Happy Birthday, Will

While we don't know William Shakespeare's actual birth date, he was baptized on the 26th of April (1564). Common practice had baptism at three days after birth, so happy birthday, Will.

For celebration & education:

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC has a wonderful site, including sections for K-12 teachers. If you haven't been, please do visit when you come to Washington.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company should also be on your DC to-do list.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has excellent links for Shakespeare.

Remember Becky's phrases we owe to Shakespeare?

Always, always keep your Shakespeare Insult Kit handy!

Cheers/GGCM

(illustration by Jonny Hannah via Design)

Shakespearean Insult Kit

Thou vain sheep-biting malt-worm!
Thou spleeny hell-hated puttock!
Thou dissembling rump-fed jolt-head!
Thou saucy ill-nurtured bum-bailey!

GG's editor has found relief & amusement from tweeting Shakespearean phrases out into the ether. While they were rude & often filthy to Elizabethans, they are funny to modern ears. Sometimes, one really does want to let someone have it online; but GG Central finds the world harsh enough without adding to it with modern vulgarity. So let fly with the old vulgarity & consult the Shakespearean Insult Kit.

PS: Here is another Shakespeare Insult Generator!

ciao-meow/GGCM

(photograph of Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton by Bob Penn/The Taming of the Shrew)

Midsummer

Lord, what fools these mortals be!...Midsummer Night's Dream

Happy summer solstice to fellow fools in the northern hemisphere!

Giulia is allowed to have a teensy bit of a sweet on the summer solstice...this year it will be a crumb of this Tosca cake. See NPR's site for a midsommar Swedish menu.

Remember to visit Earthsky for all your solstice needs. They have gorgeous photographs there today.

ciao-meow/GG Summer Central

(photo via Rachel Follett on pinterest, via automatism)

Giulia - The Harmless, Necessary Cat - Week's End

Giulia & her editor wish everyone a lovely first autumn weekend. The Harvest moon is still very large & beautiful. We hope you've seen it (this is it until 2029). We've been hanging upside down & backwards on a bed to look through a large window. It's very exciting. Less exciting, by far, is the hunt for the masses of brown marmorated stink bugs (see here) marching into our apartment. We add that this is futile, this effort of theirs. We have an arsenal of tissues at hand & a great cat huntress on alert. (When she's not hanging upside down like a bat looking at the moon.)

Back to the sky, the following is via SPACE.com: Jupiter, Uranus and the nearly full Harvest Moon met in a rare cosmic lineup late yesterday (Sept. 22), just two days after Jupiter made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 50 years. Wednesday night's sky show also occurred on the equinox, marking the official start of the fall season in Earth's Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the south. If you missed the sky show, don't despair. Jupiter will continue to be a bright skywatching target for several weeks, according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com.

There are so many photographs of the moon to see elsewhere, but where else can you see GG? (Well, on her editor's blog, bricolage.) This is GG doing a little sky-watching. Until next week,

ciao-heavenly-meow/GG Central