T-11

Did anyone catch Ingrid Bergman and Mos Def in the new Othello? “By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman!” But that’s Roderigo, and who gives a fuck about him? Even though the recently departed Michael Douglas makes for a fine conniving lieutenant, especially since they spawned the avatar from old footage of him in The Streets of San Francisco. Enough to make you think that SAG is onto something when they strike over live-actor quotas in movie production. And who would have thought Haley Joel Osment would have made such a badass Iago? This I have to read:

Others there are
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lined their coats
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

You remember Popeye? He yam what he yam? He’s the anti-Iago, the one character any of us ever knew who was fully and completely himself. The rest of us, we’re Iago, man. We aren’t what we are. I’m not Walt Dangerfield, but what the fuck am I?