Brain meets Brawn at The Rac

The Raconteur was burning more than literary fire on Saturday night. Those who dared came prepared to accept Alex's arm wrestling challenge at the 1^st Annual Santiago Armsport Tourney, so named after the titular fisherman in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

From the Raconteur's website, the tournament was...

Inspired by the grueling twenty-four hour match in Casablanca between the marlin trolling Santiago and "the great Negro from Cienfuegos, who was the strongest man on the docks."

"They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight... shadows jumped on blue walls, fingernails bled on black fists, and men changed referees every four hours so that the officials could sleep."

Hemingway fans and Stallone stalwarts settled into thirty folding chairs for a succession of blustery bouts between contenders like Roland, a mountainous mash-up of George "the Animal" Steele and Over the Top's burly "Bull" Hurley; James "Feel the Bern" Dudley, a husky dark horse; and long haul trucker, er, local bookseller, Alex Dawson. Yes, just an ordinary night at The Raconteur.

There were others: Leon, a cock diesel classicist who chops his own wood and reads Latin shirtless; Tom, a recent Princeton grad/senior class prez with arms twice as long as everyone else's. (It was a match that forced Eva, sister of one, flame of the other, to make a difficult cheering - beau or bro?); fifty- something jazz composer John, sleeveless and revealing two biceps, thin as butter blades, white as bar naps, ball-pointed with makeshift tatts that respectively read "Born to Torque," and "Bud Don't Budge;" and a college kid named Jess.

Some people fight for money, some fight for glory, some fight for the love of their alienated son, but Dawson, who took on all comers, fought to avoid handing out the twenty-five dollar gift certs he'd promised the victors ("should they emerge"). Turns out, he'd been a dive bar champ during his days as a gutbucket bartender/bouncer and, though he hadn't "torqued" in six years, his wrenches served him well. He won every match.

The tournament was followed by a free screening of The Old Man and the Sea.

How lucky are we to have The Raconteur on Main Street?!