"...there has been much throwing about of brains."

In October of 2010 I decided to read the complete works of William Shakespeare. Every play, every sonnet. I have had it on my ipad. Almost all of the reading has been while on the bus, commuting from home to downtown Minneapolis.

For the first year or so I was reading Shakespeare and the KJV of the Bible side by side. When I finished the Bible, I picked up speed with Will. This project required a deeper level of concentration than I am accustomed to.

Today's snowstorm gave me a two hour bus ride. I knocked off the last fifty pages.

I don't feel smarter, just a wee bit more refined.

While most of it was terribly boring, there were a few times when a passage grabbed me with its beauty and compexity. Like this, from The Twelth Night. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have said about you...

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

Goodbye Mr. Shakespeare.