Vn92.1 Company for Dinner 9/14/77

This has been a week for company at our house. Fernando Curado and
José Valente first, then Bertrand Schwartz and Antoinette together with
Laurie Miller, and this evening Seymour and the Minskys. My intention
in asking Marvin and Gloria here at this time was to provide a sense of
setting for the variety of descriptions of our lives that Marvin, as a
member of my thesis committee, will encounter in my data; and further,
through a short exposure to one evening in my family’s life, to provide
a sense of the relations and qualities of interaction from which the
observations in these data arise.

Unfortunately for my purposes this evening’s guests arrived too late
to tour the grounds of our landlord’s mansion, those places where the
children have played this summer when not under my eye (and under foot);
yet they did have a chance to participate in a more or less typical
evening at home. If the evening was atypical, it was so in two respects
mainly: Robby was tired and went to bed directly after our late dinner;
Miriam (could she possibly have been still energized by the adrenalin
shot in the morning?) was lively and stayed up much later than usual.
Since Miriam was expected to go to school the next day, I told her
several times to go to bed. She took my instructions as reminders
merely, and chose to ignore them. Further, it was appropriate that
Marvin should see as much of her as she wished to show him.

We talked some of Miriam’s work (I showed Marvin one of Miriam’s
“Seahorses” [an INSPI with an angular increment of 13]; Marvin allowed
that he did recognize it — indeed, he noted he was the first person in
the world ever to see that particular design) and of some of the unusual
turns of mind that Miriam now exhibits (the data of Vignette 76, Where
Do Ideas Come From, were then much in my mind). Gloria gave us her
appreciation of the Brookline schools, from the perspective of her special
knowledge and from the experiences of Margaret, Henry, and Julie. When
Gretchen and Seymour brought dinner to the table, talk turned more
intellectual for a short while. Miriam redirected that tendency after
dinner by engaging Marvin’s help in her weaving of a potholder. Eventually
both Miriam and the evening wound down and our guests departed.

Relevance
This evening, representing a for us natural mixture of social,
intellectual, and family concerns and activities, provided a more or
less typical experience of an evening in our family for two members
of my thesis committee.

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