PLAY SOME OLDIES
The United States Senate can be a dull place.
C-Span is about our only connection we have with the active and inactive affairs of the Senate of a steady basis. The lackluster lulls which are so often a part of the day's “business” are dragged before us on C-Span. They also provide sotto voce background notes, included from time-to-time as public service announcements, pointing out that these slack times, offering silence and solitude, are a normal part of the senatorial day. We are thus assured the members are working harder than ever in “committees” “commissions”, “boards”,”caucuses”, and things prefaced by the Latin term “ad hoc”- something-or-other, assuring us that something must be getting done some where.
C-Span might do well add some sparkle to the viewer's day, by inserting taped recordings of previously delivered speeches by some of the Senate's “old timers”.
Several such senatorial showmen of a time long-gone era are still at it and they are available at the sound of mike being clicked on.
Robert Byrd, of West Virginia. Would be among my favorites. Teddy Kennedy, from New England ,is good at it as well, and there must be others with whom I am not acquainted.
Men and women of this diminishing breed used to be trained and tutored by methodology and example by experts in the of talking without saying anything in particular.
The stance, the posture, the insinuation of eagerness to get started, and the vast sweep of the forearm and wavering hand which draws in some special wiffledust from above to polish up a specific idea. They are part of the show and what is being said in words is not all that important. Informative,yes; but not critical in what is to be accomplished - a change in the hearer's viewpoint.
The orator uses passions - from pink all the way to purple, if need be, It is there as a gossamer web which he applies deftly on the spur of the moment and often only in passing. The sight of his slumped shoulders can make his hear feel the burden of his heavy words. Adroitly the can snap his fingers, wave his wand-like hands and create an opposite feeling of elation and youthful joy The speaker remains at ease and moves about naturally knowing as well as a film editor what his “best side” might be. Good orators are never nervous “bobbers” or “weavers” at the lectern. An experienced orator will step away confidently yet stay put on camera, he may sidle, shuffle or sashay. He does all those subtle little things others think are the job of the person monitoring him on two or three cameras set at different angles. He selects what is best for the precise moment. If there something which demands being voiced in a whisper? He can do that loud enough to budge a banquet hall, an give an illusion of having passed a juicy bit of gossip over the back yard fence.
Actors! Actors one and all! A dying breed.
A.L.M. December 14, 2003 [c528wds]
