Holiday Happenings:
Holiday Haaaaaaaaaah! Pie in the face, but all’s well-ish
Lights and Music and Theater and a Run or Two Options for enjoying yourself, and helping others, this holiday season
Food Gone Crazy What people put in their mouths during the holidays
Fest It Up At Home Sixteen Tons brings home the happy hoppyness
Holiday Haaaaaaaaaah!
Pie in the face, but all’s well-ish
by Suzi Steffen
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| Tina Rinaldi |
Why the heck do we have a Bad Santa hitting an innocent arts adminstrator with a tin full of pie on our cover?
Short story: We used Facebook, and this was the result.
Long story: Ideas about pie in the face started to fly around last Tuesday. Yeah! Thanksgiving pie in the face! Wait, if pie’s good, what about a cherpumple? (See more about the cherpumple in this issue.) Suddenly, Tina Rinaldi, program manager for Arts and Administration at the UO’s School of Architecture and the Allied Arts, volunteered to get hit in the face by pie. Then David Mort, the general manager of the Lord Leebrick Theatre Company, also volunteered to be the one hit in the face.
Rinaldi insisted she be the pied instead of the pie-er, and Mort said he’d find a Santa suit to make things all the more holiday-ish. We called Catherine at Sweet Life to see if the perennial Best of Eugene winner could come up with one in a such a short amount of time, and we talked things over with the photographers and art director. Everyone agreed actually hitting Rinaldi with a cherpumple (which our webmaster/technical genius/IT dude told us “weighed like 500 pounds” as he carried it into the office) might result in serious injuries. Graphic artist Sarah Decker came up with the pie tin and whipped cream idea; I (Suzi Steffen) snagged a Santa suit from Nobody’s Baby (thanks to the UO Bookstore’s Bruce Lundy for the tip) and some pie filling from the Kiva.
Rinaldi and Mort practiced several times before the actual, and pretty hilarious, pie to the face commenced. Rinaldi, Mort and I all helped smear pumpkin pie filling and cherry butter on Rinaldi’s face and hands while Cooper took photos and Decker looked on with a knowing photographer smile. Almost everyone at the Weekly offices (and Rinaldi’s family, and some dogs, we hear) partook of cherpumple, of which, as I write this, some still remains in the refrigerator.
Really, it was some of the most fun possible at this workplace. Thanks to all who participated, and don’t try this at home … but feel free to bake a cherpumple using our links, and definitely enjoy the offerings of every arts organization in the well-arted city of Eugene.
Isn’t that our city slogan? A Great City for the Arts and the Foodies? If not, we think it should be. Happy holidays, Eugene. Stay warm and dry, and don’t lose that creamy goodness at your center.