Cakewalks; or Walking on Eggshells

If ever you thought the dance routines of today were odd, take a gander at this:

I don’t explain them. I just find them on YouTube. But this is, they tell me, a cake walk. In musical form. Not the nasty cake walk that has a history in the suppression of African-American peoples. Yeah, that same carnival game you play with your kids? Probably racist. May as well sit down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton as you’re walking. Right? Or is it racist? Maybe not. But you PC folks out there, better be careful, just in case. Next time yhou’re invited to a cakewalk, don’t go. Stay home. Close your curtains. Do not let anyone in the house, or they’ll bring un-PC thoughtcrime in.

Or you could just get over your hang-ups and enjoy the rest of this post. Believe me, when we get to the Minstrel Show in a couple of weeks, those hang-ups of yours will get considerable airing.

I knew this, but then again, I never knew: Scott Joplin wrote a Cake Walk. Swipesy, to be precise:

Even Debussy got into the act:

And it denigrated into this:

Boring as hell. The only problem with taking my kids to cake walks is that they win them and then we have sugared-up kids bouncing off the walls, even when they're outside.

Just think, kids: Something you think is cool and hip and groovy today will, someday, be as boring as a kiddie cakewalk. It’ll happen to you! Just be sure you’re wearing an onion on your belt at the time . . .

Week Thirty-Nine: Halloween Party

Do you remember the killer spook alley you put together with your friends in your Dad’s garage when you were eleven years old? Remember how cool that was, with the eerie sound effect recorded playing in the background as your friends wandered through, getting spooked by your closer friends in dopey costumes, fans blowing gunk in their faces, and such? I hope you kept the plans. . .



. . . because you’re going to need them:

Initiation. Guests should be met at the door by a witch and conducted through a dark passage with a flashlight which is turned off most of the time. This passage should be infested with strange noises like grunts and groans and screams and the hooting of owls. A witch or ghost in the passage extends to the guest a hand which is a glove stuffed with ice-cold sawdust. An electric fan may be arranged in the passage so that it will blow strips of paper into the passing guests. Dress up someone as a dog, in crepe paper, with an improvised tail and false face. This dog should jump out and bark at the passing guests. Weird noises can be made by dragging chains over the floor. One of the ghosts may use a feather duster to tickle the faces of guests. A ghost on stilts has a terrifying effect. One of the ghost guides tells of the death of a friend and directs the hands of the guests to parts of the body. These are placed on plates, and the plates are on chairs or tables. The eyes are represented by two hulled grapes, the tongue by a raw oyster, the heart by a piece of liver, the lungs a wet sponge, the brain a dish of spaghetti.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Perfect party planning involves, first of all, getting together the proper items needed to have the party go without a hitch. This is what you’ll need for Cokesbury’s Halloween Costume Extravaganza, in addition to friends willing to show up in costumes:

Lard
One raw oyster
Charlie Brown Halloween sheet
Chewing gum
A box of toothpicks
Spanish moss
Stilts
One glove, electrified
Sawdust
Ice for the sawdust
Flour

And what better way to augment that epic list than with two epic and traditionally irksome Cokesbury party invitations?

If friendly ghosts you’ve never seen,

Come to our house on Halloween

From seven to eleven the hours to stay,

Dressed up in such as unfamiliar way

That we won’t know you from we don’t know who,

But over your costume don’t worry and fuss,

Just dress in a way that will puzzle us,

Either spooky or fancy or all in a muss.

Our home in the trees with fun we will fill,

Reply if you please. Yours, Mildred and Bill.

Remember, for the sake of rhyme, it’s better if you and your spouse go change your names to Mildred and Bill right now. No, I don’t care who you call Mildred.

For this next invitation, Cokesbury says, you’ll need some “small owls and witches” from the five-and-ten-cent store. I can only assume they mean paper owls and witches, since I refuse to believe that, even in the 1930s, such items could be purchased in bulk outside of Hogwarts. Nevertheless, place one owl at the top of the page, with two witches at the bottom. Ink your invitation thusly:

On Friday evening, October twenty-third

The intermediate Endeavorers will meet this wise old bird.

At the witch’s den you’ll meet your fate,

At eight o’clock. Now don’t be late.

One hundred thirty-five Atlantic Avenue, Palm Beach,

is where you’ll have this Halloween treat.

Wear a mask to hide your pretty face,

And be on hand to take your place.

There’ll be cats and ghosts both great and small,

And a jolly good time will be had by all.

Cordially yours, The two (pictures of witches).

This second invitation presents several problems to the would-be party-thrower. Though Palm Beach sounds nice this time of year, it’s hardly practical to throw a Halloween party there when you live in, say, Firth, Idaho. And it’s always a red flag warning to me when someone has to say in their invitation that you’ll have fun if you attend the party. To me, that’s a given, unless, of course, you’re going to a party hosted by SpongeBob SquarePants. Or Roseanne Barr:



Wait a sec. @ 1:03, who decided to invite this guy:

On that note, it’s time to introduce your friends to the ghastly ghouls you’ve also invited to the party, viz:

Meeting the Queen of Halloween. After the guests are brought into the room where the party is to be held, hey should be directed to the Queen of Halloween. The Queen of Halloween is seated on a high chair and has a battery connected to her hand charged with a slight shock. When they shake hands they receive a shock. This will be very amusing to those who have proceeded and will cause much merriment.

Bluebeard’s Den. Have an adjoining room for Bluebeard’s Den. Get some girls or women to pose as Bluebeard’s seven murdered wives. They are arranged behind a shoot through which holes have been cut large enough for them to get their heads through. Red paint or red coloring of some kind should be sprinkled over the sheet. The faces of the girls should be powdered so that they will look ghastly. The light should be dim. Bluebaeard is impersonated by a man who pantomimes the way he killed his wives. He may kill one with a hatchet, cut off one’s head with a butcher knife, shoot one with a toy pistol so that it will make a report, choke one to death, stab one, etc. As he goes through the motion of killing each one in turn, they let out a scream. This screaming and the report of the pistol attracts the attention and excites the curiosity of the guests in the adjoining room. The guests should be brought in about four at a time. If the number of guests is not large, bring them in two at a time.

In other words, it’s kind of like a live version of a Scooby Doo episode, but without the chase scene in which the gang flits from door to door in a hallway, barely missing but eventually encountering and de-masking the villain. Oh. And no bad ‘60s pop music, either. Unless you really want some.



Your next game should make the germophobes in the clan happy, especially if you suggest a model-swap and chew afterwards.

Modeling. Give each guest a piece of chewing gum. They are to chew this gum. Give each one a cardboard about four inches square on which is written the name of something they are to model. Pas around toothpicks which are to be used as tools with which to do the modeling. Some suggested models are: airplane, automobile, lame, horse, cow, church, witch, jack o’lantern, turtle, cat, etc.

Next, Cokesbury insults you be assuming you don’t know how to divide by four:

Apple Contest. Divide into groups of four each. This can be done by counting off 1,2,3,4. Give each No. 1 an apple and a paring knife. No. 1 is to peel the apple and pass it on to No. 2. No. 2 must quarter it, No. 3 core it and drop it into a bowl of water. No. 4 must take it out of the water and eat it. The quartet that finishes first wins.

This is true: Your party planning has reached a nadir if you engage in this game in a non-ironic manner. If, however, you have a lot of guests and a lot of apples you want converted into apple pie filling for bottling, having the game repeat several times and having your guests count off by three so the apple eater is eliminated could help you get out of a rather nasty fall chore.

And speaking of nasty, now, we get to the lard of the matter:

Floating a Needle. Give each couple needles. Provide some lard to great them with and bowls full of water. See which couple can make their needles float. After the needles have floated, it is humorous to watch them. They will do strange things that will cause merriment. They may cling together or go to the opposite sides of the bowl.

Ever notice how much stuff that goes on at a Cokesbury party “causes merriment?” Now, I’ve been to a few Halloween parties, and I can think of many things that “caused merriment” that didn’t involve greased-up needles, including the post-Halloween moment when one of the more drunken attendees woke up the next morning in bed with a bearded man. Neither one of them were too happy, especially after the photos surfaced. Good thing this was in the pre-Internet days, or I might be able to find them even as I type.

One more game to round out the evening:

A List of Bad Omens. Give a prize to the one who can write the longest list of bad omens or superstitions. Have the one who has prepared the longest list in a given time to read his list. Others may be asked to read other superstitions not read by the winner. The following is a list:

1) Don’t wipe on the same towel with anyone else. It means you will fight.
2) Don’t start anything on Friday. You will never finish it.
3) It is bad luck to return to the house after you have left it for a journey.
4) It is bad luck to hear a dog howl at night.
5) Don’t kill hogs on the decrease of the moon; they will fry into grease when you put them in the pan.
6) Throw an old shoe after newlyweds.
7) If you put on any garment wrong side outward, it is bad luck to change.
8) It is bad luck to sneeze before breakfast.
9) It is bad luck to rock an empty chair.

Of course, the worst omen possible would be that the host consulted the Cokesbury Party Book (or this humble blog) as a guide in planning his or her party.

Some of these omens confuse me. Did the believers in No 3, then, believe it was better luck to torch their house and, upon returning from their journey, buy a new one? Or was there a kind of statue of limitations on the omen. Suppose I went back home after two weeks. Would that be okay, as opposed to returning after only 15 minutes’ absence? The anal retentive and gullible need more clarification. And as for No. 6, am I allowed to hit the newlyweds with the shoe, or is that considered bad form? And is bad form worse or better than bad luck? And No. 5 deserves a peer-reviewed scientific study, not like the stuff they’ve done at the MET or for the IPCC.

Now, on to the details. Cokesbury includes the next item almost last, which seems kind of backward, but then again, I’m not a party-planning genius from Palm Beach circa 1932. They must have had sentient pumpkins and cornstalks back then, too.

Decorations. At this season of the year there are always decorations on sale at the bookstores and the five-and-ten-cent stores. You will want crepe paper in orange and black with some red. Black cats, skeletons, and paper jack o’lanterns should be in evidence. The lights should be dimmed with crepe paper or by the use of colored bulbs. In sections where they can be obtained, cornstalks and pumpkins will aid in decorating. In tropical sections use Spanish moss.

Now it’s refreshment time:

Refreshments. Serve any convenient refreshments. Pumpkin or apple pie would be good. Use Halloween napkins. Paper plates of Halloween design may also be secured. Orange and black candy may be used as part of the refreshments. Ice-cream may be secured in Halloween colors. Cookies in shape of moon, cat, or witch may be used.

That’s right. Go ahead and use some of the apples your guests just peeled, cored and quartered for you. They did the work, so they deserve a little pie.

Wow, boys and girls, wasn’t that scary? Whooooo, I thought so. Almost as scary as Count Floyd’s spooky chiller story, “Slinky: The Toy from Hell.”



And be sure to tune in next week – literally – for Cokesbury’s romp with that amazing, funky new technology at its Radio Party. So be ready for some static, I guess.

Week Thirteen: All-Fools' Party

Caution: You are really, really going to see Cokesbury go crazy here. Absolutely bonkers. So bonkers, in fact, Cokesbury prefaces the party with the following:

As a person who is foolish is said to be "nutty" or "a nut," the nut idea has gotten into April first. Stunts and pranks are permissible on this day. Funny situations are the vogue.

The vogue, folks. The vogue. All I can say is, get ready, in the exact fashion of the Get Ready Man from James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times. The end of the worrrrrrlllllld!

On All-Fool's Night its our intention
to gather for a rube convention,
Or Nuts with gather at the hour of eight;
We know no more, but don't be late.
Bring a dime store toy that makes a noise,
and leave behind your dignity and poise.

In the invitation, of course, more evidence that Cokesbury will do anything for a rhyme.

Ready for the first Cokesbury joke? Here goes:

The Setting for the Party. One suggestion would be to have everything backward. The hostess will meet the guests at the kitchen door and ask them to come again, and express the hope that they have enjoyed the party. The clock might strike eleven as the guests enter, and the refreshments may be served at the beginning of the party instead of at the close.

If it is not desirable to follow out the above suggestion, another idea would be to put a sign on the front door: "Wet paint; use the back door (or the side door)." Then have another sign on the back door (or the side door) which says "April Fool. Go back and use the front door."

Have some surprises. Put noise-making balloons under the chair cushions and have some jack-in-the-boxes sitting around. Have some candy made out of cotton and covered with chocolate setting on the table marked, "Have one," or perhaps not marked at all.

Gadzooks, folks. Backwards greetings! Wet paint! Farty cushions and jack-in-the-boxes! Candy made from cotton, cleverly laid out with a sign inviting the chumps who fell for the other jokes to dig in! Cokesbury is one madcap prankster. Of course, for the anal retentive guests, it would be fun to watch them bounce from back door to front door (or side door) all night until either frustration, exhaustion, or pity on the part of the other guests demonstrated in the removal of one of the signs, finally got the better of them. And pardon me for being a suspicious one, but any bowl of candy laid out with signs and arrows pointing towards it inviting me to consume sends up red flags. I don't care if it's in the White House, I'm not taking any.

On to the next game:

The Foot That Comes Off. Require all the boys, instead of shaking hands with the girls, to shake the girl's foot instead. A row of girls are seated with one leg across the other knee, and the last girl has improvised an artificial leg, which when shaken comes off. This might be made by stuffing a stocking and putting a shoe on it and arranging so that the real foot and leg will be concealed. The room should be dark, and the boys should be brought in one at a time and asked to shake the foot of the girls present. This might be arranged in another way, and the host might put up a sign that, instead of shaking the hand of the hose, it is asked that guests shake the foot, and the foot, when shaken, might be arranged to that it will come off.

So aside from Cokesbury blowing the joke with the title of the game, this is, at the fundament of it all, kinda weird. Again, great amusement may be had in watching the germophobic anal retentives attempt this game.

Now, remember those noise-makers you were supposed to bring? Here's where they come into play. They're tossed into a "grab bag," and, one at a time, guests pull something out of the bag. "These are then opened," Cokesbury says, barely containing a giggle, "and the guests will get much amusement by playing with them." Perhaps you might want to start this game during the previous one, so the guests waiting for the others to come back from shaking the girls' feet might have something to do to amuse themselves aside from re-inflating the farty cushions.

The next game, you'll find, is best suited for those who have many friends of the sweaty-palm variety.

Threading the Needle. Select three or four persons for a needle-threading contest. The leader tells them that the object is to see who can thread the needle quickest with one eye closed. The needle is easily threaded, but the fun comes when the guests see that the ones who have held their hands over one eye of the contestants have had lampblack on the, so that one eye of each is quite black.

Oh yeah. This is where your Uncle Harvey got the old lampblack joke. And what, pray tell, is lamp black? Traditionally, it is said, lampblack is soot collected from oil lamps. That's why you need friends of the sweaty-palmed variety, so no one will suspect the eye-hider has anything on their hands but the expected bodily excretions. To make lampblack of your own, you may use soot form a fireplace -- which nowadays, in some circles, are as anachronistic as oil lamps, come to think about it. So here's some commercially-available lampblack for you. Don't worry, you Gen. Ripper folks out there; these folks promise their lampblack is of unquestionable purity, being extracted from oil furnaces. Again, a great, great game for the anal retentives in your crowd.

But that's enough of forcing guests to shake stinky feet and wash greasy soot off their faces. This is an All-Fool's Party, after all, which, according to Cokesbury, implies also forcing your guests to admire your rubbish:

The Art Museum. While some are guessing the name of [a game we skipped in this description because of its lameness], others might be taken to the museum. There they will find the following exhibits:

• The Watch on the Rhine (Watch on an orange peeling)
• A diamond Pin (A dime and pin)
• A Marble Bust (A broken marble)
• A Swimming Match (A match floating on water)
• Peacemakers (A pair of scissors)
• One-Eyed Monster (Sewing needle)
• Tamed Groundhog (Links of sausage)
• A Texas Necktie (A rope noose)
• Paraside (A pair of dice)
• Slippers (Banana peel)
• A Perfect Foot, Twelve Inches (A ruler one foot long)
• Something to Adore (A doorknob)
• Champion American Tumblers (Three glasses)
• Ten Carrot Ring (Ring made from ten carrots)
• Lost Souls (Pair of old shoe souls)
• Something Out of King Tut's Tomb (Anything not in it)

You know, the depressing part is that I just threw out a pair of old shoes. Now I may have to purposely wear out a pair just to go along with this magnificent All-Fool's game. You can probably borrow the Texas Necktie from the same fellow who knew what KKK stood for at the Try-Your-Luck Party last week.

Forget that. On to the next game, which requires your whistle!

Are You What We Suspected? Prepare sheets for each guest marked off as the one illustrated below. They are to fill in these blanks. It will require at least ten or fifteen minutes for this. The leader should explain that the idea is to use words that others will not think about. After the leader's whistle blows and all have stopped writing, grade as follows: Score ten for each person having word no one else has. If two ahve it, nine each; three, eight each; four, seven each; more than four, it counts as one. Take off five for each space that is left blank. This is a good writing game and could easily be made to consume half an hour.

So now your party is over, fun and madcap and nutty as it was. Time for refreshments, which, again, involve your rubbish:

Serve a salad in a banana skin. Carefully remove the fruit from the skin and fill with Waldorf salad, potato salad, tuna fish salad, or any other salad. Conceal two olives under the two halves of an English walnut shell. Serve this to the guests, and then later bring in a drink. Hot chocolate with whipped cream or punch.

And when someone asks you to explain the concealed olives in the English -- yes, it has to be English -- walnut shell, shrug and say you don't know, because Cokesbury doesn't explain it at all. Sorry.

Now that's over, you might think we're past the lame happenings of the first of April. Not so. Next week, it's the April-Fish Party, which promises a lot of madcap comedy and other delights. But, alas, no lampblack. But lots to do with fish.