"Grammarians would agree -- there is no such thing as a two-part question," artist and lecturer Misha Glouberman declared before a Q&A on Tuesday night. "Just ask two questions!"
Glouberman hosts Trampoline Hall, the unique lecture series in which invited lecturers to speak on subjects outside their area of expertise and then take questions from the audience. For 10 years now, the series (created by Glouberman and author Sheila Heti) has enjoyed success in Toronto. Tuesday night, Trampoline Hall -- and its local lecturers -- hit the San Francisco Jewish Community Center as part of a tour in support of their book, The Chairs Are Where the People Go.
The first lecturer was Andrew Leland, former managing editor of The Believer. He shared a story about his days as a naive music editor at the Oberlin College newspaper. Tasked with reviewing a fellow student's experimental music album, he knocked out the kind of piece that was (in his words) the "type of pretentious music review that was one line about the album, and twenty-four lines about my thoughts and experiences with this genre of music."
Sharp criticism of the review came not not from the musician, but another student in a letter to the editor, accusing him of "folksy posturing," "aesthetic stevedoring," and being more concerned with getting his own, uninformed opinions across instead of genuinely giving the music the review it deserved. This upset Leland's overconfident college self, mostly because he found it accurate.
What had he learned? an audience member inquired. "That writers have more of a responsibility than I realized."
Next: Impostor syndrome and the mysteries of the gym.
Next, Glouberman and author Heti read from their book, The Chairs Are Where the People Go, a collection of Glouberman's thoughts on various subjects compiled and edited by Heti.
Heti explained that she wanted to write the book as if it were just two friends talking to each other about something they care about, rather than trying to assert a specific opinion. One such passage was titled "The Impostor Syndrome," which explained how some accomplished people feel undeserving of their status and suffer a fear of being uncovered.
The final lecture, "The Gym," was given by artist Clare Rojas. Every couple of years, some incident would cause her to commit to a two-hour daily exercise regimen, such as her "friends not wanting to go dancing with her" or her "clothes somehow shrinking," or an early childhood memory of lying on the roof of her Dad's 1974 Camaro and leaving a permanent dent.
Between being a mother, wife, and artist, she found that the gym was "the only two hours of my day where I can worry strictly about myself." Rojas' essay offered dry humor but also illuminated an affecting struggle with body acceptance. More subdued than the other lecturers, she did not comment on this during the following Q&A, choosing to speak about her gym regime and diet habits.
The appeal of Trampoline Hall's mission, to have non-experts casually lecture on a subject, was immediately apparent. Trampoline Hall is like a really satisfying, in-depth conversation with an interesting friends that you would usually have over a drink; Trampoline Hall finds those interesting friends for you.
More information on Trampoline Hall can be found on its website. This event was presented as part of The Hub: the JCCSF's arts and events series.
