Quote
"Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes."
Benjamin Disraeli
Joke
What was the reporter doing at the ice cream shop? Getting the scoop!
Fun Fact
Among lost works, this story might be even worse: Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, left a suitcase full of the author’s writing on a train. When she went back to get it, it was gone. “I had never seen anyone hurt by a thing other than death or unbearable suffering except Hadley when she told me about the things being gone,” Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast.
Reading Fact
Written in AD 123, Chariton’s Chaereas & Callirhoe is the oldest existing novel in the world.
This ancient Greek prose romance narrates the adventures of a just-married couple, overwhelmingly beautiful Callirhoe and handsome Chaereas, whose relationship is put to a test when Callirhoe’s former suitors plot a scheme to rip the lovers apart.
History Fact
Put this on your list of strange ancient battles: Medieval manuscripts depict Knights fighting snails. Granted, no one really knows why the knights are fighting these snails, but maybe it’s best to keep the mystery.
Movie/TV Trivia
Poltergeist
During the scene where Robbie (Oliver Robins) is being strangled, the clown's arms became extremely tight and Robins started to choke. When he screamed out, "I can't breathe!" Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper thought that the boy was ad-libbing and just instructed him to look at the camera. When Spielberg saw Robbins's face turning purple, he ran over and removed the clown's arms from Robbins's neck.
Movie/TV Quote
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
Gladiator, 2000
Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott didn’t quite see eye to eye on the screenplay, and on this line in particular. He routinely strayed from the script — by John Logan and William Nicholson — trying to improvise a bunch of alternatives, until Scott forced him to read the line as written. It went over like gangbusters, even though Crowe still hated it: "It was shit. But I'm the greatest actor in the world and I can make even shit sound good." The "shit" script would get nominated for best original screenplay at the 2001 Oscars and Crowe would win best actor.
Conversation Starter
Who was your favourite teacher and why?
Writing Prompt
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