Bangers

I was reading the Thomas Mann novel DOCTOR FAUSTUS (though it seems to be on pause now) and there were a lot of allusions to LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, so I did what anyone would do and picked up a copy of that Shakespeare play at good old Square Books. Thumbing through the introduction, I read about a 1978 production in which a "genuine owl" from outside the performance area, in the trees somewhere, joined in on the final song. Now! I thought to myself, will I have to put this on my big list with an asterisk, as I did once before for a volume with an owl in its scholarly introduction, hedging my bets as to whether that really counts? But it seemed to me that I knew just where to peek to find out whether the play itself contained the necessary owl. Knowing that LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST concludes with two absolute bangers ("click" here for more information about how I started using the term "bangers"), and reading closely the commentator's verb choice in observing that the owl in question "reinforced" the songs, I concluded that there might be an owl at the very end of LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. And there is! "When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl/ Then nightly sings the staring owl." You know how it is!