Saturday, December 8, 2012
How to Be a Glam Rocker
1. Change Your Name
Have you ever heard of a Glam Rocker with the name John Smith or Mary Jane? No, you haven’t. So add some shimmer, throw in some alliteration, sprinkle in some fun. Your name is Sarah Gill? Not any more! Now it’s Sasha Sequin. Your parents gave you the name Rodney Lee? Well why don’t you call yourself Skylar Sedsky? Or if you want to stay a little closer to your roots, Romping Rodney Redler?
2. Get A Make-Over*
Get rid of the frumpy jeans, the ratty T-Shirts, and the pathetic attempt at a hair style and start dressing for the job you want.
If you’re a guy, go for girls clothing. V-Neck shirts are good, and so are brightly colored tights. So what if you’re not supposed to wear them as pants, it’s America! At least you’re WEARING pants. Grow your hair out and get acquainted with an eyeliner pencil. It’s your new best friend.
If you’re a girl, go for motorcycle wear. Leather, jackets with skulls or indiscernible writing on the backs of them, weirdly cut pants, things like this are what you’re going to be wearing for the rest of your career. If you’ve got long hair, chop it off. And you can say adios to everything in your make-up bag. Except maybe some red lipstick. And of course, your eyeliner.
3. Learn To Play An Instrument
Seriously, you’re not in a boy band, learn to play something. If you’re female, drums or bass would be a great way of saying “I’m Glam Rock, don’t mess with me”. If you’re a guy, go for piano. I mean, let’s be real. With pants as tight as yours, you’re not going to be able to do any prancing around onstage.
4. Fall In Love
Half of all the hit songs on the radio are about love, and how can you write about something you don’t know? So fall in love, and whip up a few singles.
5. Get Dumped
And the other half is about getting your heart ripped out of your chest, thrown into the garbage disposal, and being dumped into a land fill. So please, go on a emotional rollercoaster of hurt and pain and wring a song out of your mangled heart!
6. Get Hired
Now that you’ve got the look and the lyrics, it’s time to move out of your parents’ basement and get a job.
Before you go for an interview, make sure you research the place. And just in case, tell someone where you’re going and when you should be back. Just in case.
And if one place doesn’t work out, don’t sweat it! Different record labels have different tastes, and someone somewhere HAS to like what you have to give, right?
7. Enjoy Your Fame
Go out and party (responsibly), fall in love again, and make your music. Live it up, but keep yourself grounded and remember the little people. And for goodness sake, DON’T RUN OUT OF EYELINER.
8. Have A Scandal That Ruins Your Career
To be a real star, you’ve got to fall. Get caught shop lifting from Dollar Tree, run over a dog and refuse to apologize, write a post on Twitter (a social networking site similar to Facebook) about how you can’t stand Dr. Phil or Oprah, just about anything will do.
Just get everyone to hate you, it’s not that hard.
9. Live The Rest Of Your Life In Shame And Anonymity
Now that you’ve ruined your career and are too scared to go out in public as yourself for the next ten years, it’s time to look over the choices you made in your life and doubt every single one of them.
And whatever you do, DON’T LOSE YOUR EYELINER.
* Second only to eyeliner, glitter is very important. Bathe in it if you have to, just make sure you’re covered with it. Every time you touch something, you should leave glitter on it. It’ll be your own personal calling card.
Glam Rock
Here in 2012, music isn’t really about the music, it’s about the image. If you don’t have the right hair style, the right clothes, the right everything, you’re not going to make it in the business. Fans expect you to be perfect yet relatable. They want to be entertained.
And I think it’s safe to say that we can thank Glam Rock (the brief seventies phenomena often mistaken for eighties hair metal) for all of this.
Glam Rock, for those of you who don’t know, is, as this man said, “crunchy guitar rock put across outrageous theatricality”.
To be classified as Glam Rock you had to be big, brash, obnoxiously loud, and (above all) a star. You had to be the first penguin to jump in to test the water so others could follow you, knowing they would be safe. You either went big, or you went home.
For most Glam Rockers, home was in the UK. Unsurprisingly, Glam Rock never caught on in close-minded America.
Glam Rock relied heavily on aesthetics, and allowed people to do things previously unthinkable, not only in music, but also in society. Women were playing Bass guitar and wearing leather and men were wearing platform heels and make-up. People were starting to play around with gender roles, and they were having fun doing it.
If you ask someone what artist they think of when you say “Glam Rock”, the most common answers you’ll get are “Huh?” and “What?”, but every once in a while you’ll get a “Um, Bowie?”
But there’s a lot more than that. There’s Queen, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Queen, Suzi Quatro (one of the rare female Glam Rockers), Rocky Music, the New York Dolls (an even rarer American Glam Rock band), the Sweet, and even Lou Reed. Even now there’s a few newer Glam Rock bands, hidden behind pop and rap artists, like Cinema Bizarre and Foxy Shazam.
Foxy Shazam is a modern day Glam Rock band. The clothes (and facial hair) is ridiculously strange boarding on cool, just like the members names. The line up includes lead singer Eric Nally, guitarist Loren Turner, pianist Sky White, bassist Daisy Caplan, drummer Aaron McVeigh, and trumpeter Alex Nauth. Nally says the band name came from a slang term for cool at his high school. About their music, it has been said that “Foxy rocks with the inventiveness of Modest Mouse, the epic nature of Queen, the chaos of Blood Brothers, and the soul of Reverend Al Green.”.
One of the main reasons female Glam Rockers are and were so unusual is because rock was already being feminized by men in drag, so real women weren’t needed. So the few that got into the Glam business often did the opposite, wearing leather and playing bass guitar. Suzi Quatro (born Susan Kay Quatrocchio) was one of these women. She dropped out of school at fourteen to become a Go-Go dancer, but instead joined a band called Cradle with her sisters. They never got signed, but Quatro went on with her solo career and became very popular in Great Britain. At one point in time, she even played a character based on herself in the T.V. series Happy Days.
Paul Francis Gadd, known as Gary Glitter after the beginning of his debut in music, was credited with blending together Glam Rock and Rock n’ Roll to create what we think of Glam Rock as now days. Focusing on the music itself, Glitter did pretty well for himself. Over his career, he had twenty one hit singles in the UK. Unfortunately, we can’t ignore the fact that the man had some serious problems. By the time he retired, he owed over £180,000. In 1999 he went to jail for a short while and earned the title “classified sex offender”, and he was arrested again in Vietnam in 2005 for molesting two under aged girls. When asked about it when he was first arrested, the only thing he would say is “I haven't done anything. I'm innocent. It's a conspiracy.” Needless to say, he doesn’t get out much any more.
On Long Island in 1942, Lou Reed was born. After six years of being in Velvet Underground (a band that was “more than just an alternative to the prevailing 1960‘s culture of hippies and flower power, the Velvet Underground was a band with a artistic and political vision beyond the realms of popular music”#), Reed started his solo career, and is continuing to make music to this day. Most notably, his last CD was a collaboration with the band Metallica, which wasn’t as great of a success as nobody thought it would be. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, because it was “still preferable to the Cookie Monster vomit that passes for…metal records”.
And last but certainly not least, David Bowie. Born David Jones in Brixton in 1947, Bowie listened to Jazz as a child and learned to play the saxophone. When The Monkee’s got popular, Bowie changed his last name so he wouldn’t be mistaken as Davy Jones. Once when an interviewer asked him what he was planning to do next (he had already stared in movies and his music was becoming more and more popular everyday), he replied saying, “I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.” Bowie had many odd things about him, but the most noticeable was his different colored eyes. According to Bowie, when he was in school he got into a fight with his friend George Underwood over a girl they both liked, and he got punched in the eye. After several surgeries, his sight was restored completely, but one eye stays open and cannot be closed.
The music of Glam Rock originated from a mix of Rock n’ Roll, Folk Music, and Psychedelic Rock. Common instruments include drums, piano/keyboard, guitar, and bass, similar to any other type of music. Synthesizers are also frequently used.
Most lyrics from a genre convey the same kind of message, such as in Rap (where artists tell you it’s alright to do drugs and drink) and even Country (where singers tell you whiskey is the answer to everything from heartbreak to bank troubles), and Glam Rock is no exception.
In this line from Sweet Jane by Velvet Underground, “Jack is in his corset and Jane is in her vest, and me I’m in a Rock n’ Roll band”, the normal gender association with clothes is reversed, with a man in a corset and a woman in a vest. And of course, the man in a Rock n’ Roll band.
“And Wendy’s stealing clothes from marks and sparks, and Freddie’s got spots from ripping off the stars from his face” from Mott the Hoople’s song All The Young Dudes, is reminiscent of Lewis Carol in how it sounds very important and urgent, even though it’s a bunch of nonsense.
The lyric “I’m here for your love and I’ll make my stand, we were born to be
princes of the universe” by Queen from their song Princes of the Universe, tells that the narrator doesn’t care what anyone else says, he’s going to love who he wants and everyone else can just get over it.
And this last example, “You’d be my air supply if we lived on Mars, we’d put some Bowie on and admire the stars” from I’m In Love With a Boy by Foxy Shazam is similar to the Queen song, conveying the thought that love is what you need, not the approval of others.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Speech About Optimism
For this assignment, we were forced (most against our will), to write a speech on how optimism can help us reach our goals and overcome obstacles. Personally, I don’t believe that optimism is any more important than say, hard work and morals, but my own opinion need not color my writing.
In the tenth edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, optimism is defined as “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcomes”.
And even though Oscar Wilde once said, “Quotation is serviceable substitute for wit.”, I decided to ask two students what they thought optimism was and how it effected the outcomes of their tribulations. I found myself with two very different answers. The first (from a somewhat incompetent seventh grader), was, “It means a learning disability, people are born with it, they can’t help it”. I don’t think she had a clue what we were talking about, but I decided to humor her and keep the answer. The second, from a bright eighth grader, said “I honestly hate optimism. It just creates disappointment if things don’t work out”.
When I asked the young lady to elaborate further, she said “I find optimism to be depressing. Watching people put on a smile and believe everything will work out and then have their world crash around them? We should be more realistic. Odds are, things won’t work out and we’ll live miserably. Why lie to ourselves and be even more disappointed?”
Now, I don’t believe that optimism is always a good thing, but neither do I think that being a pessimist is the way to go. I agree with a statement made by Gil Stern, “Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” Think of it this way. There’s a big test coming up soon. One student, (an optimist), says “Well golly gee, I’m sure I’ll pass this test because life is filled with rainbows and puppies!” A second student, (a pessimist), tells everyone “I’m going to fail this test because life is unfair and full of storm clouds and spiders.” The third, who just happens to be a realist, says “I’m going to go home and study, so I’ll have a better chance at passing.”
Now, who do you think will most likely pass this hypothetical test? If you said anyone besides the realist, then you’re wrong.
To put these character traits into a new light, lets personify them.
For an optimist, lets think of a goody-two-shoes kind of character. They’re always telling you to look on the bright side of life and goes around quoting every happy thing they hear.
As for a pessimist, lets draw a bit from every gloomy fellow you’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. Sloop shouldered, tired of the idea of happiness, and ready to share with you all of their woebegone memories and wretchedly learned lessons.
For a realist, think of a lesser version of Sherlock Holmes. A good head on their shoulders without the business of downcast thoughts or jubilant notions.
As for obstacles, you should be stable enough to trust yourself to overcome them, and not have to lean on optimism as a crutch. Optimism isn’t going to help you on that test unless you study for it, and the same goes for life. If thinking nice thoughts makes you feel better about yourself, then go for it! But if it just serves as a distraction to things important to you, feel free to leave it in the dust and catapult your own self forward. You shouldn’t feel the need to strive for an earthly Nirvana, but neither should you settle for anything less then what you’re capable of.
In short, by being absolutely set on the idea that everything will go badly seems like a pretty miserable way to live, but staying happy all the time kind of sounds like a drag as well. But by taking the time to focus on things you can change or could do in order to improve your life, you’re more likely to achieve an agreeable outcome.
In the tenth edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, optimism is defined as “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcomes”.
And even though Oscar Wilde once said, “Quotation is serviceable substitute for wit.”, I decided to ask two students what they thought optimism was and how it effected the outcomes of their tribulations. I found myself with two very different answers. The first (from a somewhat incompetent seventh grader), was, “It means a learning disability, people are born with it, they can’t help it”. I don’t think she had a clue what we were talking about, but I decided to humor her and keep the answer. The second, from a bright eighth grader, said “I honestly hate optimism. It just creates disappointment if things don’t work out”.
When I asked the young lady to elaborate further, she said “I find optimism to be depressing. Watching people put on a smile and believe everything will work out and then have their world crash around them? We should be more realistic. Odds are, things won’t work out and we’ll live miserably. Why lie to ourselves and be even more disappointed?”
Now, I don’t believe that optimism is always a good thing, but neither do I think that being a pessimist is the way to go. I agree with a statement made by Gil Stern, “Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” Think of it this way. There’s a big test coming up soon. One student, (an optimist), says “Well golly gee, I’m sure I’ll pass this test because life is filled with rainbows and puppies!” A second student, (a pessimist), tells everyone “I’m going to fail this test because life is unfair and full of storm clouds and spiders.” The third, who just happens to be a realist, says “I’m going to go home and study, so I’ll have a better chance at passing.”
Now, who do you think will most likely pass this hypothetical test? If you said anyone besides the realist, then you’re wrong.
To put these character traits into a new light, lets personify them.
For an optimist, lets think of a goody-two-shoes kind of character. They’re always telling you to look on the bright side of life and goes around quoting every happy thing they hear.
As for a pessimist, lets draw a bit from every gloomy fellow you’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. Sloop shouldered, tired of the idea of happiness, and ready to share with you all of their woebegone memories and wretchedly learned lessons.
For a realist, think of a lesser version of Sherlock Holmes. A good head on their shoulders without the business of downcast thoughts or jubilant notions.
As for obstacles, you should be stable enough to trust yourself to overcome them, and not have to lean on optimism as a crutch. Optimism isn’t going to help you on that test unless you study for it, and the same goes for life. If thinking nice thoughts makes you feel better about yourself, then go for it! But if it just serves as a distraction to things important to you, feel free to leave it in the dust and catapult your own self forward. You shouldn’t feel the need to strive for an earthly Nirvana, but neither should you settle for anything less then what you’re capable of.
In short, by being absolutely set on the idea that everything will go badly seems like a pretty miserable way to live, but staying happy all the time kind of sounds like a drag as well. But by taking the time to focus on things you can change or could do in order to improve your life, you’re more likely to achieve an agreeable outcome.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Macbeth: A Book Report
For my book report, I read The Tragedy Of Macbeth (Originally published as, The Tragedie Of Macbeth), by William Shakespeare. The popular play has been adapted for television, movies, graphic novels, comic books, and even an opera, and is Shakespeare’s shortest known “tragedie”.
One of the notable traits of Macbeth (besides being written by the most famous writer of the 17th century), is the stage superstition surrounding it. Unless the name Macbeth is in one of your lines, it’s considered bad luck to say it. People believe that when Shakespeare wrote the play (some where in between the years 1603 and 1607), he used real witch spells in the text, and angered a clan of witches, causing them to curse the play. Because of the witches curse, if any one were to say Macbeth in a theatre, the entire production would be a failure, and harm would come to the leading actors. I’ve done a few plays, and as an actress, I can say I have experienced the “curse of the witches”. On opening night, a new comer to the theatre thought we were trying to trick him, so he said Macbeth. When it was time for the curtains to open, one of them got stuck, and a light fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing our leading lady.
Now, I’m not saying that it was the witches doing, but I do know that I’m not going to tempt fate by saying anything else on the subject.
Now, enough about superstitions, let’s get on with the book report!
In the beginning of “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, the current king of Scotland, King Duncan, is coming back from a battle with his two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, and Lennox, a close friend of the King. They meet a wounded Captain, who tells the King that his cousin, Macbeth, Thane (modern day equivalent of a Count) of Glamis, killed the rebel leader Macdonwald. King Duncan is impressed, and decides to execute the current Thane of Cawdor for betraying him, and give the title to Macbeth.
In the next scene, Macbeth is walking with his friend Banquo, and they come upon three witches. The “weird sisters” greet him, calling him Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King of Scotland. Then, they tell Banquo, that he won’t be a king, but his ancestors will. Soon after the witches disappear, two of the kings noblemen, Angus and Ross, come along and tell Macbeth that he was just announced Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth and Banquo are both shocked, and start to wonder if maybe the witches were real, and they hadn’t accidentally “eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner”.
This is the first time that Macbeth thinks of murdering King Duncan in order to fulfill the rest of the prophecy, but certainly not the last.
When they get back to the kingdom, Macbeth invites the King to his home. He agrees, and the plot switches to Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife. She’s reading a letter that he sent, telling her all about the current events, and instead of being satisfied with this new advancement, Lady Macbeth (an extremely ambitious woman) begins to dream of what her life would be like if Macbeth became King, like the Weird Sisters said.
Soon after, a servant comes to tell her that Macbeth is returning, and that King Duncan will be their guest later that night. Not to long after she is told, Macbeth returns. She can tell as soon as she sees his face that he is troubled with the witches foretelling, and she tells him not to worry, just act like a gracious host, and they’ll figure out what to do after the banquet.
During the celebrations, Macbeth leaves the table to ponder the issue at hand by himself. He thinks aloud, and confesses that if it wasn’t for worldly punishments, he would have no qualms about killing the King. He also says that, “we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plaque th’ inventor”. Meaning, if he could murder someone for their title, who’s to say that the same thing wouldn’t happen to him if he became king?
He has finally talked himself out of killing King Duncan, when Lady Macbeth returns. When he tells her his decision, she bullies him into changing his mind, insulting his manhood and calling him a coward, and telling him that if she promised him to kill their first born child, that she would have “dashed the brains out, had I so sworn”.
He attempts to change her mind one last time, asking her what will happen if they fail, and she nearly laughs at him, and tells him that they’ll blame it on the servants. He tells her, “bring forth men-children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males”, (saying that her stubbornness and courage would be good traits in male children), and agrees to kill the King and claim the throne.
On his way to the King’s bedroom, he runs into Banquo and a servant. Banquo attempts to engage him in conversation, but Macbeth avoids it without to much suspicion, and as he leaves, sends off the servant as well.
He hallucinates a bloodied dagger as he waits for the coast to clear, but goes on to do what his wife told him to do.
When the deed is done, he comes back to Lady Macbeth, distraught. Instead of dropping the daggers at the beds of the servants like planned, he brought them with him back to their rooms. When the Lady tells him to go back, he refuses, and she goes in his place to plant the evidence.
The next day, Macduff (Thane of Fife) and Lennox (one of King Duncan’s friends), come to Macbeth, and tell him that the King requested he be woken earlier than usually, as to get a head start on the way back to his kingdom. Macduff volunteer’s to wake him up, and he leaves Macbeth and Lennox to make small talk.
He comes back upset, shouting, “O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!”
Macbeth, of course, already knows what’s going on, but acts as confused as Lennox for the sake of his supposed innocence.
The word gets around, and Lady Macbeth plays the part of the swooning Scarlett O’Hara while everyone is thrown into a frenzy.
The guards are found covered in Duncan’s blood, and Macbeth kills them before they can protest their innocence, saying, “Oh, yet I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them.”, so that people will see it as a crime of passion.
Malcolm and Donalbain both fear for their lives, and so they flee the country. Malcolm goes to England, and Donalbain to Ireland.
Since they’ve left so suddenly, they become the prime suspects in the case. People are beginning to think that the two paid the guards to kill their father, so they could get to the crown faster.
So, by default, Macbeth became King.
Banquo is suspicious, saying to himself, “I fear thou played’st most foully for ’t”, and Macbeth remembers what the Weird Sister’s said about his friend’s ancestors.
His wife remembers too, and as we have already found out, she has no problem killing the people that stand in her way.
They find out that Banquo is leaving, along with his son Fleance, later that night, and Macbeth enlists two murderer’s to help him get rid of his former friend turned foe and his son.
Later, when they ride out, they’re attacked by the now three (Macbeth sent another felon to help) murderers, and before they can get to Banquo’s son, he calls out, “O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou may’st revenge- O slave!”. Fleance must have heard him, because after Banquo is killed, one of the murderers says, “There’s but one down. The son is fled.”.
The same night, there is to be yet another feast, this one to celebrate the new king. Macbeth, now King Macbeth, stands to give the guest a speech, but finds all the seats full when he goes to sit down. He tells Lennox that the tables full, but Lennox is puzzled, and says, “Here is a place reserved, sir.”, pointing to a taken seat.
Macbeth realizes that the seat is taken not by a human, but the ghost of Banquo. He goes off on it, and the dinner party is alarmed. Lady Macbeth calms them by telling them that Macbeth often has fits like that, and that the convulsions would pass in a minute if they just ignored him.
He eventually finds his sanity again, and apologizes to his visitors, but before the celebrations can go on as planned, the ghost shows up again.
This time, Lady Macbeth can’t talk the guests into waiting his “fit” out, and they leave.
Macbeth tells his lady that he’s only tired, and they go to sleep, unaware of the fact that the Weird Sisters are meeting again, which can’t bode well for the newly crowned King.
While Lennox is talking with another man, we find out that Macduff is planning to join forces with some other countries, and overthrow Macbeth, which Lennox replies, “a swift blessing may soon return to this our suffering country under a hand accursed!”
Not terribly long after that, the Weird Sisters visit Macbeth again, and tell him three things. The first, is “Beware Macduff”. The second is, “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”. The last, is “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him”.
After the witches have left him, Macbeth hears that Macduff has run off to England, and he plans to murder Macduff’s wife and sons, as to distract him from his plan of dethroning Macbeth.
The three murderers that Macbeth had hired to kill Banquo are hired again, this time to take care of Macduff’s wife and son.
Ross (a Thane), is sent as a messenger to England, and has to tell Macduff that Macbeth has had his family killed. Malcolm is with him when Ross tells him, and he comforts him, then says, “Come, go we to the king. Our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave”.
Around this time, Macbeth has left to get ready for war because he hears what Macduff is planning, and Lady Macbeth starts sleep walking. During Shakespearean times, sleep walking was considered supernatural, and they thought that it was the beginning signs of madness.
By now, most of Macbeth’s once faithful allies have joined Macduff in his quest to name Malcolm King of Scotland, but Macbeth is unworried, because of the three things the Weird Sisters told him.
By then, Macduff’s army had a lot more soldier’s than Macbeth would have expected, and Macduff says, “let every soldier hew him down a bough and bear’t before him”. It just happens that those trees were in Birnam Wood, and that the battle was to be on Dunsinane Hill.
As Macbeth and his half-hearted army stood in position, waiting for an attack, Macbeth hears a noise and says, “Wherefore was that cry?”. His only friend left, Seyton, replies with, “The queen, my lord, is dead.”. It shows how much recent events have changed Macbeth, because he doesn’t even lament the fact that his beloved wife is dead.
He’s more preoccupied with the fact that the Great Birnam Wood is moving.
Still, Macbeth is sure that no man alive can kill him, and allows Macduff to enter his castle, and fight him like a man.
When Macduff comes face to face with Macbeth, he asks him if he’s afraid. Macbeth tells him what the Weird Sisters told him, and Macduff laughs and says, “let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”, or in other words, his mother had what would have been called a Caesarean Section, more commonly known as a C-Section. Which means, he technically wasn’t “of woman born”.
This admission frightens away Macbeth’s courage, and not long after the fighting commences, Macduff returns to his allies with Macbeth’s head, saying, “Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head”.
At this point, the play ends, with Malcolm becoming the King of Scotland, and saying to all of “my Thanes and kinsmen, henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland in such an honor name”, and told the remaining inhabitants that they would need to all work together to bring back the exiled citizens that “this dead butcher and his fiendlike Queen, who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands took off her life” had run off.
I really liked this book, and while reading it, I not only got to enjoy a wonderful piece of literature, but I also learned a lot about the language and theatre in Shakespearian times.
For example, in his life time, you addressed someone underneath you in rank with either thee, thou, or thy, and someone above you as you, ye, or your. That’s why, in Hamlet, Ophelia (the Chamberlain’s daughter) is told by Prince Hamlet “Get thee to a nunnery!”, instead of “Get ye to a nunnery!”.
And, the reason why there weren’t many female characters in any of the plays at the time, is because women weren’t allowed to act, and all female parts had to be played by young boys, and there weren’t that many young men in the acting profession.
The only thing I can find to complain about, is Banquo. The witches said that his ancestor’s would have the crown, but it was Malcolm who had the throne in the end. But when I read up on the subject a little bit, I found out that when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, he had just recently been hired to be the King’s playwright. James I was of Scottish descent, and Macbeth was Shakespeare’s way of flattering the King’s heritage. James I family also claimed to be related to the historical Banquo, so Shakespeare added that into the story as well, just to pander to the King’s will.
One of the notable traits of Macbeth (besides being written by the most famous writer of the 17th century), is the stage superstition surrounding it. Unless the name Macbeth is in one of your lines, it’s considered bad luck to say it. People believe that when Shakespeare wrote the play (some where in between the years 1603 and 1607), he used real witch spells in the text, and angered a clan of witches, causing them to curse the play. Because of the witches curse, if any one were to say Macbeth in a theatre, the entire production would be a failure, and harm would come to the leading actors. I’ve done a few plays, and as an actress, I can say I have experienced the “curse of the witches”. On opening night, a new comer to the theatre thought we were trying to trick him, so he said Macbeth. When it was time for the curtains to open, one of them got stuck, and a light fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing our leading lady.
Now, I’m not saying that it was the witches doing, but I do know that I’m not going to tempt fate by saying anything else on the subject.
Now, enough about superstitions, let’s get on with the book report!
In the beginning of “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, the current king of Scotland, King Duncan, is coming back from a battle with his two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, and Lennox, a close friend of the King. They meet a wounded Captain, who tells the King that his cousin, Macbeth, Thane (modern day equivalent of a Count) of Glamis, killed the rebel leader Macdonwald. King Duncan is impressed, and decides to execute the current Thane of Cawdor for betraying him, and give the title to Macbeth.
In the next scene, Macbeth is walking with his friend Banquo, and they come upon three witches. The “weird sisters” greet him, calling him Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King of Scotland. Then, they tell Banquo, that he won’t be a king, but his ancestors will. Soon after the witches disappear, two of the kings noblemen, Angus and Ross, come along and tell Macbeth that he was just announced Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth and Banquo are both shocked, and start to wonder if maybe the witches were real, and they hadn’t accidentally “eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner”.
This is the first time that Macbeth thinks of murdering King Duncan in order to fulfill the rest of the prophecy, but certainly not the last.
When they get back to the kingdom, Macbeth invites the King to his home. He agrees, and the plot switches to Lady Macbeth, Macbeth’s wife. She’s reading a letter that he sent, telling her all about the current events, and instead of being satisfied with this new advancement, Lady Macbeth (an extremely ambitious woman) begins to dream of what her life would be like if Macbeth became King, like the Weird Sisters said.
Soon after, a servant comes to tell her that Macbeth is returning, and that King Duncan will be their guest later that night. Not to long after she is told, Macbeth returns. She can tell as soon as she sees his face that he is troubled with the witches foretelling, and she tells him not to worry, just act like a gracious host, and they’ll figure out what to do after the banquet.
During the celebrations, Macbeth leaves the table to ponder the issue at hand by himself. He thinks aloud, and confesses that if it wasn’t for worldly punishments, he would have no qualms about killing the King. He also says that, “we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plaque th’ inventor”. Meaning, if he could murder someone for their title, who’s to say that the same thing wouldn’t happen to him if he became king?
He has finally talked himself out of killing King Duncan, when Lady Macbeth returns. When he tells her his decision, she bullies him into changing his mind, insulting his manhood and calling him a coward, and telling him that if she promised him to kill their first born child, that she would have “dashed the brains out, had I so sworn”.
He attempts to change her mind one last time, asking her what will happen if they fail, and she nearly laughs at him, and tells him that they’ll blame it on the servants. He tells her, “bring forth men-children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males”, (saying that her stubbornness and courage would be good traits in male children), and agrees to kill the King and claim the throne.
On his way to the King’s bedroom, he runs into Banquo and a servant. Banquo attempts to engage him in conversation, but Macbeth avoids it without to much suspicion, and as he leaves, sends off the servant as well.
He hallucinates a bloodied dagger as he waits for the coast to clear, but goes on to do what his wife told him to do.
When the deed is done, he comes back to Lady Macbeth, distraught. Instead of dropping the daggers at the beds of the servants like planned, he brought them with him back to their rooms. When the Lady tells him to go back, he refuses, and she goes in his place to plant the evidence.
The next day, Macduff (Thane of Fife) and Lennox (one of King Duncan’s friends), come to Macbeth, and tell him that the King requested he be woken earlier than usually, as to get a head start on the way back to his kingdom. Macduff volunteer’s to wake him up, and he leaves Macbeth and Lennox to make small talk.
He comes back upset, shouting, “O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!”
Macbeth, of course, already knows what’s going on, but acts as confused as Lennox for the sake of his supposed innocence.
The word gets around, and Lady Macbeth plays the part of the swooning Scarlett O’Hara while everyone is thrown into a frenzy.
The guards are found covered in Duncan’s blood, and Macbeth kills them before they can protest their innocence, saying, “Oh, yet I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them.”, so that people will see it as a crime of passion.
Malcolm and Donalbain both fear for their lives, and so they flee the country. Malcolm goes to England, and Donalbain to Ireland.
Since they’ve left so suddenly, they become the prime suspects in the case. People are beginning to think that the two paid the guards to kill their father, so they could get to the crown faster.
So, by default, Macbeth became King.
Banquo is suspicious, saying to himself, “I fear thou played’st most foully for ’t”, and Macbeth remembers what the Weird Sister’s said about his friend’s ancestors.
His wife remembers too, and as we have already found out, she has no problem killing the people that stand in her way.
They find out that Banquo is leaving, along with his son Fleance, later that night, and Macbeth enlists two murderer’s to help him get rid of his former friend turned foe and his son.
Later, when they ride out, they’re attacked by the now three (Macbeth sent another felon to help) murderers, and before they can get to Banquo’s son, he calls out, “O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou may’st revenge- O slave!”. Fleance must have heard him, because after Banquo is killed, one of the murderers says, “There’s but one down. The son is fled.”.
The same night, there is to be yet another feast, this one to celebrate the new king. Macbeth, now King Macbeth, stands to give the guest a speech, but finds all the seats full when he goes to sit down. He tells Lennox that the tables full, but Lennox is puzzled, and says, “Here is a place reserved, sir.”, pointing to a taken seat.
Macbeth realizes that the seat is taken not by a human, but the ghost of Banquo. He goes off on it, and the dinner party is alarmed. Lady Macbeth calms them by telling them that Macbeth often has fits like that, and that the convulsions would pass in a minute if they just ignored him.
He eventually finds his sanity again, and apologizes to his visitors, but before the celebrations can go on as planned, the ghost shows up again.
This time, Lady Macbeth can’t talk the guests into waiting his “fit” out, and they leave.
Macbeth tells his lady that he’s only tired, and they go to sleep, unaware of the fact that the Weird Sisters are meeting again, which can’t bode well for the newly crowned King.
While Lennox is talking with another man, we find out that Macduff is planning to join forces with some other countries, and overthrow Macbeth, which Lennox replies, “a swift blessing may soon return to this our suffering country under a hand accursed!”
Not terribly long after that, the Weird Sisters visit Macbeth again, and tell him three things. The first, is “Beware Macduff”. The second is, “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”. The last, is “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him”.
After the witches have left him, Macbeth hears that Macduff has run off to England, and he plans to murder Macduff’s wife and sons, as to distract him from his plan of dethroning Macbeth.
The three murderers that Macbeth had hired to kill Banquo are hired again, this time to take care of Macduff’s wife and son.
Ross (a Thane), is sent as a messenger to England, and has to tell Macduff that Macbeth has had his family killed. Malcolm is with him when Ross tells him, and he comforts him, then says, “Come, go we to the king. Our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave”.
Around this time, Macbeth has left to get ready for war because he hears what Macduff is planning, and Lady Macbeth starts sleep walking. During Shakespearean times, sleep walking was considered supernatural, and they thought that it was the beginning signs of madness.
By now, most of Macbeth’s once faithful allies have joined Macduff in his quest to name Malcolm King of Scotland, but Macbeth is unworried, because of the three things the Weird Sisters told him.
By then, Macduff’s army had a lot more soldier’s than Macbeth would have expected, and Macduff says, “let every soldier hew him down a bough and bear’t before him”. It just happens that those trees were in Birnam Wood, and that the battle was to be on Dunsinane Hill.
As Macbeth and his half-hearted army stood in position, waiting for an attack, Macbeth hears a noise and says, “Wherefore was that cry?”. His only friend left, Seyton, replies with, “The queen, my lord, is dead.”. It shows how much recent events have changed Macbeth, because he doesn’t even lament the fact that his beloved wife is dead.
He’s more preoccupied with the fact that the Great Birnam Wood is moving.
Still, Macbeth is sure that no man alive can kill him, and allows Macduff to enter his castle, and fight him like a man.
When Macduff comes face to face with Macbeth, he asks him if he’s afraid. Macbeth tells him what the Weird Sisters told him, and Macduff laughs and says, “let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”, or in other words, his mother had what would have been called a Caesarean Section, more commonly known as a C-Section. Which means, he technically wasn’t “of woman born”.
This admission frightens away Macbeth’s courage, and not long after the fighting commences, Macduff returns to his allies with Macbeth’s head, saying, “Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head”.
At this point, the play ends, with Malcolm becoming the King of Scotland, and saying to all of “my Thanes and kinsmen, henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland in such an honor name”, and told the remaining inhabitants that they would need to all work together to bring back the exiled citizens that “this dead butcher and his fiendlike Queen, who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands took off her life” had run off.
I really liked this book, and while reading it, I not only got to enjoy a wonderful piece of literature, but I also learned a lot about the language and theatre in Shakespearian times.
For example, in his life time, you addressed someone underneath you in rank with either thee, thou, or thy, and someone above you as you, ye, or your. That’s why, in Hamlet, Ophelia (the Chamberlain’s daughter) is told by Prince Hamlet “Get thee to a nunnery!”, instead of “Get ye to a nunnery!”.
And, the reason why there weren’t many female characters in any of the plays at the time, is because women weren’t allowed to act, and all female parts had to be played by young boys, and there weren’t that many young men in the acting profession.
The only thing I can find to complain about, is Banquo. The witches said that his ancestor’s would have the crown, but it was Malcolm who had the throne in the end. But when I read up on the subject a little bit, I found out that when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, he had just recently been hired to be the King’s playwright. James I was of Scottish descent, and Macbeth was Shakespeare’s way of flattering the King’s heritage. James I family also claimed to be related to the historical Banquo, so Shakespeare added that into the story as well, just to pander to the King’s will.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Almighty Spork
Half (sp)oon, half f(ork), this utensil is the most handy one you could own. It's like the Duct Tape of Silverware. Every once in a while, I think of the wonderful Canadians who made the modern spork, Hubert Gagnon and Aldo Balatti. They patented the modern version in 1996, but the idea had been around for a long time, and was even mentioned in Edward's Lear "The Owl And The Pussycat", published in 1871, as you can see below.
"They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;"
Runcible Spoon is what the Spork was first referred to.
Gagnon and Balatti's version of the spork looked this, and what most of us are used to seeing
http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/A/_/spork.jpg
Another version, patented by George Laramy of New Hampshire in 1907, looks more like a fork with a spoon glued on the front of it, to me anyway.
http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/B/_/spork2.jpg
The other version I found, was created by Albert Mcneill in 1949. This Philadelphian spork looks very much like a regular fork, except for the fact that the part below the tines is curved, like a spoon.
http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/C/_/spork3.jpg
There's just one more thing left to say, and it's this.
When will the knoof, (knife, spoon, fork), be created?
Source- http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventors/ss/spork.htm
"They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;"
Runcible Spoon is what the Spork was first referred to.
Gagnon and Balatti's version of the spork looked this, and what most of us are used to seeing
http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/A/_/spork.jpg
Another version, patented by George Laramy of New Hampshire in 1907, looks more like a fork with a spoon glued on the front of it, to me anyway.
http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/B/_/spork2.jpg
The other version I found, was created by Albert Mcneill in 1949. This Philadelphian spork looks very much like a regular fork, except for the fact that the part below the tines is curved, like a spoon.
http://0.tqn.com/d/inventors/1/0/C/_/spork3.jpg
There's just one more thing left to say, and it's this.
When will the knoof, (knife, spoon, fork), be created?
Source- http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventors/ss/spork.htm
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