I’ve looked this up before. Multiple times. I can’t recall what I’ve learned before. I think if memory serves, which I’m not sure it does: the consensus is that it’s basically nonsense.

I mean, can we trust Hamlet’s translation that it means mischief? I think it’s more than that. What we can know for sure is that this is a hell of an alliterative sentence and that there’s bound to be some merriment in the making of all of those M sounds. It is Hamlet playing with sound, if nothing else. But it may well be something else. I just can’t remember what.

When someone’s forgetting is remembered, he is no longer forgotten – if only his forgetting is remembered, he is still remembered.
Hobby Horse, for instance, has an epitaph that reads he is forgotten. And everyone who reads it considers the poor forgotten hobby horse and perhaps mourns him in his forgotten-ness and is thus remembered.

The Great Man is one of the biggest myths we have. I read a novel called The Great Man about a successful artist in which the greatness of the Great Man became more ironic the closer one looked at his life.

The Great Man is often propped up by a community of people all laboring to create the image of this Great One. It’s like a cluster of people working the wheels and dials and switches for the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz image machine.

The Great Man seems very much connected to the Default Man.That is, the prototypical human has defaulted to straight white man, this particular group of people can be known as Default Men. And the rest of us are meant to scurry around and prop the Default Men up to make them great.

Meanwhile, there’s no Great Woman Theory. No team of people hurry to get behind a remarkable woman, to bolster her to greatness.

A great man’s memory may outlive his life. But the likelihood of a great woman’s memory outliving hers is quite a bit less likely.

When I was little, some grown-up in my life was prone to saying “Heavens to Betsy!” as an exclamation. I was pretty small and quickly added it to my small repertoire. I’m told it was pretty cute having a little kid exclaim “Heavens to Betsy!” My guess is that I quit doing it as soon as I realized grown-ups thought it was funny. I really didn’t like being laughed at.

I wonder now where this “Heavens to Betsy!” exclamation came from. Who is Betsy? And why does she get the Heavens? It’s not a saying that stuck around. I haven’t heard it in ages.

I think it may be one of a series of phrases that people invented in order to avoid swearing. Most of us don’t work too terribly hard to avoid swearing anymore. Unless we’re in a school, where we try not to exclaim at all. And when we do, we tend to need phrases that begin like swearing so we can correct midstream. Like when we say, “Sh – – – Shells and Macaroni” or “Fu – – Funky Chicken.”
O heavens to Betsy!

Let the devil wear red, for I’ll have a suit of cardinals.
Let the devil wear blue, for I’ll have a suit of dolphins.
Let the devil wear green, for I’ll have a suit of alligators.
Let the devil wear brown, for I’ll have a suit of moose.
Let the devil wear yellow, for I’ll have a suit of buttercups.
Let the devil wear orange, for I’ll have a suit of goldfish.
Let the devil wear purple, for I’ll have a suit of crocuses.
Let the devil wear grey, for I’ll have a suit of mice.
Let the devil wear white, for I’ll have a suit of polar bears.

When I started this project, I was in a café that has now changed names and styles several times since. The last time I saw it, it was a Korean Barbeque restaurant. For all I know, it’s closed entirely now.

But then, it was a coffee shop – and I decided to embark on this project of using a sentence from Hamlet every day as my writing project. I remember doing some math – trying to work out how long it might take me to get through the entire play.

I remember thinking – “Gosh, I might be in my 40s by the time I’m done. “
Well – I’ve been in my 40s for a year now and I’m just coming up on the halfway point, I’d guess. The sense of time spreading out ahead of a person. . . well, it’s quite remarkable.

It is so long. And so short.
That café came and went. But this structure remained. And it could be a long time before I’ve exhausted it. It has been long enough and not quite as long as it could have been.

What is he trying to DO with this line? I can understand that he might have just noticed his mother laughing or flirting or something and so this line might come from there. But why say it to Ophelia? And why make this two hour crack? Has it been two hours since they had their nunnery scene? Is there some sense that he’s comparing Ophelia to his mother – trying to encourage merriness in her after their difficult letter returning scene? Like, there’s a sense of – “There’s my mother doing just fine after the death of her husband. Maybe you could cheer up too, two hours after our breakup.” Or “I’m like my mother – see? We’re both laughing after my father’s death. Look at us making merry.”

But also – his father is about to die again within these two hours in the sense that the show they’re about to see features a re-enactment of his death. Maybe it’s fore-shadowing.

And the actual news of how he died has happened within those two hours as well, meta-theatricaly – even though he died before the play started, we discover it in the two hours of the play (Well, three or four when it’s played all the way through.)
It could be a meta-meta-theatre moment.

Be merry, certainly.
But while you’re at it could you also make art, make music, make theatre, make dance, make peace, make love, make order, make time, make discoveries, make way for others behind you.

The sign outside the shop reads:Singular Jig-maker

All jigs made here – 

Fun, brisk, hopping sort of dances, songs, tricks, games, tools for sawing and cutting in two.

In the window – another sign – a testimonial that reads:

When I need a jig, God is my jig-maker. No one beats God in the jig-making department. Come in and get a jig today.