...or if thou wouldst rather not then forsooth, my dearest coz, talk like Shakespeare.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proclaimed Monday, April 23 Talk Like Shakespeare Day, "an occasion for citizens from Chicago and across the globe to celebrate Shakespeare's 448th birthday by bringing the spoken words of Shakespeare into their daily lives."
The annual celebration of our greatest playwright was started in 2009 by the regional Tony Award-winning Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; their press release is here.
If you need to brush up on your Bard, the theater's TalkLikeShakespeare.org offers a handy "How to Talk Like Shakespeare" guide and suggests Elizabethan insults to use on your enemies. Prithee, go thou and check it out, cousin.
There's also a rich repository of video including Brian Williams' NBC News report on Talk Like Shakespeare Day, the Beatles clowning their way through A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare on "Sesame Street," and this entertaining clip of the Improvised Shakespeare Company bringing their fair art to the masses on Chicago's Navy Pier:
This week I had the pleasure of attending the grand opening performance of The Second City's 100th mainstage revue, Who Do We Think We Are?, and found it lively and entertaining.
...and get ready to compete in Chicago's fourth annual crossword puzzle tournament!
It's all happening Saturday, April 28 at Marbles the Brain Store , just off Michigan Avenue in River North, where another lively afternoon of black-and-whites is literally and figuratively in store thanks to the intrepid Marbles staff and the most pleasant man in Pleasantville, N.Y., NPR puzzlemaster and New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz.
Here are the deets:
Thanks to Marbles' runaway success and concomitant expansion, there are also tournaments happening the same day in America's second-, third- and fourth-greatest cities. (As if I had to tell you, these are King of Prussia, Penn.; Bloomington, Minn.; and Columbia, Md. )
The tournament puzzles will be from earlier in the week in upcoming editions of the NYT, and therefore easier, so you probably won't need the following. But it can't hurt to be extra-ready, so as a public service, here's a cheat sheet:
Midget buffalo: ANOA
Hawaiian goose: NENE
Green Day drummer ___ Cool: TRE
"Milk's favorite cookie" sloganeer: OREO
Verdi opera: AIDA
Radames' love: AIDA
Egyptian slave: AIDA
Elton John/Tim Rice musical: AIDA
Solo sung by Aida: ARIA
Roman slave: ESNE
"For ___ — with Love and Squalor": ESME
Anger: IRE
Emerald Isle: EIRE
___ Canal: ERIE
Short-lived television show "___, Indiana": EERIE
Music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra: ARTUROTOSCANINI
Having met Ms. Suvari at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen a few years ago (see above; Mena is on the left), I was surprised to learn that her beauty regimen consists of more than the following daily routine:
What familiar saying with seven words has seven consonants in a row? The answer is a common saying, in ordinary English. Sometimes it's expressed in nine words rather than seven, but it's the same saying. And either way, in one spot it has seven consecutive consonants. What saying is it?
Last week: Name something in seven letters that most people keep in their homes. Take the first, third, fourth and seventh letters and rearrange them. The result will be a four-letter word naming something that the seven-letter thing is commonly used for. What is it?
Highlight for answer: Aspirin, pain
Two weeks ago: The name of what character, familiar to everyone, contains each of the five vowels (A, E, I, O and U) exactly once? The answer consists of two words — eight letters in the first word, four letters in the second.
Highlight for answer: Question mark
Three weeks ago: Name a well-known person from the 20th century who held an important position. Take the first and last letters of this person's last name, change each of them to the next letter of the alphabet, and you'll get the last name of another famous person who held the same position sometime after the first one. Who is it?
Greatest leadoff man of all time and Rickey Henderson
Why not to blog
A friend of mine produced this hilarious look at a sad era in American history. After lighting up Broadway and playing live on HBO, it's now out on DVD. Click the image to get yourself a copy. You'll love it.