidence if it is going to cut through his ideology. It has been decades since social scientists have known that same-sex marriage is not harmful to society. And if Frum still thinks that cannabis is some kind of dangerous drug, he has a Teflon coating regarding facts. (Note how cannabis must be “harmless”—a claim that cannot be made of any human activity including water drinking.)

Beware the Reasonable Conservative because if you look close, you will find him neither reasonable nor conservative.

I keep seeing this clip of Ann Coulter saying that if the Republicans don’t run Chris Christie, Romney will be the nominee and they will lose:

But when I see Christie, I am appalled.

It isn’t that Christie is fat. I understand. A person’s weight is largely determined by their genetics. I’ve seen this in my own life: other than a variation of two pounds, my body wants to weigh what it wants to weigh. Ezra Klein discussed this in an article at the end of last September: Chris Christie is not too fat to be president. But I think that while Christie might be able to be president, I’m not sure he could run for president.

It is that Christie is extremely fat.

He seems to be at least as obese as Orson Welles at his largest. And running for president is by all accounts a grueling endeavor. I really wonder if he would be up to it.

As to Klein’s point that obese people don’t really die earlier than other people (Welles made it to 70): I don’t think that’s the point; could he manage to walk 10 miles a day or work 20 hours a day? And as to Klein’s point that weight is genetic: yes and no. I don’t think anyone should be held responsible for being, say, 50 pounds over weight. But when they get to the point of a Chris Christie—or Orson Welles—it is more than just genetics. I don’t know what’s going on with Christie. In Welles’ case, his habitual use of speed when he was young undoubtedly contributed to the problem. Regardless, I doubt either man could, at 50, put in the hours and miles required to run for president.

And hopefully Ann Coulter is right.

It’s me again. You know: the guy who loves Shakespeare but never has a kind word for him? Once again, those in the Shakespeare industry are putting out the “Shakespeare as secular Jesus” line. I watched a little documentary last night called Discovering Hamlet. It documents the rehearsals for Kenneth Branagh starring in Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, directed by Derek Jacobi. And, of course, it pissed me off from the very first line. It is narrated by Patrick Stewart, who reads:

Shakespeare will always be remembered? Why do people think this? It has only been 400 years since he stopped writing. It was after movable type was all over Europe. It is not exactly surprising that we remember his name today. The question is whether we will remember his name in 2000 years.

Sophocles died 2400 years ago, and is still performed. Most of Euripides’ 90-odd plays have survived this enormous gap of time. And Aristophanes comedies—better than anything Shakespeare managed to write with 2000 years advantage—are commonly produced.

Looking back on the reputation of Shakespeare, one quickly sees that it is the idea of Shakespeare, more than his work, that has been promulgated. In his own lifetime, Shakespeare was certainly not thought to be the greatest playwright or poet, although he was highly regarded. It wasn’t until the end of the 17th century that people began to consider him a great playwright. Then, people noticed that his plays were highly melodramatic and filled with all kinds of over-the-top dramatic elements. During the early 19th century, people turned away from his plays to his poetry—especially the sonnets. In fact, this is lampooned in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Today, Shakespeare is so edited and otherwise helped along by artists and academics that the fact that there is no there there isn’t even noticed by the theater and film going public.

To be clear: my problem is not Shakespeare but rather with the Shakespeare industry. It is never enough to say that Shakespeare is the writer of some very popular plays. Instead, he is the best. Later in the same documentary, Stewart reads, “Part of Shakespeare’s greatness is he gives every character even the wicked and devious the chance to touch an audience with truth and honesty.” What an outrageous statement! Generally, it is only the evil characters who are given any motivation at all. The protagonists are generally cookie-cutter theatrical stereotypes. “Let’s put a brave young man here!” or “How about a sharp-tongued female here!” If Shakespeare had been writing in America in the early 20th century, his plays would have filled with black minstrels (played by whites in black face, of course). There is much that can be said for Shakespeare, but great characters is definitely not one of them.

As for Hamlet: academics and actors love the play because they are still trying to figure it out. It is long enough and obscure enough that everyone feels there must be great meaning in it. But there isn’t. The play is supposedly about Hamlet finally getting around to helping his poor dead father doomed to walk the earth until his murder is avenged. What does Hamlet need to do? Kill Claudius. But Hamlet does nothing but be obnoxious and kill lots of innocent people. In the end, he does kill Claudius, but not because of his father. He kills him because he sees Claudius kill his mother! How is that great drama?

Can we stop treating this man as though he is some kind of artistic singularity? People don’t even do that for Mozart or Beethoven, and the case for each of them is far stronger.