Today was the Shakespeare Birthday Bash at the Folger Shakespeare Library, honoring the Bard’s 447th birthday (I’m looking forward to all the events that will accompany his 450th in a few years). This is the fourth consecutive year I have attended and I’m sorry to say that it was the least enjoyable.

For the past three years, a brass quartet played music in the reading room, but this year, a string quartet was invited. On one level, I would generally much rather listen to classical music played on strings than brass, but the old musicians were led by a wonderfully ebullient and charismatic trombonist, whereas as this new group was notably muted and did little besides keep their head and play. Arguably, that was all they were paid to do, but I got so much more from the earlier experiences.

The back room (which, like the reading room, is not usually open to the general public), seemed cunningly arranged for the day to deny me some particular joys I look forward to in the days leading up to the event. For me, the highlight is a nearly unbroken line of paintings (mostly from the nineteenth century) on the walls, featuring scenes from Shakespeare’s plays and portraits of once famous Shakespearean actors. On this day, tables and other blockades were expertly placed to deny my a close and leisurely appreciation of these paintings. Also, they used to leave out the current editions of the various scholarly journals to which the library subscribes. Today, the only sign that they had been there were a series of labeled stickers indicating which academic periodical normally sat in a particular spot.