The most succinct description of insomnia ever.
When it happens to me, it is a bit of a battle.
“This thing is worrisome!”
“It’s fine. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“But I need to figure it out now!”
“There is nothing you can solve now. You have to let it go for a few hours and then when we wake up, we’ll tackle it.”
“But what about -?”
“Sleep is the only answer.”
“But I just have to think about this one thing.”
“That thing you already thought about 16 times? Yeah, I think we can safely say you thought about that already. It’s sleeping time.”
“But.”
“Sleep.”
“But.”
“Sleep.”
And so on and on.
Author: erainbowd
Remember it, my lord?
Do I ever!
Horatio is such a thankless role. He just hangs out, affirms the people who talk to him by just keeping them going. Particularly Hamlet but not just.
I feel like – once upon a time – I thought I’d be cast as Horatio. I was getting cast as men a lot – and this was just the sort of role directors put a woman in when they’re trying to increase parts for ladies.
I played Poins. I played Peter Quince. Horatio would have been right in line with those sorts of parts. But I dodged that bullet. Maybe women don’t play Horatio. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a female Horatio now that I think of it. But it’s as thankless as a lot of women’s parts in that he’s really not a complete person himself – just a way for the lead to say his thing.
You do remember all the circumstance?
I have a tendency to read multiple books, plays or stories at once. I watch several TV shows. It generally seems normal to me to bounce around from narrative to narrative. But it suddenly struck me that when I do that, my brain has to retain the circumstances of many stories at once. When I dive back into a novel, I usually take no time to acclimatize. I almost never really want to see the “What happened last week” teasers on TV. I just remember the circumstance usually.
Now shall you see the other.
These moments are rather uncharacteristically vague for Shakespeare – and for Hamlet. “So much for this” (What was the this?) and now for “The other”?
We can guess at what these two things are referring to but there isn’t any real evidence for what the this and the other are referring to.
Perhaps this is to suggest an intimacy between Hamlet and Horatio wherein they share private chat that even the audience is not privy to. They can speak in code. The way that the Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks characters do in Broadcast News.
So much for this, sir.
Is there a resource for finding the origins of phrases? Many times, the origin – or the first known use of something – is, in fact, Shakespeare.
This one, though – seems like it might go way back – while simultaneously feeling incredibly contemporary.
“So much for him” often gets a laugh in Claudius’ speech at the top of this play.
So much for so much for so simple and so elegant.
Till then, in patience our proceeding be.
Leaving aside the character of the man speaking this line, it is actually good advice for the current moment. Often when people recommend activists be patient, they mean to wait, to stop, to accept the current circumstances and put up with the status quo.
But there is a patience that can travel with action, with proceeding. We can proceed with patience.
I want this current government gone. I am impatient for this national nightmare to be over – but patient proceeding is probably a better strategy. To continue forward, as patiently as possible.
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see.
I saw a tweet recently wherein someone reminded us of how upset we were a couple of years ago because some rock stars died. Like – we thought 2016 was a terrible year because we lost so many greats. (And also we elected a narcissistic pathological liar to the presidency.) Now, it seems quaint. Now, every day there is a new crisis. Every day the news is the worst we could have imagined a couple of years ago. What we wouldn’t all give for an hour of quiet.
This grave shall have a living monument.
I take this to mean that a guard will be posted here.
After two people tried to jump in to the grave, after the priest expressed his displeasure about the burial, after so much drama, stationing a guard here is pretty reasonable.
The tomb of the unknown soldier has a living monument and it is one of the most poignant symbolic rituals we have. The military does symbolism and theatre like no one else.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
Mmm-hmm. Claudius was all “our son” before – all “our cousin Hamlet and our son,” – all “My son” and just like that, when it suits him, he’s all “your son.” Your son, your responsibility, you hire the watchdogs. Or just do it yourself.
Such a perfect patriarchal prick, this guy.
We’ll put the matter to the present push.
Oh the present push!
Oh the present fight!
Oh the present madness!
Oh the present blight!
Did everyone feel like this while they watched their empires fall?
Did the population in Ancient Rome suffer from Chronic Migraine before it burned?
My country, as I imagined it, is dead.
But we fight for what might be salvaged.
When England’s empire fell, they did not vanish, they did not disappear.
Perhaps America won’t need to burn to the ground in my lifetime.
The Hamlet Project 