I’m writing in November of 2016. It’s a moment of reckoning here in my country. Women and people of color have been thrown under the bus. And next to me, the news is playing. Channel 7 is attempting to be objective but being objective in this climate is to tacitly accept that fascism is an acceptable choice. I feel compelled to watch the horrors unfold, to mitigate the disaster where I can (support the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, Standing Rock and Planned Parenthood) but every encounter with the wider world triggers anxiety and renewed despair.
There’s a world of madness and a world of outrage and somehow we must continue between them. I plant myself on the ground of imagination, of art and transformation.
And normally, I’d be fine to neglect all other worlds, like Laertes here. But – the conditions demand a kind of vigilance. So I stand on imagination and reach out to make a difference when I can.

And I post here two years later. Two years have gone by in this madness. It feels different than it did but also the same. It is both worse than I imagined and also not as bad.

Yeah, damnation. I dare you. What’s it take? Some pleasurable moments with my body? With someone else’s body? That can’t really damn you, can it? If so. I dare you.
Some bad language? I dare you.
Some unkept vows? Some cursing?
The real tempting of damnation would be the raping and murdering. That’s really asking for it. The other stuff. Maybe to the real big believers…but….

I understand this impulse. When shit gets bad, it feels like it’s time to start knocking heads, to let go of niceties.

But when things got especially tough for me last week, I felt the slide toward horror. I was freaking out. My body locked up like a series of knots. I did not know how we were going to proceed. I didn’t know how we were going to get it all done. And I didn’t know how I could stay calm.

But I took a step back and examined my own values. I asked myself what was really important to me. Luckily, I had previously articulated my values. I had written them down. I knew what was most important to me because I had clarified it in calmer times. And all it took for me to find my calm was to re-commit to my previously held values and commitments. I didn’t send grace to the profoundest pit, I held it ahead of me to light my way. And it made all the difference.

For some reason, Laertes usually seems the sexiest at just this point in the play. He’s vibrating with the power he’s gained by bursting into the king’s chamber. He’s ready to be king or kill one or just start laying waste to whatever comes into his path. He’s pure machismo.
Hamlet – Hamlet we love. We want to marry Hamlet. We want to have deep conversations late at night, under the covers, at the kitchen table, snuggled up on a rainy night.
But Laertes – well, with all that raw strength – you sort of want him to pick you up and ravish you. You want to be swept up in that devil be damned energy.
It’s like that Fuck, Marry, Kill game.
Hamlet, you marry.
Laertes, you fuck.
Claudius? That’s the obvious one. You kill.

I am definitely no patriot. If the wind blows funny over my country, I am ready, in an instant, to pick up sticks and leave it. If what it means to be an American becomes repugnant to me, I feel very immediately ready to toss aside my allegiance.
And yet. When my country took a terrifying turn a couple of weeks ago, I did not run. I didn’t turn away. I felt somehow determined to stay. As if, since this culture is now affirming that women have no place or voice in it, then I must stay and shout with my voice – make plain my presence.
My allegiance, then, is with the women of my country. And beyond.

The giant was a little bit of sadist, truth be told.
He liked to pick up villagers, three at a time and toss them around. He had a buddy who also enjoyed this and the two of them did complex routines – tossing people from hand to hand and occasionally dropping them. Mostly the villagers screamed in a way the giant found exciting. As soon as he scooped one up, it started yelling. His ears were pitched differently than theirs and they sounded pleasantly squeaky to him. They kept a tonal rhythm of screams as he tossed them to his buddy and caught them as they arched through the air.

Then one day, he picked up a villager who neither kicked nor screamed. Instead he climbed his way into the palm of the giant’s hand where he stood as tall as a tiny villager could stand on the uneven ground of the giant’s hand. The giant examined him up close. He didn’t appear much different than any of the others but he stood there, calmly, his arms folded across his chest.

“Why aren’t you screaming?” asked the giant. “They all scream.”
“I’ll not be juggled with,” said the tiny villager.
“What?” asked the giant.
“I will not be juggled. You must not juggle me. You must not toss me in the air and catch me again or worse let me drop to my death into the hayfield. I won’t have it.”
“No?” asked the giant.
“No,” said the villager. “I will not. You have ruined the lives of too many of my neighbors and I must firmly request that you cease immediately.“
“You want me to put you back down,” said the giant.
“Yes,” said the villager. “Never to be picked up again. And none of my neighbors, neither – if you like to juggle, you are welcome to use our hay bales. Just, if you would, put them back when you’ve finished.”
“Hay bales?” asked the giant.

“Those round things there,” said the villager.
“Will they make noise?” asked the giant.
“We’ll put bells in, if it will keep you from juggling us,” said the villager.
“Bells?” asked the giant.
“Yes, like this, ring-a-ling-ling,” demonstrated the villager.

The giant began to laugh. “Excellent,” he said.
“Excellent,” said the villager. “Set me down by my barn and I’ll organize the hay bales for you and your friend.”
“Where?” asked the giant.
“There,” said the villager, pointing to a red barn. “Bend down and set me down gently please. No dropsies.”
“Okay,” said the giant and he set the villager down by his barn.
The villager went into his barn, fetched all the bells and then went to the hay bales in the field where he pushed the bells deep into the hay. Then he gestured for the giant to pick them up.
The giant obliged and began to juggle – and juggle – and he laughed louder than he’d ever laughed before each time the bells rang. The villagers all came out of their houses and watched the spectacle – then they began to applaud – at first out of relief that there were no villagers in peril – but then at the show the giant began to put on for them. Once he found them watching, he fell into performing and before too long he had the whole village clapping along with his bells. Then he dropped a hay bale and the village scattered once again into their houses.

“Sorry,” said the giant, and gently set down the hay bales. He started to walk away when he heard the villager calling him.
“Come back tomorrow at four and we will watch you juggle again.”
The giant smiled happily and walked away. The villager walked home, went into his bedroom, shut the door and breathed out a tremendous sigh of relief.

This is the kind of phraseology that indicates the pleasures of an as yet un-codified language. If someone said this now, we’d likely to correct them. “Do you mean, ‘How did he die?’“ And something about this being phrased like that stays with deadness more than asking how someone died. It means the same thing, of course, but the repetition of dead – and “how came” gives it a finality. It points more to the events that led to the death.

I’m trying to imagine a context where asking this question this way would make sense. Like – in my case, I’m lucky in that my father is alive. The answer to where he is could be: at home, at the library, at work, downtown, etc.
But if I were to ask where my Grandfather is…
No matter which grandfather I was asking about, the answer would be the same: Arlington National Cemetery – because they are both interred there. But that’s just where their ashes are. Where is my grandfather? Gone. In heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing.

But. It’s a rough way to ask this question.
Is Laertes trying to catch Claudius out? Or hoping to hear him say “At supper. He’s chatting with some ambassador right now”
Or is he trying to ask where his father’s body is but he just can’t do it yet?

That is a whole lot of sex talk for a revenge moment! I mean he’s really diving deep into this bastard idea. Was it necessary to call his mother a harlot to get his point across? I mean, I get it that he’s saying that if he were calm, he’d be a bastard, not doing his due revengeful diligence…but…he goes deep with this idea.

I’m curious too about where this HERE is…is he referring to an image of his mother? Or is he indicating his own brow, seemingly like the brow of his mother? Here….I mean – where is his mother? There’s no other mention of her…one assumes she is dead. But…what if she’s not? What is she’s so subdued, so chaste, so meek, that she hangs around all the scenes with her children, saying nothing? It would make Ophelia seem very bold and rebellious by comparison. Like – if Laertes dragged his mother into this room to show off her chaste brow? I mean – our Ophelia would have a lot of reasons to go crazy. I’m pretty sure that’s not what Laertes is ACTUALLY doing here. But that HERE is interesting. And in an experimental production, I might just try out what it would be like to have a silent Mrs. Polonius onstage.

What is Laertes expecting? That Claudius has Polonius’ body right there with him? That he could just reach behind him and pull out the evidence? Presumably, Laertes already knows that his father is dead or he wouldn’t be there with a rabble of over-throwing rebels. And he presumably also knows that Claudius has had Polonius buried in a hurry. Because that’s why he finds him vile. He presumably knows that Hamlet killed Polonius – but he’s mad at Claudius, not Hamlet. It’s a funny choice. It’s a bit – like, Laertes isn’t wrong. Claudius is a vile king. He’s a murdering political monster. But Laertes doesn’t know that, presumably. Or has he been suspicious? Did he wonder, the second this all went down, if there might be some funny business? Is this what the hurry to get to France is all about? Because if he stayed, he’d start asking questions? Let his suspicions fester or go on back to Paris and stop worrying about it.
He’s a funny one that Laertes.