Those dry sticky salivaless sounds which can be death to a good conversation.
David Foster Wallace in INFINITE JEST
Want a way around such icky stickiness? Like to keep your convos unstuck in time, alive and flowing?
Here’s one smooth move problem solver. Folk Journalists call it: “Directing Conversation.”
When in the midst of back-and-forth banter among three or more persons, I make physical moves with my head. I mean, if one person is talking only to me, I stop looking directly at them. Instead, I shift my head toward the third person. Amazingly, this often makes the person talking also look at the one I just shifted to look at.
Try it!
(Can prove especially useful when the third person does not hear so well and needs to see your lead conversant’s mouth.)
Speaking of aging founts of wisdom around us:
My conversation may be full of holes and pauses, but I’ve learned to dispatch a prive Apache scout ahead into the next sentence, the one coming up, to see if there are any vacant names or verbs in the landscape up there. If he sends back a warning, I’ll pause meaningfully, duh, until something else comes to mind.
Roger Angell in his recent book, THIS OLD MAN
Now a semi-mature tale delivered by Ram Dass (above) in Colorado in 2013:
An old man is ambling down the primrose path one afternoon when he hears a voice: “Pssst! Can you help me out?”
He looks down to see a big frog staring up from a lush, green meadow.
“Did you just speak to me?” asks the old man. (As it is always in these tales.)
“Yes, could you help me?”
“Well I don’t know. Maybe. I mean I hope so. What’s the problem?”
“I’m under a curse. If you pick me up and kiss me, I will turn into a beautiful maiden and will cook for you and serve you and be everything you ever wanted.”
Well, the man stands there for a while and then picks the frog up, puts him in his pocket, and continues walking down the trail.
After a little while, the frog perks up.
“Hey!” he shouts from inside the pocket. “You forgot to kiss me!”
The old man lifts the little feller out, holds him up about nose high and says to him, “You know at my age, I think it’s more interesting to have a talking frog.”
After the laughter of recognition comes, Ram Dass explains: “The nature of aging has to do with change.”
Aha! Here’s a link to more RAM DASS via his love serve remember foundation:
Link to NY TIMES piece on INFINITE JEST, just celebrating its 20th anniversary:
Link to Roger Angell’s book: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733456-this-old-man
In winter’s tedious night sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages long ago betide –
Shakespeare’s RICHARD II
Animator Chuck Jones when asked how it felt to be an old man: “I don’t feel like an old man, I feel like a young man with something terribly wrong with him!”
Charles Solomon in the LA Times