Project GLOWWORM
Master Debating
Samuel Clemens wrote (or said, I am unsure which), "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." That is as true in the weird subculture of debate as in the society at large. In the world of I.E. (Individual Events), the "speech" half of the former Speech & Debate Team, now just the Debate Team, suits are the order of the day for the lads. A suit, not trousers & a sportcoat. Waistcoats are fine, but you must be very careful about removing your suit coat; judges have been known to take a very dim view of any deviation from the traditional uniform. The dress code for the lasses permitted much more freedom of maneuver, as it does in all such cases involving business attire. The form of debate most closely tied to I.E., N.P.D.A., followed its sister competition's lead, & suits were all but mandatory.

Worlds-style debate is an entirely different & more anarchistic beast. Not knowing our way around the block last spring at Nationals (our first competition, at the University of Denver, infuriatingly & nonsensically initialized as "D.U." That's right, D.U., the University of Denver. Illiterate cretins.), we wore our standard I.E. garb. We quickly discovered that by and large we were overdressed. Now, it is always better to be overdressed than underdressed, but consensus was swiftly reached that the suits were no longer necessary. Our fellow competitiors wore everything under the sun, from three-piece suits on one extreme to jeans, T-shirts, & sneakers on the other, with the big meaty part of the curve attired in the realms of smart casual & business casual. I wore my suit on the second day simply because I did not have any over pants that weren't blue jeans, & it would have looked odd to wear my suit pants & braces without the accompanying suit coat. But Too Sly ditched his jacket (he holds his suit pants up with a belt, not braces) & his partner at the time, the loathsome Warren, ditched his suit entirely, wearing a collared shirt & loosened tie with jeans, a ghastly hybridization to mine eyes. What we have worn since has varied & will continue to vary by venue.

At Claremont, my first competition partnered with Too Sly, we decided beforehand not to wear our suits, but to maintain a modicum of formality by wearing collared shirts & ties with trousers & dress shoes. We made this decision in part because we wished not be encumbered by coats in the pseudo-desert climate of far inland Los Angeles County. Over the course of the competition Too Sly came to feel somewhat vulnerable without his suit coat; so, debuting at Hart House (*shudder*) & continuing more recently at Adelphi, he has worn his suit & a collared shirt, but no tie. I attribute this partially to his very heavy background in I.E. At Claremont, even without coats, we were on the more formal end of the spectrum of attire. By contrast, Adelphi featured a higher percentage of full suits than any previous Worlds tournament. I think we can all deduce from this entirely expected cultural differences between the East Coast & the West Coast. As with every other part of the Horror of Hart House, nothing useful could be deduced from the attired donned by the competitors; the Canadians were a savage, unruly rabble, & as many of them wore filthy, holey T-shirts as starched collars & bow ties.

The guiding principle going forward: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. The next time we go out west, I might very well leave the ties at home & go in true business casual, & even then I'll be far from the most informal cat in attendance. By the same token, the next time we go back east, I will almost certainly wear one or both of my new suits (belated birthday gifts; so, I suppose I should call them my birthday suits), because I know that's how our Ivy League competitors will be attired. During a round, what we wear is not nearly so important as what we say, but what we wear also says something about what we'll say & how seriously we take the whole enterprise. We've got a long way yet to go, but we're in it to win it, and that includes dressing the part.

The Last Angry Moustache & The Last Angry Mane
I don't know if the planned Banzai Beard Bonanza III: Third Time's the Harm (2014-1015) & Banzai Beard Bonanza IV: Four For Forty (2019-2020) will be necessary, because I enjoyed the Banzai Beard Bonanza II: Bonsai's Revenge & Magnificent Moustache Malarkey so much that I ceased shaving as soon as I completed the Crim Ten-Mile in late August. (Being cleanshaven was my little gift to Mrs. Skeeter, Esq., who urged me to run the Crim & who hates my moustache & beard like cancer.) I am terribly fond of how I look with a full set of facial hair, so much so that not having to shave is simply a bonus, not a higher-order motivation.

The one modification I've made since the B.B.B. II is shaving the pathetic linkage between my moustache & my beard. I will never be able to sport a properly villainous Van Dyke, what we mistakenly referred to as a "goatee" in the '90s, because I don't have a thick enough bed of hair connecting my moustache & my goatee (that hair which grows on the chin). And those too few hairs detracted from the clean line of my, if I may be immodest, magnificent moustache; so, I've carefully shaved them away, just as I do with the too few hairs on my cheeks. Bridging the gap between my moustache & my beard now is my imperial (or soul patch), fully integrated into the beard. I only shaved those hairs on Sunday, but already I'm pleased with how their absence has enhanced the "pop" of my swiftly curling moustache.

I've been letting my facial hair grow for three months now, a full month shy of Bonsai's Revenge; so, I cannot yet say with any certainly how long I'll let it all grow & at what length it will eventually stabilize. For the moment, banzai!

Mad As a Hatter
I've added a tweed flat cap to my wardrobe, the thought being that it will help provide warmth during those cold winter days & nights when it is not quite apocalyptically cold enough to necessitate wearing my ushanka.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
MxPx, "Lonesome Town" from the Renaissance E.P. (T.L.A.M.)