Thursday, August 23, 2007

Vacation concluded: the Murphys; Mr. Mug

The last part of the trip is worth commenting on, but it probably won’t mean much to most of the VCA. At Williams, there was an exhibit devoted to Sara and Gerald Murphy. Williamstown, for those who have never been there, is at the top left corner of Massachusetts, which makes it an extremely long and boring drive from L. L. Bean, which is a very large store open twenty-four hours a day that looks just like my closet, only more of it, with kayaks. Anyhow, the Murphys were a satisfyingly romantic couple with a few extra dollars to burn who pitched their tent in France during the 1920s, attracting a nifty crowd of artistes including Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Picasso, to name a few. Plus Gerald did a few not uninteresting paintings of his own. The biographical narrative of the couple’s lives was well done, and there were all sorts of peripheral items like letters atwixt Hemingway and Fitzgerald on how bad slash not bad Tender is the Night was (the novel is based on this émigré experience), a series of sketches that evolved into La Flauta de Pan (google-image it), some films and artifacts that evoke some of the tragic loss of the Murphys’ two young sons, etc. One of my favorite little pieces was a glimpse in a corner of a crowd scene photograph taken on the beach wherein sits Picasso’s mother. Tres formidable! (Feel free to translate that into Spanish.) For all practical purposes the Murphys are at best peripheral characters in the Modernist art world, but they are interesting ones, and it was worth the long and boring drive to see this. At which point we went home and cooked up some pesto and reintroduced ourselves to the cats, and generally got back into the business of doing what we do.

Yesterday I began negotiations with my mug man for Bump. Unfortunately the old mugs are no longer made, so I need to find new mugs. The good news is that now the old mugs are collector’s items, and I can unload the leftovers on O’C for about fifty bucks each. Anyhow, Mr. Mug and I have been back and forth, so I won’t know anything for a couple of days. The whole point of mugs is, of course, that they are a little cheaper than trophies at the edges of the eliminations. That is, five gavels for top speakers, mugs for the next five, but, of course, with the added benefit of crappy prizes. Ditto mugs and CPs for the double-octs people. This is certainly better than the occasional certificate drawn up by some tournaments: that is cheapskate writ large, while mugs are cheapskate writ small. Although I have to admit that I have been the (sole) advocate of eliminating trophies at MHL and running the thing entirely free (since all the money collected goes to hardware). But as O’C rightly points out, the trophies send a message in certain instances beyond the recipients and to the school administrations. Taking tin can speak volumes, in other words, when support for a program is needed. I can understand this. But nevertheless, at this point I’m running Bump as a fund-raiser to some extent (although not as many funds as I would like it to raise, after custodian costs, food costs, judge costs, trophy costs), so any savings I can find, I will take. Along these lines, mugs versus trophies provide about the only saving I’ve been able to wrangle. But then again, CPs cover a multitude of sins, and I’ve already got quite a supply laid in. If you’re not going to win Bump, where victory guarantees no CP, then you should break and then immediately drop, which does guarantee a CP. Every tournament has its traditions. Big Jake has 183 of them. We only have a couple, but the CP is grandfathered in. And at this point, I think, most attendees, as we say, get it. I’d hate to think that we’re giving someone a book on, say, the history of raccoon farming in Tanzania and they think we’re serious. If that doesn’t scare them away, nothing will.

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