Cup Passing, Hand Clapping and Knee Slapping

I Googled my way to this photo, in search of some visual record of a play phenomenon known as "Cup Passing." Apparently, there's a minor slew of these activities where the object is to pass things around, or clap, or slap, while maintaining a rhythm, adding complexity after complexity until things get basically impossible. I suppose this is an elaboration of what began as Paddy Cake. I found this collection - a minor ethnographic myriad of lyrics for children's hand-clapping games.

All of which is by way of introduction to the amazingly sophisticated world of cup passing games. There are those that are ostensibly for kids, and those clearly for all of us. There's Hakasot, a Hebrew cup passing game. There's Estray Bonajour, a cup passing game that can be played without cups, and is in a language that has passed beyond arcane. And there's this collection of what one might call "extreme cup passing" games.

Then there are the knee slapping games. All in all, maybe hundreds of such ilk, none of which is played competitively, none for score, each and all for the simple and wonderful fun of seeing how complicated we can make things for each other.

Surely there's a message in all this about the human condition. And even more surely, here's a way to have fun without anyone losing, anywhere, with styrofoam cups, or shoes, or nothing more than a shared sense of play.