One day late in the summer before my senior year of high school, my sister and I stumbled on a piece of trivia: August 17 was the birthdate of Davy Crockett. With that little bit of information, we did what bored teenagers in rural America before the Internet often did. We planned an elaborate party to celebrate his birth.
That last part may have been made up. I’m unaware of any documented evidence that bored teenagers in rural America routinely planned elaborate parties when they learned new facts otherwise irrelevant to their lives. But the second part is true. We planned a party for the King of the Wild Frontier. It was a wildly successful event, though it broke Priya Parker’s biggest rule of gathering engagement before it even got started: I have no idea why we did it.
We organized the heck out of this shindig like a couple of professional party planners. We designed invitations and printed them out at my parents’ office. Remember, this was pre-Internet, and really, pre-personal computer. It was just us and an IBM Selectric typewriter. (But it had lift-off correcting type, Baby. We lived on the cutting edge.) We hand-addressed envelopes to our very long guest list and carted them off to be mailed at the old Post Office a block away from our house.
The party for this American folk hero was a hit. The sprawling lawn between our house and the only other house on our side of the block was filled with teenagers in bandanas and cowboy hats (blame the lack of Amazon.com in those days for the absence of coon skin caps on such short notice), eating grilled hot dogs and corn on the cob and bopping to the likes of Johnny Cash, Hank Snow and yes, Fess Parker blaring from the giant 1970s era brown speakers I’d dragged out of my bedroom and into the yard. At some point, a neighborhood-wide game that I would now find culturally inappropriate commenced, though it was really no more than an episode of Capture the Flag using team monikers of questionable taste.
In the end, the kids went home, the yard was cleaned up, and, in the words of the local newspaper that ended up covering the event, “A good time was had by all.”
In The Art of Gathering, author Priya Parker argues that the myriad listicles on the Internet today promising “10 Tips to Spice Up Your Next Gathering” fall short in one key respect, in that “our bland gatherings cannot be saved by one-off interventions and tricks that are disconnected from the context of the gathering.” She goes on to say that the biggest challenge is that “the gathering makes no effort to do what the best gatherings do: transport us to a temporary alternate world.”
The alternate world of the wild frontier certainly took shape on my lawn that August afternoon, though we had no idea we were creating such a world. Part of what made that alternate reality possible may have been the rules. The truth is I don’t recall the specifics now, but the invitation was clear about expectations. When to be there, what to wear, what to bring, how to act (in character, of course).
Parker contrasts longstanding rules of etiquette and alternative, “pop-up rules” that are imposed by an event’s host for that one-time purpose, such as refraining from using your last name, not saying anything about your profession, only talking to the person on your left, being unplugged, etc.
At times, these rules struck me as unreasonably demanding. Who are you to tell me who to talk to, which of my names I can reveal, what I can talk about, whether I seek alone time or not, whether I check my texts or not, whether I update my Instagram feed or not? These rules could seem like the stuffy old etiquette that ruled many older gatherings, but on steroids. What’s nice about etiquette is no one clogs up your inbox about it. No one tells you what it is in advance. No one forces you to practice it. You just may not get invited back if you mess it up.
…
It took me a while to understand that what these gatherings signified was not a doubling down on etiquette but a rebellion against it. In the explicitness and oftentimes whimsy of these rules was a hint of what they were really about: replacing the passive-aggressive, exclusionary, glacially conservative commandments of etiquette with something more experimental and democratic.
The Davy Crockett party had little to do with the general etiquette that may have marked a typical party hosted among our friends. All of it had a bit of the unexpected, from the occasion itself to the idea that teenagers on the cusp of adulthood would so delight to recapture a sense of their childhood in neighborhood games. As Parker explains, focusing less on the fixed rules of etiquette in favor of the unexpectedness of pop-up rules has the “power to flip these traits on their head.”
It was tempting, I’ll admit, to want to make the Davy Crockett Birthday Party an annual event, to somehow recapture that same energy and warmth among good friends and repeat it again and again. Whether from a momentary flush of wisdom, or just the usual complications of the calendar, we didn’t try. I suspect we may have understood intuitively that when we create these “temporary alternative worlds,” they are just that fleeting, and our best efforts will go into creating, as Parker observes, “a world that will exist only once.”
* * *
This month, we’re discussing Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering. We invite you to share in the comment box around this topic. If you’re reading along, tell us what most intrigued you about this week’s reading. What’s the best gathering you’ve attended with “pop-up rules”? Do you find etiquette to be a helpful social guide, or do you find it to be exclusionary or stifling?
Announcement Post
June 13: Chapters 1-3
June 20: Chapters 4-6
June 27: Chapters 7-8
No matter what kind of gatherings you’re a part of—dinner parties, business meetings, birthdays, conferences and more—gather here with us first, and let’s rethink together.
Buy The Art of Gathering now
Listen to Krys Boyd’s interview with Priya Parker on Think
Photo by Abby Gillardi, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by LW Lindquist.
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Glynn says
My favorite possession from ages 4 to 6 was a Davy Crockett coonskin hat, just like Fess Parker wore on TV. I didn’t go anywhere without that hat. My mother, however, would make me leave it in the car when we went to church.
I don’t remember what happened to it. Either it died from overuse or my mother sold it at a garage sale.
In St. Louis, the quickest way to stifle a party, reception, networking event, or any other kind of gathering is to establish one rule – you can’t ask where someone went to high school. That is the quintessential question. For a long time, people thought it was just an ice breaker (and reflected how many people were born and raised here, which I wasn’t). As it turns out, the answer to the question actually telegraphed your socio-economic status.
So, for example, if someone answered with “Kirkwood High School” (in the suburb where I live), for a long time that communicated middle to upper-middle class, moderate Republican, family-oriented. “Hazelwood High School” suggested blue-collar, working class, while “Parkway” was defined by white-collar, professional class. “Mary Institute” or “Country Day School” (now merged as MICDS) communicated that your family came from the very top of economic heap.
If you answered “I went to high school in New Orleans,” like I did, the response was, “Oh.”
Will Willingham says
I’m pretty sure we can all guess what happened to your cap, Glynn. Lol.
Would be interesting to see how conversations start if a pop-up rule was added that said you couldn’t ask where a person went to school. Perhaps if an alternate question were asked instead, kind of like the way we might suggest not asking what a person does for a living but asks about a favorite thing they like to do can help us reframe how we identify. if it was seen more as a game than a rule, maybe it wouldn’t stifle the conversation quite so much.
Megan Willome says
Ask your schools mascot? My family’s includes a mule, a greyhound, a pied piper, a chaparral, and the Battlin’ Billies (formerly hillbillies, now billy goats).
Laura Brown says
Mischief cafes are great gatherings with pop-up rules.
When I was in grad school, a friend and I used the coincidence that many in our circle had birthdays in June and July to plan a Creative Black Tie Birthday Party one summer. We wore little black dresses and pearls. Everyone dressed up somehow; we had champagne and caviar and at midnight we sang “Happy Birthday to Us” and cut the cake. It might not have been as elaborate as your Davy Crockett party, but a good time was had by most, and I think many of us who attended remember it more clearly than some of our other parties.
I think etiquette is both/and. A little is simply courtesy to those you’re with; a lot can make people feel excluded by ignorance.
Will Willingham says
Mischief Cafes *are* a great type of gathering with pop-up rules. Also a kind of gathering where a person is asked to do something (bring a poem, a mischief item, etc.) as opposed to bringing a food item or bottle of wine.
Bethany R. says
LW, I absolutely loved learning about your Davy Crockett party. I’m struck by your realizing that party was best as a one-time event. Sequels do have a tendency to not quite satisfy.
Will Willingham says
We so want to relive the magic of those first times; it takes some real wisdom (and restraint sometimes) to recognize when a repeat can work or when it would be a disappointment.
A lot of it, I think, if a person is to go forward with a sequel is to know that it will not be the same, and to be ready to embrace those things that are new the second time around.
L.L. Barkat says
You are a great “world creator”! 🙂 It’s evident in your writing, if not any frequent party planning.
Going back to the inclusion/exclusion discussion, I think the pop-up rules help to clarify who might want to join in and who might self-select out.
However, in that case, I think it’s also important that the pop-up rules are eminently clear beforehand (if there’s going to be surprise, that should be clear as well, if that surprise would be potentially traumatic for certain guests, the way the shame-walked woman at that wedding got a not-so-nice surprise or the way that, for example, some guests would be unpleasantly surprised if they were expected to go on an impromptu hike around the property even though they’d worn heels to an event).
Maybe the most complicated situations are those where we can’t self-select out because of our roles in the gathering. I’m thinking of how hard it is, for instance, for the host to refrain from playing a pop-up game, when “everybody is playing.” I tend to be this person if a sudden board game arises (for the most part, I really, really dislike board games like Settlers of Catan, for instance). Your party made it clear up front that a wild game would be taking place (I might not have come unless I’d known I could be the girl-waiting-back-at-the-ranch 😉 ).
So… it’s all about expectations on the one hand and host & party-goer flexibility on the other. If there’s going to be no flexibility, that can be hard if it’s not known ahead of time. (Fortunately for me, most people who come to my parties now understand that if Catan pops up, I’m going to be making tea and serving snacks and maybe talking to one other guest who prefers to sit out of the game. Or, I’ll just sit by myself and watch with admiration (or amusement, if it’s warranted), as my friends and family show their skills and, sometimes, surprising sides.
Thanks for leading us in yet another thought-provoking discussion of The Art of Gathering! (And I am now suddenly thinking that the word “art” in that title could have used a bit more play in the book. 🙂 )
Will Willingham says
I think it’s important for a host to recognize that if you’re going to deploy “pop-up” rules, that they are supposed to pop up before the event, and that the term she uses here isn’t meant to give license to randomly announce new rules as the event goes on. (Unless, of course, that was a pop-up rule established with the invitation, that the rules would change throughout the event. This would, of course, be an invitation for me to stay home. 🙂 )
I agree with you here. Sudden changes and surprise that leave guests unprepared for the actual event are really not fun for anyone. And I am so surprise-averse that I would never attend another event with this host.
She does nicely turn traditional etiquette on its head a bit here, not in a way that makes etiquette itself a bad thing, but in finding a way to create a structure (as etiquette can do) without the expectation that everyone knows all the (unwritten) rules, because many of us don’t.
Donna Falcone says
Thank you for saying it so well…. for explaining that knot in my stomach as the list of possible pop up rules were described. Seriously, the thought of it made me angry and I felt more than little silly about that since I’m just here in my kitchen reading about someone else’s popping.
That said, I do love the fun of doing something quirky and unexpected – under the right circumstances!
I’ve never been a big fan of over done or strongly held rules of etiquette … I’ve been known to break out in a cold sweat setting the table for guests because I can never remember where the silverware is ‘supposed’ to go. I’m more of a buffet person, and this might be why. 😉
Donna Falcone says
My favorite and most unusual event ever was our wedding. It was an interesting mix of rules-out-the-window and tradition, and to this day people who attended still tell me this was one of the best weddings they had ever been to! It’s a long story, but I’ll summarize by saying a pinata, a pig roast, and umbrellas were involved.