It started a few years ago when I was dating a lawyer and we were looking for “the most entertaining and intelligent card game the wit of man has so far devised.” ¹

Actually, I can’t remember what kicked off the intrigue, only that a friend had invited us to her bridge group. Since I’d grown up hearing my grandma speaking fondly of her Bridge nights, I decided that I’d learn how to play so that I could play with her before she passes. Having grown up playing a zillion card games from Go Fish to Crazy Eights (move over, Uno) to 101 Ways to Play Solitaire (now 150 ways) to Gin to Rummy to Michigan Rummy to Canasta (the family favorite) to Oh Hell to Euchre to Pinochle to Ten Penny to Asshole to Egyptian Rat Fuck War (many thanks to the boy scouts on a train to Michigan when I was 14) to War to Hearts to Spades (my college favorite) to Pitch (my high school pride) to Poker to others of lesser fame, I figured I’d pick it up quickly and play grandma online before the end of the year. ²

That was something like 4 years ago. And I’m still learning. In a series of 3 books about bidding, we’re still on the first one. In fairness, we switched conventions a couple years ago and rarely get together more than once a month so it’s hard to build the muscle memory needed for the game. Which is strange considering the similarities of this game to the aforementioned list. So I decided to build a card game genealogy tree…which now (after a couple of hours) I must cut short with a hope to expand and timeline later. (And if I win the lottery, I’d look into writing a history of the world through the games we play. Unless it’s already been done, in which case, tell me about it!)

Until then, enjoy a little history and please let me know if you grew up playing (or still play) a game I haven’t mentioned. I’d love any tidbits you have! And if you like to play Bridge, let me know. Bridge City Bridge Club is absolutely fabulous.

• Tarot / Tarocco (Italian) / Tarock (German) — basic rules first appeared in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425.
  • Triomphe / Trionfo / Triumph / Trump, 16th Century France – first documented in 1529. Trionfo was also the name of the original card game for which Tarot cards were designed where the major arcana cards had the role of what are now called trumps. Legend has it that later rules were designed to use one of the ordinary suits as a replacement for when Tarot cards were not available. (@todo – see if this was due to religious or otherwise sanctioned use of Tarot cards)
    • Ruff and Honours, 17th Century England — While I’d never heard of this before tonight, throwing this in here for the relation to what we call “honors” in Bridge and further investigation. Upon first read, the play sounds fun. According to Wikipedia, versions of this game seem to be principle of some games in the 16th and 17th centuries, though by the 18th, they were replaced by Whist.
    • Whist, 18th Century England — while popular with the English in the 18th and 19th centuries, it’s derived from the 16th century game of trump or ruff, via Ruff and Honours
      • Reversis became popular around 1750 in Spain –> a branch of its evolution became what we now know as Hearts. This is the odd lady out at the table, since it involves strategy to not get tricks.
      • Spades, devised in the United States in the late 1930s. A simplification of Contract Bridge, a skilled Spades player can learn Bridge relatively quickly (the major additional rules being dynamic trump, the auction, dummy play, and rubber scoring). ³ Ahem? I’ll give you dynamic trump (Hearts) and dummy play (Cribbage) as easy to pick-up but the auction? We’re on book 1 of a 3 part series on the auction and when I tried to see if I could find the book online, I stumbled across this Wikipedia page that lists, oh just a few, of the books about Bridge. There’s a bajillion. Take a look and search for books about “bidding” as that’s the auction. Alas, I digress.
      • Bridge, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the English pronunciation of a game called Biritch, which was also known as Russian Whist. In 1904 we added the auction, where we bid in a competitive auction to decide the contract and declarer. In 1925 some guy by the name of Harold Stirling Vanderbilt decided to make scoring more complicated (probably so he could always be the scorekeeper and win) and that’s when Bridge players started only counting the tricks they contracted below the line with “sandbags” going above and had to constantly ask each other who’s vulnerable.

• Oh Hell, born around the 40s in the US, this is seemingly a variation of both Spades and Bridge where going over your bid (or contract) counts as a loss. In short: No Sandbagging, Larry. –> US Games’ Wizard ⁴
• Mahjong (Chinese) –> Khanhoo (Chinese) meaning “watch the pot” –> Conquian, 17th Century Central America, notably Mexico. A game considered by games scholar David Parlett to be ancestral to all rummy games.
  • Sai Rummy / Basic Rummy
    • Gin
    • Michigan Rummy
    • Canasta (@todo: check out Khanhoo, a Chinese card game noted as being similar)
    • Ten Penny
• Klaverjas / Klaverjassen, 17th Century Netherlands –> Belote, 1920 France also known as Bridge-Belote in Bulgaria (along with other names in other countries) and noted as THE no. one card game in Saudia Arabia. Noted here for a reference to it as “Pinochle’s cousin.”
• Piquet –> Marriage (Sixty-six) & Briscan –> Bezique / Bésigue, 19th Century France.
  • Pinochle, 1920s – “Auction pinochle for three players has some similarities with the German game skat, although the bidding is more similar to that of bid whist.”
• Dai Hin Min (Japanese) / Zheng Shangyou (Chinese), not sure yet which came first, though seems decided that America’s Asshole and Vietnam’s Tien Len came later. In the Chinese version, the winner is called the daifugō (the grand millionaire) earning various advantages in the next round, and the last person is called the daihinmin (the extreme needy).
  • Asshole, America
  • Tien Len, Vietnam
• Beggar-My-Neighbour appears in Great Expectations (1861) as the only card game Pip, as a child, knows how to play.
  • Egyptial War
• Schafkopf – 18th Century Germany, most notably Bavaria.
  • Skat
  • Sheepshead – Some say that since kings are weak cards in this game, it was a way to insult the German Kaiser without getting one’s head chopped off.

Notes, just like we used to pass in class:

• 1 – Says W. Somerset Maugham according to Bridge World (back)
  
• 2 – I’d have added Sheepshead to the list, but it’s really another one I just started learning even though Grandpa’s already passed and he’s the one I’d want to play with. Or maybe for my home town’s next big celebration. Howells recently celebrated its 125th birthday and held a Sheepshead tourney in celebration. (back)
• 3 – Oh, Wikipedia (back)
• 3 – I couldn’t help it. As a lover of card and board games, I was ecstatic to have worked with US Games in the way back days.  (back)

Extra: Today is Day 21, Post 18 of my 30 day blog challenge. Click ‘Follow’ at the bottom of the page to receive weekly updates in your inbox or follow me on Tumblr if that’s your scene.

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Did you know, for instance, that kitty-corner evolved from catty-corner, which evolved from catercorner? Catercorner was a compound word from the now outdated cater, which meant four. Four corners- get it?  (I tried looking up the etymology of cater to no avail, though found a separate obsolete meaning, matching cater with the purveyor of foods.) The word finally makes sense to me, as I rarely see cats scuttling across streets, corner to corner. (They tend to prefer the safety of curbs.)

As it turns out, when the root of a word dies and loses it’s contemporary meaning, people often mistake that root for a different synonym. As such, asparagus became sparrow-grass in Europe. (Who knew that originally took its name from the Person asparag, meaning “sprout” or “shoot”? Fun little run-down on wikipedia.)

After digging around on some folk etymology history, here’s a few of my light favorites:

• French (e)crevisse  (likely from Germanic krebiz and Old English’s crabba for “crab”, which became our crayfish / crawfish
• Old English bryd-guma (“bride-man”) became bridegroom after the Old English word guma fell out of use and made the compound semantically obscure.
• hangnail from agnail (from the Old English, “A corn or sore on the toe or finger.”)
• penthouse from pentice (“An extension of a building’s roof and the protected area beneath.”)
• chaise lounge from chaise longue (from the French, meaning “long chair”)
• A slug of liquor from the Irish word slog , meaning to swallow
• Island gets a little more complicated- you’ll just have to read about it here

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Eric Isaacson, of Mississippi Records, interviewed Fred and Toody Cole, famed founders of Dead Moon, in a comfortably packed cafe in North Portland at the Waypost. Now I’ll be honest and admit that I knew little of the pair or the band, except for hearing their “Fire in the Western World” song covered at many a Mission 5 show- and all the raving on their exceptional influence on many a Portland rock band.

The two traded off telling stories from meeting in a cafe, while Toody was sweeping the floor and Fred was passing through Portland after his van ran out of gas, to raising a family and touring with their latest band, Pierced Arrows. They talked about heading back from LA with their kids packed above the guitars they just picked up for their music shop. When asked about the odd anomaly of why so many punk musicians are running around Portland with expensive, rare guitars, Fred explained that he used to get prototypes from a famous guitar maker (unfortunately, I can’t remember the name) and sold them for cheap. They bounced back and forth, keeping the audience laughing and rounded out the evening with four acoustic songs since the “surprise guest” didn’t show to play covers (or at least that’s what Marc Moscato said, with a wink).

While I wanted to put the presenters from last month’s series in a room with my grandpa, I wanted to put these two in a room with my mom. They seemed to resonate with her work hard, play hard, tell-it-like-it-is and apologize-to-no-one-for-being-who-you-are method of living.

Fittingly enough, I then headed over to Rich Landar’s weekly Sonic Jelly Jam with the week’s guest, Steve Wilkinson, at KJs on SE Division. Since Steve was responsible for my initial exposure to Dead Moon, it only seemed right to round out the evening watching him and former bandmate Grant Cumpston, from Gravelpit. (If you haven’t heard of them, I recommend checking out this little Portland rock history article I stumbled upon that picks up a little after where the earlier history lesson left off.) Jolie Clausen played drums, Allan Markel played bass and all four pulled off an energetic set, taking little time between songs to shout out chords and timings. If Steve hadn’t mentioned that they’d never played together before, I would have thought they’d been a band for years. If you haven’t checked out a jam session, I must recommend it. The space is intimate, the crowd laid back and musicians entertaining.

Next month’s Northwest Passage event will feature CALVIN JOHNSON, VANESSA RENWICK, COOL NUTZ and if it’s anything like the last two (and it will be)- it’s not to be missed. Hope to see you there!

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The folks over at the Dill Pickle Club (now Know Your City) facilitated an animated, intimate, cozy and rich discussion of Portland’s musical history. The first installment of their Northwest Passage series, dinner lectures examining the history of independent music in the NW, dispelled the myths that lectures are boring and has me on the edge of my seat for next month’s commingling.

Portland is made up of transplants. People who don’t have Portland’s history. So it’s a treat when the people who’ve crafted the city I can’t leave share their stories.

URAL THOMAS.

The sweetest soul I’ve encountered in some time. (Only after looking at the poster again do I notice the title “A Life in Soul” which has me at last understanding how Soul music got its name.) It all started with a smile as we crossed each other on the rainy street. He was headed to the Waypost as I was headed down the street for a place to wait outside of the rain for the event space to open. People rarely look you in the eye and smile as authentically as this man does.

As Eric Isaacson, founder of esteemed Mississippi Studios interviews Thomas, I find myself thinking I can listen to these guys talk all night. Thomas plays some snippets of his songs from the 60s and 70s and gets the whole crowd grooving. It’s rare that I’m able to participate in a group that includes old and young and black and white- something I’ve been complaining about to my friends for some time. Time starts bend, too. As Eric and Ural rap back and forth, a scene unfolds on the corner near NE Williams and Fremont, just outside the window. Ural’s playing music a cappella with a gang of folk while kids start dancing in the street. The cops roll by, thinking they’ll be bustin up a fight but it ain’t no thing.

As they wrap up their conversation, Ural invites all of us strangers to his house on Sundays to continue the jam. Just take a stroll down the alley behind the Rebuilding Center and move to the beats. To do: check out Wheedles Groove – the story of Seattle’s forgotten soul and funk scene of the 60’s and 70’s.

JOE KREGAL.

Joe’s a fun kid and I want to put him in a room with my grandpa John and listen to those conversations and watch them dance with their ladies. Something about his cute smile, floppy ears and knobby nose has me instantly hooked. He hops around between showing posters, talking about the ballrooms that used to be outside of town (like the Division Street Corral way out on 172nd and Division) and playing 45s. Who knew Portland’s claim to fame during that time was “Louie Louie” and the Kingsmen? And I get a kick out of hearing about the Crystal Ballroom before its McMenamins incarnation, especially as Joe talks about being one of only 15 whities in a sea of thousands of people. Having lived in this highly segregated city for 10 years now, I’m intrigued and fascinated by the racial history that parallels this music history.

VALERIE BROWN.

Valerie places Portland’s happenings in a broader context, referencing world events. “69 was a bad year…” Over at Jefferson High School (the one I live right next to!) they had their “Soul Assembly” where the students locked out all the white kids, except for one – Bobby Benson, younger brother of influential Portland musicians John and Jehn Benson, since he could play the drums so well. She wanted to be the next Joni Mitchell and guides us through a cultural shift from big bands and big venues to singer-songwriters, acid and coffee shops. More on her perspectives and findings @ Music on the Cusp: From Folk to Acid Rock in Portland Coffeehouses, 1967–1970.

As I’ve now taken a few days to write this up, the DPC has released more information on the next installment in this not-to-be-missed series. Check it out and save me a seat.

The post Storytellers Share Portland’s Musical History appeared first on Jewels.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8413122.stm

The post Where brat, bufoon, rat and scumbag are NOT ok, f**k is. appeared first on Jewels.

If only New Orleans wasn’t such an awesome city, filled with fun and friendly people, delicious food and an abundance of liquor and festivals I wouldn’t be in this predicament. Yes, another sign that life on the road can be challenging.

Let me go back to the beginning. As a highway ferry transports me across the Mississippi, I transfer my love of Mississippi into Louisiana. Spanish moss hangs from statuesque oaks, black cats roll on the ground, baiting me to pet them, at the #1 haunted mansion in the world and Jaik’s mom welcomes me with the finest home cooked dinner I’ll have all trip. (I need to take better notes since I’m not quick with French, but the dinner included lots of crawfish in both etouffee and pizza and a French cake with 7 layers of pudding diving a rich, white cake.)

I spend Saturday learning all things Cajun and some of the Creole, before heading to the Atchafalaya basin, towards New Orleans. In Breaux Bridge, locals point me to a meat market for some famous Boudin (pronounced BOO-dan). Though the owner doesn’t want his picture taken, he packs a beer from his personal stash in the back, along with the purchased sausage and stuffed mushrooms in my cooler. And it continues to get better.

Once in NO, I manage to get the last dorm bed at the India House, the best hostel in the city and meet up with two fellow travelers I met back in Flagstaff. As we head for the French Quarter to check out the Friday night life, I text Hannah from Tucson. (She’s a friend of a friend I just met and absolutely adore.) A few excited messages later and we’re sitting in the bar Hannah used to work at, doing some shots with her best friend (in her honor of course) and making a positive first impression of the city.

The next day we set out for plantations and will have taken 10,000+ steps by the time we retire at 6am, including the time change. We all stay in the French Quarter and make a trip down Bourbon avenue: drunk people overflowing in the streets, each with beads, beers and fancy daiquiri to-go cups. We try the Texan sized mixed drinks and stand awestruck as a karaoke dj/performer dances MC Hammer style, complete with a standing flip. As we wind up our morning at the hotel, I learn Dutch while teaching Go Fish. Yep, I can really travel the world now with “give me”, “do you have”, numbers and face card names, “go fish” (my favorite!) and a swear word I cannot repeat.

Despite having to check out of our hotel only four hours after falling asleep, we find energy in Cafe du Monde’s coffee and beignets. And I can’t leave out the impressive troupe performing acrobatics and break dancing. Unfortunately, a lavish military performance for Extreme Home Makover across the street in front of the cathedral, forces a frustrated man with a megaphone to shut down the troupe. Apparently they can’t hear their TV show host above the music and fanfare from our crowd. (I’ll post a video, as the guys are phenomenal and I want Joe to learn these tricks. They walk up stairs on their hands, slide across the ground on their heads, break dance and make the grumpiest laugh.)

Lousiana is hard to leave. I want more days to tour the swamps, to walk the antique malls, eat Cajun and learn French. If I don’t get this ticket I may just have to go back.

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