Which begs the question – what in the world has happened to Horatio? What is this all he has suffered? Is he a refugee from somewhere where his country has been ravaged? Has he lost his wife and family like Macduff? Has he endured disease? Did he see his parents murdered?

And what were the rewards? Did he stumble upon great wealth only to lose it?
Did he have a great romance only to lose his love?
Was he a prince who lost his state?
We don’t have many facts about Horatio. This sense of his poverty and being thrown about by fortune comes only from Hamlet. Horatio himself is a bit blank.

It is remarkable how little Horatio says to Hamlet. He mostly does a lot of listening. That may be one of the reasons Hamlet trusts him and finds him just.
This scene covers two pages in my text and Horatio says this line (which he doesn’t get to complete) and one more. Otherwise, it’s all Hamlet talking – mostly About Horatio.

I’ve certainly been in relationships like this – where I say almost nothing and listen for two pages – sometimes about myself. But I rarely feel truly known by the people who speechify about me.

We don’t learn much about Horatio from Horatio. Hamlet tells us he is poor and just, that he suffers, that he’s a good friend. It’s not much. Horatio functions a lot like a good projection screen.

You rang?
I’m completely ready to see an Addams Family Hamlet now.
Horatio is clearly Lurch.
Hamlet, Mr. Addams.
Uncle Fester would play Claudius.
Mrs. Addams would play Gertrude – which would make that whole Oedipal thing really pop.
Pugsley and Wednesday would be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Cousin It is the Ghost.
Thing would play Laertes.
But who will be Polonius and Ophelia?
Do Wednesday and Pugsley double? Yeah, that may be our best bet.
Maybe Pugsley in drag for Ophelia and Wednesday in a long beard for Polonius.
I would watch this show.
The Addams Family Hamlet?
Hell to the yes!
But we might need to go back in time and make it with either the original cast or the cast of Addams Family Values, who would be extremely hard to top.

Too many things are not wondrously strange.
There are many strange things. The world seems full of strange contradictions, mismatched alliances, malformed justices, odd clothing, curious furniture, reality television’s popular formula structures but wondrous strange things. . .
Well, those take some searching. As the culture seems to smooth itself out – as people become more like each other by habit or dress, by product or program, the oddities must be found in the cracks, things to wonder at must be found within or far afield.
I discovered not long ago that I had an image of a spool of thread in my throat and coughing it up was a wonder beyond compare in my internal landscape.
Wondrous strange.
Last month, we watched a film in a cathedral. Each thing blended into another – a cow in the surf of the ocean became bones and the disappeared – in the background a high school choir chanted music in the sanctuary.
That too was wondrous strange and also lovely.

It is very hard to swear to something before you know what you are swearing to or for. You could blindly raise your hand, swear that you will swear whatever swearing comes subsequently but no one will believe a blind swearing. You can say you will swear to whatever comes next but until you actually hear what you’re swearing, the oath is meaningless.
It’s like promising not to laugh. You can do your best to control what your response will be to whatever comes next but in all likelihood, if whatever emerges after a request to laugh is funny, you will not be able to stop yourself.

And who will help me pick the wheat?
And who will help me carry it to the mill?
And who will help me grind it?
And who will help me bake the bread?
And who will help me eat it?
Hamlet, as the Little Red Hen.
Horatio, as the pig.
Marcellus, as whatever other animals are in this story.

This book I’m reading is about introverts – it’s subtitled “How to thrive in an extrovert world.” It’s not the most well-written book in the world but it’s breaking my mind open. I’m coming out, right here, right now, as an introvert. I’m here to tell you there’s nothing to be ashamed of and I’m only now starting to understand what it means. The world is not made for us. There are three times more of them than there are of us. Their values are the culture’s values. Their ways are what we strive for, while the introvert’s ways are pathologized. The dictionaries define introversion negatively, extroversion positively. Introverts attempt to become more extroverted, to get out there, to take it all on, to do it all, see it all.
But I realize, now, as the ideas filter in, how many of my friends are also introverts how we have found each other in a loud pounding universe, how we quietly make our own ways, our own difference while no one is watching.
In attempting to thrive, we often deny our own truth, our own temperament, our own needs, our own rhythms or senses. I wonder what would happen if all the introverts in the world suddenly found a way to do things our way. Would there be a sudden blossoming of wisdom in the world?
Would the balance tip from a Shoot First world to a “Let’s think about this for a second” one?
We’d all get a little more time to read, that much is certain.

You can tell me. I will be secret. If it is tender, like a newborn bird, I will be gentle, keep it warm, feed it if it’s hungry. If it is unwieldy, like a tower of boxes on a tiny handcart, I will run from side to side, propping it up if it looks as if it were about to fall. If it is incomprehensible, I will not force it into a comprehending box, I will look at what I can see, understand what I can understand and allow the rest to pass by like a breeze. If it is dangerous, I will sit with it until the very moment it’s set to explode, watching the clock tick down until it is time to run. If it is unforgivable, I will forgive you anyway,