Most prophecy is of this nature – a simple extrapolation of someone’s rather predictable behavior. We’d like to imagine that we are surprising mysteries when often, someone could set a clock by our patterns.

If you asked me, I’d say that my writing times are erratic – that you couldn’t predict when and where you’d find me with my notebook and pen. But twice now, when I set my alarm for timed writing, I’ve found that I am starting at the EXACT same time, like To The Minute. I am clearly much more predictable than I thought.

There was a period in my life in which I saw psychics fairly often. I can’t quite as easily explain their predictions and suggestions. I don’t know how they could have gotten enough information to make an educated guess. If they were somehow putting on a show, it was a very smart productive show for me. In one case, it led to my getting a job I then held for 14 years. No career counselor I ever had had as good a track record. I find I don’t much care where that psychic got her information. On balance she helped me so much that even if it had been on elaborate ruse, I wouldn’t feel betrayed at all, still just grateful.

Normally, I’m not such a giant fan of the Arden editions (just for reading anyway). It’s rare that most people want to know whether a line is from the first folio or the quarto or what editor made what decision about what. It feels like watching the DVD commentary while trying to watch the movie. I know it’s fashionable to say you love the Arden. It signals a certain geekiness. It signals “I am a Shakespeare Nerd.”

Well – I’m a Shakespeare nerd and 9 times out of 10, I don’t lean toward the Arden.
However, today is that 10th time. Right here, right now. I have always heard this line with “swaddling CLOTHES” which would make a great deal of sense, of course, but also seems like, given the presence of CLOUTS here, that it might be one of those changes made with some editorial license. Is it clouts in one version of the play and not the others? Is this line in only one version of the play?
I would hope the Arden edition might answer my questions about clout versus clothes but of course, there’s no guarantee that it will.
What does this edition say about it? Uh, nothing.

I love the implicit staging of this one. You just have to put Guildenstern on one side and Rosencrantz on the other. And it’s such a juicy way to say, “Come stand on either side of me.” Or actually – it could also be a way to say, “Look at that you just stood on either side of me, you weirdos.”

Anyway, I love “at each ear a hearer.” I love the sound of it. I love that it has some hint of contradiction that hearers and ears are a bit like two magnets with the same charge. And I love the repetition of the ear in ear and hearer. Love, love and love. I can only imagine what a hash of this line something like “No Fear Shakespeare” would make.

But in addition to my deep affection for “at each ear a hearer,” I am intrigued by Hamlet’s choice to call Guildenstern by his name and not Rosencrantz. Is it a slight to Rosencrantz or a sign of more familiarity with him? He doesn’t say, “You, too, Rosencrantz” he just says “and you too” It’s a distinction and there’s a world of choice in it.

Jimmy the Carpenter working on building a bookshelf says to his assistant, “Hey, hand me that hawk, will you?”
His assistant says, “Uh, do you mean this handsaw?”
“Yes, yes, sorry, I’m always mixing those two up. The hawk, yes.”
“Handsaw.”
“Right.”

Bryce, the falconer, puts on his gloves, picks up the hood for his bird and shouts at his apprentice, “Pick up that handsaw from its perch and bring it over to me.”
“You want the handsaw!”
“Yes, yes, the handsaw!”
His apprentice picks up the handsaw that sits on the workbench for sawing perches and leather straps and such.
When he hands it to the falconer, the falconer goes nuts.
“Why would I want a handsaw?! Are you crazy? You see I have the hood right here. You know I want the redtail handsaw!”
“The redtail handsaw. . .”
“No, you idiot, the redtail handsaw!”
“Do you mean the redtail hawk?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Right. Okay.”
And the falconer’s apprentice bustles over to the hawk’s perch as he prays for a southerly wind.

I heard an extraordinary lecture by Dr. Gail Paster last week. She calls herself something like a somatic anthropologist and her work explores the body and how it relates to the worldview of the time. We learned about the Four Humors, which most of us might have said, before this lecture, “Yeah, Yeah, the Four humors, that’s a thing in Shakespeare. I know that, check!”

But this time we learned how the beliefs of the make-up of the body connected to the world outside. The blackness of bile connecting to the blackness of night and blackness of purpose and the intermingling of all of those things. We also learned about the humors’ connection to the Four Qualities and their combos: warm, dry, wet and cold and how the references to those qualities had emotional states as well as climate-like ones.

There was a discussion of winds in the body and winds out of doors, the way a storm could come over you on both the inside and the outside. And there was a hint of emotive geography – how those in the south were hotter and more moist or drier and colder depending on the source. And what all of this might mean in reference to their emotional qualities.

I’m fascinated with all this and it makes me wonder about the Four Directions. Does the North-North-West represent something in particular to an Elizabethan audience? Does a North-North-West wind suggest a particular state conducive to Hamlet’s particular brand of madness? Is he sending a coded message to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern without saying what he means explicitly?
And what of Westerly-ness? Why North-Northwest and not just North?
He slips off the scale of the Four Directions to suggest Eight Directions.
North, North-west, like warm and dry or cold- wet.
I’m just wondering.

And we think it’s only contemporary families that are confusing! Having your mother marry your uncle is very very tricky familial relations–wise. It’s trickier even than the daughters and sons of marriages before and after and all mixed up. What to call all of these pairings can be terribly complicated.

My mother was partnered with someone for many years. He lived in my house (or, more accurately, I lived in his) and he sometimes turned up for important life events. But because he had not married my mother, I had the strange problem of knowing what to call him. Well, I knew what to call him – it was his name that I called him by. What I didn’t know was what title to give him. He wasn’t my stepfather, because of that whole marriage thing, but it was little bit off to simply call him my mother’s boyfriend. We settled on pseudo-stepfather. It gave him the authority of a step-father but undercut it too and it seemed to suit everyone involved.

Those that I said this to were often baffled by it. As I imagine Rosencrantz and Guildenstern might be by uncle-fathers and aunt-mother.

The difference between someone saying you are welcome and the feeling of being welcome can be profound. You can feel a welcome the way that some people say “I’m open.” It usually means the opposite.

I find that open people do not claim to be open. And non-open people rarely make you feel like you could talk to them about your concerns when they say “I’m open to your concerns.”

Real openness is felt and needs no words. Likewise a real and genuine welcome.

It’s too bad Hamlet never gets to be king because I think he’d be a great leader.
This line, for example, strikes me as a very diplomatic and forward thinking thing to say. He’s aware of all of the ceremony and perceptions around ceremony and heading off a potential diplomatic problem before it even begins. I imagine a court is full of people jockeying for positions of favor and I imagine that someone else might not concern himself with the conflicts that could explode around the favors he, the prince, might give. I know very few leaders who are true leaders like this – who can address difficulties before they get nasty – who take responsibility for their own roles in those difficulties. I try to do it when I can and while it is not easy it does make everything cleaner and clearer to tackle the problems before they get too big.

Huh. Is what you’re wearing really the demonstration of welcome to someone?

I suppose, when you’re royalty, it totally is.

You put on your ermine for other royalty, your military garb for commanders, your religious toned robes for the pope.

There may well be an outfit for every brand of welcome.

When greeting the peasants, do you dress up or down?

Oh boy. That fella’s never gonna give up his seat by the air conditioner. No siree. He’s finished his sandwich, he’s drunk his water and now he’s well into his book.
He does shake his leg rather continuously. (I wonder what that’s about? And he never trades legs. The tonus on those two legs must be quite wildly different!)
And certainly, you pays your fee for the sandwich-ee and you should get to stay for as long as you like! But –

Wheee! He’s looked at his watch and now he’s departed
and now it is me who gets to hog the A/C.

I sit myself right in front, too, no pretending I’m not interested in this cooling force next to me. No – this is what I’m here for. This cool air. And nothing else.