Short Attention Theater

Today, I tore myself away from writing lectures and editing dissertation chapters to go to the gym. I've been incredibly inconsistent in my gym outings of late. I know that I haven't been keeping up because the 2 miles on the elliptical machine nearly did me in. But, I persevered and made it over to the treadmill. I'm walking 3 miles on the treadmill now, just long enough to listen to the podcast of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

As I walked along, I listened to Peter Sagal interviewing Linda Ronstadt, their celebrity guest. She was really funny. At one point, she was talking about why she stopped playing arena shows (back in the early 80s, when people still bought her records). She said that she wanted to play smaller venues because then she had a sense that people were actually paying attention to her, rather than chatting with their friends, buying beer, or milling around.

Paula Poundstone weighed in and said she has the same problem at her shows. She was thinking of adopting her son's 3rd grade teacher's approach - standing on stage and saying, "I'm waiting...." or having the entire audience look at the talkers.

I decided that if they can't hold the attention of people who actually paid money to see and hear them, there's just no hope that I'll be able to hold undergraduates' attention. Well, maybe I have one important advantage. Ronstadt and Poundstone don't give exams at the end of their performances.