NYC Solstice Playbook

[Raymond Arnold]

This is my rough pass at a NYC Solstice checklist, covering the things that I typically think about, the checklists I think are most useful, equipment you need, people you need, etc. This is written in it's idealized form.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yzDMuEmNvFXQbR2_KCuwntXxs97K1XtGTIyA8eG_zx0/edit#

I have a blogpost in the works exploring the question of whether/how-much Solstice should get simplified (i.e. let it coalesce into something that is the same every year, as Glen Raphael discusses in the comments of this post)

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[Glen Raphael]

In part, I'm suggesting a Solstice in which *most* bits are the same every year other than small bug fixes. Thinking like the software QA guy I used to be, I like to see products exhibit nearly monotonic improvement over time. If the format provides slots for big speeches on specific topics there could be a collection of canned default speeches that fit those preexisting slots. There would still be an *option* to write a brand new one but it would take pressure off the people working on content to know that if they find themselves staring at a blank paper - they don't know what to say or the words aren't coming out right or what they've got so far seems kinda lame - there is a *fallback option* to...just do the default speech. The plan becomes: stick in a new speech only if you've been inspired to write something that you are pretty sure is unambiguously better than what we had before, in which case the NEW speech becomes one of the default backup options.

In assembling these pieces, if we need to use concrete examples we probably want to err on the side of picking historic ones that have stood the test of time rather than whatever ephemeral scare story is in the news this week.

Regardless of any other changes, I really want some sort of a preamble/introduction that says what the Solstice *is*. I suspect if we tried to say that in a few sentences or a few paragraphs the text would fail miserably to capture the meaning, but it'd still be worth *trying* to do that. If we then iterate on it - annually both improving the short description to be more coherently understandable *and* improving the rest of the ceremony to actually *be* what we're describing - eventually we'll have something that's much easier to explain both to ourselves and potential newcomers than what we have now.

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[Zvi Mowshowitz]

I think that any 'guide to running a Solstice' should include the overall structure, slots we need to fill (I know you already have this in your head) and some easy/default/existing choices for each of those slots, with a note on which of those are 'you should probably do this every year' or even 'don't touch this' (e.g. Uplift and Five Thousand Years) and which are more 'do something of this type that can vary but here's a good answer or two if you don't want to think about it.' The speeches I'm more optimistic than Glen that we can do something new each year, given we don't do such speeches at other times so we only need a few a year, but default ones would still be good (e.g. we don't have to use Beyond the Reach of God all the time, but we can let people know it's *OK* to use it if you don't have anything to put in its place this time.) And the purpose statement does seem like a good idea.

Once a year is pretty good scarcity, so I don't feel the great urgency to put in new songs each year (let alone write new songs) given how good things are at this point. On Melting Gold principles it might be good to say each year we do one new song we actually wrote, to make sure we don't stop writing, and maybe one song we didn't write that we haven't done before so we keep iterating somewhere? But I noticed that my knowing most of what was coming, and being comfortable with it, made things the last few years better rather than worse (and for new people, presumably our best iteration will be best for them as well). Then again, that could be what I needed at those times rather than what's right in general. 

[Glen Raphael]

I happened upon a website that helps people assemble Haggadahs out of mostly-existing parts. They highlighted this one: https://www.haggadot.com/content/all-new-family-haggadah

As a sample Purpose statement, here's its Introduction:

> [Leader] "Welcome to our Passover Seder! Together with Jews everywhere, tonight we recount a story told for the last 3000 years. It is a story about the community of Israel, and it is also a story about humanity's deep wish for justice and liberty. Tonight we remember the Exodus from Mitzrayim - the escape from the "narrows" of the biblical land of Egypt.We remember our ancestors and we vow that we will not allow their stories, their wisdom to be taken from us. And in recalling the struggles of our ancestors we ask: how may we achieve freedom in our own time?"

> [Participant] "Our Seder begins with the lighting of two candles and a blessing. As these candles are lit, we move from the routine of our daily lives into the special time of this festival."

-Glen

[I also rather like a quote they use in their conclusion: "Rabbi Tarfon teaches us: Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."]

[Taymon A. Beal]

I don't have time to review this right now because I've got my own Solstice coming up in two days. I'll aim to get back to it after that. In the meantime, though, a couple notes:

• One project I've been interested in taking a stab at is a "pre-made Solstice" book, aimed not at organizers for New York or Berkeley or Seattle or Boston, but at smaller local rationalist groups that want to try celebrating Solstice, likely for the first time, but don't necessarily have the creative resources to write their own material. (I'm currently advising such a group in Frankfurt.) I think it'd be important to provide a few different options for certain slots, not primarily to allow organizers to feel "in control" or anything like that (if they have the capacity to make their own customizations then they should obviously go ahead and do that if they want), but because people vary in what resonates with them, and groups vary in what kinds of people join them and what kinds of memes are in the water supply. To give two particularly salient examples:
• Messages about the importance of heroism (as in, personally devoting your life to solving some big problem) are motivating to those who are on that road and at risk of burning out, and likely to resonate in places where trying to Change The World is a cultural expectation *coughbayareacough*, but often guilt-inducing or alienating to those inclined to just tend their garden.
• There's a longstanding difference of opinion (and again, I think it's correlated with geographic location) between rationalists who believe in the importance of advancing the general humanist project (including things that will take a very long time to bear fruit, sometimes longer than our lifetimes), and rationalists who believe that AI is probably going to destroy all future value in the universe within the next couple decades and so obviously we should devote all our efforts to preventing that. (And various positions in between.) This strongly affects how you talk about the future and what kinds of things we want and in general what kind of message Solstice winds up having. (This is sometimes thought of as the same issue as the previous one, but I think it's orthogonal. There are plenty of heroes whose project is eradicating starvation and disease in Africa.)
• I'm concerned that the Moment of Darkness speech might have to be new every year. The whole point is that you stare into the abyss and expose your emotions directly to the raw truths within, with no comforting platitudes or cached thoughts to protect you. If you do the same thing every year, I'd guess that the detachment and ritualization of already knowing exactly what words to expect as you hear them provides exactly the kind of protective bubble that we don't want. On the other hand, writing a speech that pierces the soul is a tall order, and asking groups that are relatively capacity-constrained (even established ones like Boston or maybe even New York) to come up with one every year runs the risk of producing something that doesn't get there and winds up being ineffective and unmemorable; I think I've seen this happen at least once. This year Boston got lucky and found a blog post that fit the bill really well but that most people hadn't already read. But that only solves things for one year. This is a tough problem and I'm not sure what to do.
  

Taymon

[Daniel Speyer]

Let us not get our books crossed.  There should be a book about the mechanics of a NYC-structured event with polished performances.  There should also be a book about assembling the right sorts of songs and speeches.  They should be separate books.  Ideally, they should have different titles.

As for the latter book, I think it's entirely appropriate that it contain more songs and speeches than any single solstice would contain.  That's how most siddurs and hagadahs work in my experience.  And many hagadahs have notes in the margin, not intended to be read aloud, that describe what a reading is doing in the main text.  Assembling this may involve gathering material from a bunch of different solstices and different organizers.

[Chelsea Voss]

Ooooh, I'm really interested in the project of assembling a book of songs and speeches from across many different solstices. (I have nothing to contribute to this conversation except to volunteer as tribute if someone wants it to happen.)

What would we expect its benefits to be over the current Solstice Book of Traditions? Would it be that it would contain strictly more stuff than is already present?

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[Daniel Speyer]

There's been a lot of good stuff written since Book of Traditions.

I'm also thinking there's value in something that steps *outside* the ritual headspace a little more, and straightforwardly explains which songs you might want to include when and why.

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[Chelsea Voss]

++. I just learned how to play D&D recently, and the discussion of having two books kind of pleasantly reminds me of how D&D books are separated into some different books which target specific situations: there's one with advice and sample scenarios to help the DM prepare, there's one that specifically aims at players with commentary that helps them create their characters, and there's one that's general information useful to both.

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[Raymond Arnold]

FYI, I've been wanting for a few years to make a new Book of Traditions 2nd Edition that is longer, contains all the original songs we've accumulated (there were 9 at the time, now I think there's closer to 20), more speeches and commentary, and updated reflections on how Solstice has evolved.

I keep not having time to do it, but I think it's something that could be a more collaborative effort, maybe with essays and notes from various people who have ran Solstices. 

(I'd prefer to be involved as final-creative-authority over it, at least for giving it a final seal-of-approval)

As far as "technical book" vs "ritualspace book" - I think splitting them up is reasonable, but... I don't think necessary? (I think you can easily put that sort of thing in an appendix, and suspect the book can be constructed in such a way that it feels like cohesive). I'll also note that if it's something you want to actually print, I think it'd end up cheaper to print a run of 200 page books, than 2 runs of 100 page books.

I do like Glen's thoughts on the ritual being self-documenting enough that even if you don't have a book but have been to one, you have enough-of-a-sense of why it's structured the way it is.

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[Chelsea Voss]

I imagine that I might find it pleasant to own one book which optimizes for simplicity and aesthetic-pleasingness, such that many people who are participating in a ritual could all be holding a copy of that book and reading content from it, and to own one book which is a How to Solstice with commentary.

But I find the point about price extremely compelling, and also I think the second book would be a strict superset of the first book (everything in the first book would be in the second book, just, surrounded by commentary).

Probably once one has created the second book, the first book would be mostly trivial to put together. I'd be interested to learn more about what demand for each type of book would end up looking like.

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[Raymond Arnold]

I think it makes sense for there to be a _much_ shorter book that you'd want to cheaply print enough copies for everyone at a Solstice to have, but yeah I think that'd be optimized pretty differently.

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[Daniel Speyer]

I think it might be a little too soon to print up paper books.  The rate of change is slowing, but it's still pretty fast.

I've been figuring on writing up what I was thinking when I wrote NYC's setlist, a document which will be useful for anyone assembling another.

I've also been thinking about gathering canonical forms of all solstice music and speeches into a single place.  My first choice would be a github repository.  I realize that's a little weird, but my reasoning:

* I've been seeing a lot of manual version management, which suggests real version management would be a good thing.

* Git's model of atomic commits and manual merges fits our workflow.  I've been reluctant to touch Google docs I have write privileges to because I don't know if I'm stepping on someone's toes.

* Github pages have clean, stable URLs

* Allowing anyone to fork or send a pull request, but only trusted people to push is a good fit for our human dynamics

* It plays nicely with various forms of auto-generated content, which is useful when a single canon document creates multiple presentations, and scripts would keep this all in sync far better than manual work.

* It does a good job of being simultaneously a pretty webpage and a collection of arbitrary files.

* The alternatives are really unappealing.

The main downside is that I'm not sure everyone who might want to contribute is comfortable with git.  We won't be using most of its advanced features, but it's still a bit of a learning curve.   I think most of the relevant people are proficient.