Of reading aloud

A New York Times editorialist discovers reading aloud. There's much to be said for it. A group of us have been reading a variety of texts aloud for several years now, and it brings both pleasure and discovery. If you go back far enough, every written thing, with the possible exception of mercantile receipts, was meant to be voiced and listened to. In the textures and wit of storytellers of Greece, Rome, the Old Testament, the "Middle Ages," and the Renaissance (as Benjamin keeps reminding us) are voices scored (scarred?) by the received wisdom gleaned in manifold retellings in plural settings, with diverse audiences, contexts, and contexts. Nobody except Sid Caesar gets anything right right off, do they?