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Commentary
THE PLACE OF HOSPITALITY IN CONVERSATION
Terrible and terrific conversations are both so notable to me that my mind stores them with a seemingly unimportant fact: precisely WHERE those conversations took place.*
I was standing over there when the young lady shut down brainstorming by proclaiming, “That is impossible!”**
I was sitting at my desk when the young man ended all exploration with his boast, “I have studied computers, so I can confidently say you are wrong.”***
The old professor and I were both sitting in recliners in his den when he allowed, “I hadn’t thought about that interpretation of the poem we’re discussing; let’s see what additional support we can find for your idea….”
What is it about PLACE that attaches to the memory of hospitable—and inhospitable—conversations?
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*I previously explored this in discussing my poem, “Outcropping of Hospitality”: https://www.bhepp.us/2021/07/outcropping-of-hospitality/
** I was speculating about if and when translation software will be able to do contemporaneous translation of sign language.
*** I was pondering whether fax sending numbers are inherently identified to the fax receiver; my default position was “Surely they are.”
