ten seats,
one table

TENET sits at the center of the square and means holds. It reads the same in both directions and falls twice, crossing itself, so the axis of the whole figure is one word about holding. It was cut into a wall at Pompeii and carried as a charm long after. Here the holding rotates. Every seat gets the key.

Come hold one for a night.

some things only exist when ten are present

Ten is the threshold where separate people become one body. Across traditions it carries completion, shared responsibility, and order. A minyan is a quorum of ten: a person can pray alone any time, and certain prayers only happen when ten are in the room. The same holds for a conversation.

place is the solution

We kept having the same conversation in different rooms. Founders, funders, researchers, artists, civic people, circling one question with nowhere to keep circling it. What we were missing was a room. A regular one, with a door that closes and a host who cooks.

at ten the count
returns to one

The Pythagoreans drew ten as a triangle: one, then two, then three, then four. They called it the tetractys and swore oaths on it, because at ten the count completes and begins again at one. We find the same shape in a room. Under ten, a dinner stays a hangout. Over ten, the table splits and the host begins performing. Ten is the ceiling on one conversation everyone can hear.

Ten seats force us to choose, and choosing is most of the work.

Place

What happens in a room that cannot happen anywhere else?

Hover or tap a question

five hours,
one question

We give the evening a shape and almost no schedule. The part people write to us about afterward is the inheritance, when the book you brought leaves with somebody else.

range over
seniority

We invite people building institutions, moving capital, running research, making art, and holding pieces of civic San Francisco together. We look for range over seniority, and we want somebody at the table who will disagree with everyone else.