GAMES NIGHT II

Last night we gathered with my cousins again for a combined March B-day celebration (there are 5 of us in my family with March B-days) and Games Night – both celebrated over a hearty celebration of Mexican food and Margaritas.

Jim clarifying the rules of the game

The first game we played was Can You Name 5? The point behind it is to beat the other team at naming 5 items in a category. Sometimes your team plays independently, then other times if you land on a “flip flop” space your team takes turns with the other team naming 5 of something without duplicating (if you duplicate, your team loses that round). I think the Girls team won, but am not entirely sure since we were both tied at the end and had difficulty rattling off multiple items in multiple categories in rapid succession (which is how you win).

We learned that we’re lousy with history because most of us had difficulty coming up with a complete list of the 13 colonies (though we only had to name 5 of course). My sister’s husband who teaches history just shook his head at us. My male cousin thought it was funny that we girls knew more brands of toilet paper than the names of all the colonies, commenting that that was probably because we were often the ones to shop for that particular item. Sad, but true.

One of the funnier answers last night was shouted out in response to the category of “5 Foods with Milk in Them” Another of my cousins blurted out “Cereal.” After we were all done laughing my sister went in to her pantry and grabbed a box of “Dippin’ Dots” (a type of ice cream in which the ice cream is the consistency of tiny balls) cereal which backed up her answer.

I was impressed by my younger (by about 10 years) teammates who mostly had no trouble rattling off lists of things, making me feel old as I had to take a little time to think about most of the categories. The power of youth I guess.

The second game we played was Caption This: A party game of the internet’s most epic fails. In a nutshell, this is like Apples to Apples for millennials and the generations that come after them (whatever they’re called). Someone commented, “I feel too old for this game.” I have to admit I felt the same way, but still found it a refreshing difference from playing the same old version(s) of Apples to Apples. The nice thing about this game is that you don’t have to play it sitting around the table as we sprawled out in my sister’s living room and just passed around the box lid to collect the various cards people chose as their response to the funny picture card we passed around.

For those maybe not familiar with the concept spun off from Apples to Apples, a picture card is passed around (which is apparently a photo of something crazy taken off the internet) and you choose one of the 7 cards in your hand as a possible caption for the photo. I usually found this easier than some other variations of this game, in spite of the fact that I didn’t always understand the context of the quotes printed on my cards.

Whoever’s quote is chosen by the judge wins that picture card and the person with the most picture cards after however many rounds is the winner. I think my sister won with 4 picture cards, whereas my husband and I had about 3 each.

"Sit on it!"

(the title refers to my favorite "Happy Days" catch-phrase from way back in the day)

“Since you sit in a chair, it immediately becomes an intimate object, one that you constantly test by sitting…” -- Wendell Castle

I think chairs are something we probably all take for granted and are certainly under-appreciated as both functional and as art. Today my husband and I saw some pretty cool chairs – some that I could see owning and using myself, whereas others are probably better as eye candy.

The chairs we saw are part of an exhibit called “When Attitudes Become Chairs” at the Pizzuti Collection in downtown Columbus. We’re lucky they decided to hold over this exhibit as it was originally only going to be there until the end of January I think. Perhaps all the horrible winter weather kept away the crowds, so maybe that influenced the decision.

According the Pizzuti Collection website, “In recent years the world of furniture design has been completely transformed. Once a fairly restrictive field in which form tended to follow function, it is today one of the most dynamic of all creative disciplines. Across a wide range of approaches – sometimes powered by new technology, sometimes simply by their imaginations – artists and designers alike are dramatically expanding the possibilities for furniture. This exhibition focuses exclusively on cutting-edge chair forms, including works by Ron Arad, Wendell Castle, Shiro Kuramata, Humberto and Fernando Campana, and Gaetano Pesce, Donald Judd and John Chamberlain; as well as Joris Laarman, whose high-tech and high-concept designs are shown in particular depth.” 

These were the first two chairs we saw – both of which look like someone took the frame of a papasan and glued various stuffed animals to it. Still, I bet they’re both pretty comfy and given the chance I wouldn’t have minded trying them out for comfort.

This was my favorite chair as a piece of art:

This was my favorite set of chairs as practical, but definitely not comfy. I could see these fitting right in inside one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses.

Here's a photo of the chairs with the matching table (from the exhibit guide I bought):

The back-story of these chairs according to the gallery guide I bought says, “In the early 1970s, Donald Judd began to design furniture, at first a wooden bed and a sink, for his loft in Soho. He returned to the discipline a few years later when establishing himself at Marfa, Texas, where ‘there was no furniture and none to be bought, either old or new.”

 

If I had my choice of chairs to actually sit in and use, these would be my two choices:

I like this one for the colors and the fact that I'm small enough to fit in this chair perfectly.

Who doesn't love a good chaise lounge?

This was my husband, Andrew’s favorite chair (at least in that particular room):

 Here’s a close-up of the detail:

Award for best re-use of a disposable material:

(that's bubble wrap in case you can't tell) - I bet that chair would be really sticky to sit on during the summer.

Exhibit Dates: Sep 08, 2018 - April 28, 2019