jks
--- JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
> >Edward Everitt, a preeminent orator of his age,
> spoke
> >for more than three hours before Lincoln's brief
> >speech. His speech is little known nor long
> >remembered. jks
>
> Sorry, just catching up.
>
> You're right, of course. Look, I'm an admirer of
> concision, but not
> necessarily in speeches. What works as a
> speech--these days I think of
> Joseph Lowery or Cecil Roberts--doesn't necessarily
> work as a document. If
> you've never heard a series of African American
> preachers outdoing each other
> you've really missed something, but this is to be
> heard, not read. Such a
> speech starts out low, monotone, almost inaudible,
> laying down layers of fact
> until the facts themselves seem to create a
> disturbing rumble which over the
> course of twelve or twenty minutes generates an
> avalanche of indignation and
> fury for which the speaker is merely the vehicle and
> which makes it seem
> probable, even to an atheist like me, that god is
> just now about to hurl down
> fiery rocks on the perpetrators of injustice. So
> maybe Everitt fired up the
> troops, and Lincoln summed up the war.
>
> I've had the experience of trying to make cogent
> points in 3 minutes at
> rallies and it's not so much that one can't spit out
> points--one hopes in an
> interesting way--but that it's hard to so quickly
> engage people so they'll
> give a damn what you're saying.
>
> Jenny Brown
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