William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Begin: 05/29/07
End: 05/31/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten
Reason: Reading Plan.
Genre: Classics. Drama. Tragedy.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1623.
Fog Index: 6.6/93% are harder.
Flesch Index: 77.2/92% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 4.7/94% are harder.
Complex Words: 8%/85% have more.
Number: Numerous.
Synopsis: As if everyone doesn’t know this story!!
Thoughts:
I am so glad I chose this play for my Shakespeare this month. Wow. After reading, I don’t know how many problem plays, this was a breeze. I forgot how good it was. Although I did have the problem of relating the action in my head to the Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Nevertheless, I really do love this play. I mean some of the lines are just so mesmerizing. And it really is such a beautiful play. I find that some of the lines and some of the action seem to be a little bit extra but that is really just the era I live in.

Really-Really Good.



True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

ROMEO
[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
JULIET
You kiss by the book.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Chogyam Trungpa's The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation

Chogyam Trungpa’s The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation
Begin: 05/9/07
End: 05/29/07
Quality: Seven out of Ten
Reason: Random.
Genre: Eastern Philosophy. Religion. Tibetan Buddhism.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1976.
Fog Index: 13.3/47% are harder.
Flesch Index: 52.8/52% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 10.2/54% are harder.
Complex Words: 16%/45% have more.
Number: First.
Synopsis: Trungpa talks about the meaning of freedom and how our preconceptions, attitudes and spiritual practices can become chains and bind us. He also talks about the uses of meditation and the path of the Bodhasittva.
Thoughts:
I rather liked it. It was a little hard to get into, especially of late considering I have had no attention span, but I did enjoy it. My problem with books like this is that they say so much and I want to understand it all so very much but I simply cannot. I am never sure if I should be taking notes or somehow get a system for
Extracting the ideas into a concise form for later review but that would seriously take so long so for now I am just grabbing some quotes.

The other issue is just that I know a lot about Buddhism, I really just need to start meditating and stop fucking around.

Anyway, here’s the quotes.

“The practice of meditation is to see the transparency of this shield. But we cannot immediately start dealing with the basic ignorance itself; that would be like trying to push a wall down at once. If we want to take this wall down, we must take it down brick by brick; we start with immediately available material, a stepping stone. So the practice of meditation starts with the emotions and thoughts, particularly with the thought process.” (22)

“You do not try to use meditation techniques-prayer,mantra, visualization, rituals, breathing techniques- to create pleasure or to confirm your existence. You do not try to separate yourself from the technique, but you try to become the technique so that there is a sense of non-duality. Techinque is a way of imitating the style of non-duality. In the beginning a person uses technique as a kind of game because he is still imagining that he is meditating. But the techniques-physical feeling, sensations and breathing for instance- are very earthy and tend to ground a person.” (45)

“The in beginning the practice of meditation is just dealing with the basic neurosis of mind, the confused relationship between yourself and projections, your relationships to thoughts.” (46)

“So the intelligent way of working with emotions is to try and relate with their basic substance, the abstract quality of emotions, so to speak.” (67)

Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms

Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms.
Begin: 05/24/07
End: 05/29/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten
Reason: Modern Drama
Genre: Fiction. Drama. American Literature.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1924.
Fog Index: 8.6/82% are harder.
Flesch Index: 67.4/78% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 7.5/76% are harder.
Complex Words: 7%/89% have more.
Number: Third.
Synopsis: Widower Ephraim Cabot brings home a new wife to his farm. His son, Eben buys the other two sons, Simeon and Peter, shares of the farm with money stolen from his father. Abbie, the new wife, and Eben begin an adulterous relationship and she has his baby. Abbie eventually kills the infant after a fight with Eben and then all their secrets come pouring out.
Thoughts:
So very good. Rich and intense. Dark, broody tragedy modeled on ancient greek tragedy but set in New England. It is seeped in biblical references. Very disturbing as well. The whole incestuous adulterous thing, and that’s not even getting into the whole oedipal issues that are strewn throughout this play.

“Hain’t the sun strong an’ hot? Ye kin feel it burnin’ into the earth-Nature=makin’ thin’s grow-bigger’n’bigger into somethin’ else-till ye’re jined with it-an’it’s your’n-but it owns ye,too-an’ makes ye grow bigger-like a tree-like them elums-Nature’ll beat ye, Eben. Ye might’s well own up t’ it fust’s last” (269) Abbie to Eben.

“God’s hard, not easy! God’s in the stones! Build my church on a rock-out o’ stones an’ I’ll be in them! That’s what He meant t’Peter!” (272)) Cabot.

Toni Morrison's Tar Baby

Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby
Begin: 05/20/07
End: 05/25/07
Quality: Ten out of Ten
Reason: Reading Plan.
Genre: African-American Literature. Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1981.
Fog Index: 7.1/91% are harder.
Flesch Index: 78.4/94% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 5.0/93% are harder.
Complex Words: 7%/89% have more.
Number: Seventh.
Synopsis: The story begins with Son and his escape from his ship to a small Caribbean island. He eventually finds himself at the mansion of Valerian Street and creates all sorts of turmoil before starting a love affair with Jadine.
Thoughts: I am a complete idiot! Have I ever mentioned that? I have read this story before and I thought tar baby was a racial slur. I didn’t realize that it had a much deeper history. In the second of the Uncle Remus stories, Br’er Rabbit was entrapped by a doll made of tar and turpentine. The more he fought the tar-baby, the more entangled he became. It’s come to mean any sticky situation that is made worse by trying to solve it. The story stems from African myths involving Anasi. This puts a slightly different spin on the novel.

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It did seem quite out of place in the Morrison canon. I can’t exactly pinpoint exactly why, perhaps the amount of dialogue or that it followed a more traditional or contemporary plot structure. I am not sure but I liked it.

I also thought quite a bit about what I was missing in reading this, and for that matter, any of Ms. Morrison’s novels. She writes novel geared towards African-Americans. She once said that “It seems to me that the novel is needed by African-Americans now in a way that it was not needed before... Parents do not sit around and tell their children those classical mythological, archetypal stories that we heard before. But new information has got to get out and there are several ways to do it. One is in the novel." I am aware, hyperaware oftentimes, that I am missing certain aspects of her work, that I am not quite digesting it all. And I got to thinking that is this due to some degree to the fact that I am a white male, despite the enormity of my faggotry. Or perhaps I am not old enough, wise enough, smart enough, or perhaps I’m just not supposed to get it all but that over time and multiple readings it will open up for me slowly and surely like other great works of literature. I mean if I can “get” every aspect when I read a book, why would I bother reading it again? Hell, why bother reading it the first time!




I often feel that if I could only fully understand Ms. Morrison’s works (or Fellini’s film, Blake poetry, Picasso’s painting, Faulkner’s Prose, ect) another world would open up to me like that Blake statement : ”if the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Anyway. I am getting away from the novel at hand, Tar Baby. Wow. A lot of talk about and really not that much time. I have read a few things on the internet about it and was amazed at the amount of things that people saw in the novel that I simply didn’t. Jadine as a race traitor. Oh, I could see it but I simply don’t.
Tar Baby as a Marxist story. Again, I can see it but I think that Ms. Morrison’s novels are far too complex for things to be that simple.

The specific charge that really stuck in my mind was that Jadine was a tar baby meant to entrap Son (the rabbit) by Valerian Street (the farmer).

Isn’t that far too simple a reading? Isn’t the tar baby the complex relationship between human beings? Or am I universalizing things too much? The relationship of mutual dependence and deep emotional ties which are not always pretty to examine and generally hidden away. The tar baby of human beings living and working with one another in complex hierarchal situation involving race and gender and class and a million and one other differences to be worked out and worked on.

I also would like to point out the one portion of the novel that really quirked me. (if I may use quirk in that context) What was up with that shower that Son took? He went from being this horrible hobo looking creature to a beautiful beautiful Adonis like creature. That’s some fucking shower! Can I get one?

I have some quotes but will save them for another day since I left my book at home.

Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows
Begin: 05/08/07
End: 05/15/07
Quality: Nine out of Ten
Reason: Random.
Genre: Children’s Literature.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1908
Fog Index: 10.1/72% are harder.
Flesch Index: 69.4/82% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 8.2/70% are harder.
Complex Words: 7%/87% have more.
Number: Third?
Synopsis: This is the story of a group of anthomorphic animal friends, Rat, Badger, Mole and Toad.
Thoughts: I really liked this novel. I do remember this having more of a central plot which is not at all true. It’s a bit of a rambling work that is only connected by the characters but I still really enjoyed it. I especially liked when Pan made an appearance.

I thought the whole scene where Rat is practically hypnotized by the sailor rat to be rather weird. And I have to say, I was a little disappointed that Toad was not punished at all for all of his deviance. He just got off scott free. I don’t know how I feel about that since I thought he was a bit of an ass.

I guess that’s it for this one.

Karen Karbo's How to Hepburn

Karen Karbo’s How to Hepburn
Begin: 05/10/07
End: 05/13/07
Quality: Eight out of Ten
Reason: Random.
Genre: Film. Non-fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 04.07.2007
Fog Index: N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A
Number: First.
Synopsis: Weird little book. It’s basically reviewing Katharine’s life and culling life lessons from it.
Thoughts: I love it and I hated it. I loved it a lot more than I hated it. I thought that Karbo seemed to have a set guidelines and just kinda used Kate’s life as a model as opposed to looking at Kate’s life and getting the lesson from that. I did enjoy the overview of her life and it made me go and buy the Mann biography about how she was a lesbian.

I guess that’s all I got for this little book.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens
Begin: 04/28/07
End: 05/07/07
Quality: Four out of Ten
Reason: Reading Plan.
Genre: Drama. Classics. Problem Plays.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1623
Fog Index: 9.6/73% are harder.
Flesch Index: 62.9/72% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 7.3/75% are harder.
Complex Words: 13%/57% are harder.
Number: First.
Synopsis: Timon of Athens is very generous to his friends, constantly giving gifts and getting people out of debt. Unfortunately, when his money runs out, no one will help him. He flees Athens and lives in a cave where he finds a large cache of gold. He gives this to Alcibiades to conquer Athens.
Thoughts: Why do I keep reading this damn problem plays? They just end up confuse the shit out of me. Fuck it, I am reading Midsummer Night’s Dream next. Now that is some good Shakespeare. This stuff is just tough to get through and figure out what the hell is going on.
I didn’t hate it. I just thought it was kinda weird and I had a hard time seeing where some of the characters were coming from.

I don’t really think I got much out of it. I had a few food quotes. I really enjoyed the character of Apemantus, the churlish philosopher. I may want to bring the word churlish back into everyday use. It is a fun word.

The play remind me, in some ways, of Nina Simone’s “No one knows you when your down.”

And I guess that is all that I have for the moment.

“What a sweep of vanity comes this way./They Dance? They are madwomen./ Like Madness is the glory of this life,/As this pomp shows to a little oil and root/We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves,/And spend our flatteries to drink those men/Upon whose age we void it up again/With poisonous spite and envy/who lives that’s not depraved or depraves?/Who dies that bears not one spurn to their graves/of their friends’ gift?/I should fear those that dance before me now/would one day stamp upon me. ‘T’as been done./ Men shut their doors against a setting dun.” (I.ii.134-147)

“I am Misanthropos and hate mankind./For thy part/I do wish thou wert a dog,/that I might love thee something.” (IV.iii.54-56)

“Spare your oaths:/I’ll trust to your conditions. Be whore still,/And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you, / Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;/ Let your close fire predominate his smoke / and Be no turncoats.” (IV.iii.139-145)

Toni Morrison's Jazz

Toni Morrison's Jazz
Begin: 04/29/07
End: 05/07/07
Quality: Seven out of Ten
Reason: Reading Plan.
Gene: Fiction.African American Fiction..
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1992.
Fog Index: 8.2/85% are harder.
Flesch Index: 76.3/91% are harder.
Flesch-Kincaid Index: 6.2/86% are harder.
Complex Words: 6%/92% has more.
Number: First.
Synopsis: Joe Trace shoots his teenage lover, Dorcas. His wife tries to disfigure the girl at her funeral. This novel goes back and forth through time explaining the stories of not just, Joe, Violet and Dorcas but others as well.
Thoughts: Wow. I don’t know how she does it. I really am at such a loss when I read her books. Toni Morrison is just so fucking amazing. I mean really! The worlds and characters that she creates, the prose that she weaves seemingly out of magic and poetry.

Now, having said all of that, this was not my favorite Toni Morrison. I felt that it was a little fractured, a little more rambling than I would have liked. I do not know if this has anything to do with the fact that I am feeling a little spacey lately.

I guess that is my main problem with this work, too much going on. You had the main story with Violet, Joe and Dorcas but then their was Alice Manfred and the back stores of Violet and Joe and I just had a hard time keeping track. I also found the narration to be confusing. I wasn’t sure who it was. It wasn’t till the end of the book that I realized it was Toni Morrison herself, or at least I think so.

I would write more but I seem to have misplaced my brain. I feel bad since most of what I wrote is negative. And I really did like it but since my brain is gone, I’m going to give up the ghost.
Quotes:

“And when spring comes to the City people notice one another in the road; notice the strangers with whom they share aisles and tables and the space where intimate garments are laundered.” (117)

“I told you again that you were the reason Adam ate the apple and its core. That when he left Eden, he left a rich man. Not only he he have Eve, but he had the first taste of the first apple in the world in his mouth for the rest of his life. The very first to know what it was like. To bite it,. Bite it down. Hear the crunch and let the red peeling break into his heart.” (133)

“Don’t ever think I feel for you, or fell over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it. I saw you and made up my mind. My mind. And I made up my mind to follow you too.” (135)

“Only now, he thought, now that I know I have a father, do I feel his absence: the place where he should have been and was not. Before, I thought everybody was one-armed, like me. Now I feel the surgery. The crunch of bone when it is sundered, the sliced flesh and the tubes of blood cut through, shocking the bloodrun and disturbing the nerves. They dangle and writhe. Singing pain. Waking me with the sound of itself, thrumming when I sleep so deeply it strangles my dreams away. There is nothing for it but to go away from where he is not to where he used to be and might be still. Let the dangle and the writhe see what it is missing; let the pain sing to the dirt where he stepped in the place where he used to be and might be still. I am not going to be healed, or to find the arm that was removed from me. I am going to freshen the pain, point it, so we both know what it is for.” (158)

“The girls have red lips and their legs whisper to each other through silk stockings. The red lips and the silk flash power. A power they will exchange for the right to be overcome, penetrated. The men at their side love it because, in the end, they will reach in, extend, get back behind that power, grab it and keep it still.” (182)

“What’s the world if you can’t make it up the way you want it?”
“The way I want it?”
“Yeah. The way you want it. Don’t you want it to be something more than what it is?”
“What’s the point? I can’t change it?”
“That’s the point. If you don’t, it will change you and it’ll be your fault cause you let it. I let it. And messed up my life.”
“Messed it up how?”
“forgot it”
“forgot?”
“forgot it was mine. My life. I just ran up and down the street wisahing I was somebody else.”
“Who? Who’d you want to be?”
“Not who so much as what. White. Light. Young again.” (208)

“I envy them their public love. I myself have only known it in secret, shared it in secret and longed, aw longed to show it-to be able to say out loud what they have no need to say at all: That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. I like your fingers on and on, lifting, turning. I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. Talking to you and hearing you answer-that’s the kick.” (229)