Although (this exception aside) I no longer regularly read or post at all here, I do return from time to time to check for news of recent CAS publications. I've been re-reading Shakespeare lately, so I thought that this time I'd leave the following for those who may be unaware of the source of the CAS maxim "Sweet are the uses of obscurity", so often mentioned here by my "dear friend":


"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
I would not change it".


As You Like It, II, i, 14-20

I read Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd last month. A great read with nice short chapters suitable for my MTV attention span :-)

I like Shakespear but in small slow doses, it requires a lot of attention to really appreciate and the speed some of it is delivered is such that if you blink you miss it. In a way it's like CAS, you don't read him for plot but for the language.

Re Shakespeare: For a really delightful party, we annually (with lots of comestibles on hand) do a read through of "Twelfth Night" on twelfth night - Jan. 6, the Twelfth day of Christmas - For the same reason we gather a suitable group of agreeable folk with a number of children who read and do "midsummer night's dream on (what else) midsummer.

Side bar: In my college days I belonged to a group my professor had begun called the "marathon club" (having nothing at all to do with running). Our goal was to do a non-stop read through of Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Jonson. We wanted to do a listen-through of Wagner's Ring cycle, but even if their were a recording available then, no one had room for the zillion 78rpm LPs it would have required. It is 21
331/3's as it is - probably now available on CD and DVD. This would truly be the Everest of listening endurance, sobriety difficult to maintain over the long haul.