Imagine the scene: You’re at school camp and have eaten the food, but you and your friends are all still at the table, nursing your orange cordials and wondering how best to mess with the teachers without leaving your chairs. Someone starts tapping out a rhythm on their upturned cup. They teach the person next to them, and so on. Eventually you have dozens of people pounding out a rhythm, passing cups all around the table.
I recreated this with some friends at my house (filmed from underneath the glass table). They described it as “strangely zen”. As you’ll probably observe during the video, there was minimal training involved. The reason I’m giggling is that the person next to me copped a cup in their lap and managed to continue.
It’s a 4-4 rhythm, and it goes something like this:
Start with a cup to your left, upside down. With your right hand, lift it (1) and place it (still upside down) in front of you (2). Hit a brief rhythm on the base (left right left – 3-and-4). Clap (1), pick it up (2) and place it (still upside down) on your right (3, and 4 is a pause). Clap (1), then grasp it sideways with your right hand (twisting your wrist so your thumb is close to the table on the near side of the cup – 2), hit the open end against your left palm (3), the bottom against the table (4), then place the bottom of the cup in your left hand – twisting your wrist a little, and switching hands (1), hit your right palm against the table to your left (2), and the upside down cup on your far right (3, and pause for four). Then repeat but using the cup that has just been placed at your left.
I definitely recommend playing along at home, but not with Mum’s best china (or her second-best glass for that matter – we used plastic cups).
And here, continuing “Killer Robot Cat” month, is my oh-so-sweet Ana killing a yellow smiley face*
*Training. . .
Coming soon: How to annoy your neighbour by accidentally making a diet coke and mentos rocket that shoots over a 2-storey building (DON’T try that at home!)
Bubbles! With your hands!
Sculpture Garden
Bad movie night (during which I thought some of my guests might turn violent – and I sympathised)
and, as always, more. . .