Meditation on Death

It has been quite a week for death. On Wednesday, I had to discover on Facebook that a friend has taken their own life. This morning, I find out that a friend has also lost their mother to the same cause. I can't even imagine what he must be going through. Death seems to be everywhere, even in English. It seems so unfair to me to have to study Othello's murder on a day like this. It is unfair that he believed taking Desdemona's life was just because of her "unfaithfulness", when people around the world are taking their own lives because they cannot find a reason to keep living. The fact that Othello takes the life of Desdemona, a pure, innocent, and joyful person, to save other men from her, angers me to the core. And I know that this is no fault of Shakespeare, or even my teacher for having us study this on such a difficult day. Heartbreak over Desdemona's death was what Shakespeare intended. But today was just not the day for it.

College....

Oh dear god, it is almost October. Which means it's almost my birthday, but once that passes everything goes downhill, and it goes quickly. For the past month, I've dealt with the pent up college/graduating anxiety by reminding myself constantly that it's only September. Nothing is slipping out of your fingers yet, applications aren't due yet. It's not even sweater weather yet, girl! But today that quickly fell to shambles. A capstone update is due next Friday, and I have done almost no work on it what so ever. I'm afraid that it won't work out as I had hoped. I would hate to fall back on that math class next spring, and miss the opportunity to do an amazing project. College application deadlines are approaching soon. My stomach is still eating away at me because I only have two colleges that I want to apply to anymore, and one of them has not wanted to talk to me at all. I am having trouble finding scholarships that even apply to me. I probably shouldn't be complaining too much on the scholarship front, however. I was recently told by my parents that my grandmother has set aside a large amount of money, so that I can go to college. Why they only told me this now, is beyond me (apparently that money has been sitting there for quite some time now). I wish that I could keep living in a state of denial, and pretend that college is so far away. But I need to break out of that shell, and realize that it's staring me in the face. It's time to hit the ground running, blondie. You can do it. You can get through this.

The Moor of Venice has an X-men complex

While we were reading through Act five in class yesterday, I had a realization. Othello has an X-men complex. The only thing that bothers me about X-men movies (or at least the contemporary ones...do other ones exist? I have no idea.) is that a threat is introduced, and then almost nothing happens for the next hour of the movie. There is absolutely useless plot information, characters that the director has given me no reason to care about, an incredibly fast escalation, a large fight scene, and then the movie is over. The good guys have triumphed, at least until the next movie. It has absolutely no flow, and the small anecdotes are rather uninteresting. This structure makes it so that I can watch the first twenty minutes of the movie and the last half an hour, and completely understand the plot. The same could be said about Othello. Act one opens with an interesting controversy, Othello and Desdemona's love, and a plot from Iago to destroy it. The next three acts have semi-interesting points and some engaging character development (Othello went crazy very quickly...), and it is left to the final act for everything to collapse over a course of 11 pages. Which leaves me wondering if this was the case for other Shakespearean tragedies. Did I just miss it in the others? Or were the others simply more engaging? I feel the need to reread some of them, to find out.

Confliction.

I know that I had promised Adventure Time, but those episodes have proved to need way more time than I have had recently. I've had something on my mind that I have wanted to talk about. Being on Tumblr so often has skewed my views on a few important matters. Most of the time, they're on social injustices in the world such as discrimination and racism. I can find myself justifying these opinions on ideas such as racism and sexism, because they encourage the harm and mistreatment of people. I have been speaking out about these matters more, because American culture says treating people as lesser than a human being is okay, if it's only a joke. But today I found myself yelling at a fellow student for standing for the pledge of allegiance and giving a nazi salute. I don't even say the pledge myself, and view it as an odd nationalistic custom in the American school system. However, I still found the gesture to be inappropriate, so I called him on it.

What happened next shouldn't have surprised me. A student that I respect very much, turned around and made a holocaust joke. I was also upset by this, and asked him why he thought that joke was funny. He then proceeded to point out that rejecting this sort of humor represents that I am uncomfortable talking about such a topic, even if it's in a historical context.

There is something to be said about dealing with tragedy through humor. But I do not find it acceptable to joke on matters of the massive mistreatment and horrific killings of people. I find this to be on the same level as rape jokes. There is no justification for making a joke out of such horrific actions. Am I in the right for calling them out on it? Or am I stuck in white guilt and "uncomfortable with talking about things like this" since I cannot find humor in them? Are holocaust jokes really historical satire? Or is almost 75 years enough that I should be desensitized?

"Moor" on Othello (Hooray for puns!)

After finishing Act 2, I have been left with a few questions. Is Iago's motivation truly because of his wife's "rumored" unfaithfulness? Why does vengeance for this accusation allow my brain to process his actions as justifiable? Is it because of all of his wit and surface sympathy for his fellow characters?

There is a small mention that Iago's motivation is based solely off of a rumor. What if it is only a rumor, and nothing more? Will this come back to bite Iago? And does the fact that Othello has already harmed Iago justify his actions? In an real world situation, of course not. An eye for an eye is never the answer to any conflict. All that results is more violence, anger, and resent to be left unresolved. But the context of literature changes that. Many hunger for the story of the underdog getting revenge on his oppressors. But is this right?

What makes Iago so appealing in the first place? His cunning and manipulative behavior certainly makes me like his character. The rhetoric he uses with other characters, makes me forget that he is the main antagonist in the play. Perhaps most appealing, is the view into the mind of the villain himself. It is often forgotten that villains believe that they are doing the right thing. In Iago's case, he is seeking revenge on Othello for "holding his office" with his wife. This action, while not necessarily correct, is enough for me to justify his campaign against Othello.

So for the time being, I have decided to empathize with Iago. I cannot wait to see where this clever character leads his prey next. I am afraid for this decision, because I have been told by a classmate that by the end of the play, I will despise him. But we shall see...

Podcasts.

I love podcasts. I've been listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast for a little over a year, and let me tell you, it is just fabulous. It is a wonderfully written podcast with a heavy dose of weird. But over the span of that year, Welcome to Night Vale was the only podcast I would listen to. When the two week gap between episodes became too much for me, I began exploring the wonderful world of podcasting. First, I started with How to Do Everything, hosted by NPR's Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. I even managed to ask a them a question. That question was "how does one 'moo' in a British accent". And you know what they did? They contacted Patrick Stewart and asked him to demonstrate the different dialects of British cows. It was amazing. 

But what's making me happy this week, is the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. This podcast takes explores pop culture in a way that I had rarely heard before, and that is thoughtfully, and in a manner you might hear in an English class. It is absolutely amazing. While it offers an in-depth breakdown of the things that I love, it also gives me new things to go and watch, listen to, and read. But most importantly, it is giving me the tools to be able to take content and break on my own, while having a fun time doing it. 

Another podcast that is tickling my fancy this week, is Ask Me Another. It is a very witty and clever word puzzle show. They play silly games involving obscured word tricks, singing very frequently, (have I mentioned that Jonathan Coulton frequents the show?) and so many terrible puns. So go check it out! 

Othello!

I am so excited that we started Othello today! In the classes leading up to it, I was a little worried because I haven't read Shakespeare in a while. But it felt very easy to get back into, and I can't wait to keep reading. I was also excited because Othello isn't a play I have heard much about. With Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, ect. it's easy to have some experience with it before reading it for the first time. It's pleasant to be able to experience a classic for the first time, without the stigma or prior knowledge of how it ends.

I'm also very excited to discover that the play's main protagonist is a person of color. While, yes, the utter racism portrayed absolutely breaks my heart, it is so amazing to see something like this coming from the 17th century. It also leaves me wondering if they got an actual person of color to play Othello. While I'm sure there is only racism and death ahead for our poor Othello, I can't wait to read the rest of it.