Costume Head Start

Just in case you want to get a head start on costumes for next week's Celebrity Party, here are a few pictorials.

President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover, who -- and I don't know the woman, she may be very nice and such -- looks like her husband in drag. So if your husband has a black dress, he can go either way to this one.

Clara Bow looks kinda James Deanish in this photo. Of course, chronologically, it should be that James Dean is looking kinda Clara Bowish. But that's all semantics.

What I like about this era (remember, the 1930s) is that there were parts of the world still being explored by white guys in goofy-looking headgear.

Bonus!

As part of the Gipsy Party, Cokesbury suggests that, either during the festivities or during dinner, that gipsy stories (or at least stories; they don't necessarily have to be gipsy) be told, and thoughtfully offer a few, one of which is reproduced here:

Why the Chinese Have Short Names

Long, long ago, in far-away China, there lived two little boys. One was named Choy, and the other Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo. He was named this because it was a custom in those days for the mother to name her child a long name just according to how much she loved him.

One day, little Choy and Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo were playing beside the well, when all of a sudden little Choy fell in the well. Little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo was so very frightened and ran. “Mother, Mother, Choy has fallen into the well. Come quickly and get him out.” She said: “Little Choy fell in the well? Oh, little Choy fell in the well. Well, darling, run tell the gardener to get little Choy out of the well.”

So little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo ran to the gardener and cried, “Oh, Gardener, Gardener, poor Choy has fallen into the well. Come quickly and get him out.”

“Huh, what’s that you say?” he asked.

“Oh, come quickly. Choy has fallen into the well.”

“Oh, Choy has fallen into the well. Well, we well get Choy out right away.”

So the gardener ran and put a ladder in the well and climbed down and got little Choy and brought him out of the well.

Many weeks after that when Choy got well enough to play, the two boys were playing beside the well again, when all of a sudden poor little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo fell into the well.

Little Choy ran to his mother and cried: “Oh, Mother, Mother, little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo has fallen into the well. Come quickly and get him out.”

She said: “Little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo fell in the well, Oh little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo fell in the well. Run, darling, and tell the gardener to get little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo out of the well.”

Little Choy ran to the gardener and cried: “Oh Gardener, Gardener, poor little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo has fallen into the well. Come quickly and get him out.”

“Huh, what’s that you say?”

“Poor little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo has fallen into the well. Come quickly and get him out.”

“Oh,” he said. “Little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo has fallen into the well. We will get little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo out right away.”

So the gardener got a ladder and climbed down and down and down and got little Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo, but poor little e Tinky-tuky-timbo-no-si-nembo-hooy-booy-bousky-peooy-pen-do-hickey-pon-pon-nickey-no-me-on-don-peooy-eo was almost drowned. He didn’t grow up to be a strong man like Choy, so that taught the Chinese mothers a lesson, and ever since that time they have been naming their children real short names like Choy, Tu, Chong, Wu, and Fu.

(Written by Mrs. J.G. Deriso, Jacksonillve, Fla., or so Cokesbury says, apparently so you know who to blame.)

Remember, I'm just the cultural anthropologist here. I make no excuses for this story whatsoever. Pity me that I had to type it in.

Week Twenty-Seven: Gipsy Party

Okay, so this is a Victorian-era photo.

Still gets the stereotypical gypsy idea across.

Interesting concept here. In reading Cokesbury's Gipsy Party, the suggestions are that Gypsies steal, stargaze, tell stories, steal, tell and keep secrets, steal, kidnap, steal, sing, and, what else? Oh yeah. Steal. So buckle in.

Maybe this music will keep the sting off:

	Anonyme - Bubak and Hungaricus Early 18th Century Gypsy Music .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Since this is a costume party, on with the costumes:

Costumes may be made from red or yellow cheesecloth. Or at least headbands, sashes, and scarfs can be made from these materials. Further suggestions for the girls would be beach pajamas, Spanish costumes, with hair loose or braided down the back. A timbrel would add to the effect. Use plenty of beads, earrings, bracelets, or other jewelry. Boys could wear loud colored shirts, bandana handkerchiefs, slouch hats, large earrings, such as brass curtain rings tied on to the ears, mustached paste on, or masks. Plenty of color should be put on the cheeks with rouge or cocoa.

Rouge or cocoa. Really? Let's move on to the kidnapping.

Guests should be met at the door or entrance to the place where the party is held by rough-looking gipsies with knives or revolvers. Each guest is kidnapped and taken before the gipsy king and initiated. To do this he is made to get on his knees, put his head to the ground, and say:

I know my mind,

And I know my heart.

I know I have a foolish part.

This should be repeated three times as the guest bows before the king. He is then initiated into the order of gipsies.

I suggest trying this first with your uberconservative friends just too see how many heads you can make explode. For added interest, have them utter some simple fealty oaths. Make sure to bring plenty of dropcloths.

And what's up with that initiation oath? Are they saying whomever chooses to be sworn in as a gipsy is foolish? Or that the act of being sworn in is foolish? Or that you're a moron for making your friends do this in the first place? Jury's still out on that one, if you ask me.

And, yes, I know they make a big deal about becoming a gipsy, meeting the gipsy king, et cetera, in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Just because it's in literatchoooor doesn't mean it makes sense.

This king appears confused. It's a sceptre, buddy. What do you do with it? Well, now I'm all confused.

Now, on to the bartering. Gipsies barter, right?

Each guest has been notified in advance that he is to bring some article wrapped in a package. A price limit should be set on this of ten cents or twenty-five cents. After all have been initiated, the elader then tells the guests that, as they are now gipsies, they must trade, for gipsies trade. Each person it to talk up the article in his package wthout revealing its identity. When the trading has been going on for about ten minutes, the leader blows the whistle, and all open their packages to discover the misfits. Usually, there will be noise maker, mechanical toys, teething rings, candy with salt and pepper in it, et cetera.

And then with the bartering over, the stealing begins, right?

The leader should announce that another characteristic of gipsies is that they steal, and that, as they have been initiated into the order of gipsies, they will have the privilege during the evening of stealing. Also a prize will be given to the one who can display, at the close of the evening, the largest number of articles stolen. The leader should explain that stealing does not mean taking by force, but that the gipsies have light fingers. This stealing should continue while the games are being played, and later in the evening after the games are over there should be a time to return stolen property.

So, in addition to your uberconservative friends, invite those who naturally have sticky fingers. Remind your technologically-advanced guests that this is not a party to which they should bring cell phones, iPods, fancy watches, or anything they don't want to get back in a hurry. I'm not saying your friends are thieves, but with some people, it only takes a little party suggestion like, well, that stealing is okay, to send some of your more questionable friends over the edge. Or if you have technologically advanced but rather forgetful friends, encourage them to bring all their toys plus any extra stuff you've seen lying around their house. If you're going to steal, steal big, I say. And if they complain, say, "Well, gipsies steal, no?" Have fun with it.

And with the singing. This is the song Cokesbury suggests you sing:



Be sure to book a good blues combo for accompaniment. Or invite an adequate accordionist. It's touches like this that make for a good gipsy party, and might possibly convince some of your more impressionable guests that you really are gipsies so all the stealing is okay and they won't ask for their stuff back.

On to the games. Cokesbury suggests a lot of games. I'll give you two:

Handkerchief Laughs. The leader throws the handkerchief into the air and calls the name or number of a person in the circle, and that person must laugh while the handkerchief is in the air and cease immediately when it falls to the ground. If that person fails to laugh while the handkerchief is in the air, or laughs when the handkerchief is not in the air, he must be It. In order to accomplish this end It may make a motion as though he were going to throw the handkerchief and then fail to throw it. The game may be varied by designating certain kinds of laughs, such as nervous laugh, coquettish laugh, boisterous laugh, horse laugh, silly laugh, stage laugh, giggle, et cetera.

Kinda sounds like the "I Love to Laugh" scene from Mary Poppins.



If my father were participating in this game, you'd have to add another laugh category, that being "laughing silently while tears roll down your cheeks." Try imitating that, Karl Marx.

Next we go on to gipsy fortunes whihc, according to Cokesbury, have little to do with love, warts, the removal of either love or warts, or anything generally involving curses, frogs,a nd other cliches. Nor do they include "Your cockney accent will be hackneyed, but the film you're in will be beloved by all."

Fortunes. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have the fortunes prepared in advance and placed in capsules. These capsules should be about one inch in length and the fortune typewritten and rolled up and placed inside. Players draw for their fortunes, and at the signal open the capsule and read aloud. These fortunes may be written with a pen, using lemon juice for ink. This makes an excellent invisible ink, and this may be passed to the Gipsy Queen, who holds it over the candle, and the words of the fortune will appear on what seemed a blank piece of paper. The following are suggestions for written fortunes:

For the Boys

You'll go to college and get a degree,
and a brilliant man you'll surely be.

You'll be a preacher, a man good and true;
You'll fall in love with a girl named Sue.

You'll be a pilot and fly a ship like Lindy;
You'll have the reputation of being rather windy.

You're going to be a railroad man,
and be the superintendent if you can.

You're going to be a farmer and raise corn and wheat,
and when you are old you'll live on Easy Street.

For the Girls

You are going far away to a university;
when you return a teacher you will be.

You are going to keep house in a bungalow,
with a cat -- and a husband too, you know.

In far-off China you'll spend your life
As a much-loved missionary's wife.

You're going to live alone, just as happy as can be,
with your cat and your parrot and your little cup of tea.

You'll be a lady lawyer and read law books,
and attract a lot of clients with your good looks.

Ah, the aspirations of the 1930s. Adventure, money, and preaching for the men, housekeeping, spinsterism and attracting clients as a lawyer not because you're smart but because you're a looker for the ladies. So who says the world has turned upside down in the past thirty years?

On to the final game, which combines two well-known gipsy traits -- secrets and, you guessed it, stealing.

Secrets. Gipsies have secrets. Divide crowd into groups. If the party is large, however, it would be best to divide into four groups. Each group selects a captain. Each group selects some object to be stolen while on some imaginary raid to town. Each group keeps this objet a secret from the other bands. A member of each camp is sent over to the rival camp to be questioned. They try to get out of him the name of the object he is going to steal. The visitor must answer the questions by "Yes" or "No." If the group guesses the object after five questions, they retain the visitor in their camp. If they fail to guess after five questions, the visitor returns and a visitor is sent to his camp from the rival group. In case the ojbect is guessed, another object must be selected for the second visitor.

Yeah, it's not much of a game. But it does involve stealing. And gipsies steal, right. Damn right they do:

Returning Stolen Property. This should be given some time, and all stolen articles should be identified and returned to the woner and a prize given to the one who can show the largest collection.

All right. All that's left are refreshments. Hope you've got a lot of time on your hands:

Refreshments should consist of gipsy goulash and coffee, to which each one serves himself. paper cups and plates may be used. the following is a recipe for the goulash, which, of course, must be cooked before the party and just heated up on the fire at the party:

Cook a large piece of beef or veal [stolen by preference, ed.] in a fireless cooker or over a slow fire until about half done. Season this with salt, pepper, onions, and bay leaf. Remove from the fire and cut meat into pieces suitable for serving and return to the fire. Add about one half can of tomatoes with additional seasoning if necessary, and enough uncooked rice to absorb the stock and the tomato juice. Cook until rice has had time to thoroughly cook. if cooked on top of the stove, care must be taken that it does not stick to the bottom of the kettle. A little red pepper and more onions may be added if desired.

Yes, it's goulash for the WASPs, devoid of spice so as not to offend the palate with flavor.

Okay, you're done for another week. Tune in next time for the Celebrities Party, in which you'll ask your guests to dress up like contemporary (at least for 1932) celebrities, including Herbert Hoover, Mrs. Herbert Hoover, Will Rogers, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Charlie Chaplin, Henry Ford and the ever-popular Billy Sunday. Huzzah!

By the Way . . .

. . .  Just in case you're curious, with Week Twenty-Six behind us now, we are officially halfway through the "52 planned parties and 600 games and stunts" the Cokesbury Party Book promises us on its cover. And, to date, we've had just over three hundred visitors, all of whom have left the site shaking their heads and thinking, "Yeah, you can find all sorts of crap on the Internet."

You're welcome.

Gipsy Preview

I confess to being a bit old school -- but since I'm blogging about a book published in 1932, you probably know that already.

So when it comes to gypsies, I tend to be a bit beyond today's politically-correct realm. Gypsy to me means one thing: Danny Kaye.





If you've never seen a Danny Kaye film, I have to ask -- what's wrong with you? Both The Court Jester and The Inspector General are incredibly wonderful movies (the latter being an interesting adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's novella by the same name). They're worth watching. Watch these clips, then get ready for a gypsy party of your own, with ideas from Cokesbury.

Week Twenty-Six: The Stunt Party

The 1930s were crazy for stunts, or so it seems. The automobile and the aeroplane were coming of age, no longer the newfangled, untested technology. But as has been mentioned before, the stunts Cokesbury refers to are the skits, the japes, the songs, the what-nots that entertained regular folks between bouts of derring-do with stuntmen leaping -- OK, falling -- from airplanes to moving vehicles, or leaping their jalopies nonchalantly over sheds only to land in a broken heap on the other side.

First of all, Cokesbury feels you could make money hosting a stunt night:

In a city of about thirty thousand people a woman’s club has started having annual stunt night and giving a cup to the organization putting on the best stunt. On this stunt night the civic organization, such as the Women’s Club, Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, and American Legion, compete. They charge one dollar admission, and it has been the means of raising money for the organization for several years.

Of course, this means getting people to come to your stunt night. Cokesbury suggests newspapers and other public announcements. Given today’s media climate, if I were you, I’d stick with “other public announcements.” I’d be happy, if anyone out there so chose to host a stunt night, to advertise the event here on the Cokesbury Party Blog, but traffic to the site tells me that virtually no one is coming to this site anyway. You might be better off with a dead tree edition somewhere.

So, now that you’ve got your party on Craigslist (and have secured ample liability and comprehensive property damage insurance for the louts who will invariably show up, toss your dime-store decorations in the pool and put your whistle where the sun don’t shine) it’s time to plan the stunts. Here are a few Cokesbury suggests:

Living Pictures. Living pictures make a very beautiful and impressive stunt. We are assuming that these stunts will be on a stage. Have a large frame constructed about eight feet high and about ten feet wide and hidden lights around the border. Raise this frame up a foot or more from the floor on a platform. A hidden chorus or quartet furnishes the music while the pictures are given in tableau. Between each song that is given in the tableau the quartet or chorus sings “Memories.”

• “School Days.” The tableau would be a small boy and a small girl holding hands, the girl carrying in her hand a slate on which is written “I love you, Joe,” and thus they stand while the chorus or quartet sings.
• “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” An old couple are on the stage holding hands.
• “Mother Machree.” An old lady dressed in black or lavender with white lace and cap is seated in a rocker. A young man stands by her. He looks down at her as the song is sung.
• “My Wild Irish Rose.” A girl with summer dress, wide-brimmed had, garland with roses, and a boy are on the stage. The boy is dressed in summer sport clothes, white flannels, sweater, white hat in hand. The girl takes a rose and puts it in his buttonhole during the singing of the music. The action should be carefully times to fit the scene.

Obviously, these tableaux will go over well with your Irish-American crowd.

My advice: Think of these as live YouTube videos, but with actual creativity and talent involved, because you can’t just dub over some crappy hip-hop song to the action being shown. If these songs seem too outdated for your hip crowd, then simple re-enact en tableaux some of your favorite YouTube videos. I personally recommend the following, for its simplicity, pathos, and the likelihood of getting a laugh out of your audience.

Then there’s this one, of dubious moral value:

Black-Face Comedy. Have two boys who are clever at impersonating negroes put on a black-face comedy skit. You will find ample material for this in Chapter LII, “The Minstrel Show.” You will also find three or four stunts which could be done by these comedians in the chapter, “The Minstrel Show.”

Remember, if you choose to do this stunt, you are an ass. Even if you’re Australian.

This one is a bit more socially acceptable, and reminds me of this classic Muppet Show bit:

Brain-Testing Machine. Construct brain-testing machine as follows: Make a box with boards about nine inches wide and about one foot square and as high as the width of the boards. Put a board over the top and on the bottom, boring a hole about a half inch in diameter through the top and bottom boards. It is necessary for this box to set about two inches off the table, so around three sides of the it there should be a board one by two nailed up edgewise, so that the bottom of the box will appear to be on the table. Get a piece of small rubber hose at the five-and-ten-cent store about a half inch in diameter. This should be ten or twelve feet long. Put this through the holes in the bottom and top of the box, so that one end of it just projects over the top of the box. It will be necessary to get a small tube, glass or brass, which may be procured either at a hardware store or a plumbing shop. This should be just large enough to slip the end of the rubber hose over and to make it fit tight in the hold and in the box. Then get a toy rubber balloon and slip over the end of the tube. This box is placed on the table with the tube sticking out on the back side, and then the tube is placed behind the curtain, with one person behind the curtain to make the balloon large or small at will by inflating it. It would be well also to have some sort of a dial either drawn on the side of the box or purchased and put on the box. Also have some kind of a crank that will turn other little apparatuses on the box. One the top side there should be driven a nail on each corner and a small wire tired around the entire edge of the box also, tying it to the top of the nails.

Whew. Hope you haven’t let your subscription to Popular Mechanics expire. But on to the payoff:

One person stands on the stage and announces that very recently a wonderful machine has been invented which will test brain capacity and that it operates electrically. He puts one hand on the head of an individual and the other hand on the wire of the brain-testing machine, and the balloon will indicate the capacity of the brain. This is a very humorous stunt if carried out properly. As soon as the hand is placed on the wire, if it is desirous to indicate that the person is a man of brain capacity, the balloon is immediately made large. If not, it might be made to just barely move, and perhaps just to flop over.

Ha ha, what a great gag! And here’s a way to make it an even better gag involving a bald guy!

Another variation of this is to get a bald-headed man and put lamp black on the fingers and make some black spots on his bald head. This will cause much merriment. If it is desirous to especially honor someone, the one who is blowing the balloon might blow it until it bursts, or the one on the stage might puncture the balloon with a pin or touch it off with a cigarette.

Unless, of course, you’re in Kensington, Maryland, where such frivolity with cigarettes if highly frowned upon.

If you want something a little more highbrow, you might consider this stunt instead:

Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra. The kitchen cabinet orchestra is a good stunt, but some care should be exercised in selecting those who have good voices, and there should be some rehearsing. Each player in the orchestra is provided with an instrument, to which has been attached a kazoo. This is a small, inexpensive instrument which can usually be purchase at the five-and-ten-cent store or the music store in any city. Imitations of the sounds of instruments can be made on the kazoo, and a number of good voices, especially mixed voices, give a very pleasing result.

Someone who is very clever at improvising should be asked to make the instruments. A cornet could be made from a rolling pin, with a funnel on one end and the kazoo attached to the handle on the other. A clothes basket with a mop stick and some old wires could be made into a bass viol. A bass horn can be improvised out of an inner tube attached to a funnel and some other kitchen utensil. A long-handled frying pan might be made into a violin. A washing tub would make a good brass drum, and a small dishpan would make a good snare drum. The leader should use a dish mop for a baton.

Or, in other words, just do as Spike Jones and the City Slickers do:

Here’s the best part of Cokesbury’s Stunt Night. A few years ago, for a church function, I actually wrote a series of “stunts” that were performed by other members of the congregation. Fortunately, the video tape we have of the performance has been destroyed. But I may have the script somewhere . . .

Anyway, that’s it until next week, and the much-anticipated Gipsy Party, another Cokesbury costume extravaganza. See you then.

Stunt Party Preview

First of all, you have to know that the Stunt Party isn't what you think:



The "stunts" Cokesbury writes about come from an odd use of the word at the time. To Cokesbury, a stunt is anything from a skit to a song to a story to a living tableau, like what El Guapo does in The Three Amigos. So get ready to chuckle -- or, as usual, roll your eyes -- when the party comes a-calling.