I felt like the conversation was fascinating, though. I've always been curious about potentiality and singularity, questions of the self and subject, and even though I feel like a blundering idiot when I talk about it, I enjoy the muck and mire of it. Of feeling my way through. Gut first. Words stumbling to catch up with the rest of me.
For me, asking if the venue had an effect is very different from asking if the change of venue did. Or more accurately, if our changing the venue had an effect. When I think about the first question, I think about things that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been at your house. We wouldn't have seen your (Gallagher's) daughter walk in and out of the room seven times, as if she were fascinated by seeing you in teacher-mode. We couldn't have had the same awkwardness about seating: not having enough, bets on whether or not I would sit in the big black chair, or the ability to disappear comfortably into the room's decor.
In many ways, the place worked the exact same. It was a room, uncomfortable for some of us (perhaps those seated on the floor or Erin, who I never think was sold on the idea but was an excellent chap about it), where we talked about some ideas. Holding some ideas back because we were worried they might sound to others. Or waited to talk because we couldn't really understand what people were debating (or felt like people were talking past one another). Or chose not to talk because we didn't want to share our brilliance. After the class, I still had conversations with people about the things we talked and didn't talk about. A meta-commentary about the conversations we did have occurred.
I do feel like there was a difference, but it is hard to put my finger on what it was. I feel like our changing the venue gave it an... affective energy... ew, gross... I sound like a mystic... But it did. It was less the place, and more that we'd chosen it. It might have been a joke of sorts, but it was a joke we had control over. And I think it is too easy to call it "just a lark" - though that might be exactly what it was. I realize fully that I am... how should I put this... a little weird. Rather than a classroom malcontent who stirs up trouble, I'd like to think of myself as a classroom miscontent who just disrupts the standard flow in generally innocuous ways.
But I think there is a benefit to this. Occupy Gallagher's House didn't fit the usual scripts for how students behave in class. Both the blog effort and the class where we went to your house. Because it didn't fit the scripts, it gave it a different affect. When blogging, I felt so nervous and awkward about how you'd respond - much like when I wrote a Manifesto Against Inquiry Notebooks. And even after having verbal confirmation from everyone that they would do it, I know that people waited to post because no one wanted to be the second person to "Occupy." Even though they had it worked into the post. (I cite Chloe and Donna) The awkwardness/excitedness/whateverness and energy is akin to "breaking the rules" - despite having broken none. And when people talked about it, they'd talk about it in the same way. Do you think he'll be mad? (As if we hadn't completed the assignment)
Breaking with the script, involved crafting a different relationship and, I would say, a different identity. Not that the group action would create the same identity. I think I can say fairly confidently that I am as much a joke to the other students as I am a colleague, that Occupy Gallagher's House was undertaken at least as much to humor me as it was actual interest in occupying your house. But breaking with the scripts provided room to craft a different social identity because the rules of the game, the scripts for how to act in class, were disrupted.
The funny thing about being in your house was that the scripts weren't disrupted for us. But they were for you. And it was visible in the briefest of moments. When your daughter was in the doorway of the kitchen, for example. And while it might not have been a disruption for you, watching you balance your different roles disrupted our (or at least my) perception of how your authority works. Similarly, when Kristi was doing her symposium, you took on the role of a student (until you started checking your watch that is). Perhaps that was part of your chuckle when I asked you if you wanted to be my partner, a recognition of the change in roles. Or it might have been as much an of-course-you'd-be-the-one-I-work-with chuckle. How people interpret and engage the disruption of scripts will of course vary. Scripts are comfortable, as are the identities and power relations they bring with them. Some might not be comfortable with upsetting it. Or might not even notice it if they interact in the same way. But I think the space opened up is useful.
Another thing I find useful about the mere joke of it all is it binds the class in a very interesting way. Ask anyone in the class. This class feels different from most. It's in part because of the space you allow for these shenanigans. And I think, in part, because of the innocuous disruptions that happen in the class. My being a joke lets people laugh at something together as a group. Even if it's a rolling our eyes kind of way. And this makes me sound like a wise and magnanimous puppeteer of people in your classroom or an eccentric martyr, but for me, it had nothing to do with how people respond, binding the group, etc. It never has. I just wanted to do it. To see how it would work out.
