BASE USES

QUITE CHAPFALL'N

ARE YOU HONEST?

HAMLET
Ha, ha! are you honest?
OPHELIA
My lord?
HAMLET
Are you fair?
OPHELIA
What means your lordship?
HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
HAMLET
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.
OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.
HAMLET
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

TOYS OF DESPERATION

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,


Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.

suggestive and beautiful words
words that draw your mind down into the spiral with Hamlet
you can see the abyss which might deprive you of your sovereigty of reason
and draw you into madness
there are also many situations in Hamlet where it might be said
the very place puts toys of desperation into every brain that looks so many fathoms to the sea and hears it roar beneath

I, OF LADIES MOST DEJECT AND WRETCHED

STRAIT JACKET BALLET

They set the scene with a strait jacket ballet. After they finish, the dumb show summarizing the piece follows.

Through wild, slashing motions, dancers dressed in strait jackets demonstrate suffering, madness, futility. They search desperately for escape or relief, but finding none, they eventually collapse in various positions around the stage. Finally, as they remain strewn over the stage, the King and Queen enter very lovingly. They kiss and caress and enjoy themselves deeply. After a few moments together, she kisses him and leaves him. The King lies down on a bench and falls asleep.

"Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love."

THEY WITHERED ALL

Her once beautiful nude body now stretched out on an autopsy table. Her eviscerated flesh sewn back together. A sadly poetic aura surrounds her tragic death. As women we are especially vulnerable to self destructive behavior which has its roots in the sense of shame. Because we are sometimes ashamed of the simple fact of being women! We can feel shame about our bodies"I'm not pretty enough, or thin enough." "My body is dirty because of my sexuality." Shame of competence"I'm stupid." "If I try I'll mess it up." "Some things I'll never be good at; I'm just a female. Shame in relationships "How can I expect anybody to like me, I'm such a witch!" "People think I'm foolish when I try to say anything." "Who could love me, I'm so awful?"

A fascination for torn things and ripped things. Things that are falling off and not quite covering what they are supposed to cover. Lipstick or eye shadow not correctly applied or lipstick smeared or mascara running. Everything that suggests sadness, madness or any form of self-hatred attracts me endlessly. Watching catastrophes unfold is my primary hobby. Watching people who want to caress  themselves with roses and writhe among the thorns.

THRICE BLASTED, THRICE INFECTED

LUCIANUS

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately.

HOUSES THAT LAST TILL DOOMSDAY

EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT


SECOND GRAVEDIGGER
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?'

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER
Ay, tell me that.

SECOND GRAVEDIGGER
Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER
To't.


SECOND GRAVEDIGGER
Mass, I cannot tell.

FIRST GRAVEDIGGER
Cudgel thy brains no more about it. When you are asked this question next, say a grave-maker: the houses that he makes last till doomsday.

TO GERTRUDE

In the middle of strange passions and dark, dirty thoughts and nothing can keep you out of those. Words and energy that probably should be used for other, more productive purposes. Passions that could go into fulfilling some ambition or reaching toward some goal but it's derailed by thoughts of raw, intimate sensuality. It almost feels like it would be better to cry in your arms than to achieve some supposed goal that has no real value anyway. What really could ever have more value than to bring flesh so close that it goes beyond flesh? What is more purposeful than achieving the kind of intimacy that makes one soft breath between two soft pairs of lips and two melting pairs of eyes? What is more purposeful than touching each other so delicately as to achieve states of mind that disintegrate flesh?  What is this use of time that's supposedly better than having you on your knees looking up at me and letting me see the insanity of your need? I don't know the real value of anything on this earth, but I know what I feel and what I remember. One of the only pleasures of getting older. The glory of remembering. Of being able to savor memories. Of being surprised by what remains in the memory. And so much of what remains is you. You in glimpses, smells, smiles, cute moments of loving your pets, powerful moments of letting me see how deep your passions really lie. "All small forgotten things that once meant you" Still flinging words into a void never knowing if they will be read, understood or valued in any way. But you have to permit that paranoia. It's the musical accompaniment to a powerful personality. Always playing softly in the background when it's not being blared by screeching horns. That doubt is sweet and sick and bitter and hateful and absolutely, utterly unbearable, but it is essential.

LOVE CLAUDIUS