No! No! Not a Reception! AAAUUUUGH!
I have no idea why Rebecca felt it necessary to link to Emily Post, but she did, and now you're stuck with it, because, though I actually have this volume on my bookshelf -- indeed, here it is, right next to the computer -- I had forgotten it, but now I've been reminded. And I love it deeply, with all my heart, and I'm chuffed to have it back in my little head.
And it's an excellent day, I do believe, to discuss "Teas and Other Afternoon Parties." In case you're having one. At which, perhaps, you might be learning and/or teaching new knitting techniques. (Yo! Graduate students! Aren't we due for another of these pretty soon?)
One of the first things you need to do, should you be having an Afternoon Party, is figure out which one you're having. You want to have a tea here, is what, and you do NOT want to be having a reception, because receptions are, according to Ms. Post, sojourns in hell:
The very word "reception" brings to mind an aggregation of personages, very formal, very dressed up, very pompous, and very learned, among whom the ordinary mortal can not do other than wander helplessly in the labyrinth of the specialist's jargon. Art critics on a varnishing day reception, are sure to dwell on the effect of a new technique, and the comment of most of us, to whom a painting ought to look like a "picture," is fatal. Equally fatal to meet an explorer and not know where or what he explored; or to meet a celebrated author and not have the least idea whether he wrote detective stories or expounded Taoism. On the other hand it is certainly discouraging after studying up on the latest Cretan excavations in order to talk intelligently to Professor Diggs, to be pigeon-holed for the afternoon beside Mrs. Newmother whose interest in discovery is limited to "a new tooth in baby's head."
Ms. Post isn't into mincing words, as you see. As one of the personages who occasionally is required to be very formal, very dressed up, very pompous, and very learned, I'd like to tell you that it's not any fun on the other side, either. Large expenditure of energy, let me tell you. And the other specialists all have their own jargon, which you are likely to know not. (My solution: be obscure. Be very obscure.)
Anyway, you don't want a reception, which, unless you're the Nobel Committee or maybe a President of a University, is inappropriate anyway (exception: give LOTS of money to an institution of higher learning; demand formal reception when they dedicate the gym to you; make people like me show up). You want a tea. An afternoon tea with dancing. To which you are inviting any number of people, from 100 to 2000. (Oh, you do, too, know 100 people. Don't be silly. That's your "general" visiting list.)
For this, you will need to rent a hotel ballroom, preferably their small ballroom, as opposed to their giant ballroom:
As invitations to formal teas of this sort are sent to the hostess' "general" visiting list, and very big houses are comparatively few, a ballroom is nearly always engaged at a hotel. Many hotels have a big and a small ballroom, and unless one's acquaintance is enormous the smaller room is preferable.
It's nice to know you don't need to clean the living room for this. I know Sam will be happy to hear it.
So. You've got the hotel ballroom, you've massed flowers all round, you've got some sort of dancing music (which I do believe is NOT supposed to be disco), and then you have your food. The important thing here is that you must NOT serve anything with protein in it, or the entire affair automatically turns into a reception, and the whole company is going to be forced to discuss Egyptian anthropology whilst dancing:
Only tea, bouillon, chocolate, bread and cakes are served. There can be all sorts of sandwiches, hot biscuits, crumpets, muffins, sliced cake and little cakes in every variety that a cook or caterer can devise: whatever can come under the head of "bread and cake" is admissible; but nothing else, or it becomes a "reception," and not a "tea." At the end of the table or on a separate table near by, there are bowls or pitchers of orangeade or lemonade or "punch" (meaning in these days something cold that has fruit juice in it) for the dancers, exactly as at a ball.
Do not let any roast beef cross the threshold, guys, or you'll be sorry. And you'll not be allowed, anymore, to discuss the tooth in baby's head.
Ms. Post has more to say on the subject of teas -- a lot more to say -- but the teas get progressively less scary as she goes on through the chapter. Once you've moved down from the ballroom-dancing-in-the-hotel scenario, you're less likely to suddenly find yourself in the midst of a reception. So you're safer.
To be truthful, oh my graduate students, we probably want to aim for one of the less scary affairs. Though I do like the idea of having the department troop over to the hotel ball room for tea and knitting (screw the dancing; that'll never fly), and then discover that they're at a reception, darn it, and they all need to wear tuxedos and become learned. And pretentious.
But at the very least, I'd like for us to practice CORRECT tea pouring. Cause we have been sore remiss. We have not learned our lines:
It does not matter if a guest going into the dining-room for a cup of tea or chocolate does not know the deputy hostesses who are "pouring." It is perfectly correct for a stranger to say "May I have a cup of tea?"
The one pouring should answer very responsively, "Certainly! How do you like it? Strong or weak?"
If the latter, she deluges it with hot water, and again watching for the guest's negative or approval, adds cream or lemon or sugar. Or, preferring chocolate, the guest perhaps goes to the other end of the table and asks for a cup of chocolate. The table hostess at that end also says "Certainly," and pours out chocolate. If she is surrounded with people, she smiles as she hands it out, and that is all. But if she is unoccupied and her momentary "guest by courtesy" is alone, it is merest good manners on her part to make a few pleasant remarks. Very likely when asked for chocolate she says: "How nice of you! I have been feeling very neglected at my end. Everyone seems to prefer tea." Whereupon the guest ventures that people are afraid of chocolate because it is so fattening or so hot. After an observation or two about the weather, or the beauty of the china or how good the little cakes look, or the sandwiches taste, the guest finishes her chocolate.
If the table hostess is still unoccupied the guest smiles and slightly nods "Good-by," but if the other's attention has been called upon by someone else, she who has finished her chocolate, leaves unnoticed.
I like very much here the fact that everybody knows what everybody else is going to say. That's what's crucial. So you don't get surprised. You don't find yourself innocently enjoying one of those little jam rolls and suddenly having to discuss a subject of which you have never heard, or if you did it was in high school and you forgot, and you're just very sure you're going to make An Horrible Mistake and Reveal Your Ignorance. That just spoils your jam rolls, doesn't it? And then you have to go home and eat a pint of Ben-and-Jerry's to recover.
So that's it. We're all going to examine this lovely book very carefully. And then we're going to know our lines. And then we're going to color inside them, and NOT go over.
For those of you who have made it this far, intrepid and stalwart souls, a couple of treats.
First, Mike has discovered pictures of the hearse from Harold and Maude.
Second, the pranksters at Zug have decided to eat soap. (Thanks, Knitting Notes!)
And it's an excellent day, I do believe, to discuss "Teas and Other Afternoon Parties." In case you're having one. At which, perhaps, you might be learning and/or teaching new knitting techniques. (Yo! Graduate students! Aren't we due for another of these pretty soon?)
One of the first things you need to do, should you be having an Afternoon Party, is figure out which one you're having. You want to have a tea here, is what, and you do NOT want to be having a reception, because receptions are, according to Ms. Post, sojourns in hell:
The very word "reception" brings to mind an aggregation of personages, very formal, very dressed up, very pompous, and very learned, among whom the ordinary mortal can not do other than wander helplessly in the labyrinth of the specialist's jargon. Art critics on a varnishing day reception, are sure to dwell on the effect of a new technique, and the comment of most of us, to whom a painting ought to look like a "picture," is fatal. Equally fatal to meet an explorer and not know where or what he explored; or to meet a celebrated author and not have the least idea whether he wrote detective stories or expounded Taoism. On the other hand it is certainly discouraging after studying up on the latest Cretan excavations in order to talk intelligently to Professor Diggs, to be pigeon-holed for the afternoon beside Mrs. Newmother whose interest in discovery is limited to "a new tooth in baby's head."
Ms. Post isn't into mincing words, as you see. As one of the personages who occasionally is required to be very formal, very dressed up, very pompous, and very learned, I'd like to tell you that it's not any fun on the other side, either. Large expenditure of energy, let me tell you. And the other specialists all have their own jargon, which you are likely to know not. (My solution: be obscure. Be very obscure.)
Anyway, you don't want a reception, which, unless you're the Nobel Committee or maybe a President of a University, is inappropriate anyway (exception: give LOTS of money to an institution of higher learning; demand formal reception when they dedicate the gym to you; make people like me show up). You want a tea. An afternoon tea with dancing. To which you are inviting any number of people, from 100 to 2000. (Oh, you do, too, know 100 people. Don't be silly. That's your "general" visiting list.)
For this, you will need to rent a hotel ballroom, preferably their small ballroom, as opposed to their giant ballroom:
As invitations to formal teas of this sort are sent to the hostess' "general" visiting list, and very big houses are comparatively few, a ballroom is nearly always engaged at a hotel. Many hotels have a big and a small ballroom, and unless one's acquaintance is enormous the smaller room is preferable.
It's nice to know you don't need to clean the living room for this. I know Sam will be happy to hear it.
So. You've got the hotel ballroom, you've massed flowers all round, you've got some sort of dancing music (which I do believe is NOT supposed to be disco), and then you have your food. The important thing here is that you must NOT serve anything with protein in it, or the entire affair automatically turns into a reception, and the whole company is going to be forced to discuss Egyptian anthropology whilst dancing:
Only tea, bouillon, chocolate, bread and cakes are served. There can be all sorts of sandwiches, hot biscuits, crumpets, muffins, sliced cake and little cakes in every variety that a cook or caterer can devise: whatever can come under the head of "bread and cake" is admissible; but nothing else, or it becomes a "reception," and not a "tea." At the end of the table or on a separate table near by, there are bowls or pitchers of orangeade or lemonade or "punch" (meaning in these days something cold that has fruit juice in it) for the dancers, exactly as at a ball.
Do not let any roast beef cross the threshold, guys, or you'll be sorry. And you'll not be allowed, anymore, to discuss the tooth in baby's head.
Ms. Post has more to say on the subject of teas -- a lot more to say -- but the teas get progressively less scary as she goes on through the chapter. Once you've moved down from the ballroom-dancing-in-the-hotel scenario, you're less likely to suddenly find yourself in the midst of a reception. So you're safer.
To be truthful, oh my graduate students, we probably want to aim for one of the less scary affairs. Though I do like the idea of having the department troop over to the hotel ball room for tea and knitting (screw the dancing; that'll never fly), and then discover that they're at a reception, darn it, and they all need to wear tuxedos and become learned. And pretentious.
But at the very least, I'd like for us to practice CORRECT tea pouring. Cause we have been sore remiss. We have not learned our lines:
It does not matter if a guest going into the dining-room for a cup of tea or chocolate does not know the deputy hostesses who are "pouring." It is perfectly correct for a stranger to say "May I have a cup of tea?"
The one pouring should answer very responsively, "Certainly! How do you like it? Strong or weak?"
If the latter, she deluges it with hot water, and again watching for the guest's negative or approval, adds cream or lemon or sugar. Or, preferring chocolate, the guest perhaps goes to the other end of the table and asks for a cup of chocolate. The table hostess at that end also says "Certainly," and pours out chocolate. If she is surrounded with people, she smiles as she hands it out, and that is all. But if she is unoccupied and her momentary "guest by courtesy" is alone, it is merest good manners on her part to make a few pleasant remarks. Very likely when asked for chocolate she says: "How nice of you! I have been feeling very neglected at my end. Everyone seems to prefer tea." Whereupon the guest ventures that people are afraid of chocolate because it is so fattening or so hot. After an observation or two about the weather, or the beauty of the china or how good the little cakes look, or the sandwiches taste, the guest finishes her chocolate.
If the table hostess is still unoccupied the guest smiles and slightly nods "Good-by," but if the other's attention has been called upon by someone else, she who has finished her chocolate, leaves unnoticed.
I like very much here the fact that everybody knows what everybody else is going to say. That's what's crucial. So you don't get surprised. You don't find yourself innocently enjoying one of those little jam rolls and suddenly having to discuss a subject of which you have never heard, or if you did it was in high school and you forgot, and you're just very sure you're going to make An Horrible Mistake and Reveal Your Ignorance. That just spoils your jam rolls, doesn't it? And then you have to go home and eat a pint of Ben-and-Jerry's to recover.
So that's it. We're all going to examine this lovely book very carefully. And then we're going to know our lines. And then we're going to color inside them, and NOT go over.
For those of you who have made it this far, intrepid and stalwart souls, a couple of treats.
First, Mike has discovered pictures of the hearse from Harold and Maude.
Second, the pranksters at Zug have decided to eat soap. (Thanks, Knitting Notes!)
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