games, words, names, and cats

[calimac]

It is appropriate that I record on LJ the occasions on which I find myself doing something a little outside my ordinary routine, so allow me to convey that I spent yesterday evening in a precarious hilltop apartment playing board games (Apples to Apples and Cranium) with a passel* of theology grad students, most of them previously unknown to me.

Or me to them. In Apples to Apples, the active player takes a card from the adjectives deck and announces its contents, whereupon the other players look through their hands of noun cards (some proper nouns, some common nouns) and each pick the one they have that they think best fits the active player's idea of that adjective. The selected noun cards are tossed face-down on the table to anonymize them, the active player flips them over as a group and looks through them, discussing them aloud, and whoever's noun card is picked gets a point.

My adjective card read "inspirational, exquisite," and among the choices I was given were Jennifer Lopez and Miles Davis. Somebody doesn't know my tastes in music; I don't have a single recording by either one. ("So who is your favorite musical performer?" Trevor Pinnock, I replied. No reaction.) Instead, I picked a common noun: Glaciers. On our trip to Alaska, B. and I were most moved by standing at the foot of a glacier and feeling the cold air blowing off it. That was exquisite, and possibly inspirational.

In Cranium, our team excelled at the spelling-words-backwards test, which is harder than it sounds. As the brother of a man who not only spells but pronounces words backwards at the drop of a hat, I ought to have picked up some genetic skill at this.

Also: If you spread your board game out on the floor, and you have a cat, the cat will immediately come and sit on it. On being removed, the cat will immediately return and sit on it again.

*ed. note: check An Exaltation of Larks for the proper collective noun to refer to "theology grad students"

Comments

[ckd]

It's not just floors. Saturday's game of Titan at yendi's place had to be defended against all three cats, despite being on a table....

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the person who played the J-Lo card can really have meant that her *music* was inspirational or exquisite. I'd be inclined to suspect a more carnal inspiration...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Possibly, but these were theology grad students. They were worldly, but there was no crudity in our conversations, one reason I enjoyed the evening. And if that was the reason, they know my taste in pulchritude no more than in music.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

If you think carnality need be crude, you're well suited to the thin gruel of that sort of theologians I suppose.

As may be, sometimes you go to war with the cards you want, sometimes you play Apples to Apples with the Vice President you got. The poor fellow may simply not have had a better choice in his hand, whatever his (presumably minimal) knowledge of your tastes.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I've been uncomfortable in the company of people who do equate carnality with crudeness, yes.

And if you think lack of carnality equals thin gruel, you know nothing about theologians in general, these in particular, or me.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

A tome? A pulpit? A synod.

I'll ask gramina, who has an MA in theology and church history. But synod works best for me.

I'd love to play Apples to Apples with theology grad students.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I've petted Miles Davis -- that's the name of the dog at the salon where I get my hair cut.

[benjd.livejournal.com]

I host or attend board games parties regularly here in Pittsburgh, and Apples to Apples is one of several games my friends and I play. It's one of my favorites. One time when the active player was somebody I knew to be very conservative politically and he pulled "brilliant," I did not hesitate for one minute in throwing in my card that said "Rush Limbaugh." Sure enough, my guest picked that card, and I got a point. Ah, the principles I will compromise to win a game!

[stephan-laurent.livejournal.com]

Hehe, hilarious post. I could just picture the whole situation.