swans on tea

A new meeting experience on Thursday: a meeting with, essentially, footnotes. This was not a presentation, mind you — no rehearsed talk, no powerpoint, no written materials. Just an impromptu discussion, where someone used some ad-hoc terminology. Rather than deviate off on a tangent (or possibly a secant) and immediately delineate its origins, he waited until finishing the somewhat extended train of thought, and only then did he explain the etymology of the phrase he had used. I can’t recall that happening before, at least with the length of discussion involved. It was probably five minutes between the phrase and the explanation. I’ve only seen that in prepared talks.

The mention of footnotes then led into a brief discussion of David Foster Wallace (who apparently was very aggressive in his use of them)

Someone at the table: What kind of author is he?

Me: Dead

Our group meetings tend to meander a bit. But then, I’m usually a little punchy by Thursday afternoon, so I am an instigator of that behavior.