Thank you! Came here specifically for Izzard cake material!

Yes, well, depending on your source. As with a lot of old music, there’s no definitive evidence for it, but obviously it came to be associated with winter and Christmas, but not until decades after it was written.

Probably. I think because it’s sort of a strange Christmas song. Like, Jingle Bells is really a Thanksgiving tune and doesn’t even mention Christmas, but Last Christmas is a breakup song.

Who knows how this stuff starts?! I was under the impression that Whamageddon didn’t start til Thanksgiving.

Specifically, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! hence the name. Covers are apparently allowed, although this may vary due to house rules, geographical location, etc.

Thank you for this. I’m definitely out of my depth, but at least I understood the ‘things to poison your husband with’ section! 😆

My chemistry knowledge ended after a failed attempt at engineering school in college, but according to this chart…is Technetium not expensive? Or is it just the first of the expensive bloc?

That’s interesting! The few poems I’ve written (unfortunate teen angst and schmaltzy romance or celebratory odes) have always been with oral presentation in mind. But I wouldn’t consider myself a poet either, so maybe there’s a difference.

Oh, Wendell Berry’s ‘A Timbered Choir’ is also a fave.

I’m always concerned with not sitting with poetry. I read fast and I think poetry gets short shrift from me. Certainly, poetry fulfills its potential when it is spoken aloud, so poetry readings are much better for me.

None of these are favorites, though you can’t go wrong with Baldwin.

I think the favorite collection I’ve read in recent memory is Counting Descent by Clint Smith

Over the last couple of years:

Scriptorium: Poems by Melissa Range
Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems by James Baldwin
There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain by Hanshan
Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems by Robin Coste Lewis

The last Straw, as it were?

I generally have an ebook and a physical book going at the same time to avoid having a lag in between books. I try to read shorter books from the library to avoid having to renew the loan and save the larger tomes for bedtime reading.

My son is a BlueJays fan. Here in Kentucky, we don’t have a major league team to root for (Cincinnati is the closest), but we love baseball!

Alas, the current national climate has encouraged the BlueJays fever here in the house.

My wife, who doesn’t even really enjoy sports, is sweating it out. She really wants Toronto to win. This is probably the second baseball game (besides Little League) that she has watched all year.

I, for one, welcome our new Canadian overlords. And I like both Dunkin and Tim Horton’s.