The Appropriation of Classical Literature Forms from an Improvisational Perspective

An early draft of my graduate school thesis was my theory is that Del based the Harold form on the Petrarchan Sonnet.

Normally you break down a sonnet thusly by mapping the rhyme scheme:

Stanza 1:

A
B
A
B
Stanza 2:

C
D
C
D
Stanza 3:

E
F
E

F

Rhyming Couplet:

G
G

If instead of mapping the rhyme scheme, you map the thematic arc, you get something quite different. The sonnet is based on the introduction of an idea in the first stanza of four lines. The idea is then explored more deeply in the second stanza of four lines. Then the idea is blown out as far as possible in the third stanza of four lines. The fourth line of each stanza is there as mini-a punchline and not necessarily to add content, or as a punctuation to the stanza.  The poem is then concluded by examining all of the ideas that have been introduced in a single rhyming couplet.

Following a sonnet thematically instead of following the rhyme scheme would look like this:

Line 1A
Line 2A
Line 3A
Punctuation (A)
Line 1B
Line 2B
Line 3B
Punctuation (B)
Line 1C
Line 2C
Line 3C
Punctuation (C)
Rhyming Couplet

Basically, then, the Sonnet is an elongated Harold.  If you remove punctuation line C (these would be considered the group games), the Sonnet Form actually is a Harold.  Even the rhyming couplet would be what is referred to in the improv world as “Fantasy Island”, a beat that takes all of the characters introduced so far find themselves in the same place.  Shakespeare actually, then, invented the Harold form 400 years before Del Close.

…and that, my friends, is how to bluff your way through grad school.

It’s hard to separate morality from social convention.

Unless you’re one of these people who are going to freak out if I use the phrase “relative morality” in a sentence, read on.

 

Constantly re-examine your ideas of morality. 

I wrote a long and winding thesis citing everything from the shifts in morality that the Israelites had to adopted while wandering in the desert to the immorality of mixed-race marriages sixty years ago that has dissolved today…but I doubt it’s entertaining enough to be blog worthy. 

 Long story short, most morality is really social convention in disguise…yeah, that’s right…I said “most”.  Not “some”, I would go so far as to say “most”.  Consider most of the things you consider to be moral, and ask yourself “why?”  This is often a tough question as people don’t consider what their moral compass is before deciding on their morality.

 

I’m not here to question what your moral compass is.  You can use your faith as well as you can use political philosophers.  Jesus has some great things to say in the vein of morality as does John Locke.  Choose your own moral compass, but recognize this danger:

Most great thinkers of their time, if they think for long enough, wind up contradicting themselves.  Freud and Brecht are good examples of great thinkers who by the end of their careers completely refuted what they stated as absolute at the beginning.  Sometimes you’ve got to ask “Okay, that was a good idea then, but do you still feel that way?”  If enough time has passed and the answer is still “yes”, then they are probably dead (or in the case of Jesus, not dead but only speaking in mysterious ways).  I bet even Socrates might have had some decided changes of thoughts if he hadn’t sucked down that hemlock.

 

That’s one thing all great thinkers have in common: the ability (or perhaps the need) to change their mind.

 

Unfortunately I’m not a great thinker.  I recognize the need to change my mind and reanalyze pretty much everything, but I need help.  This causes me to have crises of faith, both in philosophy or religion.  Often in these crises, people either break ties from their faith entirely or embrace it unquestioningly, pretty much because it’s easier than admitting their not a great thinker.  As we learn from the MTA:

 

“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.”  -Henri Poincare

 

So if I’m supposed to question my own thoughts, morality, and even those sources that teach us our beliefs, what can you count on as a moral compass?

 

One piece of advice that I got from Michael Pollin is “Shake the hand that feeds you.” 

Sure, he’s talking about food.  Basically he’s saying know where your food comes from.  If you can’t shake the hand the feeds you, you can’t trust the process that created it.  A couple months ago I was in Lancaster where I could shake hands with a chicken farmer.  I challenged the ways he raised the chicken, and he was happy to talk to me about it.  That vital challenge cannot happen in the dairy aisle of Shop Rite. (I’ve tried it, the crates of eggs refuse to give up their secrets.)

Perhaps we should do the same with morality: “Shake the hand that feeds you.” 

Know where your morals come from.  Find a living barometer that you can question and challenge and (perhaps more importantly) questions and challenges you back.  In this way you can keep your morals alive and vital.  Nourish them by questioning them and changing them.  If you can’t shake the hand that feeds you, you’ll be taking your morals out of context.  Perhaps the Ten Commandments would be worded slightly different if they were written for us instead of the ancient Israelites.  Perhaps John Locke might question his own views on revolution in the grip of the modern government-industrial complex.  Perhaps even Henri Poincare might have changed his beliefs on belief if he had lived long enough.

If your moral compass has shuffled off this mortal coil, it is your duty to continue thinking for him not to let his thoughts fossilize with his bones.  His mind might be gone, but his thoughts can still survive and thrive and grow into new and wonderful things.  His books aren’t his thoughts; your questions about his thoughts are his thoughts.

Conversations in the Elevator: An Update of an Old Buddhist Tale

There once was a very wealthy man who had everything he could possibly want…but he was discontent.  He wanted to know what was the point of it all.  He was told to seek out the Buddha.  At this time Buddha had gone through his “questioning and fasting” phase and was now in the “fat and wise” stage.  Besides being fat and wise, he also was living on top of a nearly unreachable mountain.  The rich man hired a team and set out for the mountaintop.  Five months of journeying and a considerable percentage of his wealth later, the rich man finally arrived at the Buddha’s abode.  He told the Buddha that he was happy in all things, but he wanted to know what the Buddha knew.

“What’s the meaning of it all?” 

Buddha nodded in thought and sat for an hour…and another…by the time that three hours had passed he was nearly at his wits end. 

Out of patience he pleaded, “Well?!?”

The Buddha looked at the man, smiles, and says, “You are the Buddha.” 

The rich man was disgusted.  He spat upon the ground. 

To himself he thought, “Months of travel and the better part of my fortune gone, and that’s all he has to say?!?”

To the Buddha he said, “You are a pig!”

The Buddha nodded. 

The rich man stood perplexed, “What?”

“That’s the answer.”

“What’s the answer?”

“Buddha sees Buddha; pig sees pig.”

In a similar vein, this morning I got on the elevator with a woman who works in my office and a random delivery man.

The man said, “You shucked?”

In this story, I’m the one that is perplexed.

He repeated, “You shucked?  Something shucked you in morning?”

I shrugged, helpless to understand his question.

“Your hair…it’s shucked.”

He made a “scared” face and I realized that he’s referring to my Mohawk.

“No.  I did this on purpose.”

He got off laughing and it dawned on me.

“Shocked,” I said to the other passenger.

“What?”

“He was saying ’shocked’!”

“Yeah.  What a douche-bag.”

“Really?  I thought he was being friendly.”

She said nothing out loud in response, but her face clearly said, “You’re a douche-bag, too!” 

Moral of the story:

Friend sees friend; douche-bag sees douche-bag.

I apologize for my lack of post last week, it was a really crazy week…

To make up for it, I’ll post a two-parter today. Feel free to come back and read the second half on Thursday to spread out the entertainment.

If you’re not even going to read the first post, here’s the interesting blog-stat of the month:

I really like it when people search the internet for advice (instead of pictures of Brad Pitt and Christina Ricci) and find my blog. For example, yesterday:

• Someone searched for “i don’t support remembrance day” and read my Why I Don’t Condone a Remembrance Day.
• Someone searched for “saw vi script” and read my Leaked! Check out a preview of the “Saw VI”.
• Someone searched for “tasted foie gras” and read my Foie Gras: How can it be bad if it tastes so good?

I’m not really sure what kind of advice this earcher was looking for, but a search for “when can you hit someone?” led them to my blog.  Whoever you are, I hope my blog helped you with your question.

If you are interested in The Problems of Interpreting the Author’s Intent read on….I’ll save the religious argument for second, so we’ll start wit:

“The problem of Interpretation: This Land is Your Land”

Who has ever had to sing “God Bless America” and “This Land is Your Land” at a school assembly to celebrate how great America is?  (…or since I have music teachers who read my blog, how many of you have made your students sing it?)  Much like Bruce Springsteen’s oft misunderstood “Born in the USA” (He must have been secretly pleased when Bob Dole and Ronald Regan chose it as their campaign song since it’s actually a critique of how are veterans are treated after returning home from war.), Woody Guthry’s anthem also has an ironic subtext:

We all know that redwood forests and the gulf stream waters were made for you and me (not to mention the sparkling sands of her diamond desert), but did anyone ever notice that the song mysteriously ends when the fog lifts at the end of this national journey?  Although usually when “the fog lifts” an illusion disappears and reality is seen more clearly, but in this song after the fog lifts most patriotic singers return immediately to the first verse.  Like a joke without a punchline this question begs to be answered.  Like a chicken trying to cross a road, there are many ways to answer that question.  So why did Woody Guthrie cross this land?  Obviously to get to the other side…but what did he find when he got there?  There are four answers to this question, written by Guthrie but probably never sung by a middle school chorus:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

Sometimes instead of a wall, it was just a sign:

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

The above version was originally followed by a bonus verse:

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

…and perhaps the most direct answer to what Guthrie found out about this beautiful land when the fog lifted:

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I’d seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

Interesting that Woody’s actually saying that although this land appears to be made for you and me, in practice it doesn’t work out that way.

“The problem of Translation: The Second Commandment”

Translation always seems to be a pretty straight-forward task.  Take a word in one language and put in a word with the same meaning from another language.  Of course you have to understand idioms and slang, but still these words have meanings and if you understand the meanings, how different could two translations be?  Take the old testamen, ftor example.  The ten commandments are written in Hebrew, but even if you translate “Ratsakh teer lo.” as “Thou Shalt not kill.” or “Do not commit murder.”, it still pretty much means the same thing…well, most of the time.  If you’re going to use the commandments to condemn war, you’re out of luck since Jewish sages note that the word “ratsakh” applies only to illegal killing (e.g., premeditated murder or manslaughter) — and is never used in the administration of justice or for killing in war.  I personally am against killing for any reason, even war, but that’s not what Yahweh was talking about in the ten commandments.

…but I digress.  The point is that the difference between “murder” and “kill” is a minor one.  The problem with translation is the cultural understanding of concepts…such as the significance of names.  The Hebrew word for a name is שם (shem), but “shem” is much more than just the word you use to identify one person from another.  It also means the “breath”, not as in the exchange of air in the lungs, one’s breath is the life inside you.  It the internal qualities of an individual that make him or her unique.  Shem translates most simply as name, but more completely as character.  It is not just what you are called, it is who you are.  In some cases it’s even translated as “fame” as in 1 Kings 4:31, “and his fame was in all the nations round about.”  They didn’t just know his name, they understood very clearly who he was and what he was about.

To go back to the commandments, it’s also found in “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.”  which would more correctly translate as “Do not take the character of God in vain.”

So what does it mean?  Remember that Shem not only means “character”, but also “breath”.  Going back to Genesis, God gave Adam the breath of life.  This is a highly meaningful act.  God did not just fill up Adam’s lungs.  God could have done that without breathing on him.  It was God placing within Adam a representation of himself, his character was placed within Adam. Remember that there were other people in the world at the time of the Garden of Eden.  The town of Nod, for example, was full of people with air in their lungs…but not the Shem of God.  God’s shem can’t be taken, only given by God.

Which brings us to the next important Hebrew word: נשא (nasa), which KJV translates as “take”.  Like take (“Take a number”, “Take a walk”, “Take my wife, please!”, etc.) , nasa can be used for a multitude of meanings.  It translates variously as lift, carry, accept, exalt, regard, obtain, respect, and so one and so forth.  In some way it always refers to possession.  In the context of being used with the direct object of “name”.  If one is to nasa a name, it means to “lifts it up.”  God wants his followers to lift up his shem and show this character to others, and he takes it seriously if one were to represent his character falsely.  Correctly translated “Adonai shem et sah tee lo shay’la kha hey lo e.” means is acting like the people of God or more idiomatically, “You’ve got God in you, so you’d better act like it.”

Thinking of this commandment in terms of action makes more sense than when you should or should not say God’s name since orthodox Jews never pronounce the literal name anyway.  If they already have a rule that says, “Don’t say God’s name.” why would they need a second rule that says “Don’t say God’s name in vain.”  That’s like a teacher telling her students, “Don’t cheat on tests.” and “Don’t cheat on math tests.”

In 2009, one word will enter and another will leave.

In 2009, philologists estimate that the number of words in the English language will reach the 1,000,000 mark.  To celebrate that event, I am retiring a word from my usage and adopting another.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that words only have the power given to them by those that speak and hear them.  In a vacuum, words become innocuous.  I’ve come to find that rehearsal halls are usually the kind of Petri dish that can sustain any word that needs to be said.  After all, if you’re reading from a script you can’t avoid saying the four letter words.  Seven little words you can never say on radio are just the tip of the iceberg.  Those are a no brainer when it comes to testing the Petri dish of language that is the acting rehearsal hall.  For a while the C-Bomb made people nervous, but among acting circles it has lost enough of its strength to be brought into the room.  Only one word still gives us pause.

The game of patterns is name a category and everyone has to give an example.  Examples given already were dago, frog, kike, spic, wop, and yid.  There’s a hand-clapping pattern and the game usually continues without missing a beat, but when I name the first racial slur that pops into my head the whole games grinds to a halt.  I tried to keep saying it to take the edge off and learned that it doesn’t work.  The edge doesn’t come off of nigger no matter how many times you use it.  In fact, you’re probably surprised that I put the word in print.  The sight of the word probably made you pause.  I’ve always wondered why that is.

I won’t get into the debate over whether or not I should be able to use the word.  It just gave me room for thought that in a safe space that word still has the power to create danger.  Six letters, two syllable, and perhaps the most powerful word in the English language.  To illustrate the point, here are the mild-mannered ladies of the view in a major row:

The View vs. The N-Word

Again, I don’t necessarilly agree with anyone except for Whoopi when she says, “You have to listen.  You have to hear, ‘This is why I’m using the word, and this is what I mean by it.’”

…but really it’s just to illustrate the staying power of that word, and it’s fun to see middle-aged women in a catfight.  Suffice it to say, that’s the word I am retiring.  You can’t force a word to be something it’s not, so I won’t even try.

In exchange I’m taking back the phrase I don’t give a dam, which is offensive to those who do not tolerate swearing.  “But, Jason!” I can hear you asking. “In a post about philology, how can you misspell such a common American idiom?”  Well, that’s why I feel good about bringing it back.  This phrase isn’t a swear at all, except when misspelled or misunderstood.  A dam is actually an Indian coin, the precursor for the rupee.  One rupee is worth about two cents. 

Much like the American “Here’s my two cents.” which implies that one’s opinion isn’t worth much, to “not give a dam” is to say that one wouldn’t even give one’s smallest coin to help out whatever matter was being discussed.

…and frankly, my dear, when it comes to the proper usage of words…I do give a dam.