A little man walked up and down. He found an eating place in town. He read the menu through

[hazelchaz]

Photos now online:
Julia's Clue Party (18-Jul-2009)

As you can see, divine_sage, little_serenity, daoutlaw, chiyo_no_hikari, simmaria, hyper_sam, magi_sammy, legally_scarlet, ivyf15, and summoner_lenne9 were all at the party...

This was an interesting party. The announcement invited us all to pick a character from Clue -- the board game, the movie, the DVD game, or some other incarnation (Cluedo anyone?). After watching the movie, a bunch of the party guests played the DVD-enhanced version of the board game.

Because I knew library_lynn and I would arrive late -- I had a cosplay picnic to go to, and Lynn had to work -- I stopped by in the morning before the picnic to drop off of a crockpot of cocktail meatballs. The recipe calls for grape jelly, which fit the whole "purple" theme that Lynn (Lady Lavender) and I (Professor Plum) were going for. I had a 4-lb. bag of chicken/beef meatballs, and a couple jars of chili sauce and grape jelly.

I wish I'd brought an extra crockpot or two. We could have heated up some of the meatballs separately and had them with the spaghetti that was being served. Oh well!

I've offered Julia my full support the next time she wants help with party logistics. (Of course, she's headed out of state for college, so probably she won't need my assistance any time soon.)

The party included chocolate birthday cake -- it was a late celebration of Julia's 18th -- and there was ice cream to go with it. I brought pink lemonade, but mixed up too much. I think I need to start packing my airpot so I can mix up a gallon or two of ice cold lemonade and serve it, rather than using the 10-gallon barrel cooler or regular plastic pitchers!

Just about everyone at the party had some kind of closet costume. For me, it was a purple dress shirt and my M.C.Escher purple gecko tie. With the possible exception of Miss Scarlett draping herself across Col. Mustard's lap (right), nobody made much of an attempt to stay in character, which was a relief -- I hadn't seen the movie, and had decided that my interpretation of Prof. Plum would be a gentleman who would never use a short simple word when two or three multisyllabic synonyms would suffice. With possibly a touch of Mrs. Malaprop thrown in. I remember that it required considerable forethought and some practice in the form of a silent recitation to one's self within the quiet confines of one's own cranium to present that particular persona. Not easily done without at least some training and experience in improvisational theater.

Comments

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

In other words, your concept of personifying Professor Plum is to emulate the inestimable Professor William Harper Littlejohn. Or perhaps one William Cranston, although the color would be just a little off.

Littlejohn and Cranston

[hazelchaz]

I'm in the dark on those two. Enlighten me, pray?

[cure-marine.livejournal.com]

Those were delicious meatballs. Jared and I will bake some cookies for the ALA picnic later this month.

Nice photos! Love the group shots. ^^

Re: Littlejohn and Cranston

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

William Harper Littlejohn, aka Johnny Littlejohn, was one of the five aides to Doc Savage. His particular quirk was his polysyllabic syntax, which he apparently utilized in part to obfuscate his audience. (He rarely did this with Doc himself -- Doc usually understood what Johnny was saying, which probably took away some of the fun.) More information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Harper_Littlejohn

William "Billy" Cranston was the original Blue Ranger on Power Rangers. He also was fond of polysyllabic speech, usually requiring translation from the first Yellow Ranger, Trini. Again, more information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Cranston

Hope this has been of use.