(10.23) The crown could be yours but the star of the night will be beloved Beemaster Matthew Lawrence who announced earlier this year that he was winding down operations at Not About the Buildings and would be holding one final spelling bee for local beer-loving orthographers. (It must be noted that bee finalists are never the drunkest people in the room; that would be their friends who had not realized that these things can go on for a several hours and forgot to pace themselves.)
I believe Mr. Lawrence intends to devote more time to running Headmaster — the “biannual print magazine for the sophisticated man-lover who appreciates smart writing and thought-provoking art.”
Back to The Bee: I think we can anticipate an overflow crowd for this one. Matthew has many many friends, as well as all those spellers from bees past who will want to raise a toast, and perhaps take one last crack at the title.
So big thanks to Matthew Lawrence for making this happen for so many years; a lot of work goes into preparing these bees. Matthew happens to have the perfect skill set for emceeing a spelling bee — brains, erudition, patience, good hearing, and great wit — plus he has to keep things humming along (the ‘herding cats’ cliché comes to mind). These attributes will serve him well in all his future endeavors.
And major kudos to Kath Connolly for her years of accurate word-pronouncing, definition-giving, bell-ringing, and word-using-in-sentence. (Facebook Event page.)
Compete for fabulous prizes and a cheap crown, or watch 35 other people misspell words one by one. Audience members can win stuff too!$8 to spell, free to watch
signups at 8:30, contest bee-gins at 9
spelling limited to the first 36 contestants so get there early
Free to watch, $8 to play, 9pm, Friday, October 23, AS220, 115 Empire Street
And kudos to JP Reader for many long nights of letting spellers know whether they’ve gotten that word right. Or not.