This is interesting as a status transaction. We have a prince talking to a captain in the army. The prince does not reveal his status to the captain but there’s a way wherein this line sort of makes the most sense as being a high status person attempting to lower his status.

If Hamlet were a peasant, it would seem less likely that he would humbly thank someone – the humbleness might be redundant in that case. A peasant doesn’t need to humbly thank anyone – any thank you is humble.

Hmm. Wealth and peace create an imposthume? An abscess? Or maybe – it’s like in the warm hospitable environment of wealth and peace, it becomes much more possible for a dark disease to grow. The way, say, a tropical island – so warm and wet can encourage a rot…but it is not the fault of the island, just the hospitality of the environment.
And in this case, Claudius is likely the disease that wealth and peace allows to multiply.

Lines like this call out the question of what Hamlet would have been like as a king, had he been given the chance. We think he would be a good one because he’s thoughtful and reflective and sees the absurdity of sending 2000 men to their deaths and wasting 20,000 ducats in the process. We think – this is the kind of leader who would keep us out of harm’s way, who would lead with compassion. But then – those leaders don’t often get remembered (or in our day and age, elected.) We do not necessarily value the philosophical leader. It’s almost as though we NEED them to be war-like and intractable so we have something to complain about.

Oh sweet Hamlet. We see how you failed to seize the throne. You clearly have no idea how leaders can be or what wars are fought over.
Claudius would know that “the Polack” would seize any opportunity to engage the Norwegian army – and Hamlet Sr. – who sledded the pole-ax/pollacks on the ice…he too knew the ways of war, I’d wager.
Hamlet, though, is a logical, intelligent, reflective man and sees this situation as a person would, not a politician or warrior.

I am such an American. I hear the word “frontier” and I picture the American West in Frontier Times – but with a Polish flavor. And because I grew up in the 80s, I have a very particular Eastern Bloc image of Poland. And so I put these two images together in this line and it’s, like, lots of blonde people in cowboy hats with little fur caps perched on top, leading horses in front of severe concrete architecture. It’s the Polish Frontier, Little Doggies. Yippee kay yay. (Polish cheers.) The Polish Frontier.

We had a good chat about the military and leadership and how businesses want to learn what people in the military have learned but can’t really be seen as taking consulting or help from the military.
We think of it as so – well, military – as somehow martial.
I, too, have a gut response that says, “Oh, no. Not military influence!” But I’ve spent enough time with military people to know how gracious they can be, how intelligent, how full of the idea of service. Those who learn to lead, really learn to LEAD. I mean, if you’re going to lead someone to their death, you have to be really good at leading in the end.
So there are things to learn, of course. I’m not interested in the hierarchy but the leadership and camaraderie, I’d be very happy to have those at my command.

On the Paris Metro, two missionaries tried to enroll me in their church. They are good at their jobs, if not actually successful with me. It’s funny, too, how they seemed to be having a normal conversation and then suddenly flipped into their story of how moving it is to be with someone who is saying their first prayer – and then they start asking questions – at first they were relatively harmless. Where are you from? How long are you here? Where’d you get those shoes? And then after they’d asked me what my religion was, if I ever wondered why we’re here and I’d not given them anything they could work with, they tried. “What’s your main purpose in life?”
And while I have a very clear answer to this one – to make good art – I didn’t particularly want to share it with them. And FINALLY FINALLY, my stop arrived.

Streaming out of the clear pyramid of the Louvre were 6 men in fatigues, carrying rifles. They then stood guard at the traffic circle, seemingly directing people away. I assume they were French soldiers but I can’t be sure as I don’t generally recognize one brand of military from another.

I can’t imagine going up to one of them and asking a question like this. They create such a strong air of unapproachability.

But if I DID make such an inquiry, I quite like this way of doing it…seeing soldiers as someone’s (or somewhere’s) powers. As if they had the ability to turn invisible or something. But of course having a whole flock of soldiers at your disposal is probably very like having a super power. A dark one, surely. But a super power, none the less.

England feels like home to me. It is not my home. Though it was briefly. I grew up in Virginia and I live in New York City. And yet England can feel more like home than either of my homelands feel sometimes. Is there something to an ancestral homeland? I have many many ancestors from England. Do I have some English loving DNA? Some DNA that recognizes its roots and starts shooting them down the moment I arrive on English soil. Some DNA that gets very upset every time I have to return to my own country because immigration laws don’t care about my feelings or my ancestral roots. They’re like, “Y’all people left on that damn Mayflower – and now you want to come BACK here? Nah. Nah. That ain’t happenin’.” I don’t know why the immigration authorities of the U.K. sound like Southern folks from my hometown but apparently they do in this make believe scenario.
I try to get back every year but I don’t always manage it. This year, though…get ready to shake, roots, we’re going to England.

My sociology professor in college was this badass feminist scholar with fun spiky hair. She told us a story about when she married her husband and they warned the clergyman that if he so much as came close to saying, “Man and Wife” they’d be outta there!
And I remember laughing but also being confused. The phrase “Man and Wife” had such a familiar ring to it – it took me a little while to work out what was wrong with it. It’s man and wife. Man and Wife. That’s what they say in marriage ceremonies on TV! But then I thought it through and realized that man and wife were not equivalencies. Equivalencies would be “husband and wife” or “man and woman.” “Man and Wife” implies that the man is a man but his wife is his possession, his wife. She is his but he is not hers. He retains his identity while she gives up hers. But “Man and Wife” is such a familiar song, I still have to double check the difference every time I hear it. And it is a big difference.