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Archive for 25 November, 2008

Christopher Plummer at the Free Library

On Thursday, I was able to visit the Free Library again to see the renowned actor, Christopher Plummer. He’s probably best known as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Incidentally, he hates that movie with a passion, although he’s apparently gotten more of a sense of humor about it in recent years. The interview was very interesting, and he was quite charming and funny. He also certainly did not seem to be almost 80. I even asked a question about his voice-over work and found out he’s going to be in the next Pixar movie. He spoke extensively about his theater work and his favorite roles. He commented that he would really like to be able to play Hamlet now, because when you’re the right age for the role, you don’t have the technique or wisdom to play it correctly. He also appreciates King Lear as a character, but doesn’t think the pacing of the play showcases him correctly. I was able to get a copy of his new memoir, In Spite of Myself, signed for my dad (shhh…it’s a surprise).

Anniversary of the OED

On Wednesday, Chris and I went over to the Free Library in Philly for a panel discussion in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Oxford English Dictionary (nerds!) The panel featured Ammon Shea, whose book Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, relates some interesting words he would while being the only person to read the OED from cover to cover. Shea had a lot of entertaining comments, and I wish he was given more opportunities to speak. Next was Jesse Sheidlower, author of The F Word and the only North American editor-at-large of the OED. He was very well-spoken and interesting. The final panel member was Barbara Wallraff, author of Word Court and Word Fugitives and a “professional dictionary user.” The only problem with the panel was the moderator and local children’s author, who seemed to think she was presenting to children. She wasted a lot of time with her slow-as-molasses readings of book excerpts and she didn’t seem to know the format for the evening. I wish the panel had taken it upon themselves to moderate the moderator.

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