100 Things Restaurant Servers Must Stop Doing!
Gandolfini Goes Full Soprano on Guy Videotaping Him in Village
Former Commish Kerik Cries During Court Appearance
Bloomberg Speaks Out On Anti-Hugging Cabbie
Shootings At Fort Hood, TX Army Base: 12 Dead, 31 Wounded
Gothamist remembers when Rebecca Sealfon won the National Spelling Bee. She captivated audiences world wide, and even had an Obey Giant sticker of her own. We're thinking she may have also had a little something to do with inspiring this event.
Every other Monday for the past few months word mavens, twenty/thirty-something (we hate the word too) hipsters and perhaps Sealfon fans, have been flocking over to Pete's Candy Store for PBR and...spelling bee's! Tomorow night will be no different, except for that it's the FINALS. That's right, the Williamsburg Spelling Bee finals, where only one speller will reign victorious. Past winners have included a librarian, an SAT teacher, and an ESL instructor.
The bee is emceed by singer (and found of the bee) bobbyblue and spoken word performer Jennifer Dziura. The weekly competitors compete for a paid bar tab but tomorrow the stakes are raised. The winner will receive a cash prize, and prizes donated by neighborhoodies, The Strand, Jigsaw Gallery, ReadyMade Magazine, and the Brooklyn Museum. It just...got...interesting.
Pete's Candy Store is located at 209 Lorimer Street in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, and also hosts Scrabble and trivia nights. Get there at 7:30pm for the lexical throwdown tomorrow night.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
You've got a bad link for Pete's Candy Store. It should be www.petescandystore.com.
I think I might need to make a trip to New York just to check this one out....
I'm disappointed that Brooklyn Museum is sponsoring this fine Adult Spelling Bee, while overlooking the "other" one right in their neighborhood. It takes place at Freddy's Backroom, Dean St., Prospect Heights, the last Wednesday of every month. It's a $1 entry fee, winner take all.
Being a Prospect Heights blog, we have covered this event a bit obsessively:
http://www.dailyheights.com/archives/feats_of_skill/index.html
I've been to both bees, and the one at Freddy's doesn't even compare -- it's loud and dark and people talk through the entire thing! The one at Pete's has a stage, in its own area of the bar without any distractions, and people actually cheer and pay attention, and the emcees tell jokes. At Pete's, they're putting on a show. At the other one, it's kind of like how people play darts in a half-assed way while having a conversation about something else.
I disagree completely with the above comment. I know it's many months later, but since it comes up at the top of google for Freddy's Spelling Bee, I'm going to say something anyway. Freddy's Bee IS in a back room on the stage, though their stage is not raised a whole six inches like it is at Pete's, which makes it a flexible size. There's nothing half-assed about the bee either. The people pay attention, cheer, clap, hug, heckle and tell jokes. It's not at all like "smelly speller" describes. Sure we sometimes talk during the bee...mostly about the words being spelled. Sometimes about other stuff, but the point is it's mellow and fun there. I won't speak about the other bee. Having never been there, it wouldn't really be fair...but it sounds uptight to me. Plus the organizer has refused to deign to have a spelloff against us, which is rude.
I feel like an empty room, but eh. Nothing seems worth doing. I haven't gotten much done today.