Men’s group - Holden Caulfield and brainwashing
Mark K April 11th, 2007
Last Friday, our book/movie/discussion group met at Brainwash in San Francisco. Brainwash is a unique combination of laundromat and cafe, with live entertainment in the evenings. The eight of us squeezed into a corner around two tables, with one of us perched at a higher level on what would later become the stage. It was a bit difficult to hear the conversation with the noise level (from people, not washing machines) and I was conscious about disturbing our neighbors, some of whom were intently surfing the Internet on their laptops. At one point, the guy who was “sharing the stage” with us, shut down his computer and joined our conversation. He had been listening and knew that we were discussing Holden Caulfield, the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye. He started in on a lengthy discussion of a guy he once knew who had the last name Holden who was also a big fan of the book. The woman next to us was scowling into her salad most of the time and made such an unpleasant face when asked if we could borrow the extra chair at her table that we backed off. The guy who worked at the register had a few things to add to the discussion as well. He claimed that the name Holden was significant because the character was “holding on” to his childhood.
Afterwards, I thought that this venue was less than ideal because of the interruptions and distractions, but now I’m wondering if maybe I’m not seeing the forest for the trees - if our group is truly a bunch of men who pause once a month, maybe these other people are part of the big picture - what we are doing is drawing attention and interest, positive, negative or otherwise and people outside of our group are taking time out from their laptops, salads and registers to enter the discussion through words or expressions. Hmmmm……
- men's group
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