The Dude Abides

The next big event in September was Lebowskifest! Lebowskifest is a celebration of the movie The Big Lebowski by the Cohen brothers. The Big Lebowski was a huge flop in movie theatres but is now what they call a ‘cult classic’. People who love the movie (like us) are absolutely obsessed with it. It is full of one-liners, bizarre characters and countless shenanigans.

Sean and I got our tickets to Lebowskifest in May and had aspirations of spending the summer creating the perfect costumes for the event. Lebowskifest has a costume contest as a major element of the night- as well as a bowling party and an unlimited amount of white Russians. There are a handful of characters from the move that get done time and time again. I wanted to be something different. Well, of course, the week before the party we were still without a solid plan for our costumes. At the last minute we used a little creativity and $30 to throw together an awesome costume.

Us with some of our favorit characters

Autoban

Some of the Maudes during the costume competition

We took our cue from a subtle line in the movie when Walter (John Goodman) says to The Dude (Jeff Bridges) about a dog he brings to the bowling alley “I’m watching him while Cynthia and Marty Ackerman are in Hawaii” We never meet Cynthia (Walter’s ex-wife) or Marty Ackerman (her new boyfriend) in the movie, but we consider them characters nonetheless. It is hard for a female to have a unique character at Lebowskifest because there are only 5 women with speaking parts in the entire movie- but I think it was worth it not to be one of 50 ‘Maudes’ or 20 ‘Bunnies’- all of the Lebowskifest goers liked that our costume was one they hadn’t seen before.

Walter (the ex) trying to intimidate Marty

The event was as fabulous as we could have imagined. A whole bunch of Lebowski nerds just like us- it is fun to be around like-minded people. We were randomly assigned to a lane and totally lucked out! The Dude at our lane won best Dude overall (a HUGE honor in the Lebowskifest world) and the other characters were fun too.

Lane 22

The highlight for us came with winning Best Group overall. Because we went as a pair we didn’t qualify for individual awards- but it was the first trophy we have won as a couple!

Winners of Lane 22 (us and The Dude)

We went into the evening looking to celebrate some great news we had received early that very day- and I could not have asked for a better celebration.