This is not what I think of when I hear over-raught. I guess I think of overwrought – which would mean something quite different from overtake, which is what I think Rosencrantz means here. And I suppose they “over-raught” the players because the players were laden down with props and costumes and things.

In the film of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, they have a cart that turned into a stage (a cart which I envied, by the way.) I may be conflating the Tom Stoppard play with a film clip of Ariana Mnoushkin’s Moliere because I envied their stage carts as well. And while one of those carts would likely slow you down on the road, I do fantasize about having one. About Just chucking it all and hitting the road with a stage-cart and a jolly brand of colleagues. Never pay rent again just sleep on the stage. Snore happily while people like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hurry past.

What’s funny about this line (aside from how horribly awful and awkward it is to say “niggard” on stage despite its not being what it sounds like) is how full of questions Hamlet actually was. He asks them all kinds of questions about what they’re doing there, about the nature of their visit, who sent them and soon. So Rosencrantz is really spinning this out.

Did they make any demands? Barely. Hamlet ran their entire exchange. Rosencrantz seems to be lying to the King and Queen. Gutsy Rosencrantz.

Before I knew a truly gentle man, I thought of a gentlemen as just one word – you know – fancy noble type people. But then I spent some time with a man that had gentleness in his core and I thought about how the notion of gentleman is somehow supposed to express, through various signals, a degree of culture and that cultural is meant to have a civilizing effect.
Being a gentleman has been a way of demonstrating that the animal within is under control, that gentleness has won over cruelty, that kindness prevails over aggression.

Unfortunately, the bulk of horrors performed by humans in the gentlemen years were in fact performed by gentlemen. There was some idea that putting on suits and following modes of conduct would make men behave with gentleness but instead, in some cases, they became crueler, more subverted, better at hiding and sublimating – the sort of person who would open the door for the Duchess properly but in private, do her no kindnesses, or any other woman neither.

So there are gentlemen, who perform the role of gentleman appropriately and there are men who are gentle in a suit or out of it.

I feel myself MUCH distracted and while I might not speak of it in many circles, I have no hesitation about revealing its cause here.
It’s poverty. Poverty is very distracting.
I watched a talk by Sendhil Mullainathan on the topic of his book, Scarcity and discovered that I already suspected feelingly. That when we are struggling with money, it detracts from our ability to focus on other things. Our brains continually circle back to “How am I going to make this work?” and “Where will the money come from?”

I feel this acutely. And it’s painful because the thoughts of “how will I get what I need?” intrude on the ability to do the things I need to do in order to actually make changes, or to promote the work I already do.

I used to be able to trick myself into believing I wasn’t poor. It allowed me to proceed along As If. But with struggles coming from so many corners, I can only feel my failures and my lack. I have just a little work here and a little work there and none of it adds up to enough. It is very distracting.

The aspirational punctuator strikes again! I would like to punctuate this so that it reads “Good my lord –“ Because there’s something about this exchange that makes it feel like Rosencrantz would like to say some more to Hamlet, to engage him a bit before they part. It feels like that in Hamlet’s response to him too – a sort of “Yeah, yeah, get out of here” quality.

With a period at the end of this line, it could be read as an agreement. Like a “yes sir” or “As you wish” but that’s not nearly as interesting.

Not every old man, certainly – but I have seen a few.

There is an old woman I know who is definitively a child again. I wonder if she is the same child she was before or a new one. The child she is now is willful and stubborn.

If she weren’t in her 90s, I’d say she was spoiled. She expects everyone to conform to her needs and not just everyone, also everything. She gets mad at Time. She wants brunch at midnight and does not understand why the dining room is dark. She insists that she does not get dirty and therefore does not need her clothes or her sheets washed. She thinks everyone is against her until she thinks everyone is there to help her. But that’s the sticky stuff.

She is also a child in the delight she can find in things. She has always had a little shelf full of tiny objects that she treasured. It’s hung on her walls for years. When we packed that box up for her move, she examined each thing as if she’d never seen it before and was newly delighted at each new object. She pulled out a tiny pitcher and squeaked with surprise. When she discovered a scroll inside that explained its origins, (one she herself placed there years ago) she was delighted and surprised again. Twice a child indeed.

What if swaddling old folks became the new fashion? When in danger of wandering out into the street getting hit by cars or setting their apartments on fire, you could just bundle them up in their swaddling blankets, tuck them up well and give them some comfort. Though, of course, I cannot imagine that swaddling would appeal to one who was used to having control of his own limbs. But maybe if it were a fashion?

I wonder if it feels at all like the hugging machine that Temple Grandin invented for herself. A comforting, squeezing sensation? Or if it were a club, like these laughing societies or cuddle clubs, maybe swaddling would really take off. You’d have to do it with people you really trusted, though, because it would be torture to be left all swaddled up and unable to unswaddle yourself

I picture a dozen little boys running together like ants, carrying Hercules over their heads to their anthill clubhouse. Another dozen little boys, directly behind, carrying Hercules’ load, which I picture as several giant duffle bags, though it may more likely be the bodies of his enemies or the earth he took over carrying for a moment or even a stable full of the shit that he had to shovel in that first labor.

But for the purposes of this image, the boys are just carrying stuff and the little boys stream through the city streets like the fire brigade or the Keystone cops or the Keystone robbers, stealing a mythological figure and all his belongings.

Wait, wait, wait – poets and players were duking it out?
There were fights between poets and players?
And people put money on them?

I’m not particularly interested in watching fights in general – but I might not be able to resist a poet/player rumble. In this corner, the poet with the plums, William Carlos Williams! And in this corner, the player with a plan, John Wilkes Booth!
Ding Ding!
Next up that retiring Belle of Amherst versus the actress with the wooden leg: Emily Dickinson takes on Sarah Bernhardt! Sarah may know how to sword fight but Emily does not stop for death. Match of the century. Centuries. . .
Place your bets, Ladies and Gentlemen – those poet shirts and pantaloons are getting torn tonight.

Why is the public so interested in rivalries? Child companies versus adult companies. Movie star versus movie star. Software company versus software company. I suppose it is inherently dramatic and where there is no drama, the public will create it.

I read this post today  and it does seem that there was some legitimate rivalry happening in Shakespeare’s theatre community but this line suggests that the public wasn’t helping. Perhaps people became more interested in the drama of the controversy than the dramas being staged. You’d think, though, a company that conscripted children without their parents’ permission might suffer in the public eye.

That wouldn’t play today, that’s for sure. But today, parents would likely be the pushers, trying to get their little Johnnys on stage and before the adoring public.