From today's Writer's Almanac

I never ran across this poem while researching The Wild Swans, but I knew the old legend that swans sang only at their death. That was what I was getting at, a little bit, with the scene when Sean and Elias go to see Les Ballets de Trockederos and Sean silently cries while watching "The Dying Swan," the day before he tells Elias the diagnosis.

"The Silver Swan" by Anonymous.

The Silver Swan

The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached unlocked her silent throat,
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
Farewell all joys, O death come close mine eyes,
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.

The rubber chickens are back! And the drama continues . . .

In answer to the sign in our window, presumably, the rubber chickens are back hanging from the window of the practice room in the MacPhail Center for the Arts, across the alley from the building where I work. AND a sign hangs in the window which reads "Why did the rubber chicken cross the alley?"

The new sign in our window merely temporizes, "Hmmm."

Care to help come up with an answer to the riddle for us?

Edited to add: Someone came up with an answer and it has been posted:

"Because it wanted to stretch its legs!"

Rubber chicken riddle answered!

I don't know who came up with it, but a new sign has been posted in our window, to answer the riddle ("Why did the rubber chicken cross the alley?") posed in the sign over in the window of the practice room at the MacPhail Center for the Arts:

"Because it wanted to stretch its legs!"

Stay tuned for further developments. . .

Birthday portraits!

( Here are Fiona's fifteenth birthday portraits )

MacPhail provides its own answer to the riddle!

A new sign has appeared below the original riddle ("Why did the rubber chicken cross the alley?") in the window across the alley at the MacPhail center. We thought our answer ("It wanted to stretch its legs") was pretty good. But I'll have to admit that the riddler came up with a pretty good answer, too:

To play in the RUBBER BAND at MacPhail!