Last weekend, a group of people braved single-digit temperatures and ice-sheet roads to celebrate curiosity at the Capital City Bar Grill, 3149 S. Dirksen Parkway.
They were gathered for volume three of PechaKucha Night Springfield, and would hear short presentations on eight topics, including two people largely lost to history; the process of making paper; and the “pulse” of the Illinois River.
Members of Klein Dytham architecture introduced the concept of PechaKucha in Tokyo in 2003 as a way to give designers and other creative types a chance to share what they do.
The creators have licensed the format for free use around the world, subject to a number of conditions: only one series of events per city, organizers must have day jobs and work collaboratively, and four events per year are required to remain an active city.
PechaKucha has taken off. Looking at the various events listed on the movement’s international website, the longevity in some cities is remarkable. The original Tokyo series is on volume 80. Tel Aviv was scheduled to have its 11th volume Wednesday night. St. Louis had volume five last month.
The genius behind PechaKucha is its strict 20×20 format: you get 20 slides for 20 seconds each. This way, presenters are forced to keep things focused and moving — with only six minutes and forty seconds and a slideshow on autopilot, there’s little reward for dilly-dallying and no going back to the previous slide. Like any well-paced narrative, it’s onward or perish.
The best presentations of the night, by Ted Keylon and Tom Irwin, often bumped up against these limitations, as the presenters struggled to pack in all they had to say before the relentless clock forced them on.
Irwin, the local musician and writer for Illinois Times, told the story of a young boy’s 1890s diary, left behind when Irwin’s ancestors bought the home from the boy’s family a century ago.
There were prices the boy spent on clothes — $8 for a suit — and a tantalizing drawing of the Ferris wheel he expected to see at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Irwin has written a cycle of songs based on the diary and managed to play a few excerpts, but mostly ran out of time and resigned himself to playing just a handful of snippets.
Keylon’s presentation, on the other hand, was paced to within a moment of its life. An artist, professional actor (at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum) and presenter on Access 4, he spoke about Anna Ella Carroll, a woman believed to be an important adviser to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
His presentation swept from his job portraying artist Francis Carpenter at the museum to his personal study of Carroll, all through the prism of an artist who — despite living here all his life — only recently decided to finally paint a portrait of Lincoln.
In an interview after the event, Keylon said local PechaKucha organizers had wanted him to do a presentation on the Third Thursday art shows — formerly at Norb Andy’s, now at Andiamo.
“I thought about it, and I just really couldn’t figure out a way that you could talk about that art show in this format,” Keylon said. “It would force me to have to talk about other people’s art, and I’m not comfortable with that.”
He made a wise decision. Like Irwin, or Betsy Dollar talking about the art of making paper, or University of Illinois Springfield professors Michael Lemke and Keith Miller talking about the Emiquon Preserve, Keylon’s passion for his subject was apparent.
It’s a vibe that was not as evident during the first half of the night, and I’d argue it’s because several of the early presenters had something to sell.
Jim Matheis gave an interesting enough presentation on how maple syrup is made at Lincoln Memorial Garden, but he made certain to mention the site’s upcoming pancake breakfast.
Bob Church and Jim Roth gave what was essentially a sales pitch for the new Museum of Surveying downtown, and — forgive me for saying this — Sister Sharon Zayac did the same for Jubilee Farms as a spiritual retreat and conference center.
In our wide-ranging discussion after the show, Keylon mentioned one of the rules on WQNA-FM 88.3, the community radio station of the Capital Area Career Center.
“You can’t have a ‘call to action.’ Like, ‘Be here, buy this ticket, do this,’” Keylon said.
I would like to see the organizers of our PechaKucha series adopt that rule. By forcing — or perhaps freeing — people to talk about a passion rather than a pitch, the presentations are bound to be more interesting.
Had Church and Roth focused on their own interest in surveying rather than pitching the museum — they seem passionate about the topic, but I have no idea why — the presentation would have been more interesting. The same goes for Zayac — it would have been more compelling to hear not about the library and conference rooms on site but rather a riff on the care and feeding of llamas or the process of natural restoration the nuns are undertaking on the property.
I can’t end this without also addressing master of ceremonies David Farrell, whose jokey, corny introductions were the low points of the event.
“The reason I tell you my name is many people mistake me for George Clooney.”
“Corn syrup does not come from corn trees.”
“You do know how you can tell a dogwood tree, right? By its bark.”
His endless litany of unfunny asides and abominable jokes were met mostly with silence or sporadic chuckles, yet he seemed unable or unwilling to get the message. The organizers should find someone else or, if they insist on maintaining Farrell, issue a stern warning to play it straight.
PechaKucha is a welcome addition to Springfield’s cultural scene. With a little tweaking around the edges, it could be even better. There are enough interesting people here to keep this going indefinitely. It’s just a matter of finding them — and letting them loose on their passions.
Brian Mackey can be reached at brian.mackey@sj-r.com or 747-9587.