If you Google the word Paffooney, most of what you get in the results is me. Do an image search for the word and you get a gallery of my artwork. By making up a word for my picture posts, I have created an interesting hold on Google searches that I hope can prove useful for advertising my work. Try it out.
My son Henry (not his real name, in fact, the name of his great great uncle) went into the hospital yesterday. Today I learned the diagnosis. He is going to be all right. The hardest part is past. My son Dorin (not his real name either) and I got back from the hospital in Denton where we visited Henry for as long as the doctors would allow. Serious, but not about to beat us. Sad, but not going to make me cry, at least… not any more… well, at least,,, not tomorrow.
We will be strong in the future. We will grow and be great.
We will not break in the strong wind. But we will bend to make it happen.
William Shakespeare was not William Shakespeare. An odd truth to speak, I know, but true never-the-less. I didn’t really believe it until the second time I read my favorite play, The Tempest. He says it himself in the Epilogue;
Prospero.
Now my charms are all overthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint: now, ’tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon’d the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands (10)
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be, (20)
Let your indulgence set me free.
William Shakespeare. W. G. Clark. W. Aldis Wright. The Globe Shakespeare. New York. Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
First of all, the entire plot of the play involves Prospero trying to win back his rightful Dukedom from the usurper, his brother. His rightful Dukedom? His body of work? The usurper, his brother? The man who signed his name to the writer’s plays, and also a man of the theater. The Bard has, at the end of his career, come to terms with that usurper, “pardon’d the deceiver”, forgiven the man whose fame and fortune depended on stealing the work of the Bard himself. If his project is to succeed, it depends no longer on his magical arts and charms. It depends on “the help of your good hands”, the applause and approbation of the audience. It is up to us as readers to fill this project or make it fail, because his true identity is not to be revealed. His reward is in the mere satisfaction that his brilliant works have fulfilled his purpose, entertained us, and filled us with a sense of that tremendous and overwhelming truth that fills his every fiction. The Tempest is the last play. The man we know as Shakespeare falls silent afterward. He feels the need to be forgiven his faults and be freed by our willing suspension of disbelief, because in no other way will his pride in authorship ever be satisfied. I have to say, the clever conclusion to this play is the evidence that convinced me that Edward DeVere is the true Prospero, not the weaselly little bald man pictured only twice that we have come to know as William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon.
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I came to believe that William Shakespeare was a made-up character pretty much by the same means as the world first noticed the inconsistencies. In 1848, a young religious scholar named Samuel Mosheim Schmucker, put forward a parody of arguments against the physical existence of a historical Jesus Christ. The fact that no written works by Jesus own hand had ever been seen or discussed in historical documents was used to claim that Jesus was very possibly a made up character created by the Apostles Paul, Peter, and John. No physical evidence of his existence remained that wasn’t tainted by the fervor for relics, even fabricated ones, that ruled the Middle Ages. He posited, as a joke, that in the same way Shakespeare hadn’t written his own plays. After all, here was an unlikely person, an actor who had never been far from the city of his birth who became famous for writing stories from other lands, stories that had the ring of truth, as if the bard had walked the streets of Venice and Verona himself, as if he had spent time in royal courts among courtiers whom he portrayed with unfailing accuracy, and as if he had a deep personal knowledge of literature, including literature that had never been translated into English. Wait a minnit! Why does this comic parody sound so logical and profoundly obvious?
I didn’t believe at first. How could that story I had always heard about the greatest writer who ever lived be anything less than gospel truth?
Yet, inconsistencies were glaring in front of my eyes. The physically real William Shakespeare was a mere actor, not even a lead actor, a bit player who specialized in old men and jesters. His father was illiterate. The man apparently couldn’t even spell his own name correctly. He had spelt it at least three different ways in places that, with difficulty, could be verified as coming from his own hand. The likelihood that this little, insignificant man was the worldly author with a wisdom for the ages grew further and further away from the obvious truth.
Even Mark Twain, whom I revere as a role model and one of the greatest writers I have ever read, doubted that Shakespeare wrote plays. In his essay, “Is Shakespeare Dead?” Twain wrote, “So far as anybody actually knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon never wrote a play in his life.”
Do I actually believe that someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays? I was not willing to even consider it until the right candidate came along. Francis Bacon? No. Christopher Marlowe? Marlowe would’ve had to write some of the best plays after he was dead. No way! So did the right candidate appear? Most assuredly, thou addle-pated reader. Hold your breath and wait for the reveal in part two. Er, maybe you shouldn’t literally hold your breath.
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I drew this Paffooney back in 1980 after my favorite Shakespeare play, the Tempest. The truth is, by rereading that particular play, the Bard’s last, I have come to the conclusion that the actor known as Will Shakespeare did not write the plays that bear his name. It was in fact, in all likelihood, Edward DeVere, the Earl of Oxford who did. I will write about this further in the future. It is the magic of conspiracy theory that draws me like a sprite to the theatre.
Not all my Paffoonies are completely sane. The never-ending struggle of darkness and light can color things funny in a world of swiftly swirling imaginings. Lyrical joy opposed to malignant menace, devouring worlds in the palm of my hand.
Today’s Paffooney is a tribute to a childhood hero, Aquaman. I drew the picture from a comic book inspiration source coming from DC Comics in the 1960’s. Aquaman is a B-level superhero with not nearly so many fans as the big three, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. He was, however, my second favorite after Spiderman. He was more important to me than the Avengers. And this was strange, because I only had the chance to read the sacred comic books in the old barbershop in uptown Rowan. I only remember about two different issues that I was able to read during the long wait for a haircut. (Haircuts on Saturday took forever, because all the bald and crew-cut farmers would take forever getting their hair cut. And they hardly had any hair! I think the barber cut each hair individually.)
Aquaman and Aqualad would journey together in an incredible undersea world of sea monsters, giant fish, scuba divers, villains like Black Manta, and Mera, a real hot underwater babe. Topo the octopus could play comic relief by playing musical instruments or getting drunk on old lost kegs of pirate rum. I became a part of the adventure. I’m not sure whether I imagined myself more as Aquaman himself, or Aqualad. Aqualand was dressed all in red and blue, my favorite colors. I liked his blue swim-trunks. I myself could never wear swim trunks without a fatal case of embarrassment over my knobby knees and hairy legs. I admired Aqualad’s smooth and muscled boy-legs, though not without some shame and embarrassment. Some suggest that the relationship between Aquaman and Aqualad was a homo-erotic thing just like Batman and Robin. But, hey… NO IT WASN’T! It was a hero and sidekick that mirrored the complex relationship between a father and son. My father and I could never talk at any deeper level than Aquaman talked to Aqualad. Yet my father had super-powers for solving my problems and helping me do things and make things. Yes, I think I loved Aquaman because he reminded me of my own father in his quiet competence.
And I had a Captain Action Aquaman costume, a Christmas present and wonderful treasure. I played with it so much that only the broken trident, mask, and swim fins remain. The rest was all broken and unraveled and disintegrated from being played with. The Aquaman in my Captain Action collection has replacement parts in it to make it more complete. Yes, I spent time and money putting that toy back together so that I might play with it yet again.
So why is the super-powered King of the Sea so important to me? After all, his super powers are to breath underwater and telepathically talk to fish. I think, reading back over this stupid little essay, that the most important theme is the father-son thing. I never owned a single Aquaman comic book as a kid, but I watched him on Saturday morning TV. He was one of the Superfriends. And my father had been in the Navy on Aircraft Carriers. Yes, Aquaman is my favorite because Aquaman is secretly my father.
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I was always the one on the outside looking in. The sad fact is, all of us who are too creative and sensitive for our own good feel that way. We wish we had what see in there, but miss the beauty inherent in being on the outside. Stalker… peeping faun… magical wishes… and dreams in the dark blue of the night.
I am fascinated by the tragic-romantic monster-heroes of the silver screen. The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Mummy… Christopher Lee, Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff… so much visual monstrosity and wild fantasy of the most terrifying sort. I love it.
Catch a Falling Star 