"Waiting for Elmo"

Top Ten Things Which Come To Mind While « Waiting »
1. Before reading it, when I only knew the title, I thought it was a war novel by Tim O’Brian. The title sorta gives that feel don’t you think? No? No one agrees? Sorta like other war book/film titles like “Saving Private Ryan” and “Going after Cacciato”
2. Not this crap again.
3. Honestly, who cares?
4. The characters are somewhat amusing in the way they interact with each other. Amusing in a Fred & George bickering /Mad Hatter talking in circles in Alice In Wonderland sort of way.
5. I wonder if Lucky has rabies. Or fleas.
6. Why is he named Lucky?
7. I could not sit through an hour and a half of this performed live.
8. There is a reason why this play is not on Broadway.
9. Was translating it from French to English really necessary?
10. Godot is most likely a total jerk. And also a loser.

Tonight I spent entirely too much time on YouTube.

I can't read Waiting For Godot without falling asleep. I tried and tried but I just kept dozing off. The saddest part is that even when I was able to concentrate on the text, it was so bizarre I wasn't entirely sure that I wasn't dreaming. I finally got through Act One and then decided to do some further research on the play. Sparknotes was absolutely no help, and so, on a whim, I tried YouTube. Jackpot. Well...sorta.
Anyone reading this is most likely part of the Millennial Generation, which means you can appreciate my fascination with both YouTube and Sesame Street. Tonight I was about to find a summary of Waiting For Godot in a segment of Sesame Street's Monsterpiece Theatre called "Waiting for Elmo." How cute. Before the clip started, Cookie Monster summed the play up nicely by saying " it is a play so modern and brilliant, it makes absolutely no sense to anybody." The big ball of dessert-eating blue fur has an excellent point, and I think that this analysis not only sums up this play by Beckett, but just about every other piece we've read this fall. Raise your hand if you have said some form of "What the hell?" when reading at least six of our seven authors this semester. Seriously, nothing makes sense! It's like modernist authors are somehow merited on how completely confusing and ridiculous they can make a piece. We have men turning into bugs, men being killed by gorillas, men pounding out nonsense that is supposed to be symbolic of just about everything ever written in the history of time, a rabid dog riding a cow through a hurricane, and; my personal favorite, the story of The Hillbilly Family and the Rotten Mother. Every story has a twist of the absurd, a splattering of unusual occurrences which unceasingly, annoyingly, point towards some form of symbolism and the human experience.
Waiting For Godot is no different. I'm not meaning to bash modernist authors; for the most part, I like them. But I feel like the pattern in our reading curriculum is causing my reaction blogs to blur together in a general hue of awkward phrases like "umm. that was...interesting." I can recognize the underlying message-- Vladimir and Estragon are two down-on-their-luck-men who are trying to find meaning and purpose to their life, waiting for that sudden change which can somehow help them to sort out their lives. This theme is typical to the era. Besides the theme, there are other things which keep the play from being a complete dud. I was hoping that maybe watching the play would be easier but no, I was wrong. I tried watching a film clip on YouTube and I lasted a total of 30 seconds.