12 September 2006

 
University Club of Chicago Cigar Society
One of the oldest and greatest traditions of the University Club is the discussion of intellectual, social, legal, artistic, historical, scientific, musical, theatrical, and philosophical issues in the company of educated, bright, and (appropriately) provocative individuals, all under the beneficent influence of substantial amounts of scotch, tobacco, and roast beef.  The University Club Cigar Society embraces this tradition and extends it with its fortnightly meetings, quarterly dinners, and numerous impromptu gatherings, in which cigars, and from time to time pipes and cigarettes, appear as an important component of our version of the classical symposium.  This fall the cigar club will officially meet on the dates indicated below, but with many other impromptu meetings inside the clubhouse and elsewhere.  Please join us Tuesday, September 12, in the Tower Club bar (20 N. Wacker Drive, 39th floor), 5-7pm, as we kick off the new season at the club.  All University Club and Tower Club members are invited, and guests are always welcome.

Fight Nights November 2 and 3
University Club Fight Nights, the preeminent boxing, cigar, scotch, and roast beef events of the city, will be held this year on November 2 and 3.  On each of these nights 250 men in dinner jackets and a handful of women in evening wear will attend a lavish cocktail reception in College Hall (with scotch and cigars), followed by a magnificent dinner featuring rare beef and blood-red wine (and more cigars), followed by ten successive Golden Gloves boxing matches (surrounded by bonfires of cigars) in the center of the club's gothic masterpiece, Cathedral Hall.  The Cigar Society has reserved two tables ringside for Thursday, November 2.  To sit with the Cigar Society, RSVP before September 30th to Curtis Tuckey. 

To reserve your own table, or to reserve places for November 3, RSVP to Mr. Turner.

  Coming up . . . 
Cigar Society Events are scheduled for September 26 (Informal Smoker, Tower Club), October 12 ("New World" Cigar Society Dinner, Tower Club), October 24 (Talisker Scotch Tasting, Tower Club), November 2 (Fight Night, University Club), November 14, 28 (Informal Smokers, Tower Club), December 12 or 14 (Tower Club; see below). 
The Arts Committee hosts a reception for photographer Ethel Peterson on Thursday, September 14th, in the University Club gallery, 5-7pm.  Cigars to follow in the President's Bar.
The Classical Music Society hosts violinist Martin Davids and harpsichordist David Schrader on Wednesday, September 20, at the Tower Club.  Wine and cheese at 5:00, performance at 5:15. ($12 )   Cigars to follow in the Tower Club bar at 6:15.  RSVP to Ms. Lewis for the performance.

A New World Cigar Society Dinner is scheduled for October 12, Columbus Day.  The theme is The New World's Contribution to Eating, Drinking, and Smoking.  The dinner will feature cigar smoking (b.y.o.), an extensive tequila tasting, and multiple courses based on comestibles unavailable in the old world.   Mark your calendars!  RSVP to Ms. Lewis. ($59 )  BYO cigars.

"What a blessing this smoking is!  Perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America." -- Sir Arthur Helps.  Suggested reading for this day is Helps's Life of Columbus (1869), available free of charge from the Gutenberg Project.

 

The Arts Committee hosts a reception for photographer Steve Somen on Thursday, November 9, in the University Club gallery, 5-7pm.  Cigars to follow in the President's Bar.
Lyric Opera Night.  Regular "E-Series" ticket holders will be attending Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette on Tuesday, December 12 at the Civic Opera House at 7:30pm.  Your loyal secretary gamely proposes dinner, drinks, and cigars at the Tower Club before the show, starting at 5:00pm.   Tickets for the opera are available to nonsubscribers through LyricOpera.org. 

If opera-going spouses object strenuously to this modest proposal, which strikes me as altogether quite likely, our alternative will be to meet instead for an informal smoker on Thursday, December 14, in the Tower Club bar.

Reading for September:  To My Cigar

from The Alexandria Herald (Virginia) November 19, 1813

Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctor's spite;
I love thy fragrant, misty spell,
I love thy calm delight.

What if they tell, with phizzes long,
Our years are sooner past?
I would reply, with reason strong,
They're sweeter while they last.

And oft, mild tube, to me thou art,
A monitor, though still;
Thou speak'st a lesson to my heart,
Beyond the preacher's skill.

When, in the lonely evening hour,
Attended but by thee,
O'er hist'ry's varied page I pore,
Man's fate in thee I see.

Awhile like thee the hero burns,
And smokes and fumes around,
And then like thee to ashes turns,
And mingles with the ground.

Throu't like the man of worth, who gives
To goodness every day,
The fragrance of whose virtues lives,
When he has passed away.

Oh when thy snowy column grows,
And breaks and fails away,
I trace how mighty realms thus rise,
Then tumbled to decay.

From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe,
One common doom is pass'd:
Sweet nature's works, the mighty globe,,
Must all burn out at last.

And what is he who smokes thee now?
A little moving heap:
That's soon, like thee, to fate must bow,
Like thee in dust must sleep.

And when I see thy smoke roll high,
Thy ashes downward go,
Methinks 'tis thus my soul shall fly,
Thus leave my body too.

A huge Cigar are all mankind,
And time's the wasting breath,
That, late or early, we shall find,
Gives all to dusty death.

Respectfully submitted by

Curtis Tuckey