The other evening a few of us got together to reflect on what sort of events we really enjoy, and in particular whether salons fit the bill. The impetus for this came last year from an event about design and society that we all attended, and ended up grumbling about in the bar afterwards. It wasn't a bad event - we just wanted more talking to each other than being talked at, more intimate conversation, less public cleverness.
I had met Ann Light before at the workshop that helped launch this blog, and she introduced me to Kathryn Best and Christina Li. After a little stimulating converse and a few drinks we decided that what we needed was a series of salons.... I think it was Kathryn who inspired us with tales of 18th century Parisian gatherings, also documented here in wikipedia.
A salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings, often consciously following Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "to please and educate" (aut delectare aut prodesse est). The salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings among like-minded people of a 'set': many 20th-century salons could be instanced.
I was sufficiently enthused to run a salon with my friends at the Civic Trust, where I learned that free wine and a jazz pianist were useful ingredients. On reflection the over-sized badges and rally-round flags were a bit over the top, but one must experiment ...
Anyway, the four of us eventually got around to gathering with a few others for our first salon: about salons. It was a Smithfield bar (appropriately called Meet) rather than a drawing room, but fine for the purpose. I can recommend the alcohol-free "You're so cool" cocktail, though in the interests of conviviality switched to more traditional salon-fare after one.
It seemed a little over-formal to take notes - though there was one handheld scribbler. Difficult to know if he was catching the odd bon-mot or catching up on the day's email. I do recall "trusted .... empathy ... party where you can hear people .... not just more networking .... being intellectually generous".
Things did get a little tense at one point because of a division of opinion about whether events need to achieve anything. Shouldn't there be some purpose beyond just meeting and talking? Isn't a format important? No, was the majority opinion. That's not a salon.
At this point we began a round of reflections on different people - and in particular personality types as profiled by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.
Would buzzy salons appeal to introverts, or mainly extraverts? Would intuitives favour salons for inspirations and explorations, while sensers find them a little short on factual content? In particular was it the judging types who wanted control and closure, compared with the more flexible perceiving types? My paraphrase doesn't do justice to the discussion, and certainly not to Myers Briggs ... but the topic certainly raised the volume quite a bit. Seems like a good salon theme.
At that stage we decided we could only take so much high intellectual discourse, and retired to the nearby Sutton Arms for a pint of lager and a packet of crisps. I think we decided something, but that's the trouble with salons...
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