Unleashing The Hidden Power Of A Goofy Holiday
My goal has been to encourage jointness, to push people to think of affiliations, rather than to operate as solo entrepreneurs.
The words of A. Bartlett Giamatti, President of Yale, 1978-1986,
and host of annual Halloween Parties at the President’s House
Celebrating a Metric Moment: The Twenty-Fifth Post in “Not My First Rodeo”
Contrary to what anyone who knows me would have predicted, I have managed to meet twenty-four weekly deadlines in a row. But rather than rewarding myself (and you!) with a week off, I have opted instead to take the restraints off hilarity. This essay says nothing about the enormous problems of 2020. Instead, it tells three ridiculous stories from the mid-1970s. Going all-out for humor might seem—and might actually be—inappropriate for such serious times. But I will compensate for this unseemly lightness with a strangely serious conclusion.
The Seven Deadly Sins Thrive in Graduate School
When I was in my mid-twenties, I reached my peak in an under-recognized form of artistry: an orchestration of costume and conduct, performed with comrades as ensemble theater, at Halloween parties. This era of excellence was as short-lived as it was dazzling.
Why was this spell of triumph so intense, but also so transitory? We’ll answer that in the promised “strangely serious conclusion.” But for now, I will provide a clue: this was a success made possible by teamwork, which is harder to sustain than it ought to be.
Our troupe made its debut when a friend invited us, nearly all Yale graduate students, to a Halloween party. We emerged from a freewheeling brainstorming session with an agreement to attend the party as the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth, and Lust. The rivalry and competitiveness of graduate school got pushed to the side, and we reveled in collaboration, working together to choose the right apparel for each Sin. We worked equally hard to design the thematically fitting conduct that each Sin would engage in during the evening. I can’t remember if we chose our parts for ourselves, or if they arose from a spirited collaboration in appraising our intrinsic traits and character qualities. However we arrived at it, the casting worked.
Our debut in Halloween ensemble theater was staged at a party in a private home. I am forever indebted to the hostess who gave us this opportunity, even as I realize that she may have spent years regretting that she invited us. Wasting not a second, we pitched into Sinfulness the moment we entered her home.
Here’s who we were and what we did.
Pride arrived with a portfolio of papers he had written for his graduate seminars. He circulated among the guests, pursuing them if they fled, so he could read to them the paragraphs in his papers that his professors had liked the most.
Greed saw opportunity when he found the hostess’s children watching TV in a side room. He then blocked their view of the TV until they gave him a quarter. He next moved on to the refreshments table, where he sold the hors d’oeuvres and beverages to the guests, sometimes at a set price and sometimes in competitive bidding.
Envy had brought his own beverage: gin and tonic, infused with green food coloring. When people asked what he was drinking, he answered, “Bile,” prolonging his pronunciation of this word into two syllables. Envy’s operating mode was to sidle into conversations, waiting unobtrusively until people said something like, “Our neighbors have invited us to go skiing with them in Vermont,” or “A friend gave us tickets to see the new play at the drama school.” Thus aroused, Envy would say, “I wish someone would invite me to go skiing with them in Vermont,” or “I wish someone had given me tickets to see the new play at the drama school.”
Gluttony ate everything in sight and raided everyone else’s plate when people weren’t looking.
Sloth found just the right space between a sofa and the wall and settled in for a nap, remaining unseen until the party was over.
Wrath (that would be me) began by greeting people at the door. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “method acting” as “a style of acting in which an actor tries to understand and feel the emotions of the character he or she represents.” My conduct at the front door thus had the makings of one of method acting’s finest hours, since I had always been vexed by people who attend costume parties without going to the trouble to put on a costume. When guests arrived in everyday clothes or in “costumes” that had obviously been assembled on the fly, Wrathkicked into high gear, condemning them for their failure. At a certain point, the hostess felt that the un-costumed people deserved a break. So she redirected me to furiously picking up bottles, cups, plates, and napkins, and storming out to the trash can, making harsh remarks about people who litter with abandon. The evening ended well for Wrath when I seized the opportunity to accompany guests to their cars, to point out how poorly they had parked and how much that had infuriated everyone else at the party.
And then there was Lust. This was not a very comfortable role to play in a swirling mass of young adults. And so, even Wrath could not find a way to condemn the poor soul who, stuck with this role, made a choice to pass up the opportunities that would otherwise have been hers. (Spoiler Alert: The third story in this sequence demonstrates a different approach to this challenging situation.)
The Four Humors Fail to Achieve Balance, and Really Don’t Even Try
The classical Greek physician Hippocrates identified four bodily fluids as the determinants of personality. His formulation of human character carried authority for centuries. By a lucky accident in University leadership, Hippocrates positioned us perfectly for our second round in Halloween ensemble theater.
In the 1970s, the President of Yale was A. Bartlett Giamatti who would go on to serve, all too briefly, as the Commissioner of Baseball. Unmistakably the walking definition of a good sport, he regularly hosted a Halloween party at his substantial, conveniently located house. Since his area of expertise was Renaissance literature, we could be confident that he would know what he was confronting when the Four Humors of Mankind showed up as his guests.
The costumes manifested at President Giamatti’s parties were often impressive, offering—with their originality and wit—a solid validation of the Yale admissions process. Once, for instance, thirty-two Teeth arrived in formation. While the Teeth did not decay in the course of the evening, they did become somewhat disordered, and it would have taken quite the orthodontist to bring them back into alignment.
This time, our Halloween ensemble theater fielded a cast of five: the Four Humors of Mankind, with our Personality positioned in our midst, with a wrist-to-wrist cord binding each Humor to the Personality. And now for necessary background, here are the Four Humors (anyone who is squeamish might want to skip over this next part): yellow bile (from the liver), phlegm (from the lungs), blood (from the heart), and black bile (from the kidneys).
Our across-the-street neighbor was serving in the military, but he happened to be home for a visit with his parents, and so we recruited (so to speak) him to serve as the Personality. This made possible a wonderful moment with President Giamatti. When we presented ourselves to him and explained that we were the Four Humors of Mankind, with Mankind stationed between us, President Giamatti said, “I can tell that you are all graduate students.” This remark made us very happy. Our neighbor had gone straight into the military and had never gone to college. And now the President of Yale had commissioned him as a graduate student.
Another neighbor up the street, a fellow graduate student in American Studies, embraced the spirit of the Choleric (yellow bile) temperament, with a predilection for irritation and impatience. My husband Jeff Limerick defied his actual character to represent the Phlegmatic temperament, responding with passivity and indifference to everything that came his way. Our next-door neighbor, a graduate student (fittingly in the field of public health), got the best deal: she took possession of the Sanguine temperament associated with the cheer and enthusiasm supplied by the vigorous coursing of blood through arteries. And I got a part perfectly adapted to party-going: the Melancholic temperament (black bile), steeped in sorrow and gloom. Our varying moods were certainly sufficient to inform everyone in our proximity which of the Humors we represented. And we also wore capes of a satin-like material, correlated to the bodily fluid we represented, though this was a color coding less familiar to people of the twentieth century.
And now for the action. Or the lack thereof.
To take any action, the Personality had to consult his Humors and get their agreement on his proposal. Sanguinity was instantly on board with whatever he proposed. The other three Humors, not so much.
Since he was tied to his Humors and could not move without them, our Personality spent most of the evening consulting his Humors, to no notable outcome. For instance, a band was playing, and the Personality thought we might want to dance. Sanguinity was instantly ready to accept his invitation. But the very idea of dancing infuriated our Choleric Humor, who hated the band and who felt that the people who were already dancing were people to shun. Our Phlegmatic Humor was apathetic about the whole idea (as well as any other idea), declaring that he saw little difference between dancing and standing around.
And I played little part in the consultation. Instead, the Melancholic Humor was besieging the partygoers in my proximity, instructing them on how depressing parties were. Just beneath the pathetic veneer of bravado, I told them, everyone was deeply uncomfortable, desperate to be elsewhere, and stuck pretending to have fun with people they had no interest in meeting. Fulfilling my mission to inflict misery on others, I had no time or energy to waste on a dance floor.
Taking hold first in ancient Greece, belief in the governing power of the Four Humors hung around through the Medieval era. After our evening of reenactment, it seemed astonishing that anyone did anything at all over those centuries. Apparently, for a millennium and a half, even though the pulsating force of Blood was game for anything, the reluctance of Phlegm, Yellow Bile, and Black Bile still ruled. Meanwhile, over the centuries, Personalities must have dreamed of a world in which they would never again have to consult their Humors and could just do something.
The Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego Make Quite an Impression
In round three of the glory days of Halloween ensemble theater, Jeff Limerick, our friend Carol Bundy, and I cooked up a plan to attend President Giamatti’s party as the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego. None of us had progressed much beyond Psych 101, but we felt we knew enough to create a viable action plan.
As with the ties between the Humors and their Personality, a great deal hinged on the cords that would keep us united. One cord tied the Id to the Ego, and another cord tied the Ego to the Super-Ego. Prohibited from touching the Id directly, the Super-Ego could only demand that the Ego bring the Id under control. With these arrangements in place, the Ego was fated to spend the evening (and possibly eternity) pulled in two contradictory directions. Still, our theory was that the Ego could draw on a much clearer recognition of the need for compromise than either the Id or the Super-Ego would ever muster.
With her hair tightly restrained in a bun, the Super-Ego wore a skirt that reached mid-calf and a shirt without frills, with the collar tightly buttoned. A hairbrush with sharp bristles served as her scepter of authority. The Ego wore a casual corduroy jacket, well-pressed slacks suggesting a modest degree of dressing up, but no tie. The Id wore tights, a leotard, and a cape made of a striking fabric that featured images of women who were not fully dressed, but who weren’t the least bit uncomfortable about that. We all had labels of some sort, on the chance that this would help party-goers cope with us. The front of the Id displayed the crucial two letters in red cloth, outlined with gold sequins.
So we were ready to have a good time at the party.
Or at least the Id was.
Our operating plan was for the Id to be the initiator in socializing. We had agreed that I would have only one word in my vocabulary, though I could use that word as often as it came to my mind.
The word was “Want.”
The Id would sight an appealing-looking person and rush wantonly (or wantingly) toward that person, pulling the Ego along behind her, while the Ego, in turn, pulled the Super-Ego along with him.
The Id would approach the appealing-looking person and repeat her one word: “Want.” But the Ego was right there, pulling the Id back, and trying to save an awkward situation.
“My apologies,” the Ego would say to the person who the Id wanted, “for the way we’ve presented ourselves. I am really determined to make a good impression on you, and I am sorry that we’ve gotten off to such an awkward start. But really, you are a very appealing person, and it is no surprise that the Id wants you. Well, enough about the Id, let me tell you about my accomplishments . . . “
As the Ego worked away to get the world back under control, the Super-Ego scolded, chided, and reprimanded. “This is what always happens,” her familiar litany ran. “We go to a party where we want people to think highly of us. We’ve barely arrived, and the Ego lets the Id get out of control. We really should just go home and spend the time accusing each other of ruining the evening.”
And, as the Super-Ego spoke at length to the Ego about the messes he always made, the Id would seize the chance to scope out the scene, assess the possibilities, and make a beeline toward her next target.
And then Jeff requested a time-out.
We were spending our whole evening in the company of appealing young men, he said. But there were plenty of appealing young women attending the party. Couldn’t we visit with some of them?
Uh oh.
Remember, this was almost a half-century ago, and quite a different world.
Still, when we searched our memories from our introductory psychology classes, our conclusion was clear: the Id did not waste any time on sorting out gender preferences.
When we returned to the party, our new protocol foreshadowed the changes that loomed on the horizon for the nation. Under our new regime, the Id alternated between declaring her attraction to young men and to young women. And the process of coming into compliance with the paradigms set forth in psychology textbooks went well. The Ego was happier, and the Super-Ego still found plenty to complain about in the Ego’s conduct.
And then an unexpected turn of events caught the Id by surprise.
Remember, this was a Halloween party, and there were kings, queens, presidents, and even popes in attendance. So it was certain that the Ego and the Super-Ego would come upon a famous and powerful person who they really wanted to impress.
When the Id saw that the Ego and the Super-Ego put everything they had into winning over a particular dignitary (I believe they had found a medieval pope), this seemed to spell major opportunity for the Id. The cord tied to her wrist was long enough to let the Ego and the Super-Ego stay where they were, preoccupied with a papal from the Church’s early history leaving the Id free to approach a particularly appealing young man.
This encounter got off to a bracing start. When she said, “Want,” this young man gave every sign of receptivity to the Id’s vision of the immediate future. Had he taken Psych 101? Did he recognize the meaning of the two sequin-outlined letters, “ID,” and the fact that he had been drawn into a performance of Halloween ensemble theater? Or were those questions suddenly academic?
Beginning in warmth, the relationship gained in temperature. Concerned over an escalating situation, the Id did something that she had thought she would never do. She tugged—hard—on her wrist cord to summon the Ego and the Super-Ego to rescue her from her own success. And, keeping a tight hold on excessive self-disclosure, I will just say that when the Id learned a lesson, I learned it, too.
An hour or two into the party, we had fine-tuned our method and forged something close to a method for holding together as a personality.
And then three gorillas entered the scene. They were furry, and the Id very much wanted to touch them. She moved quicky in their direction, but the Ego resisted. “Stop,” he said. “You’re making an animal of yourself.” The Id stayed fixed on the gorillas.
And then the calamity—for which we had no contingency plan—hit hard.
The cord tying the Id to the Ego broke.
We were having a breakdown.
But our location presented hope. Just a short distance from the President’s house was the Yale Student Health Center, with one floor of offices dedicated to counseling and psychotherapy. So all three of us—the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego—did the only thing we could do in our fractured state: we sat down in the road in front of the Health Center and cried for help.
(My own familiarity with the offices of the counseling and psychotherapy professionals at the Yale Health Center was not superficial. A very fine psychiatrist who worked there, Dr. William Glazer, got me over writer’s block and made it possible for me to get a Ph.D. To spell out the direct connection here, Dr. Glazer made it possible for you to read these ridiculous stories and, perhaps more important, to find value in the existence of the Center of the American West!)
And Now for the Strangely Serious Conclusion:
A Study in Cohesion
Why did I have such a successful run over those three years’ worth of Halloween parties? That is easy to answer: because I was part of a team.
Why did the successful run fizzle out? Because various members of the team graduated and deserted the troupe.
I don’t remember with certainty who came up with the ideas for our batty performances. For all I know, I may have been the person who proposed these ideas. But if I had not had the wholehearted participation of my teammates, I would have sat contemplating these ideas (to resurrect an old saying) “in splendid isolation.” But the participation of the teammates made all the difference, and the ideas turned into a splendid collective adventure.
The people who performed so memorably as the Seven Deadly Sins, the Four Humors and their Personality, and the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego were also performing at the highest levels of teamwork and collaboration.
In our madcap way, we provided a model of cohesion for a society that has an uneven record in holding its members together.
Here is the central lesson I learned from our escapades: it takes a lot of effort to hold a human being together. The Seven Deadly Sins were agents of entropy, united only in their commitment to make the world a place of disorder. Consulting with his Humors, the Personality had to use every form of persuasion and coaxing to get them even to consider doing something together. Endlessly pulled between two opposed forces, the Ego never had a single moment when he could say, “I’ve found a way to placate both the Id and the Super-Ego; now they are both content, and they will finally leave me in peace.”
It is hard to coordinate a self. The cords holding the parts together are always fragile.
And that’s where the collaboration of our Halloween ensemble theater teams intersected with the lesson of the constant challenge, manifested over the millennia, of keeping individual human beings whole.
In many scenes, scenarios, situations, and settings of human existence, it takes a village to keep people from fracturing from their own internal tensions.
William Shakespeare Joins the Halloween Ensemble Theater
At the end of Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony’s tribute to Brutus reminds us that the mixture in human character holds value as well as vexation.
His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to the world, “This was a man.”
Brutus was a man, but—in a widespread pattern—he was also a human being. Here and elsewhere, Shakespeare proved to be quite a disappointment when it comes to anticipating our current dissatisfaction with gender-exclusive nouns. But his combination of brevity and aim often distilled years of our experiences into a few words—in this case, exactly six.
Shakespeare’s phrase, “the elements so mixed in him,” captures everything we learned about human nature on three unforgettable Halloweens.
If you find this blog contains ideas worth sharing with friends, please forward this link to them. If you are reading this for the first time, join our EMAIL LIST to receive the Not my First Rodeo blog every Friday.
Photo Credit: Banner Pumpkin image courtesy of: pixabay.com, by PublicDomainPictures
Photo Credit: Four Temperaments image courtesy of: Wikipedia
Photo Credit: HWY Cartoon image courtesy of: CartoonStock.com