The Nonlinear Library LW - Boston Solstice 2023 Retrospective by jefftk
Jan 2, 2024
09:04
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Boston Solstice 2023 Retrospective, published by jefftk on January 2, 2024 on LessWrong.
Saturday evening we held another year's secular solstice celebration ( 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018), and I was again in my music director-ish role. Skyler was the main organizer this time around, with lots of support from Taymon.
Scheduling was a bit tricky, as it always is. The weekends closest to astronomical solstice are usually taken by the Bay Area and NYC, and enough people (especially organizers)would like to attend those that it's better if we don't conflict, and then there's Christmas. We decided to do December 30th this year, which I ended up liking a lot.
It meant I could be practicing during Christmas vacation, and I didn't need to be so cautious about getting sick during the event because it wasn't immediately before I was going to see a lot of elderly relatives. Being at New Year's offered some nice hooks for the theme as well.
We hosted in Somerville again, and this time had ~45 people. I arranged the house the same way as I did last year, but this is very close to the maximum number of people it make sense to have in this space. I didn't advertise the event as much as I might have, partly for this reason. One thing we should think about for next year is whether we want a real venue. We used to host these at the MIT chapel, which was a good space, though prohibiting fire and food.
Possibly there are other spaces around but could be a good fit? We need something bigger than a house, but not that big: space for 75 should be fine. Really it's better if the space isn't much larger than that, since it feels more communal if you're not rattling around in a big room.
There were two sets of slides: one for the musicians and one for the audience. Not everyone could see the projection, since the space has an awkward bend in it, so I put a copy of the slides on my website as a pdf and passed around a link. One of the attendees suggested using the folding couch monitor as well, and set it up with their phone, and I think that ended up being helpful?
Our older two kids were off at a sleepover, but Nora (2.5y) was around for most of it with Julia supervising. Another family also brought their kid (17mo) and we had a room nearby (thanks to currently-elsewhere part-time housemate Andrew) where the two toddlers could hang out as needed. There was also space available upstairs, farther both physically and auditorially, which neither family ended up using.
While Julia sang The Next Right Thing her phone with Cocomelon in the nearby room did a good keeping Nora out of trouble. I don't think the kids were disruptive, partly because we were especially careful around the dark and serious portions, but I know this is something that has been tricky for some communities at times. One very tricky part is that it depends so much on the specific kids you have in your community, their general temperaments, and how they're doing that particular evening.
The music was a lot of fun this year: it was mostly songs I already knew, and all of the new songs were ones I liked. Here are the songs we did:
First Half:
Still Alive, by Jonathan Coulton
(mp3)
The timing on this song is a bit tricky, but enough people knew it to work well. On the other hand, if you don't know the context around it then it's probably pretty confusing what it's doing here.
The Circle, by Taylor Smith
(mp3)
The last verse is the most straightforward lyrical representation of the astronomical waste argument I know, and while I like the idea of including it there's something about it which comes off as a bit sinister to me?
Uplift, by Andrew Eigel
(mp3)
The tag as originally written was probably intended to describe the common theme in science fiction of returning to an agrarian society as part of colonizing a new world. Some years we...
Saturday evening we held another year's secular solstice celebration ( 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018), and I was again in my music director-ish role. Skyler was the main organizer this time around, with lots of support from Taymon.
Scheduling was a bit tricky, as it always is. The weekends closest to astronomical solstice are usually taken by the Bay Area and NYC, and enough people (especially organizers)would like to attend those that it's better if we don't conflict, and then there's Christmas. We decided to do December 30th this year, which I ended up liking a lot.
It meant I could be practicing during Christmas vacation, and I didn't need to be so cautious about getting sick during the event because it wasn't immediately before I was going to see a lot of elderly relatives. Being at New Year's offered some nice hooks for the theme as well.
We hosted in Somerville again, and this time had ~45 people. I arranged the house the same way as I did last year, but this is very close to the maximum number of people it make sense to have in this space. I didn't advertise the event as much as I might have, partly for this reason. One thing we should think about for next year is whether we want a real venue. We used to host these at the MIT chapel, which was a good space, though prohibiting fire and food.
Possibly there are other spaces around but could be a good fit? We need something bigger than a house, but not that big: space for 75 should be fine. Really it's better if the space isn't much larger than that, since it feels more communal if you're not rattling around in a big room.
There were two sets of slides: one for the musicians and one for the audience. Not everyone could see the projection, since the space has an awkward bend in it, so I put a copy of the slides on my website as a pdf and passed around a link. One of the attendees suggested using the folding couch monitor as well, and set it up with their phone, and I think that ended up being helpful?
Our older two kids were off at a sleepover, but Nora (2.5y) was around for most of it with Julia supervising. Another family also brought their kid (17mo) and we had a room nearby (thanks to currently-elsewhere part-time housemate Andrew) where the two toddlers could hang out as needed. There was also space available upstairs, farther both physically and auditorially, which neither family ended up using.
While Julia sang The Next Right Thing her phone with Cocomelon in the nearby room did a good keeping Nora out of trouble. I don't think the kids were disruptive, partly because we were especially careful around the dark and serious portions, but I know this is something that has been tricky for some communities at times. One very tricky part is that it depends so much on the specific kids you have in your community, their general temperaments, and how they're doing that particular evening.
The music was a lot of fun this year: it was mostly songs I already knew, and all of the new songs were ones I liked. Here are the songs we did:
First Half:
Still Alive, by Jonathan Coulton
(mp3)
The timing on this song is a bit tricky, but enough people knew it to work well. On the other hand, if you don't know the context around it then it's probably pretty confusing what it's doing here.
The Circle, by Taylor Smith
(mp3)
The last verse is the most straightforward lyrical representation of the astronomical waste argument I know, and while I like the idea of including it there's something about it which comes off as a bit sinister to me?
Uplift, by Andrew Eigel
(mp3)
The tag as originally written was probably intended to describe the common theme in science fiction of returning to an agrarian society as part of colonizing a new world. Some years we...