michael murray

Every community event, even one taking place in as beautiful a venue as the Wychwood Barns, has something of a Christopher Guest movie to it. Saturday was Wychwood's annual fundraising trivia night, in which the organizers hoped to raise money for a variety of community projects.

When we* walked in the space was full of about 500 people who would comprise the 40 competing trivia teams, and two musicians. A 50 year-old man in a hat and a woman with the long hair of somebody who might have spent her 30th, 35th and 40th birthday at Medieval Times, performed an unfashionable brand of Celtic music, the type that was popular back in 1992.

A disorganized and genial clump of people stood in the foyer trying to figure out which of the five line-ups they were supposed to be standing in. At the end of each line, where you could perhaps buy a drink ticket, but not a food ticket, there was an abundance of volunteers, each one singularly focused on the one task placed in front of them.

When they ran out of white wine-- about 45 minutes after the doors opened-- the eyes of the woman pouring the drinks became massive and frightened, as if she was about to be overwhelmed. She began to shout out instructions, dispatching people to the local LCBO, but the truth was that nobody really cared.

No white wine?
No problem!
I’ll have a coke!

It was that kind of crowd.

About half way through the trivia competition, a perky young woman took the microphone and tried to inspire the crowd to do some calisthenics. Everyone but the elderly, who gave it all they got, as if to prove their vigor to the world, and one or two cougars who took this as an opportunity to show off their bodies, seemed kind of embarrassed by this and just sat quietly.

It was at this point that the tone of the evening began to subtly shift. The categories, which had been typically trivial, began to focus on Canada and Toronto, and then specifically on the Wychwood community and their avowed interests. They wanted us to have fun, but the wanted us to learn, too! The night was now no longer about trivia with friends, but had morphed into the sort of “public service” you’d expect from the CBC--fusty and pretentious instruction from people who saw themselves as keepers of the light.

As if in some subconscious rebellion to this schoomarmish turn of events, our team—The Terrible Squirrels—who had been languishing near last place all night, lost interest and like delinquent students, began to amuse ourselves by doodling pornographic cartoons on our answer sheet.

Classy.

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* Unfortunately, our assemblage was too large for one team, and so Heather Spratt—who organized the night out and almost qualified to be on Jeopardy once—broke us down into two smaller units. I couldn’t help but notice that Heather appropriated to her team the doctoral candidate, the guy who went to Cambridge, the two Mensa club members and three Asians. The team I was assigned to, (presumably to make the B Squad stronger) was full of people who like to watch hockey fights on YouTube.

Heather’s team finished in the top ten, while The Terrible Squirrels finished 34th in a field of 39.