It`s Saturday night and Ontario Street is teeming with partygoers rocking out at Excalibur, Hard Rock Cafe and other hot spots. But within earshot of the revelry, a markedly different type of nightlife is taking place in Lou Anne Burkhardt`s third floor studio. There, a couple of dozen earnest aesthetes discuss Neon Expressionism (the latest New York art trend utilizing super bright colors), Egyptian mortuaries as a source of painterly inspiration and notions of genius as defined by Michelangelo and Flaubert.
That same week, five people picked apart John Dos Passos` 1936 novel
”The Big Money” in a Rogers Park living room. A few nights later, 10 men and women sat in chairs and on the floor in Priscilla Camp and Cathy Yoder`s North Side apartment ready to discuss the evening`s topic: Prejudice.
”I want to hear each person`s idea of prejudice,” says Camp, a job counselor for United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Chicago. ”Who would like to start?”
”You`re in charge,” someone rifles back.
And so it begins. Around the circle the conversation skitters back and forth: bias against people who are overweight, too beautiful, too ugly, Jewish, black and those who use bad grammar. Also brought up: Korean signs of disrespect, teenage boys, urban paranoia, bad neighborhoods, concepts of beauty in the Western World, media brainwashing, muggings and the possible evolutionary value of bias.
Notable quotes of the evening:
Music teacher Tom Havel on anti-smoker bias: ”If you teach at Utah and you smoke cigarettes, it`s all over; you`re a sinner.”
From former punk rock fan Laura Bryannana, now a counselor: ”When I was in college and you (somebody) had long hair and listened to the Grateful Dead, I was militant: `Get outta here.` ”
Market research consultant Fay Lipschultz on the overlap between values and prejudice: ”I could never spend my life with a supply-side economist.”
Musician Don Neale on stereotypes: ”Men as a group are stronger than women, but I know some women who could kick my butt.”
Finally, Camp pipes up about something that gets on her nerves-sexism. The conversation lurches on, with references made to ”Gulliver`s Travels,”
Sylvester Stallone, Barbie dolls, the cartoon ”Sylvia,” neatness, George Bush`s physiognomy, actress Blair Brown, the Queen Bee Syndrome (women who feel threatened by other successful women), the whereabouts of Phyllis Schlafly, women priests and the Catholic church.
Then they break for coffee and banana bread.
Let`s talk about it
In living rooms throughout America, people are coming together to talk. It`s not to pick up a date, it`s not to make money, it`s not about activism and it`s not to gossip.
It`s talk for its own sake. Talk about ideas. And when enough talkers gather in one place, it`s called a salon, which is the French word for drawing room. But in modern times, ”salon” refers to more than the physical space;
it`s really all about the lively conversationalists who gather there.
For more than two centuries since its origins in 17th Century Paris, salons provided artists, intellectuals and anyone else who showed up, a chance to debunk old myths, introduce new theories and essentially throw ideas against the wall and see what sticks. But by the 1950s, salons had nearly vanished. Increasingly, the living room became a place to watch TV, instead of a place to meet with friends and discuss issues of the day.
For the past three years or so, however, the salon has enjoyed a comeback, as are other venues that welcome the art of conversation.
In Los Angeles, coffee houses now outnumber comedy clubs, according to listings in the L.A. Weekly, an ”alternative” press newspaper. Storytelling festivals have become so hot that Walt Disney Co.`s CEO Michael Eisner was recently spotted hanging out at a Jonesborough, Tenn., story swap. Poetry
”slams,” begun in 1988 by Chicagoan Marc Smith, have become de rigueur at dozens of clubs around town, and this format, inspired by wrestling matches which pit poets reading from their works, has spread to other big American cities as well.
So even as Oprah, Phil, Sally and their ilk continue to thrive, some people are switching off the TV and turning to regular folks who live down the street for challenging conversation.
A Minneapolis-based revival
The salon was given a shot in the arm in March 1991, when Utne Reader, a Minneapolis-based semi-monthly magazine of ”alternative” culture, devoted its cover to the salon. The magazine asked readers interested in starting salons of their own to send in their name, phone number and address.
Utne Reader then mailed each respondent a list of names and phone numbers of others in their geographic area who also expressed interest. More than 8,000 inquiries flooded Utne`s office, and today, the magazine`s not-for-profit Neighborhood Salon Association has 11,000 members belonging to about 300 salons in America, including nearly a dozen in the Chicago area.
Publisher Eric Utne says the salon helps fill a void. ”We`ve become so isolated, partly because of the automobile, partly television. I think people are hungry for the opportunity to talk from the heart. We talk to our families, and talk at work, but for that third realm, usually it`s just cocktail chatter or locker-room talk. Somehow, it becomes too risky to talk to your neighbors about things you care about.
”Also, people feel, I think, estranged from the political process. These salons are the very definition of what it means to be a citizen.”
Not that the typical salon is overtly political. Michael Thomas, a member of an Evanston-based Utne salon with 12 members which began last spring, says those who showed up at the first sessions with an activist agenda were disappointed. ”The political types thought we were limp as a dishrag. We`re more interested in perspective than action. We`re basically a bunch of anarchists.”
Thomas says his group has both a social and an intellectual appeal. ”We have found two different kinds of people. Some want to enlarge their social universe, so we have potlucks where they can hang out and schmooze. Then we have Sunday meetings, where people are focused on a particular topic.” Most salons pick a single topic in advance to be discussed at the next meeting, to give its members time to mull over their thoughts.
Utne salons tend to suffer to some extent from a lack of diversity, Thomas says. ”We probably need more conservative or minority people; what we have is a bunch of fairly well-educated white liberal folks. On the other hand, no other activity I can think of would have brought together such a diverse group. These are people in our group-an arbitration lawyer, a nuclear physicist-that I wouldn`t have met any other way.”
Utne-inspired ”Neighborhood” salons are different from historic salons in that no single person is designated as the permanent host or hostess. Instead, sessions rotate among members` homes.
`This is more intimate`
Patricia Erens runs a salon along more traditional lines. Erens, who teaches film at Rosary College in River Forest, started her group about two years ago when she found herself frustrated by the limited opportunities for in-depth discussion. ”I get so much stimulation from art-concerts or gallery exhibits-and I`d want to talk about it with friends, but I didn`t want to just have a cocktail party, because then you just get small talk. Public events are impersonal. This is more intimate.”
Erens, whose Lincoln Park salon is attended by about 20 people on the first Friday of each month, says she was inspired by women who have historically been the prime movers in the most successful salons. ”All of the early salons of Paris in the 18th Century were run by women. It reflects the skills of women in oiling the wheels of conversation. Because they had no public voice, salons also gave women an ability to move in intellectual circles by aligning themselves with men.”
Poet Quraysh Ali once belonged to a salon called The Society For New Things and now performs with a band of musicians and poets called the Funky Wordsmyths. He traces a different line of development for African-American conversational styles.
”The oral tradition is very important to us. Africa has always had the griot, the designated storyteller (of the village), which is now manifested in rap and hip hop,” says Ali. And when the slaves came over to America, the African tradition was continued in the form of the ”Liar`s Circle,” which Ali says was a contest ”to see who could top one another with stories and big fibs.”
In the contemporary urban society, Ali says artists need to band together periodically. ”It`s very important to me as a poet and black man to have an enclave where you can exchange ideas and feed on the spiritual interaction. We all move in packs. And after gathering together, artists go back to their hovel, grow and incorporate those exchanges into their work.”
Two way conversation
UCLA psychology professor Gerald Goodman, author of ”The Talk Book”
(Ballantine, $4.95), says a vibrant salon should reflect an apparently contradictory dynamic. ”Think about the two expressions: `Birds of a feather flock together,` and `opposites attract.` You take those two universals, bring them together, and you get one whole truth-a better picture. It`s the beginning of intimacy.”
Historically, Goodman says, the primary mode of communication in American culture has shifted from ”two way” to ”one way.” ”So now what have we got? The tube, the answering machine, on which we leave longer and longer messages. So given all of that, it`s no wonder we want to be with others where you can reduce the rush, make the communication two way again and make art out of our lives a little bit.”
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For more information on how to start or join a salon, contact Griff Wigley, Neighborhood Salon Association, Utne Reader, 1624 Harmon Pl., Minneapolis, Minn. 55403; or call 612-338-5040 ($12 annual membership includes quarterly newsletter, Salon-keeper`s Companion booklet and a list of other people near you interested in salons).
