Yeah, sure, I ate dinner, but it wasn’t the most interesting part of my evening (for the record it was a boring but passable chopped salad at Eccolo, where the waiter twice forgot to bring us bread and water–WTF?).
I attended a talk entitled “Slow Food Nation Considered” at which Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, Fred Kirschenmann, and Raj Patel discussed the big events last weekend here in San Francisco. These experts were all both heartened by the high attendance at Slow Food Nation and critical of the lack of critical debate and multiple viewpoints at the event. An actual discussion took place. At one point I thought Pollan and Patel might get into a debate that involved pointed disagreement–which was pretty exciting for a minute there. Shiva is brilliant, Patel is hilarious, and I’ll listen to Kirschenmann talk all day long and ask for more.
Why did I go when I had been so annoyed at the last talk I attended? Well, being honest involves some shameless self-promotion, but here it goes: I’m scheduled to have an on-stage “conversation” with Raj Patel as part of SF Litquake on Oct. 10, so I’ve been stalking him both through the media and, now, in person. My motives were pointed and selfish–I was just looking for material. But I was glad I went. The whole thing was less annoying than the talk Saturday night for one glaring reason: the sparse attendance of The Berkeley Clappers™.
Ah yes, The Berkeley Clappers™. In a way it is unfair that Berkeley gets saddled with them through the name, because they really are a Bay Area at-large problem. But they were named by a friend from grad school who lived in Berkeley, and so it is. She maintained the East Bay had the greatest concentration of Berkeley Clappers™ in the land, and she may be right, but I seem to encounter plenty of them in The City By The Bay.
The Berkeley Clappers™ very much enjoy applauding. What they most like to applaud are points of view they share and, even better, references they understand that they think maybe many other people would not understand (obscure literary theory references are particularly popular). They are found at talks, of course, but also at performances and, sadly, at the movies (Shakespeare in Love, for example, gave them ample opportunity to strut their stuff). They like to clap en masse, and a certain sub-species of The Berkeley Clapper™ likes to rock in their chair and nod their head while clapping. Older Berkeley Clappers™ have been known to swathe themselves in layers of linen, but that is by no means mandatory.
I’m sorry, this has nothing to do with dinner. But don’t you feel sorry for me that I’m so distracted by fellow audience members that it so greatly affects my experience of a talk? You see now why it really is best I spend most of my time sequestered in my study.
jane | 06-Sep-08 at 7:20 am | Permalink
You crack me up! I think every community with a university has its Clappers:)