Well that’s a complicated way to say that, isn’t it, Claudius? And I suppose my question is, how much of it is true? Does Claudius really love Gertrude? That’s the first question. Conjunctive to life and soul is…not revealing necessarily. Life and soul sound convincing. But “conjunctive to” ….well, that’s political speech.
The star moving in his sphere is possibly romantic but also quite a bit removed from the subjects at hand.
Whether he does or does not love Gertrude, it still makes a fair bit of sense to frame it this way to Laertes. It’s such a complicated sentence tonally. It veers from one style of language to another. Is he trying to convince Laertes or himself?
Is this really why he hasn’t put Hamlet on trial for his crime? I’d wager the REAL reason – the one at the heart of it is that if Hamlet were put on trial, Hamlet might find it a good time to make his feelings about Claudius public. It might bring to light what Claudius is trying to keep in the dark.
But sure – it’s because he’s in love with his wife! That’s it!

Is this true? We don’t see a lot of love between Hamlet and his mother. Mostly Hamlet bullies her and rails at her. Which is not to say she wouldn’t be besotted with him anyway. Most parents love their children in profoundly unconditional ways. But we don’t see Gertrude ADORING Hamlet much. She tells him to cast his knighted color off. She talks about him to others in a fairly practical way. (“I doubt it is no other but the main. His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.”) And we don’t see much interaction at the play between them. The most we see them together is right after Hamlet’s killed someone right in front of her. It’s hard to work out their relationship from that.

We could take Claudius at his word here. That he’s trying to placate his queen…but I am skeptical that any of this actually has anything to do what Gertrude actually thinks or wants and everything to do with how Claudius wants to be seen by Laertes.

I love this O here at the top of this line. I mean. Usually an O has an emotional quality – like a groan or a grief or a moan or a surprise. It feels like a raw expression of emotion.

In this case, though, it feels more like a way to minimize. The way someone would say, “Oh you know, just enjoying the scenery” when asked what they’re up to. It’s so – casual almost.

The only other O I can imagine would be a sort of stalling O…an O that suggests that you need to think for a moment…maybe so you could come up with a good excuse, or a good lie. It’s certainly not the O of a lover or a wounded man.

Life advice from Shakespeare’s Villians
(but backwards – you know, learning what not to do from their bad actions)

Never make someone a friend who tells you “must put me in your heart for friend.” If you’re becoming friends with people based only on their manipulations and their say so, you’re going to be in trouble.
If someone has a list of reasons you MUST be friends with them…if they make arguments and proofs for why you suddenly owe them friendship…odds are, they are not your friend. They will not prove to be friends later. And in this case, their “friendships” will get you killed.

I’m not a parent and I don’t spend a lot of time with small children lately but something I have noticed is how readily they will respond to an invitation. If you offer a place to go, if it sounds fun, they will follow. They don’t have to know what it is or choose it necessarily. But one can get anywhere with an invitation to run or skip or slide.

Enforcements are not so productive. Try to get a child to do something by your will and the child will quickly dig in her heels. Why would they ever do something they did not want to? There is nothing stopping them following their every whim. Except of course, safety – except of course, limits. Of course – except social structure.

What if there was a giant axe of justice in the city? And it stood at the center of the square, just waiting to come crashing down on offenses.
I mean, I suppose that’s what a guillotine is – and that’s essentially what happened during the French Revolution, from some folks’ perspectives. A giant axe, dealing out justice.
But of course I’m picturing a very different sort of axe than a guillotine. I’m imagining a Viking axe or a Paul Bunyan tree falling axe – and I picture it set up like a gate to the city – suspended over the entrance, ready to fall at any injustice.

The dings and scratches on my ego happen so often. I sometimes miss that they’ve happened until later. But an artist’s life is a landmine for this.
In a scarcity arts economy, there is intense competition that is usually heavily veiled. It is competition disguised as community or cooperation. But jealousies abound. And to retain the idea that somehow my art is still worth something even as I watch my peers get the opportunities I’ve been refused, I have to pull a neat trick not to start beating myself, metaphorically speaking.
But I must find ways to support my own vision – as no one else will. So I shall.

While I would absolutely NOT like for a man like Claudius to labor with my soul – I am intrigued by the idea of someone with the ability to do that. What if there were soul laborers? Or soul whisperers? Perhaps who could bypass your conscious intentions and just speak directly to your soul.

Actually, we do have these people. They’re called artists. Not every artist speaks to every soul but there are artists who speak to many at once. There are artists who perhaps only speak to one soul but even that is valuable. There are many artists who labor with my soul. Remedios Varo, Robyn Schiff, Shakespeare, Joni Mitchell and on and on.
My soul laborers.

Ah, the collateral hand. The collateral hand has been quite busy in our current political moment. No one is guilty, it would seem, but so is everyone, by collateral hands. I have to hope and expect that there will be prosecutions, there will be convictions but right now, the collateral hands are so busy, there is no pausing long enough to them.

And just to remind you – I wrote this at the beginning of 2017. There have been so many prosecutions and convictions already though not nearly enough.

Just keep in mind I was trying to write these things in the first months of 2017 and it was nearly impossible.

Dear lord. The times are so terrible. I can’t focus on this line at all. I see the word judge and all I can think about is the judge who put a stay on this horrible travel ban and what a hero he is. And how this administration is trying to discredit this George W. Bush appointee as a left leaning wacko and how they removed the judicial branch from the White House website and how judges orders are being ignored left and right and that’s all I can manage right now.