Trump, Shakespeare, Assassination, Viral Media, Abe Lincoln, Wife-Beating, Etc

James Shapiro's book Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future is far more fun and compelling than the title; Shapiro, a noted Shakespeare scholar, looks at how American Shakespeare productions in eight different periods of American history reflect the politics and predilections of the times . . . so you've got:

1) Othello in 1835 and themes of miscegenation;

2) the cross-dressing genius of Charlotte Cushman, who apparently played Romeo far better than any man could;

3) class warfare, populist riots, elitism, and Macbeth in 1840s Manhattan;

4) Abe Lincoln's meditations on Hamlet . . . apparently he liked Claudius' confession soliloquy (my offense is rank, it smells to Heaven) better than "to be or not to be"

5) The Tempest and immigration in 1916;

6) feminism, the role of the woman and all that in 1948, with The Taming of the Shrew and Kiss Me Kate . . . the way Shrew  was staged often indicated how the director felt about the growing amount of women in the workforce and the role of women in general;

7) adultery and same-sex love in Shakespeare in Love and 12th Night in 1998 . . . apparently major revisions were made to the theatrical version of Shakespeare in Love to make it appropriate for a general movie-going audience-- in the original script, Shakespeare took much longer to realize Viola was a woman and thought he had fallen in love with a man and was confused about his sexuality-- that was the main conflict, but that got stripped down for the 1998 audience, which was just starting to embrace homosexuality;

8) and the wild left/right culture wars of the Trump era, embodied by a version of Julius Caesar wherein a Trump-like figure is assassinated, sparking a firestorm of typical right-wing outrage and internet virality;

and at the heart of this is the fact that America loves Shakespeare even more than England-- and it often evokes our darkest sins in a way that we can handle and discuss: incest, suicide, adultery, racism, sexism, class warfare, democracy, tyranny, etc and it would be a shame if the same thing happened in America that happened in England in 1642-- the theaters were shut down because of civil war between parliament and the crown, ending in the beheading of Charles I . . . hopefully the right won't abandon Shakespeare as elitist melodrama and the left won't abandon him because he was a white male (though the term didn't exist yet) and we'll be able to use him to air our debates and grievances and politics in an artistic and public forum.

Ironic and Idiotic Advice and Action Juxtaposition

Teenage boys are often the worst about basic common sense and safety-- for example, they leave the burners on in the kitchen and go elsewhere in the house, often forgetting that they are cooking something-- so when I asked Ian to hold the ladder while I was cleaning out the front gutter (to avoid further flooding) and he said, "I'll just do it myself" I told him that climbing up on a long ladder is a "two-man job" and so we went outside and took turns cleaning out the gutter and holding the ladder and we tested out the clean gutter with the hose and everything seemed satisfactory-- a job well-done, without mishap-- so Ian went inside to take a nap and I got curious about the gutter above the back porch, and-- ignoring my own advice-- I carried the ladder to the backyard and up onto the deck, propped it against a corner high up on the house, climbed up, cleaned out the gutter, and then decided I could climb up a bit more and get on the roof and grab a few sticks, and that's when one end of the top of the ladder dislodged itself from the corner and started free-floating and I felt like the whole thing was going to topple and I was going to break my neck; I managed to grab the roof and right myself and climb down without injury, but I was scared shitless and angry with myself for not following my own advice.

The Dress: Revisited By a Morning Person

According to this article in Slate, morning people (larks) had a much better chance of seeing that black and blue dress that took the internet by storm as white and gold-- and I am a morning person and I see the dress as white and gold-- and this is probably because I'm exposed to much more natural light each day and less incandescent light (because I'm sleeping) and so I assume the dress is in a shadow (or something like that . . . read the article).

Be Like Jenson (Not Novak)

I'm a compact guy, so no more following around-- I'm going to hit a compact two-handed backhand . . . and I might even chip it with some backspin occasionally, like that Jenson Brooksby fellow (but what I'm certainly not going to do is try to emulate Novak Djokovich . . . that guy is Gumby).

The Return of the Greased Watermelon!

This morning my shoulder felt awful, my legs were sore, and I was still a little slick from the vaseline . . . which are all good things as this means that the Rutgers pool was open this season and we were able to have an end-of-the-season-greased-watermelon-rugby match; this one was the most epic ever-- we decided to end it at 2-2 and call it a tie (though both points the other team scored were cheesy-- one wide of the cone and both in shallow water, the watermelon tossed by a standing person-- our goals were much more beautiful) and here a couple of pics of the youngsters and oldsters who participated (mt younger son was away but my older son Alex was in there, and his buddy Luke, both defenders don't he soccer team).

 

Hurricane Ida Jersey Flood Pics

Here are some pics of the Hurrican Ida floodwaters in Highland Park and New Brunswick . . . pretty wild-- for two days, our house was riverside:

Route 18 in New Brunswick, closed and submerged

Donaldson Park basketball court-- kayakers can dunk!

Mark WG kayaking in sewage water

the Hyatt in New Brunswick

Cedar Lane sinkhole

more sinkhole

Donaldson the morning after

Rob was down there too . . .

the tent that prevented some water from completely submerging our basement

New Brunswick and floodwater reflections

Route 27 bridge

Donaldson park-- drone shot

Donaldson Park tennis courts, drone shot.

What Does the Fox Scream?

I thought that when our coffee maker broke, that was the perfect ending for this summer-- but it wasn't-- the perfect ending was a monster rain event that flooded our basement (and everyone else's basement in the vicinity) so I spent my last night of summer dragging furniture up the basement stairs; shop-vacuuming water from the basement floor; setting up a sump pump in the basement shower; building a tarp and whiteboard tent around a leaky basement window in a monsoon, and admiring the fact that my shed stayed bone dry because of the expert flooring and drainage system I constructed; some irony here-- earlier in the day, the kids and I did a massive deep clean of the house to surprise my wife when she arrived home from her first day of school-- we cleaned bathrooms and sorted shelves and vacuumed stairs and carpets and spun the kitchen table so the carpet wouldn't pop up . . . and the kids were cooperative and hard-working and my wife was duly impressed but it all came to naught, because the house got really dirty again because of the flood-- I'll provide pictures and more tomorrow, but now I've got to go to a birthday event-- but late last night, when the park was flooded and the eamimals had to roam the streets, I saw a couple fox strolling down our street and they started SCREAMING . . . apparently this is what they do-- and then I got up and went to work, while my wife and kids cleaned up from the flood-- my wife's school was canceled and my kids haven't started yet-- and now the park is still flooded and all the roads are closed, an epic way to start the school year.

A Perfectly Apropos Ending for This Summer (but a bit on the nose)

On my final day of summer (but my wife is reporting to work today) the coffee maker broke, which is the perfect end to this summer of lost and dying things.

Penultimate Day of Summer!

I've got to report to work on Thursday, and this is what I've done so far on my penultimate day of summer:

1) went to the dog park at 6:45 AM;

2) took a bus to Clark and assistant-coached a varsity scrimmage-- my son Alex started at left-back and played quite well

3) took a nap;

4) played tennis against a guy who is very similar to me in skill and blew a 4-1 lead and ending up losing in a tiebreaker when we were at 6-6

5) enjoyed a few beers and watched a totally entertaining and disgusting horror movie with Catherin and Ian, Slither.

New(ish) Car!

We picked up our 2018 Mazda CX-5 today from Open Road Honda, we were looking for a CR-V or a RAV4 but we got a great deal (after a lot of broody negotiating . . . fueled by long, hot soccer practices) because it was the end of the month and the Honda dealership was going to sell this car to a Mazda dealership so they could certify it (and it's kind of a weird blue color that doesn't look great online but is perfectly fine in person) and I'm proud to say this is the first car we've ever owned that isn't the base trim model!

Kids, Seinfeld, and Curb

My son and his friend Gary have a hypothesis: if you connect something in class to Seinfeld, your teacher will love you-- and it's generally been true for the two of them throughout high school; they also both love Curb Your Enthusiasm and they've been brainstorming possible Covid episodes-- Larry commenting on someone's below the nose mask-wearing; Larry avoiding someone who sneezed; Larry having to forego contact tracing because he's covering for one of Jeff's adulterous escapades; Larry getting kicked out by Susie for not wearing a mask . . . or perhaps for wearing a mask; Larry staring someone down who he thinks is lying about being vaccinated, etc.

Two Decent Movies You Probably Haven't Seen . . .

If you're sick of committing to another TV show (or get in trouble if you watch the "family" show when all members of the family are not present, e.g. Ted Lasso) here are a couple of highly-rated movies buried on Amazon Prime and Netflix:

1) Blow the Man Down . . . a taut, slightly ironic thriller reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' classic Fargo, but set Downeast in Maine, this one has some superb acting, predominantly by a cast of women that covers every age bracket;

2) The Call is a South Korean sci-fi thriller with a premise too good to summarize-- if you liked Parasite or #Alive, then you'll dig this.

No One Ever Told Me This Shit

Our washing machine stopped spinning last week and we couldn't figure out why, but a jovial Hispanic appliance wizard solved the problem in 10 minutes-- for $150 . . . so that's $900 an hour, no wonder he was so sanguine-- after calling our machine "a piece of junk," he used a screwdriver to pry open the front panel and my wife and I actually screamed "ahhhgh!" in unison-- and we meant: holy shit! this is where all the socks went!-- so apparently if you wash socks and underwear in a mixed load with a lot of water, they float to the top and spill out over the tub and impede the motor-- to her embarrassment and chagrin, Catherine's thong was wrapped around the tub and a drive belt-- so once we removed all the socks and underwear, the washer could spin again-- and easy fix-- and the jovial appliance wizard told us something I never heard: we should wash socks and underwear separately, with very little water-- how did I make it 51 years without learning that?

75% Doesn't Cut It

Three out of four times I use the sink, I remember that we have no sink-head on the hose-- our head clogged and died a week ago and we are waiting for a new one from Grohe-- so you have to be VERY careful with the amount of water pressure you use and you have to hold the hose while you rinse dishes . . . if you forget this, you will suffer from some weird property of hydrodynamics; the sink hose turns into a fire hose and shoots a strong stream of water directly at your stomach and crotch, utterly soaking you and the kitchen floor and cabinet-- and while I have often remembered to grip the hose and use the water carefully, there are enough times when I forget (like two minutes ago or last night) and I absolutely soak myself, to my family's delight.

Summer of Dying Things

Our Honda CR-V, our dishwasher, our sink head, our front porch railings, two of our bikes, and now the spin cycle on our washing machine . . . all these things have died this summer (but our buddy Joe rebuilt the front porch, with vinyl railings, so it will last; I replaced our dishwasher and I'm working on the sink hose and sink head; Catherine got a new bike and I'm waiting out the shortage but we've yet to buy a car or get the washer to work . . . this stuff needs to be in order when school starts!)

What Happens to Those Final Girls After the Movie Ends?

The new Grady Hendrix horror novel, The Final Girl Support Group, is both more surreal and meta than his previous novels but also more profound and serious-- the conceit of this fictional world is that the events depicted in the classic slasher flicks of the '80s and '90s actually happened-- Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc-- and then the stories were bought by film studios and made into movie franchises-- but the actual girls who survived these horrific events exist long after the slasher genre's popularity-- and these "final girls" have to deal with the trauma of their own lives, and the trauma of seeing their stories used as a disposable art form with (mostly) disposable women being murdered by monstrous men . . . and the book is also a thriller, with plot twists and wild violence and an unreliable narrator and interesting characters, but it's also a take on the objectification of women and the veneration of violence . . . nine axe-splintered doors out of ten.

All Kinds of Emotions, All Kinds of Screens

Last night our family went and saw Hasan Minhaj at the new NBPAC theater in New Brunswick-- he did ninety minutes of stand-up and storytelling, accompanied by some pertinent images and video on the big screen-- while the show was very funny, it was also sincere and confessional-- he described how obsessed he became with going after autocrats (after this incident when he criticized Saudi Arabia after the Khashoggi killing) because of the social media notoriety and how this eventually endangered his family and made him change his ways (somewhat) and there were also a lot of inside jokes directed at the almost entirely Indian audience-- he knew his crowd-- and then we went home and watched an especially emotional episode of Friday Night Lights . . . Riggins quits drinking and has a great game, Smash blows it with the recruiter, Saracen asks Coach's daughter out on a date, and Jason Street wheels himself out on the field at Homecoming . . . so we saw it all last night, in a variety of mediums.

Youth

This week at soccer we alternated three-hour practices with two-hour practices and despite this massive caloric expenditure, my younger son Ian gained seven pounds and grew an inch-- he's now the same height as me (or, as my wife claims, a shade taller-- so now I'm the third tallest person in our family of four).

Pool Tip

If you don't want to get water in your eyes when you're swimming laps, get some open water goggles-- they work much better than regular swim goggles.

Eat This Food!

Crumbly chorizo, delicious al pastor pork, tender carne asada, loaded sopes, thick fluffy gorditas, superb chicken mole, and a variety of tasty tamales . . . if you're anywhere near Highland Park, try the new authentic Mexican place, La Casita!