I give you the Toronto Strip Spelling Bee created by Montreal author Sherwin Sullivan Tjia.
This competitive event that happens whenever the author feels like it sounds like an event I could really get behind (a little tushie joke there!). It’s such an interesting mix of sexy and smart.
Tija explains in the interview that some of the people who attend are exhibitionists, but there are others who just need a little prodding to have fun. And it’s all in good sport—people only strip down to their underwear.
I love the concept of nudging people into fun. This is how Tija describes it:
“What I’ve discovered is that there are people that want to show their bodies to the world. But if you ever told them to do a striptease, they would say, “No.” They’d feel vain, or that people would judge them. But within the framework of a spelling bee, where you’re forced to do this when you get a word wrong, but they’re also orchestrating it—it’s like ... I went to art school because I didn’t have the discipline to be self-propelling at the time. Sometimes you need people to crack the whip, to get you to do the things you really want to do.”
And my favorite part? Usually when the still-clothed winner comes to collect their trophy, they usually strip down anyway.
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