PUFF, THE MAGIC BARD

The South Africans won't give up. Having speculated that William
Shakespeare smoked cannabis while writing his plays, they have now analyzed
several 17th-century clay pipes found on the site of his home in England
and detected what the Associated Press story describes as "signs suggestive
of marijuana." (Other signs suggestive of marijuana are inappropriate
laughter and a voracious appetite. Hey there, Falstaff.)

Although we take such findings with an enormous grain of salt -- nothing
stronger, mind -- the thought that cannabis was involved does illuminate
the more inexplicable sections of Shakespeare's plays.

Why did Hamlet spend so much time talking to that skull?

Why did Macbeth keep repeating himself? ("Tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow and --" "Will! Your quill has wandered off the writing paper!")

What happened to the Fool in King Lear? One moment he was with the king in
the storm, and the next he'd disappeared and nobody ever mentioned him
again. Granted, that's been the fate of more than a few lousy standup
comics, but still.

We won't even get into A Midsummer Night's Dream, with four lovers
wandering around in a fog and forgetting who was in love with whom. And
what was at the root of their dislocation? A strange plant that made them
feel funny. Uh huh.

The Pretoria researchers also report finding "evidence of cocaine" on two
of the 24 pipe fragments they looked at. No surprise here. We always knew
Shakespeare was a crack dramatist.