November 2010
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When I was a child, there were two neighborhood dentists. One was named Caress and the other was named Yankowitz. My parents chose Nathan Caress, possibly for onomastic reasons, but they might have made a mistake; Nathan Caress should have been called Nathan Butcher. Dentistry sixty years ago was much inferior to dentistry today, especially in our…
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Our final stop on the road westward was Gothenburg, Nebraska. We set up the old canvas tent in a park in the heart of town and slept to the screeching of cicadas (a sound new to me). (In those days we couldn't possibly have afforded the $10 or $15 for a motel.) By noon the next…
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One of my loyal readers (see "Comments" to previous post) wants to know how the word "antres" was pronounced. It's a reasonable inquiry but like many questions about Shakespeare, its answer is not easy. I myself pronounce "antres" just as I would "antlers," but without the "l". If I were to guess at an Elizabethan…
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"Antres" is among the rarest of rare words. Shakespeare's Othello speaks of "antres vast and deserts idle" in the magnificent oration in which he takes issue with the Venetian bigotry that claimed that he was only able to win white Desdemona by employing drugs and witchcraft. No, it wasn't because he was a sorcerer; it was because he was accomplished, heroic, romantic. "Antres"…
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I have, on occasion, noted that modern readers of the great classic novels of the previous era are unaware of the social significance of horses and horse-drawn vehicles. As I wrote, right here on this blague a couple of months ago, "no, I'm not obsessed, it's just that I have this little bee in my bonnet about…
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The Takacs Quartet graces us with six superb concerts a year. It's true that they sometimes hanker after strange new composers — Psathos, Part etc. — whose compositions set my teeth on edge like the vile squealings of the wry-necked fife or like a brazen canstick turned or like the gratings of a dry wheel on an axletree — but…
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How come my friend Ken W. can hike for three days in the mountains, dig a hole and cache his supplies, and then, the next summer, return to the exact spot to retrieve his stuff, while I can't turn around twice without getting lost? Why is it that my college roommate, Allan K., could draw a detailed map…