A new meeting experience on Thursday: a meeting with, essentially, footnotes. This was not a presentation, mind you \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
The mention of footnotes then led into a brief discussion of David Foster Wallace (who apparently was very aggressive in his use of them)<\/p>\n
Someone at the table<\/em>: What kind of author is he?<\/p>\n Me<\/em>: Dead<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new meeting experience on Thursday: a meeting with, essentially, footnotes. This was not a presentation, mind you \u2014 no rehearsed talk, no powerpoint, no written materials. Just an impromptu discussion, where someone used some ad-hoc terminology. Rather than deviate … Continue reading