"As I live by food, I met a Fool" As You Like It Will ShakespeareSo speakes Jaques after having met Touch stone in a speach where in he declares his ambition for motley coat. Even the sight of a fool has a magical and spiritual influence on us. The Fool is at once all things and yet nothing at all. Raw and primative chaos, the potential and yet the unformed. His pants are baggy, his shoes too big, his coat of many colors. The Fool stand like a distortion from a land of dreams and yet each odd feature is govern by an ancient even primal tradition, his totems the rooster and the Ass, his tools like the bell and the bauble, all these things have meaning. Meanings we know even when we know them not. Perhaps most importantly a fool is contagious. His major employment being the act of making fools of others, and like Jaques we find that even to see a fool is to become one. Philosophers have said that wisdom begins when one knows that one knows nothing. Yet see a fool and you say to yourself this is a fool, he knows nothing, who then is wise? The Fools folly is his strenth, his inability to distinguish real and unreal is his strenth.In Love Happy Harpo Marx is chased by three thugs. Harpo passes a billboard, the billboard is lined by two sets of lights that flash on in sequence so that the light seems to travel around the perimeter of the sign. Harpo snatches hold of the line and is carried by it up to the top of the Billboard where he accesses the next roof top. Harpo contenues to enter the two demensional illussions of the billboards along the chase. Thier is a neon sign of the Mobil winged horse, it is actually four neon signs, only one is lit at a time and a second after it goes off the one just alittle above it goes on, Harpo mounts the horse and rides it's illussion up to the top of the bill board were the toughs scramble to reach him, but when the horse reaches the top it goes off and the sequence begins again. Harpo is again on the first horse and leave the crooks scrambling to get down.Harpo refusal to recognise illussion seems to allow him to enter it at will. To the Fool thier is no difference between the one possibility that the non-fool calls reality and all the other possibilities that the non-fools call illussion and fantasy. In many ways the fools participation in reality is just as optional, he is not all here and this is what allows him to escape the effects of occurrences that would be harmful to the non-fool. He is blown up, smoked, crushed and only hams up the tragedy, Let him walk off a cliff and ignore the fact and not fall until it is brough to his attention. Then he may fall, or bounce or run back to the cliff, or even as Baron Munchhausen snatch hold of his hair and pull himself up to the top.But the duality of the fool does not end thier. I commented earlier on the effect the vary sight of a fool has on the non-fool, Thier is something in the non-fool that recognizes the totems and accoutrements of foolery, as if she had a foolish part of her nature. Whatsecondary nature does the fool possess?? Nothing but a secondary fool nature, for if the fool nature is optng momentarily withinreality can it be a non-fool nature that exist elsewhere?? The very ambiguity of the clowns nature is that thier is a piece missing, something else to his nature that is both part of him and yet apart. Sometimes the fools gender is mysterious, sometimes he seems possesssed by his animal totems, at times he plays with his shadow, his reflection in the mirror is at least as real as he is for it is only an illussion to non-fools while to him it is just another possibility. We can see the fool better by viewing the nature of his duality. Fool Relationships Foolery notes The Fool and his totems This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page
"As I live by food, I met a Fool" As You Like It Will Shakespeare
So speakes Jaques after having met Touch stone in a speach where in he declares his ambition for motley coat. Even the sight of a fool has a magical and spiritual influence on us. The Fool is at once all things and yet nothing at all. Raw and primative chaos, the potential and yet the unformed. His pants are baggy, his shoes too big, his coat of many colors. The Fool stand like a distortion from a land of dreams and yet each odd feature is govern by an ancient even primal tradition, his totems the rooster and the Ass, his tools like the bell and the bauble, all these things have meaning. Meanings we know even when we know them not. Perhaps most importantly a fool is contagious. His major employment being the act of making fools of others, and like Jaques we find that even to see a fool is to become one. Philosophers have said that wisdom begins when one knows that one knows nothing. Yet see a fool and you say to yourself this is a fool, he knows nothing, who then is wise? The Fools folly is his strenth, his inability to distinguish real and unreal is his strenth.
In Love Happy Harpo Marx is chased by three thugs. Harpo passes a billboard, the billboard is lined by two sets of lights that flash on in sequence so that the light seems to travel around the perimeter of the sign. Harpo snatches hold of the line and is carried by it up to the top of the Billboard where he accesses the next roof top. Harpo contenues to enter the two demensional illussions of the billboards along the chase. Thier is a neon sign of the Mobil winged horse, it is actually four neon signs, only one is lit at a time and a second after it goes off the one just alittle above it goes on, Harpo mounts the horse and rides it's illussion up to the top of the bill board were the toughs scramble to reach him, but when the horse reaches the top it goes off and the sequence begins again. Harpo is again on the first horse and leave the crooks scrambling to get down.
Harpo refusal to recognise illussion seems to allow him to enter it at will. To the Fool thier is no difference between the one possibility that the non-fool calls reality and all the other possibilities that the non-fools call illussion and fantasy. In many ways the fools participation in reality is just as optional, he is not all here and this is what allows him to escape the effects of occurrences that would be harmful to the non-fool. He is blown up, smoked, crushed and only hams up the tragedy, Let him walk off a cliff and ignore the fact and not fall until it is brough to his attention. Then he may fall, or bounce or run back to the cliff, or even as Baron Munchhausen snatch hold of his hair and pull himself up to the top.
But the duality of the fool does not end thier. I commented earlier on the effect the vary sight of a fool has on the non-fool, Thier is something in the non-fool that recognizes the totems and accoutrements of foolery, as if she had a foolish part of her nature. Whatsecondary nature does the fool possess?? Nothing but a secondary fool nature, for if the fool nature is optng momentarily withinreality can it be a non-fool nature that exist elsewhere?? The very ambiguity of the clowns nature is that thier is a piece missing, something else to his nature that is both part of him and yet apart. Sometimes the fools gender is mysterious, sometimes he seems possesssed by his animal totems, at times he plays with his shadow, his reflection in the mirror is at least as real as he is for it is only an illussion to non-fools while to him it is just another possibility. We can see the fool better by viewing the nature of his duality.
Fool Relationships Foolery notes
The Fool and his totems
