Table conversations

I believe that the seating arrangements at Manuel’s - where people share tables with folks they didn’t come with and may not have even planned to sit with - encourage friendships to form. Since moving away I’ve attended some other events similar to Carapace but they have all the seats in rows facing the stage. I have observed that that kind of seating does not encourage talking the same way sharing a table does. At the September Carapace I sat at a table with my mom (Denise) and Mike and then Larry England joined us. I was delighted because I hadn’t seen Larry in a while. With the noise in the room, it was a little difficult for Larry and I to actually talk, because we couldn’t hear each other well across the table. I am thinking about how, during the show, the storyteller has a microphone to make sure that he or she is heard. Before and after the show, conversations are happening, but being heard can be difficult for those speakers. Of course, using microphones for conversations would be ridiculous. The noise of many microphones would just be even louder and the many conversations would still drown each other out. These conversations help build community and create friendships at Carapace, but the speakers in these conversations do not receive all the benefits that storytellers receive during the show.