Bridges and Boos (scary kind)
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Hello everyone! How are you? Hello!
As I told you, way back in the beginning of this newsletter, I will always close any narrative arcs I establish. A couple newsletters ago, I told you that mini-Wellycon, the miniature boardgame convention, was coming soon and I might end up on a boardgaming council. And in this newsletter, I tell you that Wellycon happened this weekend and I was but a humble volunteer, who fucked up filling out my hours on the shared doc so that the volunteer coordinator had to email me directly and get me to do it again, and so I am fairly certain I will never reach council. BUT! the boardgames were fun and the arc is completed.
Lemme tell you about Wellycon!
Wellycon took place at the Thorndon Bridge Club, a beautiful two story brick building filled with a history that I found honestly discombobulating. I am continually struck by how little I know of the past, how it makes a sort of storybook sense to me, but I cannot comprehend the fine details. I can understand that at some point, before my time, people were really into the card game Bridge. I assume it happened during some black and white period of my grandma's youth, and it was a craze that took over a generation and then got replaced by television or the internet or something.
What's hard to comprehend is just how hard people went for Bridge while it was a craze. I've never seen someone play bridge, or mention a bridge night in passing, but there are so many artifacts of its existence. Used bookshops are filled with Bridge books. Go to any used bookstore here, go to their games section, and you will find: a big glossy book called 'KIDS Extreme Guide to Minecraft', a memoir about poker, a book of close-up magic, and then 35 different books on Bridge strategy. None of them are recent, all seem to have been written before 1975, yet new ones show up in the bookstores every week. There seems to always be someone selling their footlocker of bridge books, books that have no repeats with the ones already on the shelves, and the shops keep buying them...so there must still be a market.
There are multiple bridge clubs here, but they are seemingly empty save for when rented out for other parties. The Thorndon club is this beautiful, massive, brick block with a "For Lease" sign draped across it, which added a bittersweet quality, like we are walking amidst elegant ruins. The club was divided into two main halls, with a big kitchen in between. China hutches were in the corner, filled with trophies, and the central room had several bookshelves, filled of course with Bridge books, with a box next to one shelf filled with even more bridge books, but marked as "free to a good home". This means there was some discussion among the club members, who looked at their 200 books, decided the 30 they could part with, and the 170 that were essential. Lining the walls were photos of previous bridge champions and bridge club presidents and all of them looked so damn cool. Multiple black and white headshots of ladies with lit cigarettes in their mouth, looking away from the camera, one cheek shielded by a splayed hand of cards.
As a volunteer, I got to go up to the top floor, where we had our break room. Up there was a closed office door that said "United Presbyterian Church". Such power this Bridge club has, that it can fit an entire church inside it!! I had twin romantic notions of the church, either it was an extremely small congregation that only needed a modest room (which could either be both cultishly disturbing or quirky romcom cute), or that this room was an office and the church used the entire hall for its services--moving the tables away before mass and setting out a row of seats, sweeping away the pretzel and tea remnants from Saturday night's Bridge game, cleaning up the religious sacraments before the afternoon Bridge players arrive.
Being in the space put some bittersweet ache in me, of not knowing what a modern equivalent of this sort of space is -- enjoying a card game so much that you wanna build a space for it that will last generations, having the weekly meetings with friends where you just sit at a table, listen to Benny Goodman, and play cards. The only modern space I could think of, that serves a similar role, is the RESPAWN ESPORTS CENTRE on Manners Street, above the supplements store, with a front entrance that somehow looks like an alleyway, bug-splattered windows, and the sign advertising that it doubles as a coworking space, so you can hold zoom meetings in between rounds of Fortnite. It... it just doesn't have the same charm to me!
There must be something about the game of Bridge that makes it lasting, that keeps the clubs around, and has people turn eloquent and write countless books revisiting its bidding strategy. I looked up how to play on Bridge NZ (https://www.nzbridge.co.nz/about-the-game.html), and there the author says that it's not that hard, and welcoming to beginners, and bridge is "...both humbling and enabling, and occasionally a glimpse of beauty beyond anything you could imagine . . ."
Count me in! The next bridge club meeting is on the 10th, and Angelica and I will most definitely be making it. New narrative arc begun!
Airhorn!!! November 3rd!
A couple emails ago I talked about the hot new Newtown comedy show Airhorn, and then I said it was postponed, and now I am closing another sweet arc by telling you Airhorn is next friday, the 3rd, and it's going to be so good!
We have an abundance of comedy this month, and so far(knock on wood) no one is feeling sick and the flu that hit our humble harbour has passed. So now I am feeling increasingly hyped about seeing Alayne Dick and Booth the Clown and Hoani Hotene and Sandy Burton and Lesa Macleod-Whiting and Anna Maclean, and for them to make you laugh as lights shoot around the souped-up hall and your body is filled with warmth and airhorn blasts fill any remaining hollow the light has not reached. And then we'll all go to The Office and have a beer, cider, or sundae! You can't beat that for a Friday!
I am currently in the manic,all-powerful feeling of putting on a show. Next week will come the stress and panic and wondering whether I've ever made anyone laugh at all--but right now I'm so stoked about how the show is going to go that I feel like I could eat a planet.
If you haven't yet, grab a ticket!
Spooky Scary Stories TOO?!
If you can't wait until next week to see a great show(and honestly why should you?), then TONIGHT my friends Trent and Sachie of Monfu are putting on Sachie's Super Spooky Show, a panel show/cabaret/frightfest where different comedians tell their real life spooky tales. I'll be on it, telling about a real paranormal encounter I had, and will try to make it both poo-your-pants frightening and pee-your-pants funny. It's a hard task, but I am feeling confident. You should come tonight, dressed as a dracula, and check it out! But be sure to bring a change of clothes(cos yr gonna poo and pee your pants!)
Zach's Review Corner
Lil short one here, but I am in love with Easyfun's new ep's: Electric and Acoustic. Acoustic came out this month and it is just 20 minutes of satisfying candy. If you like PC Music and Charli XCX and music that makes you feel like you are driving, windows down, in the morning heat, toward your summer job, and it's a montage, and you're also a neuromancer...than these are the songs for you!
Thank you for reading my email! See you on a Friday!