Intelligent Leisure & the Lost Art of the Salon
The two key tenets of the Moss ethos are Intelligent Leisure: our open invitation to gather and play with ideas, and Physical Culture: integrating movement, balance, rest, and a little competition into your daily routine. All in all, spending your free time intentionally and well.
While we previously touched on the physical, let’s now explore the cerebral/social. Intelligent Leisure means getting lost in conversation; taking a step back from our regular lives to see the world from a different angle, only to return with fresh eyes, new ideas, and valued connections.
Perhaps the antithesis of bed-rotting (though there’s always a time and place), Intelligent Leisure means using free time to enrich one’s life rather than escape it (also subjective). Moss events range from lectures, workshops, and literary salons in The Symposium, to raucous supper clubs at the restaurant, and lively game nights around the pool table. We also like to venture off campus to soak up the wealth of art and culture right in our backyard, like an after-hours tour of MoMA, a trip upstate to The Edward Hopper House Museum, or a musical matinee on Broadway.
The inspiration behind this revival of in-person ideation, idea exchange, and curated gatherings is the archetypal Salon. Historically, the goal of these meetings was to “either to please or to educate”, following Horace’s theory that poetry should strive to achieve the same goals. Gathering to discuss life and big ideas around a fire, a dinner table, a bar, or an ashtray is nothing new, but it is definitely a lost art.
20th-century salon-style meetings, some of which took place a few blocks from Moss, provide the blueprint for reintegrating the activity into our rather solitary modern reality.
The Bloomsbury Group, originating in its namesake district of Bloomsbury, London, included key figures such as Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and E.M. Forster. The group’s members were associated with liberal politics, intellectual pursuits, and modern attitudes towards sexuality and feminism. Almost as famous as their work were their after-hours antics, unconventional living arrangements, and house parties held at their various English country homes.
The Algonquin Round Table, a motley crew of New York City intellectuals also referred to as “The Vicious Circle,” met daily over lunch to crack jokes and cultivate opinions for the members’ various newspaper columns. Sitting at this table were people who shaped New York City’s media landscape, including Harold Ross, founder and editor of The New Yorker, Alexander Woollcott, the New York Times Theater critic, the writer Dorothy Parker, and Vanity Fair editor and actor Robert Benchley, among others.
Black Mountain College was a storied liberal arts institution that championed academic freedom and non-hierarchical dynamics between students and faculty. An interdisciplinary approach to education, combined with an emphasis on communal living, made it a hotbed of creativity, especially for its time. Artists such as Josef Albers, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, and Cy Twombly are among the notable artists associated with the school.
The Sisterhood was a collective of Black female writers formed in 1977, who supported one another in their professional pursuits and worked together to promote, publicize, and publish the work of Black women writers. Authors such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, June Jordan, and Ntozake Shange would often gather for dinner, conversation, and good company at each other’s homes. Although brief, the meetings had a lasting impact on modern American literature.
Our Members gather in distinct meeting places to learn, play, and congregate, including The Symposium, The Broadcast, a Off The Record, and The Games Room.
The Symposium
The Symposium is the hub for Intelligent Leisure, serving as a platform for talks, discussions, screenings, and presentations of all kinds—a little more chill than a university lecture hall.
Inklings
Our library bar is named for the abstract, mischievous illustrated creatures that represent the “id” of club members, the Inklings. A café by day and our pre- and post-Symposium hangout by night is set against mirrored shelves that showcase the club's curated collection of books and art objects.
The Games Room
Games to socialize strategically. A billiards table, a poker table, and a chess table are all available for, we won’t say, gambling, but just a little friendly competition. It’s said that the aforementioned Harold Ross funded The New Yorker’s early days with his poker winnings.
The Broadcast
The ideal setup for aspiring podcasters. Built-in cameras for video recording from two angles allow you to capture your best side. The recording room features triple-glazed laminated glass windows, acoustically isolated with carpet on a floating floor, double-wall construction, and acoustically absorptive Watts of Westminster fabric-wrapped wall panels and ceiling panels.
Off the Record
Our vinyl listening room is a serene retreat for the audiophile. The space features hi-fi equipment and a vintage record collection. Records are spun on a McIntosh MT10 Record Player with custom-color Meridian DSP3200 speakers.
As you can surmise, there are infinite opportunities and spaces to leisure intelligently at Moss, whatever that means to you.