TABLE OF CONTENTS Since we couldn't understand what [Oppenheimer] was saying we watched the cigarette. We were always expecting him to write on the board with it and smoke the chalk, but I don't think he ever did. [1]
James Brady
In describing how he felt giving a paper to a geological society, Charles Darwin said, "I could somehow see nothing all around me but the paper, and I felt as if my body was gone, and only my head [was] left." [2] The sense of being disconnected that Charles Darwin experienced reflects the way that many presenters carry themselves during a presentation, as if they have no idea about the elements around them: the room, themselves, the audience, or the time.
[1]Peter Goodchild, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), p. 25.
[2]Charles Darwin, attributed.
For years now, I have had dogs large, outdoor dogs. As a rule, these dogs are unruly. They do sit, stay, and come, but only after hesitation. Moreover, they are restless creatures who in a few minutes of sitting in a veterinary waiting room can exhaust me with their squirming and pacing. One thing I have noticed, though, is that within seconds of my vet entering the examination room, they become still and attentive, almost subservient. So one day I asked my vet how she was able to exert that effect on these animals. The vet, whom I had known for several years, confided that much of...
