To the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s Kathy’s Song. Inspired by Andrew’s talk advice from earlier and my comment that it’s especially hard to give virtual talks when you feel like you are between topics or methods or otherwise transitioning what kind of work you do but aren’t sure yet what’s next.
I hear the questions afterward
They miss the point of what I said
Like the last QA continuing
Threatening to delay my next meeting
And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the zoom fullscreen
To email, where my next link lies
My mind’s distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie in talks I’ve yet to write
And give when you’re expecting slides
And the bullet I was writing is left undone
I don’t know why that slide’s still there
A deck I made yet can’t complete
With fonts that mix showing I don’t care
And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I just presented as true
I’ll end it there without a summary
The only point I have is too new
And as I watch my deck go by
Each animation’s weary path to die
I know that I am like that slide
There but for what I can’t express go I
CS Peirce once wrote that the best complement anyone ever paid him, though likely meant as an insult was roughly “the author does not seem completely convinced by his own arguments”.
Hello darkness, my old friend
It’s animation time again
Because the slide that I was making
Left it clear that I was faking
And the vision that is trapped inside my brain
Can’t be explained
And meets the sound of silence
In restless dreams I stood alone
Upon the wall, projection shone
‘Neath the halo of a bar graph
I stuck a cat meme just for a cheap laugh
When my eyes were stabbed by a flash of a real insight
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Sixty people, maybe more
People texting without speaking
People scrolling without seeing
People asking “please, can you share your slides with me?
They’re for my team.”
Then gone back to the sound of silence
“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Slideware like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take these points that I might reach you”
But my words, like a slow transition, waned
And left their brains
Lost in the sound of silence
And the people grabbed their cups
Their lanyards, too, for time was up
And the screen flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the slide said “Lunch will be served at the end of the main concourse hall
So thank you all”
And left me in the sound of silence.
If Paul Simon is reading right now, there are tears in his eyes.
Jessica:
I’m almost certain that Paul Simon has no idea of this blog’s existence. And I’m pretty sure I don’t know anyone who knows Paul Simon. But I think it’s extremely likely that I know someone who knows someone who knows Paul Simon.