MY TSQ-IV POST CYCLE - PART ONE

Hans Christian Andersen gives us a perfect story about the young female ruler of an unidentified European land (the Kingdom of Autumn? Or that of Knowledge?), who sets up a test of character for prospective consorts:

In this kingdom, the crown princess, who will soon be crowned queen, is renowned far and wide for her unusual cleverness. She has read all newspapers in the world and then forgotten them, so clever is she! She owns as many books as her pet crow has feathers, and she studies art, and philosophy, and foreign languages, and other such things. The late king made the daughter his heir (and he gave the supreme captaincy of the royal guards to her younger brother, the other child of the household) because the crown here goes to the eldest child. So he had her reared as a boy and trained in statescraft instead of the usual occupations of blue-blooded young women.

A short time ago, at the end of her guardians' regency, having been crowned at the age of eighteen, she was sitting on her throne when she remembered that old nursery rhyme about getting married. So she turned to her advisors and began to sing that song: “Why shouldn’t I get married in my life?” And she thought it was a great idea. So she determined to marry if she could find a husband who knew what to say when he was spoken to, one as intelligent as she: not only a young and dashing one who could only look grand, smile, and wear a uniform properly (for that would be so tiresome!).
No, she wanted a real prince: dashing, brave, intelligent, able to encourage the arts in times of peace, and to lead the army to victory in case of war. Long story short, she wanted a prince like none she had ever seen on all the thrones on Earth.
But the princess did not despair at all to find what she wished for, decided as she was not to give up and accept an arranged marriage, and to choose, no matter his rank, a spouse worthy of her.

Then she assembled her entire court together in the palace gardens and made them aware of her intentions, to much rejoicing and acclaim.

The princess's advisors suggested putting notices in the newspapers, but she declined on the grounds that this would attract too many men of the ordinary sort. Instead, she wrote a proclamation out herself, in Classical Latin, and had it copied out and affixed to the doors of every University in three kingdoms.

The notice said that every good-looking young gentleman of an age comprised between twenty and twenty-five was free to visit the royal court, and make themselves quite at home there, but she would choose the most eloquent one, the one who spoke best, and the one who in her eyes had got the most intellectual and moral qualities, to become her consort.

One would have expressed surprise at this unusual method of selecting a husband.

Scholars and alchemists and theologians and other learned men and upstarts and tricksters came in crowds from all parts of the kingdom and from foreign lands, for two days, until the royal gardens were full of suitors (who had even encamped there), and the palace was quite crowded with men in black silk gowns (there was such a crowd that they did not recognize each other!), but not even one of them was able to meet the requirements. They all could express themselves very well on the street, by the campfire, and in a lecture hall... but when they saw the royal guards in blue coats with silver lace, and the valets in gold brocade, and the vast halls brilliantly lighted with dozens of chandeliers, they were dazzled by the overwhelming splendour. Their courage forsook them.

When they stood in the great hall of the palace, surrounded by gilded plasterwork, and rose-red tapestries, and great silver mirrors that glowed with the light of a thousand candles, and saw the counts and barons and countesses and baronesses in all their finery, and the guards in blue and silver uniforms, they grew nervous and felt themselves shabby, though most of them wore their best academic robes of black silk.

And when they were called into the throne room, to stand before the princess with her golden hair as bright as the candles, they had to look for the right words, but they couldn't think of anything worth to say. None of them did succeed: in fact, they could do nothing but echo Her Majesty's words, while standing in awe and looking down, and thus she did not need to hear any more words, and she knew from the first impression what to expect from them, so she grew bored with this routine, and had them sent away to where they came from.
There were suitors who just collapsed before the throne, exhausted as they had arrived in haste, and they were just whisked back into the gardens by the royal guards.
It appeared as if all of those young men had consumed a drug that clouded their minds, and that they did not recover the faculty of speech until they had left the palace grounds. And only then did the faculty of speech return in excess, all of them spoke at unison, replying to each other what they should have said to the princess, even though there was so much prattling that they could barely understand each other. There was, at the garden gate, a whole queue of local bourgeois waiting for their exit, and laughing at their disappointment.

Now, on the third day, a strapping young gent stepped into the picture. He was tall and thin, clean shaven with very dark hair, and he came on foot. Instead of a black robe like the others, he wore a tattered uniform and a little knapsack on his back. His dark hair was long and tangled, and his eyes twinkled with confidence.

When he saw the guards in their blue uniforms decked with silver lace, he saluted them. When he saw the valets in gold brocade livery at the foot of the stairs, he winked at them and told them that it was quite tiresome to stand there all day long: he would go further inwards. When he saw the nobles in all their splendour, the youth was not the least embarrassed, though his own clothes were faded and worn, and icy glares and careful whispers were constantly fixed upon him.

The halls were lit with dozens of dazzling chandeliers, that really blazed with light. Councillors of state, excellencies, and dignitaries were walking about barefoot (not to make any noise), carrying golden tableware. There was enough splendour to distract the most brilliant orator. But, though the lad's knee-high boots creaked terribly, he didn't even flinch.

And thus, he dauntlessly entered the throne room. Her Majesty sat on a throne decorated with a pearl the size of a spinning-wheel, with all her court ladies, and ladies' maids, and ladies' maids' maids, and courtiers, and courtiers' valets, and courtiers' valets' valets, and courtiers’ valets’ valets’ pageboys, standing up in a half-circle around her royal person. And the closer they were to the door, the lower was their rank and the haughtier their look. Everyone of them was dressed so finely that they shone as brightly as the mirrors. Even the servants wore cloth of gold! The courtiers' valets' valets' pageboys in their slippers, closest to the door, stood too tall to be looked at in the eye. And everyone in the royal entourage would not even cast a glance on the stranger, because he had come to the palace with ink on his fingers.

The youth was not only good-looking, but cheerful and confident as well, quite solemn and not at all afraid. He was a picture of good looks and gallantry, and he said he hadn't come to woo Her Majesty (whether to sire her children, for her wealth, her rank, or her beauty), but to check her knowledge, to hear her wise conversation, and she was as pleased with him as he was with her. Or, to say it the other way round, he was as pleased with her as she was with him. He admired her just as much as she admired him!

When evening turned into night, moonlight was turning the snow-covered flowerbeds into great sheets of silver. The royal gardeners had set little statues carved of ice atop the dry and frozen fountains, to take the place of the streams of water. The leaves were falling one by one in the great linden avenue of the palace gardens, and they had already begun to crunch beneath the courtiers' feet... and the happy fiancés, after being led up the long staircase, walked hand in hand through passageways decked with pink satin with embroidered gold and silver flowers, through a series of halls, each one grander than the one before (a hall lined with tapestries of crimson silk featuring damsels and unicorns, one hung with battle paintings of such size and magnificence that it was conditio sine qua non to admire the richness of the tints and the skill of the brush strokes, one with a floor of black and white marble laid in squares like a chessboard and the walls hung with mirrors in gilded frames), deeper into the grand baroque palace, until they reached the royal bedchamber. The roof of its cupola resembled a sunflower or palm tree of Bohemian crystal glass, which made the ceiling transparent and opened the night sky before their eyes. Two lily-shaped beds hung on thick cords from a golden stem: hers was white, and his was scarlet red.

He made a sign and she slid out of her lily-white bed, into that of her bridegroom, and he pulled the scarlet bed-curtains, thickly embroidered with gold and silver thread. Through a narrow gap in the bed-curtains, the moon and the captain of the guards (a most fearsome young firebrand, who guarded his sister’s welfare most faithfully) could see a head of dark hair, quite black.

The princess and the new prince were asleep in one another's arms, his face quite hidden in her golden hair.

Sandra Dermark.
After Hans Christian Andersen: "The Snow Queen, Fourth Story".

THE DISCREET CHARM OF LIEUTENANCY

Both Lieutenant Kotler and Lieutenant Wickham are played by the same actor, Rupert Friend, a dashing Brit who cuts a figure in any kind of officer's uniform.
Both share the first place in my list of eligible bachelors.
(For those who were not aware of it, lieutenant is a French word. However, it's pronounced in a different way, "lyöt-NAA", north of the Pyrinees and south of the Channel).
And you, optionophile (i.e. lieutenant-loving) females reading this post: do you prefer Kotler or Wickham? Ice or spice?
In this corner: Kurt Kotler (Ice):

• Blond and blue-eyed (purebred Aryan).
• Short hair, gray SS-Untersturmführer coat.
• Reserved.
• Looks pretty cool, tough and emotionless, but nevertheless suave.
• Tragic family history (defector father exiled in Switzerland): his weak and soft spot.
• Mood swings. When in a bad mood, blinded by anger and prone to violence towards non-Aryans.
• 99 percent dashing on the Sandra Dermark scale.

In this corner: George Wickham (Spice):

• Dark-haired and green-eyed (or hazel-eyed, depending on light).
• Ponytailed (1 ft long ponytail, tied with a light blue ribbon) redcoat (scarlet jacket and white breeches).
• Outspoken, even a social butterfly.
• A troublemaker (pathologically gambles and drinks hard).
• More emotionally stable than Kotler (beware of even naming one Fitzwilliam Darcy, or else his repressed feelings will surface!).
• Charismatic personality (he would be a sect leader, no military officer, in our days) that betrays his true self.
• 99 percent dashing on the Sandra Dermark scale.

I'm not suggesting that you form "Team Kotler" and "Team Wickham" (think Team Edward and Team Jacob during the Twilight fad), but simply that every one of you fond of lieutenants, literature and/or Rupert Friend gives an opinion on the subject.

MORE ON CARROLL

At the age of eighteen, when Tim Burton's Alice was in vogue, I freely translated "Jabberwocky" into Swedish.
I am especially proud of how the "frumious Bandersnatch" became the phonetically dantesque "vrede Vrakmadrass" ("Irate Wreck-Mattress") in my rendition, that included veiled shout-outs to both Bellman and Karl Gerhard.

THE POWERS THAT BE

As a child, I was a true fraidy-cat (or a cowardly lion cub, if you prefer).
Here is a list of things that gave me serious cases of the willies:

1. Aliens from Mars Attacks: AKA heads of lettuce with bloodshot scarlet eyes. I was terrified of both lettuce and the local video club (as long as it was decorated with the Mars Attacks poster). My lovely divorced mother, aware of this fact, used these aliens as the boogie-man.
   
2. Animatronic chimp at a local shoe shop: he had a dark baritone voice, that I found rather threatening. Guess how I felt when he finally was gone!
3. Lovebirds: or "scarybirds" to me as a child, for having white eyerings that made their eyes look uncanny. I wouldn't frequent a café or shop where lovebirds were kept as pets, even if bribed with a regiment of Kelly dolls and/or a truckload of marshmallows!
   
4.  Hyacinth Macaw at Gothenburg Zoo: despite sporting Sweden's national colours, this chap had some nice yellow eyerings around black eyes, on a Prussian blue face. Think of a huge blue lovebird and you get the idea.
   
5.  Romanesque art in Catholic school canteen: Jesus and his disciples looked like humanoid Mars Attacks aliens to me (lightbulb heads, huge sclerae, blank, expressionless irises). I never ate there.
6.  Nuns in picture, Catholic school chapel: Another thing shown at the "Little Catholic School of Horrors". The nuns, seen at work in a nineteenth-century hospital, had narrow black clefts for eyes and tiny Mona Lisa smiles. To cut a long story short, they didn't look human.
7. Androgynous figure in charity poster: a wrinkled face without any facial hair, and a white robe. This character gave me the willies because his/her gender was unclear. Blame the Catholic Church for a great deal of my childhood scares!
8. Mutua General de Seguros old (1990s-early 2000s) logo: A half-faced sprectral figure, gender unknown and ambiguous (bobbed hair, and, on the chest, pectorals or breasts?)... Then the half-light and half-dark face, whose dark half seemed not to exist. And that eerily soaring shawl... My favourite bookshop Argot was beyond the local MGS office, but getting there was like venturing into the lair of a live dragon to get to its treasure. When the insurance company reached its hundredth year in 2007, it changed to a more stylized logo, similar to a flame or a lily. Praise R'hllor!

Disney films deserve to be mentioned apart, because they're literary adaptations, and for being more familiar to readers:

1. Wicked Queen Dowager (AKA Snow White's Stepmother), Fruit-Seller Mode: after drinking a self-distilled potion, Disney's first villainous stunner (to be followed by Maleficent, Lady Tremain, Gothel, and the Snow Queen) transforms into a remarkably hideous crone, with a hooked nose and the type of eyes that I saw in both lovebirds and Mars Attacks aliens.
   
    Scary-to-Sandra eyes, with huge sclerae, tiny irises and not a glimpse of a twinkle.
2. Pinocchio: when I received this film on VHS for Christmas, I quickly defenestrated it from a fifth floor (luckily, there were no casualties). Why? For the puppetmaster Stromboli, but especially for the whale incident. As a kid, the sole thought made me shiver.
   
3. The Brave Little Tailor: specifically, the scene where Willie accidentally drinks Mickey.
   
   Along with  the whale scene in Pinocchio, it impressed me a lot, for having got to view what a living thing looks like from within. I took this fear of being devoured up to ten. I even had my mother "bowdlerise" "The Three Little Pigs", "Little Red Riding Hood", "The Seven Little Kids", and "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", by deleting or altering the parts where characters were swallowed alive by predators.
4. Mr. Dawes Senior (the banker from Mary Poppins): the last item on the list is a live-action character. I gave him the boot for being a bearded bastard who, aside for looking like a corrupted Santa Claus (a lanky and cold-eyed Santa with a longer and pointier beard), caring more about business and money than about the quality of life of poor street sellers (he states that they should let the old pigeon-feed lady eat cake).
   
    Raised in an all-female household, I was skeptical towards males in general. And, not knowing Cromwell or Hitler back then, I found in Mr. Dawes Sr. the epitome of masculine coldness and inhumanity. To add more fuel to the fire, the portrayal of God the Father in both a local church and Baroque art, a gent with a bushy white beard, resembled either Santa Claus or Mr. D. Sr. with the recommended BMI. And so, I got to find even the Lord himself scary (Soon, I would realize that the Creator cares as little for humankind as Mr. Dawes Senior for pigeons and street sellers!).

A LOOOOOOONG BOOK TITLE

A pretty short novel by Gabriel García Márquez is conveniently titled (the original title is in Spanish, this is a translation into English):
The Tale of a Castaway, who spent ten Days adrift on a Raft without eating or drinking, was proclaimed Hero of his Parent Nation, kissed by Beauty Queens, made Wealthy through Public Relations, and then abominated by the Government and forgotten for Eternity.

No surprise that the title is abridged as The Tale of a Castaway (Relato de un náufrago is the original title).

THE AFTERLIFE OF OTHELLO

In this final Part Four of my Othello series, I will look at the afterlife of such a great tragedy, including my original works inspired by it.
I have got, currently, the following Othello "merchandise":

• Shakespeare's play in English (annotated), Spanish (three different translations), and Norwegian (one only translation).
• Verdi's 1880s opera (three recordings, plus a virtual verse translation of the libretto that can be read here): https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:DXs1cEpmXpMJ:www.onread.com/files/Otello-A-Lyric-Drama-in-Four-Acts-Giuseppe-Verdi-Arrigo-Boito-1211863.pdf+&hl=es&gl=es&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShcgnoj36PeZaDaZ7-U4UcqFo8v1Et4BRnIETx6hVFZ9gpF53UEDF4PJcQa76O7-IT3H6VYTUHBX6dOA7qdYjHUXC8-iOEIawg0ZimlmeXsTyg0O2nDTKeSlGIY-8HLzaGTq4y6&sig=AHIEtbQHS0BHwen7kWuAf81MFCH1UI_vYA
• The film of the opera, starring Plácido Domingo as the Moor.
• The film of the play, starring Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus) as Othello and Kenneth Branagh (Lockhart) as Iago.
• An abridged parody (in Spanish, then translated into English) of my own, written in a notebook.
• A Gundam Wing fan fic that I wrote last springtime, starring Zechs as Othello, Noin as Desdemona, Treize as Iago, and Quatre as Cassio. The fic can be read here: http://es.scribd.com/doc/94184016/Die-Upon-a-Kiss
• A performance, with an all-female cast, that the caretakers and I put on during my institute years. I don't remember if I played the Moor or Desdemona. This short play wasn't recorded.

HOOK, LINE, AND THINKER

This is Part Three of my Othello series.
The themes of appearance vs. reality and identity crisis lie at the core of Othello. Everyone but Iago and his wife are aware of the non-com's agenda. Even the readers/audience, when he breaks the fourth wall, are/is left clueless of, for example, the reason why he is so negatively obsessed with Cassio.
And then, in the finale, Emilia shatters her husband's plans upon exposing them to light. But it is already too late: Desdemona is already dead, and Cassio is severely injured.
The Othello story is one that must be read between the lines, and one that allows more than one interpretation. Mine are:
-Those too innocent, including myself in the real world, repeatedly allow themselves to be stabbed in the back, and it's too late when they realize it.
- Very few people care for the good of others. Even altruistic deeds have a selfish thought behind them.
- The line between good and evil is both incredibly thin and incredibly easy to cross. And so is the line between love and hatred.