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Web Exclusives: PawPlus July 2, 2003: Your Mohawk is growing out. You are privileged, not to hear me, but to read Shakespeare. BBC plays go from very good to unbelievably bad. Unbelievably bad is almost as good as the Princeton Shakespeare Company. There were no actresses. Feminista, just relax. What is an ark? Well, it's even bigger than an SUV. Jesus doesn't like a smartass. I am most eccentric about Hamlet, and of course totally right. A tier if the symbol of Princeton, and the Exxon Corporation. The Holy Trinity: Daddy-o, Laddy-o, and Spooks. [Jesus] lived at home with Mom and Dad until he was 30 — almost as if he were Irish. Noah is my favorite prophet in the whole Bible. He is the Woody Allen of prophets. We are going to have to trust Shakespeare, as he was always right in everything he did. What do you think would happen after that one night of bliss [in Romeo and Juliet]? She'd be preggers, you just know it. If I were directing a production of Measure for Measure..I would want to get Groucho Marx as the Duke. Jokes come from me, not from the class. You don't have to agree with them [my lectures], and that's fine. You may remain ignorant of the true nature of things if you want. And now I'll show my heretical side here. I still pray for family members, knowing what I do of them, in Purgatory. But you wouldn't expect a ghost to say, "I am your father's ghost come from the deepest hell." That doesn't inspire confidence at all. When was the last time you thought about the sheets on your parents' bed? I know that's horrible, I shouldn't make you think about things like that. If you don't get sympathetic with Ophelia at this point, you have no sympathy in you at all. I'm going to nail you, just to see you wiggle. And we all fall into line, like Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. Just because Hamlet, our favorite character in all of literature, is saying this rubbish, it's not going to prevent him from getting a C or a D in precept. I'm not going to attack 19th century philosophy. Let it dwell in its own deficiency. Just because you write a poem and hope that the girl will get into bed with you doesn't mean it will happen. It's a really kinky family situation here. Now isn't this a mess? Two guys doing the cha-cha over the body of a dead woman. I am the "like" police. My colleagues, as I told you, run screaming down the corridor when they seem me coming, especially with the topic of Hamlet. The Al-Qaeda of that time were the Roman Catholics. I'm sure you're completely convinced at your age that life is tragic, and all that. It's true. I am the only faculty member in the entire University who has his picture hanging in the bar at the Annex restaurant. I don't know if the story I'm going to tell you is quite appropriate for Ash Wednesday. Just because I am trying to throw out all of German 19th-century philosophy — it's all right. You can get along without it. I hope. Leonardo DiCaprio? I thought he drowned on the Titanic. How could a character named Fleance be a threat to anyone? You can't rust Shakespeare scholars. I was practice teaching with the dullest man in the department. I mean, there was a lot of competition for the role. But he was the pits. I'm sorry you have to listen. But here it is. Don't drop your hankies, girls, or you husbands may kill you. I still think Othello is a hero in the modern sense. I may change my mind by Wednesday. He was a fine, fine specimen of male physicality. Man should turn himself over to the control of his gonads. If you can't write, teach. If you can't teach, you become an administrator. You all know the Beatles, don't you? Don't try to upstage me! I would like to spend the rest of the lecture making random comments. I apologize to all the bastards in the audience today. I hope your dad doesn't talk to you that way. Don't go around paraphrasing Shakespeare. And now I'm going to bore you out of your mind by twisting this one line in 17 different directions. I've written things about Shakespeare, and I know I'm absolutely right in everything I say. You know about those lusty pagans. Anyone here ever meet a pagan? Who would give up the world just to sleep with a beautiful women? No volunteers, please. And in the midst of this walking wet dream, a messenger arrives. This is quite indecent, which is why I'm going to tell it.. Don't tell anyone I told you that story. Like any concupiscence, it ends when you're dead. I think the 21st century is going to come around, and very probably agree with me. But don't wait around for it. You can take the sentimental, or, as Robertson would say, the stupid view towards these people. I'm not suggesting copulation through the ear of anything. Don't you dare telling any priest on me, now.. I'm really very literal about things. When he said no, you should bugger alter boys, he really meant yes. I think every class should have a little incest in it. I never remember wrong things that are said in precept. Unless it's so hilarious that I put it into one of my stories. If you saw a year-old polar bear come in, "d be out the door immediately. It's not every day I get to kick Toni Morrison out of a lecture. He's clearly of the jump-'em-and-thump-'em school of love. Some love rises no higher than the haystack in which it is performed. Allow me to persist in my lunacy. Do we have any shepherds in the audience? The roman Catholic Church made Thomas Aquinas the Gram Shmegeggle. I love fighting with priests about this. I ways prepared for lecture days. I had a martini.
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