Week Twenty-Nine: King Neptune's Carnival

All I can say after reading Cokesbury’s King Neptune’s Carnival is this:

William Wyler would be proud.

Talk about spectacle. Talk about sweeping drama. Talk about a cast of thousands, or at least dozens, in period costumes that look as new as if they’d just come off the loom even though we’re suppose to believe the folks in them have been wearing them for years. And talk about a party for which you’ll have to dragoon at least 50 friends – but who has that many; better dig deeply into your pile of Facebook acquaintances – to produce a poolside spectacle not seen since the likes of the Rowing Scene in Ben-Hur:

This will be no mere vaudevillian telling of the story of Neptune and his nubile mermaids, farting about on the shore or in the water in costumes that look like they were ripped off of curtain rods. Nay, this will be an Esther Williamsesque spectacle complete with snazzy jazz bands, impetuously looming trumpet horns (It’s a damn good thing this movie wasn’t filmed in 3-D as the first few seconds would have killed folks):

Or, since it’s being put on by you and your friends on a shoestring budget and, let’s face it, half-assed and at the last minute, it’ll probably look something like this:

Anyway, have fun.

First, the Cast of Thousands. At minimum, this is what Cokesbury says you need:

• King Neptune – Long gray beard and hair; greenish draperies; gold crown; trident.
• Mermaids and Mermen – In bathing suits.
• Tree Princess – Green costumes.
• Sea Prince – Sea-green draperies, etc.
• Mr. World, Mrs. World, Sister World, Brother World – Typical family in street costumes.
• Davy Jones – Rakish sailor suit; black patch over eye; red nose; cocked hat.
• Swimming Instructor – A typical pool instructor in bathrobe and wooden clogs.
• Mr. Stonehatchet, Mrs. Stonehatchet, Sammie Stonehatchet, Susie Stonehatchet – Cave dwellers of the stone age; simulated animal skin costume over bathing suit; man carries stone ax or club.
• Greek youth and Maiden – Short white slips; girl has ribbon-bound hair; sandals.
• Cassius and Caesar – Roman soldiers; silver cloth suit over bathing suit; silvered helmet. (May be made of gauze hat fram painted with aluminum paint.)
• William Trudgeon – Old-fashioned English bathing suit; with sleeves (short) and skirt; has sideburns or long chop whiskers.
• Richard Cavill and Two Opponents – Dressed in old-fashioned bathing suits.
• Dignified Swimmer – To swim side overarm stroke.
• American Crawl Swimmer – To swim crawl.
• European Backstroke Swimmer.
• American Backstroke Swimmer.

Warned you you’ll need a lot of friends. A lot of pool-worthy, sea-worthy friends who don’t mind reciting dialogue that likely inspired George Lucas to his Star Wars heights.

But more on that in a moment. First, you need the setting:

An ideal setting for such a pageant or water carnival as the one described in this chapter would be a pool where guests could be seated on the edge to watch the proceedings. It might be presented as a money-making program and admission charged or merely as an entertainment program. Such a program would be ideal for a civic club picnic program or a church Sunday school picnic. If the pool was lighted, it would be better to have it at night.

Yes, best have it at night. The effect of watching Neptune rise out of the water, fighting the drippiness and overall sagginess and sogginess of his grey hair and bears as he has to deliver his lines in the best imitation of Grand Moff Tarkin is probably best done against a dark background with spot illumination. That’s why the Death Star interiors are mostly black, you see.

Cokesbury has thoughtfully provided synopses of the five “episodes” which your friends will have to painstakingly rehearse and memorize:

Episode No. 1 – Mr. and Mrs. World come to the pool to find out about getting swimming lessons for their children. They begin to discuss the origin of swimming and are surprised by Father Neptune, who appears suddenly in the center of the pool. Neptune declares that he has a wonderful manuscript compiled by Davy Jones, which gives the history of swimming. He calls Davy Jones, who brings the manuscript. While Neptune reads aloud the history of swimming, shades of the departed swimmers he mentions appear and go through the actions and events credited to them in the manuscript.

This episode, of course, is accompanied not by a jazz band but by random thumps, yelps and splashes as your guests, seated on tenterhooks around the edge of the pool, nod off and either fall to the ground or into the water because the history is so boring. An excerpt from King/Father Neptune’s soliloquy on the history of swimming: 

Pictures on the walls of ancient tombs and on pottery show that very early in the world’s history swimming was practiced by various peoples. In fact, an alternate overarm stroke was practices by the Assyrians. Records also show that these people crossed streams on inflated goat-skins, which they called “musseks.” It is conceivable that this stroke was developed because they found themselves better able to pull themselves along by alternate strokes than by the rowing motion. It is quite possible, too, that other slipped from their inflated skin bags, which were the early water wings, and in reaching for them alternately developed the ability to do without them. So we will picture for you a group of Assyriansddkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Sorry. Drifted off for a moment there. Have a bad case of Keyboard Face. But you get the point. Dull as if the Trade Federation were about to pump the waiting room full of poisoned gas. And, of course, now we know why no sailor ever wants to visit Davy Jones’ locker: He makes them read his manuscripts.

The vignettes, acted out by your pressganged friends, may allow for a little more entertainment value but still border on the farcical. For Cassius and Caesar, for example, Neptune recites a bit of Cassius’ tale from the second scene of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which your friends are encouraged to act out:

I was born free as Caesar; so were you:

We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me 'Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar.

As Neptune “declaims” these lines, or so Cokesbury says, “Cassius and Caesar enter through the portal in light armor and swords and enact the scene in the water, Cassius rescuing Caesar, towing him to shallow water and bringing him out with the saddleback carry.”

And it goes on like this. Episode Two consists of mermaids and mermen paying tribute to King Neptune as he ascends to his throne. Episode Three has the mermaids and mermen compete in races, “demonstrating graceful aquatic accomplishments,” and an umbrella and nightshirt race (of which, I might add, no explanation is given).

Episode No. 4 starts out promising, but degrades into a Red Cross swimming rescue lesson:

The Tree Princess and the Sea Prince. Mermen and mermaids resting on an enchanted island. The Tree Princess descends from her tree castle and is discovered by the surprised sea nymphs. Sea nymphs welcome her and invite her to her castle beneath the sea.

Prince Neptune, heir to the sea throne, falls in love with the Tree Princess, who scorns his advances. Frightened by his pursuit, the Tree Princess flees in anger. In her haste she falls into the water of the lake. Having lived her life in the trees, she is unfamiliar with the art of swimming and sinks beneath the waves. Prince Neptune immediately dives and in making the rescue demonstrates the holds, breaks, and carries used in saving drowning persons. After bringing the apparently drowned Princess to the shore, the Prince restores her to consciousness, using the prone pressure method of resuscitation.

Grateful for her rescue, she accepts the proposal of the Prince, and accompanied by the sea nymphs, the Prince takes the Tree Princess to his father, King Neptune, who bestows his paternal blessing. They then go to his castle beneath the sea and live happily forever after.

I dunno. Needs more Hasselhoff.

All that’s left now are the refreshments, and what says King Neptune’s Carnival better than a box lunch consisting of a ham sandwich, a pimento cheese sandwich, a cup of potato salad, a deviled egg, and a cup cake? Well, maybe watermelon instead of the cup cake.

What would be better? Well, practically everything.

Anyway, be sure to tune in next week when Cokesbury presents another costume spectacular, the Old-Fashioned Party. Dust off your hoop skirts and get rats in your pompadore, buddy.

King Neptune's Preview

As a preview for this week's King Neptune's Carnival party, a quite lovely Sherman Brothers song from Bedknobs and Broomsticks:



Listening to this takes me back. The one and only movie review I wrote as a professional journalist was of the remastered Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a movie I loved as a child and still love -- probably because I've retained many childlike qualities. My review was so poorly received I never wrote another. But that's okay. I have this to remember:



And I love how David Tomlinson sings. He's kind of a Rex Harrison, in that neither of them really sing; they both kind of shout. But David Tomlinson shouts a bit more melodically.

Week Twenty-Eight: Celebrities Party

We all love a celebrity. Even Homer Simpson, in creating his Hollywood Musem of Jerks, admitted to loving celebrities to the point he put their underpants on display. So why not, the folks at the Cokesbury Party Book thought, put on a Celebrities Party so all of our chums can dress up as their favorite celebrities and pretend to be glamorous and famous and important for an evening?

Even the invitation is inspiring. Hope you know someone named Smith:

If your name is not in Who’s Who,

You can be great just the same.

Come dressed like a celebrity, any will do

If he’s in America’s Hall of Fame.

Come out to Smith’s on Friday night,

And act the part you dress.

We’ll live in the past and present both,

And have a good time? Well, I guess!

So, the long march equating celebrity status with greatness began long before anyone in the modern age realizes. But of course I’m sure there were cavemen who followed the likes of Oog, Inventor of Fire, and Mog, Inventor of the Wheel, if not for their intellectual prowess but because they were famous.

A cultural note: Cokesbury isn’t dissing their party when they suggest they “guess” they’ll have a good time at this party. The English language is ever-evolving. Back then, “I guess” was the equivalent of today’s “Of course,” or to put it more colloquially, “Duh.”

But then there’s celebrity trouble. Back then, there were no Charles Nelson Reilleys, no Paul Lyndes, or whomever is the hot, edgy character popular today among those who are not hopelessly stuck in the 1970s as I am. Cokesbury has a few celebrities to suggest.

First, Celebrities of the Past:

Alexander Hamilton (Ed: or, alternately, Aaron Burr)

Andrew Jackson

Edith Cavel

Woodrow Wilson

Knute Rockne

John Philip Sousa

Gen. Robert E. Lee

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant

Betsy Ross

Thomas Alva Edison

Abraham Lincoln

Carrie Nation

Pocahontas

(Note: It seems the name "Gertrude Ederle" flummoxed either the writer or proofreader of this text. The only reason I found out the correct spelling were the clues scattered throughout the book. I felt like a treasure hunter.)

Now, Celebrities of the Present:

Douglas Fairbanks

Mary Pickford

Herbert Hoover

Calvin Coolidge

Charles Lindbergh

Will Rogers

Admiral Richard E. Byrd

Gertrude Elder

Buddy Rogers

Charlie Chaplain

Clara Bow

Babe Ruth

Helen Wills Moody

Helen Hicks

Just to illustrate how far American culture has evolved – if evolved is the proper term for it – in the ensuing 70-some-odd years, here’s a list of celebrities one might pick today:

Perez Hilton

Al Gore

Steve Jobs

Bernie Madoff

Ronald Reagan

Bill Clinton

Larry King

Madonna

Michael Jackson

Johnny Depp

Tiger Woods

So you’ve still got your jocks, your politicians, your actors, your wonks, your captains of industry, your brainless twits (that might be redundant with politicians), and your reformers and rabble-rousers. But with a lot less clothing, particularly in the case of Madonna. And Larry King.

Guys: For a real challenge, I suggest going as Carrie Nation, pictured here. Bonus points if you can find and bring a little hatchet, and then know the story of why Miss Nation was so hatchetlery famous.

"Who is it, Norman?"

For Cokesbury Party Blog readers already a-prickle with the nationalistic bias of the lists proffered by Cokesbury, don't worry. Cokesbury admits its bias. And encourages it further (in other words, 'Heads, get ready to explode.').

The list of famous persons suggested here is confined to American names, so it would be well to use the national colors in the decorations. Streamers of red, white, and blue, with bunting and flags, would be a very effective setting for such a group of people.

You might have to go to Wal-Mart to buy more bunting. Put a plastic bag over your head so your Whole Foods friends don't see you.

Now we all know dressing up as celebrities is only hafl the fun. We also need to act like celebrities in order to make the evening a success. This is probably a good reason not to dress like modern celebrities, whose behavior as of late has boiled down to defrauding via Ponzi schemes, organizing dog fights, getting pancreatic cancer and inventing even more useless, expensive gadgetry, and bloviating. Instead, Cokesbury suggests the following: 

Have the impersonations which are given below written on slips of paper and put in a box. The lader draws them out one by one; and if she draws number seven, she starts counting at the head of the line of guests and counts to seven. The person who is number seven must do the impersonation indicated. In every case she starts from the same person, counting frmo that person to the number whis is on the slip of paper. The following are suggested impersonations:

 Betsy Ross making the flag

Babe Ruth knocking a home run

Charlie Chaplin making a movie

Gertrude Elder swimming in the English Channel (Ed: Ah! One of the clues to Gertrude Edler's real identity!)

John Philip Sousa directing a symphony orchestra (Ed: Didn't he direct marching bands?)

Mayor James J. Walker making an after-dinner speech. (Ed: I have NO idea who this guy is. Maybe he's the guy who said "Dy-no-MITE!")

Herbert Hoover fishing

Admiral Byrd flying over the North Pole

Tom Mix on horseback

Charles Lindbergh making love to Anne Lindbergh (Ed: Honest, this is exactly how this suggestion is written. Please keep it G-rated, for the children.)

Aimee Semple McPherson delivering a sermon. (Ed: Make one of your liberal friends do this, but a la "Beavis and Butthead" in No Laughing)

 

 

Martha and George Washington doing the minuet

Clara Bow flirting

Calvin Coolidge riding his mechanical horse

Buddy Rogers directing a jazz orchestra

 

You know, I kinda like the image of one of our less-colorful presidents using a mechanical horse as an exercise device, and "whooping it up" like a cowboy as he rode it. All we seem to get nowadays are Vietnam vets and community organizers with good pectoral muscles. Can't have everything, I guess.

 

 

"Yee-Haw!"

 

But let's move on to celebrating another of the 1930's presidents, one Herbert Hoover, in a game that I'm sure would make Archie Bunker go postal:

The Stock Market Has Crashed. The guest impersonating Herbert Hoover should start this game off. Have him to rise as the guests are seated in a circle with all the chairs filled, and as he calls guests by their famous names they rise and folow him around. When he says, "The stock market has crashed," all try to get charis. The one left out has to continue the game, calling the names as before.

One final game, then we're on to refreshments.

The Head of George Washington. Give guests a half cake of Ivory soap and a paring knife. The boys, of course, may use their pocket knives. Any kind of sharp instrument could be substituted for a paring knife. Give a prize to the one who can sculpture the best head of George Washington. Newspaper whould be provided so that the scraps of paper will not get on the floor.

This game, in its four simple sentences, is a minefiled of anachronisms for modern man. Soap, fortunately, is universal, though with the advent of liquid soap, such carving activity might be harder to accomplish. And, of course, no one dares nowaways to carry their own personal pocket knives or any other sharp instruments for fear of being expelled from school for having it on school property, kicked off an airplane, tasered if one brings said sharp instrument out in public or frowned upon by the same people who want to put padding around poles in London to prevent texticated individuals from injuring themselves in a collision. Pad the world, Mitch Benn said. Save it from a soap-carving activity. Then there's the newspaper thing. You might get away from this by lining the floor with iPod instructions, but they're so damn small you'd need a thousand of them to do any good. And you can't have it outside, what with all those phosphates from the soap leaching into the soil. Maybe you'd better collect the shavings in a bowl, invest in a soap-making kit, or just bag the whole thing and use the suggested alternate refreshment as carving material, as there's no way anyone is going to eat it.

Refreshments, as suggested by Cokesbury, include the mundane (cake and ice cream with Boston tea) to the absolutely frightening. And I quote:

Another suggestion would be a salad of cottage cheese, covering the cheese with crushed pineapple, and topping with mayonnaise. Serve with crackers and coffee.

And barf bags.

That's it, thankfully, until next week and the gala Fish Under the Sea Dance. No, wait. The gala King Neptune's Carnival, which Cokesbury describes as a "water carnival or pageant). Bring your swim fins and snorkel. Leave the cottage cheese at home.

Barf-O-Rama Warning

One of the refreshment suggestions offered by the Cokesbury party Book for its Celebrities Party got five out of five Mr. Yuk Faces from testers polled at the Cokesbury Party Blog International Headquarters, and that was just from reading the list of ingredients. There is no way in heaven we were actually going to make this refreshment item because we’re fairly sure this unholy combination of ingredients is really a method Wiccans use to summon demons. We cannot be held responsible for queasiness or any outright barfing that occurs if anyone gets sick reading the refreshment description. And if anyone actually makes this concoction and then eats it, please send us a culinary review, including a photo that clearly shows the Death X’s over your eyes. Thank you.

Costume Head Start

Just in case you want to get a head start on costumes for next week's Celebrities 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!