Shakespeare to Clapton to Church

It’s time, once again, for a bombardment of expository language dedicated to nothing yet strangely cohesive in its ability to serve as a buffer between the icy cold grasp of technology and the passionate warmth of inessential doggerel. What writer or critical reader can resist the resonance created by words frolicking together, irrespective of juxtaposition or implied meaning? Do you suppose Shakespeare could possibly not have enjoyed the anticipated reaction from penning such lines as “Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace to-night: Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out, 'Help, ho! They murder Caesar!' Who's within?” and then just sitting back in his chair to wait? Impossible for me to imagine that he would not.

You see, it’s the meaning, yes, but more, it’s the sound. Were it only the meaning, there would be absolutely no reason for actors to spend hour upon fleeting hour calling to memory such passages as Hamlet’s Soliloquy. If the aural reproduction was naught but connection from point A to point B, it could just as well be done in silence, for the meaning would be just as valid in either case.

Case in point: You’ve just read the following passage from a song:

The gypsy woman told my mother
Before I was bornI got a boy child's comin'
He's gonna be a son of a gun
He gonna make pretty womens
Jump and shout
Then the world wanna know
What this all about
But you know I'm him
Everybody knows I'm him
Well you know I'm the hoochie coochie man
Everybody knows I'm him

The words are right out there in front of you; you’ve heard them before and you may even remember enough of the tune to hum a few licks. Then, you open the door to your CD player, drop in Eric Clapton’s From The Cradle and play “Hoochie Coochie Man”, and while Clapton effortlessly glides across his frets, he transports you to a smoky little bar in Nachez Parrish where you drink bad whiskey and sing along and strum your air guitar while you wish the lady in the red dress sitting on your buddy’s lap would notice you, too.

Unintentionally, I just defined the essential difference between novel and screenplay, essay and poetry. All supply us with essentially the same information, if information is all we seek, but to be performed skillfully, it requires us to employ all of our senses.

But I digress…