ENGL 1020: Blog Post VII

Select an image on-line that you find interesting, unique, or aesthetically compelling. Incorporate that image into a blog post & write a fictitious 250 word caption for the image. DO NOT use any portion of an existing caption for the image. DO NOT research the image or its context. The caption you generate should derive solely from your observation of & reflection on the image itself. Click here for techniques & guidelines on writing a caption. Obviously, 250 words is longer than most traditional captions, so slavish adherence to the guidelines on the site is not mandatory.

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Cassandra Melinga (pictured), a player in the Hadimosa Theater Company, performs her one-woman version of Samuel Beckett's seminal Absurdist drama Waiting for Godot in a fog-drenched field outside the city limits of Athens, OH. In this particular scene, Melinga recites Vladimir's existential lament: "Was I sleeping, while others suffered? Am I sleeping now? To-morrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of to-day?...Astride of a grave & a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is the great deadener. At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on." While Beckett, during his life time, was opposed to radical reinterpretation of his works by production companies, Melinga remains undaunted by her inventive take on the 20th-century classic: "I realize that my interpretation may not coincide with the spirit of its originator, but I think it would be a shame not to reconceive this play given the context of our current culture. With all we've learned from late 20th-century theoretical movements, it would be a disservice to Godot, as an entity in itself, not to de-center this text & the author's storied strangle-hold on his material." You can catch Melinga’s performance of Waiting for Godot every Saturday & Sunday beginning at 5:30AM through April 1st. For more information, including exact location, call (740) 555-5555.

*The above photo, originally titled Chapter 14, August (2005), was taken from Caitlin Atkinson's on-line exhibit at the Folley Gallery.