The first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize, `Of Thee I Sing', is a
brilliant political satire that gives us today's word. In this masterful
operetta (music: George Gershwin, lyrics: Ira Gershwin, libretto: George
Kaufman and Morris Ryskind), presidential candidate Alexander Wintergreen
runs a political campaign based on the theme of love. His National Party
sponsors a beauty contest, with Wintergreen to marry the winner. Instead,
Wintergreen falls in love with Mary Turner, a secretary at the pageant, and
marries her on the day of his inauguration. Diana Devereaux, the contest
winner, sues President Wintergreen for breach of contract; France threatens
to go to war, since Devereaux is of French descent; and Congress impeaches
him. Wintergreen points out the United States Constitution provision that
when the President is unable to perform his duty, the Vice President fulfills
the obligations. VP Throttlebottom agrees to marry Diana and forever etches
his name in the dictionaries.

Sometimes you have to wonder whether fictional people appear more real or
real people more fictional. The rest of this week features other examples
of eponyms, or words derived from people's names; from fact as well as from
fiction.

Anu, an off-thread comment.

George Gershwin didn't receive the Pulitzer Prize for "Of thee I sing" as it wasn't then awarded for music. His brother (who was often, in his absence, unwittingly, referred to as George and his lovely wife Ira), George Kaufman and Morris Ryskind got the prize, but George later received an honorary prize (posthumously, I think).

"Of thee I sing" is now available on CD and is well worth a listen. Enjoy!

May 15, 2000

Dear Diary,

It started off normally enough. I got up,
showered, had a bite to eat and got into the car.
I drove down the road a bit and then discovered I
was out of gas. Fortunately one of the neighbors was
out watering his lawn. He pulled a tablet from his
pocket, dropped it in my gas tank and then added water
from his hose. I was off again in a trice.

Then a giant fire-breathing groundhog stepped
into the road in front of me. I calmly pushed the
special accessory button on my 1990 Chevy Cavalier
and waited for the jet rockets to deploy. I fired
them up and sailed over the groundhog.

Then, wouldn't you know it, I got to the
main intersection at Aurora Street and found that
the street was completely flooded! Well, what else
could I do: I pushed the special aqua-accessory
button on my Cavalier, switched to atomic power,
drove into the water and rolled along the flooded
road bed.

I finally hit dry land again and headed for
my office parking lot. Once in the office I sat with
my morning cup of coffee contemplating the day's
difficult commute. I nonchalantly reached over
to flip my trusty "Forgotten English" calendar to
the new day and discovered that this (May 15) is
the birth anniversary of Karl Friedrich Heironymous
Baron von Munchausen (1720).

Days like this are enough to give one a
syndrome, eh what?

--
jiM Mica JMICA@ITHACA.EDU

Thanks, jmica, for your story -- isn't it wonderful what you can do in a 'trice' these days -- makes those old pumpkin/coach convertibles look positively old-fashioned.