The success of this joke depends on the assumption of the Default Man. When Hamlet says “man” he means human because the sense, for time immemorial, has been that men are the standard humans and women are the deviation. So everyone always starts with man first – as in, is it a normal person or a woman?

I would actually love to see this scene played with a female gravedigger and a male Hamlet who might, condescendingly, ask his next question, as a concession to the lady gravedigger. Or even better – what if the gravedigger were non-binary and Hamlet’s questions are not just part of a vaudeville routine but also an attempt to engage with the gender of the person before him.

The world seems ever more full of liars than ever before and bold-face liars, no less. It starts to feel as though truth itself were under assault, that in the face of such astonishing perfidy, facts and truth and justice might all be submerged in the swamp of mendacity.

There is such poetry in the evolution of language. Now, quick means, almost exclusively, rapid. We understand it when paired with the dead, as death’s opposite but we almost never describe the living as the quick anymore. But that is how the word began. To be quick once meant to be alive. That’s it. But because life is brief and flies so quickly – the word began to also mean fast.

And life is so quick that quick no longer means life, it is now pure speed. Quickly, a life, a quickness, evolves into something else entirely.

That is a lot of repetition of “it.” In’t, in’t, it. The assonance is really quite extraordinary, as well. It reminds me of this exercise that my grad school advisor used to do with students. He’d have everyone read their text with the vowels only. It made everyone sound (and feel) ridiculous but occasionally, that sort of pedantic exercise yielded some interesting results. This is a line that might really deliver some juice that way.

I have trouble understanding how a person could hate puns. I mean, sure, some of them can be groan inducing and ridiculous – but on the whole, they’re harmless and encourage a nice sense of double-ness.

I wonder if that’s the issue. I mean, to enjoy a pun requires a holding of two concepts at once. In this case, it is both lying as in fibbing and lying as in reclining. You have to hold both ideas at once to find such a thing amusing. Or maybe it isn’t so much amusing as pleasurable – it rings a simultaneity bell.

But maybe that simultaneity chime sounds more like a school bell to those who do not enjoy a pun.
I’m curious.

Is this Hamlet’s way of making conversation? Hey man – who’re you digging the grave for? Not, like, “Hi – you’re a gravedigger, what’s that like?”
I don’t know. It’s a funny question to ask. I’d wager most gravediggers don’t have a sense of who they’re digging graves for. I saw the guys digging my grandmother’s grave and I would bet a lot of money on them not having the slightest idea of who they were digging it for. I would bet that they could tell me its exact location and how deep they were meant to dig it for the box of ashes – but if they even knew her name I would be surprised. More like something like Position Q2 on the Northeast quadrant. That’s more likely.

Granted, my grandmother was buried, alongside my grandfather, in one of the biggest cemeteries in the country but still…I would never assume a gravedigger had knowledge of his grave’s future resident. And I wouldn’t start a conversation there. However – it’s good that Hamlet does, as it allows for some fun wordplay in the midst of a pretty dark tragedy.

At Christmas dinner, everyone was talking, with the exception of this one couple. And my dad, who had also not been talking much, reached out to them, to ask them a question. It wasn’t that he needed to know the answer to that question – it was a sort of intentionality of inclusion. It was looking around and seeing who is left out and then making space for them to feel welcomed. The question is an announcement of intention like this. I will speak to this fellow and redirect the conversation which has been headed in many other directions. It is interesting because I don’t tend to think of my dad as being a masterful conversationalist but we all have our little geniuses.

Is the assurance about being turned into parchment? That we will go on after our slaughter if we can be turned into paper? Or turned into art? Or turned into writing? I think I may be a sheep or calf in this arena. I do find assurance in knowing that some piece of me will live on after me. That I leave behind me a large body of work. Even if no one ever reads it or finds it or enjoys it – I am assured somehow that I labored for something that has meaning to me if no one else. If that makes me a sheep, I’m okay with it.

Of the many things I am grateful for, in living in the time that I do, the ready availability of paper is not one that occurs to me as often as it should. I mean, I go through a LOT of paper and a lot of that paper is essentially wasted. Part of my writing practice is to just vomit ink on the page for a bit before settling in to write the thing I came for. Part of the reason I am able to achieve a certain amount of prolific-ness (prolifity?) is that I am able to be “wasteful” with paper. If I had to be sure each word I wrote was worth it, there would be a considerable chill on my creativity. I notice it even if I’m running low on paper in a temporary way. If I had to write on parchment, I might never finish anything.

It is funny that our stuff lasts longer than we do. Our paperwork, our trash, our bills and our un-done to do lists will all be left behind.

I suppose some things pass from generation to generation – things like furniture or pictures – but very little lasts more than a few generations.