I Dare You!

Old Men, Old Books

By Bud Koenemund

  The old man – despite the protestations of his home nurse – struggled to throw off the blankets and stand. Teetering slightly, he shuffled across the thick carpet deliberately. Reaching one of the many dark cherry-wood bookshelves lining the walls, he lifted a thick tome, and then slowly returned to stand beside my chair.

  Watching him move, I prayed silently he would not fall.

  He held out the book in both hands, as if offering it to me.

  "See this?" he asked, opening the cover and pointing at its publication date. "1912. More than 100 years old."

  A whistle of sincere appreciation escaped my lips.

  "I doubt anyone will ever read on a 100 year old electronic gizmo," he said with a laugh that quickly turned into a choking cough.

  The nurse reached out for him before I could stand to help steady his frail body.

  "You take it," he said, thrusting the book toward me, when he finally caught his breath.

  "Oh, Sir; I couldn't take your…" I began.

  "It's not mine," he interrupted. "And, while it's filled with his words, it's not William Shakespeare's either. Though, he and I will be discussing it very soon."

  I smiled.

  "I'm not its owner any more than you will be. Those of us who love books – those like you and I – we're more like caretakers. I'm not its first, and I want to make sure I won't be its last. Take it, read the words; turn the pages, let them slip over your fingertips; savor the scent of it.

  I reached out for the book he still held.

  "I'm about to shuffle off the mortal coil, as Will would say," he croaked, "and, I don't want that lost in a dusty library basement, or hidden away in the private collection of some pretentious schmuck."

  I laughed as my fingers caressed the century old cracked leather cover. I fought the urge to open it immediately.

  "You could leave it to your family, or donate it, or have it put on display," I tried to counter.

  "Take it," he ordered. "Someday, when your time comes – and it will come – pass it on to someone else."

  "I can't thank you enough," I said, while his words turned over in my mind.

  "I've spent a lot of years trying to figure out what it is about books," he said. "The books we give as gifts mean something, I think. Maybe they say something about who we are. Or, about who or what we want the recipient to be."

  He turned back to his bed. As he climbed into the pile of blankets and pillows, I collected my things. Knowing it unlikely I would see him again – at least in this world – I thanked him once more for his time, and his gift.

  I descended the stairs haltingly, wanting to go back and ask one more question. I exited the front door meditating on what he'd said about books, and wondering what he wanted me to be.

Routine

  He washed away the excess shaving cream, rubbing his fingers together under the weak stream of hot water. His father had tried to teach him, of course.

  "You only need a little bit," he'd said. "It goes a long way."

  It'd been foam back then; not the expensive, moisturizing, sensitive skin care, cocoa butter-infused gel he slathered on now.

  This stuff was supposed to help his complexion, or so the writing on the side of the can promised. In truth, it only served to remind him of what William Shakespeare writes in Henry V: "The elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face."

  At 44, he'd been shaving for 25 years.

  "More than that," he sighed. "Closer to 30."

  In all the days of his eclectic, though admittedly incomplete, education, he'd somehow missed learning about Newton's law regarding the dynamics of gel expansion, of that he was sure.

  He still used too much. Well, if he hadn't figured it out by now…

  He looked in the mirror as the remains of the glycerin goop slipped down the drain. The blue eyes looked the same – his vision the only part of him, it seemed, not yet compromised by age. The face itself had changed; the skin looser; he had a wrinkle or three, and a couple old scars.

  Raising his glance, he again read the two quotes he'd long ago taped at the top of the glass – one a Latin phrase, the other he'd read in a Tom Clancy book.

  "Memento mori;" Remember you will die. He'd intended it as a motivational tool; to make him write by reminding him his time on this planet is limited.

  Each morning, it made him feel guilty when he thought about how little he'd accomplished the day before. And, too frequently, it elicited an empty promise to do more today.

  He noticed the slowly increasing number of gray hairs on the sides of his head…and the quickly decreasing number of hairs on top of it.

  Shades of gray, he thought.

  "Today you can be a man of honor; or you can not," the second quote read.

  It wasn't that easy, he knew. When he was young, everything had been simple. To a kid it's all black and white; good and bad. You're either G.I. Joe or Cobra; cowboy or Indian.

  But, a man's world is full of grays – colors that had to be dealt with, and consequences to be endured. Decisions often had to be made without the luxury of experience or knowledge. Best possible choices made in a moment, and years of memories lived with.

  Is this what it means to be a man? he thought, making the first pass with his razor. To struggle forward, while always dwelling on the mistakes of the past; trying to accept things that can't be changed.

Shakespeare the Critic

Hmmm, great indeed! "So we beat on..."

I thought this was about last night's wine-fest! Oh, my poor head!

This dude scares the $#!^ outta me! Ed, let's go get a drink and talk about it!

Well, maybe not the complete plays. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

This one writes pretty well...for a chick!

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was an age of wisdom, it was..."

 Blah, blah, blah!

Seriously, John?! As they say (or, will say in the future), less is more!

 Have you thought about trying a sonnet? Come on, 14 lines...

The Commandments of Will

So, I've been digging through The Bible, and I've discovered several more of God's commandments meant to be obeyed without question or interpretation:

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The Commandments of Will
(Researched and collected by The Mad Sonneteer)

1. The Word of Will is eternal and unchanging. To question His authorship shall be heresy. (Lev. 28: 13-14)

2. Thou shalt not take the name of Will in vain. (Deut. 35: 17)

3. Thou shalt remember the sonnets and keep them holy. (Ex. 41: 7)

4. Thou shalt not worship Oxford as I have commanded thee worship Will. (Lev. 28: 24)

5. Thou shalt smite Oxfordians with the Word of Will that they might repent their sin. (Deut. 35: 33)

6. Thou shalt not lie with an Oxfordian as with a Stratfordian. (Lev. 28: 69)

7. The Oxfordian lifestyle shall be considered an abomination, and the blasphemous shall burn in the eternal fires of summer-session Remedial English classes. (Lev. 28: 10-11)

8. Thou shalt not suffer Russell Brand to portray any character of Will. (Prov. 32: 67)

Will's Power

For the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's Blogging Shakespeare Birthday Project - 23 April 2011
(www.happybirthdayshakespeare.com)

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest Heaven of invention...
- William Shakespeare, Henry V

Usually – though not always – it’s best to begin…well, at the beginning. The first Shakespeare I remember being exposed to was in my eighth grade English class. We read Romeo and Juliet out loud, in class. I hated it! Being a shy kid, I resented being made to read in front of the class. And, I’ll admit, I didn’t get much of what Will was saying.

After R&J, we read Macbeth. That was better. Witches and sword fights, ghosts and bloody murders, suicide and a severed head – that was cool. Though, again, I didn’t understand many of the words, and I was too young to appreciate the language Will used.

The first Shakespeare I ever truly understood was Henry V. In 1991, I was serving in the United States Army in the Republic of Panama. One afternoon – in between missions to the darkest jungles you can imagine and cutthroat games of Dungeons & Dragons – one of my roommates, Darryl Weeden, got his hands on a VHS copy of Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of the play. Darryl all but forced us – our other two roommates and I – to watch it with him.

I enjoyed it right from the start: Canterbury’s intrigue; Hal’s response to the Dauphin’s gift; his speech when treason is discovered in his midst; the siege of Harfleur; all of it. What truly set the hook, however, was that speech. The one Hal delivered to his men right before the battle of Agincourt:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. (4.3)

To borrow from Hal’s speech before the walls of Harfleur: Consider my sinews stiffened! Saying that I was blown away would be a gross understatement. The beauty of the language struck me. It wasn’t only what Hal said, but how he said it. The next day, I borrowed a copy of H5 from the base library and devoured it. That’s when my love of Shakespeare began. I read every play the library had. And, after I left the Army, I began buying my own copies of Will’s work.

These days, my Shakespeare collection rivals that of the local college library. I own three copies of the Complete Works, individual copies – in many cases multiple copies – of the plays and the sonnets, and numerous books about The Bard and his works.

In addition, I buy movie versions of every play I can get my hands on, and regularly attend stage productions of Will’s work performed by several theatre companies in and around New York City. Then, of course, there is the Shakespeare action figure, the Shakespeare bobblehead, the Shakespeare doll, the bottle of Shakesbeer, the skull…you see where I’m going here.

While I admire all of his works, Shakespeare’s Histories are my favorite plays. The jealousy, greed, and villainy; as well as the loyalty, bravery, and self-sacrifice portrayed in those 10 plays remains unmatched. Truthfully, is there a villain in literature better than Richard III? (One might make a strong case for Iago in Othello. But, did Iago have his own nephews killed? His own wife? Wait, ummm, scratch that last one, bad example!)

Of course, there are theories that Richard didn’t order the murders of the princes in the tower. Some think that King Henry VII (Richmond in Richard III) had them killed to strengthen his hold on the throne. And, that argument illuminates yet another way to appreciate these plays. As a student of history, I enjoy comparing Shakespeare’s version of events with that of the history books and the theorists.

Twenty years on, Henry V remains my absolute favorite play. I read it again every couple of years, I’ve seen three different stage versions, and I watch various film versions a few times each year. As I watch, I think about my roommates, and the other members of my unit. I think about how Darryl – the oldest of us; he was 24 and a fantastic artist serving in the Army to make enough money to attend art school – made us all watch the Branagh film, and how we were inspired. I think about how Shakespeare really got it right with those lines; how those guys, who I probably would’ve barely spoken to if I’d met them back “in the world,” became my brothers.

I laugh when I think about my adventures with those guys. Like the time 20 of us piled into a room to watch the animated dinosaur movie The Land Before Time. When an earthquake struck, and the baby dinosaur became separated from his mother, we – 20 trained soldiers; men who would kill with their bare hands, eat someone’s guts and ask for a second helping – had tears in our eyes. Though, none of us would ever admit to that.

I remember our “Pool Assaults;” a score of Infantrymen scaling the 10-foot high decorative concrete wall of the base pool in the middle of the night. We’d climb up to the 10-meter diving platform and all dive at once, then scurry back to the barracks, leaving a trail of water for the MPs to follow. Why? For no other reason than it was something to do. We were Infantrymen; we worked hard and played harder.

I think about the night my friend Ken Perkins cut open a Cyalume stick in an attempt to discover what made it glow in the dark. It spilled all over him when he split it open. He then proceeded to leave glowing hand and foot prints up and down the barracks hallway.

Or, I recall any of the dozens of other good times we had in spite of the heat and humidity, and between the push-ups, and the jungle, and the stuff I wish I could forget.

When Hal urges his men to the breach once more, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because I’ve been in situations that required that kind of bravery and I have had such brothers beside me.

That is where Will’s power truly lies. Not only can he use language to take me somewhere I’ve never been – Agincourt, Dunsinane, Verona, or Cyprus, for example – he can also take me back to the places I have. His writing connects the then and the now, the character and the reader.

When Romeo first sees Juliet, I know how he feels because his words remind me of the first time I saw the woman who broke my heart. When Hamlet contemplates suicide, I can feel his anguish because I've had those same arguments with myself. And, in the epilogue to A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Puck begs for my applause – "Give me your hands if we be friends" – I give it to him. No, not because I am a "merry wanderer of the night," but because he and his fellows have bewitched me with their words; words given to them – and in many cases created out of thin air for them – by the author.

William Shakespeare did not make me a poet – it took the aforementioned broken heart to do that. But, he lit the path by showing me how to use words to translate my feelings, experiences, and dreams into language. Using his form – the sonnet – just felt natural. (And, though some will argue that adherence to any form stifles creativity, I contend that it challenges a poet to become all the more creative.)

So, from The Mad Sonneteer to The Master, happy birthday, Will. “To me, fair Friend, you can never be old,/ For as you were when first your eye I eyed/ Such seems your beauty still.” – Sonnet XIV

We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On: A Review of "The Tempest"

Scene: Exterior - Broadway, New York City, two weeks before Christmas.

Four friends and I have set off on a quest to see Julie Taymor's interpretation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. I've been looking forward to this day for months -- I took a vacation day from work so that I could see this film on opening night -- so we're driving 30+ miles, into New York City, on a Friday night, this close to Christmas. The potential for disaster is dangerously high.

The risk, however, is more than worth the reward. See, I'm a bit of a Shakespeare fanatic. I read the plays, I see all the movies, and I see the plays performed on the stage whenever I can. I know -- and celebrate -- William Shakespeare's birthday, I know the names of the three conspirators in Henry V (Act 2, Prologue), and I remember the name of Mercutio's brother in Romeo and Juliet. I quote Shakespeare to my four-year-old niece. Oh, and I bought her a copy of The Complete Works before she was even born.

Two of my former college professors -- one with a Master's degree and one with a Ph. D. -- have invited me into their classrooms for a day or more to teach their students about The Bard. This is, of course, an honor. An honor I could not accept (it's a long story), but an honor nonetheless.

I respect both professors, but if Dr. Nancy Hazelton -- a true Shakespearean scholar -- told me that William Shakespeare was the son of an illiterate glover, who smoked cannabis, and wrote the majority of his sonnets for a man, I'd take every word as gospel. (Wait...what?!?) If I have a question about Will or the Elizabethan theater, I go to Dr. H. So, when she asked for my review of The Tempest, I again held it a high honor.

Truthfully, I'm still wrestling with my feelings toward the movie. I want to like it, I really, really want to like it. And, overall, I do. The film was beautiful. The setting (Hawaii) was perfect. The actors were -- with one exception -- terrific. Helen Mirren did a wonderful job with the "Our revels now are ended" speech. (I doubted her not.) The film was a big step up from Titus.

That being said, I had several problems (three small, two large) with the film:

1. Although I realize Trinculo is one of the "low comedy" characters, I think Russell Brand was a poor choice to play that part. His accent -- compared to those of the others -- was jarring. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that he just didn't seem to "fit" the part.
My view on this point has softened somewhat in the past three weeks. I thought back to Kenneth Branagh's casting of Alicia Silverstone and Matthew Lillard in Love's Labours Lost, and realized that Taymor was probably trying to pull in the younger, "Katy Perry" crowd by casting Brand. (Brand is, for those who don't know, engaged to singer Katy Perry.)

2. Being a Romantic, I think the moment Miranda and Ferdinand first meet could have been extended a bit. I would've liked one of those cinematic "Their eyes meet and everything around them stops for a few moments" type of shots.

3. In a few places, most notably the shipwreck scene (Act 1, Scene 1), the music made the dialogue nearly unintelligible. That scene should be loud (men shouting, howling wind, thunder, crashing waves, breaking timber), but the music threatened to drown (small pun intended) much of that.

4. The masque (Act 4, Scene 1) was very short, and it resembled a cut scene from Taymor's Across the Universe. It consisted of computer generated graphics that resembled a geometry exam on LSD. (James I, who loved masques -- hence their inclusion in many plays once he became king -- would not have approved.)

5. My major complaint about the film is the epilogue. The epilogue was presented as a song (a very slow song) which played over the closing credits. If I hadn't known that an epilogue was coming, I would have missed it. When the credits began before the epilogue was presented, I stayed in my seat thinking perhaps Taymor was going to do something like Branagh did in As You Like It. Sadly, that was not to be.
I was a bit shocked. I mean, that epilogue wasn't just the end of the play, it was Will's farewell to the stage. It should have been a bit tongue-in-cheek ("Yes, I'm out here begging you to clap for the play"), and contain a little bit of sentiment for those of us -- 400 years down the road -- who know that Will is done writing (at least by himself).

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

- William Shakespeare, The Tempest