Today is the Official International Talk Like A Pirate Day--For Real!

Once upon a time, John Baur and Mark Summers, were playing racquetball, not well but gamely. On this day, for reasons they still don't quite understand, they started giving each other encouragement in pirate slang. It's possible that one of them might have been reaching for a low shot that, by pure chance, might have come off the wall at an unusually high rate of speed, and strained something best left unstrained. "Arrr!," he might have said.

Who knows? It might have happened exactly that way. Anyway, whoever let out the first "Arrr!" started something. One thing led to another. By the time they left the court they decided then and there that what the world really needed was a new national holiday, Talk Like A Pirate Day.

For seven years they celebrated International Talk Like a Pirate Day pretty much on their own. Things would probably have continued indefinitely on that low-key note except for a very happy accident. One day in early 2002, John chanced upon Dave Barry's e-mail address. Barry seemed like the perfect spokesperson for their holiday, being a syndicated humor columnist and all. They sent an email and crossed their fingers. He answered them. And wrote about them (read the column here).

You can read the rest of the story at talklikeapirate.com (were, frankly, we pirated all of this information from anyway. Arg!!!!). There are lots of fun activities and tidbits there to make your inner pirate growl with glee.

To put our bookish spin on it, we want to invite you to Justin Stomper's Vampirates 5 event on Wednesday, Sept 22 at 6:00 pm at our Colfax Avenue store.

Justin Somper, the bestselling author of the Vampirates series for young readers, will read from and sign his new book Vampirates 5: Empire of Night ($15.99 Little, Brown for Young Readers). After the surprising revelation of the Tempest family history, twins Connor and Grace face a newly-defined future marked by their Vampirate roots. Meanwhile, Sidorio’s evil Vampirate Empire continues its expansion, making it tragically apparent that no ship is safe. As for the pirates, they have a new mission: wipe out the vampirates. There’s a bloody battle brewing in the seas, and each crew will need all hands on deck. And, this time, Grace and Connor may find themselves fighting for their lives—or against each other.