A Washington Peeps show

O, the cheap gimmicks a venerable institution must stoop to.

Most likely in the name of community outreach (i.e., to attract readers), The Washington Post, that newspaper that once brought a president down, the bastion of journalism famed in book and cinema, the former home of that iron lady Katherine Graham, sponsors an annual Peeps contest. The newspaper invites submissions from the public (its readers, residents of the Washington, D.C., area) to design and construct a diorama, a scene using Peeps, those marshmallow Easter candies made in the shapes of chicks and bunnies.

For the last couple of weeks, Sarah and I have been following a group on Facebook that supports of one of the entries and the person/people who created the “Washington National Peepthedral” scene full of a choir and a procession, complete with a miter-wearing bishop Peep and the Darth Vader gargoyle that really does exist at the cathedral.

The 36 finalists are on display for the first part of this week at the Post’s offices, and at lunch today, Sarah and I walked over there to view them. They are allowing the public to vote on its favorite as well.

The scenes are fun, clever and creative. Many did what I knew had to be done for a winning entry – pick a current event from the news or pop culture and create a Peep scene around it - and so there are several scenes from our big February snow storms (the enormous snowball fight in Dupont Circle) and a snowy scene from the Olympics. Others borrowed from children’s and adult literature to create Frankenstein, Madeline (Peepaline) and Goodnight, Peep (Goodnight, Moon) scenes. The attention to detail is admirable on some. Another favorite of mine had a bunny Peep as Normal Rockwell in a re-creation of his triple self-portrait scene. Pure genius, that.
Although I've been a Facebook fan of the Peepthedral scene and do think it's clever and well-executed (extra points for its additional "marketing" effort on Facebook), here is the one I voted for:


It's the scene of the White House party crashers. I voted for it because:

• It's current (well, barely, but probably was at the time it was conceived)
  
• It's a good setting for use of Peeps as people
• The theme is good for a play on the Peeps word
  
• It's well-executed
  

Sarah was commenting the other day that she missed the scenes we would see a few times a day at this time of year while living in Geneva - the chocolate shop windows that not only made elaborate scenes but made elaborate creations in those scenes of chocolate Easter bunnies in family roles and gender-specific suits. We don't have as much of a chocolate culture here in this country as they do in Switzerland. We do go crazy with other types of Easter candy, however, and I suppose we'll have to settle for the way they have fun with their Easter candy here.

I did not enter the contest this year because I heard about it only about a week before entries were due. But I immediately told my artist brother about it and said that we needed his help for our entry next year.

See The Washington Post's page with photos of all the finalists