melodrama and its opposite

I participated in an online discussion about Tiger Woods, an athlete who recently got caught with his pants down -- literally. He's been exposed as a serial adulterer, which is too bad, because before his "sins" came out, he was a role model to many people.

Fans are angry. But each fan, being a unique human being, deals with this anger in his own way. Some see Tiger as a sick man in need of help; others see him as a monster.

The following is part of a discussion about Mike Wise, a sports writer who writes for "The Washington Post." In an article entitled "I Am Tiger Woods," Wise admits to his own past affairs and implies that men who cheat are sex addicts, suffering from voids in their lives. His stance angered many, who saw it as excusing bad behavior.

Wise's essay: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/25/AR2009122501440.html

Here's my response:

There are two great, ongoing human projects which help us deal with "sin." One of them is called melodrama and the other, unfortunately, doesn't have a name (to the best of my knowledge). For the sake of shorthand, I'll call it psychological drama. (Though I'm unhappy with that name. It implies that melodrama doesn't deal with psychology, and I don't think that's true. It just presents a simplified, cartoon-like psychology, which is much less nuanced than the psychology in what I'm calling "psychological drama.")

When someone hurts us (e.g. cheats on us or assaults us), we can either see the "bad guy" as a force of nature or a fully-endowed human. Psychological drama, which delves deeply into background and motivation, encourages the former; Melodrama, in which bad guys are simply evil assholes, encourages the latter.

To me, it's silly to consider one of these forms superior to the other. Their longevity and co-existence implies that they are both necessary. Both exist in all cultures that tell stories (e.g. all cultures), and there are amazing literary examples of both.

What's interesting to me is that they are, in a sense, mutually exclusive. When someone needs melodrama, he (usually) must bar psychological drama; when someone needs psychological drama, he (generally) finds melodrama childishly simplistic and worthless.

In discussions like this, whenever anyone brings up the psychology, others (ones in a melodramatic frame of mind) get offended. "Why did Hitler murder all those people?" they ask. "Because he was an evil bastard. That's why!" They don't want to hear any psychological explanation, because, to one who needs melodrama, motivational thinking and humanizing are forms of EXCUSING.

Quite a few people here have accused Wise of EXCUSING Woods, even though Wise claims to not be doing this. If you need melodrama, you are probably going to read excusing into ANY attempt to psychologically probe a bad guy. (My use of the word "read," above, is not meant to imply that psychological writers aren't excusing. They might or might not be. But if you're in a melodramatic frame of mind, it doesn't matter whether they are or not. You'll necessarily interpret their prose as an excuse.)

I love both forms, but I'm more of a Chekovian than a Dickensian. I think of everyone as having reasons for what they're doing -- reasons rooted in genetics or post-natal history/biography. To me, learning about those reasons has nothing (necessarily) to do with excusing, though I am more apt to sympathize with the bad guy if I know what makes him tick than if I don't.

(For reasons I can't explain, humanizing bad guys is cathartic to me even when I'm the victim of their crimes. This will baffle anyone more attuned to melodrama, and I admit that I can't explain it myself. I even find it comforting to humanize the Nazis who killed many members of my family. Maybe it's because I'm scared of living in a world filled with monsters, and humanizing allows me to live, instead, in a world filled with -- well -- humans. In any case, I have no interest in excusing -- just in explaining.)

Reading the article, I sympathize with Wise. However, I don't excuse what he did.

I'm fond of navel gazing, and so I have theories about almost all of my own motivations. I've done plenty of bad things in my life. And I think I understand why I did them. However, I don't excuse myself for doing them. Does understanding my own psychology make me less of a shit? No. It just makes me know why I am a shit.

To me -- a guy who likes psychological drama -- Wise's essay doesn't seem like he's excusing himself. It seems like he's saying "I'm a shit and here's why." To someone who prefers (or needs) melodrama, the very act of saying "why" is necessarily making an excuse. It's claiming that the bad guy is not fully responsible for his actions. How could he help being a shit when his mother was so cold to him as a child?

A fascinating example of the tug between melodrama and psychological drama is "A Clockwork Orange." The genesis of that book is a real-life incident. Anthony Burgess and his wife were assaulted in their home by thugs. He set out to write a melodrama about it, one told from the point of view of the victims in which the assailants were evil forces. But his novelist instincts lead him to explore the psychology of the bad guys, and at some point he flipped his thinking and wrote the whole book from the villain's perspective. (I suspect, but can't prove, that something similar happened to Shakespeare when he wrote "The Merchant of Venice.")

I am afraid that we're stuck in a world in which there will always be both melodrama and psychological drama -- and I hope it's clear that I'm not just talking about fiction; I'm also talking about the way we talk and think about criminals and sinners. And we're also stuck in a world in which those two forms, or at least the mental states of the people who are consuming them, are incompatible.

If you insist that Hitler was a person (which you may need to do), know that you'll anger a large number of people who NEED to seem him as a monster; if you insist that he's monster (which you may need to do), be sure that you'll frustrate those of us who don't believe in monsters.

---

After I wrote this, someone suggested that the opposite of melodrama is tragedy.

I responded as follows:

I can't possibly prove this, but I believe that the "atomic units" of narrative are melodrama and X -- X being what I've (unfortunately) called "psychological drama."

By "atomic units" I mean three things:

1. The forms don't mix well. They are not totally atomic in this sense. I have seen a few interesting hybrids (e.g. "Merchant of Venice"), but it's pretty hard to make up a story in which the bad guy is both a pure evil force-of-nature and a nuanced, psychologically deep character at the same time.

2. They are both well-honed forms. Both have existed at least since the time of the ancient Greeks.

3. They contain all other genres, e.g. a Mystery or a Sci-fi novel is in a sub-genre of melodrama or psychological drama (or an experimental attempt to straddle in both camps).

I would also claim (without proof, alas), as I did above, that the two forms give us the two things we most need from narrative: belonging and independence: "we are all in this together" vs. "it's me against the world."

I would call tragedy a sub-category (though definitely a sub-category of psychological drama). "Midsummer Night's Dream" is, to my mind, a psychological drama (it's definitely not a melodrama), even though it's a comedy.

----

More from me on the subject (I never seem to tire of it):

The majority of people (at least the majority of people I meet) cling to melodrama when they think about folks opposite them on the political spectrum.

Conservatives tend to think of Liberals as forces of evil; Liberals tend to think of Conservatives the same way. (Or they think of each other as stupid, which is just another way of not allowing a person full person-hood.) Basically, Liberals are "baby killers" and Conservatives "want poor people to starve."

I've written on before about how I stay away from politics (and how I wrestle with the ethics of keeping my head in the sand). I've realized lately that the main reason I'm apolitical is because I don't view politics as melodrama. Worse, I can't tolerate the melodramatic view (which I'll admit is a prejudice, but I don't know how to overcome it.) I turn off as soon as I hear one side making a villain of the other. And the fact that I refuse to participate in the melodrama of either side makes me a friend of no one.

I learned the hard way that it's pointless (or worse) to try to explain (excuse!) the Conservative view point to Liberal. And the same is true the other way around. Almost no one wants to hear it. Melodrama IS the official story.

I don't mean to wax on about myself, but it's an illustration of how one way of seeing the world (melodramatically or the opposite) blocks the other way. I'm as blocked as my political friends. We're just on opposite sides of the block.

how to be a Renaissance Man

I am more of a dilettante than a Renaissance man, but I am interested in almost everything and read widely in history, science, literature, etc.

However, I can't imagine anything harder or less painful than trying to become a Renaissance Man (or even a dilettante) because that's your goal. Is suspect most learned people got that way because they just studied lots of things that interested them -- not because they wanted to be learned.

I love learning. I love the feeling of learning. I love the "journey" of learning. If I'm not actively learning something, I'm bored. When I'm looking for something to do on a Sunday afternoon, I pick up a book or listen to a podcast about something I don't know.

I do not think I'm much smarter than average, but I do notice one big difference between me and many of my friends: learning has no baggage for me.

* Learning is not competitive for me. I do not feel the need to learn more than anyone else or faster than anyone else. While, in theory, a competitive nature might spur one to learn, what I see most often is that competitive learners give up when they fail. If they don't learn, say, Calculus as fast as the rest of the class, they figure they have "lost" and never try again. Don't learn something to prove that you're smart or to show off that you're smart; don't learn to "impress the girls." Learn to learn.

* Learning for me is morally neutral. I don't feel that there's anything one should or should not learn. I have read a lot of classic literature. On the other hand, if I don't feel like reading "Moby Dick" or "King Lear," I won't read them because I feel like "one should."

* I don't care about being smart or original. I don't learn a subject in order "to be smart." I learn a subject because I'm interested in the subject. If I stop being interested in it, I stop studying it.

I'm a writer and theatre director. When I create, I don't care at all about being original. I care about the subject or story I'm trying to tell.

* I am not phased by brain fog. You know that feeling that comes over you when you're studying a hard subject? It's a sort of exhaustion. The subject gets farther and farther away and you have to expend more and more energy to keep up with it. Finally, you shut down. Most people I know are really daunted by it. I'm not.

I experience it as much as anyone. And I dislike it. But I've learned not to try to push past it. Since learning for me isn't competitive or a moral urge, when I get brain fog, I just stop. Later, when I'm more alert, I return to the subject. Sometimes "later" is weeks or even years later. That's fine.

So the question is, how does one get to be the way I am? How did I get this way? I don't have all the answers, but I know one of them: by ignoring school.

Unless you went to a really good (and really atypical) school, your school approached learning in all the wrong ways: it made learning competitive and goal driven (e.g grades); it made learning a moral imperative ("You SHOULD read Shakespeare!"); it made learning stick to a time table ("You must 'learn' Algebra by the end of this semester or you fail!").

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Beyond wrong. Deeply detrimental.

Since most "smart" people endured close to two decades of traditional schooling, it's no surprise that they are indoctrinated in those bad methods of learning -- methods that make learning not fun yet make people value learning, so that in the end you wind up with people who hate to learn but feel that they SHOULD learn.

You wind up with people who to to HAVE learned but who hate the process of learning itself. They want to tick off subjects they know on a ledger, and if they could press a button and just know all the subjects without learning them, they would, because school has taught they that the journey sucks.

Luckily for me, I always hated school and never took it seriously. I put up with it when I had too, and did all my real learning on my own.

How do you get to that stage? I don't know. If you're already in school, think about what messages it's sending you about learning. Is the process itself joyous? Or is it all about the carrot (the A) and the stick (the F)? If you're past school, think about what messages it sent you and how whether you can free yourself from them.

In the end, I believe that being happy is way more valuable than learning. Learning makes me deeply happy, which is why I do it. If it doesn't make you deeply happy -- if the PROCESS -- doesn't fill you with joy, don't do it. Life is too short!

If you love learning, you don't need to ask how to be a Renaissance Man. The answer: just do what you love.

one thing

Over at Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood complains that users don't follow directions. When they post on his forum, they don't use appropriate markup, they don't look at the preview below the text-input area, and they don't press RETURN twice between paragraphs.

Here's my response:

I am a professional communicator. Specifically, I am a book author, computer programmer, teacher (20 years experience) and theatre director.

Here's what I've learned: you can rely on people to take in ONE piece of information per message.

By "message," I mean a single piece of communication: an email, a memo, a sign, a window.

If you send out an email saying, "The party is tomorrow at four. It's BYOB. Also, please bring five dollars to tip the band," you will get people who show up at four but forget to bring booze or money, people who bring money but no booze and show up an hour too early, and people who bring booze only and show up on the wrong day.

I am not saying that you can never include multiple pieces of information in a communication, and I realize that sometimes it's impossible to limit yourself to just one. I'm saying that each additional piece of info introduces risk.

Advertisers learned this rule decades ago. UI designers don't ever seem to learn it.

A good UI developer should take one look at the cluttered interface above (too many buttons, too many screen regions competing for attention, too many ways the user has to interact -- tags, button clicks, typing...) and shudder.

When you learn the one-piece-of-info rule, let yourself get mad. Spend an hour railing at users. Call them idiots; bemoan the dumbing down of culture and the lack of attention span.

Then get over it and accept the clay you have to sculpt with. Rail all your want at a mountain for being tall. After you're throat hurts from screaming, you still have to climb the mountain.

After designing a UI, ask yourself, "What can I cut?" To paraphrase Orwell, "The destruction of controls is a beautiful thing." Does your UI contain any nice-to-have (but not mandatory) features? If so, cut them. You can always make an alternate UI for power users.

Your goal should be ONE UI element. You will probably be unable to reach that goal, but give yourself the challenge anyway.

Let's say that the closest you can get is four. Okay, you know you've introduced risk. What can you do to minimize that risk as much as possible? Can you make each of the four elements a different color so that they'll stand out and call attention to themselves? Can you use graphics and formatting (bold, italic, etc.) to do the same thing?

People here championing WYSIWYG over ascii-with-tags are absolutely right, and I'm saddened that not everyone here gets that. Of COURSE they are right! WYSIWYG is WYSIWYG. If you expect users to look back and forth between a preview and a text-input field, you will be disappointed a lot of the time.

By the way, I've participated in forums for years. I am a pretty smart guy. Yet I've made the mistake of ignoring previews. Let me explain how a smart person might do this: you have something to say and it's important to you. So you work hard trying to express yourself clearly and passionately. When you're done, you do the natural thing: you press the POST button. You forget to check preview because it's not natural. You don't do it when you speak, you don't do it when you IM or type an email, etc. You're too caught up in the content of what you're saying to remember to check the format.

If you MUST use the ascii-plus-preview method, put them on two separate screens: the first screen should be a text-input field and a SUBMIT button. After clicking SUBMIT, you should then see a preview which you can post or edit.

Wizards are much better for beginners than cluttered screens, as long as each wizard step does not become a cluttered screen itself. Power users rightly hate wizards, so give them an alternate screen with all controls in the same place.

I'm surprised anyone would ask whether or not the UI should allow single carriage returns between paragraphs. Of COURSE it should. It doesn't matter how many people compose paragraphs this way. The point is that you should never veer from a UI standard unless you have no choice.

My word processor accepts every carriage return as a line feed; so does my email client; so does my code editor; so does my text editor. As I user, I assume that when I press return, the UI will understand that my goal is to move the cursor to the next line. I've been trained to think that way by thousands of UIs that conform to that rule. Ignore that at your peril. If you do, you should expect your users to screw up.

Should we blame the users? Should be blame the designers? STOP BLAMING PEOPLE. It's counter productive. Instead, deal with reality and build systems that integrate well with human nature.

colorblind

This is in response to John Heilpern's article, "Should a Fuss Be Made Over Colorblind Casting" in the June 9, 2009 issue of the "New York Observer."

"Are plays about what makes sense? Or are they acts of the imagination between the actor and audience in a serious game of pretend?"

Dear Mr. Heilpern:

Hi. I'm a theatre director.

In the quotation, above, you ask if plays are "about" what makes sense. Taken literally, that doesn't make sense, because there are not such things as "plays." There is "Hamlet" and "Charlie's Aunt" and "Death of a Salesman." Your question is similar to "Are plays funny or serious?"

In most productions, there aspects that most audience members take at face value. They are not perverse to do so. They are reacting with standard, human psychology. For instance, in a play with a "naturalistic" set, most people will assume that telephones can ring, stairs can be climbed and food can be eaten.

If one of the actors asks, "Can somebody get me a glass of water?" and then another actor passes him a hat and says, "Here you go," an audience member would be behaving normally if he was confused (unless it was an absurdist play). I would call such a moment "an error," unless the play was absurdist or the the character with the hat joking.

Plays can be set in worlds that are different from ours -- often radically different. But the director and actors enter a contract with the audience -- whether they want to or not -- that is something roughly like this: unless the production makes it clear that the pay's item A differs from the real world item's A, and unless that difference is made clear early on, the production is in error, because audience members will, by default, assume that the play's item A is just like the real-world-equivalent of item A.

For instance, it's fine for there to be cartoon characters in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", because this fantasy device is established from the get-go. On the other hand, it would be a mistake if Bugs Bunny appeared halfway through "The Godfather."

Why exactly would it be a mistake? Because what "The Godfather" (and other naturalistic plays and movies) does well is to suck you into its world. When I watch that movie -- or a play like "August:Ossage County" -- I start to believe it's real (if it's done well). As I sit in my seat, the theatre around me fades, and the world on the stage takes focus. I start feeling for the characters as if they are real people that I know.

I specifically go to the theatre to get this feeling. (Not all plays evoke this sort of identification, but the ones I like do.) Anything that detracts from that feeling is a dent in my experience.

For instance, if the guy next to me coughs, I may be rippped out of the dream. I suddenly become aware that I'm sitting in a theatre watching something "just made up." At that point, the play will affect me a little less than it did when I was "surrounded" by it. Hopefully, I will be able to sink back into belief before too long.

Many other things can shatter the dream: an actor flubbing a line, a bad bit of dialogue by the writer, a plot hole... Usually these errors are not fatal, but they do make my experience a little worse than it could be. In some cases, the errors come with such frequency or severity that I am unable to sink back into the dream, and the evening falls flat for me.

I'm aware that not all people watch plays this way. Some people enjoy theatre as artifice and like keeping the fact that it's fake somewhere in their head. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just not the way I watch. I don't want to convince you that my way is superior -- because it's not. What I do claim that my way is a valid and meaningful (and enjoyable) way to experience theatre. I've been doing it for years and it gives me great pleasure. The common term for it is "escapism." You can't escape if you are constantly pulled back into the real world.

In the real world, you have no choice but to integrate weirdness into your world view. If someone says, "I'm going to drink a glass of water" and then starts gulping down invisible liquid from a hat, you have no other choice than to somehow fit that event into your model of reality. Most likely, you will make it fit by concluding that the drinker is insane or joking.

In the theatre, you have another choice. If you hear Hamlet say, "To be or ... Shit! What's the rest of the line?" your brain monetarily gets confused and tries to come up with an explanation as to why a prince in Denmark would talk that way. Then your brain accesses the fact that it's "just a play," and that plays are faked by actors who are actually modern day people. And you then realize that the actor just flubbed his line. Which means that you're thinking about the fact that the actor IS an actor. You're outside the world of the play. For a time at least, the play has lost its grip on you.

In plays, it's possible to mentally jump up to a "higher" level, in which you "see the man behind the curtain." Via my way of directing and viewing plays, that's generally a bad thing. My goal as a director is to keep the audience in a state of belief; my goal as an audience member is to believe.

In the real world, Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves can not be blood brothers. When a play claims that they are, your mind will naturally break out of the dream and you'll think, "Okay, I get it, they just cast a white guy and a black guy..." WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK THAT I ENJOY PLAYS, that's an error, because if the audience is thinking "they just cast..." then they are thinking of the play as artifice instead of reality.

Having said that, I will admit that I frequently cast black actors in traditionally white roles. I do it because when you're directing a play, it's impossible to craft anything that's perfect. You just do the best you can given the clay you have to mold. Let's say that I have a choice of two actors to play "Hamlet" (in a production with a white Gertrude). One is a so-so white actor; the other is a stupendous black actor. I will cast the black actor. I will do so because, via my calculation, so-so acting will shatter the dream more easily and more often than a black actor playing a character who is supposed to be white.

But while I'll make this choice, I won't fool myself into thinking it's a perfect choice (given my aesthetics). It's not.

Luckily, for me at least, the dissonance that happens when Washington and Reeve's play brothers doesn't last long. If it's established early on, I'll be disturbed by it briefly -- then I'll get over it. (In the end, Reeve's bad acting will bother me much more). Theatre is about pretending, and I'll buy the pretense. But I won't buy it instantaneously, and for the moment or moments that I'm not buying it, it's a problem. That may seem trivial. So what if the dream is briefly shattered? It IS trivial if you don't share my aesthetic or if you don't share it strongly. All I can say is that it's not trivial for me.

I have discussed this with many people. Some agree with me. Others say, "It doesn't bother me." I'd like to speculate as to why it doesn't bother them. To start, I'm going to make the following claim: if, in real life, I introduced you to two guys, telling you that they are blood brothers (with white parents), it would be disorienting if you saw that one was white and the other was black. My guess is that you'd think I was lying or mistaken. You would be at least momentarily confused.

So why do people say that the same thing doesn't bother them if it's on stage? One reason might be because they don't view theatre the way I do. They don't strive to believe in it -- to forget that it's "just a play." Or maybe they do this somewhat, but not as much as I do. Certainly, most people who came to theatre via academia are trained to not do this. "Don't use art as escapism," the professors say. "Always keep a critical eye!" Academics are concerned about things like theme, social relevance, craftsmanship and historical context. If these are the things one is interested in, it won't bother them if Biff is black and Happy is white. Only naive viewers, like me, are bothered by things like that.

Wait. Is that true? In my experience, even the most academic audience member is bothered by anachronisms. If a play is set in 1950, most literary people will be upset if there's a poster of Bill Clinton on wall. Why? Because no one knew about Clinton in the fifties. The academic detects that the set designer made an error. So, when he sees a black actor play a white character, why does that same academic not detect an error? Why is one slippage from reality bad and another good?

My guess is that most (liberal) people are happy to see a black actor play a white character because they hate racism. In that aspect, I'm typical. I hate racism, and, when I'm not actually watching a play, I'm gladdened by the idea of a black actor getting opportunities that he wouldn't have had in the past. That is definitely a good thing. So I suspect that there are people like me -- people who go to the theatre to escape -- who none-the-less aren't bothered by colorblind casting. If you could peer inside their brain and view events in slow motion, you'd see that, in fact, they are bothered momentarily. If they go to the theatre to escape, how could they not be? But the warm feeling that a blow has been dealt to the evil of racism quickly replaces the negative feeling -- so quickly that the viewer's brain doesn't even register the negativity.

The academic viewer scorns the anachronism, because it shows that they director was sloppy. On the other hand, he cheers for the colorblind casting, because it shows that they director has good ethical values. The academic can feel both these things because he naturally thinks about the director while he watches the play. Whereas if I think about the director, there's something wrong with the play. And if my audience thinks about me, I feel like I haven't done my job.

Theatre is, of course, very different from the real world. In play rooms, there is always a wall missing; there are strange lights hanging everywhere; time moves much swifter than it does in reality; people speak more clearly... These conventions don't have to be set up. We just expect them. We do so, because we've been brought up with a theatre that has these specific conventions.

Conventions can change. To the Elizabethans, it would have been odd to see a woman on stage. We don't give it a second thought (to us, it would be odd to see a man playing Juliet.) It may be that someday, black and white actors playing blood relations will be an ingrained convention. Kids will be brought up with it from their first night in the theatre. I hope this does happen. In fact, I would willingly sacrifice my escapism for such a convention. It would be a sacrifice for the greater good. And -- good news -- I suspect that this will happen. It's the direction we seem to be going. In the future, a kid who is just as intent on escapism as I am will be able to see a black actor playing a white actor's father and truthfully not be bothered by it -- even for a second.

But I didn't grow up with such a convention, and I can't instantly suck it into my soul. Conventions don't work that way. They become natural via repetition. In the meantime, it's important that we don't assume racism on the part of a viewer or artist who is disturbed by colorblind casting. The truth may be more nuanced than that.

If you're a champion of colorblind casting, you should ask yourself how far you're willing to run with that idea. Why just colorblind? How about an actress in a wheelchair playing Juliet (in a period production)? How about a 300lb actor playing Puck? Is there any point where we say, "that casting is distracting"? I'm not talking about what we should do. Maybe we should let a disabled actress play Juliet because the benefits outweigh the costs. I'm saying that if you are able to "suspend your disbelief" when a black actor plays a white character, are there any instances where you wouldn't be able to do this? If you can suspend your disbelief under all circumstances, then it doesn't matter what we put on stage. There are no wrong choices.

Finally, I'd like to say that there's a deep hypocrisy in most discussions about colorblind casting. Have you ever noticed anything about the black actors who play white characters? They are so damned good looking! So are the white actors who play white characters. How come no one is casting Paul Giamatti in the roles that Harrison Ford gets? How come no one is casting Toni Collette as the hot chick? In real life, average-looking people are sexy and have adventures. Why do we insist on a perverse sort a falseness on stage? And why are people who are so into colorblind casting generally not bothered by the lack of beauty-bling casting?

how I work on a Shakespeare speech

After deciding to direct a Shakespeare play, but before starting rehearsals, I spend many days studying the script. Below, I'm going to take you through some of the games I play to get a handle on the text.

As an example, I'll use the famous Saint Crispin's day speech from "Henry V." If you want to see two great examples of the speech performed, rent the Laurence Olivier and/or Kenneth Branagh movie adaptation. It's interesting to compare how those two very different actors approach the same speech.

Perhaps the greatest "cheerleader" speech ever written, Henry proclaims it to his men before they go off to fight the French. Here's the complete speech:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The first thing I do is to read it without looking up any of the obscure words or references. I want to experience it the way a "virgin" audience experiences it. They won't be able to check Cliff Notes during the performance, so I need to know what will be hard for them to understand.

Truthfully, it's impossible for me to put myself in the shoes of a Shakespeare newbie. I know that "'Zounds" is short for "God's wounds" (and that vowel-sound in it is "oo" and now "ow"). I can't make myself unlearn that. So sometimes it helps for me to read the speech aloud to a "lay person" and ask him what he thinks it means.

Here are the immediate questions that spring into my mind:

- who is Crispian?
- what is "the feast" and "the vigil" that occurs on "St. Crispian's day"?
- what is a vigil?

I'm lucky that, in this speech, everything else is pretty clear and is close to contemporary language. In many speeches, I will have to look up a word or two in each line. To do this, I use many resources that I've collected over the years, which you can use if you want to know about St. Crispian (you didn't think I was going to tell you the answer, did I?) Wikipedia can also be helpful for answering historical and factual questions. Here are some particularly useful resources:

- The Oxford English Dictionary. This is a very expensive dictionary, but it's the dictionary of dictionaries. In it, you'll often find several pages defining a single word, giving all its variant meanings. You can pick up cheaper copies of it on Ebay, and pretty much every library has it. Many libraries let members access it online for free.

- Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary. This is a special dictionary that just lists and defines the words Shakespeare used.

- Pronouncing Shapespeare's Words. It's one thing to know what a word means, but that doesn't help you know how to say it.

Finally, and most important, I buy every edition I can find of the play itself. So if I'm directing "Henry V," I will go to a used bookstore and buy the Penguin edition, the Arden edition, the Oxford Edition, and so on. Each one has different notes. I crack them all open to the passage I'm studying and read what they have to say about it. I compare these editions to the First Folio, the first printed version of Shakespeare's plays, which is easy to find online.

Speaking of online, since it's so easy to find the plays on various websites (I mostly use playshakspeare.com), I always copy and paste the text into a Word document. That way, I can easily annotate the text.

WHAT IS ITS TRANSLATION?

Getting back to the speech: to make sure I understand it, I translate it into modern English.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

Today is a holiday called "The Feast of Crispian." Anyone who is still alive at the end of the day, and gets home safe, will stand up tall (with pride) when the holiday is mentioned and will get excited by the name "Crispian."

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

The guy that lives through today and make it to old age will -- every year on the night before the holiday -- have a party for his neighbors and tell them "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian's" Day.

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

No translation necessary.

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day:

(The "yet" here is troubling. Perhaps it means "as," as in "as all shall be forgot." Perhaps it means "as someday.")

Most old men forget (as everything will be forgotten some day), but he will remember well what feats he did that day.

then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

Then all of our names will be as commonly spoken by him as every-day words. Harry the King, Bedford and Exetor, Warwick and Talbot, Salsisbury and Gloucester. They will be remembered whenever he makes a toast.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

No translation necessary.

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

No translation necessary.

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother;

No translation necessary.

be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

No matter how vile (low born?) he is, this day will make him a gentleman.

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.

And high-born men in England, now in their beds, will curse themselves for not being here (with us), and they will think of themselves as pussies compared with those of us who fought together on St. Crispin's day.

Sorry about the word "pussies," but I often find it helpful to get as slangy and colloquial as possible. The translation is just for me, and the more I can make it colorful and "just the way some guy might speak at a bar," the more accessible it will be to me.

You may disagree with parts of my translation. I'm not crazy about all of it, myself. But I'm not going to publish it (except on this blog). It's just to help keep me on track and to bring the speech down from its lofty heights.

WHAT IS IT'S METER?

Next, I scan the lines for meter. For any of you who need a refresher (or an intro -- don't be ashamed), Shakespeare wrote in blank verse. Blank verse is ten syllables long, and it alternates between stressed and unstressed syllables, like this: tee-TUM, tee-TUM, tee-TUM, tee-TUM, tee-TUM (say that aloud). For instance:


For sooth I know not why I am so sad.
for SOOTH i KNOW not WHY i AM so SAD.

What's interesting is that Shakespeare sets up this basic rhythm and then strays from it, like a Jazz performer improvising around a standard. One common variation is the feminine ending, in which there's an extra (unstressed) syllable at the end:

To be or not to be, that is the question.
to BE or NOT to BE, that IS the QUEST...... ion


He also sometimes reverses the stressed/unstressed order for one (or more) of the pairs:

Now is the winter of our discontent
NOW is the WINter of our DISconTENT

Notice how the "NOW is" reverses the order of the stressed/unstressed standard. It would be odd to say "now IS the winter..." unless someone else had just said "Now ISN'T the winter..." and you were trying to contradict him.

The "of our" is another variation, in which there are two unstressed syllables in a row, rather than a stressed and an unstressed one.

Though Shakespeare plays with these variations, he inevitably returns to the standard tee-TUM, tee-TUM, tee-TUM, tee-TUM, tee-TUM before too long. It's worth noting when he strays and when he keeps to the standard meter. Often, we can learn things from both. For instance, a character who speaks completely in regular meter may have an orderly state of mind. Another, who continually strays, may be nervous or confused.

It's important not to get too bogged down in this stuff. You and I might stress certain words differently, and there's no right way of saying a line. Scanning is a useful tool. It can help you, as long as you're not dogmatic about it.

Here's my first scan of the speech, in which I try to force it to rigidly follow the standard pattern. Say it allowed and see which lines work that way and which don't:

This DAY is CALLED the FEAST of CRISP i AN:
He THAT out LIVES this DAY, and COMES safe HOME,
Will STAND a TIP-toe WHEN the DAY is NAMED,
And ROUSE him AT the NAME of CRISP i AN.
He THAT shall LIVE this DAY, and SEE old AGE,
Will YEAR ly ON the VIG il FEAST his NEIGH ....... bours,
And SAY 'To-MORrow IS Saint CRISP i AN:'
Then WILL he STRIP his SLEEVE and SHOW his SCARS.
And SAY 'These WOUNDS I HAD on CRISP in's DAY.'
Old MEN for GET: yet ALL shall BE for GOT,
But HE'LL re MEM ber WITH ad VAN tag ES
What FEATS he DID that DAY: then SHALL our NAMES.
Fa MIL iar IN his MOUTH as HOUSE hold WORSDS [How many syllables in familiar?]
Har RY the KING, Bed FORD and EX e TER, [Do we really want to say Harry and Bedford that way?]
War WICK and TAL bot, SALIS bur Y and GLOUCE ...... ster, [difficult to scan]
Be IN their FLOW ing CUPS fresh LY re MEM ..... ber'd.
This STOR y SHALL the GOOD man TEACH his SON;
And CRISP in CRISP i AN shall NE'ER go BY,
From THIS day TO the END ing OF the WORLD,
But WE in IT shall BE re MEM ber'd; ---------- [ or "re MEM ber ED"? ]
We FEW, we HAP py FEW, we BAND of BRO .......... thers;
For HE to-DAY that SHEDS his BLOOD with ME
Shall BE my BRO ther; BE he NE'ER so VILE,
This DAY shall GEN tle HIS con DI ti ON: [ HOW many syllables in condition? ]
And GEN tle MEN in ENG land NOW a-BED
Shall THINK them SELVES ac CURSED they WERE not HERE,
And HOLD their MAN hoods CHEAP whiles AN y SPEAKS
That FOUGHT with US up ON Saint CRISP in's DAY.

Here's a second attempt. This time, I have marked lines as [ok] if they seem natural when scanned using the tee-TUM standard. I also call lines [ok] if they have a feminine ending, because this is such a common deviation from the norm:

This DAY is CALLED the FEAST of CRISP i AN: [ OK ]

He THAT out LIVES this DAY, and COMES safe HOME, [ FORCED]
HE that out LIVES this DAY, and comes safe HOME [ BETTER ]

Will STAND a TIP-toe WHEN the DAY is NAMED, [ OK ]

And ROUSE him AT the NAME of CRISP i AN.

He THAT shall LIVE this DAY, and SEE old AGE, [ FORCED ]
HE that shall LIVE this DAT, and SEE old AGE, [ BETTER ]

Will YEAR ly ON the VIG il FEAST his NEIGH ....... bours, [ OK ]

And SAY 'To-MORrow IS Saint CRISP i AN:' [ OK ]

Then WILL he STRIP his SLEEVE and SHOW his SCARS. [ OK ]

And SAY 'These WOUNDS I HAD on CRISP in's DAY.' [ OK ]

Old MEN for GET: yet ALL shall BE for GOT, [ OK ]

But HE'LL re MEM ber WITH ad VAN tag ES [ OK ]

What FEATS he DID that DAY: then SHALL our NAMES. [ OK ]

Fa MIL iar IN his MOUTH as HOUSE hold WORSDS [ OK ]

Har RY the KING, Bed FORD and EX e TER, [ FORCED ]
HAR ry the KING, BED ford and EX e TER [ BETTER ]

War ICK and TAL bot, SALIS bur Y and GLOUCE ...... ster, [FORCED]
WAR ick and TAL bot, SALIS bur Y and GLOUCE ...... ster, [ BETTER ]

Note: the "salis" in "Salisbury" is pronounced as one sylleble, as in salisberry steak. Pronunciation guides (see above) really help with this kind of confusion.

Be IN their FLOW ing CUPS fresh LY re MEM ..... ber'd. [ OK ]

This STOR y SHALL the GOOD man TEACH his SON; [ OK ]

And CRISP in CRISP i AN shall NE'ER go BY, [ OK ]

From THIS day TO the END ing OF the WORLD, [ OK ]

But WE in IT shall BE re MEM ber'd; [ PAUSE ]
But WE in IT shall BE re MEM ber ED [ NORMAL SCAN ]

We FEW, we HAP py FEW, we BAND of BRO .......... thers; [ OK ]

For HE to-DAY that SHEDS his BLOOD with ME [ OK ]

Shall BE my BRO ther; BE he NE'ER so VILE, [ OK ]

This DAY shall GEN tle HIS con DI ti ON: [ OK ]

And GEN tle MEN in ENG land NOW a-BED [ OK ]

Shall THINK them SELVES ac CURSED they WERE not HERE, [ OK ]

And HOLD their MAN hoods CHEAP whiles AN y SPEAKS [ OK ]

That FOUGHT with US up ON Saint CRISP in's DAY. [ OK ]

Why do all this? We certainly don't want to say the lines with a robotic tee-TUM rhythm. But that rhythm is there, and it's a big part of what makes the verse verse. If we study it, we get its rhythm in our bones. Once it's part of us, we can mostly forget about it. We can speak primarily for meaning, not beat. But the beat will be there.

WHAT ARE THE SENTENCES?

Next, I look at the speech in terms of sentences. I forget that's it's poetry. My goal here is to really feel the speech as a series of complete thoughts.

The punctuation is controversial, because it wasn't written by Shakespeare. Each edition of the play has its own punctuation, created by that edition's editor. This is one of the reasons I buy multiple editions. I look at each editor's choice and pick the punctuation I like best. My goal isn't to be a scholar. My goal is to find an easy, fun and exciting way to say the lines.

FIRST SENTENCE:
This day is called the feast of Crispian.

SECOND SENTENCE:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, and rouse him at the name of Crispian.

THIRD SENTENCE:
He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:' [ note the quotation]

FOURTH SENTENCE:
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

FIFTH SENTENCE:
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.' [ another quotation ]

SIXTH SENTENCE:
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day: then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

SEVENTH SENTENCE:
This story shall the good man teach his son; and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd 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.

Would you divide up the sentences differently?

You'll notice that in this speech, the sentence structure gets more and more complicated at the end. I find it useful to break such complex thoughts up into main phrases and parenthetical side phrases. I often do this for the whole play. Here, I'll demonstrate with the sixth sentence:

SIXTH SENTENCE:
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day: then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

SIXTH SENTENCE RE-PUNCTUATED:

Old men forget (yet all shall be forgot), but he'll remember (with advantages) what feats he did that day: then shall our names (familiar in his mouth as household words) -- Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester -- be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

Having done this, I'll then speak the sentence with the side-phrases removed:

Old men forget, but he'll remember what feats he did that day: then shall our names be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

That's the main point. Everything else is gravy. Putting the gravy back in, I'll try to speak it differently from the main point (the meat and potatoes): I'll rush through it or mumble it out of the corner of my mouth, the way people do when they're over-emphasizing that something is parenthetical:

OLD MEN FORGET (yet all shall be forgot), BUT HE'LL REMEMBER (with advantages) WHAT FEATS HE DID THAT DAY: THEN SHALL OUR NAMES (familiar in his mouth as household words) -- Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester -- BE IN THEIR FLOWING CUPS FRESHLY REMEMBER'D.

This is not necessarily the way I'd say it in performance. Maybe I'd decide to push all the names (Harry, Warwick, etc) instead of mumbling them. The goal here is simply to learn about the structure of the sentences and to understand their logic.

WHAT ARE THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SENTENCES?

Now that I've chopped the speech up into individual sentences, it's time to join it together again. Sentences don't exist as islands. They are sub-units in a larger argument. For years, I've done a crucial exercise (one of the most enlightening ones for me) with both Shakespeare and contemporary texts. I've turned all sentences into phrases in one big sentence. Whenever there's a period (or some other kind of full stop, such as an exclamation point), I replace it with a linking word or phrase, such as "and" or "for example." If there's no way to link two sentences logically, I add in the cheat link of, "Anyway, changing the subject..."

Here's my attempt to do this with the Saint Crispin's Day speech:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
[AND] He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
AND rouse him at the name of Crispian.
[IN FACT] He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
AND say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
THEN will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
AND say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
[IT'S TRUE THAT] Old men forget: [IN FACT] yet all shall be forgot,
BUT he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: [AND] THEN shall our names.
[THOSE NAMES WILL BE] Familiar in his mouth as household words
[FOR EXAMPLE] Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
[WILL] Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
[AND SO] This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

I speak the speech this way a few times, until I'm really comfortable with how the sentences join together into a whole argument. Then I get rid of the links and speak it normally, but I keep the links in my head. This generally allows me to say the speech as if it was a complete, logical entity.

WHAT ARE THE LINE ENDINGS?

Actors and scholars argue about how to deal with the endings of verse lines. The most extreme view points are held by folks who think you should pause at the end of every line and those who think you should only pause where you would in prose, at commas or full stops.

The end-stoppers (the former group) argue that if you don't pause at line endings, there's no way the audience can hear the verse as verse. The punctuation folks point out that often the speeches make no sense if you pause at the end of the lines. For instance, what does "And gentlemen in England now a-bed" mean? It's an incomplete thought.

A great way to straddle the two schools is to decide that the speaker knows the general idea of what he wants to say, but he's only thought out HOW he's going to say it up the end of the current line. To try this out, I pretend to be a very absent-minded speaker, and I add little phrases like so...

This day is called the feast of Crispian: [HOW DO I PUT INTO WORDS WHAT I WANTED TO SAY ABOUT IT...?]
[OH YEAH!] He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, [AND DO WHAT...?]
[OH YEAR!] Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, [And... And... And...?]
[OH YEAH!] And rouse him at the name of Crispian. [Okay. I'M DONE.]
[OH, WAIT. ONE MORE THING! ]He that shall live this day, and see old age, [WILL... WILL... WILL WHAT...?]
[OH YEAH!] Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, [And... And... And...?]
[OH YEAH!] And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:' [And then what...?]
[OH YEAH!] Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. [Okay. I'M DONE.]
[OH, WAIT. I THOUT OF SOMETHING BETTER! ] And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.' [Okay. I'M DONE.]
[OH! WAIT! THERE'S MORE I WANT TO SAY:] Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, [But.... ?]
[OH YEAH!] But he'll remember with advantages [Wait! What will he remember? ]
[OH YEAH!] What feats he did that day: then shall our names. [Okay. I'M DONE.]
[OH! WAIT! THERE'S MORE I WANT TO SAY:] Familiar in his mouth as household words [What's that guy's name? What's his name...?]
[OH YEAH!] Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, [And.... And... And... Who else shall I pick? ]
[OH YEAH!] Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, [Wait? What about them? ]
[OH! I KNOW ] Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. [Okay. I'M DONE.]
[OH! WAIT! THERE'S MORE I WANT TO SAY:] This story shall the good man teach his son; [Um... What story...?]
[OH! WAIT! I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT...] And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, [FROM WHEN TO WHEN?]
[GOT IT!] From this day to the ending of the world, [BUT...?]
[But we in it shall be remember'd;
[OH! I KNOW ] We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; [WHY DID I JUST SAY "BROTHERS"?]
[OH! I KNOW ] For he to-day that sheds his blood with me [WILL WHAT...?]
[OH YEAH!] Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, [UM... WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HIM?]
[OH YEAH!] This day shall gentle his condition: [ANYWAY, WHAT WAS I TALKING ABOUT...?]
[OH YEAH!] And gentlemen in England now a-bed [SHALL WHAT...?]
[OH YEAH!] Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, [AND WHAT...?]
[OH YEAH!] And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks [ANYONE THAT WHAT...?]
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

I actually speak the speech this way, pretending I'm William Shatner. I always have a great time doing this. When I actually perform it -- or help an actor perform it -- my end-line pauses will become very short and many of them will vanish. But I'll have a gut sense of where each line ends, and that sense will be another tool in my belt.

WHAT IS THE RHETORICAL STRUCTURE?

In Shakespeare's day, all school children studied rhetoric. Rhetoric is the WAY you say things as opposed to the meaning of what you say. There are many well-known and effective rhetorical devices. One you might know is listing three examples. For some reason, it's more powerful to say "friends, Romans and countrymen" than it is to just say "Friends and Romans."

Shakespeare uses many rhetorical devices in his plays. Educated Elizabethans would have been able to point them out, just as nowadays, if someone says, "I am the eggman," most of us will instantly get that it's a reference to a Beatles song. Shakespeare's characters also know about rhetorical devices and use them on purpose to help sway each other.

If you're interested in rhetoric, you can study it and see how many devices you can find in Shakespeare's writing (and contemporary writing). But I find it's most important to know about two devices -- the two that Shakespeare uses constantly. They are the Ladder Of Thought and Thesis/Antithesis.

A Ladder of Thought is a build: You can see it here:

This story shall the good man teach his son;
AND [even more important] Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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 [what's MORE!] gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
AND [MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL!] hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Speak this section as if each and tops the last one, and as if you'd only thought of the first one when you started speaking. "I want a cookie ... Oh! And pie.... OH! ANNNND CAKE!!!!"

Thesis/Antithesis is a fancy term for opposites. A very short one is "to be (thesis) or not to be (antithesis)." Shakespeare plays are riddled with these opposites.

Sometimes the thesis and antithesis are right next to each other, as in "to be or not to be," but other instances of the device are more complex. Sometimes the thesis comes ten or even twenty lines after the antithesis. Sometimes the thesis goes on for ten lines, only to be followed by a one-line antithesis (or vice versa).

Shakespeare plays with this device over and over, and he plays it in many different ways. It's important for actors to locate them, because if you don't know you're speaking a thesis/antithesis, you've missed the whole point of the speech.

Here are some other examples:

Now is the winter of our discontent (thesis),
Made glorious summer by this son of York (anthesis).

I am made of that self metal as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love; (thesis)

Only she comes too short... (antithesis)


In the above speech, Regan (daughter of Lear) is saying to her father, "I am just like my sister, and you should think of me the way you think of her. EXCEPT..." The whole point of the first part ("I'm just like my sister") is a setup for the second part ("EXCEPT..."). If the actress playing Regan doesn't understand that, she won't get why she's saying "I am made of that self metal as my sister."

Here's an example, from "Pericles," in which the Thesis is so long, it's easy not to notice that it is just one part of a two-part device. In the following, the Governor of Tarsus is talking about how rich his city used to be and how poor it is now:

This Tharsus, o'er which I have the government,
A city on whom plenty held full hand,
For riches strew'd herself even in her streets;
Whose towers bore heads so high they kiss'd the clouds,
And strangers ne'er beheld but wond'red at;
Whose men and dames so jetted and adorn'd,
Like one another's glass to trim them by;
Their tables were stor'd full, to glad the sight,
And not so much to feed on as delight;
All poverty was scorn'd, and pride so great,
The name of help grew odious to repeat. (thesis)

But see what heaven can do by this our change:
These mouths who, but of late, earth, sea, and air
Were all too little to content and please,
Although they gave their creatures in abundance,
As houses are defil'd for want of use,
They are now starv'd for want of exercise; (antithesis)

Is there a Thesis/Antithesis in the St. Crispin's day speech? Not an obvious one, but perhaps you could say that Henry is contrasting the men who fight with the ones who stay home:


He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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: (thesis)


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. (antitheis)

In fact, isn't that the argument of the whole speech? "You are going to want to fight with me so that you become legendary, as opposed to those stay-at-home cowards that everyone will forget."

OTHER GAMES

There are so many other ways to explore the language, each of which will give you a better gut feeling of the speech. If you play enough of these games, you will eventually feel that the words are yours, not Shakespeare's, and at that point, you'll sound completely natural speaking them (and they'll be a cinch to memorize).

It's worth looking at the where Shakespeare switches between short words and long ones:

This. day. is. called. the. feast. of. CRISPIAN.:
He. that. OUTLIVES this. day., and. comes. safe. home.,
Will. stand. a. TIP-TOE. when. the. day. is. named.,
And. rouse. him. at. the. name. of. CRISPIAN.
He. that. shall. live. this. day., and. see. old. age.,
Will. YEARLY. on. the. VIGIL. feast. his. NEIGHBORS.,
And. say. 'TO-MORROW is. Saint. CRISPIAN.:'
Then. will. he. strip. his. sleeve. and. show. his. scars.
And. say. 'These. wounds. I. had. on. CRISPIAN'S day.'
Old. men. FORGET.: yet. all. shall. be FORGOT,
But. he'll. REMEMBER. with. ADVANTAGES.
What. feats. he. did. that. day.: then. shall. our. names.
FAMILIAR. in. his. mouth. as. HOUSEHOLD. words.
HARRY. the. king., BEDFORD. and EXETER.,
WARWICK. and. TALBOT., SALISBURY. and. GLOUCECESTER.,
Be. in. their. FLOWING. cups. FRESHLY. REMEMBER'D.
This. STORY. shall. the. good. man. teach. his. son.;
And. CRISPIN. CRISPIAN. shall. ne'er. go. by.,
From. this. day. to. the. ENDING. of. the. WORLD,
But. we. in. it. shall. be. REMEMBER'D;
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. CRISPIAN'S. day.

It's also worth looking at the end-ing words of each line:

Crispian:
home,
named,
Crispian.
age,
neighbours,
Crispian:'
scars.
day.'
forgot,
advantages
names.
words
Exeter,
Gloucester,
remember'd.
son;
by,
world,
remember'd;
brothers;
me
vile,
condition:
a-bed
here,
speaks
day.

Notice which words repeat:

CRISPIAN:
This day is called the feast of CRISPIAN:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of CRISPIAN.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint CRISPIAN:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on CRISPIN'S day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And CRISPIN CRISPIAN shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

DAY:
This DAY is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this DAY, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the DAY is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this DAY, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's DAY.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that DAY: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this DAY to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

NAME:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is NAMED,
And rouse him at the NAME of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our NAMES.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

REMEMBER:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll REMEMBER with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly REMEMBER'D.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be REMEMBER'D;
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.

LIVE:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outLIVES this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall LIVE this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

FORGET:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men FORGET: yet all shall be FORGOT,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

WE:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But WE in it shall be remember'd;
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.'

HE:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
HE that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse HIM at the name of Crispian.
HE that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast HIS neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip HIS sleeve and show HIS scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But HE'LL remember with advantages
What feats HE did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in HIS mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach HIS son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

SAINT:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is SAINT Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

GENTLE:
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

Notice which structures repeat:

THIS DAY is called the feast of Crispian...
THIS DAY shall gentle his condition...

HE that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
WILL stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
AND rouse him at the name of Crispian.

HE that shall live this day, and see old age,
WILL yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
AND say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

Notice the pairings:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:

[ He that outlives this day, AND comes safe home, ]

[ Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
AND rouse him at the name of Crispian. ]

[ He that shall live this day, AND see old age, ]

[ Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
AND say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:' ]

[ Then will he strip his sleeve AND show his scars. ]
[ A TRIPLE: And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.']

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king,
[ Bedford AND Exeter, ]
[ Warwick AND Talbot ], [ Salisbury AND Gloucester ],

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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. ]

Notice the lists:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
1. He that outlives this day,

and

2. comes safe home,

Will

1. stand a tip-toe when the day is named,

And

2. rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall
1. live this day,

and

2. see old age,
Will
1. yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And

2. say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

Then will he
1. strip his sleeve and show his scars.

And

2. say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages

1. What feats he did that day:

2. then shall our names.

Familiar in his mouth as household words

1. Harry the king,

2. Bedford

and

3. Exeter,

4. Warwick

and

5. Talbot,

6. Salisbury

and

7. Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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
1. think themselves accursed they were not here,

2. And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Notice (and speak) the sensual words:

This day is called the FEAST of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will STAND A TIP-TOE when the day is named,
And ROUSE him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and SEE OLD AGE,
Will yearly on the vigil FEAST HIS NEIGHBORS,
And SAY 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he STRIP HIS SLEEVES and SHOW HIS SCARS.
And SAY 'THESE WOUNDS I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men FORGET: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll REMEMBER with advantages
What FEATS HE DID that day: then shall our names.
Familiar IN HIS MOUTH as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be IN THEIR FLOWING CUPS freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man TEACH HIS SON;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
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.

Notice (and speak) the sounds:

This day is called the feaSSSSST of KRRRisPEEan:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a TTTiPPP-TTTOOOOW when the day is named,
And ROUSE him at the name of KRRRisPEEan.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feaSSSSST his NAAAAAYbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint KRRRisPEEan:'
Then will he STRIP (spit the P) his sssssssleeve and shhhhhhhow his SKarrrrrrrs.
And say 'These WOOOOONDS I had on KRRRiSPin's day.'
Old men forgeTUH: yet all shall be forgoTUH,
But he'll remeMMMMMMber with advaaaaaaantages
What feaaaatttts he DDDid that DDDay: then shall our names.
FaMMMMiLLLLLiar in his MOOOOOOWTH as HOOOOOWZhold words
Harrrrrry the king, Bed - Ford and Ex.et.er,
War-Wickkkk and Tallllbotttt, Saaaaaal'bury and Glooooooowster,
Be in their flooooooowing cuPS FRRReshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teeeeeach hizzzzzon;
And KRRRiSPin KRRRisPEEan shall ne'er goooooo biiiiiii,

- etc --


WHAT ARE THE ACTIONS?

You're now ready to move on from thinking about the speech as a poem to thinking of it as something a real-life character says. The Russian theorist and director Stansilavsky (who influenced the way most actors are trained today), suggested that you break a speech down into actions. An action is something you're trying to do -- usually to another character or characters. In this speech, Henry is trying TO SWAY THE CROWD.

But that's not granular enough. HOW is he trying to sway the crowd? There's no right answer, but let's go through the speech and try to come up with actions for each part:

MAIN GOAL: enlist the men

SOUND THE GONG, RAISE THE CURTAIN
This day is called the feast of Crispian:

PROMISE
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

PROGNOSTICATE
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

FORTELL,
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

CUT OBJECTION OFF AT THE PASS BY STATING IT YOURSELF, ANTICIPATE OBJECTION,
SPOIL YOUR OWN ARGUMENT
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

REBOUND FROM DEFEAT, POUNCE ON THE ENEMY
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day:

SERVE THE CAKE
then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words

POINT AT PEOPLE IN THE CROWD AS EXAMPLES
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

PROCLAIM, FORECAST
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;

EMBRACE
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother;

REHABILITATE
be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

MOCK, INVITE FRIENDS TO MOCK (US vs. THEM)
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.


Having done all this -- and it was a joy to do -- I now feel ready to meet with the actor playing Henry (who has done similar work). We'll have plenty to talk about! In the end though, when he performs, his goal should be to let all these exercises go. He needs to do them until they are a part of him -- until the language is a part of him. Then he needs to forget them and just perform.

Introducing eMarcuscons:

Happy Marcus

##8---o }


Angry Marcus

##8---o {


Sad Marcus

##8---o (


Marcus sucking on a mint

##8---o @


Marcus talking

##8---o []


Skeptical Marcus

##8---o \


Marcus after eating a lemon

##8---o +


Marcus confiding in you

##8---o Y


Marcus sick to his stomach

##8---o $


Marcus with a zit on one side of his mouth

##8---o !


Marcus with a zit on the other side of his mouth

##8---o i


Marcus smoking a cigarette

##8---o L


Marcus after being bitten by a vampire

##8---o { - : --


Marcus wearing his fancy shades

##B---o )


Marcus sticking his tongue out

##8---o P


Marcus after some cocktails

##8---o >


Marcus the next morning with a hangover

##8---o <


Marcus after being punched in the mouth

##8---o ?


Marcus keeping quiet

##8---o X


Marcus talking out of the side of his mouth

##8---o A


Marcus seeing Lisa after a long day at work

##8---o D


Marcus having a bad-hair day

~`##8---o |


Marcus crying

##8=- o {


Marcus sleeping (drooling a little)

##}---o Q


Marcus feeling shy

    &
    |
##8-|
    |
    &

Why the abacus trumps the calculator

The concrete is better than the abstract.

- If you're worried that your life has no meaning, or if you're afraid that God is dead, or if you're terrified of Global Warming, of if you're angry about The State of The Country, ask yourself if you've really gotten to the bottom of your concerns.

These big-issue, abstract worries are one (or more) steps removed from your base nature. Dogs don't care about Global Warming. Cats don't care about politics. Giraffes don't bite their nails, fretting about the meaning of life.

Most likely, what you're really worried about is the fact that your girlfriend just dumped you. Or maybe you're scared that you're about to lose your job; Or you're lonely; Or sexually frustrated.

As scary as Global Warming is, dwelling on it is generally an attempt to elevate yourself above animal concerns. And while it's great to have noble worries, people are animals: we want sex, food, sleep and companionship. If we deny our animal nature, we deny the truth of what we are. Worse: me make it impossible to fix our nuts-and-bolts problems. You can't fix a problem if you don't admit to having it in the first place.

Most preferences for the abstract are attempts to elevate ourselves above our animal nature. Which is to say they are lies. Animals are sensual. The see, hear, smell, taste, poop, etc. Yes, man has the ability to reason; he has the ability to manipulate pure symbols. But such grand thoughts must be brought down to Earth, at least occasionally, or they become totally disconnected from who we are, where we live, and what we care about. They will also always be weaker signals to our brain than sensual data. Sand sifted through the fingers will make a stronger impression than sand just thought about.

If your knee-jerk reaction to this is to lash out at me or deny what I'm saying, ask yourself why you're so threatened by classifying yourself as an animal.

(Please note that I'm not trying to thwart Global-Warming activism or suggest it's "just abstract." I'm suggesting that if you're deeply depressed about something, it's more likely to be about something more immediate to your body and social network. At least consider the mundane before assuming you're concerned about the big picture.)

- Try things.

People suck at working things out in their heads -- in the abstract -- but they think they're really good at it. If you've decided something will work (or won't work) without actually trying it, TRY IT. Don't just assume that the image in your head conforms to reality -- even if you're SURE it does.

The only time when imagining should trump trying is when the cost of trying is extremely high.

Remember: your senses are better guides than your imagination. Your imagination can lie to you. It can be influenced by all sorts of prejudice, wishful thinking, mental blind spots and "baggage." But it's much harder to deny what you see with your own eyes, what you hear with your own ears, what you grasp in your hand. Taste the soup before you add salt to it. Maybe it's already salty enough.

Note: for some reason, this gets me in a lot of arguments. I guess it's because people are impatient when they "know" something. When people say, "Obviously, that won't work," I'm the guy who says, "Well, it will only take two minutes to try it, so lets try it." That often leads to rolled eyes and exasperated sighs. But I try it anyway. I find that even if the other guy is right -- and it doesn't work -- if I try, I'm much more sure of the result than if I don't try. The result (perhaps that it doesn't work) is in my gut.

- Work with your hands.

- the purpose of a metaphor is to make the abstract more concrete (or more sensual, which is the same thing). The further an idea gets from nuts-and-bolts reality, the more it should be buttressed with a metaphor.

Example: variables (e.g. in computer programming) are like boxes in the basement. The variable name is what's written on the box in magic marker, e.g. "socks." The contents of the box are what's stored inside the variable. Note that there's nothing to prevent you from storing hats in a box labeled "socks." It's confusing to people who are searching through your basement (so it's probably a bad idea), but the box doesn't care.

Coming up with strong, evocative metaphors is hard work. Don't expect them to just pop into your head. You'll have to make lists and brainstorm. Allot time for this. The more abstract the subject, the more time you'll need. Also, metaphors should always be a work in progress. Keep tinkering with them. Keep making them more and more apt, more and more evocative, more and more sensual.

- Avoid pronouns and non-specific nouns.

I can't tell you how many times I've been baffled by someone saying something like, "When it comes in the mail, please put it in the thing next to that other thing..." You're allowed ONE pronoun per sentence. And if you can't think of the name for something, then describe it (in concrete terms, of course). "When it" -- (if you're sure I know what you're talking about) -- "comes in the mail, please put it next in that blue container next to the round object on the shelf."

- Consider using real tools.

Computers are great. But sometimes paper and pencils are better. There's a big whiteboard in my office. When I'm stuck on a difficult programming problem, I leave my desk, walk over to the whiteboard, and start making charts, notes and pictures. Occasionally, I find myself wishing for a giant screen, so that I could use Photoshop instead of the whiteboard. But then I realize that just the act of holding physical markers in my hand and moving them about cements ideas in my brain better than pixel pushing ever could. If the particular problem can be expressed with stacks of coins or groups of paperclips, even better. We evolved to manipulate 3D objects -- not pixels. If the end-result must be expressed in pixels, that's all the more reason to translate it into a nuts-and-bolts metaphor.

- Read what you've written out loud.

Out loud is concrete. It produces sounds that you hear. It forces you to move your mouth. You will find way more errors -- and learn to write in a natural, conversational voice -- than if you read what you've written in your head. If you need to keep quiet, then just move your lips as you read (or whisper). Hasidic Jews mouth words when they read. They understand that the words of God are more likely to get stuck in their craws when they're not just thought about. When they're forced into the mouth.

- The best art tickles our animal impulses. It doesn't distance us from them. This is why sensual art will always move people more than conceptual art. It's why narrative forms will always engross people more than avante-guarde, non-linear ones. We're used to beginnings, middles and ends: sunrise, day, sunset... birth, aging, death...

If you're committed to conceptual art and non-linear storytelling, then make sure the details of your work are tied to the sensual. It's fine to break the fourth wall, but when you do so, pass out pieces of chocolate, not nuggets of philosophy.