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In honour of my friend John Chew's birthday today:

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Inspired by my friend John Chew. :-)

I revamped the old comic to use updated art as an excuse to play around with my new Alex Dukal cartoonist brushes. Wasn't sure if that meant I needed to update the copyright notice or not...?

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In short: Karen Rile amazes.

In long: Karen Rile is a creative force, a tireless teacher, a super-human funny one, a jaw-dropping mom, a friend. She paved the way for me as an adjunct at the University of Pennsylvania (Beth: Karen, where do you file the grades? Karen: I will call you and explain. Beth: What do you do with jubilant procrastinators? Karen: I will call you and explain. Beth: What do you do if your students don't all fit in your room? Karen: I will call you and explain.) She joins me in writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer (Karen's stuff goes viral while my stuff remains rooted in a petri dish). She had four children to my one and every single one of them is a star, with no little help from Karen, who has encouraged, driven, photographed, packaged, and web sited up their dreams. She sends hysterical, private riffs regarding various Facebook commentaries that upend my dark moods of injustice. For that alone, she's priceless.

Karen Rile and me: we're friends.

When she told me that she and two of her daughters (Lauren and Pascale) were launching a new literary magazine (Cleaver: cutting-edge words), I had two thoughts:

* now Karen will never sleep, and
* this will be outstanding.

Friends, I was right. This inventive, thrilling, wow-whooping magazine has just been released in its .5 preview version and it crosses many spectra—art, poetry, fiction, essays, and the chop-chop stuff in between—while featuring my own other personal friends like Elizabeth Mosier, Lynn Levin, and Rachel Pastin. It's also beautifully designed. It's also technologically advanced. Choose your channel (HTML, Text, Mobile), sit back, and receive.

Also, judging from the fact that Karen is sending me emails at 3 AM and I am answering shortly thereafter, I was not exaggerating the no-sleep stuff.

I was lucky enough to be included in this first issue (click click). I like this, Karen wrote to me, when she received my piece. But, um, what is it, exactly?

I don't actually know. You'll have to judge for yourself. It starts like this, below, and it ends here.

I said it would be nice (look how simple I made it:  nice) not to be marooned in the blue-black of night with my thoughts, I said the corrugated squares of the downstairs quilt accuse me, I said the sofa pillows are gape-jawed, I said there are fine red hairs in the Pier 1 rug that will dislodge and drown in my lungs, I said I can’t breathe, I said, Please.

Go chill with Cleaver.

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By Philip Furia

Today marks the 116th anniversary of the birth of Ira Gershwin, lyricist and brother to composer George Gershwin. There are many fascinating details about Ira, ten of which are collected here.

1. When Ira was growing up, he held a lot of odd jobs, one of which was shipping clerk at the B. Altman department store housed in the same building where today Oxford University Press has its offices.

2. Ira loved to play Scrabble. In one game he triumphed by using all seven of his letters to spell out CHOPSUEY. I don’t know which letter was already on the board that he built upon.

3. One of Ira’s neighbors on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills was Angie Dickinson, then at the height of her success with television’s “Police Woman.” Angie was a good poker player and frequently joined the poker games at Ira’s house with the likes of Harold Arlen (“Over the Rainbow”), Arthur Freed (“Singin’ in the Rain”), and other prominent songwriters. At the time, she said, she didn’t realize what august company she was in — still, she frequently cleaned the old boys out. She also learned what a stickler Ira was for grammar. After he had lost a lot of money to her, she said, “Ira, I feel badly that you lost so much.” Ira snapped, “Would you feel ‘goodly’ if I had won?”

4. Ira was also a stickler for proper pronunciation. It annoyed him if someone said “Ca-RIB-be-an” instead of “CA-rib-BE-an.”

5. So it annoyed him when singers took upon themselves to “correct” his deliberate grammatical and pronunciation errors — singing “I’ve Got Rhythm” instead of “I Got Rhythm,” “It’s Wonderful” instead of “‘S Wonderful,” “The Man Who Got Away” instead of “The Man That Got Away.”

6. Ira admired Dorothy Fields as a lyricist, the one woman among that tight-knit group of male songwriters, but he thought it was unforgivable that she playfully distorted the proper accent of “RO-mance” in “A Fine Ro-mance (my friend this is, a fine Ro-mance with no kisses…)”

7. Ira loved all sorts of verbal play. He once built an entire lyric out of “spoonerisms,” named after a British clergyman who loved the reversal of syllables that produces “The Lord is a shoving leopard” instead of “The Lord is a loving shepherd.” Technically such reversals are termed “metathesis” (which can be “spoonered” into “methasetis”). In The Firebrand of Florence Ira concocted such hilarious spoonerisms as “I know where there’s a nosy cook (instead of “cozy nook”)… where we can kill and boo (instead of “bill and coo”)… I love your sturgeon vile (instead of “I love your virgin style”).

8. Three of Ira Gershin’s lyrics were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song: “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” “Long Ago and Far Away,” and “The Man That Got Away.” All three lost. Ira decided it was because he had used the word “away” in the title and vowed “Away with ‘Away’!”

9. In London, he attended a rehearsal for a revue of Gershwin songs. Backstage, one of the English singers said she simply did not understand his lyric for “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” When Ira asked what the problem was, she sang, “You say eye-ther and I say eye-ther, you say nye-ther and I say nye-ther…” then said “I just don’t get it, Mr. Gershwin.”

10. He had friends over for cocktails one afternoon and someone suggested they all go for dinner at a prominent restaurant in Beverly Hills. Ira offered to call and see if he could get a table for all of them. He came back to say he could not get a reservation because the restaurant was booked. One of his friends asked to use his phone and came to say he had gotten a table for the entire group that would be ready in a few minutes. When Ira asked how he was able to do that, the friend said, “I used your name.”

Philip Furia is a professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is the author of The Songs of Hollywood (with Laurie Patterson), Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist, and The Poets of Tin Pan Alley.

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The post Ten things you didn’t know about Ira Gershwin appeared first on OUPblog.

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This comic was actually created several years ago, but I revamped the copyright info to include my website. It was inspired by my Scrabble addict friend, John Chew.

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by Meg Wolitzer   Dutton  2011   Three kids at a Scrabble tournament realize there are more important things in life than winning. Wait. One of these kids has a superpower?   Life's been tough for Duncan and his mom who have moved back to mom's childhood home in Pennsylvania to regroup at Duncan's Aunt Djuna's house. New kid at school, fish out of water, mom working for a thrift store owned

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Pride & Prejudice author Jane Austen stars in a new video game called “Word Fighter.” The video embedded above shows two characters from the game, J.D. “The Hero” (an orphan scholar) and Neil “The Rival” (an ivy league graduate student).

According to Pixels, Panels & Playthings, the game’s developers were influenced by Princess Peach Toadstool (from the Super Mario Bros. franchise). Jane “appears to be a very prim and proper lady … but when it’s time to throw down, she’s ready to destroy you.” The game will be available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices.

Here’s more from the article: “Inspired by Boggle, Scrabble, Words With Friends and Super Puzzle Fighter, the object of the game is for players, as famous authors personified by their literary works, to spell words quickly on separate tile grids. The better the word — based on length and letter value — the more damage you do to your opponent. Special power-ups like attack multipliers and tile shufflers are added to the mix, so it can be anybody’s game.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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I don't intend to write today.

I don't intend to write tomorrow.

I definitely won't write Saturday.

By Sunday, I hope to be scratching words into the walls.




Taking a wee break to recharge the batteries (and because I feel I'm not doing enough life things and I never take a break). My nineteen-year-old nephew is staying with us this week and I'm determined today is let's play games...well he thrashed me at Scrabble a few weeks back and I have to exact my revenge.  Then tomorrow, I'm meeting Simon Bestwick after work. And Saturday, my wee niece and nephew are here. I haven't seen them in weeks. Definitely feeling cute deprived.

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Last year, Jenn Knoblock, Jim Danielson, and I ended up in some strange sparring in which we tried to use the highest proportion of high-scoring letters in Scrabble... in a poem. Jim took top honors with an average score of 2.8194 points per letter. (My own score was 2.725.) Anyway, gluttons for punishment that we are, we're back. Here's my new horror:
 

The Quartz Zyzzyva (Just Kidding)

Kooky Jack's poxy yak
grew boxy with ivy and fuzz.
Folk took it for grizzly if it was drizzly.
(Quizzically often, it was.)
Vexed, with his ax, Jack gave a whack,
then—zip, zap—gave it a buzz.
 

Scoring (Scrabble points/number of letters):

Kooky 16/5 Jack's 18/5 poxy 16/4 yak 10/3
grew 8/4 boxy 16/4 with 10/4 ivy 9/3 and 4/3 fuzz. 25/4
Folk 11/4 took 8/4 it 2/2 for 6/4 grizzly 29/7 if 5/2 it 2/2 was 6/3 drizzly. 29/7
(Quizzically 43/11 often, 8/5 it 2/2 was.) 6/3
Vexed, 16/5 with 10/4 his 6/3 ax, 9/2 Jack 17/4 gave 8/4 a 1/1 whack, 17/5
then 7/4 —zip, 14/3 zap— 14/3 gave 8/4 it 2/2 a 1/1 buzz. 24/4

Total: 443/143=3.097

I really hope I got the math right. I am far too tired to check it again, but please feel free. I daresay I hope this is the nerdiest thing I do for the rest of the year, because I am drained! I do not want to admit how much time I spent writing this thing. TOO MUCH.

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My daughter introduced me to Facebook Scrabble when she was home from college on her winter break. It's an on-line version of the game most of us played growing up. Here's a picture of the board we have:


She and I played a game or two from separate ends of the house, but I very quickly got "the bug" and her very busy social schedule got on my nerves. ("You're going where? For how long? Excuse me, young lady, have you played your next word?")

Clearly, I couldn't rely solely on her as my partner. So I put the word out on Facebook that I was looking...

It's about two months now, and I've played writers, readers, childhood friends, relatives--even a golfing librarian. In one-on-one and group games. And here's the thing, I'm nowhere near burning out. My addiction's getting worse. For the first time I am understanding people's love of golf, which is at once a shared activity and a personal sport, and find myself thinking ahead to the next games even before I've finished the ones I'm in. ("Next time I'm stuck with only U's and I's and a V in a triple word situation...")


In fact, I was driving earlier, and started making words out of license plates!

It's crazy. But it's fun. And eventually, I will get a handle on this addiction. Just not...today.

So tell me, do you have any on-line sites or games that are taking over your life?

Tina

The ABC's of Kissing Boys
Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress
How to Hook a Hottie
www.tinaferraro.com

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Last week, a reader commented that poetry prompts can be gimmicky. True, but sometimes they’re also great creative un-stickers—not to mention fun! Here’s a Poetry Friday post of prompted poems.

At The Miss Rumphius Effect this week, the Poetry Stretch was to write a poem in “diminishing” or “nested” rhyme. Each rhyming word is contained within the previous one. Here’s mine:
 

Lunatic’s Lullaby

Hush, little child, do not be afraid;
the fabric of sanity ever was frayed.
Surrender your sense when the hobgoblins raid,
for no one but madmen will come to your aid.
 

Following last week’s lipogram, Jennifer Knoblock threw down the gauntlet, challenging me (and anyone else foolish/brave enough to try) to write a poem using letters that get high points in Scrabble. We decided success would be measured by taking the ratio of Scrabble points to the number of letters. (Yes, it's admittedly silly.) Here’s my dubious contribution:
 

Limerickqxz

A foxy young doxy blew sax.
With hip-hop, she hardly was lax.
But when she played jazz,
her lip work lacked pizzazz;
then nightclubs would give her the ax.
 

And here’s how I figured the score (Scrabble points/letters):

A (1/1) foxy (17/4) young (9/5) doxy (15/4) blew (9/4) sax (10/3).
With (10/4) hip-hop (16/6), she (6/3) hardly (13/6) was (6/3) lax (10/3).
But (5/3) when (10/4) she (6/3) played (12/6) jazz (29/4),
her (6/3) lip (5/3) work (11/4) lacked (13/6) pizzazz (45/7);
then (7/4) nightclubs (18/10) would (9/5) give (8/4) her (6/3) the (6/3) ax (9/2).

327 points divided by 120 letters = 2.725

I'll be getting a MacArthur genius grant any day now... And yes, saxophones are VERY POPULAR instruments in hip-hop culture! How dare you suggest otherwise?

I am, of course, reminded of this wonderful Threadless shirt, "Well, This Just Really Sucks..."
 

This week’s Poetry Friday round-up is hosted by Wild Rose Reader!

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 I can't believe that someone just yelled at me for using the word FA in Scrabulous!

She said, "Yeah right. Like you just happen to know that's the the syllable naming the fourth (subdominant) note of the diatonic scale in solmization."

Huh? I just took lots of music lessons as a kid.  And watched The Sound of Music.

Sheesh. No more pick-up games for me.

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April 13 is supposedly Scrabble Day, one of my favorite word game/board games. Scrabble was created in 1938 by Alfred Mosher Butts. For a fun poetry connection, see how Mike Keith has used the scrabble squares to create a poem: A Scrabble®-Tile Anagram Poem by Mike Keith (2000).

Even more importantly, April 13 is Lee Bennett Hopkins’ birthday. Happy birthday, Lee! He has been the focus of discussion on the CCBC listserv recently as we’ve considered his enormous contributions to the field of poetry for young people. Check out my April 13 posting from last year for more information about Lee, his life, and his work. This year I’d like to talk about his latest anthology, America at War. It’s a beautiful, moving collection with more than fifty poems and paintings divided into eight sections featuring each “American” war, from the American Revolution to the Iraq War. Classic poems by the likes of Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg appear alongside contemporary voices such as Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard.

However, the book is not about war, as Hopkins points out in his poignant introduction. “It is about the poetry of war…. America at War presents the raw emotions of warfare as seen and felt by poets.” The design and layout of the book are also perfectly tuned to the tone of the work, with each poem appearing to be engraved upon the large, creamy page accompanied by expansive watercolor illustrations that convey a historical sweep that evokes the WPA murals of the past. Together, the poems and art capture both specific details of each conflict as well as deep and tender emotions that sadly cross the ages. Here’s one example:

Missing
by Cynthia Cotton

My brother is a soldier
in a hot, dry,
sandy place.
He’s missing—
missing things like
baseball, barbecues,
fishing, French fries,
chocolate sodas,
flame-red maple trees,
blue jays,
and snow.

I’m missing, too—
missing
his read-out-loud voice,
his super-special
banana pancakes,
his scuffed up shoes
by the back door,
his big-bear
good night
hug.

There are people
with guns
in that land of sand
who want to shoot
my brother.

I hope
they miss him,
too.

From Hopkins, Lee Bennett, comp. 2008. America at War. New York: Margaret K. McElderry.

Be sure and look for Lee’s other poetry anthologies with a focus on U.S. history and geography:
Hopkins, Lee Bennett, comp. 1994. Hand in Hand: An American History through Poetry. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett, comp. 1999. Lives: Poems about Famous Americans. New York: HarperCollins.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett, comp. 2000. My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett, comp. 2002. Home to Me: Poems Across America. New York: Orchard.

Thank you for your continuing contributions to children, reading, and poetry, Lee!

Picture credit: Me!

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Last night, I played the best Scrabble game of my life. The first two turns, I had bingos - PECKINGS and WAGONERS, respectively - and then went on to pull every single high point letter from the bag. In fact, I pulled the J, X, and Q during ONE SINGLE TURN. I'm not even kidding. I got to play the X and J on triple letter scores, the Q on a double word score, the Z on a double word score, and I think I had all but one of the S tiles available. Result: 403 points.

My only regret is that I didn't take a picture of the board before we cleared it.

On Facebook, I usually have at least 10 Scrabulous games going at once. My friend Kim, who I've known since I was 11, told me I was "superhuman" good. I'm really not, though. There are least four or five people who routinely spank me during these online games.

The funny thing is that the Hasbro corp is all up in arms about Scrabulous, saying that it violates their copyright. And okay, it probably does. But. How much money is Hasbro really losing from all of this? I've always loved Scrabble, but Scrabulous has fueled my love to inferno heights. In addition to the Internet games, the boy makes me play at least two rounds a night. We now own THREE boards - the lazy Susan version with the dark brown tiles, Travel Scrabble, and Super Scrabble (a Christmas gift from my mom). We buy Scrabble-related merchandise (including the official dictionary). We're planning to join the International Scrabble Society or whatever it's called.

My point is, the popularity of the online version has to be spurring on new sales of the actual board game. Doesn't it? More and more I hear of people who are obsessing over Scrabble. So, in a way, isn't it keeping this classic game alive with a whole new generation of players?

Or am I just wanting to have my cake and scarf it too?

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 Scrabble Junction is a great website for tips and other word related games to help improve your Scrabble gaming power.

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The family is here for Christmas--let the games begin.

Note: Not head games; real games, the kind you can win.

What better way to spend time together with family than by smearing them into the ground with your superior game-playing skills? Here are the games that will be played in the Haworth house: You Don't Know Jack, Yahtzee, and Scrabble.

You Don't Know Jack is a computer trivia game that feels like a live action game show. I AM THE UNDISPUTED CHAMPION. People I've beaten include one of my brothers, my mom, my sister, my sister's friend, and my husband. My husband thinks I win because I'm faster than he is, but really it's cuz I'm smarter. I win every time I play. I AM THE CROWNED VICTOR and no one even comes close. At the start of the game, players must enter their names; everyone else enters their given name. I enter W-I-N-N-E-R. I figure that saves everyone a little time at the end.

Yahtzee--what can I say? We love this game. It was my dad's favorite. We love to rattle the dice and jar non-playing visitors with the noise.

Scrabble--You're talking serious stuff here, folks. Long before I was even thought of, my mom and dad stayed up many late nights with my grandma playing Scrabble. Grandma had only a sixth grade education, but she'd win with words like c-a-t. Somehow she always hit the specials.

I do not always win at Scrabble, but I like to make my opponents think I do. Again, I list my name as "Winner." Others are intimidated by the fact that I own a regular board and a travel board as well. (You do not want to get caught without your Scrabble board.) I employ the power of the Challenge, something your less hearty players will not do; they think they're in it just for the fun. My brothers and sister and I know better: we play to win, and we play cutthroat. We are equally as good and my trash talk doesn't work with them because we've all got the same mom.

In any case, the gang's all here (except for you, little bro). Let the games begin! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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by Roberta Baird
http://www.robertabaird.com

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