Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down

So I signed up for Hulu primarily so I could watch the television adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. 

I'll (probably) blog more of my thoughts after I finish the series, but for now I will say that in this case I actually appreciate that they went with a television rather than film adaptation. Supposedly there was a film adaptation many years ago, but 2 1/2 hours wasn't enough time to capture all of the important plot points and details. 

I'm about halfway through Season 1...there is going to be a second season (!), but the first season is based on Atwood's novel in it's entirety, so I don't know how they are going to handle Season 2. But in as much as I've watched, it's been pretty faithful to the book. 

It's also, like its source material, pretty heavy stuff, so while I could binge it, I'd rather watch and digest one episode at a time. 

But Episode 5 is where the main character, Offred, discovers the faux-Latin phrase nolite te bastardes carborundorum written on a wall. The phrase, if it were really Latin, would translate to "Don't let the bastards grind you down." 

That phrase is also found in U2's song Acrobat, off of their album Achtung Baby. 

In googling the lyrics to Acrobat, I found several blogs appearing to belong to AP Literature students who were tasked with connecting the song to The Handmaid's Tale. When I took AP English literature, I had not yet heard Acrobat OR read The Handmaid's Tale (I only read it around 3 years ago), but this assignment would have been right up my nerdy alley! Hell, I don't need an academic excuse...although my main excuse for not blogging more is business/laziness. So I won't write my own analysis, I'll just leave the lyrics to Acrobat below as food for thought. 

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Don't believe what you hear, don't believe what you see
If you just close your eyes you can feel the enemy.
When I first met you girl, you had fire in your soul.
What happened t'your face of melting snow
Now it looks like this!
And you can swallow or you can spit
You can throw it up, or choke on it
And you can dream, so dream out loud
You know that your time is coming round
So don't let the bastards grind you down.

No, nothing makes sense, nothing seems to fit.
I know you'd hit out if you only knew who to hit.
And I'd join the movement 
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah, I'd break bread and wine 
If there was a church I could receive in.
'Cause I need it now.
To take the cup
To fill it up, to drink it slow.
I can't let you go.

And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that.
And you can dream, so dream out loud
And don't let the bastards grind you down.

What are we going to do now it's all been said?
No new ideas in the house, and every book's been read.

And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this and act like that.
And you can dream, so dream out loud
And you can find your own way out.
And you can build, and I can will
And you can call, I can't wait until
You can stash and you can seize
In dreams begin responsibilities
And I can love, and I can love
And I know that the tide is turning 'round
So don't let the bastards grind you down.

Theater Arts: August Wilson's "How I Learned What I Learned"

August Wilson may be most famous for Fences, the play that was adapted for the big-screen last year. I have yet to see Fences (the film or the play), but I got to see Wilson's autobiographical one-man show "How I Learned What I Learned" on its last day at the Round House Theater in Bethesda, Maryland. As a perk of serving as a substitute usher (my parents are regular theater ushers), I got to see the show for free, but it would have been well worth seeing for pay.

How I Learned What I Learned is basically the coming-of-age story of Wilson, who was born Frederick August Kittel Jr. in Pittsburgh in 1945. But through telling tales of his life as a young man in the poor Hill District, Wilson also tells a story about the African American struggle for justice and respect. And he does so in a funny, rather than preachy, way. Narrator Eugene Lee nails this tone, opening the show with a quip about how his ancestors had been in America since the 17th century and for years "never had trouble finding work." Toward the end of the show, he outlines a list of hypothetical sins that a bank teller had committed, including "f--king her brother-in-law," before condemning her to hell...for lying to him about not having envelopes. This was one of many scenes provoking out-loud laughter among the all-adult audience.

 What was it about the bank teller's lie that had Wilson so enraged? As he tells it, it was about "P-R-I-D-E" and "P-R-I-N-C-I-P-L-E-S." It was the same principles that led him to quit odd jobs when a shopkeeper suspected him, without evidence, of stealing, or when the man who ran the lawn mowing service he was working for told him to move to the next lawn after a woman complained. While Wilson's behavior as a young man was at times pridefully stubborn, it was the principled fight for his human dignity that ultimately shined through.

 But How I Learned What I Learned is not just about Wilson't experiences with racial discrimination. He also depicts his first kiss, early relationships and friendships with artists and musicians. He talks about his ambitions as a young poet and his discoveries of the music of John Coltrane. All of these experiences were how "[he] learned what [he] learned."

I knew very little about August Wilson before watching this show. How I Learned What I Learned conveys his young life in a way that a written autobiography can't. I am eager to watch the film version of Fences with this background on the screenplay's author.