I am a
devotee of
witty conversation.
Dinner parties that I
attend have been known to last up to four
hours, with the
breezy banter flying fast and thick. At such dinner parties, we often try to
emulate the legendary
Algonquin Round Table.
I developed the notion of a semantic dance as a result of these dinner parties. A semantic dance is a witty
verbal exchange between two or more people. One of my
favorite semantic dances is what i call the Topical Hop. Much like
word association, the Topical Hop consists of "
hopping" quickly from one
topic to another, so long as they are
related. In one such Topical Hop, I and a
friend went from
Thomas Aquinas to
Rodgers and Hammerstein in six "hops." One could
think of the topical as a sort of super-mini
live action Everything2: finding a
string of connections that join seemingly
disparate topics.
Another semantic dance I shamelessly
appropriated ("
stolen" is such a
harsh word) from
Tom Stoppard's
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, namely the
game of
Questions. The two "
dancers" can only speak in questions. Not permitted are
repeated questions,
grunts, and
non sequiturs. A further
challenge is to keep the
pace quick;
hesitating before
replying results in a
loss.
A third semantic dance is the
Innuendo Tango. This dance consists simply of speaking in a string of innuendoes. Again, the challenge is to keep the pace brisk.
More semantic dances are always possible. The
basic "
floor pattern" is simply
two-fold:
sharp wit and
brisk pace.