Results tagged “spellingbee”

      

Last night at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg, Robert Moy took home the crown at the finale of the long-running Williamsburg Spelling Bee (now about to enter its 9th season in February). It's more commonly known as the "Hipster Spelling Bee," but that just seems like the same reactionary snark fired at anything happening within sneezing distance of a few Brooklyn L stops. When one of the nine contestants offhandedly mentioned that she was "channeling her inner Rebecca Steele," we agreed with the assessment of another overheard label: "Nerd Soup" (it's charming, in an Alpha Bits cereal sort of way).

CRAFTY: The holiday season is upon us, which means getting that perfect gift for whoever's egg nog you'll be gathered around this year. Why not try a little D.I.Y.? Every other Monday the Church of Craft meets up and will "provide contact, craft support, advice, knowhowto, instructions, directions, tips, tricks, inspiration, and the blinding love of craft to all who seek it." 7 to 9pm // Rapture Cafe [200 Avenue A] // Free EVENT: Have...

Yesterday Local One, the Broadway stagehands’ union, and the league of producers continued negotiations that had been stalled since last Sunday. Talks dragged on through the night and at 6:30am a union spokesman announced a 12 hour break. Though no details were given, it was said that “progress” had been made. An unnamed source told the Post that the two sides “had settled ‘the big issues’ and were continuing to hammer out details stalling a...

According to Broadway insider Michael Riedel, it’s not “if” but “when” the stagehands will go on strike – and “when” could be a soon as tonight! The long and contentious contract negotiations between the producers and Local One are now at an acrimonious standstill over changes to rules governing overtime pay, work assignments and the number of stagehands required per production. Last night Thomas Short, president of the international union that must approve Local One’s...

Local One, the Broadway stagehands’ union, has never struck in its 121-year history. Since salaries for stagehands – who handle lighting, props, sets and, yes, even Tarzan's vine – currently top off at 100K, who could blame them? But The League of American Theatres and Producers, who control 22 of 39 Broadway houses, are now wringing their hands after the union’s unanimous vote on Sunday to strike. (Last week the Nederlanders, the producers who represent nine Broadway theatres, seemed to distance themselves from the League’s stance and drift toward the union’s side.)

(directed by Jeffrey Blitz)

Earlier this afternoon, we watched Scholastic transform Mercer Street between Prince and Spring Streets in "Harry Potter Place" in anticipation of the 12:01AM release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - early reviews be damned! Not only was the Whomping Willow ready, there were owls (stuffed), messages on the Muggle Message Board, and a copy of the book signed by JK Rowling.

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on.

A Ghost, by Squid Ink.

There are allegations that a Brooklyn principal blocked two students from participating in a spelling bee because they are in special education. IS 252 eighth grader Lamarre St. Phard won his class spelling bee, and since no other classes had spelling bees, he was made school champion. But he says that Principal Medis Brown would not let him participate in a districtwide spelling bee (the next step to the big Scripps National Spelling Bee) and told him, "You don't have the brains to do it. You're gonna go to the first round and get eliminated and make the school look bad."

THEATER: Beastie Boy Adrock (who turns 40 next month!) was but a wee homey when his father, Israel Horovitz, penned his hit play “Line” 32 years ago. That dark comedy is the longest-running play in off-off-Broadway history. It’s about five people stuck on line and their shameless machinations to get to the front. The theater’s website boasts that the play has been performed in 25 countries and split the sides of 100,000 theatergoers. Who will be 100,001? - John Del Signore

Earlier in the week the Sun pointed out that while Brooklyn may be "so hot right now" in terms of people and real estate that heat hasn't exactly turned into any money for the print-set. Just as quickly as new Kings County publications come out they seem to close. The latest to fold is the actually enjoyable The Brooklynite ("the a Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee champion!"). But before it goes gently into the night, the Brooklynite still managed to put out an online only final issue. And there are some goodies in it worth reading over including a story on beauty pagents in Brooklyn, one on the 350 botanicas ("Hispanic religious healing shops") that dot our city, and one on the 10,117 Native Americans that live in Brooklyn (who knew?).

The Scripps National Spelling Bee finals are tonight, with a broadcast on ABC primetime. You can see the latest round results online, as well as the words those brights kids were given and how they spelled them (we totally would have spelled "opeidoscope" as "opydoscope"). Alas, NYC's two entrants did not make it to later rounds. The Daily News selected Ryan Mowbray of Staten Island and Yu Jin Jung of Queens to head to the DC for the event. Mowbray was stumped by "apolaustic," spelling it "a-p-o-l-o-s-t-i-c." And since apolaustic means "devoted to enjoyment," he told the Daily News, "You could call it irony, something not too happy coming from a word about happiness. I went further than even I expected, so I'm happy." Hey, Ryan, you can spell about a million times better than we do, so take that for what it's worth.

So since the whole country united around the television set on Sunday night to watch the awards and then every conceivable media outlet chewed over the results for the whole day Monday, Gothamist can skip right to previewing what’s coming up this week, yes? Oh…heh…we’re talking about the Tonys. Even with a 2% increase in viewership the audience was still only 6.6 million, so maybe there does need to be a little explanation, although there weren’t really any huge surprises. The main news, probably, was how little Spamalot got; top musical honors were in the bag ever since Ben Brantley declared, a bit sniffily, in his Times review that it was “the best new musical to open on Broadway this season…but that's not saying much.”

The Reverend Al Sharpton is not much of a speller. He joined the cast of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee during the Tony Awards telecast yesterday and participated in the bee. He was given the word "dengue," which pretty much means diarrhea to the hundredth degree, though the CDC doesn't really expound that part at length. Now, we're not sure if Sharpton was playing a poor speller or just badly spelling, but he spelled "D-E-N-K-E" or something very far off. (Gothamist guessed "D-E-N-G-H-E".)

The two NY Daily News sponsored NYC spelling bee contestants didn't advance in yesterday's fourth round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Alexander Martin, a Dwight School eighth-grader, misspelled "dissilient" (it means "springing apart, specifically bursting open"; Martin spelled it "desilient") and seventh grader Rajdeep Chahal at MS 137 was stumped with "feuilleton" ("the part of a European newspaper devoted to light fiction, reviews, and articles of general entertainment"; Chahal spelled it "fuolyurtone"). Even though these kids are headed back home early, Gothamist would like to congratulate them, because Martin and Chahal could easily whup our ass in spelling... in fact, if either one could master Movable Type, we'd love them to check our spelling.

So maybe the Oscars aren’t actually watched by a “billion” people each year. The audience is still ginormous compared to the Tonys. Even so, the Tonys are as big as it gets for American theater, and this morning the mostly predictable nominations were handed out at the Times Square Marriott Marquis. For play, you’ve got Democracy, Doubt, The Pillowman, and Gem of the Ocean. Musical: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Light in the Piazza, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Spamalot, in the first of its 14 nods. The same musicals are all nominated for best book and best music; best play revival and best musical revival have no surprises either, though Gothamist’s eyebrows were raised a bit at the inclusion of Sweet Charity, which barely opened May 4, which was the cutoff date for Tony nominations. Considering how touchy theater publicists are about having their shows watched and reviewed before official openings (though it did play in, um, Minneapolis before), this honor seems a little hasty, but maybe the Tony organizers just want to make sure Christina Applegate attends and brings some friends who might get a bigger TV audience.

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.

suggests indifference and nonchlance, from the Italian poco curante, and is pronounced "poko-kyu-ranty." The Times coverage includes tidbits like Gunturi saying "I'm going to buy a lot of video games, like, a lot," with the $12,000 prize and calling Samir Sudhir Patel snaggle-toothed though endearing.