Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Smart Talk SMART TALK
By Dr. Will S. Sert

THE SMITH’S: After the Theory of Relativity, the apostrophe may be American minds’ greatest challenge. Yard and mailbox signs demonstrate the confusion.

The Smith’s means that that house belongs to one person called The Smith. If a family lives there, the sign should say The Smiths, if you want to keep it simple and correct. Didn’t you hear in school, even once, that to make a plural, you just add an S?

If you want to look possessive, it could say The Smiths’. But if your name ends with an S or two, the rules get more complicated, so forget it.

Why not just Smith? This is simplest, and therefore most helpful to someone looking for your house, and it’s correct. The Smith’s looks as if you’re either trying to sound cute, or you slept through English class.

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ITHACA, NY: The Kitchen Theatre Company announced the winners of its 2nd Annual Teen Extreme Playwriting Contest. Four young playwrights have been selected to participate in an exciting four-day Playwriting Marathon. This “pressure-cooker” rehearsal-to-performance process will culminate in two public performances of their brand new 10-minute plays on Sunday, November 12 at 6pm and 8pm.

The Contest winners are:
Aisha Farley – a 16-year-old 11th grader at Ithaca High School
Ping-Chun Liu – a 15-year-old 11th grader at Ithaca High School
Nathan Hilgartner – a 15-year-old 9th grader at Ithaca High School
Gabe Lewenstein – a 16-year-old 11th grader at Ithaca High School

November 3 , 2006 (ITHACA, NY) – The Hangar Theatre is inviting the public and the press to the unveiling of its 2007 Mainstage and KIDDSTUFF Seasons. Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty will host the event on Monday, November 13th from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm in the Mural Lounge at the Clinton House in Downtown Ithaca.

Smart Talk SMART TALK
By Laconia Crisp, N.P.

TROOPER: Last weekend, the crew at the Opera House here in Underbelly, Texas, removed the movie screen so the Lengua Loco County Thespian Players could present Annie Get Your Gun, or Annie Gitcher Gun, as the citizenry calls it.

Lurlene Johnson played the title role on a sprained ankle. “She’s a real trooper,” gushed Hubert Johnson, the Underbelly Prerecorder’s TV, movie, drama, and gun show critic.

At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, we know he should have called Ms. Johnson a trouper.

A troupe is a group of theatrical performers. Such a group often likes pretense — their occupation, after all — and loves to use theatre instead of theater. Any of their number who sacrifices for the solidarity of the troupe is called a real trouper. The show must go on, and all that.

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Smart Talk SMART TALK
By  Dr. Verbos Metikulos



ENORMITY: Patients arrive at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired insisting that enormity means great size. These are often the same pseudo-intellectuals who think one waits with baited breath. At least, this one makes me laugh every time, as I wonder what this blowhard baits his breath with. Bated breath is short for “abated breath,” as in held with anxious anticipation.

Enormity means the quality of being outrageous, horribly criminal, wicked, or an extreme injustice or offense, as in “the enormity of the crime,” or “the enormity of attacking the wrong country while letting Osama go.”

I try to sympathize with my patients, because the sound of a word can confuse. Noisome, for instance, has nothing to do with noise. It come from the same root as “annoying,” and means very annoying to the nose, or stinky, as in a noisome manure lagoon on a dairy farm.

The smell is usually well controlled, however, so no enormity has been committed.

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The Tempest was performed by Lansing High School Friday, October 20th, Saturday, October 21st, and Sunday, October 22nd .

The Tempest, written by William Shakespeare, was his final play. He wrote it in 1610-1611. This play is classified as a romance, which, in Shakespeare's time was not like a tragedy or a comedy. It is somewhere in between. The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays because of its haunting, dream-like quality.

October 23, 2006 (ITHACA, NY) - Next weekend, families will have a chance to go to the theatre for a heaping helping of Fudge! On Saturday, November 4th, the Hangar Theatre will be presenting two public performances of the 2006-2007 School Tour production, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, based on the book by Judy Blume, in the Kulp Auditorium at Ithaca High School. At 10:00 am and again at 2:00 pm, the Kulp will host the tragicomic saga of Peter Hatcher, older brother of a three-year-old terror named Fudge.

Smart Talk SMART TALK
By Shirley Glibb, R.N.

THEATRE: The Institute for the Linguistically Impaired has made sure that the local schools of Underbelly, Texas (Oliver F. Winchester Elementary, Horace Smith Middle, and D.B. Wesson High) spell theater correctly, especially in drama clubs. British spellings, such as theatre, colour, and centre, are affectations in the USA, like wearing an ascot. Zerk Johnson certainly doesn’t sell tyres at his garage. (The way he talks, it’s tars for cars.)

In Los Libidos, the nearby college town, a community group converted the old town airport into what they insist upon calling the Hangar Theatre. They’ve done a good job, but they call their program for kids the Children’s Theater!

No pretense intended, I’m sure.

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