I hope that you all enjoyed my pics of the sundog/halo event. It was really neat.

A good update this time around, if I do say so myself...

THE BEST RADIO SHOW YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD, BECAUSE IT IS FILLED WITH THE MOST OUTLANDISH THINGS THAT PEOPLE HAVE NEVER SAID

I have found one of most creative shows on the radio, and it is a complete joke.

If you have never heard of the Phil Hendrie Show, you don't know what you have been missing. I first heard the Hendrie Show this past summer, but its time slot of 6-9PM does not really allow for the huge listener base that it deserves.

The schtick is that Hendrie plays both host AND guest! And what a guest list he plays! One of my favorites is the time he "interviewed" an African-American activist who was lobbying to stop a decades-old traditional showing of the ballet "The Nutcracker" in the schools, because she felt that it was all about "white people doing drugs", and she did not think that it was proper for young African-Americans to be seeing the "drug-induced hallucinations" of white culture.

"So what?" I can hear you saying...well, the "so what?" is that he also takes calls from the public, and the public is, as they so often are, clueless! I mean, COMPLETELY CLUELESS. They think it is real! You should hear some of the fights that break out.

My other favorites are the high school football coach from Los Angeles who was blaming those "damn Canadians" for Sept. 11, and then accusing the NHL of conspiracy for holding the NHL All-Star Game on the same weekend of the Super Bowl. Even after this "coach" was informed that it was, in fact, the NFL that moved the Super Bowl to the same weekend, the coach fell back on "But after all this country has been through, that the Canadians would see fit to defame the memory of those who died in New York and Washington by playing a hockey game on the great American weekend of the Super Bowl..." It was great. And of course, he didn't stop there. He went on to summarily threaten anybody he found in a sports bar that wanted to watch the game, and threatened to assault any children he saw with skates instead of a football.

It caused such a stink. There is nothing quite like it. He truly exposes talk-radio for what it really is...self-important nonsense.

You know what they say...life imitates art, or in this case, life imitates art imitating life.

You can listen to the Phil Hendrie show through his website at:
http://www.philhendrieshow.com

Check it out!

EVERYTHING BUT THE COD-PIECE

Oh, the things we do when we are young and our heads are full of adventure, but little else...

"Whose idea was this?!?!"

Hearing that always sets off a round of bells in my head, especially when it is uttered by the very person whose idea it was.

The time: 3:35 AM, Alaska Standard Time
The place: 1500 4th Ave.
The dramatis personae : Brian Hartmann (Apt#1) and Stacy Seibert (Apt#2)
The mission: The Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre's 'Bard-a-thon'

In case you have never heard of a Bard-a-thon, it is a festival celebrating the dramatic works of one William Shakespeare, and they are celebrated through a marathon, non-stop, round-the-clock reading of all of them. As luck would have it, my favorite, Love's Labours Lost was scheduled for 4 AM on a Thursday morning.

No worries. How many chances do you get to use the words wit, liege, and wench in modern society anyway? Not enough, that is for sure!

Stacy and I got to see the FST's production of LLL last summer and absolutely loved it, so we decided to read for the Bard-a-thon. It turned out to be a great time. There were 11 hearty souls there to read, and one hearty soul from Oregon who participated via speakerphone.

I learned two things on this very early morning:

1) My latin pronunciation really suffers from a lack of refinement, or perhaps it suffers from a complete lack of ability altogether.

I learned that while reading the part of HOLOFERNES.

And 2) The longest word in the English language at the time that Shakespeare wrote "Love's" was HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS, and it is uttered by Costard in Act V, Scene 1.

While investigating this word, I found this interesting blurb about the word:
"Both W1 and W2, which include every word used by Shakespeare, define the word as "honorableness" and label it a "pedantic nonsense word." It is the ablative plural of the Latin contrived honorificabilitudinitas, which is an extension of honorificabilis meaning "honorableness." It first occurs in English in 1599, used by Thomas Nashe. The letters can be rearranged to give "Hi ludi F. Baconis nati tuiti orbi," meaning, "These plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world." This fact has been cited by proponents of the theory that Francis Bacon actually wrote Shakespeare's plays."--copied from http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words11.html

Bacon was the same person who first wrote about a universal method for discovery, what we now call the Scientific Method. Science since his time has often been referred to as Baconian Science. I had not, however, heard the theory that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays...though it would explain why I, a scientific person, likes Love's Labours Lost.

Today, the longest word in the English language is PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (45 letters; a lung disease caused by breathing in certain particles)...cool!!!

Visit the FST at: http://www.fairbanks-shakespeare.org

You, too, can read LLL at: http://classics.mit.edu/Shakespeare/lll/index.html

GOINGS ON

Rupert is back in my corral, and happy to be back. I am thinking about driving him down to Nenana this weekend to check out the Nenana Ice Classic, which I will tell you about in my next update.

Gerd Wendler, my boss, returns next week from his 4 month driving trip from Fairbanks to Tierra la Fuego in Patagonian Argentina, the southern-most tip of South America...think about that for a minute. From 65 degrees North Latitude to almost 60 degrees South Latitude.

Gary Condit was defeated in his bid for re-election...good. 'Nuf said.

UNO hosts Notre Dame in a best-of-three series at the Civic this weekend for the CCHA tournament. UAF hosts Ferris State. Go Mavs!!!

The 2002 World Ice Art Championship started this past week, and judging starts tonight. I went for a quick walk through of the Ice Park...astounding...that is the only word for it. THE best ice artist in the world have descended up our city. You will not believe some of the pictures I will put on my website...just you wait!

And we will close with the customary...

INJECTIONS D'HUMEUR

I am going to treat you to (abuse you with?) some good old standbys...

What is Mary short for?

She's just got little legs, I guess.

Thank you sir, may I have another?!

Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?

Well, just one more...

Did you hear about the invisible man who got married to the invisible woman?

Yeah, their kids aren't much to look at either.

Ok, enough of that, but I just want to extend a gracious invitation for all of you to drop me a line or two about how you are doing. Just say "Hi, things are good. The cat is doing well." or "Life stinks. If I have to feed that dog one more time, I am going to succumb to my homicidal canine fantasies." Something like that...see, I already composed it for you, just hit reply.

Brian "Wherefore art thou?" Hartmann