Theme: Teeth Together - Lips Apart

Location: Spectacular Sky Palace, San Francisco

Year: 2002

Art: Paul McGhee

Invite backstory:

Two fun things here - this was the first time I drew my Artichoke Lady from the side to give her a forward momentum feel. You know she’s going to make something happen - hopefully good!

The other fun thing was we made each invite unique by adding the high-contrast white by hand as teeth (teeth together when you’re eating an artichoke leaf!) and dotting the “i” in Lips. This was a year before Apple began its famous silhouette ad campaign (example below) where they used this same technique. There were some Apple folks at my party (looking at you Sharon and Susan) - was this invite the spark?

It was one of the most successful, iconic, and culturally significant advertising campaigns in history and transformed Apple from a struggling computer company into a consumer electronics powerhouse, driving massive sales for the iPod (90% market share).

You’re welcome Apple!

Party Highlights

Yo retired as chef and our new Chef Stephen Gibbs added Artichoke Crabcakes to the menu. They were so good it has become a non-negotiable menu item ever since. It combined the two foods most unique to the Bay Area - Dungenes crab and Artichokes. So good.

This party was the logistic pinnacle of Madness parties - it included 6 micro-parties. We had the core party at the Sky Palace, a ‘Spy-Kids’ Kids party in the Sky Palace Playroom, croquet on the front lawn, human foosball in the park across and ball park tours up the street. We also added a ‘Garden Party’ option down by the pool. Something for everyone!

Most importantly this was the first Artichoke Party Janet attended, starting the one party close cycle!