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cigar club RESCHEDULED to TUESDAY December 13 at the TOWER CLUB 5-7pm

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NOTE: Cigar club gatherings previously announced for December 6th
and 20th have to be rescheduled because of other special events at
the Tower Club.

THE NEXT informal gathering of the U Club Cigar Society will take
place at the Tower Club Bar on Tuesday, December 13, 5-7pm.
BYO cigars and each member signs his own chit. All U Club members
are invited, and guests interested in a smoke and a cocktail in
good company are always welcome.

In our last meeting...

PLANNING AHEAD, we settled on Ground Hog's Day, February 2d, 2006
for our next Cigar Dinner, to be convened in the University Club
Board Room. Details will be forthcoming in January. The delight
brought on by such decisive forethought elicited a flurry of
further suggestions. Tom O'Brien called for a "spring cleaning"
cigar meeting at the Division Street Baths, and Jerry Bauman
reminisced fondly of post-pugilistic rubdowns at the baths at
Roosevelt and St. Louis. O'Brien countered with an adventure
involving five simultaneous masseurs in the basement of a jazz
club in New Orleans, but denied any decadence. O'Leary said that
limousines would certainly be the only reasonable mode of
transport between the club and the baths. Caught up in the
extravagance of the planning and noting that David O'Connor had
not yet arrived to suggest it himself, Jake Baton proposed a
special $2000 a plate cigar dinner to benefit the Lyric Opera of
Chicago. The Tower Club opera goers that Tuesday (non-E series),
unaware of the largesse being proposed on their behalf, arrived
well prepared to complain about the "ghastly, modern" (1955) opera
by Sir Michael Tippet, A Midsummer Marriage, and got their digs
in early by complaining to the club manager about the smoke
emanating from the bar as they strolled past to the dining room.
In support of Ms. Newton, O'Leary sacrificed his cigar. Your
Loyal Secretary, reporting on his own attendance of Midsummer
the previous week, contradicted the received view by pointing out
that Tippet's music was not only accessible but beautifully
performed, and concluded that most of the audience must have
decided beforehand that they would depart after the first act,
with fashionable scorn for the 20th century, whether they were
enjoying the music or not. Noting that David O'Connor had still
not arrived, Batten proposed a special $5000 a plate cigar dinner
to benefit the Lyric Opera. O'Brien, lighting his second cigar
(O'Leary's cast off), sought to reopen the subject of cigar event
planning by promoting a fall meeting at his favorite B&B in
Saugatuck, Michigan, where a dozen of us could take over the
whole place for a full Saturday of verandah smoking followed by
a gourmet meal, to return Sunday. When O'Connor finally arrived,
sweating slightly, with tie askew, and muttering something about
being sidelined by a wee dram or two at the Ceres Cafe, Batten
heartily proposed a special $10,000 a plate cigar dinner to bene-
fit the Lyric. O'Connor immediately stood and prestidigitatiously
produced a deck of Lyric donor cards, which he dealt to the table.
Batten then upped the ante by insisting that we all join the Aria
Society. Ignoring that suggestion, O'Connor bragged that he had
skipped Midsummer Marriage entirely, and when Bauman proffered
that he himself had actually attended, O'Connor interrupted, "Why?
Browbeaten by Tuckey?" O'Leary called the opera a drug-induced
fantasy, "Not that I'd know from experience", he said, and Ashish
Kothari immediately offered him the opportunity to do Acid (the
highly spiced Nicaraguan cigars from Drew Estate, that is).
Others asked what all the fuss was about and O'Connor's guest,
Vadim, offered to let us listen to the opera for free at any time
from his web site, www.russiandvd.com. The table compared Michael
Tippet to Benjamin Britten, and O'Connor recalled ribald stories
(second hand, one presumes) of the wild parties Britten and Sir
Peter Pears threw while staying at W. H. Auden's apartment in
Manhattan. This prompted more bath-house stories, and O'Connor
proclaimed that "The bath house idea is superb, so long as there
are towels enough to go around [our respective girths]." Bauman
mentioned that he will be the next Cigar Buyer for the Chicago
Club and was planning a cigar-purchasing spree, which induced
jealousy within the U Club ranks. Doug Johnson proposed that we
procure our own humidor, but then non-sequitured into his weekly
topic of recent interpretations of Martin Buber. John Flanigan
stopped by on his way to Midsummer Marriage and reported on the
progress of the largest squash tournament in the country, to be
held at the U Club in January. (Later he confessed that his party
of four very fashionably quit the opera house after the first act.)
As the evening wore on and the empty glasses accumulated, O'Brien
called for a beer spigot to be installed in the bar that is open
at all times of the day and night to all members, on the honor
principle, but there was concern about potential water damage to
the club house. Batten reported that both State Farm and Allstate
Insurance were presented with bills from the State of Louisiana
for $10 billion for flood damage, even though damage by flooding
is specifically excluded from those policies. As we adjourned,
O'Connor reminded us that heavy drinking made our brains smarter,
on the average, since with each drink we kill only the weaker
brain cells.


Your loyal secretary,
Curtis Tuckey

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