BG Holiday Party Gets Inspired
Each year it gets better. The Annual Bailey Gardiner White Elephant/Yankee Swap/Santa-Gone-Bad gift exchange has become the thing of legends, and 2009 was a year to be remembered.
Last Friday night, we gathered at my home for our company holiday party, and as tradition holds, the evening topper was the gift exchange. This is the type of gift swap where you draw numbers, choose a wrapped gift from under the tree, and then spend the rest of the evening trying to either protect it or get someone to steal it. Mind you, the price limit on these gifts is always $20 and being the creative folks that we are, our team makes that twenty bucks go a looooonng way. A few favorites from this year’s sampling:
- Liter of Jagermeister (actually there were MANY bottle of booze exchanged)
- Yodeling Pickle (yes, really)
- Selection of Disneyland lollipops
- A mini fridge that holds one can and plugs in via USB
- An automated reindeer that does sit ups to workout music
- An Air Supply cassette tape (who has a tape player anymore?)
- A DVD of The Golden Girls greatest moments
- At least three Snuggies
- A beach trash pick-up grabber thingy
- And my personal fave, a live beta fish in a bowl
So if you see any of these items under your tree this year, you can probably guess they have been regifted by one of us. Or perhaps you were inspired by our creativity and followed our lead to purchase for yourself!
Happy Holidays!
It’s a mistake to consider the Air Supply item a merely a cassette. While factual, the item is more of a “found object” art icon- an emotionally charged nanosculpture representing a pillar of culture and expression. I understand they are very popular in Asia and other mire progressive cultures who embrace all that is good about art and performance.
Which part is the “performance”? The music by Air Supply, or the physical act of inserting the cassette tape into the now-extinct player?
Glad you’re seeing the theme here.
Consider the cassette itself as the static display- the installation, the sculpture. Then add the insertion as a performance in and of itself- the sculpture becomes a focal point for the performance. This is high-level stuff, and, like the financing for a new city hall, I don’t expect just anyone to understand it.
It’s not as pedestrian as, say, a yodeling pickle.
I still haven’t worked up the courage to take my ‘Shock Potato’ out for a spin yet.
Sample conversation with my wife:
Me – “Wanna try out the Shock Potato with me?”
Her – “I want to watch YOU try it out.”