TEDxRainier -- Michael Hebb -- Table Making
The speaker argues that the common table is a critical, yet endangered, cultural site necessary for both civic ritual and progress in the modern world. The core problem is the decline of shared meals due to modern habits, and the solution lies in deliberately reviving and rethinking the act of gathering to eat together, exemplified by historic rituals like the Seder and harvest feasts.
## Speakers & Context
- Speaker: Name not explicitly given, but describes years of traveling with a table to gather and document stories.
- Context: The speaker has used the table in various public and intellectual settings, including on Interstate 5 medians, to provoke dialogue about the use of space and commerce.
- The work is part of a 15-year body of work documenting these gatherings.
## Theses & Positions
- The table where people gather to share food is one of the most important cultural sites in the modern world.
- The common table is currently in a state of peril due to modern realities like the rise of drive-throughs, the breakdown of family dinner, and solitary eating.
- Progress requires rethinking how people convene and gather, necessitating that the table remain central to this consideration.
- For the local food movement to achieve a real cultural shift, people must focus on new rituals for eating together.
- The dinner party carries with it the "root of all civil society" and contains a "heart"—a center point or identity.
- The speaker proposes a new practice called "table making" to revitalize these communal acts.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Table making:** The evocative, powerful, meaningful, or progressive use of the common table; any action that inspires people to eat together.
- **Conviviality:** The state or feeling of enjoying good company.
- **Civic ritual:** Necessary for progressive ideas to reshape the world; involves rethinking how people gather.
- **Axis Mundi:** What Ileana calls the center point or heart of a gathering, containing identity.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **The Greek symposium:** The speaker has recreated this gathering with thought leaders, including Gore Vidal, Mary Robinson, and Spike Lee.
- **Historical Table Uses:**
- **Modernist revolution:** Found an early spark in dinners and salons at Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas's Parisian apartment.
- **Seder:** The Jewish ritual of consuming history and renewing gratitude, noted for the 2010 White House Seder where gefilte fish was served on White House China.
- **The Harvest Feast:** Historically, a dinner convened when a neighbor killed a large animal, requiring a complex exchange of gift culture.
- **The Dinner Party (Modern):** Differs from a local restaurant reservation because it implies the "obligation to return," establishing a cultural exchange.
- **Revitalization Focus:** The speaker hopes to generate more questions than answers through these table-making adventures.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **History:** Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas's early salons in Parisian apartments.
- **2008:** Obama's campaign staffer, Eric Lesser, gathered in a dark basement to put together an ad hoc Seder, which Obama attended.
- **2010:** The White House hosted the first-ever White House Seder.
- **Period of observation:** The speaker has been traveling for 15 years.
- **Present/Future:** The call to action focuses on the immediate future, with the promise of sharing results via a little Facebook page.
## Named Entities
- **Gertrude Stein** — Central figure in early modernism who understood the importance of the hearth and table.
- **Alice B. Toklas** — Collaborator with Gertrude Stein.
- **Gore Vidal** — Thought leader whose presence at a table gathering was noted.
- **Mary Robinson** — Thought leader whose presence at a table gathering was noted.
- **Spike Lee** — Musician/figure whose presence at a table gathering was noted.
- **Obama** — Hosted the first White House Seder.
- **Eric Lesser** — White House staffer involved in the 2008 Seder.
- **Katharine Graham** — Hailed as a powerful publisher who attended a dinner party in the 70s.
- **Joe Allsop** — Man who invited Katharine Graham to stay at a dinner party.
- **Ileana** — Person who coined the term *Axis Mundi*.
- **Kurtwood Farms** — Example of a farm doing Sunday suppers.
- **Vashon** — Location of maverick farms.
- **Maverick Farms** — Farm using communal meals to draw attention to endangered farming in North Carolina.
## Numbers & Data
- Duration of work: **15 years**.
- Century/Period references: **70s** (for Katharine Graham's dinner).
## Examples & Cases
- **The Stein Salon:** Described by *The New York Times* as the "first-ever Museum of Modern Art."
- **The Seder Table:** Ritual involving consuming history and renewing gratitude.
- **White House Seder:** Occurred in 2010, featuring gefilte fish served on White House China.
- **The Harvest Feast:** The historical model where neighbors would invite others to eat a large, killed animal (like a pig).
- **Modern Urban Harvest Feast:** The dinner party, implying the "obligation to return."
- **The Heart as Center:** Comparison between the risk of hosting someone at home versus making a restaurant reservation.
- **Under-discovered colleagues:** Mentions Kurtwood Farms and maverick farms in North Carolina.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **The table:** Physical object used as a centerpiece and catalyst for conversation.
- **Facebook page:** Proposed modern platform for documenting future table-making actions.
## References Cited
- *The New York Times* — Newspaper that called the Stein salon the "first-ever Museum of Modern Art."
- **Marcel Mauss** — Philosopher who summed up the "obligation to return."
- **Secretary of State Clinton** — Associated with the event that bound families together.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- The term "table making" is acknowledged by the speaker as potentially "sloppy or too leading."
- The local food movement plateauing without addressing the gathering ritual is a potential failure point.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- The speaker urges the audience to consider "table making" and to see dinner tables differently.
- Two key questions for the audience to ponder: (1) How can we revolutionize the food system without deep investment in *how we share the food* from that system? (2) How can we create a progressive state without meaningful civic ritual?
- The final, personal invitation is for the audience to cook dinner or bring people together and report back to the speaker's Facebook page.
## Implications & Consequences
- The intimate sharing of food has the power to turn something "ethereal into something palpable a reality."
- Civic ritual at the table is necessary for creating a progressive state.
- The "obligation to return" inherent in the modern dinner party is the conceptual successor to the historical harvest feast.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"My table has ended up on Interstate 5 medians as a tool to provoke dialogue about use of space and commerce."*
- *"The common table is in a state of peril."*
- *"the table...is one of the most important cultural sites in the modern world."*
- *"we need to rethink how we convene how we gather."*
- *"I decided to call this practice table making."*
- *"working definition the evocative powerful meaningful or progressive use of the common table."*
- *"The New York Times called the stein salon the first-ever Museum of Modern Art."*
- *"it is a brilliant interaction and complex exchange happens of gift culture."*
- *"the dinner party implies the future... a basic obligation to return."*
- *"where ever we gather around them where we tell our stories and pass down our values bind families together."*
- *"if you go home today and cast a different kind of glance at that dinner table."*
- *"what happens at those dinners and I want you to tell me about it."*