Impression Planting

A friend of mine pointed me towards this video on Youtube of an impressionist doing a speech from Shakespeare in a variety of characters. The video is below but here is my challenge to you: close your eyes, listen to the audio, and see how many of the famous characters you can identify. Once your done, go back and watch the video (where the names of each character are given) and see how you did.

Here's my theory: the impressionist, though highly skilled, is relying on your existing knowledge of the characters to fill out his impression and make it seem more realistic. When you don't know who you're supposed to be thinking of, the impression is not as strong and it is harder to know who he is impersonating. This is not to detract from his incredible performance, just wondering how much of the impression we as audience members are providing ourselves.

Anyway, take the test and let me know which ones you got before looking at the answer key. My wife got three on her own.

Dogs and the Frog

A frog happened to wander its way into our backyard. Our dogs found it. The poor frog will remember this day for a while (assuming he makes it out alive).

UPDATE: NPR has a great little story about one dog and her dealings with the frogs (or rather, toads) in her life.