Check out this Blogging Heads. Its interesting to watch people you read as it adds a whole new dimension. Anyway, check out Tyler Cowen. Some politicians have the skill of speaking in perfect paragraphs. John Howard, Margaret Thatcher and Gough Whitlam spoke in perfect paragraphs. Tyler Cowen takes this one step further. He not only speaks with almost no ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. He not only speaks in paragraphs. He looks at the camera (well a bit above it, but at some fixed spot that he’s taking for the camera). His expression is steadfast and determined, no matter what he’s saying. As a famous review once said of an actor, “he runs the gamut of human emotions from A to B”. His lips are mostly pursed in deliberation. And, though, somehow miraculously he doesn’t take long to think about what he has to say, he speaks in paragraphs that are not just perfect gramatical paragraphs, but perfect schematic paragraphs moving from one theme to the other as he moves from one paragraph to another. So it seems like no matter what he’s talking about he simply reads paragraphs that are written somewhere. But he’s not reading. A remarkable and slightly spooky skill I think.
Recent Comments
- Nicholas Gruen on Orwell that ends well: Can evaluation save us from ourselves?
- Nicholas Gruen on Will you join me in the alt-centre?
- Nicholas Gruen on A conservative liberal social democrat
- Nicholas Gruen on A metaphor, a hack, a ladder: On the difficulty of telling yourself the truth
- Nicholas Gruen on Orwell that ends well: Can evaluation save us from ourselves?
- Nicholas Gruen on Trust and the competition delusion: A new frontier for political and economic reform
- Nicholas Gruen on Adam Smith was a feminist economist: Care – the essay
- Two types of strategy: Part One | Club Troppo on Cometh the hour: Paul Krugman’s Nobel
- Nicholas Gruen on Where equity and efficiency thrive together: Can you propose some more examples?
- The strange alchemy by which we built a world of bullshit | Club Troppo on “Values based management”
- Nicholas Gruen on Will you join me in the alt-centre?
- The NDIS: there, but for the grace of God, go us all | Club Troppo on Vale Ford
- johnrwalker on Figuring out the strange new rules of resource constraint
- johnrwalker on Figuring out the strange new rules of resource constraint
- Nicholas Gruen on Figuring out the strange new rules of resource constraint
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Categories
-
Authors
Archives
Author login and feeds
Academic
Alternative media (Australian)
Alternative media (international)
Arts
Business
Centrist
Economics and public policy
Left-leaning
Legal
Online media digests
Psephology/elections
Right-leaning
Sorry nicholas, if you could possibly have spent a sentence saying who this person is and what he does? Googling tells me he’s an American economist. Is he famous? any good?
He’s OK. Quite well known because he runs a prominent American econoblog.
I was just taken with the speaking style. Not with his importance.
Jacques – maybe, but that’s cos every time he was stuck for a line it was “Carthage must this” and “that must burn”. ;)
That was Cato the Elder – as in ‘Carthago delenda est’. He ended every speech in the senate with it, even if it was a tax bill or something.
When I saw Tyler Cowen speak in May, I can vouch for the fact that he’s an extraordinarily impressive speaker. He does use notes, but very discreetly, and only occasionally looks at them. He achieves much of the effect by speaking relatively slowly, allowing time to gather his thoughts.
Yeah, I was pretty sure I didn’t have the right orator, but being drunk I thought comedic licence would stretch that far. On reflection I fear mine may be revoked.
It was Cato the Younger trying to prevent Caesar from standing for Consul in absentia; and I seem to remember it was only until the close of the session rather than three days. Pity there weren’t more of him at the time.
Mr Smith, having gone to Washington, used the same trick.