Have Fabio Read Poetry to You

ATTENTION BORED WORKERS of the city of Washington (and elsewhere). Playing around with Fabio's kitchen magnets is probably the best thing you can do with your time today. Screw that TPS report. Making Fabio read poetry is highly more productive and entertaining.
Photo by Craig Herndon/The Washington Post
» "The Kitchen of Love" [I Can't Believe It's Not Butter]

» HAIRY SITUATION: In Aristophanes' "Lysistrata," the women of Greece deny their solider-husbands sex until they end the Peloponnesian War. If you believe a new viral marketing campaign, it looks like some modern-day women are holding back on something else until hipsters and lazy men shave their facial hair. [Ad Week]

» FRENCH PRONOUNCIATION: Remember back in 2003 when the United States was gearing up for war in Iraq and there was a conflict over how to pronounce Qatar (where the U.S. military was setting up shop. "cutter" vs. "gutter") ... ? We have a similar local situation with Brasserie Les Halles on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. From the Live Online chat with The Post's food critic Tom Sietsema:

Chatter 1: Please settle a debate. How, precisely, do you pronounce "Les Halles"?

Tom Sietsema: You say: Lay-AHL (there's no "s" sound on the end)

Chatter 2: Wrong, wrong. It's lay-zahl. H counts as a vowel, so you slur the s into the H. Also, this is how Tony Bourdain pronounces it in the audio version of his book (he reads it himself).

Chatter 3: Uhh, Tom...it's LAYS-Ahl. Since you have a vowel sound begriming the second word you pronounce the s in "Les"

Chatter 4: If anyone is questioning Tom's pronunciation, he is indeed correct. My grandmother was a university-level French professor, and one morning, after hearing us call it "Lez Ahl" (with the liaison between the two words) she erupted with the fact that it is, indeed "LAY AHL." If I recall, the lack of liaison has something to do with the name of the Paris neighborhood, which has its origins in Latin.

Tom Sietsema: Who knew that there was no right answer?

Glad we got that cleared up. [Slate; Live Online/WaPo]

With contributions from Donn M. Fresard