Can You Draw An Ickabog?

J.K. Rowling has literally dug a book out of her attic. The Ickabog slumbered in a dusty box for ten years, and has now been awakened! A children's book, it is being released online a chapter at a time on the official Ickabog website.  Children ages between the ages of 7 and 12 are invited to submit illustrations that may eventually find their way into the print edition, scheduled for release in November.

Here's Your Virtual Parade

I know that this is a unique Memorial Day, with no beach, no barbecue with extended family and friends, no professional baseball, and definitely no parades. I can't give you everything, but I can give you this fabulous parade from The Music Man! Enjoy!

What Did Hemingway Read?

In 1919, Shakespeare & Co. opened in Paris as a bookstore and lending library. Books in English were expensive to buy, so  famous American expatriate writers, including Ernest Hemingway, borrowed books instead. According to this article in The Guardian, Hemingway borrowed more than 90 books, from P.T. Barnum’s autobiography to Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which he checked out for eight days in September 1929 – the year D.H. Lawrence’s novel first appeared in France, 30 years before it was published in the U.S. 

If Hemingway was late returning his books, he would receive this card with an image of exasperated Shakespeare himself.

What do Shakespeare and Captain Picard Have in Common?

Actor Patrick Stewart, who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company (here he is as Oberon in Midsummer Night's Dream)  and then went on to play Captain Picard and Professor X, has returned to his Shakespearean roots with a reading of a sonnet every day. 

Sonnet 59 proved to be too much even for him, so he announced that he was just going to jump to 60. Here's the text of Sonnet 59, in case any of you feel like giving him some acting notes. 

The readings can be found on Instagram and YouTube. 

Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

Today's the day, Tributes! Today is the official release day of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to The Hunger Games. The book takes place 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games, and at least one familiar character will be prominently featured. Happy summer reading!

Dracula's Birthday

On this day in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula was published. The book has been enormously influential ever since, and has inspired everything from movies to Broadway plays to the Twilight series and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Historical City Maps

Regular readers of this blog know that I am enamored of maps, and especially historical maps. So I was very excited to see that the Library of Congress has a free collection of historical city maps. You can see what Manhattan or San Francisco used to look like a century ago. The image below is a bird's eye view of Washington DC in 1883. You can see the Washington monument and the Capitol Building, but the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials were not yet built.

Information or Misinformation?

In times of crisis, finding reliable and accurate information is crucial. But as Brian X. Chen of The New York Times reports, misinformation on the web comes in many forms. This makes finding accurate information about the pandemic extra challenging.

Social media sites are a major contributor to the spread of misinformation, because anyone can post something that looks like a legitimate news article but is actually from a bogus source.

Many fake news articles, fortunately, can be easy to spot. Here are some telltale signs:

A shady URL: Fake news sites sometimes use legitimate brand names, but their domain names may end with “.com.co,” “.ma” or “.co.” ABCNews.com.co, now a defunct site, was a famous example.

Grammatical errors: Fake news writers aren't exactly wordsmiths, so one big giveaway is the number of typos and grammatical errors that make it into their stories.

Unverifiable information: If an article’s information were legitimately outrageous, plenty of other news outlets would have written about it, too. When in doubt, do a Google search to check if trustworthy publications have reported the same information. For more information about the spread of disinformation, read this article.  https://teach.kqed.org/misinformation-course-collection/

Words, Words, and More (Dutch) Words

The Dutch are letting their creativity shine in the lexicography of the pandemic. CNN reports that 700 new words have been added to the Coronawoordenboek, including gems like huidhonger (skin hunger: a longing for human contact while in isolation, druppelcontact (spray-contact: the exchange of little droplets when coughing or sneezing), and toogviroloog (blather virologist: one who spreads false or unsubstantiated information about the virus). 

May 2 is a day that lives in the hearts of all Harry Potter fans, and although we missed acknowledging the actual anniversary of The Battle of Hogwarts (we will not make that mistake again), I'm about to make it up to you.  

Spotify is releasing a new chapter of Book 1, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,  every week. Each chapter will be read by a different wizarding world actor, and chapter one is being read by Daniel Radcliffe! The audio version is free on Spotify, and videos will be released on harrypotterathome.com.

Other narrators include Stephen Fry, Eddie Redmayne, with more readers being announced soon. Chapters will be released through mid-summer. 

Stay fly, Eagles, and enjoy escaping to Hogwarts with Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the crew. 

Alice in Wonderland...In Art

This week marks the 155th anniversary of the publication of Alice in Wonderland. Here is a collection of artists' interpretations of the classic work. Stay fly, Eagles!

Pandemics Through History

Authors and historians from the Library of Congress discuss pandemics from the smallpox outbreak in the New World to the current efforts to combat COVID-19. The video runs about a half hour, and there is a transcript attached. 

Answer to yesterday's puzzle: The boy in the picture is a teenage Frank Sinatra! 

1938 Selfie

This photo was taken in a mirror in 1938. It is one of the rarely seen historical photos in this collection. Bonus points if you can identify the boy in the picture.  I'll post the answer tomorrow. 

Etymology Fans, Unite!

Regular readers know that I am a word nerd, so it brings me great pleasure to announce that The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has added 535 new words. Usually adding new words is a process that takes a few years, but sometimes there are extraordinary circumstances where new words quickly become part of our daily discourse. Such is the case now, and so new entries include terms like social distancing, self-isolate, and WFH. You can read more about the new entries here.  Stay fly, Eagles!