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Introduction

This will be an occasional blog for a couple of reasons--I don't want to be tied down to writing something here daily (and do you want to have to check my blather daily?) and I honestly don't think I can sustain daily scribblings anyway. So, check back maybe weekly or less, I'll have to see how well this will work for me.

Why is this blog titled as such? Well. . .
I adore Shakespeare and find Hamlet to be my favorite play that I've read or seen of his (so far). OK, so why the negative title?

I'm not a person of high-born lineage-thus negating a tragedy based on my life following Aristotelian standards (see his Poetics, especially 8.1)

I'm not pestered by demons. Some view the ghost of Old Hamlet as a demon tempting Hamlet to murder and damnation. While there are persons I don't particularly like, I don't wish them dead. Maybe just maimed.

I'm not dead.

I am not involved in some familial-political intrigue (though my family is certainly interesting).

I don't reside in nor have I ever visited Denmark.

I am (to the best of my awareness) not fictional.

I'm not Hamlet for positive reasons too.


  • I teach
  • I'm married with two children
  • I wish to homestead
  • I am Protestant with Catholic and Orthodox sympathies

There is probably an interminable list to create about why I'm not Hamlet, but I'll keep it there for now.

Boy, this is a rather pedestrian start. Maybe I should post photos of myself naked, covered in honey and salt.

Comments

Honey and salt? Tantalizing as those photos may be, I won't lament their absence. Congratulations on your ... what's the masculine alternative to maiden? ... initial! voyage into the blogosphere. Well done. May your muse whisper sweetly into your fingers, ear, brain, other body part — take your pick, and bring you back often.
Scot said…
Hey, thanks for the feedback.

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Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                                                                The Servile State

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.

Gaudete, dammit!

     I was not at my home church for mass this morning (not that I feel like I have a home church since becoming Popish), but nevertheless my mood was buoyant.  After all, how could it not be.  Here we were standing as brothers and sisters commemorating one of the top five greatest events in the history of reality: the Incarnation.  Yet looking out and listening to the participation of my Roman brothers and sisters, one would think that something less than mundane had happened.  Something BORING, even.  We gathered to remember the God of the universe condescending to take on human dress and all we can do is half-heartedly sing and mumble ancient creeds that people died for?  I remained buoyant despite the lack of mutual awe.      Annie Dillard said waggishly that when people go to church they ought to be wearing crash helmets.  Do they really know who or what they are summoning?  Something more terrible, merciful, and real than the Great and Powerful Oz for certain.  Lest my Protestan