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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
February 17, 2026 at 11:31am February 17, 2026 at 11:31am
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There was a slew of articles about Shakespeare not too long ago, probably paid advertising for the movie Hamnet. This might or might not have been one of them, from Mental Floss:
Well, yeah, because no one knows everything about Shakespeare. Hell, no one even knows for sure what day he was born on (they have a baptism record and an assumption based on custom).
As usual, don't trust MF for the facts. Or me, for that matter. This is, as certain "news" outlets disclaim, for entertainment purposes.
Misconception: Historians debate whether Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare.
Shakespeare wrote a lot. He was also from the country town of Stratford-upon-Avon and didn’t go to university. So could this one “simple” guy write all these impressive high-brow works?
So, two things here. I've heard this "theory" bandied about for as long as I've known about Shakespeare, and my first impression (as an impressionable kid) was "How is this relevant? The plays exist. Can we not separate them from the writer, if not from the time?" Later, I came to realize what this really was: arrant snobbery.
Thus, I feel like I can safely ignore any snoot who proclaims that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare.
And finally, they're only "impressive high-brow works" from our point of view today. At the time, they were the pop culture equivalent of monster truck rallies.
Misconception: Shakespeare invented 1700 words.
Today’s lexicographers have a lot more data and technology—and they know Shakespeare didn’t coin that many words. (Jonathan Culpeper, a linguistics professor at Lancaster University, has spent decades researching Shakespearean language. He believes Shakespeare coined around 400 words.)
As I'm pretty sure I've noted before, I don't know how these things get determined, but it seems to me that, especially before the internet, words were passed around by, well, word-of-mouth before they were ever written down. So how do we know what was coined, and what was the pop culture equivalent of "six-seven" and "skibidi?"
I will, however, give more weight to the opinion of a linguistics professor in the matter.
Misconception: Saying Macbeth in a theater is dangerous.
Okay. Okay, fine, so that's a misconception. And yes, actors are known for being a superstitious lot, which is why you tell them to "break a leg" before a performance instead of "good luck." However, that does not make this clip any less than one of the funniest things in the history of comedy:
Misconception: Wherefore means “where.”
An image you’ve probably seen countless times is Juliet decrying, “O Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?” It sounds like, “Where you at, Romeo?” And some performances even have Juliet physically searching for Romeo as she says those lines.
But, at the time Shakespeare was writing, wherefore essentially meant “why.” Juliet is asking, “Why are you Romeo?” because it’s his name, attached to a family that’s feuding with hers, keeping them apart.
Okay, I'm not going to argue about that. It just seems weird because it's not his name "Romeo" that's keeping them apart, but his family name. And the necessities of plot.
I continue to insist that R&J is best interpreted as satire and/or parody.
Misconception: As Hamlet says, “to be or not to be,” he’s holding a skull.
Sometimes in pop culture, you encounter a Hamlet who’s holding a skull and reciting the “to be or not to be” speech. (Billy Madison is one example.) But Hamlet holds a skull during his speech in the churchyard that begins, “Alas, poor Yorick!” It happens in Act 5, Scene 1. “To be, or not to be—that is the question” comes two acts before that, in Act 3, Scene 1.
Sure. Again, not arguing. But it's pretty damn famous that in all of Shakespeare's surviving works, only one stage direction stands out: "Exit, pursued by a bear." (The Winter's Tale). And there weren't many in his entire body of work. I don't recall, and am too lazy to look up, if those parts of Hamlet have actual stage directions, or if it's left up to directorial interpretation.
So if you want to have Hamlet holding a skull, or a book, or a damn iPhone, in your production of Hamlet, I say go for it. Maybe he carries a skull around with him all the time. He certainly seems the type.
Misconception: The Globe Theatre was round.
The first Globe Theatre was completed in 1599. Shakespeare was a part-owner of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company, which built the venue. And he may or may not have called it a “wooden O” in the prologue of Henry V. That being said, it wasn’t exactly a circle. It was a many-sided polygon.
In fairness, calculus wouldn't be invented for nearly 100 years, so I don't think they'd be aware that, as the number of sides of a regular polygon increase, its resemblance to a circle also increases. At some point, architecturally, you have to say "Yeah, fine, that's a circle."
It wasn't, however, a "globe." The Hayden Planetarium  is a "globe" (inside a cube). At best, the Globe Theatre approximated a cylinder.
Now, there are a bunch I skipped because I had nothing to say about them. They're at the link if you're interested. |
© Copyright 2026 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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