Toast of the town?

Reader question:

Please explain this headline: Wine museum is toast of the town.

My comments:

Toast of the town?

That means the wine museum is a favorite place to go to, attracting lots of visitors – wine buffs and everyone else alike.

We know round the dining table that if you propose a toast you mean to offer to have a drink in honor of a person. So here, you can see the wine museum as a person to whom everyone raises a glass because they like it, the museum, so much.

Toast, originally is, well, burned bread and, surprise, not for eating directly but for dipping into beer.

Well, apparently in the past (18th Century), beer drinkers used to dip a piece of newly roasted bread into their beer to get that burned-wheat flavor, which, surprise, surprise is considered particularly palatable by many. If you have ever tasted the Irish Guinness beer, you know what I mean. Anyways, suffice to know that once upon a time, beer and roasted bread (toast) were de rigueur and they went hand in hand. And, back then drinkers liked to raise a toast every time they buy a drink, as the Phrase Finder explains (Phrases.org.uk):

As to the phrase ‘the toast of the town’, this came about at the exclusively male drinking clubs of the early 18th century. The ‘toast’ was the woman who was regarded as the reigning belle of the season. The chaps were invited to flavour and heat their wine with hot spiced toasts and drink to ‘the toast of the town’. The English Poet Laureate Colley Cibber wrote about ‘toasting’ in the comic play Careless Husband, 1705:

Ay, Madam, it has been your Life’s whole Pride of late to be the Common Toast of every Publick Table.

Later in the 1700s it became the norm for any celebrated person, male or female, to be applauded by a toast.

All clear?

All right, media examples:

1. The snow is mostly melted after a near-record storm immobilized much of New York for nearly four days last week. But before non-New Yorkers gloat -- beware -- the Big Apple’s storm offers just a taste of a crop of problems that are likely to be coming your way.

Nationally, billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been the toast of town for cutting budgets -- and resisting raising any kind of taxes on Wall Street. He proposed to that snowed-in folks enjoy the snow day by taking in a Broadway show, but residents of Brooklyn and Queens weren’t lazing about, they were digging themselves out, or waiting for help -- that didn’t come. And that wasn’t just the fault of the polar weather but their mayor’s priorities.

The conservative rumor mill did its best to make sure people never put two and two together. They spent their week blaming the Right’s new favorite target: unionized public employees. As Dave Johnson at the Center for American Progress notes, propaganda machines begins with a simple narrative, repeat it endlessly, and then tie current events to the narrative to drive the point home. The blizzard narrative became that it’s not tax cuts or layoffs that trigger state shortages and service crashes. It’s the workers. Public Services fouled up? It must be public service workers’ foul play.

- Public Workers Getting Snowed, Indypendent.org, January 4, 2011.

2. Looking for a good investment? Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart are pretty much guaranteed to make you money — like, a lot of it.

The “Black Swan” and “Twilight” beauties (respectively) are the toast of the town as they top the list of Forbes’ Best Actors For the Buck, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Portman ranked No. 1, bringing in $42.70 in box office returns for every dollar the studios spend on her, with K.Stew close behind with a $40.60 return on investment. Despite headlining such big franchises as “Twilight” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” Stewart was bested by Portman mostly due to the incredible $329 million worldwide gross of “Black Swan,” which cost all of $13 million to produce.

- Natalie Portman and Kristen Steward: Best Actors for the buck, MTV.com, December 26, 2017.

3. The Blackhawks are the toast of the town in Chicago, and that is driving ticket prices skyward on the resale market.

“This year’s Stanley Cup is better than [previous Stanley Cup Final matchups when Chicago played against] Boston or Philly,” said Max Waisvisz, a partner with Chicago-based ticket marketplace Gold Coast Tickets.

Chicago played more home games in each of those winning Stanley Cup Final years, but that won't be so in this one. Considering the Hawks played the first two games of this Stanley Cup Final vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning on the road and, in the best case scenario, would play a total of three games in Chicago, “not having home ice is great,” Waisvisz said.

Great for ticket sellers, that is.

StubHub spokesman Cameron Papp tells RedEye the average cost of a ticket to Monday night’s Game 3 clocked in at $1,060. For Wednesday night’s Game 4, that average price jumps 20.9 percent to $1,282. Should the series go to a sixth game, which would be played at the United Center next Monday, that number climbs nearly $300 to $1,575, or 48.6 percent higher than the cost of a ticket to Game 3. By comparison, data from apartment rental site Zumper shows the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Chicago is $1,780.

“In terms of sales, home games for the Blackhawks this year are up 14 percent compared with 2013’s Stanley Cup” Final, Papp said via email.

But while the average Stanley Cup Final ticket will set you back about a month’s rent, there are deals—by comparison—to be had, provided you’re willing to compromise on things like, well, not having a seat.

Standing-room-only tickets to Game 4 started around $330 as of Monday night on StubHub. If you want the luxury of having an actual seat, that’s going to cost you more than double, with the cheapest available seat, a single in Section 306, going for around $710.

Papp said the key to getting in without sacrificing an arm and a leg is to hang out around the United Center and let the market wait itself out.

“We do tend to see prices drop as it gets closer to game time, but for events that are in such high demand, anything can happen,” he said. “We always recommend that buyers download StubHub’s app and set a price alert so when the price changes, they will be notified immediately.”

- In Chicago, higher demand drives Blackhawks ticket prices skyward, RedEyeChicago.com, June 9, 2017.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.