You hear about “Critical Mass” a lot at 100th Monkey parties in Tacoma.  There’s the story about critical mass, monkeys teaching one hundred monkeys to peel yams, pretty soon all the monkeys are doing it. Mike Hathaway, host of the party and publisher of City Arts, explained the concept to the crowd last night, and explained how he came by the “lucky” 100th tile at the last event, hosted at the Sanford & Son shops last year: “I saw people lining up to buy a tile.  I thought that’d be fun!”

By all appearances last night, it appears that that same critical mass model is happening with the 100th Monkey parties.  A huge crush of people, some who were dressed like Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera, brought old friends and met new ones as the evening progressed, engulfing both the art and the artists present.  Which was a shame for guitarist Travis Hartnett, whose music was overpowered by the roar of hundreds of individual conversations.

Not that the conversations themselves weren’t great, at least what I was hearing.  There were people promoting, sipping wine, reuniting, and even one thrash-metal pioneer recognized by the mother of a teen whose son had just learned about the history of thrash metal.

While it does a heart good to see a huge, diverse community of people getting together to intermingle, with the express goal of meeting three new people, the size of the crowd made more than a few wonder: how long can this keep growing?

The next event, in March, will be hosted by lucky tile recipient Laura Eklund, and it’s rumored that the event will happen at the Varsity Grill. â€" Jessica Corey-Butler