Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Most scholars agree the Bard of Avon was born on April 23, 1564, making today his 445th birthday. Several websites and a few cities have declared this day, Talk Like Shakespeare Day. Forsooth, these rants could becometh a zany addiction!

Rants, zany, addiction - are all words coined by Shakespeare. The Oxford English Dictionary claims 1,700 words and phrases in use today were created, or at least made popular, by him. This fact has not been lost on later writers. A sample of the works whose titles come from Shakespeare include: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World from The Tempest; William Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury from Macbeth; John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent from Richard III.

Theories abound that Shakespeare's works were ghost written by Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, Christopher Marlowe and others. No matter who held the pen, the artistry is undeniable. "Wear my heart upon my sleeve" - Othello; "Be-all and end-all" - Macbeth; "All that glitters is not gold" - Merchant of Venice

So, today, work some pearls of Elizabethan literature into your daily conversation. If someone cuts you off on the highway, don't brandish the middle finger and yell a four-letter profanity. Cry out "A pox upon your house, you rank, white-livered, canker-blossom."

And remember, when born we cry that we are thrust unto this stage of fools - as ever BB

"Brush up your Shakespeare, start quoting him now.

Brush up your Shakespeare, and the women you will wow!" - Cole Porter from Kiss Me Kate based on The Taming of the Shrew

Earth Day

The first US Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. Several cities across the nation hosted celebrations that day including Philadelphia whose event was in Fairmount Park. 

I was 15 and attending a Catholic prep school in South Jersey. Most school districts closed, so students could attend. But the Pallottines would not stop educating our young minds because of some "radical happening".  The day before the event, they called a school assembly. The principal announced that classes would be held on April 22 with attendance taken throughout the day to ensure against truancy. 

To his dismay, I had just studied the 19th century Transcendentalists. Taking a cue from Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, I stood up and declared I would not attend school that day and accept any consequences that ensue. To my surprise several of my schoolmates joined me.

Philly's hippie guru, Ira Einhorn (later infamous for the 1977 murder of  his girlfriend, jumping bail, living underground across Europe then fighting extradition until  2001) opened the festivities. Allen Ginsburg played the harmonium and chanted. Several rock bands performed. We drank from a communal jug of water and ate avocado and alfalfa sprout sandwiches offered by a lovely girl wearing a tie-dyed skirt and peasant blouse. I reveled in a counter culture idyll. 

39 years have elapsed. Time has eroded my idealism; its detritus creating a slag heap of cynicism. However, the embers of defiance still burn leaving a glimmer of hope that activism can bring change and a better world. - as ever BB

"We will require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." - Albert Einstein

Yo Banana Boy

Today's title is a palindrome; playful words or phrases that when read backward read the same as forward. The word, from the Greek (palin - back & dromos - way or direction), was coined by Ben Johnson, English playwright and contemporary of Shakespeare. 

The Romans and Byzantine Greeks had fun with this form. Poems in ancient Sanskrit contain palindromes. One of my favorite sources for them is the "Ballad of Palindrome" by the western swing/cowboy group Riders in the Sky. Even dyslexics can enjoy palindromes! 

Here are some of my favorites:

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama / Tons O snot / Lager sir is regal  / Do geese see God?/  

Madam, I'm Adam / Borrow or rob? / Cigar? Toss it in a can; it is so tragic /

In it ram a martini/ Flee elf! / Evil is as I live 

I've been keeping a list of ones I made up myself, or come across, for years. These should suffice for now- as ever Bob Otto aka Otto Bob 

"To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery." - Charles Baudelaire

April Fools

April 1st, a day to follow the motto "Never trust a prankster!"

The day's origin is shrouded in a mist of obscurity. Some say it began with the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Others trace the origin to Charles IX of France moving New Years from April 1 to January 1. In either case, those who were unmindful of the date change were April Fools. The tale of fools in Chaucer's Nun's Priest Tale occurs on March 32nd and is believed to be an allusion to April Fools' day.

Here are some of my favorite April Fool pranks:

1985 Sports Illustrated - on the newsstands April 1 - George Plimpton wrote an article about pitcher, Sidd(harta) Finch, picked up by the NY Mets. He could throw a 168MPH fastball after training in a Buddhist monastery. The first letters of the subhead spelled out "Happy April Fools' Day".

1996 Taco Bell took out a full page ad in the NY Times announcing the lease of the Liberty Bell from the US government to use as the new company logo. The White House phone lines were jammed with complaints. In a press conference spokesperson, Mike McCurry, added with tongue in cheek that the Lincoln Memorial would now be the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

1998 Burger King ran an ad in USA Today touting it's new left-handed Whopper, designed to drip only on the right-side. Stores reported many customers asking for the new sandwich, but many more specifying they wanted the old, right-handed Whopper.  

Happy April Fools' day! Be on you toes - as ever BB

"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance." - Japanese proverb