"Would You Go Yourself?"

For him love is hatred
   Should I bare myself?
You say Go and break bread!
   Would you go yourself?

November 24, 2010

"Profit Is Good"

Profit is wonderful
Profit is good
Profit is saving
  The neighborhood.

November 16, 2011

Favorite Dylan Song

"She Belongs To Me"
She’s got everything she needs
She’s an artist, she don’t look back
She’s got everything she needs
She’s an artist, she don’t look back
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees

She never stumbles
She’s got no place to fall
She never stumbles
She’s got no place to fall
She’s nobody’s child
The Law can’t touch her at all

She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks
She’s a hypnotist collector
You are a walking antique

Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes
For Halloween give her a trumpet
And for Christmas, buy her a drum

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

Submission Guidelines: No Thanks

Mixer Publishing Submission Guidelines

mixer poetry mixes different forms or meters to great effect. Think: the offspring of a villanelle and sonnet. Free verse freed of sloppy rhymes and filled with iambs, trochees, or dactyls that create interesting effects. Poetry that is not just prose with line breaks! And yes, line breaks should be broken for a reason greater than poetical whimsy. Prose poetry that employs odd forms (a newspaper ad; an obituary) to great effect is also very welcome. Do I really need to mention no cliches or sentimentality? 

We like realist poems that break away from the cliches of insight and offer instead anti-epiphanies, anti-climaxes, puzzlement, or shifts in point-of-view. Endings that eschew understanding, that question epistemology, our ability to know the world. 

We like poems that mix in tropes, images, styles, or themes from some genres not typically used in traditional poetry--e.g., noir, horror, sci-fi (dystopia!), black comedy, farce, surrealism. The trick here is that the style or genre is used, obviously, in an interesting way--not gratuitous or goofy. More like a new context or occasion for a poem. 

Iconoclasm, parody, and satire. mixer loves poems that attack or play with the traditional tropes of "Poetry." Which means we want poems that make fun of convention--perhaps even while employing it--poems that interrogate the pastoral, the Platonic, the beauty of "Truth." Language experiments that call attention to the constructed nature of the world are also fine, but they must seek ambiguity, not opacity. mixer digs the necropastoral! 

Payment: $15-$75 for online (i.e., Website) publication, depending on length and quality; $15-$75 for print publication, based on the same standard--some stories will be online only while others will be chosen for online and print publication; and at the end of each year, an additional $500 will be paid to the story or poem that best represents Mixer's aesthetic of literary genre--i.e., The Focus Story. Yes, a Focus Story can be a poem! 

Electronic Publication (Kindle, iPad, and eBooks): 50/50 split of sales. 

Important! *Advice on the submission process* 

Please do not query us on the status of your submission. Response time on short stories and poems usually takes 1-2 months (sometimes earlier), but will fluctuate to 3-4 months if the submissions level is high. Novels and novellas are different: 3-4 month response time is normal and that can extend during busy periods to 5-6 months. 

Queries _are_ acceptable only if submissions pass the 4 month mark for short stories/poems and the 6 month mark for novels and novellas. 

It’s not that we don’t like chatting with our submitters, but if we answered you all individually we’d never have time to put the magazine out! :) 

SEE: http://mixerpublishing.submishmash.com/submit

"Ending Up With Less"

Going for something bigger
. . Ending up with less
On Fate we cannot figger
. . It's She who makes the mess.

November 13, 2011

Shakespeare Authorship: 'Exit Strategy'

The more we jam people into their argumentative corner the more they viciously lash out as the only way to hold ground.

Recognizing this aspect of human nature, and imagining ourselves in that spot . . as much as we may want those who support an unlikely author to come around . . we must also sympathize with what that might take.

Any psychologists out there--professional or amateur--who might propose an acceptable/respectable 'exit strategy'?

What about an immunity-style approach?  An in-advance academic amnesty and promise not to attack argumentatively in future those who come out for an alternative authorship theory.

Those who support the conventional view of Shakespearean authorship often ask: "What difference does it make who wrote the works?" Perhaps in this way they're fashioning an 'out' to be employed one day when necessary.  Another I've seen more recently is the idea of authors collaborating on the works attributed to Shakespeare.  Propounding this theory, they flirt with multiple authorship and 'group theory'.  A slippery slope for a unilateral front once espousing the infallibility of the Man from Stratford, but one that gives them room to maneuver?

Hard to believe that all these hundreds of years later it's still considered 'academic suicide' for Shakespeare scholars to 'question the traditional authorship paradigm.'  But everyone has 'mouths to feed'.  This being the reality of life, perhaps we could create a relief program for Shakespearean scholars bounced from their safe and cozy academic programs, the ones that allowed them (or forced them) to keep the lie going, or at least not be true to their calling by pursuing the truth no matter where it might take them.

There's always the fact-based out:  1) 'I never investigated it properly'; 2) 'Nobody told me.  Why didn't they tell me:'; or, 3) 'The facts changed, so I must now change my mind.'  That in taking this out--and the economic/political reality one--they thereby admit that they were never really academics, scholars, researchers, or scientists is what the above immunity would be all about.

In the same vein we have 'I was a young man then, young and foolish.  Now I am older and wiser.'  This is part fact-based and part emotional--at least in appeal.  Another similar approach might be: 'At least I'm man enough to admit I was wrong.'  This encourages the practice of higher ideals like honor, bravery, truthfulness, etc.

Apart from those who are completely (and publicly) invested in the Stratford ruse, who may have too much to lose to allow them to switch, many others have yet to declare an opinion--or maybe don't have one until someone tells them what it should be.  These need a way gracefully to maintain status at cocktail parties, and around coffee room water coolers.

Like China turning the ship around rather than crash on the rocks like Russia, they could make their adjustments in advance of any trouble for their career--all helped by helpful strategies, maybe called 'evasion strategies' rather than 'exit'.

William Stanley, Sixth Earl of Derby, 1561-1642

William Stanley was the second son of Henry Stanley, fourth Earl of Derby, and his wife Margaret née Clifford, who was the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk. Henry VIII had given Mary's children precedence over the children of her elder sister, and so Margaret Stanley's children were directly in line to succeed Queen Elizabeth, a fact which had a profound effect on their lives. Henry Stanley, Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire and Chamberlain of Cheshire, was patron of a troupe of players (‘Derby’s Men’), and often attended the annual Chester summer festivities with his sons, where plays were presented by professional actors and also by working men – ‘rude mechanicals’. [MND] Visiting players frequently presented plays at his great mansions at Lathom and Knowsley in Lancashire, and he was a patron of Thomas Lodge and John Davies of Hereford.

As a younger son, William had no prospects and no responsibilities. He was educated with his brothers at St. John’s College, Oxford (1572-6), at a period when plays were often performed by the students and recent graduates. Some of these plays later informed several of Shakespeare’s plays, including Plautus, Menechmi [CE], George Gascoigne’s Supposes [TS], William Gager’s Meleager [MND] and Richard Eedes’ Caesar Infectus [JC, AC]. His friends at this period included Thomas Lodge, and Edmund and Robert Carey, whose elder brother George married Elizabeth Spencer, a sister of the wife of William’s elder brother Ferdinando. George Carey later became second Baron Hunsdon and in 1597 Lord Chamberlain, patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men who performed many of Shakespeare’s plays.

Shakespeare Authorship: Dangers of Channeled Thinking

From my experiences and observations elsewhere, running under the banner of one alternate author of the Shakespeare works or another too obviously . .

1. channels thinking, clipping off new leads that might direct thought profitably along helpful avenues--perhaps leading to breakthroughs
2. runs off those with alternative, perhaps original/helpful, views and authorship theories
3. ends up looking like conjecture-based-upon-speculation, which weakens the Oxford case
4. focuses on a directed outcome of the discussion/research/analysis/theorizing, removing emphasis on the foundational/basic building blocks--that seem to need quite a bit of shoring up to convince
5. generates the same sort of We Have the Only Truth and Are You Fer Us or Agin Us type of discussant behavior observed among the Stratfordians (and others, certainly)

I sense is a major breakthrough awaits this whole area of study. I certainly wish to remain open to that possibility, and hope that we leave open that chance for others who've yet to make up their minds.
Further thoughts on points 1, 2, and 4 above . .
When we present 'A + B' the '= C' ('C' being an Oxfordian conclusion) is assumed because of where we're known to be coming from. So A and B must be disabled by the counter-discussant--because he knows what it's leading to, what it is meant to support, and he doesn't want it to go there.
In fact 'A' and 'B' might one day '= G'--perhaps even the counter-discussant might draw this conclusion, breaking out of his own preconception. Or somebody out there, yet unknown, might make 'A + B = Q', or, even more interestingly, 'A + B = X, Y, Z' which would blow us all out of our argumentative ruts.
Arriving at 'G', 'Q', or even 'X, Y, Z' might never happen without 'A' and 'B', but 'A' and 'B' have been destroyed by those who assume we're heading only to '= C' (in support of an Oxfordian solution).

Help With 'Venus and Adonis' Interpretation

Thanks to someone's 'Venus and Adonis' PDF, a poem I haven't read for several years, I've got a couple interpretive questions. Anyone good interpretations of this work I should look at first? Anybody want to take a stab at it? Specifically, I wonder about . .

1. the Baron of Tichfield designation (was this in fact Wriothesley's title? apparently it was one of his estates?)
2. is there a version out there with quote marks around what the characters say in the poem (what would be dialogue in a dramatic work)? This would certainly make it easier for rubes like me to follow.
3. the line 'He red for shame but frosty in desire'. Is this meant to be 'frothy' (or something else)? If not, how should I interpret 'frosty'?
4. the use of the exclamation 'O'. It does look like a subject at the same time. Any interpretations of this? (Yes, I see the possible reference to Oxford.)
5. what about all the sexual stuff? Was this what passed for smut in those days?
6. after Adonis dies 'A purple flower spring up chequered with white' from his blood. (Missing 's' on 'spring' aside . .) Possible meanings for this? Flag/banner/standard? Family crest? Sexual connotation?

I also wonder what the general take is on this artistic/poetic quality of the poem. Any/all help appreciated.

Shakespeare Authorship: Big Questions

Some big questions associated with Shakespeare authorship, once answered, might alter the course of future study. In terms of the works generally attributed to Shakespeare . .

1. Why has it taken so long to establish authorship¹ definitively?²
2. Where is the supporting documentation that typically establishes authorship?³
3. Does the name "William Shake-speare" (and its variants) have any significance?
4. Why the focus on Italy in the works?⁴
5. Why so few references to God, Christianity, or any aspect of the divine in the works?

---

1. Has there been any sort of official effort to divert authorship investigation?
2. Authorship theories based on speculation and conjecture, without definitive proof, do not qualify as establishment of actual authorship.
3. Diana Price does a comparative analysis of "literary papers trails" for Shakespeare and two dozen of his contemporaries to show what we have to confirm authorship of other Elizabethan authors--and lack here--in her Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem.
4. So many of the plays set in Italy, commedia dell'arte style, iambic pentameter, sonnet style, etc.

"Self-Torment Unfurled"

Priest to the invisible
Legislator of World
Hierophants of inspiration
Self-torment unfurled.

November 6, 2011

The Bard’s Deep Knowledge of Italy

“Shakespeare’s Guide to Italy” has a dozen chapters, each with more amazing personal discoveries proving that the great author had to have been there:

1 – Romeo and Juliet – “Devoted Love in Verona”
2 – The Two Gentlemen of Verona – part one – “Sailing to Milan”
3 - The Two Gentlemen of Verona – part two – “Milan: Arrivals and Departures”
4 – The Taming of the Shrew – “Pisa to Padua”
5 – The Merchant of Venice – part one – “Venice: the City and the Empire”
6 – The Merchant of Venice – part two – “Venice: Trouble and Trial”
7 - Othello – “Strangers and Streets, Swords and Shoes”
8 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – “Midsummer in Sabbioneta”
9 – All’s Well That Ends Well – “France and Florence”
10 – Much Ado About Nothing – “Misfortune in Messina”
11 – The Winter’s Tale – “A Cruel Notion Resolved”
12 – The Tempest – “Island of Wind and Fire”

“If you take a map of Italy and grab ten push pins and put them in ten cities, that’s essentially Shakespeare’s Italy,” said Mark Anderson, author of Shakespeare by Another Name, in a BBC interview, adding, “That to me is quite a remarkable happenstance.”

Now, in honor of the release of Dick Roe’s masterwork, The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard’s Unknown Travels, it’s also the twenty-fourth reason on this list to believe that the Earl of Oxford wrote the Shakespeare works.


When Edward de Vere traveled through Italy at age twenty-five during 1575, he and his retinue skirted Spanish-controlled Milan before navigating by canal and a network of rivers on a 120-mile journey to Verona. His travels took him to Padua, Venice, Mantua, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Naples, Florence, Messina, Palermo and elsewhere, making his home base in Venice.

Aside from three stage works set in ancient Rome – Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar – ten of Shakespeare’s fictional plays are set in Italy: Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Othello (Act One), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (adduced), All’s Well That Ends Well (also France), Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest – which opens aboard a ship in the Mediterranean between North Africa and Italy.

Verona

Only one of his plays of fiction, The Merry Wives of Windsor, is set in England, for an astounding ten-to-one ratio.

Oxfordians have often said that Edward de Vere “brought the European Renaissance back to England” when he returned in 1576 after fifteen months of travel through France, Germany and, most extensively, Italy. He became the quintessential “Italianate Englishman” wearing “new-fangled” clothes of the latest styles.

He brought richly embroidered, perfumed gloves for Queen Elizabeth, who delighted in them, and such gloves became all the rage among the great ladies of the time. And, for example, he brought back his perfumed leather jerkin (a close-fitting, sleeveless jacket) and “sweet bags” with costly washes and perfumes.

Soon enough John Lyly, who was Oxford’s personal secretary and stage manager, issued two novels about an Italian traveler – Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and his England (1580), the latter dedicated to Edward de Vere, who apparently supervised the writing of both books. Together they are said to comprise “the first English novel” and, yes, in the following decade the great author “Shakespeare” would demonstrate Lyly’s influence upon some of his plays.

The descriptions to be found in the Italian plays are in “challenging detail” and “nearly all their locations” can be found to this day.  Whoever wrote them “had a personal interest in that country equal to the interest in his own.”  The places and things in Italy to which Shakespeare alludes or which he describes “reveal themselves to be singularly unique to that one country.”  His familiarity with Italy’s sites and sights – “specific details, history, geography, unique cultural aspects, places and things, practices and propensities” and so on – “is, quite simply, astonishing.”

Roe never mentions Oxford or any other Shakespearean candidate; instead he takes us right away to Verona, the setting for Romeo and Juliet, and recounts making one trip to search for sycamore.  That’s right, he went to find sycamore trees, and they would have to be located in one specific spot — “just outside the western wall” as “remnants of a grove that had flourished in that one place for centuries.”

Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city’s side…

There are no sycamore trees in any of the known source materials for the play; and “no one has ever thought that the English genius who wrote the play could have been telling the truth: that there were such trees, growing exactly where he said in Verona.”

So our intrepid detective-explorer arrives in the old city of Verona: “My driver took me across the city, then to its edge on the Viale Cristoforo Colombo. Turning south onto the Viale Colonnello Galliano, he began to slow. This was the boulevard where, long before and rushing to the airport at Milan, I had glimpsed trees, but had no idea what kind.”

His car creeps along the Viale and then comes to a halt.  Are there sycamores at the very same spot where “Shakespeare” said they were?  Did this playwright, who is said to be ignorant of Italy, know this “unnoted and unimportant but literal truth” about Verona?  Had he deliberately “dropped an odd little stone about a real grove of trees into the pool of his powerful drama”?

I’m sure you know the answer …

Dick Roe took this photograph outside the Porta Palio, one of Verona's three western gates; and, yes, sycamore trees.

SEE:  Reason Number 24 of 100 Why Edward de Vere was “Shakespeare” – His & the Bard’s Deep Knowledge of Italy

"Like Nero"

Though the chance
. . May be zero
That I'd enhance
. . Or be the hero.

Should they die?
Must I try?
Or play violin
. . Like Nero.

November 5, 2011

"Opportunity to Change"

When you suffer
. . A nervous breakdown
And everything runs slow
And everybody in the town
. . Makes of you the show.

As you live
. . Your Grecian crisis
It's hard to see
. . Your pain and strife is
Opportunity to change.

November 4, 2011

'Thanks a Lot'

Sung by Eileen Jewell, written by a 'C. Rich' (while trying to confirm that this is Charlie Rich, see lyrics here).  Wonder what it might have to do with the Ernest Tubb version.

Great Song

Heard 'Since You Went Away' by Kris Delmhorst on a British detective show (of all things), called CASE HISTORIES on public television.  Check her out . .