get-together activity brainstorm thing.

[robOt]

i recently decided to have a small "thing" at my place every month for myself and my friends and anyone else who happens to find their way there. i live in apartment #9, so i want to do it on the ninth day of every month (no matter what day of the week that falls on), at 9pm. i'm thinking we can showcase drawings/artwork, play acoustic songs, read awful poetry, have snacks & drinks, etc. my places is super super small, but i hope it works out.

any other ideas of other things we might do?

i mentioned this in a thread a couple months ago. we had a trial run of this "nine on nine" last month, and it was a bit dry. we sat around and listened to records, read some poetry, and drank the night away. which is not a bad thing altogether, we had good times; but i'd like to have one or two things which set it apart from our usual nights of drinking and talking shit. this thing need some mojo.

so: i'd like to pick your collective brain for other things we might do. it doesn't have to be terribly low-budget, but it's leaning that way. i don't want to invest much more than time & energy, if possible. i have bitchy neighbors so there will be something of a noise restriction, and as i mentioned my apartment is rather dinky (i just typed kinky, woopsie) so that is a factor as well. many thanks in advance.

ideas? comments?

::robot::

[coldforge]

One pretty fun thing that was done semi-regularly at my old house was readings of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Each person there would be assigned a character and we'd just go ahead and read it out loud. If there were more people there than characters, we'd rotate. It was a lot of fun. At one point my friend and I read an entire scene backwards. That was fun, and also hard.

[robOt]

oh yeah, we also did some improv Ad-Libs. hilarious.

[Bernard]

I always like having a souvenir or party favor to take home. You could try making something? Postcards are easy, and can usually be made fromt he contents of the recycling bin. Or perhaps, if you've got a quick enough cd burner, you could ask everybody to bring a few discs, and you could make a group mix and burn copies for everyone.

[RoyBiggins]

On a forum full of music nerds, it may sound like an obvious suggestion, but I just read about this:

http://www.recordclub.org/

And, like Bernard said, you get a party favor at the end, which is nice.

[FreddyKnuckles]

VIDEO GAMES + BEER = HAPPY
And that's a proven equation.  I'm an expert, I took Calculus

but in all seriousness, that's kinda cool.  

you could make your own mashups on the fly or some shit

[Bernard]

Or you could make HOT SAUCE.

[robOt]

i really like the souvenir & participatory type ideas so far, they got the wheels turning. i'm not sure the video game thing is going to fly seeing as how i officially don't own a television or even a laptop (yeah so, call me mr. lo-tech.) but yeah, basically i just need to think of stuff to do until we get "faced" and then the rest will take care of itself. i'd really really like to do something involving a projector and my living room wall, but i'm not really hip to that sort of jive and wouldn't know where to begin.

i'm thinking i could also give a door prize for the worst facial hair.

[heather]

One pretty fun thing that was done semi-regularly at my old house was readings of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Each person there would be assigned a character and we'd just go ahead and read it out loud. If there were more people there than characters, we'd rotate. It was a lot of fun. At one point my friend and I read an entire scene backwards. That was fun, and also hard.

my friends and i used to get together and take turns reading Ender's Game. i love that.

[robOt]

yeah see, my friends have varying degrees of attention deficiency. i'd tried doing the book club / reading night thing, but it never pans out. everybody always ends up out on the porch smoking. meh!

[coldforge]

Then y'all weren't drunk enough. A funny play + martinis + at least a couple individuals who aren't so self conscious = raucous dramatic hilarity.

[polkadotchickens]

cook!  cooking instantly makes things fun, and then you get to eat yummy food at the end.  high-participation items are asian noodly stir fry things (everyone chops!), pizza (everyone chops!  and making the dough from scratch is also not just tasty but fun too)...um...oh!  sugar cookies.  when i was a little kid my family would host a christmas cookie party every year.  you have to make the dough ahead of time so that it's workable, but cookie decorating = grand fun.  get icing, funny cutters, put some food coloring in some sugar to sprinkle on, etc.  yum.  now i'm hungry.

[SPACERACE]

Group S&M.

[robOt]

dude, i like where this is going.

[ewige]

if you're at all into games, of the the best in the known universe for a group of semi-intelligent people who have known each other for any legnth of time is Catchphrase. The electronic version for like 20 bucks is compact and convenient.

i'm a fan.

[cold before sunrise]

the books i've had the most fun with have been by irvine welsh, especially prono (appreciative nod to the parts that make a person squirm to recite out loud). he has the different accents and when everybody gets into the character and their own particular dialect it can be hilarious. getting a video camera to do little projects like cheesy horror clips and shit is awesome too. art projects! imma suggest you learn the art of twisted 'adult' pop-up book making together.