presents
|
|
Cigars, premium open bar including plenty of
Jameson's and Guinness, and some traditional
Irish-American foods, are included. $50 each
covers costs. Bring with you a limerick or
other short poem you've written that has a
cigar theme, an Irish-American theme, or any
theme, really. Or you can compose one after
a few drinks on site. (You'll have more fun
if you join in.) Chicago's grand dame of
limericks, Bindy Bitterman, will
talk about limericks and help with
last-minute composition and tuning, and she
will award prizes for the best limericks in
categories to be determined at the last
minute. Long-time Cigar Society member Rick
Rundle will be our deejay, spinning
out traditional (and maybe some
nontraditional) Irish and Irish-American
tunes.
If you're not sure what limericks are, Bindy
will be delighted to explain. To get a head
start, watch her
video for tips. Limericks are single
stanzas of five lines, with metrical and
rhyme scheme AABBA. Describing the metrical
feet can get technically
complicated, but David Abercrombie, a
practical phonetician, says this: "Lines
one, two, and five have three feet, that is
to say three stressed syllables, while lines
three and four have two stressed syllables.
The number and placement of the unstressed
syllables is rather flexible. There is at
least one unstressed syllable between the
stresses but there may be more – as long as
there are not so many as to make it
impossible to keep the equal spacing of the
stresses." For those of you who've been
around the Cigar Society for a while, you
may remember that Ted Cohen, late Professor
of Philosophy at the University of Chicago,
spoke
to the Cigar Society on April 1st,
2008, and gave a couple of lecherous
limericks told by a priest and a bishop as
part of a funny story. (For the original
story, see the memoir, Limericks.)
 Bindy Bitterman, a very
active nonagenarian now living at the
Admiral at the Lake, owned Eureka!
Antiques and Collectibles in Evanston for
more than three decades. She turned to
writing limericks after subscribing to
Wordsmith's A.Word.A.Day,
where she competed and usually won in
Wordsmith's contests for best limericks
using the daily word. She has a new book of
limericks for children, Skiddly
Diddly Skat, just out this year.
The posthumously celebrated Chicago-area
photographer Vivian Maier was a regular
client at Eureka! Antiques, and
Bitterman had a role in the Academy award
nominee (Best Documentary Feature), Finding
Vivian Maier. Bitterman is also an
expert in the mysterious field of Jewish
New Year Valentines.
|
|
About
the
Cigar Society of Chicago
ONE OF THE OLDEST
AND greatest traditions of the
city clubs of Chicago is the
discussion of intellectual,
social, legal, artistic,
historical, scientific, musical,
theatrical, and philosophical
issues in the company of educated,
bright, and appropriately
provocative individuals, all under
the beneficent influence of
substantial amounts of tobacco and
spirits. The Cigar
Society of Chicago
embraces this tradition and
extends it with its Informal
Smokers, University
Series lectures, and Cigar
Society Dinners, in which
cigars, and from time to time
pipes and cigarettes, appear as an
important component of our version
of the classical symposium. To be
included in the Cigar Society's
mailing list, write to the
secretary at
curtis.tuckey@logicophilosophicus.org
|
|
|
|
