Inside The Trophy Cabinet Of Shako Beridze, Which Is A Shelf, Containing A Thermos
An article about Shalva "Shako" Beridze · Filed under: Honours, Self-Issued · Ping Pong
Shalva “Shako” Beridze takes his visitors, at some point in the evening, to the shelf. It is not optional. It happens.
The shelf holds the complete competitive honours of his ping pong career. Every item on it was awarded to him by himself.1
The centrepiece
The Undisputed Kitchen Championship Trophy stands 24 centimetres tall and is, on close inspection, a thermos.
A ping pong paddle has been attached to its side with a quantity of glue that suggests several attempts. The lid has been left on, because — as Shako explains, and he is right about this — a trophy with a removable lid is “just a cup, and a cup is a different award entirely.”
He does not refer to it as a thermos. He refers to it as “a bespoke commemorative sculpture.”[citation needed]
Supporting honours
- Player of the Match (×11). Hand-lettered on coloured sticky notes. All eleven from matches he played alone.
- Most Improved. Awarded to himself, by himself, for improvement measured against himself.
- Sportsmanship Award. The only honour on the shelf with a genuine second party involved: it was made by a friend as a joke. It is the one he is proudest of, which everyone finds unexpectedly moving.
- Golden Paddle (Lifetime). A paddle. Painted gold. Still in use, which he insists does not devalue it, and which does devalue it.2
Curation
The shelf is dusted weekly. The arrangement is not fixed: items rotate based on what Shako calls “current form,” a metric he declines to publish.
He has begun, quietly, to run out of shelf. Asked what happens when the honours outgrow the furniture, he gave the answer of a man who has clearly thought about it.
“Second shelf,” he said.