Trippingly upon the tongue

Speak the speech, I pray you.*

Hamlet’s advice to the players is always good to follow.

It can be a little tricky, however, when you encounter unfamiliar words.

This is clear to me from my work with Round Robin Shakespeare. Take an American who may have limited experience with Shakespearean English and throw some of those dukes’ names at her, and you could have a problem.

Phonetic spelling is not exactly how it goes.

Gloucester. Worcester. Leicester.

Now, of course, at our monthly meetings, we are not sticklers. We don’t really care if you trip over your tongue rather than speak the speech trippingly upon it.

But maybe some of you will have an audition at some point. Your agent (should you be so lucky) will email you the sides, and there’ll be some mouthful of unfamiliar names or scientific jargon.

What are you going to do?

Well, if all else fails, just say whatever it is confidently—as if you know what you are saying and how to pronounce it. If you get the part, somebody will make sure you get the correct pronunciation.

However, it is probably better to make some attempt to get it right. You can always look it up in a dictionary. But then, you have the additional problem of trying to decipher the diacritical marks put there to help you with pronunciation. I’m not sure they still teach those in school, anymore. (I mean, what can you expect from a curriculum that has decided that cursive is not going to be taught? A generation of people who can’t sign contracts, for one thing.)

Anyway, I found a site to help you out—and not a diacritical mark in sight!

Howjsay.com

Just enter those unfamiliar names (or other words) into the search box on howjsay, click submit, and listen to a lovely British voice pronouncing the word.

It turns out that Gloucester is Glawster, Worcester is Wooster, and Leciester is Lester—and the Shakespeare will go trippingly on.

* Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Sc 2

Source material

The best place to start.

Way back, many Friday Finds ago, I wrote about The Writer’s Journey. It’s a guide to writers based upon Joseph Campbell’s study of the monomyth of the Hero’s Journey. Campbell’s book is also an excellent one to read.

Nothing beats the source material, however.

Of course, most of us don’t speak, let alone read, ancient Greek. We have to get our mythology some other way. The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer is a good source. Also, there are several books on mythology by Robert Graves, otherwise famous for the novel I, Claudius on which an award-winning TV series starring Derek Jacoby was based.

But, if you are just wondering who Scamander was or looking for a brief refresher on Pandora, you could do worse than consult the Encyclopedia Mythica at the well-chosen domain of pantheon.org.

There’s not a lot of poetic detail on this website, but the basic facts seem to be present. In addition, it covers not only Greco-Roman mythology, but the stories of the world. There’s a section on mythical beasts (basilisks, anyone?) and one on the mortal heroes, as well. Achilles to Yoshitsune.

The order is a little capricious. For instance, I don’t know why Pygmalion shows up in the mythology section rather than the heroes (unless it’s because Aphrodite was involved in his story), but there’s a good search function to handle these sort of classification confusions.

So, while I wouldn’t call this site the source material, it’s a good place to learn a few things. (I never knew the Aurora Borealis is reflections off the armor of the Valkyries, did you?) And once you’ve found something that captures your imagination, you can delve further.

You can even go to the ancient Greek if you want: Learn Greek Online!

(The internet is a wonderful place.)

Not doing you any favors

But there it is.

Here is another Friday Find designed to increase your knowledge of all kinds of esoteric facts of questionable usefulness—or waste your time (assuming those two things are not, in fact, the same thing).

I, personally, love esoteric facts of questionable usefulness. I like to rationalize that with the theory that no fact is useless to a writer, actor or director. I suspect, however, that I’m just nosy. (We could be charitable and say “curious.”)

In many ways, I would be a good Jeopardy! contestant. Experience indicates, however, that I would never actually win. Final Jeopardy gets me every time.

Every time.

If my internet surfing is any indication, though, I am trying hard to change the odds in my favor. As you can tell, much of my time is spent in pursuit of those esoteric facts.

And today I found out about TIFO, or Today I Found Out.

It’s a website described fairly accurately on their About page as “a site founded on the precept that it is always good to learn something new every day.”

On it, you can find such interesting articles as How Deaf People Think, the origin of the term sideburns (General Ambrose Burnside), and the best ways to lower blood pressure naturallyalong with thousands of other things.

You can spend hours browsing, or click on a link to display a random article.

You can also sign up for a daily email. Frankly, I think that would be safer, unless, of course, your stint on Jeopardy is scheduled next week. In that case, you’re going to need all the help you can get.

And be careful with Final Jeopardy. It’s a killer.

October Project

Mythic music.

I found October Project in one of those weird episodes of synchronicity that happen in every life.

Once upon a time, I was an early-career director in NYC. I got asked to direct a lot of readiings. It’s a great way to gain experience in some, although not all, aspects of the directors’ craft.

Anyway, I landed a gig directing a reading of a short piece called A Play on Words by Eileen Weiss. Eileen’s play was funny and quirky and full of marvelous writing. We gathered actors and set to work.

One of the actors we gathered was a young woman named Julie Flanders. Julie and her husband Emil Adler had just started a band.

October Project.

And Julie gave me a CD of their self-titled debut album.

So, of course, I listened to it.

And wow!

Intricate vocal harmonies. Clear crystalline voices. Haunting melodies. And beautiful, evocative, even mythic words.

So, here is a link to a music video of October Project’s Return to Me from that album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm9kQdIFObY

And another, Ariel, which I love because of the connection to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. (Flapdoodle!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ga53vmcb2s

And you can find Julie, Emil and Marina here.

Oh, the reading?

We did it at Barnes & Noble. It went great!

Tie a knot

and move on.

The Duke of Wellington (of Waterloo fame) said of the French, “They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid set of harnesses. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot and went on”

I think of that quote often when things are not going just as planned, but philosophy is not really the point of this post. I just thought I’d throw it in there.

Today, I want to talk about actual knots, because I found this really cool website that shows you how to tie them in a way that you can actually understand.

Animated Knots

Now, you may ask yourself why this is important.

Maybe it isn’t.

You may get through your entire life without having to tie a knot.

But I spent 19 days on a boat once. It turned out to be useful to know how to tie up to a dock. And an anchor. If it had been a sail boat, I’d have needed a lot more knots—and probably a lawyer. Sailing involves a lot more judgment calls than power boating, and the MotH* and I would probably have killed each other—after we ran into a lot of things. I might get a Windpaddle some day (when I’m feeling flush) and just try it, but that’s another post, too.

The thing about me and knots is roughly the same thing about me and Gin Rummy.

I have had Gin Rummy explained to me countless times. I’ve played Gin Rummy. If you asked me to sit down for a game right now, you would have to explain it to me again. I cannot retain the information.

I don’t really understand that, because I can remember how to play poker and Old Maid and even Piquet (which almost nobody knows how to play nowadays). I can’t remember how to play Mau-Mau, but that doesn’t count. I’m convinced my brother was making up those four thousand rules as he went along.

Anyhow, me and cards—that’s probably also a post for another day (lots of diverse post ideas in this one, and I still haven’t gotten to the point!).

The point is I have trouble remembering how to tie knots. Even the Square Knot that comes with a mnemonic (right over left and left over right) causes me trouble. Is right always right? Or do you switch hands when the rope crosses?

But I’ve found animatedknots.com, and I am going to master some things. I’ll probably never know how to play Gin Rummy, but this time next year, I am going to know how to tie a bowline!

* MotH = Man of the House

Is there anybody

who would say no to success?

If you were asked, do you want to be a success, would you—any of you—say “no?”

I realize that some of you may be holding in your head some idea that “success” means vulture capitalist-type wealth—which we’d probably all like—and vulture capitalist-type behavior—which, I assume, if you’ve stuck around this blog this long, you wouldn’t like. In that event, you may be shaking your head and thinking, “I don’t want to be a ‘sucess’.”

Of course, one of the more useful lessons I’ve learned is that we each get to define success for ourselves. It doesn’t have to be for you what it is for me. It doesn’t have to be, for any of us, the generally accepted idea of success. (I will grant you that going with the generally accepted definition makes it easier to know when you’ve achieved it, but that isn’t necessarily a good enough reason to go chasing after something that doesn’t make you happy.)

However you choose to define success, though, you might get a lot of use out of The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.

Now, let’s be clear. This book does tend to define success in the time-honored way as succeeding at acquiring things. And it is true, as some of the reviewers on Amazon claim, that much of this information is not new. It is also true that one of the keys to success for people like Mr. Canfield is to sell you a book that offers to give you the keys to success.

All I know is that the information is compiled here in a way that is clear and straightforward and compelling. It’s a big book—64 principles don’t come in a pamphlet—and you can choose to read it in snippets or all at once.

I keep it handy. Periodically, I dip into it again. I never do that without being reminded of some helpful idea.

Some of them are inconvenient truths. The idea that you are 100% responsible for your own life—that’s not an easy one. But it’s useful to consider it, just as it is useful to look at the concept of the Breakthrough Goal or the Thirty Things Lists.

So, I suggest you take a look at it. You can check it out of your local library before you buy it. Make sure it’s going to contribute to your success and not just its author’s. There’s a good chance you’ll want to have your own copy eventually.

Think differently

An ongoing demonstration of creativity.

Far be it from me to advocate spending any more time on FaceBook than you currently do, but have you seen this page.

Different Solutions is the page that stops me every time I try to go cold turkey on FB. Similar to Clutter Clearer which I previously mentioned, Different Solutions posts fabulous ideas for just about everything. Today’s haul includes pictures of hair braided into letters of the alphabet, some shabby chic bangle bracelets made out of the seam of an old pair of jeans, bird houses made of cowboy boots, all kinds of fascinating uses for wooden pallets and tires and—many, many things.

There are few captions and some of them are in languages other than English. I could wish, too, that the things that look like actual products rather than crafts would have a link to a vendor. But, over all, the page is a whack on the side of the head, prompting you to think more creatively about pretty much everything around you.

Not everything posted is something I would want or something I am capable of making, but enough of it is that I will not be able to leave Facebook entirely unless and until Different Solutions gets a web page of its own. (Meantime, I’m going to be forced to look into those FB-blocking apps, I think, because it is time to get back to work!)

Anti-

Hero

The term “anti-hero” is defined as a protagonist who lacks the nobility of mind, spirit and action that generally characterizes a hero.

Meet John Dortmunder.

Dortmunder is the main character of some 14 novels by Donald E. Westlake.

He’s a burglar.

He’s not a very good burglar, although he generally comes out okay in the end. He doesn’t usually gain much money, but he manages to stay out of jail. So far (I’ve read five of the books to date), he hasn’t killed anybody (unlike the previously reviewed Jack Reacher who is more of a traditional “good guy”—with, it must be said, quite a few anti-heroic qualities of his own).

It’s hard to describe these books. Westlake’s plots are among the most inventive I’ve ever seen. He has a gift for idiosyncratic characters and for letting their behavior reveal their personalities. Sometimes, you think he’s teetering on the brink of caricature—oh, who am I kidding? He’s not teetering; he’s dangling over the edge of the abyss—but he always manages to drag himself back up the cliff. His similes and metaphors are quirky and surprisingly apt.

Dortmunder and his gang get involved in the most insane capers. In many respects, these are screwball comedies on paper (or Kindle, as the case may be). I read them with a kind of breathless amazement as they set out to do a simple heist and end up stealing whole trains. They are, perhaps, a little overly blessed by unusually inattentive and downright dumb police officers, but by the time that happens, I’m usually so involved in the intricacies of the whole plan that I am not one to quibble over how poor sad sack Dortmunder manages to escape his just deserts this time.

There have been a few films made based on these novels. I’ve seen none of them. In one, Robert Redford played Dortmunder—which leads me to surmise that the script was based so loosely on the book as to be unrecognizable, or somebody executed the most egregious casting error in the history of film. Although I have to admit to curiosity, which, when you get right down to it, is probably a big part of what keeps me reading these wacky books.

How’s it going to come out? is what I keep asking myself.

You will, too.

The pursuit of knowledge

Useful or not.

I am one of those people who has a head full of basically useless information. Now, that means I’m fairly good at Trivial Pursuit, especially if we’re playing in teams and you, yourself, are good at sports trivia. We’d be fairly unbeatable—given ordinary luck with the dice and assuming it was a classic version of the game. (I kind of lost interest in pop culture the last few years, so the more recent versions…I make no promises.)

I’d be fairly good at Jeopardy, too, except for the wagering and the Final Jeopardy question. I always lose Final Jeopardy.

I’m not sure where this fascination with minutiae originated, except that my family does tend to acquire books like Why Do We Say It? and The Book of Lists.

So, imagine what a find a website is like the one I’m going to point you toward today!

Imagine, too, what a total time sink it is, and be warned.

Now, that you’ve been warned, check out The Straight Dope.

The Straight Dope is a syndicated newspaper column in which, as far as I can tell, readers write in to ask odd questions about anything and everything, and Cecil Adams, the columnist, answers them.

Some of the interesting things you can learn from perusing The Straight Dope are:

Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down?
Do you burn more calories when you think hard? (We can only hope.)
How does the Queen answer the telephone?
What’s the likeliest doomsday scnario?

You can see that these are critical pieces of information. I mean, when I call the Queen, I would want to be sure it really was Her Majesty on the other end of the line.

Other than that, it’s just interesting stuff and a way to kill a few hours. I’m not even sure much of it would help you on Jeopardy, the show not usually having a category heading of “Doomsday” or caring too much about royal phone habits.

But it’s interesting stuff, and you never know. You might just be the one to settle the argument about Fibonacci numbers at your next family gathering.

Next time

I’m gonna be prepared!

We’ve seen how well my bravery held up to an escaping lizard. I mean, it was a good try, a valiant effort, but it was mostly luck. For the lizard, too, because who know what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to open the window and give him an escape route.

So, the question is what happens next time?

There will almost certainly be a next time. Eternal vigilance is not possible. I mean, a person has to go in and out of the door.

I have considered the problem from all sides.

It seems to me there are four possible solutions:

I could just ignore any lizards that are out-of-bounds.
This seems rather hard on the lizards. I don’t think they will fare well in this environment. It would be like those cargo bays on Star Trek when the environmental controls go wonky. And I would have to dispose of the bodies which is nearly as bad as rescuing the living.
I could get a cat.
This, too, would be hard on the lizards. Plus, cats like to bring you presents, and I don’t really want a lizard, dead or alive. Then, too, I have known cats that won’t touch a lizard—so then I’d have a lizard and a cat.
I could get better at catching lizards.
This solution has possibilities. Next time I am outdoors with my gardening gloves on, I will practice. There’s a lizard that lives inside the spigot by the garage. He tends to tumble into the watering can whenever I fill it. Usually, I just dump him out, but maybe a water-logged lizard is slower. Then, too, capture attempts outside are free of the fear that I’ll chase the lizard behind a bookshelf only to have it leap onto me at some later point from off The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. (I now have 7 copies of that, by the way, for a project I’m starting. That’s another story.)
I could get a lizard trap.
A lizard trap! Is there such a thing? Quick, call Google-fingers! (Okay, you can have Superman and Mighty Mouse. Personally, I get much more use out of Google.)

Here is what I’ve found today.

It is possible to catch lizards on glue traps. It is also possible to release them from the glue trap using vegetable oil. On the other hand, do you want to deal with a lizard that’s been oiled and glued? I googled again.

There doesn’t seem to be a big market for lizard traps. Not a lot of different models. Hardly any, in fact. Actually…none.

But…there is a website with some lizard-catching advice, and it suggests…head smack!…a shoe box. Why didn’t I think of that?

You can bet, next time, I’ll not only know where my gardening gloves are but also the location of the lizard loafers.

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Friday Finds