Williamsburg Spelling Bee Theme Song

This is my first-ever internet singing video:



I make no claims to being a singer; I wrote the lyrics to the song, my co-host bobbyblue composed the music, and for the first several seasons he sang it alone, until finally he demanded that I join him. I am also shaking egg-shakers.

that is my tiny head in this magazine

The spelling bee is in the April 2007 issue of Budget Travel magazine, which is much sexier than it sounds.




Update: Come to the Williamsburg Spelling Bee on April 2, 16th, or 30th. Signup at 7, bee at 7:30. Free and open to all.

From McSweeney's

Sentences That, If Used by Judges in a Spelling Bee, Would Prove Totally Unhelpful to Contestants Attempting to Derive the Meaning of the Word

"Brooklyn's reigning alpha speller"

There's an article about the spelling bee in the current issue of Block Magazine.

how to get a D-A-T-E

Tomorrow night's spelling bee has a "Singles Night" theme. Anyone can compete, of course, but single spellers are encouraged to attend. Pete's Candy Store, 7pm.

Home improvement realization of the day: anchors work just as well or better when filled with a squishy substance, such as paint.

I did a BOSU class at the gym yesterday, which was quite difficult (unlike, say, the Pilates mat class I did, which was so lame it ended up in my comedy routine). A BOSU is this thing that looks like half of an inflated exercise ball, mounted to a round, hard base, and you do things like stand on the dome and lift weights, or balance your butt on the dome and work your abs by lifting your legs while balancing. You can also turn the BOSU upside down and do exercises on the flat part, which then wobbles because it's resting on the dome. All fine and good; it's just slightly annoying that "BOSU," despite sounding kind of cool and Japanese, is an acronym for ... BOth Sides Up.

Sigh.

I wonder if discalceation was as big a deal as transubstantiation

At Monday's spelling bee, Miss Megan got the word "discalced," defined by Scripps Howard as "not wearing shoes." This is one of those great words that seems a bit superfluous -- was something wrong with "barefoot"? However, dictionary.com has some additional things to say:

dis·calced
Barefoot or wearing sandals. Used of certain religious orders.

[From Latin discalcetus : dis-, dis- + calcetus, shod (from calceus, shoe, from calx, calc-, heel).]

They also tell us that "calced" is, in fact, an antonym:

\Calced\, a. [See Calceated.] Wearing shoes; calceated; -- in distintion from discalced or barefooted; as the calced Carmelites.

we are soooo f-a-m-o-u-s

The spelling bee has been profiled by Jen Carlson on Gothamist!

well, i'll bet THOSE spelling bees don't have beer specials

From Yahoo News, an article about the Lincoln, RI school district's attempt to cancel a spelling bee and the resultant public outcry. While some parents point to the "human drama" of bees, some claim that spelling bees violate the No Child Left Behind Act and damage the self-esteem of the losers (who, I think, should get a grip and - dare I say it? - learn to spell better).

On a more charming note...

who can forget 13-year-old Rebecca Sealfon of New York City exuberantly spelling the word that earned her a National Spelling Bee victory in 1997? The home-schooled girl screeched each vowel and consonant in the word "euonym," then pumped her fists in the air and screeched again.

"How do you spell hipster?"

Here is the article about the Williamsburg Spelling Bee by Adam Bonislawski that ran on Wednesday in the Metro newspaper:

click here to enlarge your manhood ci*lis viagggra

undercover spelling bee operatives!

You know you've made it when you get infiltrated by the competition! Okay, actually, this person was just thinking about starting a spelling bee, and she has wholly nice things to say. Anyway, we've been blogged.

queen bee owns up to spelling gaffes

There's no better way to find out who's reading your blog than to misspell something. Thanks to Spelling Megan and Grumpy German for the correction.

Molly, my dearest, you are delectable. Not "deletable." I would never delete you. That would be ignominious.

Megan, incidentally, was wearing an utterly awesome bumblebee t-shirt at the spelling bee. It was so bee-spirited.

Last night's bee had the most contestants ever -- with seventeen people, we really had to truck on those words. Tom the Gaffer won, although I can't remember any of the words he spelled (only the joke he made about the word "proclitic," which doesn't mean what you think it does).


a new photo of Molly and me

I can't believe this references a Janet Jackson hit from 1989

The Spelling Bee is featured in today's New York Sun!


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