Here's my first week's effort from my new project: questions about Othello.

1. List all parties responsible for Desdemona's death, in the order of responsibility.

2. Some say Iago, not Othello, is the real hero of the play. Agree or disagree, and give reasons.

3. What drives Iago to destroy Othello:
--some real or imagined slight (Cassio's promotion, or Othello's infidelity with Emilia)?
--a general sense of inferiority (which some have suggested drove the Columbine and other school shooters)?
--a generally destructive nature?

4. Iago says of Cassio (5.i.20-21): "He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly..." How might this feeling (perhaps generalized to all the successful people around him) have driven Iago?

5. Why do people (and Iago himself) constantly call Iago honest, when he is anything but?

6. In the BBC Shakespeare, Bob Hoskins plays Iago as laughing, gleeful, imp-like (even in his soliloquies) where one might expect him to be grim, morose, sinister. Which sounds more effective and appropriate? Why?

7. Othello is a general, a man who knows strategy and tactics. How could a "mere" ensign outmaneuver him?

8. Othello bekieves Iago without seeking corroboration. Why is this?

9. Can anyone be as pure as Desdemona seems to be? Is she a believable character?

10. What is the basis of the love between Othello and Desdemona? Consider how they met, how the married, and so on.

11. Think about the three key women in the play: Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. How do they reflect each other? What do they say about Shakespeare's (or the characters') views toward women?

12. What role do attitudes of race play in the various characters' views of Othello? Is this a main issue, or incidental?

13. Consider Iago's numerous soliloquies and long speeches. What do we learn of him in these?

14. Do you agree with Othello's self-assessment, that he is "one that loved not wisely but too well"?

15. A creative assignment: Journal the story from Emilia's perspective.

Category: Shakespeare

I've just started a new project: I'll try to read (study, really, with footnotes) one Shakespeare play a week for the next ten months or so, and then watch the BBC production of that play, from back in the '80s. I've downloaded 37 of them (The Two Noble Kinsmen seems not to be included). When time is tight, I may find myself taking two weeks, so this might last a year or so.

This week I read and watched Othello. Each day I read and studied one act, then watched it in the evening, while the reading was still fresh. Tomorrow I may try to watch the whole thing again, time permitting.

Next week is King Lear; I chose these two mainly because I bought cheap copies at a used bookstore in the Philippines in February. This week I'll need to go seek out copies of more plays in Shenzhen's bookstores.

Why not just read the online versions? Because a "real book" like the Folger Shakespeare Library series puts the notes on a page facing the text--most convenient. True, you can find nicely-formatted versions online, too, but they're not portable. (To tell the truth, I understand over 90% of what I read; but understanding those rare archaisms and occasional obscure allusions can make all the difference.)

Rather than blab on (I found "blab" in Othello!) about what I think of the plays, I'll try to post questions that occurred to me; you can then form your own opinions (though sometimes mine may be given away in the very questions).

I'll also create a post about some of the online resources I'm using, and add to it from time to time.

So, avaunt! Hie thee to my next post upon the nonce, lest with delay you lose the sense of it. (Anything interesting about that sentence, meter-wise?) I'll let you know on Facebook any time I've posted new stuff. Enjoy!

Categories: Shakespeare

Here's the Heart Sutra as I chant it:

Maha Prajna Paramita Hridya Sutra

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita
perceives that all five skandhas are empty
and is saved from all suffering and distress.

Shariputra,
form does not differ from emptiness,
emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
that which is emptiness form.
The same is true of feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they do not appear or disappear,
are not tainted or pure,
do not increase or decrease.
Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind;
no realm of eyes
and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.

No ignorance and also no extinction of it,
and so forth until no old age and death
and also no extinction of them.

No suffering, no origination,
no stopping, no path, no cognition,
also no attainment with nothing to attain.

The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
and the mind is no hindrance;
without any hindrance no fears exist.
Far apart from every perverted view one dwells in Nirvana.

In the three worlds
all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita
and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.

Therefore know that Prajna Paramita
is the great transcendent mantra,
is the great bright mantra,
is the utmost mantra,
is the supreme mantra
which is able to relieve all suffering
and is true, not false.

So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra,
proclaim the mantra which says:

gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.

--------
Here's an audio version

Categories: Buddhism, Spirituality

Some common sense for graduates (despite the sensational headline). I have reposted this here because (a) the original cannot be accessed in China at this moment and (b) I like it. A lot.

(Links at end)

[Intro and text from the "Swellesley Report" linked below]

We’d been hearing good things over the weekend about Wellesley High School English teacher David McCullough, Jr.’s faculty speech to the Class of 2012 last Friday. Here it is, in its entirety, courtesy of Mr. McCullough:

+ + + + + + + +

Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon, I am honored and grateful.  Thank you.

So here we are... commencement... life's great forward-looking ceremony.  (And don't say, "What about weddings?"  Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective.  Weddings are bride-centric pageantry.  Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there.  No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me procession.  No being given away.  No identity-changing pronouncement.  And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos?  Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy.  Left to men, weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, spontaneous, almost inadvertent... during halftime... on the way to the refrigerator.  And then there's the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced.  A winning percentage like that'll get you last place in the American League East.  The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)

The Dhammapada is a widely-quoted collection of sayings of the Buddha. I read selections (almost) every day, and have learned some by heart.

The quote above is from Chapter 6, Verse 79. Actually, as the numbers are consecutive throughout the book, it is enough to say just "Verse 79"; but the chapters are thematic, and Chapter 6 concentrates on "The Wise."

It reads:

As for the picture, it's a heavily-manipulated version of an original photo of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, Japan. I was fortunate to visit it many times when I lived in Yokohama, and I have dozens of shots, so you'll be seeing him again. The outdoor location is dramatic, with the hills behind and the ocean in front (said to be good feng shui).

Categories: Art, Buddhism, _Japan, Peace, Photography, Quotations, Spirituality

Post-divorce and pre-Japan was a wandering time (as mentioned in my post about Robert Urich). And the wandering place that meant the most was the Four Corners area, especially New Mexico.

The LAND itself was healing; the PEOPLE and the SOLITUDE. The picture above shows me with some Taoseno Indians on the front porch of their home in Taos Pueblo; they and many others accepted me with a kindness that was inexplicable.

Once I took a group of students to the Pueblos, and at one of them we attended a "rain dance" (they called it a "corn dance," as the rain leads to corn). One of our boys bought smoke bombs at a booth and proceeded to go around setting them off.

I was livid. This is these people's HOMES, I said. How would you like it of someone did this in YOUR yard?

As I rode my high-horse, a big--and I mean BIG--dancer (on a break from the heat) came over, sat down in the midst of our group, and asked where we were from. I told him, and then hastily apologized for my charge's behavior.

"No problem," he said. "We dance for the whole world. We're really glad you're here."

Wow.

Categories: Bio, Compassion, Gratitude, Peace, Spirituality, The West

It's been 10 years since my friend Robert Urich died, and I'm just now beginning to feel I can write about him.

Calling Robert and Heather "friends" sounds so lame: in Hollywood, someone once said, a friend is "someone you've heard of."

These two have been so much more than that.

At the lowest time in my life, they took me into their home in Utah. They gave me a space to live in, time to heal, honorable work to do (in tutoring their son Ryan), and their time, friendship, and love.

They took me on family outings, to church, to their house in Canada. I probably spent more time with Heather--sightseeing, discussing books and movies, helping her with the kids, just hanging around the house. It was her idea to reach out to me, and she is every bit the friend he was, but today I'd like to talk about Bob.

Robert Urich was a doer. He had a go-getter attitude that was summed up in his delightful misquote of an Indian saying. They said, "You must seek enlightenment like a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond." Robert's version was more appropriate for his way of living: "Face every day like your hair was on fire."

Many was the (late) morning when Bob would bang on my bedroom door and call in: "Baquet, are you alive in there? Let's go do something."

Despite his great success, Robert was still a blue-collar boy, as am I. He was immune to  the trappings of fame and stardom, and despite the difference in our worldly status, when we were together we were just "Bob and Jim." He was no snob.

We'd talk about everything, from movies to family to philosophy to history to reminiscences of childhood. He was a voracious reader, and not a quick, but a deep thinker.

One of my favorite things about him was how I'd toss an idea out there (as teachers do), and he'd say, "Aw, that's horsesh*t!" (though he rarely swore), and then we'd talk and talk and talk. Sometimes he'd end up agreeing with me, sometimes I with him, sometimes there was no resolution, but it was always the camaraderie, the being together, that was important, not the conclusion.

Once at the dinner table he said, "Hey, Heather. Maybe we ought to keep Baquet around after the kids go off to school, and he can teach us all the stuff we should have learned in high school." He even told a reporter later that I was the family's "resident academic adviser." I loved him for his attitude toward personal growth.

That was January through June, 1995, and I stayed on in the house when they went to Canada for the summer.

Back in L.A. at Christmas, I called to greet the family and Bob asked what I was doing, which wasn't much. "Come up for New Years," he said, "then come to Santa Fe and run lines with me." He was then shooting "The Lazarus Man."

It wasn't long before we discovered that an old pro like him didn't NEED help in learning his lines. But he kept me on as an on-set assistant, which largely meant hanging around with him, recommending books, talking about what we were reading--and occasionally taking a phone call or reminding him of an appointment.

From our time back in Utah, we had become close enough that we could  be "real" with each other. And as Robert was the only weekly character on "Lazarus," he carried much of the stress that made the show go. This sometimes manifested itself in--shall we say--a bit of pique? But he never turned it on me.

One day, he had a radio interview to do, and... I forgot. And we missed it. (Can you imagine the radio host building up to the interview, and then receiving no call?)

Knowing I had no choice, I prepared to face The Wrath. I went to him and said, "Hey, Chief. I screwed up. We missed the blah-blah-blah interview."

He looked down for a minute--as I stood there waiting for it--then looked up, and said: "We should probably be more careful about these things."

Whew!

Here's where it gets hard.

Shortly after the season was over and we'd gone back to our respective homes, I called to say hi, and he told me he'd been diagnosed with cancer. They moved to L.A., and over the next few months I went by the house whenever I could. The philosophical discussions we'd had in Utah and New Mexico now took on some depth, some urgency, and I learned a lot from him.

In February of 1997, with things looking better all around, I left for Japan to teach for a year, but my one year became nearly five.

On one of my summer visits home, I flew up to Canada to see Bob and Heather. One night when Robert and I had washed, dried, and put away the dishes, he set down his towel, wrapped those giant arms around me, and said quietly, "I love you, Jim."

It won't surprise you, then, that one of the primary reasons I moved back to the U.S. in late 2001 was to be near the Urichs.

Regrettably, I only saw them a few times before the news came.

I was staying at my parents' house in April 2002, having just started a new job. My parents were away, and when the phone rang one morning it was my aunt saying, "I'm sorry to tell you, but your friend died." "What friend?" I asked stupidly. That's how much this took me (and most of us) by surprise.

I called Robert and Heather's house immediately, and their daughter Emily answered. She told me something that pains me to this day: They had called me the night before to come to the bedside for Bob's last moments. But because it was my parents' phone, not mine, I never got the message.

No chance to say goodbye. I'm crying again (still) as I write this, ten years later.

Heather and I are still friends, though I've been in China over eight of the past ten years. I'll always be grateful to her and Robert for their great kindness, their great generosity, their great love.

I'm sure that everyone who knew him will agree: no one has ever taken his place.

I miss you, Chief.

Robert's fighting spirit lives on in the work of the Robert Urich Foundation's efforts to fund cancer research and patient care. Please consider a gift.

For more about the Urich family today, including details on the newly-released The Sound of Music Family Scrapbook, visit Heather's website.

Categories: Bio, Compassion, Gratitude, The West

Twenty-plus years ago, Edie Brickell (who is also Mrs. Paul Simon--did you know?) sang in "What I am":

I'm not aware of too many things,
but I know what I know if you know what I mean.
Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box.
Religion is the smile on a dog. (complete lyrics)

That last line was a topic of discussion at the time; was it a good thing or a bad thing?

Here's something Ms Brickell has said since (via Wikiquote):

In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel. It's not this tangled web of psychology and philosophy. I was driving to band practice and started singing that song. I wanted to be real, not adopt some philosophy or role. Instinct is our driving force.

There you have it: instinct. We continually get our minds in the way, between what is and what we perceive. Dogs don't have this problem.

The two above were my teachers many years ago, around the time the song was popular. Ginger (the smiling one) was with us a short time, until one day she had a disagreement with a train. Buster (the serious one) was found on the street, and never lost his savvy. He died of old age on my ex-wife's farm in Tennessee.

In "The Hollow Men," T.S. Eliot wrote:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
...
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
...
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
---

Could this intervention of thought between "out there" and "in here" be what Eliot means by "the Shadow"?

Categories: Bio, Buddhism, Mindfulness, Music, Photography, Poetry, Quotations, Spirituality

You never know what another person is going through.

Lila and I have often discussed this recently: how a friend who lives far away can suddenly pronounce herself "cancer free," when you had no idea; how you can spend a day in drudgery with someone, only to find out later it was his birthday.

It makes you realize how important it is to be kind, to create the least trouble for someone as possible, because you never know which straw will break the camel's back.

This is something I need to get better at.

I found a poem a couple of weeks ago that captures perfectly the idea that people are often suffering silently.

"Not Waving But Drowning"
Stevie Smith (1902-1971)

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

The poet reads her poem aloud and discusses its background
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7089

More background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Waving_but_Drowning

Categories: Compassion, Poetry, Spirituality

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye." from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery

Every picture is biographical.

Back in 1996, I was living in Santa Fe. My then-girlfriend and I were out for a drive through La Cienega and (as usual) we were bickering about something.

As the argument escalated, I suddenly spotted this church up ahead, and the tombstone practically jumped out at me. I took the shot through the windshield.

We made up.

Categories: Bio, Photography, Quotations, Spirituality, The West