Tag Archives: Kemper Museum

Teaching in the Trenches

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La Cruz de Hierro (The Iron Cross), Marsden Hartley, 1915

La Cruz de Hierro (The Iron Cross), Marsden Hartley, 1915

Sub-Lieutenant Anne was tasked to lead her elementary school class up the hill. She blew her whistle and over the top they went, but before too long she heard the cries of “Nurse! I need to go see the nurse!” Her ranks had been decimated and she felt bad about that, but later when she checked in with the old sawbones she was surprised to learn that her casualty list was actually much lighter than normal, “Most days this class fills my sick bay.” Anne was unwilling to grant absences for nonexistent symptoms like, “I have a owie and I need a Band-Aid.” Like there wasn’t even a red spot. Suck it up kid, don’t you know that there is an education going on? Sub-Lt Anne then had to deal with insubordination within the ranks. After Sally and her mom had left, because of real previous injuries, Amy approached Anne about her. Sally had been annoying. She had been annoying for weeks. Why this was just being brought to Anne’s attention, even after Sally had left for the day still remains a mystery. Needless to say, Anne blew her whistle again and ordered Amy and the rest of them over the top again. After all, there is an education going on.

Trivial Pursuit

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Valley of the Ourika and Atlas Mountains, Winston Churchill, 1948

Valley of the Ourika and Atlas Mountains, Winston Churchill, 1948

We did another trivia night on Saturday, in which we returned to our usual form. Lately, at these events, including last year at this one, we’ve been doing pretty well, actually, amazingly well at times. Last year at this event, we finished second, which set us up nicely for our first place and five raffle basket win at the next event. We did one more trivia night, where we didn’t place, but still scored another basket and last night we returned to where this winning streak all began.

Trivia night is a Saint Louis institution. There are ten rounds of ten questions each. The questions are answered by the different tables; a team typically consisted of 8-10 people who have paid an admission. Additionally, participants can purchase Mulligans, which are priceless and then there are the 50-50 and heads and tails contests and then there are the raffle baskets. At the end of each round, the teams turn in their answers and judges then calculate the scores. The teams compete against one another with the top teams receiving prizes. Trivia nights are held throughout the US, but are particularly popular here, where dozens of events occur on any given weekend. Did I mention free beer?

This one was a charity event for the MRH School District. Many of the rounds were oriented towards music, which is not one of our strong suits. One of these rounds was about eighties TV show theme songs. That one was particularly bad. Afterwards, I was reminded of the Adult Swim sketch, “Too Many Cooks“. Yeah, cancel the whole lot. There will be an ad.

That was last night’s trivial pursuit, which is not unlike Sir Winston Churchill’s pursuit of painting. He was a great statesman, who helped shape the allies WW II victory strategy, but he was a better statesman than he was a politician and he was a better politician than he was an artist. At least, he found his painting to be therapeutic throughout all those trying times.