Werner Ulrich's Home Page:  Ulrich's Bimonthly

Formerly "Picture of the Month"

March-April 2013
Waiting for Godot

Waiting for spring … and for the next Bimonthly essay I fear I have had some of my faithful readers waiting. You, that is. To be sure, we have all been waiting here in Central Europe for that overdue Spring 2013 to arrive. And we're still waiting. In the meantime, I have been working on my next Bimonthly essay in the uncompleted series of "Reflections on Reflective Practice." I hoped to have it ready for spring, but alas! spring hasn't arrived, it's not ready. By the time spring will (hopefully, eventually, ultimately) arrive, I am confident my essay will also be available. But of course, nobody ever knows when exactly spring arrives. This is just how it is with my overdue essay. There's no way to tell. All I can say is that while you are waiting for it, I am working on it, hell.

Meanwhile, the situation slightly resembles Vladimir and Estragon's Waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett's famously absurd "Tragicomedy in Two Acts" of 1953. You may wonder whether you have come to the right place. You may wonder where the leaves are. You may wonder how long you are going to wait and what you are supposed to do until Godot comes, if he comes at all. Well, here is a suggestion: read Godot. Since you have to wait anyway, why not benefit and read the play. Give it a try. If not now, when else? I promise you, its writing is so refreshingly minimalist that the few green leaves this spring has brought forth so far are going to look unexpectedly lush to you. Well yes, until "it" really comes.

To get you going, here is a brief extract from Act I.

For a hyperlinked overview of all issues of "Ulrich's Bimonthly" and the previous "Picture of the Month" series, see the site map

 

VLADIMIR:

We're waiting for Godot.

ESTRAGON:

(Despairingly) Ah! (Pause) You're sure it was here?

VLADIMIR:

What?

ESTRAGON:

That we were to wait.

VLADIMIR:

He said by the tree. (They look at the tree.)
Do you see any others?

ESTRAGON:

What is it?

VLADIMIR:

I don't know. A willow.

ESTRAGON:

Where are the leaves?

VLADIMIR:

It must be dead.

ESTRAGON:

No more weeping.

VLADIMIR:

Or perhaps it's not the season.

ESTRAGON:

Looks to me more like a bush.

VLADIMIR:

A shrub.

ESTRAGON:

A bush.

VLADIMIR:

A—. What are you insinuating?
That we've come to the wrong place?

ESTRAGON:

He should be here.

VLADIMIR:

He didn't say for sure he'd come.

ESTRAGON:

And if he doesn't come?

VLADIMIR:

We'll come back tomorrow.

ESTRAGON:

And then the day after tomorrow.

VLADIMIR:

Possibly.

ESTRAGON:

And so on.

VLADIMIR:

The point is—

ESTRAGON:

Until he comes.

 

See you later!   :-)

Picture data  Digital photograph taken near Schwarzenburg, Switzerland, on 10 March 2008, around 3:15 p.m. ISO 400, aperture priority with aperture f/4.7 and exposure bias 0, exposure time 1/400 seconds, metering mode multi-segment, contrast normal, saturation high, sharpness normal. Focal length 25 mm, equivalent to 50 mm with a conventional 35 mm camera. Original resolution 3648 x 2736 pixels; current resolution 700 x 525 pixels, compressed to 254 KB.

„Where are the leaves?”

(Estragon in Waiting for Godot, Act I)

Notepad for capturing personal thoughts  »

Last updated 22 Jun (title layout), 23 Mar 2013 (text); first published 23 Mar 2013
http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2013.html