Spelling bees showcase brains, bodies

MONTREAL (CUP) — The lights are dimmed. The beers are in hand. The ravenous crowd is hooting and hollering as the sweatdrenched figure onstage peels off yet another article of clothing, one less shield between their skin and the unwholesome eyes of slavering masses.

A man leans close to the microphone and, with great levity, pronounces the word that will determine the figure's future: “Glockenspiel.”

Welcome to the exhilarating world of the strip spelling bee.

Most bees provide the chance to show off your brains — and if you're willing to do that, Sherwin Tjia, the Honeysuckle Strip Spelling Bee Night organizer — figures why not show off some other things too?

“I'm a pretty good speller,” said Tjia, but “as good as you think you are, there's always someone better.”

This won't be Tjia's first spelling extravaganza. He hosted one touted as a “hipster spelling bee” last year, but felt it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi.

That missing element was, as it usually is, nudity.

Upping the stakes even higher this time around is the $50 that will go to the winner — and every participant is guaranteed a free drink.

Tjia has a penchant for social events last suffered in middle school; he also co-organizes the bar's popular Slowdance Nights.

The former Concordia student likes “to take old things and make them new.”

For him, this seemingly nostalgic brand of festivity is really all about exorcising old demons.

“[High school] was when I lived my most trauma,” he admitted. “I didn't know how to navigate that world so I just stayed out of it.”

Now that the hormonal nausea of adolescence is a thing of the past, former school dance wallflowers can join Tjia as he re-enacts “old traumas and [makes] them OK.”

Middle school spelling bee enthusiasts were, to their peers, about as cool as kids who were excited about homework. Here we are at the other end of the tunnel, where exhibitionism and orthography meet in unholy union. Has the great unwashed finally decided intelligence is sexy?

Tjia remains skeptical.

“I'm not sure how much better it is to be smart. I think it's still better to be beautiful.”

Then again, what's more beautiful than a well-spelled word?