1. 1. Stealing Someone’s Thunder

2. Stealing Someone’s Thunder
In the 17th Century, playwright John Dennis invented the sound effect of rattling a sheet of tin to mimic thunder. He used this effect in one of his own plays, and the play was denounced by other playwrights and critics.
However, his sound effect was widely copied. Frustrated, Dennis proclaimed that his rivals would not accept his play but were happy to “steal my thunder.”

3. To “steal someone’s thunder” is either to take credit for the idea of another or to lessen the effect of another’s idea by suggesting the same idea first.

4. Shortly after Taylor Swift began her acceptance speech for winning the MTV Best Female Video Award, Kanye West stole her thunder when he jumped onstage and pulled the microphone from her hand, saying, "I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time."

5. The principal was anxious to see the gleeful reaction when she announced the pay raise to the teachers the next day, but her thunder was stolen when news of the raise appeared in the morning paper.

6. 2. Kafkaesque (Literature)
Artist’s depiction of a scene from Franz Kafka’s existential short story masterpiece, The Metamorphosis.

7. Franz Kafka ( ) was a Czech, German-speaking writer, whose works often dealt with surreal, anxiety producing situations. For example, in The Metamorphosis, the main character awakens to discover that he has been transformed into a giant cockroach.

8. In Kafka’s novel The Trial, the protagonist Josef K
In Kafka’s novel The Trial, the protagonist Josef K. is rounded up and arrested and ultimately executed for an unnamed crime. He is never told his crime and he keeps running around in circles trying to find some authority figure to make sense of it all, to uncover the truth. The more that he seeks help from an inefficient bureaucracy, the more he becomes tangled in a web of despair. Time and space are rearranged so they can work either for or against the protagonist; the horror of K’s world is that he never knows what is happening, or when, or especially why.

9. The adjective “Kafkaesque,” refers to a situation or experience that is bizarre, surreal, or anxiety-producing. It is NOT something that is simply strange or unique or bad. If you need to take a bus and all of the buses are not working, this is NOT an example of Kafkaesque.

10. "What's Kafkaesque," he [Kafka biographer Frederick Carl] said in an interview in his Manhattan apartment, "is when you enter a surreal world in which all your control patterns, all your plans, the whole way in which you have configured your own behavior, begins to fall to pieces, when you find yourself against a force that does not lend itself to the way you perceive the world. "You don't give up, you don't lie down and die. What you do is struggle against this with all of your equipment, with whatever you have. But of course you don't stand a chance. That's Kafkaesque.“ --Frederick R. Karl

11. Example: If a government requires it’s citizens to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt their innocence of any crime they might be accused of committing, this could be called Kafkaesque.

12. This panel from a Batman comic is another example of a situation that can be described as being Kafkaesque.

13. 3. Witch Hunt (History, Culture, Ideas)

14. In 1692, in Salem Massachusetts, hysteria about supposed witches led to the arrest of many people, and the execution of twenty. They were all innocent of being witches; the accused often were simply social outcasts and were convicted on flimsy evidence that could neither be proved nor disproved.

15. A “witch hunt” refers to a campaign against a particular group of people, often those holding unorthodox opinions or behaving in an unconventional manner.

16. The House Un-American Activities Senate Committee Hearings (AKA the McCarthy Hearings named after Senator Joe McCarthy, the leader of those hearings) during the 1950s are often described as a witch hunt because a national hysteria arose about people’s supposed connections to the Communist party, and much of the evidence accepted as truth was mere hearsay. Most historians today agree that these hearings, which destroyed the lives of many people, was Cold War hysteria about the Soviet Union’s influence in American politics and social life and that the Soviets were successfully infiltrating every fabric of American life on its way to destroying the Country.

19. Hollywood Ten on their way to prison for their contempt of Congress conviction. They refused to testify in the HUAC Hearings.

20. 4. Throw Down the Gauntlet (Language and Idioms)

21. In the days of knighthood and chivalry, if a knight wanted to challenge another knight to a duel, he would throw down his heavy glove, or “gauntlet.” If the challenged knight picked up the gauntlet, this indicated that he had accepted the challenge.

22. “Throwing down the gauntlet” refers to issuing a challenge, especially issuing that challenge in a dramatic manner.

23. “Our parents threw down the gauntlet, offering fifty dollars to any of us who could go an entire week without watching television or playing video games.”

24. 5. The Muses

25. In Greek Mythology, the Muses were the children of Mnemosyne and the creators of writing and poetry. They were Calliope (beautiful voice), Cleio (celebrate), Melpomene (singer and dancer), Euterpe (happy delight), Erato (lovely), Terpsichore (enjoyment of dancing), Urania (heavenly), Thaleia (good cheer), Polyhymnia (many songs) (Mythology and Me 46.) They gave inspiration to mortals. Typically, an epic begins with an invocation to the Muse, in which the poet asks the Muses to inspire him as he writes or sings his story.

26. Athena Visits the Muses, Franz Floris 1560

27. It is common for fashion designers to select a particular person, usually a woman, as a muse, keeping her in mind as he or she designs a new line of clothing.

28. Writers often dedicate their books to their “Muse,” which often is a spouse or an especially important, inspirational person.