Welcome to the Summer Luau: Bert's Boogaloo 2!
Held at the Cadentia Villa!
This year’s theme is:
Oye Como Va
Oye Como Va
(Hey how’s it going / listen to the tune as it goes)
January 25 - 8pm EST to ???
We’re taking a turn to the Californian Beaches this year, a little drier, a little hotter, and a lot more light!
The menu this year will reflect those late nights around the bonfires, and will center around a luau Pig Roast.
Dress code: Coast Casual, of course, wear your best Hawaiian shirts and sheaths and muumuus and whatever - don’t worry about the actual weather, it will be a lovely and temperate 70f throughout the party!
Mallory has offered use of the Cadentia Villa, the baronial manor she currently holds, for Pharlen’s Luau — but that’s not the only thing she’s bringing!
Mallory has invited DJ teflon hornzzz, a tiefling from Cadentia’s nascent club scene whose specialty is his own dreamy brand of EDM, and will bring laser lights and fog to his surreal corner of the oasis where he will spin for the guests.
Random CA song list.
The Cadentia Barony Squire, Runt, has hunted down a mighty winter boar for the luau, a 300-pound beast with a fearsome reputation! The impressive haul of meat has been turned over to Zroshnarg, the renowned gnomish barbarian and barbecue gourmand who runs the Fire Pit of Doom restaurant.
The rest of the pork is coming from the renowned Matadero Carnaceria!
(Link below leads to a whole cooked piggy so be aware!)
Whole Cooked Piggy.
SO MUCH PIG.
Seriously.
ALL OF THE PIG.
Zroshnarg will also throw a few burgers or sausages onto the grill for those that need their hot beef injections. PLEASE DO NOT ASK FOR VEGAN/VEGETARIAN SUBSTITUTES AT THE GRILL! Minotaur Miss Cleo (wearing a green apron on top of being a minotaur) will be providing delicious vegan alternatives. She’ll be by the sides table.
This being a Californian bash, of course the elote man is also by the sides table! Get you some of that: Corn slathered in mayo and cheese and sour cream and spiced goodness. In your Belly!
Sides include!
Potato, Macaroni, and green salads
Full selection of breads, including corn bread, corn and flour tortillas
Butter, honey butter, garlic butter.
Pork ‘n’ Beans
Corn on the Cob
Guacamole and Tortilla Chips
Refried beans
Watermelon, Dill, Bread and Butter Pickles
And just about everything else!
Fancy Raspados! (Shaved ice drinks)
Sodas, beers, wine, spritzers and the like will be in ice buckets around the eating area.
Fresh Frutas displays on each table: eat them!
All of the Best Party Girly Glam Drinks available at the bar near the sides tables.
Finally! A huge S’more’s table. We’re not limiting you to just a few things, it’s ALL the things you could possibly put onto a S’more, including: Peeps, Cookies, caramel, and all kinds of sprinkles! Indulge and enjoy!
And the Setting!
Once sun-baked and bare, the walls of the villa have had a new freshening. A thin layer of sealant protecting the stone and stucco, with little cups of identical material attached at regularly spaced intervals, half-circle pockets with the opening upward.
A thick, woody trunk snakes up each of the walls where these are found to spill outward in branches, the thick, waxy blossoms of plumeria cascading outward in clumps of white, pink, yellow and salmon, each plant bearing a variety of different hues. The trunk and branches serve to conceal the pipe carrying water, pressure provided by tapping into an underground spring, up to the top of the wall to mist down over the planter cups.
The cups contain a variety of different plants, arranged in a medley of colors and types. Some are simply tiny mounds of blossoms, crimson and gold, blue, lavender. Others are herbs, perfuming the air with the fragrance of and dusty-green hue of rosemary, the sharp bite and spike-edged leaves of mint. Some cascade down the wall in trailing vines.
Not only different jungles, but different worlds are represented. Scattered throughout, there are a few short-vined plants trailing tendrils sheathed in tiny, luminescent, pure white blossoms, softly glowing with their own energy and light to give off a peculiar, sweet-meat aroma irresistible to most insects and arachnids, without being offensive to other creatures.
Close observation might spot a few scorpions, wasps, flies and spiders tightly wrapped up in delicate-looking fronds here and there, paralyzed and festooned with tiny rootlets protruding through the flowers from the vine. They're harmless to larger animals, though they'd taste vile.
Several of the planting cups serve a dual purpose, anchoring climbing vines of ipomea, with fat blossoms ranging in color from blue to burgundy, white to crimson, some of them bi-color. Watered from above, the plants could stay there indefinitely, though the wall might require re-sealing eventually.
To keep people away from the system, further growth extends outward from the wall's base, framing the central courtyard in lush mounds of foliage and bloom.
The central courtyard is large and open, with mossy dirt between the sandstone paving stones. Tables and chairs are set up, covered with bright clothes and lit overhead with all sorts of lights.
The dance floor where DJ teflon hornzzz presides is wide and smooth, with a few seats on the edges for taking a break.
Nearest the base, hardy hibiscus opens plate-sized yellow, peach and crimson flowers, mingled thickly with the pristine white blossoms and deep green leaves of moonflower bushes. Those spill out into pools of purple and flame lantana, pierced here and there by the upright, colorful spike and fountaining fronds of bromeliads, the similarly fountaining form of pineapple - topped with fruits ripe for the harvest - and gradually thinning into tiny, spiky blue and crimson mounds of the desert bromeliads at the edge of the bare courtyard. Incentive for people to stay out of the flowers unless they have a reason to be there, such as harvesting a pineapple.
Those desert-native species could thrive where the misting of water wouldn't reach them, while the mist would soften harsh desert air and heat to encourage the more tropical varieties closer to the wall. On breezy days, the mist would help to cool the entire courtyard.
Nor were those the only changes. The fish pond had been dredged and carved deeper, water lilies and blue lotus introduced to float upon the surface on a tether of roots dug into the bottom. The muck removed had been perfect soil for those planters, and the troughs holding all the plants around the edge... and there's a new tree, as well, though only someone familiar with the place could call it new.
A thick, contorted trunk rises into rich leaves and twisted branches, pendulous clumps of red-blushed fruit ripe with the distinctive aroma of mango. Close enough to the pond to benefit from its moisture and lend the resident fish some shade, far enough away to prevent roots from invading and compromising the pool.
Outside the walls, there are changes as well. Slim, straight trunks plunge upward into a burst of leaves, large fleshy spheres tucked up beneath some, clumps of upward-curved spikes beneath others. Coconut and banana. Don't stand beneath the coconut trees.... or park there.
Every so often, one might hear the heavy thud of a coconut fruit hitting the ground - but the tropical drinks are fresh, and clumps of cut bananas are hanging on the unplanted walls ripe and ready for snacking.
Beneath the taller growths, clumps of lemon, lime, grapefruit and mandarin orange mingle with the taller branches of eucalyptus, shrinking in height as they fade out away from the walls into an evenly spaced line of dwarf clove and cinnamon trees. Not just any cinnamon - Phoenix cinnamon. Here and there, the night might be lit up briefly by the passage of one of the fiery birds, recently relocated from a far less suitable habitat, as they glide from tree to try collecting twigs to build their pyres from.
From the outside, a clump of lush desert oasis. From the inside... a jungle paradise, though the flowers would come and go once they settled into a natural cycle.
Lucy Mitford’s PUBLIC: an Art Gallery had commissioned a piece for the event as well. The large glowing wings, designed by local artist Neera Mendhi, are photo-ready and worthy.
(And with that, Consider the Night Open! Post your duds and doings, and hopefully we'll see ya LIVE in the chat. Pharlen may have some surprises, or, possibly she'll just be really drunk and insist on showing everyone the one magic trick she knows.)
((The beautiful lantern wings are from the 2018 Magical Lantern Art Festival, as photographed by Relax & Readventure A Magical Lantern Art Festival))
((Thank you to Sard, Yeardley, Lucy, and Mallory for helping me get this together with your wonderful words and helps and reminders. <3))
