Six-word stories

Catarina.net has a wonderful thread asking people to suggest six-word stories. The lead-off story by Hemingway is poignant, and one of the commenters observes that sad stories seem easier to write in this compressed form. I contributed the history professor story.

"Monday-morning lines"

John Sutherland's Guardian article on the contention that some of Shakespeare's worst lines were written the morning after a big drunk is amusing, though it feels kind of rushed into print to fill space on a slow news day. Alhough all of the Macbeth examples were pretty well chosen, it feels as if Sutherland is basing his argument on lines pulled at random from the text; he's making a big statement based on weakly presented evidence.

Still, he does cite Kermode and others who testify to some of the Bard's "crap lines." And I don't doubt that it's true. Running a theatre, acting, and writing plays consumed lots of time and energy, sometimes the muse snoozes, and there's no better way to relax your mind than to leave your workroom and get snockered.

I also assume Shakespeare wrote without benefit of an editor or readers (apart from his fellow actors), and since the canonical texts were largely re-membered by his fellow players, is it beyond the bounds of belief that maybe they threw in a few lines of their own that we now attribute to the Great Man?

The article reminded me of Anthony Burgess' book on Shakespeare, where he says that most everyone in London at that time walked around half-drunk because there was no reliably potable water supply. As a result, they drank the beer, wine, and other fermented beverages that were safer to drink than the water.

Eh--so what? In plays that are so big and sprawling, there are places for odd lines, lazy writing, strange motivation, and lapses in the plot, just as there are places for witches, ghosts, assassinations, passion, and all other things that grab an audience's wayward attention. Shakespeare didn't write well-made plays, he wrote great plays. We shouldn't be surprised that Shakespeare wrote lazy lines now and then; what's surprising is that what he tossed off "without a blot" is still so good and still lives.

Liz cracks me up

We were driving through the miles 'n' miles of shopping center near the 70 and 540 intersection. As we drove down the faux Mayberry Main Street blocks of chain stores, I said, "To think, all that was here before was just trees and unproductive land." Pause. Then Liz said, "And now, it's servicing America."

For whatever reason, that just cracked me up.

Al & Mel's "Lost Girls"

For a man widely described as a recluse and rarely given to interviews, Alan Moore is all over the place. First with "V for Vendetta" and now with "Lost Girls." This page at Top Shelf Comix links to all or most of the interviews he's been giving since the book's release.

Top Shelf reports it's sold out the 1st and 2nd printing, so they're going to a 3rd printing.

Phillips on death

The world without the people who matter to us is not the same world and so not the world at all. Life becomes progressively stranger as we get older - and we become increasingly frantic to keep it familiar, to keep it in order - because people keep changing the world for us by dying out (mourning is better described as orientation, the painful wondering whether it is worth re-placing oneself).

Adam Phillips, Side Effects