I ran some numbers just out of curiosity, and I think that the price of Shakespeare in his own time is pretty comparable to modern live entertainment. I think it would be unfair to compare with modern Shakespeare performances, since you can find those anywhere from a high school to the most famous stages in the world.
Although its not a play, I think the popularity of Shakespeare in his time is comparable with the modern performances of Harry Styles. Whatever your opinion on him, you cannot deny his pop culture impact. According to (http://walternelson.com/dr/elizabethan-incomes), a “country parson” in Shakespeare’s time made 240 pence a year, while the average salary in a rural area today is $30,000, according to (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/12/a_comparison_of_rura.html). For simplicity’s sake, I won’t take travel into account. The lowest ticket price for a Shakespeare play is 1p while the highest is 6p. Luckily, Harry Styles is performing in Cleveland at some point this year and tickets were still available online, so I was able to get some rough numbers from ticketmaster. The lowest price is $68 and the highest is $891.
Ticket Price
% of income
Shakespeare (low)
1p
1/240= 0.41%
Shakespeare (high)
6p
6/240= 2.5%
Harry Styles (low)
68$
68/30000= 0.22%
Harry Styles (high)
891$
891/30000= 3%
It’s not exact, but you have to admit those values aren’t too shabby.
Those calculations required a lot of assumptions, so I tried one other method to compare the prices.
According to ( https://blog.oup.com/2016/01/facts-money-shakespeare-elizabethan-england-economy/ ), 1 pound is equal to 100 pounds in 2015. I did not account for the difference between 2015 and 2020 pounds because I figured it wasn’t too significant. 100 pounds is equal to 130$. This makes 1 pence equal to 54 cents. In conclusion, while my initial analysis was promising, the 1:100 pound method conversion has rendered the comparison with modern money useless.
So are Harry Styles tickets more expensive than Shakespeare? When going by percentage of income, Harry is cheaper for the lowest priced tickets, while Harry is more expensive for the high priced tickets. Overall, I think the percentages are pretty comparable and I hope that in a couple hundred years, some English class is analyzing Harry’s lyrics.
I wake up one morning and I get dressed. I choose each article of clothing for a reason.
I want to be comfortable so I choose a dress. There’s a background to this dress, but am I not thinking about it. I do think about how I got guacamole on it before the big presentation I bought it for. I think about how the dress did an admirable job of hiding my mistake.
I need good luck for today. I slip my grandmothers ring onto a chain and tether it to my neck. It is not a fancy ring. I did not know my grandmother well. My mom looks panicked when I enter the kitchen with it on. It is one of the few things my mother kept. She insists I be careful with it. She has never told me not to wear something of hers. Not when I unknowingly wore her wedding reception dress for a choir costume, and not when I dig through her jewelry box. It is only this piece that she wants to be safe. I cannot think of a way to explain how I’ve gotten the idea into my head that wearing something that belongs to somebody who loves you will bring good luck. I am 16 and I cannot say the words that I love my mother dearly and I know she loved her mother and I’m hoping that the love infused in that piece of jewelry kept safe will help me.
I shove my feet into sketchers (again, comfort). I try to ignore my unshaven legs (shaving is not comfortable. Still, I cannot shake the shame of hair). I carry a purse instead of a backpack because I want to feel different. I want to feel like an adult. I am only mascaraing as one.
I go to school and I go to my assigned room. I use my school issued laptop and take the required ACT test. I go home. I move on. When the weeks tick away until the day our scores are supposed to be announced, I cannot bring myself to call and speak to a human being about it. The scores are nowhere to be seen. I am in study hall. To make a phone call I would have to talk to somebody to leave. I try the instant messaging feature on the website.
In the time before I saw my score, I went to lessons to improve my next score. I hated them. They were two hours long. Afterwards, I would take myself to get something ridicious from a Starbucks and listen to “How To Be A Millionaire” by ABC. For some reason, this relaxed me.
After weeks of this practice I took the test again. I saw my first score shortly after.
In the end, the score comes when my mom calls my counselor. She says the scores are out and she does not know why I don’t have mine. I wake up late on a Wednesday morning when my mom tells me to check my email. She already knows the result. I do not know this.
I got a 35. Weeks later, my second score would come. After all my hours of practice, I recieved a 32.
My mom buys me flowers for my 35. They came with a note from my mom, handwritten by the florist, saying she was proud of my hard work. That note is in a scrap book now, along with pressed petals from the bouquet.
My 35 will get me a chance at a full ride to my dream school. I will make it to the final round of interviews. I do not win.
My 35 gets me into the honors program at my dream school. Over a year after I took that test, I move into the honors dorm. I move on a Saturday. On Monday, I come home to a police officer in my dorm room who lets it slip that one of my roommates went through our other roommates belongings. I cannot shake the discomfort. I move.
I move into the first open dorm. I am no longer in honors housing. My floor is for sports enthusiasts. I learn to love my suite.
One of them asks me my ACT score. I, like an asshole, asked if she really wanted to know. She said yes, so I told her. She screamed and then asked “Why are you here? You could have gone anywhere!”
That’s not true. College admissions are wildly competitive. I’m far from the only kid with a good gpa and test score.
She informs the rest of our suite. I try to explain that it doesn’t really matter. It’s a test, it doesn’t mean anything other than I’m good at taking standardized tests. My suitemates dreamily tell me where they would have gone, if only they’d gotten in. This school was my top choice. I love it here. I chose it because I thought I could build something for myself here.
When the conversation moves on, my suitemate looks at me and informs me that I should be proud. She says it with a terrible fondness for me.
I shouldn’t bitch about having a good score. I was angry about it for a while. When I got the scholarship rejection, I had a brief meltdown. I could have gotten into my dream school with the same scholarship I was getting for a hell of a lot less work. My high school years looked like a pointless exercise to me.
But I can’t change the neurotic ways of my own past and I can’t know for sure if the 35 did or didn’t make a difference in my life. It lead me, in a strange way, to where I am. A grimy freshman dorm with a group of people who am I lucky to have love me.
Whenever I talk to people about astrology, I always precede with “I know it’s not real, but it’s fun”.
My dirty secret is that I’m not entirely sure it isn’t true.
Even if we could be entirely sure that there is no merit to it, I still think there are benefits to learning about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a pseudoscience lover. I’m a chemistry major in an honors program, so I swear I have some scientific competency. There’s plenty of terrible science out there, from the beauty industry’s nonsense about “detoxifying” products (that’s what your liver is for), to morning shows that run headlines about “the new study that proves the link between drinking red wine everyday and immortality” (correlation does not equal causation). Chem trails aren’t real and the Earth is round. In short, I’m well aware that there is no scientific basis for astrology.
It’s just that I don’t care about that.
I would now like to outline the benefits of astrology to you in the form of a serious itemized list:
1. It actually is fun
We are a self absorbed species. I know this and you know this. What’s a better way to feed our obsession with ourselves than reading descriptions of ourselves? Short of convincing the people you actually know to write nice reviews about you(good luck with that), there isn’t one.
2. If nothing means anything, what’s the harm in following the stars?
I turned my college application in on a day that my sun and rising sun declared would be lucky for me. My logic was that I had to turn it in at some point, why not pick a day that might be lucky? If there is no meaning to the universe, then it doesn’t matter that I turned it in on Tuesday instead of Monday or Wednesday. Real or not real, no harm done. (For the curious, I did get into both the schools I applied to)
3. It connects people
People jump at the chance to have their chart read. They also love to debate the worst sign (sagittarius), and tell stories about people of certain signs they know. It really is fun. I am one of the “people” described here.
4. It is a catalyst for self-reflection
Not everything in a chart is positive. Every sign and placement has a downside, and believe it or not, astrology can lead to self-reflection.
5. It’s a way to break out of taking yourself seriously
I’ve got a working theory that people who take themselves seriously and avoid vulnerability are typically the perpetrators of most of the cruelty in our world. We’ve all heard stories of people changing after becoming rich or famous. It makes plenty of sense. If you have some much economic or social capital that you’ve become untouchable, what’s to keep you grounded?
We see this untouchability as a goal. We crave the security we think it would provide. Social media has become a way to cultivate an image of the self, consciously or not. Gone are the days of grungy rebellious teenage phases, here are the Instagram baddies. If you’re not camera ready, you’re not anything at all. Perfectionism is an epidemic. We live in a world where an mistake can go viral and every mistake is preserved.
There is no forgiveness in our world. We have convinced ourselves that to have any imperfection is a punishable offense. How much energy have we wasted on preventing mistakes that haven’t hurt anybody at all? How much energy have we wasted on making ourselves suffer for mistakes that disappear into thin air? How many hours spent in front of a mirror, getting make up right? How many nights obsessively studying to prevent a handful of mistakes that could cause a B on a test? How many fights never end because we can’t admit we could possibly be wrong? How many cups of coffee drank to prevent the need for sleep? And how many alarms set to prevent us from sleeping in? As silly as it sounds, I think astrology is a small way to combat our pursuit of perfection.
To say “I know this has flaws. It is not harmful. I am choosing to engage with it.” is a meaningful statement.
To admit to that in front of others is a small act of rebellion. And perhaps, if we extend that statement to parts of ourselves, to our appearance and our work, we can find our way to some peace. Or maybe you’ll just get laughed at. But you’ll survive that. You might even be better for it. After all, nobody has ever loved anybody without knowing their flaws.
It should be noted that I have never climbed Mount Everest. I have, however, been to the Grand Canyon.
In 2019, where a million views on a youtube video is hardly impressive, it is hard to imagine an image can go viral, much less become iconic.
In late May, an image of Mount Everest has managed to go absolutely viral and is well on its way to becoming an iconic image. An enormous line stretches across the narrow edges before the peak of the mountain. Reports say that the wait to stand on top of the world is hours long. Climbers have collapsed while waiting in the line. Several dead bodies are frozen in the icy path. Eleven climbers have lost their lives during this season.
This photo from Getty images shows Mount Everest in May of 2019.
This past Friday, I was at a friend’s graduation party when this photo was first shown to me. While sitting at a card table with a few ex-seniors, we tried to suss out for ourselves what should be done about this problem. Debates have popped up all over the place about climbing the mountain. Did Nepal issue too many permits? Who is responsible for vetting possible climbers? Do we live in a world where everything can be bought, including a trip to the highest peak on Earth, even if a guide has to drag you the entire way? Are people dying because of overcrowding? Because of physically unfit climbers? Because of unlucky weather? Because they wanted the coolest selfie on their friends instagram streams?
The selfie argument has popped up a surprising amount of times in the discussion. In fact, the selfie argument has also popped up in discussion about the Grand Canyon this year. Deaths have been higher than usual. At least one of these visitors was reported to have fallen to their death while taking a selfie.
Whether through personal discussions or comments on new articles, many people have taken to criticizing the cause of these deaths. I was surprised to hear a favorite podcast of mine, called “My Favorite Murder”, discuss some of the bodies on Everest. The hosts commented frequently that nobody at a cocktail party will care if you climbed Mount Everest and they stressed how illogical the pursuit is. One article pointed out that most people wouldn’t even cross the street to meet somebody who climbed Everest.
As the discussions of Everest and the Grand Canyon have reached common ground, they have started to make me squirm. Earlier this year, I went to the Grand Canyon for the first, and likely last, time.
Where I live, its very common for people to take big trips for their “senior spring break”. With a time frame of early March, I settled on a trip to Arizona. I figured it would be decently warm, and I’d never seen the southwestern area before.
My dad happily agreed to the trip, and we booked our flights. I’d consider myself and my dad moderately experienced hikers, my dad far more so. We planned to spend three days at the canyon, then one at Zion National Park, then another at Prescott National Forest. The trip would finish with a visit to the University of Arizona to see their planetary science department.
On our drive to the canyon, we were slightly shocked to see snow in Flagstaff. As an ignorant midwesterner, I had pictured Arizona as one mass desert. The weather only worsened as we got closer to the Grand Canyon. The visibility was so poor that we couldn’t see the cars driving on the other side of the road.
A snowy forest
Flooding next to the highway
Photo taken before the visibility was so low that I was bound to my lookout passenger duties
During the last leg of our journey, in the thick skies of the third photo above, we saw lightning touchdown within about a half mile of our car.
Our rented Nissan Rogue did an admirable job getting us to the Yavapai lodge despite its difficulty going above thirty miles an hour on inclines.
Our view on day one
We woke up to inches of snow on the ground.
I had enough sense to watch the weather before we left, so I knew it would be cold at the canyon. I packed snow pants and my mom’s good winter coat, along with many, many layers. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the snow.
In the parking lot of the lodge
Enjoying the novelty at the start of the day
A viewless vista
Hanging outside the visitor center before it opened
We made the best of the day and rode the bus in the morning, then attempted some hiking.
We certainly weren’t the only people at the park, but we were some of the few on the paths. Still, I didn’t expected the number of people we saw. We still ran into some 20+ people on the trails. We also ran into 50+ elk.
I did not know that elk lived at the Grand Canyon, so imagine my shock when I turned to look at the canyon and made eye contact with one.
A wonderful photo taken by my dad, who is a much better photographer than me
Our elk friends were numerous and not afraid of humans. We think that they were driven out to the trails looking for food during the low traffic day.
My dad hiking and the elk going about their business.
The paths were both paved and slushy. I am no stranger to ice on blacktop, as I spent many years walking to school through a park in Ohio winters.
As we made our way through the rim trail, we suddenly found ourselves on an unpaved section. This wouldn’t be an issue for us decently experienced hikers, if not for the sheet of ice covering the trail. This section was not as flat as the trail had previously been.
We slowly made our way across the .7 mile section. My footing slipped and I slid an inch forward on a decline.
“Don’t fall.” My dad warned. “If you slip here, there’s nothing I can do to help you.” he understated.
Despite my earnest commitment to not fall, several minutes later, at the bottom of a decline, I felt a rush of motion and felt my butt hit the ice. My palms slammed on the ground behind me.
My dad was reserved as he asked if I was alright, and we continued on. Before the trail was over, we saw footprints leading away from the rim trail, up a small hill and into the snowy forest. We decided to follow the wisdom of those who came before us and bail.
We continued on with the rest of our day.
Over an early dinner, my dad took advantage of a pause in our conversation.
“I gotta be honest. When you fell today, I was scared.”
The next day was my eighteenth birthday, which I celebrated over another early dinner and with a phone call to my brother, who had been in treatment for addiction for three full months. I couldn’t help but think that I very well could have been dead in the canyon and not speaking to my brother for the first time in months, and speaking to a sober version for the first time in years.
Squinting into the sun on my birthday.
The week after our trip, three people died at the Grand Canyon.
When people talk about Everest and the silly pursuit of the summit, I don’t think its silly at all.
I read the short obituaries that the New York Times posted for each of the eleven climbers on Everest. They weren’t foolish people taking selfies, many were experienced climbers, some had even summited before.
These aren’t people who went for a photo op or bragging rights. I think very few of the climbers of Everest are. The people who climb do it because they have a sentimental attachment to the goal. They have a parent who summited, a childhood fascination, a life to live after tragedy. Many people have gone for the same reason I went to the Grand Canyon.
Because they thought they would be fine.
They would sleep in altitude simulating tents. They would climb other mountains. They would buy the right equipment. They would go with trusted guides. Maybe they’d even gone before.
Five million people go to the Grand Canyon every year. Twelve of them won’t leave alive.
Many people go to Everest with the best of intentions. Still, they are human. They go into cardiac arrest. Weather turns bad. Avalanches fall. They slip.
The problems with crowds and inexperience on Everest are real. I believe Nepal issued too many permits, and that the narrow window to summit trapped all these people together. Still, I don’t blame those who have died. They weren’t millennial caricatures falling after daredevil stunts. They are real individuals who suffered a possible fate, made more likely by the government of Nepal, and the weather, and sometimes, by other climbers.
The mountain is deadly and overcrowded.
When I declared I’d never go back to the Grand Canyon, it was not after my brush with death, but after our final day there, when the weather was clear and the park became crowded. I preferred to slip without strangers watching.
Thanks for viewing my inaugural post. I have just graduated high school, and it has hit me that I no longer have a platform to shout my thoughts at. During my junior and senior years, my English classes included open floor assignments where you could write about anything, as long as you read it out loud to the class. For right now, this is my English class essay and you are my trapped classmate.
Planetary (Gab!) 