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National Tartan Day 2024
Hoots mon! Gird your kilt and sporran, for it’s National Tartan Day. Time to show your family colors, laddiebuck! 🏴
Plaid In Full
The Scottish Highlands are incredible. There seems to be magic and poetry everywhere. ~Caitriona Balfe
Anatomy of Tartans?
I have Scottish ancestry which amplifies my affection for Scottish culture and the UK in general.
I’ve never had haggis, but I don’t think I’d have a problem with it. I’ve had Scotch before. It helped me kick a few colds back in college.
Scotland is on my bucket list of places to travel to someday, but definitely after they kick the woke fascists out of government and repeal their ridiculous censorship laws.
I’m not opposed to rocking a plaid shirt, whether that’s a light cotton shirt in the warmer months or a lovely flannel overshirt in the cooler months.
I haven’t bought a kilt yet, because where would I wear it? I’m not opposed to doing so but I think if I ever get around to it, I’d probably get the formal Prince Charlie suit done up.
Even so, if ever I do or ever you do, do it with pride. Wear it because you want to and let the gatekeepers or naysayers be damned…
Who Does Wearing the Kilt Upset?
If It’s No Scottish, It’s…
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Thought you’d enjoy some Scottish humor by non-Scots. For a dose of the real deal, here’s Kevin Bridges…
Proud To Be Scottish! | Kevin Bridges
The Scottish Play
The only still center of my life is Macbeth. To go back to doing this bloody, crazed, insane mass-murderer is a huge relief after trying to get my cell phone replaced. ~Patrick Stewart
Great Performances — Macbeth (2010)
Macbeth, known in certain circles as The Scottish Play due to a superstition dating back to the 17th Century, has a lot of things that I happen to like: Scots, witches, hubris and treachery.
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Cursed or not, Macbeth is a great study in the negative character arc. Macbeth and his Lady are easily recognized as an ambitious power couple.
He’s not exactly a Boy Scout to start with and his wife is eager to seize any opportunity to advance their position.
Throw in a verkakte prophecy from a trio of witches and our ambitious power couple are jet propelled from prideful ambition to murderous treachery, a tyranny born of prophetic overconfidence, madness and death.
Shakespeare Summarized: Macbeth
As you can see from Sir Patrick’s version of the film above, even though the play was written by the Bard with a pre-Shakespearean timeframe, our ambitious power couple can easily fit into any era. Ruthless couples who think they’ve got it all worked out can resort to singularly horrible decisions when they’re high on their own supply.
This is one of many ways that villains are born. Whether it’s a prophecy that’s not all it’s cracked up to be, a need for revenge, suffering an unbearable triggering or even one bad day, villains can come from internal stimuli, external or a little of both.
Between the mixed message prophecy and the actions with or without thinking that are taken on account of it, Macbeth never comes to the realization that he’s the baddy. He realizes that the prophecy was a sham and things have gone a bit off the rails, but he never comes to terms with his own complicity in the matter.
While he made the decision to kill the King and anyone along the way who might be any kind of threat to him, he feels that he doesn’t have agency in the matter.
He felt that, given the prophecy, whatever it took to become king and stay king was completely justified if unpleasant. He subsequently felt that, given the plot twists embedded in the prophecy, whatever he did from that point forward didn’t much matter because he’d been duped by the witches and now his world was going to complete crap.
The funny thing is, while none of us has (hopefully) taken a bit of good news and turned into completely bloodsoaked maniacs, we can still relate to Macbeth.
When you think you’ve got it all figured out and you overreach, that moment when you begin to tip over and fall is a real person’s encounter with Macbeth’s predicament.
Fortunately, most of us can learn from the mistake and adjust accordingly for the next time around.
Macbeth and his Lady wife didn’t have that opportunity. There was no coming back from what they did. Some mistakes are terminal and that makes for excellent drama.
Macbeth 2015
I’ll be keeping that in mind as I build my characters. I still don’t have a lock on The Conclave. They’re a work in progress.
Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of inspired authors like William Shakespeare to help me get an idea of how to build a villain.
That’s all for today. I hope you’re having a bonny weekend. Be sure to finish your haggis…