spelling bee

I had very vivid dreams this morning: a drive from New York to Boston, tanks on I-95 bearing U.N. peacekeepers, a white Volvo station wagon crashing in slow motion in the rearview mirror, amazing new architecture on the Charles River, a ROC Embassy with a topiary in the pattern of the DPRK flag. My friend Matt K. also featured prominently in this dream but that might just have been because he was sleeping in the next room over.

Last night, Raj rallied his friends to the bi-weekly spelling bee at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg, which promised to be nerd fun but was, in fact, terrifying nerd fun. My mind blanked when I got up there to spell my words and I almost misspelled "ascension" - I blame this on my hunger - but I recovered, spelled it correctly, and ended up in third place. (I struck out on "capitatim.") I gave away my sandwich prize to Claire, who returned the favor by giving me her sandwich prize when she won the omniverbal grammar competition that followed the spelling bee. My voice shook! I'm supposed to be a litigator, and my voice shook! I vowed by text message to kill Raj for dragging me out there but in the end it turned out to be great fun. Raj amused the crowd (of his admirers) by declaring that parking on the moon should be legal. His friend Meera wanted polka dots on nachos. Stephanie leapt off the stage and clicked her heels in triumph after "tumulary," and I met a nice fellow named Ari whose grammar sucked, but we were all defeated by a friendless Williamsburgian who outspelled second-place Raj by six words and who, feeling deified by his victory, reached over to my beer as I drank from it and demanded a sip. Excuse me? I refused, even after he declared, "I've been tested!", and was made to feel as if I had denied Jesus his sponge of vinegar.


(Matt, Stephanie, and the judges. Stephanie is declaring that she wishes to be the present incarnation of David Bowie.)

I felt I was at home when I could see the mouths of the spectators silently spelling words that competitors failed to spell, as if it were so disgraceful that such giveaways as "ossuary," "vanadium," and "halophyte" should be so butchered, as if that disgrace could only be redeemed by the spectators' silent correction.

(Matt, Raj, and Meera.)

To the left of this photograph is Elam Blackman, a folk singer from Knoxville who went almost entirely ignored by the eight of us sitting in this room chatting. We felt awkward and impolite, and so we guiltily paused to listen to the guy whenever he addressed his dull folksy commentary at us ("This is a song about a trip I took to Mexico. I ended up sleeping on my ex-girlfriend's floor." It is time for folk music to die.), and then resorted to charades and text messages to communicate across the room without shouting over the music. We left after about an hour of this, and then trooped to the G train to wave goodbye. What nerdery!