It's Shakespeare's Birthday!

[capri0mni]

To celebrate, here is one of his sonnets. It's a favorite of many (including yours truly)

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

And what's a birthday party without at least one party game? So I made a word search puzzle based on this little gem. Here it is (url fixed). Print it out, and have fun with it later today, maybe.

I also thought of a "Pin the flower on the jackass mortal" game. But in order to make that work, you'd have to use a lot of computer paper and ink, and was more trouble than it was worth... So you will all have to be content with a simple word-search.

Comments

[leenah.livejournal.com]

i love word searches! as a kid i used to buy books of them and work them.

looking back, i don't understand why. ok, i like them, but they don't DO anything. crosswords at least, you gotta know something. cryptograms are logic puzzles.

word searches are nit picky. maybe that's why i like them?

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, in wordsearch puzzles, you have to be good at picking out and recognizing patterns of letters, which may be why some teachers use them for reinforcing foreign language lessons (or for ESL), or helping kids memorize specialized jargon and vocabulary.

And there's also something calming about looking at something that seems chaotic at first, and taming it into something ordered and calm. Circling those words is kind of like capturing wild animals ;-). So that could provide stress relief when the rest of your life is chaotic.

[leenah.livejournal.com]

So that could provide stress relief when the rest of your life is chaotic

ah, that could be exactly why i liked them as a child. life was stressful. yay dysfunctional family!!!

:)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I recently bought a box of cereal that had a wordsearch printed on the back (A simple one, aimed at kids), and found that tackling it really calmed me down one night when I was feeling particularly flaily.

Now that I've found that wordsearch generator online, I may make a bunch of them, and make my own wordsearch book, to keep by my bedside.

(I think childhood is, perhaps, one of the most stressful times of our lives, despite the gloss of romance we tend to give it, because when we're kids, we have the least control over decisions that effect our fates)

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

I can't read this sonnet without thinking of this now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxB1gB6K-2A

I simply can't.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Hee! Thanks! I needed a giggle. ...I'll leave this downloading in the background while I read The Winter's Tale (yay, I did find that at the library!)

[leenah.livejournal.com]

ah, that clip is marvelous.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a gem.

[pedanther]

I notice a lot of the words seem to be in there backwards - is that usual for word search puzzles?