What a Piece of Work is a MERLIN

Since it's always time for a Shakespearean cat parody, let's wax Merlinesque!

"What a piece of work is a MERLIN! How lacking in reason, how infinite in insensate purriness! In form and moving how spooky and impossible! In action how like a furry monster, in apprehension how like another furry monster! (Especially in terms of omnivoric capacity.) The insane toasted marshmallow beauty of the world! The self-appointed bitey paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of hairball? Barf delights not me. No, nor woman neither, though by my wife smiling she seems to suggest who's cleaning it up this time."

Shakespeare Mystery SOLVED

Notice that the face on the 1623 Folio is a mask? See its line along the jawline?

Rather than draw this out, let's get right to it.

Shakespeare was in actuality Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. You can read all about it in an excellent (and the only accurate) book on the subject, Shakespeare by Another Name, by physicist Mark Anderson. If that's not enough for you, Da-da has employed what he calls the Internet Truth Barometer (the ITB), a very gifted psychic -- who's never been wrong -- on this topic and she's confirmed it. Might as well get over it. Have a nice day.

And no, Da-da received no moolah for that book plug. Da-da only peddles the truth, free of charge.

Who WOULD Fardels Bear? THAT is the Question.

Speak english! Wait, I AM!

Those of you of a certain bent may recall Hamlet's whiney teen soliloquoy. Da-da gets whammied with it every now and again because he had to memorize the thing for an improv class and it won't go away (the soliloquoy, not the class). Da-da especially gets mentally choo-chooing in a circle with, "...who would fardels bear?"

What's a fardel? you ask, WANTING THE TRUTH.

Well, YOU CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH, because it's rather dull.

A fardel is a few things: 1. a bundle of something, or a heavy burden like in-laws, the IRS, etc. and 2. the third compartment of the stomach of a cow, or a goat, or really any animal with multi-roomed tummies for digesting grass, which is nothing short of amazing if you think about it. And horribly disgusting. Welcome to earth.

Anyway, Da-da is talking about the Shakespearean fardel here (though Shakey's so complex, he's probably referring to all definitions), and Shakey's talking bundle-burden. So, who would fardels bear? That is, who's gonna bear the fardels? Wellsir, Da-da knows exactly who's gonna be toting that bundle-burden: Da-da. That's what being a mr. mom/parent is all about. So, in summation, giant slugs of the jury, Shakey's other transmogrified line Da-da ostensibly emulates is thus: "To grunt and sweat under a weary wife..." Indeed. In word. 

By the way, you simply won't believe the level of Shakey mania exhibited by these folks, who scalpelize Shakey line by line -- while failing to realize that "Shakespeare" was actually Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, whose countenance was said to, "shake a spear". And Da-da thought his job was a tedious grind.

Ok. While Da-da has a dysfunctional part of your brain, try a glimpse into Da-da's Shakespearean Tourette's Tragedy, which appeared during a date-night viewing of...? Yup, "HAMLET." And what's a Hamlet? A LITTLE HAM.

Who's gonna bear that fardel ham? DA-DA.

(Uh oh, here it comes... "MACBETH!" Damn.)

Da-da's Theater of the Absurd (Ga-ga)

Bronko decidedly Puckish as Ipso. Or is that Facto?

Da-da's in the process of reading John Lithgow's excellent new book, *DRAMA: An Actor's Education*. Bronko inquired as to what the book was about and Da-da tried to describe what "acting" is, as well as staging, etc. 4 and 6YO Bronko and Nagurski nodded, as if they understood perfectly. Unconvinced, Da-da decided to put it to the test and stage our own little acting exercise to see what would happen (this is, in fact, Da-da's favorite thing about BEING Da-da, being able to try something totally new with total newbies and see if the freshly minted Hindenberg rises aloft, sits there like a cinder block, or catches fire and crashes into Haddonfield, NJ). So, Da-da set the stage.

Da-da was to act as disinterested night janitor of a decided off-off-off-Broadway production of "Ga-ga," forced into helping two young renegade thespians, Ipso and Facto, run their lines. The boys were the young thespians.

Da-da then explained that the only word allowable was, "ga-ga." (Note: this has nothing to do with Lady Gaga, whom Da-da has never even heard. It's actually an inside joke, as Bronko, Da-da's youngest, has been having an inexplicable regression stage here and there, often using, "ga-ga" as his only linguistic currency. Thus, we would perform the entire improv using that one single word. So, Da-da dressed one boy in a red superhero cape with a blue/white "A" on it, and the other in a blue superhero cape with a red/gold "M," decked them in matching yellow funny pikachu hats and yellow Spongebob jammies, put both boys on the fireplace bricks in the family room and sat below them as if proofing stereo instructions in Hindustani, and said... "GO!"

[Note: 6YO Nagurski is Ipso, 4YO Bronko is Facto.]

Ipso: "GA-Ga!"
Facto [aside, nodding and pointing]: "GA-ga!"
Ipso: "Ga-GA!"
Facto [puzzled, shaking his head]: GA-ga.
Ipso: GA-ga?
Facto: GA-ga.
Ipso: GA! Ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga, ga-ga-ga-ga-gaga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-gA-ga-GA!

[Facto looks impressed, then looks at the night janitor for his reaction.]

Night Janitor (shrugs): "GA-ga?"
Facto: Ga-gA!
Ipso: GA-GA!

And so it went for about five minutes before Nagurski rolled his eyes and said, "Blah blah blah," then we were all laughing too hard to go on. Da-da has no idea what that was about, but for a brief moment, he could imagine how Edward de V... er, Shakespeare felt when he encouraged Flop to vomit over Improvio while sawing the air with a long and indifferent chicken. Or was that Beckett?

Gaga? You want want gaga? YOU CAN'T HANDLE GAGA!

That Scottish Play Curse of Date Night

This past saturday was Da-da's first date night away from the monkeys in 10 million years, and wifo takes us to see a cheery community college production of HAMLET -- conveniently forgetting that Da-da suffers from a rare and mysterious Shakespearean Tourette's, a kind of unpredictable and torpolexiconographical inner verbal Bardic volcano. So, it should come as no surprise that within the first 15 minutes of the production, when the ghost and Hamlet started gamboling about in the Elsinorean mist, that Da-da suddenly sat bolt upright in his seat and shouted, "MACBETH!!" at the top of his lungs -- freezing and horrifying actors and audience alike. (Sure, we were watching HAMLET, but Da-da's Shakespearean psychoneuroasthenic MANIA doesn't know that.)

House lights came up.

20YO boy-Hamlet and boy-Horatio, elder ghost and teen guards all stepped down off the stage en masse to collect Da-da from his seat and escort him OUT of the theater... where those assembled proceeded to walk Da-da three times around the outside of the building, spitting over their left shoulders repeatedly while uttering obscenities (some more than others), then awaiting invitation back into the theater by outraged proto-hipster drama department geeks. (This is actually the traditional MACBETH cure.) Somewhere along the way, Da-da performed about a thousand mental Shakespearean neurological word-replacement exercises, ensuring that he will make it through the rest of the play.

Alas, during the "Yorick" scene, Da-da's Broca-Wernicke dam broke. He suddenly stood and shouted his replacement word: "FIRE!!" then muttering, "MACBETH" loudly over and over.

House lights came up.

Now, we're forced to employ a more advanced Scottish play cure: the entire cast and Da-da stand onstage, each spinning around three times, as fast as possible on the spot, spitting over our shoulders while uttering obscenities. Needless to say, they were going to BAN ME FOR LIFE from the Jacob Canescence Community Theater for the Extremely Disturbed... that is, until we received a standing ovation for our onstage performance. (Evidently, some people had never seen HAMLET and thought it was part of a Brechtian revival). Ah, the sound and fury.

(Note: for those not in the know, you're supposed to refer to "Macbeth" as "that Scottish play" while inside (or outside) any theater -- unless you have a Shakespearean neurological disorder, of course. Be sure to bring a camera to catch those priceless shocked faces.)

The PTA Has Risen From the Grave

Da-da's off to a PTA meeting. Who we gonna burn tonight? Cervantes? Shakespeare? Joyce (again)?
Every Child Left Behind!