'Bred Crumbs

The Name of the Act

Euphemisms for ... You Know

It should come as no surprise that this all got started on Bourbon Street.

I and a few friends were making our mostly-annual pilgrimage to the French Quarter in March 1999. Part of the tradition there had become to hang out on a second-floor balcony overlooking Bourbon Street, imbibe happily, watch the parade of oddity go by on the street below, and play several hands of The Great Dalmuti.

If you haven't played this massively entertaining but discontinued Richard Garfield card game, try to find a set, or make a deck and download the rulebook. I won't try to explain it here; the pertinent part is that, in the course of playing a hand, the player who is that round's "Great Dalmuti" can dictate a rule all other players have to follow in announcing the play of their cards. Coming up with this rule is half the fun of the game.

This was the brilliance struck upon by one of us, Kathleen, as she scanned the crowded, brick, wrought-iron horizon looking for an idea, her eyes landing finally, fatefully, on the "World Famous Love Acts" storefront across the street:

"When you play a card, you have to name a euphemism for 'the love act.'"

The inspiration outlasted the vacation. I added to this website's predecessor an ongoing list of The Names of the Act, updating it weekly for more than a year. Below is the collection.