A kid comes in the shop and I ask for his i.d. No problem. He hands it over. His name is Yorick. Yorick, like Hamlet's jester.So I say "Alas! I knew him." He stares at me. I stare back. Silence.
Now there are more customers looking at me, so I say unto them, "Hamlet." Uncomfortable silence now. This is getting embarrassing. I'll fix this. "You know, Shakespeare." Nothing. Not even a glimmer of recognition. You would think that in the 18-20 years this Yorick has spent on the planet, he would have ONCE run across SOMEONE who would have said "Hey, isn't that the name of some kind of character somewhere?" Does this kid think that he is the first Yorick in the world? Is he pompous enough to think that the name was invented for him? His parents were so cool that they said, "Hey, let's make up a really fucked-up name for our kid. No one else shall have it! We shall call him YORICK." (Like Moxie Crimefighter, the poor kid.)
I asked D, and he had never heard of anyone with the name, so I know it's not a typical Dutch name. It wasn't even spelled with a J, like most Y-ish names are here. Jan, Jarno, Jasper - all sound like they start with a "Y." So, at one point or another, someone must have said to him "Joh, that is a unique name. Where does it come from?" I guess he just takes another haul on his joint and goes "I dunno."
If your name were Cassandra, don't you think at the very least that you'd have heard that a long, long time ago someone in Greek mythology was called Cassandra? I think I'd know the whole story.
So I asked D wtf. He says, "Well, not everyone is as well-read as you are." So that means I'm smart, and yet the Dutch still make me feel like the stupidest person in the room. Well, I guess I am for trying to be funny with these cheese heads. Neem mij niet kwalijk.
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2 comments:
Hi Suka, The cloggies have their very own canon. Here's a link to the English version : http://entoen.nu/en
Actually my father-in-law was very proud to show off his knowledge of Shakespeare to me when I first met him. I got the impression then that it was rather unusual for a Dutch person to have read all of the works.....especially to have read them in English.
I believe that you will only be taken seriously here after you read the "Stuff White People Like" blog and begin to adopt the attitudes, dress and behavior of the "wrong kind of white people". That is what's "fet" in this neck of the woods. I can't believe that you still haven't figured out that intelligence is actually considered to be a liability here. I know, hard to come to terms with. You're going to have to either start sporting some Ed Hardy or resign yourself to your place on the Bell Curve and live in quiet desolation.
You can blame the "Mammoetwet" http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoetwet
As the wife of a Dutchie who owns the Collected Works of Shakespeare, I would venture to suggest that perhaps that particular audience isn't the best one to quote The Bard to?
I seem to remember that my university mates were also pretty intellectually useless after a few joints...and they were English majors!
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