Lunchtime seminar
April 12th 2006 -
Well, after a couple of days of stress about giving the lunchtime seminar, very few people turned up. Those who *did* turn up fell asleep. It was pretty boring subject matter, unfortunately, and I couldn’t do much to zest it up.
Now I feel drained. I didn’t get much sleep last night thanks to the teleconference, and I got up early this morning to do some more work on the talk. I should probably just volunteer for so many talks that they become second-nature. Despite the very average effort/reception today, I do feel I’m getting better as a public speaker. In particular, I’m learning to *think* about the topic while speaking, rather than just reciting, while thinking “Oh dear, I’m giving a talk right now and it’s like in those dreams and I wander what would happen if I forgot what I was talking about.” I can improvise and change topics if I need to.
Anyway, it’s over. Now I can listen to “At War With The Mystics” in peace, playing it over again and again and marvelling at it. Wonderful album. I’d heard a variety of complaints that it wasn’t up to Yoshimi or Soft Bulletin, but I disagree. There’s more of a Pink Floyd vibe in places, and it does interesting new experimental things in places. It is, as with the other two albums, multilayered and dense.