‘Tis the season for New York City. The summer stench has abated, and the fall nip makes traipsing through the Big Apple quite pleasing. Alas, I’ve extricated myself from the city, and occasional trips aside, yours truly is enjoying the Connecticut life, shoreline and all.
With leaves turning and temperatures falling, I’m reminded by Halloween, which is right around the corner. After you go trick-or-treating, make sure to go club-hopping, and knock on the doors of clubs you enjoy reciprocity with for a treat (read: a few strong martinis).
This week, then, while we’re off celebrating Halloween, take the time to remind yourself of the various characters you’ll find at your club, the most important of which are the jester and the killjoy, covered by yours truly, and, if your club is haunted by killjoys, how to affect a grand exit, served up by the inimitable Leonard Robinson. Finally, there’s always an ode to club heroes, and I bring to you Dispatches from Clubland. — IJ
Clubs are for Jesters
We all know the vibrant, convivial bloke—the club jester. It is nigh impossible to walk into a club bar and not hear competing tales of blunder and oblivion, racked with hilarity. Guffaws below through the room with the regularity of a pendulum’s oscillations, even at stories that have moved from the realm of the novel and firmly into the domain of club mythology.
This April Fool’s Day, go to your club bartender and put your club jester’s first drink on your tab. Write him a thank you note on tissue paper borrowed from the bar because this is the least you can do for your club jester. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and what better an occasion to celebrate the joy of your club life, the club jester, than April Fool’s?—IJ
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Grand Exit
When You Must Say Goodbye to the Club
There’s many valid reasons for leaving the Club, including exhaustion at yet another hidden fee or the Club bartender using Sunny D instead of orange juice.
A fine club, after all, is designed to bring the spirit of cammradrie, friendship and shared pursuit of similar interests. If the club has run astray from its mission, your first imperative is to do what’s possible to redirect course and then, if efforts fail, vote with your strongly worded resignation letter to the membership committee.
Leaving the Club, however, requires as much grace as seeking its membership especially if you’re planning to find a place elsewhere in Clubland.—LR
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Clubland Heroes
“A man’s London club offers him a fortress,” writes Richard Usborne in a rather clubby book, aptly titled Clubland Heroes. “When Scotland Yard was baffled, inspectors … put through phone calls to Clubland members”. Usborne was writing about the West-End clubs of London. His heroes were fictional, drawn from the English writers Dornford Yates, John Buchan, and Sapper. “I have called this book Clubland Heroes,” Usborne explains, “because the heroes of the books I am examining were essentially West-End Clubmen, and their clubland status is a factor in their behaviour as individuals and groups”.
Usborne is the ever-so-pukka Clubman. He comports to his Clubland Heroes “the thinking of my class and age group, … about money, foreigners, leisure, killing, dogs, games, girls, and how to make love to girls, beer, champagne, Success, England, America, the lower classes, the upper classes, servants, and West-End Clubs”—though, if I’m being completely honest, I wouldn’t want to take advice on girls and lovemaking from a man who waxes nostalgic about “the Hall Porter of a man’s club” functioning as “a reasonable picket against women”.
Every club rat should have their club heroes. Stateside, my club heroes romp across Manhattan instead of St. James in London. We’ve got them all, but the two that I’ll focus on today are a war hero and a caustic writer.—IJ
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Dispatches from Clubland
Trouble in Tallahassee. Previous Dispatches covered the troubles that had befallen Tallahassee, FL’s Capital City Country Club. The city had finally agreed to sell the underlying land to the club, but, since going to press and us disappearing to martini hour last week, the city has walked itself back from the sale.
The Final(e) at Specter. Squash’s bad boy and rampant blocker Mostafa Asal overwhelmed the Kiwi squash player Paul Coll in three games, winning 11-9, 11-3, 11-3, in the finals of the US Open for Squash at the Arlene Specter Center in Philadelphia, PA. The teenage phenom Amina Orfi lost in three against fellow Egyptian Hania El Hammamy, losing two games after a deuce.