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The Spike or Victoria University College Review 1933

Com Munism Incoll

page 26

Com Munism Incoll

Clubs!!!

S.C.M., Literary, Mathematical and Physical, Commerce, Science, Free Discussions, Evangelical Union, Chess, Law Faculty, Natural History, Debating, Dramatic, Hui Marae, Tramping, Haeremai, Harrier, Social Service, Labour, Rowing, Rifle, Basketball, and all the Strong-Arm and Nobby-Legged Boys.

If all.

How many's that? No, you don't say! And there are six hundred odd students at V.U.C. Well, as old Sancho Panza said, God bless the man who invented sleep. And as James Joyce said, fffulcnutidmopcsmcklrheputmcnbasdf yuiop bgkqjzfiflffffi xzfiflhellxzfifl aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafff ffffffffffffffffffflll.

Aren't we all? Arn't arn't arn't arrrrrrrrrrrrn't Aren't we (all)??????

Or as Gertrude Stein so undergraduatly puts it:

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah?

Oh yeah!

Who which why what

Whithersoever

and How!

Dare I think it?

I dare,

whaffor?

That sort of writing for Spike would have led to words with the Printer a few years back when we were dribbling out of the barbaric past into the Hysteric Present with the fufufufufufufufu-fufufuture jigging on the Horizon sardonically thumbing its nununununununununununose at us.

Now it's a New Art Form.

* * *

But they get away with it at Auckland. They get away with it at Canterbury. Shh. . . . . . .do not mention Truth. What IS Truth?

* * *

The New Morality will not allow printers to be born.

(Oh, that it might be retrospective!)

There shall be no printing by printers!

If we want any printing done, we shall do it ourselves.

We will? do it ourselves.

We shall? do it ourselves.

To HHHHHHHH with the Englislanguage, anyway. Who cares?

* * *

By Vodka, let us think again.

(Hic).

Dear Printer. Although you are class-conscious in a sort of way (hic), you are not yet edu(hic)cated up to the urge we would urge upon you.

(Hic).

Vodka is potent. Hail Vodka!

Vodka will put us back where we were.

We will (shall) say it with Englislanguage.

* * *

Speaking of College Clubs, of which there are so many, we forget how many: Question: Are there too many, or not enough? Looking them over—

The Tramping Club is Every Girl's Problem. "Shall I marry into the Varsity, or shall I not?" Read the Prospectus of the Club. "Diana Bowen-Darrow, tenth year student, went for a tramp over Waikikamukau and is now happily married to a Doctor." "The alpenstock is more effective than the lipstick. Come off that shelf. Join the Tramping Club where our most magnificent young males foregather." "A Cupid in every pack! Drorna Blank brought home the bacon after her last trip across the Poriruas."

The Chess Club comes back from an obscure past and struggles manfully (in slow motion) with Capablanca and Alekhine. White moves P-Q4. Black thinks for half an hour. Then he moves P-Q4. Black takes an hour and a half over the next move, which is PxP. White goes away for a term, then comes back and says: "Mate in 48 moves." Black swiftly rehearses in imagination the possible competing lines of action, and gasps in complete comprehension. The game is up. The board is set and they start another game, which is a little faster, for they are finished by exam. time. The Chess Club is good for the exams. The trained chess-player can out-think the average examiner. All examiners are average (but you can substitute a more satisfying word if you like).

page 27

The Free Discussions Club is, as might be expected, a free-for-all. A kind of Shillelagh that gets trodden 'neath the sod with monotonous regularity, but always comes up again, even if it never grows up. Once it was the stamping ground of Heretics; now it is (or was) the Bolshies' Banjo-party. In the Pink Times, some-body introduced a subject for discussion; this has been changed to giving a sermon and then permitting a few questions to be asked with one eye on the clock and Brooky outside putting lights on and off. The Public are very interested in this Club and appear to have the idea that it is a sort of Intellectual Nude Cult. It is not intellectual!

The S.C.M. lurks sentimentally on the out-skirts of Christianity and displays a misty attitude towards most things. Somehow or other it seems incomplete without Mahatma Ghandis and things like that. Its ultrapallid qualities have irritated into existence the Evangelical Union—a redhot gospeller with a half-brick in his pocket.

The most religious clubs in the College are the Dramatic Society and the Belabour Club (or Watson Broadcast). Here are Faith, Fevour, Fatuity! The Dramatic Society is a coterie of Bright Young Things interested in Sex and Swearwords. The Belabour Club aims at turning out scab-conscious students and training a leader for the next strike of Hairpin Operatives. Both sassieties discover the significance of reproducing the words words of real and imaginary persons. Both live in hopes of some day shocking somebody into something.

The Hui Marae, if it exists, if it exists, if it exists, attends, we think, to the decoration and dusting of the Women's Common Room. The Haeremai Club is a cold pork pie.

The Debating Society no longer debates—it free discusses. It is the Comic Relief Club of the College. The only tradition it maintains is Cathie Forde. For this it is known as Cathie's Club, or Forde's Own.

Why the Law Faculty Club is on the down-grade is not known, for the world shows no signs of becoming honest.

* * *

Pathology 1931-1933:

Births: Free Discussions Club (New Series); Harrier Club; Chess Club (rebirth); Glee Club (in posse); Natural History Section (by Science Society); Evangelical Union; Watson Broadcast (unbaptised); the Commerce Society (Plunket product).

In Extremis; Law Faculty Club; Hui Marae; Musical Society.

Senile or other Decay: Haeremai Club; Debating Society (pre-1933 style); Free Discussion (Unauthorised Version).

Still Going Strong: All Beef Clubs.

* * *

In the words of Watson, this won't do. It simply won't do. We are not club-conscious. A measly so-many clubs to over six hundred students, forsooth! Many students do not belong to any club at all. What is the reason?

The reason is that the College hasn't the clubs to suit them. If it had they would belong to them.

For instance, there are students who come up to the College to dance. Where is the Dance Club?

There are Dances? Nunno—Hops! and not much in the way of hops either. Nor wine that maketh glad the heart of man. Wine not? A Shicketeer Dance Club at the College would save many an Illuminated Young Thing from spending oceans of time, trouble and thirst on down-town Whoop Parries. A Singin Society. Ha!

Is there a formal and affiliated Freud Club? No. Is there a Club of Unpaid Writers to the Reptile Press? No. Is there a Truth Club? No. Is there a Fascist Club, an Exams Club, a Lay-by Club, a Night Club, a Two-up Club (nor yclept Common Room Committee), a Jig-Saw Movement, a Fashions Club, a Vegetarian Club, an Elocution Club, a Club club club club club club club club club clubclubclubclub? No, no no nonononononononono No! And vet there are more than six hundred students at the College!

Six hundred students, everyone capable of constituting a Club. Why should there not be six hundred clubs? Ungallant six hundred! Why why why wh ywh y why why why why why ?

We do not mean batons, but clubs! If any student formed a Scab Club

* * *

Clubs are trumps!
Thump thump!
A Club for every head!
That is the individualism which is Communism.

* * *

Shall the dog carry his fleas forever?
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.

—Communist Cell 99 (padded).