“The average human ear tunes out after about six minutes of orality. It used to be nine.” –Elena Passarello

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Elena talk about the first giraffe ever to live in Paris in the 19th century (3:30); how public presentation and performance differs from other kinds of speaking and reading, and how to prepare for it (9:00); the role of nervousness in public speaking, and how to deal with it (21:00); how prepare a text or script before reading or using it as an outline in a public speaking situation (31:00); and the importance of concrete language and “syntactical music” in public speaking (42:00).

Elena Passarello is an American writer, actor, and professor. Her book Let Me Clear My Throat (Sarabande, 2012), won the gold medal for nonfiction at the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards, and her essays on performance, pop culture, and the natural world have been published in Oxford American, Slate, and Creative Nonfiction, among other publications,. For more on Elena, check out https://www.elenapassarello.com/.

Notable Links:

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].