Garfinkel stories

Michael Lynch

pp. 163-168

in: George Psathas, Martin Endreß (eds), In memoriam of Harold Garfinkel, Human Studies 35 (2), 2012.

Abstract

Garfinkel is sitting in the front row along with a close colleague of his. I haven’t given many presentations at this point in my career, so I’m nervous. About midway through my talk, Garfinkel starts looking agitated, and whispers to his colleague and makes various other motions. I’m not closely watching the commotion, since I’m focused on giving the talk, but I wonder if something I said touched off his agitation. Afterwards when he compliments me on the talk, I ask him about what it was that disturbed him about it. His answer was that it wasn’t the talk that bothered him, but that he had thought that a fellow in the audience who had been fiddling with an object placed in his shirt pocket had been secretly recording the presentation. He then said that he (Garfinkel) had leaned over to the fellow and, gesturing toward the item in his shirt pocket, whispered, “Hand me the microphone!” The accused fellow then took an ordinary ballpoint pen from his pocket and showed it to Garfinkel. After recounting this incident, Garfinkel added that this would be another “Garfinkel story”.

Cited authors

Garfinkel Harold