Bookmark

Some of Shakespeare’s play especially a little later in the canon, and later in his life, some them are, at best, “problem” plays. Timons of Athens is the example I’m thinking of. I had an old, hardbound copy of the play’s text, and there was a mark, margin notes from me, to me, from some time distant. I’m not sure when. Sometime, in the last decade I was going to read that play. Meant something at the time, a bit of bother, Timons as a bitter guy just gets more bitter?

So while in voluntary house arrest, or whatever this is? I cleaned out some old books, stuff that I read and wanted to recycle, or material that will never get read, or read once, and don’t need anymore.

Timons of Athens, I don’t recall much, he gets rich, then gets poor. Lives in a cave, ends badly. Not much redeeming material, not on the surface. That’s straight up from memory.

Letting the copy go? I’ve got two printed “Complete Works of Shakespeare,” one right behind me on the shelf, another in the bedroom, although neither copy sees much use; both are more ornamental and sentimental than any other quality.

However, that’s two copies of that play, in print, at hand. Then, I’ve got “The Complete Plays of Shakespeare” on my phone as an app, plus on both my work tablet and my other work tablet. There’s, possibly, I haven’t checked recently, a digital copy of text files of all the plays on the computer. So, yeah, don’t really need, can’t justify the reason to hold onto a single copy of that play.

Bookmark

The bookmark was a note, on a receipt, for gas that, ten years ago, I don’t know, some of it is faded — almost $3 a gallon?

What’s more interesting, flip the receipt over. On the back, there was handwritten note, a list, to myself. I can tell I was going shopping for an upcoming fishing trip. At first glance? I thought it was “Belt. Pole. Holder. Fish. Net” The last two, a reference to some website, I supposed — perhaps an abbreviation for my own, weaving off the astrofish.net.

Looking and thinking, then trying to piece it together with time, early May, 2010, I was headed out to wade fish, and I didn’t have a good “belt pole holder.” Nor did I have a belt-style fishing net, one that I could clip to the same belt that had a pole holder, and probably a small tackle collection. Don’t need much.

This isn’t the first receipt bookmark in current memory.

Not that unusual, for me to use a receipt as a bookmark.

Bookmark

I glanced at the pages, noted the pencil marks, one was a single passage underlined, already used that as an introductory quote, and then, something about an analysis of the text of the play.

So that’s Shakespeare in textual analysis, astrology, horoscopes, and some coastal wade fishing. Plus? A mention of the price gas. All from a receipt.

If a close Half-Price Books starts accepting books on trade again, that text, with my notes, will be in the stack I drop off.