Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light

I’m skulking on Facebook, but giving the passage of time an intellectual background. I listen to Othello to remind myself of the dialogue before I watch a performance tomorrow. Of course, I’m enough of a nerd that I would do this whether I was to head to a play or not. 

In its ever curious (or maybe it is deliberately inverse… or perverse), idiocy, Facebook decided to suggest I like Glenn Beck. Um, yeah, I would rather stick a fork in my eye. But… I’m listening to Iago hatch out his plan and I contemplate a snappy remark in my status that the timing of his evil dialogue should coincide with such an image… but Glenn Beck is not as smart as Iago.

He isn’t. But he is evil. And black-hearted. Maybe we could even read into his subtext of racism and repressed sexuality. But… why am I wasting the time to conjure wit to describe how I feel about this man?

And yet… in the midst of my contented day… I feel my blood curdle with a rage as I tune into the news or just contemplate the thought process of a network that unabashedly broadcasts his poison every single day. Or the blackness within a person that is willing to lend those ideas credibility.

But I don’t think of the friends whom Facebook says I should follow as black souls. I love them. I respect them. I enjoy our conversations and shared memories. Maybe… maybe I am the one who is wrong and ill-informed. But… I don’t think so. I think Iago is charming. But I’m no Roderigo. Or Othello. 

I like Othello. The character… and the play that demonstrates his fall from grace. An accomplished soldier, fighting for the right side. Maybe he is a bit pompous, but he loves his Desdemona. And she loves him. She loves him… enough to give up everything to be with him. And yet… Othello is so willing to listen to this Iago. To let that evil wily man take away his trust of Desdemona, to darken his love of her into rage. Illogical, unfounded, stupid rage. So blind with fury that he destroys her. Kills her. And kills Emilia, the only one in the entire play who speaks the truth.

So I sit here and listen to the dialogue… and I realize, no, Beck isn’t quite Iago. And yet… how many people are Othello? Good people so easily led astray by the weakness of their heart? The fear that they will lose the one thing that is most precious… and in that bizarre, twisted desire to keep that object of one’s passion, destroys it and its defenders.

But you know… I listen to too much Shakespeare. Maybe I see things that aren’t really there… or maybe… I don’t see enough.