We romanticize so many things about the past. We imagine how much more simple things once were, how poetic, how full of vitality. And the dresses were so pretty.
But there are things that remind us that it was a terrible time for a lot of people. Those women who had no choice but to wear those dresses, for one. But also, anyone with a mental illness. There was no therapy, no helpful medicine, no understanding.
They’d just send you away. Just away. Or lock you up in a horrible place. That’s it for you and your glitchy brain.

Oh, THAT Hamlet! There are just so many of them – it’s hard to keep them all straight. There’s the one who sledded the dreaded pole-ax on the ice, of course – the old king. But then of course, there’s Hamlet the Plumber. Hamlet, the Florist. He that is athletic and sent to the Olympics. There’s he that is religious and sent to the monastery. There’s Hamlet, the game-show host – Hamlet, the organic farmer. Hamlet the adjunct professor. So it’s good you clarified that you mean the one who is mad and sent to England.

I wish we could figure out exactly what day this might have been. I’d love to be able to celebrate Hamlet’s birthday. I mean, it must be in the winter because Hamlet Senior defeats Fortinbras Senior on the ice. So we know Hamlet was born in a month that would have been icy. But in Denmark, that’s likely a fairly wide range. Is there a Shakespeare scholar/astrologer out there who has theorized about Hamlet’s astrological sign? Given the ice conditions – he’s probably not a Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo or Libra.
This would be a rather unusual overlapping of areas of knowledge – I don’t know a lot of Shakespeare scholars who are into astrology and while I do know some astrologers who LIKE Shakespeare, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them scholars. BUT. It may be time for a meeting of the minds on this. Mostly just because I want to know.

Fools are really making a comeback these days. We have a notorious fool in charge of the country and he has surrounded himself with fools of every stripe – and even when there are things that every fool can tell that they cannot, nothing ever changes. The whole climate seems to breed more fools. Stupidity has become fetishized and now, for sure, apparently desirable.

This is such a great way to say “You don’t know that? How can you not know that?” Because it’s not about the KNOWING – it’s the TELLING. Many a person will shame another person with the “Don’t you know that?” which always has an undercurrent of “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so stupid?”
Whereas “Cannot you tell that?” even though it essentially means the same thing could have a layer of remove. That is, you may know something but cannot say it. You know the answer but cannot tell it.

Oh, you mean the day that the ghost Hamlet is stuck in, the one he’s wearing his outfit from, despite the fact that thirty some years have passed?
This day is, uh, kind of important I guess. Also – turns out Hamlet was born on the same day his dad was sledding the dreaded pole-axe/pollacks on the ice?
I mean – one would think that old King Hamlet’s defeat of old Fortinbras had cosmic resonance.
1) The ghost is dressed in his heroic Fortinbras defeating outfit.
2) Hamlet was born on that day
3) Young Fortinbras “defeats” young Hamlet with no effort at all, due to his turning up and finding the entire Danish court dead.
One might start to think that tremendous acts of violence have consequences.

What would the world be like if we came to and went from the world without gender? Like – when you’re born, you’re just a baby – no gender and then, you pour yourself into one gender or the other (or not!) Then you spend your life as a woman, say, and at your death, your gender vanishes with you, you revert to simple personhood.

If this were a riddle, the answer would be a child – for a child is neither man nor woman.

But – luckily that is not the situation here, as nothing kills comedy quicker than a dead child. Dead baby jokes may have been all the rage in elementary school but that is due primarily to the shock value, I think – and perhaps to a lot of kids having annoying baby siblings. Otherwise – even a hint of dead children will murder any hope of comedy happening in its wake.

There’s something about this line that calls to mind some of the exchanges in Twelfth Night – Viola talking about her father’s daughter who loved a man, for example – or Feste splitting hairs with language. There is a rhythm to this kind of comedy. This moment links back to Hamlet toying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern earlier, when “man delights not me.”

It all just has comedy rhythm and it is fun to play with gender in comedy.

If we could pass quickness to one another, quickness in the sense of life, that would be an interesting world. Mothers would almost always give life to their children. Lovers would keep passing life back and forth between them. “I’ll die for you.” “No, I’ll die for you!” “No, I’ll die for you!” “No – I give MY life to YOU!” Being a lover would become quite hazardous to one’s level of life.

But in a way, we do give one another life. We energize each other with love, with attention, with affection, with inspiration.