PUBLISHER'S PERSPECTIVES:
Waiting for The Dough

Michael Vidor/Publisher

October 2009

"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

--Samuel Beckett

Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, one of the most significant of the 20th century, follows two days in the lives of a pair of men who divert themselves while they wait expectantly and unsuccessfully for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but, in fact, hardly know him—admitting that they wouldn’t know him if they saw him.

Ironically, that’s how life and lifestyle feel at this moment in time. We’ve become so accustomed to having everything handed to us that we don’t seem to know what we want anymore. So, as did Estragon and Vladimir in this tragicomedy, we sit and wait, eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide— anything “to hold the terrible silence at bay.”

We are characters in a play of our own—each of our critical roles as individual as any other. We live in an extraordinary place of abundance, California, USA no less, while we contemplate the bleakness of our surroundings and what we have to lose versus what there is to gain from the challenges we face. In our oblivion, bloated inertia and impotent political philosophy we wish and hope to take things into our own hands, but rather wait for someone to rescue us, an eerie similarity to Beckett’s interpretation of simple humanity in the late 1940s.

According to Wikipedia: Estragon dozes off, but Vladimir is not interested in hearing about his dream after rousing him. Estragon wants to hear an old joke about a brothel, which Vladimir starts but cannot finish, as he is suddenly compelled to rush off and urinate. He does not finish the story when he returns, asking Estragon instead what else they might do to pass the time. Estragon suggests that they hang themselves, but they quickly abandon the idea when it seems that they might not both die: this would leave one of them alone, an intolerable notion. They decide to do nothing: “It’s safer,” explains Estragon, before asking what Godot is going to do for them when he arrives. For once it is Vladimir who struggles to remember: “Oh ... nothing very definite,” is the best that he can manage.

So we wait—wring our hands while everything goes to hell in a hand basket. Rather than watch paint dry, we choose to watch it peel.

Beckett’s soliloquy is full of references, as well as words that are distorted versions of ordinary words, slang and vulgar speech—belcher as “belch,” fartov as “fart,” testew as “testes,” cunard as the French conard (“idiot” or “prat”), and feckham as …

Some of these words, although crude, describe normal human functions, which brings the discussion down to earth. They also, however, represent disordered and disintegrating minds, perhaps disturbed by too much waiting.

Someone has to fill the void before this goes too afield. And it looks as though it will be either the government or corporations. That is what we are currently debating, the lesser of two tribulations, so to speak. Or salvation could be us in support of one another.

We could actually open our mouths and ask for what we really want and then go after it. But that takes dough. Unfortunately in the poignant words of a banker quoted recently in the news, his bank is like a sailboat—just luffing along. Now that’s rich.

There being no carrots left, Vladimir offers Estragon the choice between a turnip and a radish. He opts for the radish but it is black and he hands it back. He decides to try and sleep again and adopts the same fetal position as the previous day. Vladimir sings him a lullaby.

The two again consider suicide but their rope, Estragon’s belt breaks in two when they tug on it. Estragon’s trousers fall down, but he doesn’t notice till Vladimir tells him to pull them up. They resolve to bring a more suitable piece and hang themselves the next day, if Godot fails to arrive.

They agree to leave but neither of them makes any move to go.

Get More Publisher's Perspectives:
September 2008: Economics 101
October 2008: Right in the Gut
November 2008: Ramble On
December 2008: Just the Fax
Jan/Feb 2009: Sign of the Times
April 2009: Signs that Wear on You
May 2009: Get in the Game
June 2009: Maintain Our Values
September 2009: It's a Google World After All...

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