(I just watched Big Fish again. It made me want to write this one a bit differently.)
“The thing you have to know about ostriches, if you so choose to mingle with them, is they aren’t very well socialized. In fact, they are hands down some of the most impolite creatures you might ever have the pleasure to meet. An ostrich will as soon chow down on your pinky fingers, and your ring fingers, too, as it will take the grass out of your hand. They don’t care at all if it offends you.
Now, if they had thought things through a bit more, they might realize that they should take care, lest they cut off their own supplies. Poor penned in creatures they are, there’s little they can do to gain access to the grasses on just the other side of the fence. Silly old humans are more than happy to help them out, but it’s most discouraging when you offer charity, and get rewarded with a bloody fingernail. But you can hardly blame ‘em, can you? If I were 300 pounds big and it was all concentrated round my stomach, I might get a little peckish myself.
One more reason why it’s a very rare ostrich that gets elected prom queen or king: They never take showers. Or baths. And it’s not too often that they hang a nice pine tree air freshener around their necks. What I’m trying to say, in so many words, is that they have a smell to match their eating technique. It’s not friendly.
But if you can overlook the pecking, and try to hold your nose, you’ll find their company rewarding. What you’ll find, when you look past that exterior, is a creature most curious about its distant cousins, the humans. They’ll size you up, they’ll let you in close with nary a bite done in anger, and, if you’re lucky, they might even show you some of their dance moves. If you look right here, you’ll see a rather silly looking performance (not the performance, I was privy to, I’m afraid, but it’s on the way, just you wait), but please try not to laugh at the poor gent.
That’s all he’s got to impress the ladies. And in fact, I have it on good authority that they go nuts for it. If you were an ostrich hen, that little video would give you the vapors.
With that in mind, it might even be seen as a bit risque to be parading himself around in front of citizens of another species, but who am I to criticize? A man has got to strut his stuff sometimes. And truth be told, I think my companions and I were rather flattered to receive such attention. One thing this poor videographer wasn’t lucky enough to capture was a rather distinctive sort of call that preceded that bumpin’ and the shakin’ that our party was witness to. Before he got up to get down, our friend the ostrich let us all know that he had something special for us by announching, loud as he could “WOO. WOO. WOOOOOO!!”
Well, now that got our attention. From that moment on we’d all learned a new phrase, and those are always useful to pick up when traveling in a foreign country, regardless of the language. We must’ve whooped and hollered in the fashion of that footloose ostrich no less than thirty-five times over the next hours. And everywhere we went, that call worked just as well for us as it did for Mister Ostrich. People’s heads turned and they looked up from what they were doing and they were all wondering, “What on Earth is going on here?” And what would they see when they found the source, but a goodly sized group of foreigners, about 9 strong all letting out syncronized “WOO. WOO. WOOOOOOO!!”’s until their throats were dry.
But anyway, as I seem to have lost my train of thought here just a bit, let’s get back to the ostriches. I still haven’t told you the best part! You see, ostriches aren’t just for feeding, or for eating, or for dancing. Ostriches are also for RIDING. At least according to humans. Now, if you ask any ostrich, they’ll tell you it’s not true, and they aren’t for any such thing. But then you have to ask yourself just who’s providing the grass around here, and then there you go.
Riding an ostrich isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but if you ever get a chance to have a go at it, you should take it. The secret is in the leaning. You gotta lean back! Way back! If you don’t, you’ll slide on down that bird and end up nestled next to her neck and then no one is happy. Unless there are any onlookers. Truth be told, if I had seen that happen to one of my merry companions I would’ve been laughin’ and guffawin’ and not doing myself any favors. It was funny enough when poor Brent got his leg caught in the wing and couldn’t quite dismount. It was quite the show. But then he is a city slicker coming as he does from fancy Toronto, or thereabouts.
When all was said and done, though, it was a little bit sad for that ostrich. One lone bird had the full duty of scortin’ us all round its little track, and the girl was plainly tired as we were getting near the end. Think of it now. We were about half her size, so just imagine you had to piggy back ten fifty-pound dogs around your back yard, and they’re all making a bunch of noise, and when they’re done they line right back up for a second ride. You’d probably do what our friend the bird ended up doing, and just call it a day and take a seat right there on the ground. She’d had enough, thanks. Now, we could’ve been rude houseguests and started making demands and call her back to duty, but if you ask me, a certain respect for civil niceties is one of the defining differences dividing man and ostrich, and so we simply took that for our cue to get headin’.
So, that’s my yarn, and I hope you like the way it was spun. Have a good evening or morning, whichever it may be. If you aren’t quite sure, just look out the window."
-Randy
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Typically Awesome
Yesterday was a great big hike with delicious food and squishy mud capping the whole experience. Our tour group must have been about 40 strong, and we competed with cold winds and impenetrable mists to climb to the top of one of Korea’s most famous mountains. “Manisan” mountain is known to climbers throughout the country for its spectacular views. On clear days, the peak provides climbers with a panoramic view straight to the ocean. Its unique combination of rocky mountain hiking and ocean views makes it one of the most beloved areas in the country to see and enjoy nature.
But before going into any more detail about it, I’d just like to say that the most exciting thing about this whole expedition was that it was completely typical of daylong hiking trips in Korea. The winter is thawing at last, and the weather is finally warm enough to allow for frequent hiking. This hiking trip included a big group lunch with some interesting people, stops at several locations, a good climb and a visit to a very peaceful and beautiful Buddhist temple. In other words, it was completely normal in almost every way for a Korean hike. And yet it was very interesting, introduced me to several nice people, and cost barely anything (barely 20 bucks for a very full Saturday). With spring nearly here, good times are ahead. I can’t wait.
This particular group was organized by a Korean guy named Warren (that’s his English name, anyway). He’s been putting these hikes together for about 2 years. He’s warm and friendly, and endlessly energetic. Warren’s English is mediocre, but his enthusiasm and knowledgability make him the perfect man for the job. He’s kind enough to organize the hikes at cost—the group pays only what it cost Warren to book the buses and pay for the lunches. Everyone likes Warren. He’s a stand up guy.
The bus left Seoul at about 10 AM. We were westbound, headed for the coast, though we did have one stop along the way. We swung by a “dolmen” site. A dolmen is a stone structure in the shape of pi. Kind of like one of the parts of Stonehenge, but not quite so large. Ancient Koreans built quite a few of them it seems. Truth be told, the dolmen wasn’t too exciting but it was interesting to look at the diagrams explaining how they were constructed. You learn something new every day.
Soon after getting back on the bus, we arrived at the coast. Lunch came first. Fresh fish. Kimchi. Quail eggs. Tofu soup. Rice wine infused with ginseng. I ate with no regard to the hike ahead. When a meal is all you can eat, I eat ALL I can eat. If anyone asks me what I learned in college, I will say “the value of free food”.
We stumbled out of the restaurant and headed down to the beach. I should describe the weather at this point. It was fairly cold, quite windy, and completely overcast. Not exactly ideal beach weather. But then, this was no ordinary beach. The beach at Manisan is a “mud beach”. When the tide is out, a huge plateau of mud is left behind. For hundreds and hundreds of yards, there is wet muddy sand that sucks your feet two or three inches deep. It was, of course, very cold mud, but that was beside the point. When you see hundreds of yards of mud, you must walk on it (or in it). There is no choice.
Mark, Anthony, and I waded out a few hundred feet into the stuff, our feet growing numb, surrounded by endless gray and brown. The featureless terrain seemed to stretch on forever, but Anthony, up ahead, found the perfect stopping point. A single large stone, maybe 2 feet across and 6 inches high was resting all alone in the middle of nowhere. That was it. The stone’s job was to provide a destination for cold mud-waders. We stood on the rock in turns, then turned back to wash our feet thoroughly before getting back on the bus.
At last came the hike. Manisan is about 1500 feet high. We climbed it in about an hour and a half. So, let’s do the math. 90 minutes/1500 feet = 16.66… feet per minute. Shit, son! It was a truly invigorating hike. It was quick and just the right amount of strenuous. Big rocks were all over the place, and continuing upward often meant finding a way to all but leap up to the next spot. Find a place to put your hands and jump up on to the net big rock. The path zigzagged all over the place and the mountain mist was so close you couldn’t see past a fifty foot bubble, shrinking the world down to a small window of scraggly leafless trees, jagged stones and slopes and drops. Each patch of trail was a small test to pass, each test made of the same components, yet each completely different. It was physically demanding, but there was a constant sense of progress. I am putting a mountain beneath me, bit by bit.
Time disappeared, of course, but at some point the top came near. To our surprise, there were stairs near the top. These finished off the last burst of elevation and we reached the ridge. It was incredibly misty here. I mean, there was almost no visibility at all. And the wind was howling with incredible strength. Just standing upright seemed dangerous. The wind was strong enough to feel like it could push you down. There’s an additional 30 minutes of hiking here, along the ridge, but Warren made an executive decision for all of our safety and declared that we would be turning around. No one disagreed with his thinking. It would have been nice to keep going, but we had already reached the top, at least, and no one had gotten hurt. We’ll just have to save exploring the ridge for another day.
After descending, we visited the mountain’s temple. It was great in the way that temples are great. It’s not an experience subject to being put into words. I’ll just say I felt very good there, and enjoyed it very much.
That brought the tour to a close, and it was time to head back to Seoul. About 12 of us got dinner together at a typically excellent and inexpensive Korean restaurant, then Mark and Emma and I headed home to sleep. We’d set out together at 7:30 that morning and we got home at 10 that night. A full day’s adventuring hand built our appetites for rest.
So there it is. Pretty good stuff, eh? You can see why I’m excited for spring now. Soon that will be a routine Saturday. Hooray for warm weather!
Tune in next week, as I go ostrich riding. That’s right, OSTRICH RIDING.
I love you all,
Randy
But before going into any more detail about it, I’d just like to say that the most exciting thing about this whole expedition was that it was completely typical of daylong hiking trips in Korea. The winter is thawing at last, and the weather is finally warm enough to allow for frequent hiking. This hiking trip included a big group lunch with some interesting people, stops at several locations, a good climb and a visit to a very peaceful and beautiful Buddhist temple. In other words, it was completely normal in almost every way for a Korean hike. And yet it was very interesting, introduced me to several nice people, and cost barely anything (barely 20 bucks for a very full Saturday). With spring nearly here, good times are ahead. I can’t wait.
This particular group was organized by a Korean guy named Warren (that’s his English name, anyway). He’s been putting these hikes together for about 2 years. He’s warm and friendly, and endlessly energetic. Warren’s English is mediocre, but his enthusiasm and knowledgability make him the perfect man for the job. He’s kind enough to organize the hikes at cost—the group pays only what it cost Warren to book the buses and pay for the lunches. Everyone likes Warren. He’s a stand up guy.
The bus left Seoul at about 10 AM. We were westbound, headed for the coast, though we did have one stop along the way. We swung by a “dolmen” site. A dolmen is a stone structure in the shape of pi. Kind of like one of the parts of Stonehenge, but not quite so large. Ancient Koreans built quite a few of them it seems. Truth be told, the dolmen wasn’t too exciting but it was interesting to look at the diagrams explaining how they were constructed. You learn something new every day.
Soon after getting back on the bus, we arrived at the coast. Lunch came first. Fresh fish. Kimchi. Quail eggs. Tofu soup. Rice wine infused with ginseng. I ate with no regard to the hike ahead. When a meal is all you can eat, I eat ALL I can eat. If anyone asks me what I learned in college, I will say “the value of free food”.
We stumbled out of the restaurant and headed down to the beach. I should describe the weather at this point. It was fairly cold, quite windy, and completely overcast. Not exactly ideal beach weather. But then, this was no ordinary beach. The beach at Manisan is a “mud beach”. When the tide is out, a huge plateau of mud is left behind. For hundreds and hundreds of yards, there is wet muddy sand that sucks your feet two or three inches deep. It was, of course, very cold mud, but that was beside the point. When you see hundreds of yards of mud, you must walk on it (or in it). There is no choice.
Mark, Anthony, and I waded out a few hundred feet into the stuff, our feet growing numb, surrounded by endless gray and brown. The featureless terrain seemed to stretch on forever, but Anthony, up ahead, found the perfect stopping point. A single large stone, maybe 2 feet across and 6 inches high was resting all alone in the middle of nowhere. That was it. The stone’s job was to provide a destination for cold mud-waders. We stood on the rock in turns, then turned back to wash our feet thoroughly before getting back on the bus.
At last came the hike. Manisan is about 1500 feet high. We climbed it in about an hour and a half. So, let’s do the math. 90 minutes/1500 feet = 16.66… feet per minute. Shit, son! It was a truly invigorating hike. It was quick and just the right amount of strenuous. Big rocks were all over the place, and continuing upward often meant finding a way to all but leap up to the next spot. Find a place to put your hands and jump up on to the net big rock. The path zigzagged all over the place and the mountain mist was so close you couldn’t see past a fifty foot bubble, shrinking the world down to a small window of scraggly leafless trees, jagged stones and slopes and drops. Each patch of trail was a small test to pass, each test made of the same components, yet each completely different. It was physically demanding, but there was a constant sense of progress. I am putting a mountain beneath me, bit by bit.
Time disappeared, of course, but at some point the top came near. To our surprise, there were stairs near the top. These finished off the last burst of elevation and we reached the ridge. It was incredibly misty here. I mean, there was almost no visibility at all. And the wind was howling with incredible strength. Just standing upright seemed dangerous. The wind was strong enough to feel like it could push you down. There’s an additional 30 minutes of hiking here, along the ridge, but Warren made an executive decision for all of our safety and declared that we would be turning around. No one disagreed with his thinking. It would have been nice to keep going, but we had already reached the top, at least, and no one had gotten hurt. We’ll just have to save exploring the ridge for another day.
After descending, we visited the mountain’s temple. It was great in the way that temples are great. It’s not an experience subject to being put into words. I’ll just say I felt very good there, and enjoyed it very much.
That brought the tour to a close, and it was time to head back to Seoul. About 12 of us got dinner together at a typically excellent and inexpensive Korean restaurant, then Mark and Emma and I headed home to sleep. We’d set out together at 7:30 that morning and we got home at 10 that night. A full day’s adventuring hand built our appetites for rest.
So there it is. Pretty good stuff, eh? You can see why I’m excited for spring now. Soon that will be a routine Saturday. Hooray for warm weather!
Tune in next week, as I go ostrich riding. That’s right, OSTRICH RIDING.
I love you all,
Randy
Sunday, March 14, 2010
No runnin, yall kids
Well, It’s a new term and we’ve got some new students, so I’m putting more pressure on myself to be a better teacher. I’d probably be having more fun as a teacher if I lowered my standards a little. I met a girl yesterday who said she loves her job. Said that she lets the kids run around the classroom. Her supervisor asks her why they’re doing that, and she says “Because they’re kindergarteners.”
Good point. I agree, to be honest. Mandatory schooling is one of the many authoritarian aspects that comes with the territory in any society built around the pursuit of money (meaning, by this point in the 21st century, the entire world), and I wouldn’t mind seeing it get thrown out the window totally. But there are other things that would have to be eliminated first. Why are the kids learning English? To improve their future job prospects. Why do they need to be in their seats the whole day? It makes it easier for them to learn English and other subjects, and prepares them for the adult world. Now I might fundamentally disagree with the way that adult world is structured, but it’s still there whether I like it or not, so I might as well try to be a good teacher and impart as much knowledge as I can.
I don’t let the kids run around in class.
Not that I’m all serious. I try to get them to laugh a lot, and they usually do. It’s easy to make kids laugh.
In any case, the point is that many foreign teachers don’t really have any standard that they’re trying to live up to. They just want the kids to have a good time, and to have a good time themselves. That’s the way my predecessor Robert was. It’s pretty normal for foreign teachers. But not for me. I think a lot about my flaws as a teacher and what I can do to fix them. I’m a perfectionist at heart, and I have my mother’s guilt streak, and I just can’t relax if I know I could be doing a better job, and am not making the extra effort.
On that note, I just read an article in the New York Times about a guy named Doug Lemov who co-founded a string of mega-successful charter schools. He’s been going around the country interviewing and observing teachers with reputations for excellence and cataloguing their classroom techniques. He’s of the opinion that great teaching isn’t some uncodifiable magic, but rather that great teaching is the result of a lot of little things. Example:
The article goes on to explain in greater detail how Zimmerli accomplished this small feat of classroom management. Basically, he used two techniques. The first was extreme specificity in directions. “Get out your things” seems clear enough to many teachers, but it turns out to be far more effective to use more detailed and clear instructions like those offered by Zimmerli. Second, he provides the class with positive examples by singling out the students who have already followed his directions. That’s all you gotta do.
There are lot of little things like this that Lemov has collected, and he’s got a book coming out next month with descriptions of all of them. So I’m buying that. I’ve got high hopes for it. It sounds great because it’s going to be full of concrete steps I can immediately take to improve as a teacher. It's kind of part of a larger pattern for me lately of trying to learn to get better at all kinds of things. Drawing, writing, whatever. Someone leaving the country gave me his guitar and I've been practicing it an hour a day every day. It's great.
Anyhoo. That's it for now.
See y'all next week.
Love,
Randy
Good point. I agree, to be honest. Mandatory schooling is one of the many authoritarian aspects that comes with the territory in any society built around the pursuit of money (meaning, by this point in the 21st century, the entire world), and I wouldn’t mind seeing it get thrown out the window totally. But there are other things that would have to be eliminated first. Why are the kids learning English? To improve their future job prospects. Why do they need to be in their seats the whole day? It makes it easier for them to learn English and other subjects, and prepares them for the adult world. Now I might fundamentally disagree with the way that adult world is structured, but it’s still there whether I like it or not, so I might as well try to be a good teacher and impart as much knowledge as I can.
I don’t let the kids run around in class.
Not that I’m all serious. I try to get them to laugh a lot, and they usually do. It’s easy to make kids laugh.
In any case, the point is that many foreign teachers don’t really have any standard that they’re trying to live up to. They just want the kids to have a good time, and to have a good time themselves. That’s the way my predecessor Robert was. It’s pretty normal for foreign teachers. But not for me. I think a lot about my flaws as a teacher and what I can do to fix them. I’m a perfectionist at heart, and I have my mother’s guilt streak, and I just can’t relax if I know I could be doing a better job, and am not making the extra effort.
On that note, I just read an article in the New York Times about a guy named Doug Lemov who co-founded a string of mega-successful charter schools. He’s been going around the country interviewing and observing teachers with reputations for excellence and cataloguing their classroom techniques. He’s of the opinion that great teaching isn’t some uncodifiable magic, but rather that great teaching is the result of a lot of little things. Example:
At the Boston seminar, Lemov played a video of a class taught by one of his teaching virtuosos, a slim man named Bob Zimmerli. Lemov used it to introduce one of the 49 techniques in his taxonomy, one he calls What to Do. The clip opens at the start of class, which Zimmerli was teaching for the first time, with children — fifth graders, all of them black, mostly boys — looking everywhere but at the board. One is playing with a pair of headphones; another is slowly paging through a giant three-ring binder. Zimmerli stands at the front of the class in a neat tie. “O.K., guys, before I get started today, here’s what I need from you,” he says. “I need that piece of paper turned over and a pencil out.” Almost no one is following his directions, but he is undeterred. “So if there’s anything else on your desk right now, please put that inside your desk.” He mimics what he wants the students to do with a neat underhand pitch. A few students in the front put papers away. “Just like you’re doing, thank you very much,” Zimmerli says, pointing to one of them. Another desk emerges neat; Zimmerli targets it. “Thank you, sir.” “I appreciate it,” he says, pointing to another. By the time he points to one last student — “Nice . . . nice” — the headphones are gone, the binder has clicked shut and everyone is paying attention.
The article goes on to explain in greater detail how Zimmerli accomplished this small feat of classroom management. Basically, he used two techniques. The first was extreme specificity in directions. “Get out your things” seems clear enough to many teachers, but it turns out to be far more effective to use more detailed and clear instructions like those offered by Zimmerli. Second, he provides the class with positive examples by singling out the students who have already followed his directions. That’s all you gotta do.
There are lot of little things like this that Lemov has collected, and he’s got a book coming out next month with descriptions of all of them. So I’m buying that. I’ve got high hopes for it. It sounds great because it’s going to be full of concrete steps I can immediately take to improve as a teacher. It's kind of part of a larger pattern for me lately of trying to learn to get better at all kinds of things. Drawing, writing, whatever. Someone leaving the country gave me his guitar and I've been practicing it an hour a day every day. It's great.
Anyhoo. That's it for now.
See y'all next week.
Love,
Randy
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Shake a spear.
Last night, for the first time in my life, I finally saw Bill Shakespeare done properly. But it wasn’t the staging of the material that made it great. It was the nature of the audience. Let me explain.
Time has a way of distorting how works of art are interpreted, especially in terms of what audiences think they are supposed to get out them. The Mona Lisa was not a well-known painting for several hundred years after Leonardo da Vinci’s death, but has become synonymous with greatness in portraiture. A person viewing it in 1650, at a time when it was not a legendary icon, would probably notice the great technique that must have went into painting it, and would likely have stopped there. However, later generations began to see the painting as one of the most enigmatic pieces of art ever created, (“What does that smile mean?”) and few can now look on it without feeling an urge to wrestle with mysterious, confounding questions. And yet these intricate interactions between painting and observer were either not present for 16th, 17th and 18th century audiences, or they were simply not considered remarkable by commentators for hundreds of years.
If the Mona Lisa represents one extreme of a spectrum, then the other end might just be occupied by the 1960’s Batman TV series. Yes, the extremely campy one with the catchy theme song. When generation X laid their eyes on re-runs of this goofy show, some viewers found it easy prey to be mocked. The absurd fight scenes (“Bam!” “Pow!” “Spiff!”), scenes of Batman and Robin riding a tandem Bike around Gotham, a Joker who was perhaps the least menacing villain in television history; it seemed laughable that this show was supposed to provide any sort of thrills. It became a staple of ironic appreciation. The only problem? The show never intended to be taken seriously in the slightest. Present day viewers interpreting the show as evidence of the naivete of past generations have missed the point. The show’s creators saw it as an exercise in goofiness, meant to be enjoyed as silly camp. Viewers getting a laugh out of the show because they can not imagine who anyone could take it seriously are simply unaware that no one was ever supposed to. A simple change in assumptions can cause greatly different reactions and interpretations to the same material.
Today, Shakespeare has been moved into some strange realms. Above all, Shakespeare’s plays are now made by and for high school students. Because the language of the plays can sometimes be pretty dense, and because the material is hundreds of years old and treated by many as sacred text, both the actors and the audiences tend to assume that the material is somehow above them, or “over my head”. Interested students are aware that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the masses, but even with this awareness, because of the mystique that now surrounds Shakespeare as the most legendary writer in the history of the English language, it’s very hard to picture these plays as being for the everyman. I don’t think there’s much to be done about it for teenaged thespians. I’m now convinced that to understand what it was like for audiences hundreds of years ago, you need to see it performed in the right circumstances. Now, let me tell you one way that the circumstances can be ‘right’.
First, it should be Saturday night. You’re going to see Shakespeare! What could be greater? Seeing some Shakespeare is a perfectly good way to spend your Saturday evening. If you were John Q. Peasant living in the Elizabethan era, this was like, the highlight of your week.
Number two: It should be at a bar. Or maybe outside somewhere. But there should definitely be people in all different states of sober and intoxicated, all mingling about between performances, but falling silent at the appropriate time. Rowdy, but respectful. Good old riff-raff, here for a show.
Third, it needs to be packed. Let me tell you something about this bar I was at watching this Shakespeare. Half the people couldn’t see for shit. There were heads in the way. There was a side area where a big black curtain was blocking much of the stage for anyone who happened to be standing over there, and there were a good twenty people over there just because there was no where else to go. This place was jam-packed with people and there was no way to improve your view. You were stuck with whatever you got. And that was a good thing.
And finally, you need actors who really like the material, but don’t think that they’re delivering the word of God. Everyone on that stage believed in what they were doing, and were thrilled to be doing it, and none of them fell into the trap of losing the humanity of the characters. That’s what happens when people view Shakespeare’s work as beyond them. The characters cease to be people, full of expressive emotion. There was none of that last night. The energy was always high, and the actors were so at ease with themselves.
All these factors combined together to make a truly special experience. The show was a selection of scenes and monologues from throughout Shakespeare’s work, most of them very famous, a few relatively obscure. There was a good mix of the light and the serious. When it was serious, the crowd was clearly very engaged. When the scenes were comedic, the performances really shined. I’ve never laughed nearly so hard at Shakespeare before. It was a real joy to see these scenes working so well (particularly when they did the final scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream). It’s always impressive when very old comedy can still get big laughs. Nothing dates as quickly or as permanently as humor.
Anyway, I really wish I could go into more detail about this experience, but I can’t. In fact, that’s my whole point. I appreciated these scenes more than I had in the past because I was seeing them properly, in circumstances similar to how they were viewed centuries ago. It’s not something that can really be conveyed. In other words, you have to be there. But I think I’m very lucky that, last night, I was there.
Time has a way of distorting how works of art are interpreted, especially in terms of what audiences think they are supposed to get out them. The Mona Lisa was not a well-known painting for several hundred years after Leonardo da Vinci’s death, but has become synonymous with greatness in portraiture. A person viewing it in 1650, at a time when it was not a legendary icon, would probably notice the great technique that must have went into painting it, and would likely have stopped there. However, later generations began to see the painting as one of the most enigmatic pieces of art ever created, (“What does that smile mean?”) and few can now look on it without feeling an urge to wrestle with mysterious, confounding questions. And yet these intricate interactions between painting and observer were either not present for 16th, 17th and 18th century audiences, or they were simply not considered remarkable by commentators for hundreds of years.
If the Mona Lisa represents one extreme of a spectrum, then the other end might just be occupied by the 1960’s Batman TV series. Yes, the extremely campy one with the catchy theme song. When generation X laid their eyes on re-runs of this goofy show, some viewers found it easy prey to be mocked. The absurd fight scenes (“Bam!” “Pow!” “Spiff!”), scenes of Batman and Robin riding a tandem Bike around Gotham, a Joker who was perhaps the least menacing villain in television history; it seemed laughable that this show was supposed to provide any sort of thrills. It became a staple of ironic appreciation. The only problem? The show never intended to be taken seriously in the slightest. Present day viewers interpreting the show as evidence of the naivete of past generations have missed the point. The show’s creators saw it as an exercise in goofiness, meant to be enjoyed as silly camp. Viewers getting a laugh out of the show because they can not imagine who anyone could take it seriously are simply unaware that no one was ever supposed to. A simple change in assumptions can cause greatly different reactions and interpretations to the same material.
Today, Shakespeare has been moved into some strange realms. Above all, Shakespeare’s plays are now made by and for high school students. Because the language of the plays can sometimes be pretty dense, and because the material is hundreds of years old and treated by many as sacred text, both the actors and the audiences tend to assume that the material is somehow above them, or “over my head”. Interested students are aware that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the masses, but even with this awareness, because of the mystique that now surrounds Shakespeare as the most legendary writer in the history of the English language, it’s very hard to picture these plays as being for the everyman. I don’t think there’s much to be done about it for teenaged thespians. I’m now convinced that to understand what it was like for audiences hundreds of years ago, you need to see it performed in the right circumstances. Now, let me tell you one way that the circumstances can be ‘right’.
First, it should be Saturday night. You’re going to see Shakespeare! What could be greater? Seeing some Shakespeare is a perfectly good way to spend your Saturday evening. If you were John Q. Peasant living in the Elizabethan era, this was like, the highlight of your week.
Number two: It should be at a bar. Or maybe outside somewhere. But there should definitely be people in all different states of sober and intoxicated, all mingling about between performances, but falling silent at the appropriate time. Rowdy, but respectful. Good old riff-raff, here for a show.
Third, it needs to be packed. Let me tell you something about this bar I was at watching this Shakespeare. Half the people couldn’t see for shit. There were heads in the way. There was a side area where a big black curtain was blocking much of the stage for anyone who happened to be standing over there, and there were a good twenty people over there just because there was no where else to go. This place was jam-packed with people and there was no way to improve your view. You were stuck with whatever you got. And that was a good thing.
And finally, you need actors who really like the material, but don’t think that they’re delivering the word of God. Everyone on that stage believed in what they were doing, and were thrilled to be doing it, and none of them fell into the trap of losing the humanity of the characters. That’s what happens when people view Shakespeare’s work as beyond them. The characters cease to be people, full of expressive emotion. There was none of that last night. The energy was always high, and the actors were so at ease with themselves.
All these factors combined together to make a truly special experience. The show was a selection of scenes and monologues from throughout Shakespeare’s work, most of them very famous, a few relatively obscure. There was a good mix of the light and the serious. When it was serious, the crowd was clearly very engaged. When the scenes were comedic, the performances really shined. I’ve never laughed nearly so hard at Shakespeare before. It was a real joy to see these scenes working so well (particularly when they did the final scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream). It’s always impressive when very old comedy can still get big laughs. Nothing dates as quickly or as permanently as humor.
Anyway, I really wish I could go into more detail about this experience, but I can’t. In fact, that’s my whole point. I appreciated these scenes more than I had in the past because I was seeing them properly, in circumstances similar to how they were viewed centuries ago. It’s not something that can really be conveyed. In other words, you have to be there. But I think I’m very lucky that, last night, I was there.
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