Gina Eliot Explains Titus Andronicus

Although I can’t claim to be the Shakespeare scholar that Lady Britomart is, I do derive quite a bit of enjoyment (or sick pleasure, if that’s how you take it) from the rather bloody and hilariously crazy plot of Titus Andronicus.  I am capable of taking the Bard quite seriously, but this play just takes the head-infused cake.  For those unfamiliar with the plot, I offer my detailed synopsis below.

So, there’s this guy named Titus Andronicus – he’s a general in the Roman army during Roman Times, and he’s really good at killing Goths, with whom they’re all at war.  But that’s not where the play begins.  The Roman Emperor has lately keeled over, and his two sons, Saturninus and Bassianus, decide that they’re going to take advantage of the power vacuum and fight over who gets to rule the world.  Bassianus is the good guy, Saturninus bad – which is pretty obvious from the beginning.  Saturninus is the oldest, so he has that going for him, but Bassianus is a really good guy, and we know how they fare in Shakespearean tragedies.  Anyway, Titus shows up in some glory, and he’s dragging along his prisoners, Tamora, the Queen of the Goths, and her sons Alarbus, Chiron, and Demetrius.  Titus decides that it’s only fair that he kills Alarbus, because his son was killed in the war.  Trade-off, right?  Tamora gets on her knees and really begs for Alarbus’s life, and does a pretty good job of it, to the point where Titus almost gives in…but instead, he decides that the right thing to do would be to uphold the tradition of killing the loser’s oldest son off-stage and bring his guts back onstage to throw on the fire in front of his mother.  Well, Titus can’t seem to figure out why Tamora is so pissed about this, and she gives a pretty nice little speech about how she’ll GET HIM.

Jessica Lange is a pretty hot lady – and she’s MEAN.

Because Titus is a stickler for tradition, he convinces the silly Roman people that even though Bassianus is a really good guy, Saturninus is the eldest, and therefore should be emperor.  Hooray! Anyway, Titus has this cute daughter, Lavinia, and she’s secretly engaged to Bassianus.  Two of her brothers know this, but Titus isn’t aware. Saturninus has his eye on Lavinia, and Titus agrees that she should marry him.  This is when Bassianus and Lavinia freak out and decide to run away together, assisted by her two brothers, but Titus sees this as treason.  So, Titus kills one of his own sons because they’re being unpatriotic.  Saturninus intervenes and then sees Tamora’s hotness.  He decides, with a little bit of Tamora’s convincing, that he’d rather marry her than Lavinia, since Lavinia is now obviously a whore.  So that works out well – Lavinia and Bassianus get to get married, and Tamora gets to be the Empress of Rome.  Hooray!

Hey, did I mention that Tamora has a Moor lover, Aaron?  He’s predictably REALLY EVIL.  He’s basically around to kill people and do some general plotting with Tamora.  Chiron and Demetrius, Tamora’s (alive) sons, saw that hottie Lavinia during the previous scene and decide that they’d like to rape her.  Aaron is all for this, and he plots (with Tamora, who’s all for anything causing pain to Titus) with the boys about how to bring this about.  There’s a lot of business about a pit for tigers or cats or something, but eventually Bassianus and Lavinia show up while Tamora is hanging out near the pit, and Lavinia starts TAUNTING Tamora.  Yeah, that’s not a good move.  Anyway, Tamora is pissed, but she already hated these people, so it’s no biggie, and Chiron and Demetrius show up and they’re going to kill Bassianus for “killing” the two dudes already dead in the tiger pit.  Lavinia then pleads to Tamora (oh yeah, Lavinia, she’s the flippin’ Empress, remember?  No taunting.) for Bassianus’s life, but of course Tamora isn’t having any of that, and the boys dispatch Bassianus and run off with Lavinia, but not before Tamora reminds them to make sure Lavinia can’t go blabbing her tongue about who did the deed.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers – creepiest Chiron evar.

Aaron is still scheming against Titus, and he wheedles his way into getting two of Titus’s sons accused for Bassianus’s murder.  Titus is pretty upset, but Aaron says that Tamora will spare the boys’ lives if Titus gives up one of his hands.  That’s right, his hand.  Titus’s brother is all about taking the fall and giving up his hand, but Titus pulls a fast one and cuts off his hand before his brother.  Aaron takes that back to the Empress, but she’s already killed the boys!  Oh no!  They bring back the two boys’ heads as proof.  Titus is pretty upset, and then it GETS WORSE.  Lavinia comes running in with bloody stumps instead of hands, and her tongue has been cut out!!!  EEEK.  She uses a stick to kind of spell out in sand Chiron and Demetrius as the perps. Needless to say, Titus goes pretty insane.  He gets his only surviving son to go talk to the Goths about amassing an army to take over Saturninus and Tamora (that was probably an interesting conversation: “Hey, Goths, so remember how we just finished killing you and capturing your Queen?  About that…).

–Meanwhile, in the midst of all of this killing, Tamora finds time to have a mixed-race child, which is obviously Aaron’s.  Chiron and Demetrius are all for killing the kid, but Aaron saves his son and runs off. —

There’s a weird scene where Tamora, Chiron, and Demetrius try to appear to Titus as gods, which is pretty stupid.  Titus mostly doesn’t buy it, but he is starting to go kind of nuts, so it’s unclear what he’s doing in that scene.  He does manage to trick Chiron and Demetrius, capturing them.  So, they’re tied up, and Titus taunts them a bit and brings Lavinia in, carrying a big bowl (with whose hands, I don’t know), and Titus proceeds to slit their throats and collect their blood in the bowl.  Yum.

Titus pretends that he has decided to let bygones be bygones and invites everyone over for a big dinner party. Tamora and Saturninus are really enjoying their meal, and then Titus is like, “hey, let’s all say hi to Lavinia! Oh yeah! She can’t say hi back because your sons raped and mutilated her.”  Titus deems that she’s pretty much worthless (they’re already had their food served by her, so Saturninus agrees) and stabs her in the stomach.  She dies, and then Saturninus takes this moment to decide that Titus might be a little bit crazypants, and decides that a good fight might be in order.  Titus is like, “hey Tamora, that awesome cake you just had was composed of your sons’ meat!! Whahahahaha!!!”  Tamora is pretty upset.  Titus then kills Tamora, and Saturninus then kills Titus.

Remember Titus’s son Lucius that was sent up to the Goths to bring back an army?  Shakespeare seems to think that the dinner party is a good time bring him back up into the scene, and he sees his dead father and wails a bit.  Lucius kills Saturninus to avenge his father’s death.   He orders that Tamora’s body should be chopped up and fed to the birds, since she was just an animal anyway.  Lucius (or his “people”) also found Aaron and the baby, and he decides that the baby should be spared, since he’s kind of a baby, but Aaron needs to get some comeuppance.  Aaron isn’t really apologetic at all, so they decide to bury him in the sand and keep his head outside so that he’ll eventually die and be eaten by birds or other wild animals (maybe those tigers).

That’s pretty much it.

Harry Explains Childhood Naïveté

If a child is fortunate, he or she grows up in an environment free from trauma and conflict, blissfully unaware of adult troubles and the darker side of the world. I was one of those children, for which I am extremely grateful. Growing up in a loving and supportive family, however, usually comes with a certain amount of shelteredness. Let’s just say that when life doled out portions of naïveté, I didn’t just say thanks and move on; I went back for seconds and wrote a thank-you note afterwards.

Given the liberal helping of sheltered-à-la-king that I gobbled down as a kid, it’s not surprising that I developed some pretty weird ideas of how the world-at-large operated. This post is an exploration of some of the more amusing ones.

1. Bad guys in movies

Ah, the justice system. A place where bad guys are pursued and captured by men riding white horses, and then placed in action films to face their bloody fate. Wait, what? Yep, when I was a wee one I thought that when a villain was killed in a movie, he or she was played by a bona-fide criminal and actually died as a result of the wounds inflicted by the hero or heroine. In my small consciousness, it made sense; after all, why would anyone want to kill a good person by making him or her play the antagonist who gets a lead sandwich from James Bond? So basically, every action flick was the plot of The Condemned, with or without beefy Vin Diesel look-alikes.

2. Movies in general

I also thought, Mensa member that I was in my youth, that all movies were live performances. This, unlike the thing about executing criminals for the purpose of civilian entertainment, can be traced to an actual event. I went through a phase around the age of four during which I watched Richard Simmons’ iconic 1988 film Sweatin’ to the Oldies nonstop for days at a time. Not surprisingly, my mother soon tired of watching Simmons and his spandex-clad cronies gambol around, and requested that I “Give Richard a rest.” So, also not surprisingly, I fell under the impression that every time I wanted to watch Simmons’ video, he had to drop whatever he was doing and sweat to the oldies just for me. This belief extended to all live-action movies, but not animated ones. I wasn’t that dumb.

3. “Making out” versus “Making love”

Yeah, I thought they were the same thing. In retrospect, this makes Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You”, that one line in “Brown Eyed Girl”, and Foghat’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You” seem way more PG-13 and way less likely to inspire the fury of Momzilla bloggers. Also, I had no idea that there was a difference between “making out” and “hooking up,” or between “hooking up” and “going on a date to the movies and holding hands on the way out.” This led to many confusing situations, and as a result a lot of people probably still think I was a degenerate tart (“That Harry, she’s always bragging about ‘hooking up’ on the weekend.”). Oh well.

4. The Mom Store

This one is a little more locally centered. During my childhood, I often passed a store called Mom’s Music Shop. The old-fashioned sign above the door, however, just read “Mom’s.” As a result, I thought that the store specialized in the manufacture and sale of Moms, and that if I grew dissatisfied with my own, I could (for a small fee, of course) purchase or rent my very own brand-new mother. This came in handy during arguments with my Mom, who was doubtless terrified when I threatened to “go to Mom’s and buy a new Mommy” every time she placed asparagus in front of me at the dinner table.

5. Life as a Hybrid (but not a Prius)

Sooooo, there’s just no denying how weird this one is. My favorite movie at age five was The Lion King – no, that’s not the weird part. I think alot of 90s children enjoyed the antics of Timon and Pumba and the gang (but not that awkward jungle quasi-sex scene between Simba and Nala: yuck). The strange part is that I somehow convinced myself, in my underdeveloped cerebrum, that I was a highly specialized half-human, half-lion hybrid. I would even intentionally sleep curled up like a cat, which isn’t really that comfortable if you’re not feline in origin, and occasionally lick my “paws” in public to clean them (which my mother probably explained to staring passerby with three words: lead. Paint. Chips.).

So, dear reader, next time the undersized adult in your life does something outrageously naïve, remember me and feel better about his or her future. I can’t think of a more decent conclusion (dried out brain is from final exam essay writing, ouchie!), so here are some wee pictures of the “Look of Disapproval” to compensate:

ಠ_ಠ      ಠ_ಠ      ಠ▃ಠ      ಠ▃ಠ      ლ(ಠ_ಠლ)      ლ(ಠ_ಠლ)       ಠ_ಠ       ಠ_ಠ      ಠ▃ಠ      ಠ▃ಠ

Also, my apologies to Gina Eliot for (unintentionally!) stealing her thunder; her logical dissection of truck nutz will undoubtedly deal a hearty blow to the intellectual gonads of this post.

They’re Almost Here! New Blog Posts!

We’re finishing up the semester right now, but as Winston Zeddemore would say, “hold on to your butts.”

Up first: A Freund-ian analysis of truck nutz.

Stranger than nonfiction?

Couldn’t resist the urge to reblog this:

Woman: Do you have a non-fiction section?
Book guy: Well, everything that’s not fiction is non-fiction. [Over] there’s cooking, and there’s history.
Woman: No, that’s not what I asked. Do you have a section for non-fiction?
Book guy: Well, there are no non-fiction novels. Everything here that’s not a novel is non-fiction.
Woman: But you don’t have a non-fiction section?
Book guy: No. Everything that isn’t fiction is non-fiction.

–Barnes & Noble, Staten Island 

From the site Overheard in New York

– Post by Harry Wollstonecraft Shelley

LADY BRITOMART DE GOLFECASTLE EXPLAINS HER NEW LITERARY THEORY

During the Nineteenth-Century, literary criticism was devoted to what they called Zeitgeist, or “The Spirit of the Age.”  This means that they believed every time period had some great, essential thought ideas, and every work of literature could be studied as an example of the ideas of the time at which it was written.  This theory has fallen out of favor, but it has sparked my interest and inspired me to uncover a new interpretive lens.

First, I will detail my thought process.  If the Zeigeist theory seeks to find the common thread in each successive age, should we not also seek the thread that connects the disparate ages?  This would give us a theory that can account for the whole of literature.  This would be a sort of “unified literary theory,” much like the long sought-for unified field theory of physics.

So, what connects all of the ages together?  Why, it is the oldest profession known to man: prostitution.  Ever since cavemen began exchanging dead mountain lions for cavewoman tail, prostitution has been a fact of human existence.  It stands to reason that it must also be a fact of human literature.

Pictured: A prostitute.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet?  Hamlet’s mother trades sex with the new king, her dead husband’s brother, for her continued status as queen of Denmark and all the crown jewels she wants.  What does that make her?  A prostitute.

 

 

 

Pictured: Sexy, sexy embroidery.

Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter?  Hester Prynne trades sex with local pastor Arthur Dimmesdale for lucrative embroidery skills.  (It’s a little known fact that Arthur Dimmesdale taught her how to sew during their torrid love affair.  He was a multi-talented pastor.)  What does that make Hester?  A prostitute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured: Prostitution.

Twain’s Tom Sawyer?  Tom convincing the other kids to paint the fence for him is just another metaphor for prostitution.  The act of painting the fence, which the children think is pleasurable, is a metaphor for sex.  After convincing the other kids that painting fences is great, the other boys actually pay Tom to let them paint his fence…and they painted it all night long.  Well, all day long, but you know what I mean.  What does that make Tom?  That’s right.  A prostitute.

 

 

 

See?  It’s all about prostitution.  This new theory, which I call Prostitution Theory, will revolutionize literary studies.  The next few years should put all those pesky literary questions to rest, freeing English students to focus on more important things like Star Trek or Dancing with the Stars.

All I can say is: You’re welcome.

Pictured: Isn’t Spock great? Hold on a minute…are they doing what I think— Spock, no! This is going too far. You can’t be a…you know what. Stop it this instant! STOP IT!!!! WHAT HAVE I DONE?

(Lady B runs away crying, a broken literary critic.)

State of the Unicorn Address

State of the Unicorn Address

Lollicrats and Gumdroplicans, citizens of Funtimeland, I want to begin by talking a little about history. Long ago, both of the above-mentioned horselitical groups worked together as one to ensure the growth, success and protection of Funtimeland, a country founded on the tenets of life, liberty and the pursuit of marshmallows. They didn’t always one-hundred percent agree on things like unicorn education, healthcare, or the national budget, but they saw past their differences to make choices that benefitted all whenever possible.

But then, like a storm cloud over an outdoor tent party, dissent spread amongst the merry band of unicorns. The two groups started arguing about who had more marshmallows (a problem greatly exacerbated by the invention of the jumbo Jet-Puffed variety), who could build bigger cloud-castles and who was the best at solving unicorn crosswords (which are notoriously tricky every day, not just Sunday).

Before long, Lollicrats and Gumdroplicans wouldn’t even applaud for each other after rounds of musical toadstools, let alone gather together to talk openly about critical issues concerning Funtimeland. At that time, and still today, forces outside of Funtimeland worked and are working ceaselessly to penetrate the forests and dales of that great nation to rob the unicorns of their hard-sought marshmallows, destroy their starlight-driven energy system, and bring down their carrier pigeon communication and technology infrastructure.

Citizens of Funtimeland – palominos, chestnuts, pintos, and Appaloosas – I speak to you now! Now more than ever, unity is crucial. Whether you’re a Lollicrat or a Gumdroplican, you are both entitled to the rights and freedoms granted to all Funtimelandians and responsible for protecting our country and making it better for all unicorns.

You may be saying to yourself, “But I’m just an average Joenicorn – what can I possibly to do resolve these issues and overcome these challenges?” I have one word for you, citizen of Funtimeland: VOTE. Get out there this Whinnyvember and make your voice heard. Whether your mane lays on the left or the right side of your neck, whether you prefer Dum-Dums or Dots, you’re a valuable member of this great nation, and your vote counts.

So after all of that, you might wonder, what’s the State of the Unicorn? It isn’t perfect: conflict and disillusionment have struck us all, and hard times in the Farmer’s Market and clashes at the Foreign Rodeo have left us, some would say, a weakened country unfit to lead on a global scale. But I disagree. If we work together, if we can look past our differences in hide color, candy preference and marshmallow-earning scale, we have a strong future: a future where every Funtimelandian and member of the international unicorn community can stand tall and feel accepted, appreciated and empowered.

Thank you.

This post was, you guessed it, inspired by the State of the Union address. Funny story: I was sending a text saying “Just watched the State of the Union Address,” and my phone auto-finished “union” as “unicorn.” I thought to myself, “Harry my girl, if that isn’t equine inspiration to write a new blog post, nothing is.” So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed it, and more importantly, I hope you get out there this November and cast your vote for your favorite candidate, Lollicrat or Gumdroplican. We’re all in this together, folks; let’s make a difference together.

My goal isn’t to save the world one blog post at a time (alas), and I realize that this post may leave unaddressed the needs and voices of many other unicorns, but I hope that this exercise gives you a belly laugh and a few moments’ hard thought about our political system and how we can change for the better. Also, I beg the postmodernists to treat this metanarrative-tastic endeavor as pure pish-posh.

Rainbows, fluffy tails and joy for ALL. That’s my dream. – Harry Wollstonecraft Shelley

Just so everyone knows…

We’re not dead.  It’s the end of the semester.

And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?

My dear friend Vita Sackville-West and I were discussing irony at a small get-together, as we held hands and stared into each other’s eyes in a strictly platonic fashion (I think Leonard was in the bathroom.) We were meditating on the common misconceptions about irony, so naturally the timeless work of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” entered our conversation. This seemingly innocent comparison exploded into a recognition of irony’s multiple layers of meaning, and a realization that those of us well-versed in irony often arrogantly dismiss the misled ironic attempts of others. The discussion deflated the convivial atmosphere of the party until Vita and I were compelled to conclude. I will try to revisit the topic here and unpack the fickle beast of irony, hopefully conveying ideas much more eloquently than I did over my third glass of wine with Vita.

The main problem lies in situational irony, which is troublesome mostly for the preponderance of poor analogies surrounding its explanation. We cringe when we hear irony misused in the classroom, but in every day life it is tolerated as a synonym for coincidental. For example, a person might say, “It’s raining and I forgot my umbrella… how ironic.” This case is merely an unfortunate happening: not ironic. Now, the very same situation would be ironic if our subject carried an umbrella with her constantly, and on this particular day chanced to leave it at home because she decided to break free from her dependence on the security of said umbrella. The situation would have bred a circumstance opposite of what was planned, at least according to the umbrella-forgetter. Here, we’ve reached the juncture at which irony becomes complicated. If irony is contrary to intention, to whose intention is it contrary? It’s unclear whether the determiner of ironic outcome is the entire public, the woman with the umbrella, or strictly those listening to her. Is irony objective, subjective, or in some murky area in between? I believe it’s the latter, for situational irony cannot be shared without conveying an individual’s perceptions to those ignorantly judging.

With the shortsightedness of audience considered, we can sympathize with Alanis Morissette’s plight. Her audience is the general public, so her challenge in creating irony rests in finding a set of expectations shared by her entire listening population. Unfortunately, Morissette, on the whole, fails in her attempt.

Let’s start our review positively by commending Morissette on the correct usages of irony. The most commonly defended instance of irony in Morisette’s work seems to be the case of Mr. Play-It-Safe. We all remember this poor chap. His fear of flying causes him to wait “his whole damn life to take that flight,” and his first flight crashes, presumably killing or at least severely maiming him. This already rings of irony for the audience, as the rarity of plane crashes is frequently stated evidence for the unfounded fear of flying. So  Mr. Play-It-Safe’s facing of his arguably illogical fear is given it’s ironic counterargument; plane crashes are always possible, and in this case he was right to be cautious. To put the proverbial icing on the cake, as his plane crashes, confirming his fears with horrific inertia, he thinks to himself, “Well, isn’t this nice?” Morisette has chosen an anecdote layered with universally-recognized  irony… don’t you think? Yes, Alanis, we really do think.

Unfortunately, Morissette makes more than a few blunders in situational irony, for example: “rain on your wedding day,” “a black fly in your Chardonnay,” “a traffic jam when you’re already late.” These are simply unpleasant circumstances, as are the majority of Morrissette’s lyrics (the ratio of correct to incorrect situations of irony is 3:8, if the reader must know.) Maybe Morissette finds these situations subjectively ironic; who’s to say? Alanis might explain that, in this situation, she was planning on lying to her boss by saying that her tardiness was due to traffic, and then she found herself in an actual traffic jam. It’s a stretch, to say the least. Let’s not be too hard on Alanis, though; the task of communicating situational irony is a formidable one.

Some have suggested that Morrisette is actually employing verbal irony in “Ironic.” In other words, the meaning behind the chorus, “isn’t it ironic?” actually implies its opposite. I call this theory “the secret genius approach.” This is plausible (she did play God in Dogma, after all.) The viewpoint is weakened, however, by Morissette’s lack of consistency. For the secret genius approach to hold sway, Morissette would have to change the chorus after true situational irony to something like “That’s in perfect accordance with evident intentions.” That’s not quite as catchy, is it?

I suppose, reader, that the point of the discussion here is simply this: if a situation doesn’t make your brain hurt, it’s probably not irony. Furthermore, if you are one of those who brags a complete understanding of irony: try explaining it. I think you’ll find it difficult to do the topic justice, as I have sorrowfully discovered in writing this entry. I can only hope that I’ve left you, reader, with a clear(ish) method of interpreting irony, and a song that will most certainly be stuck in your head for days.

Yours truly,

Ginny Woolf

LADY BRITOMART DE GOLFCASTLE EXPLAINS THE WIFE OF BATH’S TALE BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER

So, there was this young knight dude, and he was wandering around one day when he saw this super-hot damsel, and he said to himself, “I gots to get me some o’ that.”

So he raped her, ‘cause that’s how he rolled.

Then this damsel, who was not happy about bein’ raped, complained to King Arthur about it.  King Arthur was all like, “Dude, you can’t just rape people.  That’s not cool.  Now I’m gonna have to put you to death or somethin’.”

Then the queen was all like, “You know what, honey, I’ve got this.”

She turned to the young knight dude, and she said, “Here’s what’s gonna happen.  I’ll let you live, but there’s a catch.  You’ve got to go on this quest for me.  I’ll give you a year to figure out what all women want most.  When the year is up, you have to come back here and tell me the answer.   If all the ladies here agree with you, you’ll get off with a warning not to rape people in the future.  I figure that if you can learn something about the ladies while you’re out on this quest, you’ll respect women enough to only engage in sex with mutual consent.  However, if the ladies don’t unanimously agree with your answer, then you’re gonna die.  Simple as that.  Take it, or leave it.”

The young knight chose to take his chances with this quest thing.  After all, that’s what knights are supposed to do, and there was absolutely no knight better at doin’ what he’s supposed to do than this one.  (Except for the whole rape thing – that was not what he was supposed to do, but he understood that now.)  So, the young knight dude got up on his horse and rode away.

Now, the young knight dude went along asking every woman he met what women wanted most.  Some of them said they wanted jewelry, some said they wanted clothes, and some said they wanted hot boyfriends, and a lot of other things he didn’t care about.

This was no help!  They weren’t coming up with just one answer.  It was almost as if these women had their own minds and weren’t part of a homogenous collective.  The ladies at King Arthur’s court were never gonna agree to any of these answers, especially since most of them appeared to be designed specifically to propagate misogynistic stereotypes, while the women of King Arthur’s court were forward-thinking individuals who valued the sisterhood of feminist principals.

When the time came for the young knight dude to return to the court and face the music, he was in deep despair over his failure to properly de-individualize women (despite the queen’s feminist intentions) by finding out what every, single woman wanted most.

As he made his way back to court, the young knight dude happened to see a bunch of naked women dancing around a fire.  He decided he’d better go for a closer look.  You know, just in case they could tell him what he needed to know.

And also to rape them.

But as he got closer, the naked women vanished, and, instead of hot naked chicks, he found an ugly, old lady.  He figured she was worth a shot, so he explained his situation, and asked her what women wanted most.

The ugly old lady was all like, “Yeah, I know what women want most ‘cause I’m all old and stuff, so I know what’s up.  I’ll tell you the answer, but you have to take me with you to the castle and promise to do me a favor later.”

The young knight said to himself, “How bad could it be,” so he promised to do her a favor.

The ugly old, lady told him the answer, and they rode off together.

The queen asked the young knight dude if he had figured out what women want most, and the knight said, “What women want most is to boss around their significant others.”

The queen and the ladies of the court got together and took a vote, and they decided that the young knight was right: they did all want to boss around their significant others.

The queen said to the knight, “Okay, we like the answer you gave.  We were kind of hoping you wouldn’t come up with something good, so we could have you killed…but we have to admit that you’ve got a point.  That means you get to live.”

Then the ugly, old lady came out of nowhere and was like, “Hey, I told him that answer, and he has to do me a favor!”

The young knight, though a rapist, was honest, so he introduced the ugly, old lady to the queen.

The queen asked, “So what kind of favor do you want from this knight?”

“I want him to marry me,” said the ugly, old lady.

Everybody was like, “WTF, old lady,” and the knight was like, “Marriage is not the same thing as a favor.”

The knight offered money and land and stuff, instead, but the ugly, old lady refused to take anything but his roamin’ hands and rushin’ fingers in marriage.  The knight had two options:  He could break his promise and no one would ever trust him again (as much as you can trust a rapist), or he could marry the old lady (I mean, who else is gonna marry a rapist?).

The knight decided that his honor (as a rapist) was more important than his happiness, so he decided to go through with it.

The rest of the court realized that, while it’s hard to root for a rapist, it was also kind of sad that this hot, young dude had to marry (and, presumably, sleep with) this ugly, old lady.  Unsurprisingly, nobody was particularly happy on the wedding day.  Except for the ugly, old lady, of course.

After the ceremony, the knight went off somewhere to pout, but at nighttime, he had to go to his room and face his new wife – a woman who looked old enough to be his great-great-grandmother.  She asked him why he looked so sad, and why he was being so shy.  “Are all of Arthur’s knights this hesitant to jump into the sack?”

“No,” he said.  “I’m sad because you’re old, and I’m young.  You’re ugly, and I’m smokin’ hot.  You’re a commoner, and I’m a knight.  I am totally better than you, but I’m totally stuck with you.”

The old lady said, “Hey, dude, you’re the rapist here, not me.  Well, I guess I kind of am, but that’s not the point.  I’m old, so I have a lot of experience.  Yes, I mean that in a sexy way, but also, I’m wise and stuff.  How else do you think I saved your life?  You weren’t complaining about my age then.  Also, I’m ugly, but none of your friends will ever hit on me, which is a plus.  You won’t have to worry about me sleeping around, ‘cause nobody wants to sleep with me.  Finally, being a knight hasn’t really made you a great guy, since you go around raping people.  But I was nice enough to save your life, so I’m obviously the better person here.”

“You know what, you’re right,” the knight said.  “I’m really sorry I’ve been acting like such a dick.”

The old lady said, “Now that you’re seeing reason, I have a proposition.  I can be really young and hot if you want me to be, but you have to make a choice.  Either, I can be hot and sleep with all your friends (and they’ll want to when I’m hot), or I can stay ugly and I won’t have the opportunity to cheat on you.  Which is it?”

The knight, who by now knew what lesson he was supposed to have learned, said, “You know what, honey, you’re the boss.  You decide.”

The old lady said, “So, let me get this straight.  You are making me the boss in this family?”

“Right,” he said.

“Right answer,” the old lady said, and she changed into a total hottie.  “Because you learned your lesson, and you’re letting me have my way, instead of having your way, like you did with that damsel (burn!), you get a wife who’s hot and not gonna sleep around.”

When the knight heard this, he shouted “Win!”  And they all lived happily ever after.  ‘Cause there is no one more deserving of a happy ending than a rapist and his crazy stalker.

Work Consulted

Chaucer, Geoffrey.  “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”  The Riverside Chaucer.  3^rd ed.  Ed. Larry Benson, et al.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin: 1986.  116-122.  Print.

Harry Explains Coffee

The many countries of the world have been at war with each other for millennia, fighting over land, resources, and weapons. With all of the differing cultural perspectives, it can be difficult to find common ground. There is one thing, however, which almost every country can agree is amazing – coffee. On any continent at any time, someone is guaranteed to be drinking what I like to call the Sacred Brew.

There are many things whose invention I often ponder – kissing, for instance, and Lunchables – but the birth of coffee is at the top of the list. Who first decided to take the berries off of an average-looking tree, dry and roast them over a fire, grind them up, strain them through water and drink the resulting brackish-colored liquid? It’s completely INSANE.

I’d like to hop into a Delorean and go back in time to shake the hands of the ancient guys and gals who took the brave leap into the jittery, magical world of caffeine. I’d also like to high-five the cavemen who died consuming poisonous mushrooms and thereby helped humans figure out which ones are okay to eat, but that’s a different story. For now, let’s focus on the beauty of joe. No, not Joe the guy next door who sunbathes daily in a leopard-print man-kini – I’m talking about joe the delicious, life-giving beverage loved by all new parents, graveyard shift workers and college students.

Coffee is such an important potion that the word for it in several completely unique languages is similar in spelling and pronunciation. For instance, in Holland the Dutch drink “koffie,” while the Welsh enjoy “coffi” and Hungarians can’t get enough “kávé.” A traveler from an English-speaking country in France or Germany would have no trouble figuring out “café” and “kaffee” on a menu, and in Greece “καφές” is a perennial favorite.

Countless times throughout history coffee has left a mark on world cultures – according to Wikipedia, that rock-solid bastion of academic legitimacy, coffee has been valued by human cultures at various times as a drink of religious importance, a symbol of political revolt and even a remedy for different ailments. Coffee made its way into the United States during the colonial period but did not become a staple beverage until the Revolutionary War, when tea lost its stronghold as the drink of choice among the rebellious colonies (Wikipedia). Coffee’s illustrious history calls to mind the question, “What’s so great about this stuff?”

That, unfortunately, is not a question that can be definitively answered through a Google search. There are as many reasons to love coffee as there are cultures who consume the Sacred Brew, and each society views it differently. Whether it’s coffee’s caffeine content, its rich aroma and flavor or its ability to keep a body warm on a cold day, its important place in the annals of humanity is something we can all agree on.

– Post by Harry Wollstonecraft Shelley

Works Cited

“Coffee.” Wikipedia. Accessed 14 Oct. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee.