Chasing the past

It sometimes is both useful and pleasant to look way back via magazine articles. We may learn either that how people behave has stayed much the same, or that how they live has changed greatly.

On Sunday I blogged about how lack of organization can ruin a speech, and mentioned a humorous article from 1927. In Tuesday’s blog post I mentioned a 1930 article by Alfred E. Smith. Both magazine articles came from bound volumes on the shelves at the Boise Public Library.

I found them by looking under the subject of public speaking in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. It is an index to periodicals of general interest by author and subject. Reader’s Guide began publication back in 1890 under another title. Entries in the Reader’s Guide are very terse, so it’s simple to write them down. After collecting several it’s time to locate the magazines and find the articles. They might either be in bound volumes on shelves, or microfilm in drawers (either on rolls of microfiche cards). After skimming an article, I can decide whether to copy it or print it out.

This old-time style of research takes far longer than working online with full-text databases. Once you get more than about thirty years back it may be the only way to find some information.

Reader’s Guide also was turned into a database sold in several flavors. I found one called Reader’s Guide Full Text at the Boise State University Library. Older stuff is in a subset called Reader’s Guide Retrospective that covers from 1890 to 1982.

The image of a boy came from a poster at the Library of Congress web site.

Women in the UK consider going to work without wearing makeup more stressful than public speaking

Tomorrow is National No Make-Up Day, and over in the UK, the Vitality Show TV program reported the startling results of a survey which found that:

“The notion of going bare-faced to work was rated more stressful than public speaking, attending a job interview and even a nerve-wracking first date. When asked what they worry about leaving the house without, 70% said ‘hair styling and make-up’, topping daily essentials such as a bank card (65%), cash (40%) or their diary (11%).


....While 70% women would not feel confident going to work without make-up on, 91% said they would cancel a first date rather than turn up bare faced. 31% would not go to the gym without make-up and astonishingly 1 in 6 women wouldn’t even answer the front door unless in full make-up.”

Similarly, in February, The Renfrew Center Foundation issued a press release about an online survey of women in the United States which found:

“Forty-four percent of women have negative feelings when they are not wearing makeup, reporting feeling unattractive (16%), self-conscious (14%) and naked/as though something is missing (14%). Only three percent of women said going without makeup made them feel more attractive.” 

The image is the cover of Puck magazine from back in September 27, 1911.

Rick Santorum’s Teleprompter Tantrum

Last week he complained childishly that the rules should be changed to favor spontaneity:

“See, I’ve always believed that when you run for president of the United States, it should be illegal to read off a teleprompter, because all you’re doing is reading someone else’s words to people.”

Teleprompters are older than Mr. Santorum. Their first political use was sixty years ago - by Herbert Hoover at the 1952 Republican Convention. (If you’d like to see how they once looked, search on Google Books for an article about “How a Teleprompter Works” in the July 1960 issue of Popular Science magazine on pages 104 and 105).

In the March 14th episode of his comedy satire TV show The Colbert Report (5 minutes from the beginning) Stephen Colbert took Santorum’s complaint to an absurd conclusion:

“Now, Rick Santorum is resonating with voters because of his authenticity. He always speaks off the cuff, which is why his sweaters don’t have sleeves. And Santorum believes authenticity should be legally mandated. [plays video clip of Santorum’s statement].

Yes, it should be illegal. Voters cannot trust candidates who have somebody else’s words in their mouths. That’s why no ventriloquist’s dummy has been nominated since the dark days of Charlie McCarthyism.

But we cannot, I believe we cannot, stop at teleprompters. I reject all pre-wrtitten words.That’s why I’m against reading books. I mean, books are a lie. When I read the words it makes thought sounds in my head like I’m thinking them.”  

Mr. Santorum would like us to return to a simpler time, but how far back would that be? I looked up what the first Catholic presidential nominee, Alfred E. Smith, had to say about public speaking in the really old days. Mr Smith was a former governor of New York who ran as a Democrat in the 1928 election. In a May 24, 1930 Saturday Evening Post article on "Spellbinding" he talked about unamplified speeches lit only by kerosene torches:

“...outdoor speaking in those days required a man to be in vigorous health and to have a good voice, or else he lasted only about five minutes on the platform, when the patience of the listening mob would be completely exhausted, and they usually started crying out for somebody else and kept up until they got him.

Nevertheless, it was a great training school for young men. It may have had its faults. It may have been crude, but it certainly was not without virtue. To my own knowledge, many young men who distinguished themselves in their later years began their early campaign speaking in the open air. The one great thing about it was that the young man starting out did not feel that he had to be an orator. There is quite a difference between coming out in front of the footlights and climbing upon the back of a truck. Maybe it is the possession of the knowledge that the truck affords a quicker get-away if you are not making a hit.”   

Mr. Smith lost the 1928 presidential election by a landslide - to the Republican candidate, Herbert Hoover.

The crying baby image was adapted from an 1884 Puck magazine cover.

Does your speech have too much content and not enough structure?

Crafting an excellent speech requires giving the content a structure (via a storyboard, mind map, or outline), and deciding how much to say (or not say). Too much content is like a bad Santa overstuffing the stockings.

I just read a humorous story by Stephen Leacock called Save Me From The Man Who Has A Speech To Make from the September 1927 issue of Harper’s Magazine. He told about his series of brief encounters with Mr. Robinson over the course of a month.

First, Mr. Robinson told him that next month he had to speak at a Tuesday evening banquet - to give an after-dinner toast to Our Country. A week later he decided it might be a good idea to say something about the history of the country. After another three days Robinson was sidetracked by reading The Life of Christopher Columbus.

A week before the speech he decided it also might be a good idea to say something about the future of the country. On Monday morning, Robinson stayed home to work on his speech. (A newspaper announcement for the banquet noted there would be fifteen speakers).

On Tuesday morning he was still working, and finally had decided to write it out. Also, he complained that he hadn’t had enough time to work on it before. Just before dinner Robinson decided he’d gotten a touch of bronchitis, gave his text to a friend to present at the banquet, and stayed at home, presumably in bed.

On Wednesday evening he whined that the morning paper had misquoted his text:

“...Where I said ‘This country has a great destiny in front of it,’ they’ve put it, ‘this country has a great destitution in front of it.’ ”

Months later Mr. Robinson was still talking in hindsight about what he should have said, of other ideas that came to him later, and of jokes or gags that could have been included.

The bad Santa was adapted from a 1908 Puck magazine cover.

How many types of lecterns are there?

In a previous post about What are you standing on or behind? I suggested that there were at least four: floor or tabletop, and plain or with a built-in sound system (amplifier and speaker). There might be a lot more.

A plain floor lectern might be flanked by tables that could be used for other stuff like laptop computers or props. Floor lecterns are common in large spaces like auditoriums and ballrooms.

Plain tabletop lecterns are common in smaller spaces like classrooms or boardrooms. The one shown above is unusually clever - it can be flipped over to accommodate either shorter or taller speakers. Most tabletop lecterns are not adjustable, so a shorter speaker would have to stand beside them, or their hand gestures would be invisible.

Most floor lecterns aren’t adjustable either, but some simple ones with telescoping support tubes are.

Lecterns with built-in sound systems are both a blessing and a curse. They are easier to set up than a sound system with separate speaker boxes. You can’t walk directly in front of them while using a microphone without generating feedback.

Most speakers probably won’t need to purchase a personal lectern (perhaps with a built-in podium) from a door-to-door salesman, as shown in this cartoon.



If you do, than the lectern sales pitch might include them promoting other features, like Will It Float? I don’t think you need to consider that unless you speak on cruise ships, or at coastal venues with a risk of tsunamis. Have you ever had a speaker’s briefing including:

“In case of an emergency, your lectern can be used as a flotation device?”

Images of floor and tabletop lecterns came from Wikimedia Commons.

Don’t use a song that conflicts with your image

Here in Boise the early morning Kevin Miller talk show on KIDO-AM sometimes uses questionable rock music. He usually follows a series of commercials with a brief clip (bumper music) that repeats the title words from the 1982 song Up All Night by the Irish punk-rock group, The Boomtown Rats.

Kevin may think he’s describing how seriously he prepares for that show. The message I get instead is that he’s another blowhard carpetbagger who’s mocking this town as being far too quiet. That's because those lyrics also say:

“It’s an agreeable town,
it’s neat and sedate.
Why even the muggers
are off the streets by eight.”

The video with snakes also doesn’t fit his “Mr. Right” social conservative image. Did he ever listen to the whole song or watch the video? Perhaps an intern snipped out that clip for him. Last April I pointed out how Kevin has also used Prince’s Raspberry Beret for bumper music.

Popular songs with memorable, upbeat tunes, like Pumped Up Kicks and Sunny Came Home, can have very dark lyrics.

The Burmese Python image came from Wikimedia Commons.

Aftermath of a “knock your socks off” sales presentation

Today’s F Minus cartoon showed us how that cliche would look. Tony Carrillo made me think sweaty bare feet might not smell very pleasant. When you reconsider, book titles including “knock your socks off” don’t seem as desirable.

That isn’t the only cliche that looked worse when illustrated. Last December one of Tom Fishburne’s cartoons showed Death by Powerpoint with chalk outlines where the bodies fell onto the conference table.

The image of bare male feet came from Wikimedia Commons. (I changed the background color).