Final project rough draft

Reed Daw
4/25/11
RHE330E
Davis
The Rhetoric of the Bar

Aristotle points out in Problems 30 that “persons sometimes take on melancholic moods when they drink large quantities of wine, or become merciful or savage or silent or affectionate, even to kiss on the mouth someone whom no one would ever kiss if he were sober; and people of naturally melancholic dispositions are especially prone to such mood swings because they have an excess of black bile (953-955a).” I work at a bar downtown on Sixth Street and have had the luck to be a bigger than average guy, which means I’m always posted up at the door. During my time spent working at several different bars I’ve seen a wide variety of people act differently toward every type of setting. I’m going to break down the bar I currently work at, Key Bar, and explain the rhetoric behind the décor, the setting, the furniture, and even the opening and closing choices of music. I’ll be using Longaker-Walker’s chapter on Affect, Walkers Pathos and Katharsis, Edbauer, Hyde-Smith, Aristotle, and Bitzer to explain why everything is set up so perfectly in this particular bar.
Rhetoric in movement is a big part of what goes on at the bar, especially when it comes to what music is being played. While each night closes and while we frantically shuffle everyone out the door, the manager on duty decides what song would be best to finish the night off with/kick everyone out with. On one particular night the manager chose a Pantera song. I think he chose this song thinking it would drastically switch the mood of the bar, from the normal techno to raging metal. My first thoughts were “what are the outcomes of normally hearing this song?” The answer came quick and clear, and I was spot on. The women all left with no fuss, clearly showing that they cannot move their body to this vicious song. The men on the other hand, well, the drunker men decided to do exactly what anyone at a Pantera concert does with loads of booze in them. Their blood started boiling, their heads started rocking back and forth, and I was stuck at the door trying to get these fiends out.
Aristotle argues that “a state of pathos consists simultaneously of its characteristic physical condition and the perceptions or cognitions that both motivate and define it (79).” The reason these men reacted accordingly to this song is because they felt the certain symptoms of anger piling on: “blood boiling around the heart without any accompanying perception of insult is not yet anger but only a diffuse state, a choleric temper, a readiness to be provoked to anger by the first plausible provocation that comes along (79).” Pantera, as we all know, is a pretty heavy band, so this choice of music has ignited those first thoughts that we connect with this genre of music: head-banging, moshing, and rowdy behavior. In Aristotle’s definition we can see that all these men needed were the flick of a switch, the music, and they are now in the “choleric, diffused state,” which means they only need a little push to achieve the desired complete emotion of anger.
On the other hand, we can easily calm down an entire crowd of people through the use of effective music. The night I will be analyzing was during South-By week. We had a DJ who played every night, and always ended out the night with Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. The immediate come down from “bumping and grinding” to a relaxed calm state was very surprising and made me curious as to why the partygoers could immediately change their entire behavior with a simple song change.
I can assume that since Pantera is defined as angry music, then Journey has to be defined as calm music, as Aristotle says is the opposite emotion of anger. Aristotle says that “growing calm may be defined as a settling down or quieting of anger. In general, the things that make us calm may be inferred by seeing what the opposites are of those that make us angry (60).” If my assumptions are correct, and Journey is in fact the opposite emotional type of music from Pantera, then the reaction the customers had were correct.
The next topic of Key Bar that holds a lot of rhetorical qualities is the setting and the décor. These two qualities were planned and constructed according to a strict set of thoughts to get the customers to stay longer, spend more money, and drink more!
When you first enter Key Bar there are three different areas to choose from. First, we have the inside area, the most well lit part, which is mainly taken up by private parties. Second, we have the outside roofed over area, which is pretty dark and holds the most amount of people. Lastly, we have a no roofed over outside area with a fire pit in the middle. I am going to use Longaker-Walker, Aristotle, Hyde-Smith, and Edbauer to show how each of the different sections were put together for a very particular reason and for different types of customers.
As Edbauer says, “Amin and Thrift argue that cities are more about movements and processes than the elements that materially construct their borders (11).” The cities in this case being sections one, two, and three of the bar. According to Edbauer, each city, or section of the bar “is a container for the local elements within a given space (11),” just like any other bars on Sixth Street would be another different container. Edbauer then uses Thrift and Amin to show that “the city becomes a kind of weather system, a rapidly varying distribution of intensities. These sites (the sections of the bar), are sustained by the amalgam of processes, which can be described in ecological terms of varying intensities of encounters and interactions-much like a weather system (12).” Each different section of the bar can be called a different kind of city because each section has been made to support a different type of encounter and interaction as I will discuss next.
The first area, the inside area, is well lit compared to the rest of the bar and is used mainly for parties so you can see everyone and converse with the entire group. If you are attempting to pick up a woman, the inside area is not your friend. There is one huge main table that seats about 16 people, and this could be considered a city all in itself. The grouping of a mass of people is perfect for this area. The lighting is brighter because you want to be able to recognize everyone you already know, and the grouping environment is used to create emotions of happiness, excitement, and energy throughout this section.
To quote Smith-Hyde, “Spoken to now in the name of the public, people are led to believe that they possess the requisite knowledge for making competent decisions. Is this to say the people are the greatest of Sophists (447)?” In this case, yes, the customers (people) are the greatest sophists, because as Smith-Hyde says, “the public should be understood as individuals whose personal motivations for power necessitate a rhetoric which can persuade people that they are the very seat of sovereignty (446).” We (the bar) are the rhetoricians in this case, and we have persuaded the customers in a group that they are in the best place, which convinces them to feel and emit good emotions. So, according to Aristotle, the bar is “putting the hearers into their right frame of mind (450).” Aristotle claims that “the orator’s goal is to bring listeners into conformance by moving them into the same state of mind (452),” which is done by using the large table and the lighting to make sure everyone stays in close proximity, which will make them stay happy.
The roofed over outside area has two different sections. There is a bar sitting area, where you can easily talk to whomever you please. It was built so that everyone has to be mashed up together yelling drink orders over other people’s heads. The second part is away from the bar and has tables designated for groups and tables designated for couples only. The lighting in this area is very dim and the music is turned up much higher than the rest of the bar.
I’m going to use Longaker-Walker’s description of affect, behavior, and interpretation to analyze this area of the bar. Although Longaker-Walker says we’re “supposed to think-not feel-before we act, (208)” this area/city does exactly the opposite. Longaker-Walker analyze affect, interpretation, and behavior through a Horror Movie and with the Fear of Looming Predators. The moment you walk into Key Bar you are forced into this area of the bar and your affect, your “bodily disposition,” is a feeling of coolness, of calmness, and of an intensifying excitement. Longaker-Walker says that “the looming phenomenon (or in this case being surrounded by tons of new people) triggers a common affect (excitement). Even if we perceive nothing more than a dramatic change in light we will feel and do these things (210).” We are affected from entering an entirely different mood and setting, our bodies are changing and we are now interpreting the environment. As Longaker-Walker says, “it is difficult to say while feeling excitement and consciously fleeing the scene (or being bombarded with loads of partiers), we consciously interpret the situation. Our behavior is too quick to allow such a conscious appraisal (210).” This is exactly the reaction the bar wants in this area. You have no time to think about what’s going on except that this is an extremely exciting scene. Your body can go through the affect, but it cannot interpret it because “our visual registration (of the scene) may bypass the brain systems where conscious deliberation appears to happen (210).” In my opinion, this strategy offers new customers only one solution, and that is to follow whatever the crowd is doing, which the best possible choice is considering everyone else looks like they are having a great time. So what ends up happening to interpretation?
Longaker-Walker says that “this does not mean interpretation doesn’t occur. It just means we can’t restrict our definition of interpretation to consciously experienced, higher-order cognition (210).” Instead we submit and conform to one unit, or one city, and follow the group’s emotions.
The last part is the outside area with no roof. This section has been dubbed as the area to pick up people of the opposite sex. The fire pit in the middle pushes everyone together in a romantic, candle-lit setting, while the seats are all one continuous bench, forcing you to sit close to the person nearest you, whether you like it or not. The music is higher than the first area, but lower than the second, giving you enough space to think, while still letting the music take over.