On Wednesday
I stopped for lunch at a Bangladeshi cafe in the 'bohemian' quarter. There was
a leaflet on the table - an offer from 'Quarantine' to pay for lunch "in
exchange for a conversation." While puzzling over this I watched two
people come into the cafe who turned out to be Quarantine, an experimental
theatre company. I decided, as a diversion from my solitary dining experience,
to engage with one of them. Asking her the purpose of the offer, her answer was
elusive: "We'll just see where it goes," she said. There was to be no
audience, no recording, no taking of notes with a view to using the material in
a future production, no promise of further contact.
She showed
me a 'menu' of conversational topics from which to choose - starters, mains and
afters - and allotted us 30 minutes. The menu made it easy to get started but the
conversation was stilted and a little self-conscious, perhaps because of the artificial
constraints. Nevertheless, it was a cordial exchange between two strangers talking
about Christmas and other celebrations. As we shook hands in conclusion I
explained that I had already paid for my lunch at the counter. She didn't offer
to reimburse me (perhaps she thought I had given poor value) but it was such a
small sum of money that I was embarrassed to press the point: besides,
experimental theatre is lamentably under-funded.
I don't know
what Quarantine gained from the experience but it left me thinking about the
nature of conversation (which may have been their intention). Conversation at
its best can be a stimulating and rewarding experience involving wit, intimacy
and humour: but it so often isn't. Many times have I endured monologues from
people who mistake the sound of their own voice for interactive communication;
many times have I sat in company listening to the same point being made
repeatedly by a dull round of predictable anecdotes; and many times have I been
present (even complicit) when conversations degenerate into emotion-fuelled
ranting.
Quarantine
call this event No Such Thing ,
thereby making the point that a lunch may be free of charge will certainly not
be free of obligation. But later in the week I did get free beer and free
music. I attended the launch of the Modernist Society's revamped magazine, an
unstructured event, just a melee of interested people, but it gave me another opportunity
to engage in conversation with strangers. My sketchy knowledge of Modernism is
a handicap but, thanks partly to the supply of free beer, I succeeded in bluffing
through several exchanges without being openly denounced.
When I moved
on afterwards to a gig, the free beer had put me in a good enough humour to
shrug off the hefty ticket price. I had been lured there by a sales pitch which
promised the "much talked about" Hidden Orchestra plus Mind On Fire
DJ in a "new live show," a "highly emotive, celluloid-inspired
journey through one of the greatest films never made", with special
light-projections by Lumen. In the event I was unmoved by the turgid,
repetitive, electronically generated music which relied heavily on two drummers
to give it life.
I stuck it
out until the interval when I decided to cut my losses and go to another venue where,
in contrast, free entry gave me access to a more satisfying experience -
acoustic gypsy jazz - enthusiastically played and sung by three smiling, engaging
and skilled performers. Measured by my 'quality of conversation' criteria, the
first gig was a monotonous monologue, the second an uplifting interaction.
Of course I
don't claim that all free music is good music, and it is evident that all
conversation is free but not necessarily good, but I have yet to find the
downside to free beer.
I know that I rarely comment, not being a natural, but I am nevertheless a Wonderman addict. My view on this one is that conversation, though free, is not easy because it involves exchange. For the exchange to be good requires alertness, with and sensitivity on both sides, not often found. These qualities may all be stimulated, or seem to be stimulated, by the first free beer, but will be dulled by subsequent ones. so the downside of free beer, or at least too many of them, is poor conversation. Innes
ReplyDeleteHi Innes. I'm sure you're right about that. Free beer is no more free of consequences than anything else ultimately. Such a pity.
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