Articles by Jay Speyerer on ArticleSnatch.com

Sounds of the Season

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:19:22 -0500

We've talked before about the role that our senses play in memory retrieval and storytelling. In an earlier Christmas column, I suggested that you take notes about the things you notice during the holidays. These notable impressions came as a result of using all your senses. Let's try something a little different this year. Focus on one sense: your sense of hearing. Don't ignore your other senses; I don't want you bumping into the furniture or quaffing tainted wassail. Simply pay particular attention to what impinges on your eardrums this season, and then record them or see what memories surface. Here are some areas to note: Music: This includes the obvious Christmas carols and seasonal hymns flooding the malls, even the ones that get stuck in your head for so long you think you'll go insane. It also embraces theme songs from TV specials and movies of the season. For instance, hearing "White Christmas" might take you back to the first time you heard it as a kid. **End Summary** Topics: writing]]> senses]]> description]]> memories]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to get a better handle on proven storytelling techniques so you can write your story more easily? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Yancy's Dog

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:39:10 -0500

Have you ever gone to bed with a problem weighing on your mind and awakened with the answer? Popular wisdom suggests that your subconscious was working while you slept and dug up the solution. I believe the subconscious is where old memories go to hibernate. "Traveling By Train" is a short fantasy story I wrote back in the early 90s that found a home in multiple publications. I even turned it into a screenplay. It was about a widower and his young son who return to the old family homestead for Christmas one year. The gimmick in my story was a model Lionel train that ran backwards and could take the father back in time to his childhood. In writing the story, that kind of happened to me. As the father and son walk into the house, they're greeted by the man's elderly mother and by a friendly yellow Labrador retriever. Petting the dog, the father exclaims in surprise, "Dixie. It can't be." Or words to that effect. The Lab looks just like the man's dog from his childhood, but the animal had been dead for years. **End Summary** Topics: memories]]> memoir writing]]> storytelling]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to get a better handle on those buried memories so you can tell your story? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Accidental Magic

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Rob Legato was visual effects coordinator for the seasons 1987-92 of Star trek: The Next Generation. In an interview, he said that he much preferred using miniatures for shots of the Starship Enterprise and other outer space special effects as opposed to computer generated imagery. This is because the models already exist, whereas all of the computer effects have to be thought up. That means when using physical models, the chance exists for an accidentally cool lighting effect, one which was totally unforeseen and unplanned. There's no chance for that magical accident of light with CGI because all that imagery has to be created and designed from scratch. You know ... foreseen and planned. The same can be said for offline research vs. online research. When I was teaching, most of my students did all their research online. That's probably one reason why Google is not only a multi-billion dollar company, but is also a verb. Research is mundane and boring to a lot of people, whether it's for school essays, genealogy, business presentations, or writing in general, so they just want to get it over with. But in doing that, they don't open themselves up to serendipity. **End Summary** Topics: research]]> writing]]> genealogy]]> essays]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better with co-workers and clients? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Squinting in the Moonlight

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Do you squint in the moonlight because it's too bright? Neither do I. And neither does anyone else, except for the characters on TV shows from the 1950s and budget-sensitive (cheap) "B" movies. Why? Because of a cinematic technique called "day for night." This technique was often used in those old TV shows, to which I'm addicted. The addiction is not only for the nostalgia, but as evidence that I see things in them today that I didn't notice when I was nine. Part of my brain always wondered why the campfire wasn't brighter as Bat Masterson and his friends drank their coffee and talked about how they would catch the bad guys when the sun came up. The same section of my cerebrum wondered why the headlights of Perry Mason's car gave off so little light as he and Paul Drake arrived at a midnight crime scene. And I certainly wondered why everyone was squinting. The reason is that it wasn't really night when the scenes were shot. It was broad daylight with the sun blazing overhead, but the cameraman underexposed the film so it would have the semblance of night. (FYI, the term "cameraman" is not sexist. **End Summary** Topics: suspension of disbelief]]> day for night]]> reader distraction]]> fiction]]> nonfiction]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Shug, Dub, and Dabbs: What's In A Company Name?

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

If you recognize the words in the title as the first names of great character actors from the past, you're as much of a movie and TV geek as I am. But what part do their names play in designating the kind of roles they played? George "Shug" Fisher was a country musician and western movie sidekick, who also appeared on such TV shows as "Petticoat Junction" and "The Beverly Hillbillies." His nickname came from his mother, who called him Sugar when he was a baby. Better known is Dub Taylor, who played a sidekick type character named Cannonball in a number of westerns, along with many other parts in many other movies. Dub is short for "W" which is short for Walter. The most widely known is Dabbs Greer, who played the elder version of Tom Hanks's character in "The Green Mile." He was also the fellow who was rescued by George Reeves's Superman in the very first episode of the series back in 1952. Robert Greer got his Dabbs moniker from his mother's maiden name. None of those fine actors ever played a president or any other famous personage. Their names tell you why. **End Summary** Topics: company name]]> screen name]]> choosing a name]]> image]]> perception]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better with co-workers and clients? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Humor: Not Everyone Can Hear The Funny

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500

By all accounts, the late movie cowboy Gene Autry was a fine fellow and a savvy businessman, having owned a record label, a production company, and a baseball team. He was as widely known for his westerns as he was for making a hit song out of "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer." He made a ton of "B" westerns in the 40s, and had a TV show in the 50s, all aimed at the kid audience. Those kids probably didn't care that Gene wasn't the greatest actor, and that he seemed to have only two facial expressions, concerned and smiling. He never knew what to do with his hands, so when he wasn't playing the guitar or punching a bad guy, he hooked his thumbs over his gunbelt. Gene's acting chops matched his voice, which was less than resonant, kind of nasal and twangy. He could carry a tune as long as it wasn't very heavy. Sometimes Gene played his guitar as he sang for an audience visible within the movie, and that made sense in both the real and reel worlds. **End Summary** Topics: humor]]> diegetic]]> diegesis]]> diegetic music]]> audience]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Cultivating Organic Humor

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Humor is a funny thing. Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but not everyone is right. You can be an effective speaker even if you don't have a sense of humor, as long as you don't try to fake it. The audience can always tell. On the other hand, if you have been blessed with a good sense of humor, that isn't enough to be a speaker; you also need a sense of timing. A sense of humor allows you to see the funny aspects of everyday life and the funny relationships between unrelated things. A sense of timing lets you talk about them in a funny way. We all know what's funny, but we laugh at wildly different examples. One theory says that some nationalities are funnier than others, but I don't buy it. I'm German by ancestry and I've been known to be amusing, even though you'd probably be hard pressed to come up with a good example of German hilarity. Sure, we have lederhosen and yodeling, but they don't count because we were serious about those. You might ask how on earth we could be serious about such cultural oddities. **End Summary** Topics: humor]]> speaking]]> timing]]> presentations]]> presenting]]> speaker]]> sense of humor]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

Doctor Who and Who Else?

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Was the Lone Ranger really alone? No, he had Tonto. Sherlock Holmes, the world's first consulting detective, had Dr. Watson. The revived Doctor Who has his traveling companion, Rose, Martha, or Donna, depending on what season you're watching. And who was Superman's sidekick? Think about that; it's a trick question. This topic lodged itself in the front of my brain after I watched an interview with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, the stars of the hit BBC Wales programme, "Doctor Who." (That's the British spelling of "program." I strive for inclusiveness.) The interviewer questioned Tennant and Tate on why the doctor needed a companion. The interviewer will remain nameless to save him embarrassment (and because I don't feel like going back on YouTube and looking it up).The question betrayed a lack of knowledge, both of the Doctor Who canon and dramatic structure. For the uninitiated, the Doctor is more than 900 years old and the last member of the race of Time Lords. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS, his time machine/spaceship, which happens to be in the form of a London police call box. **End Summary** Topics: dialogue]]> storytelling]]> dramatic structure]]> memoir writing]]> sidekicks]]> writing]]> Doctor Who]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com

The Look of Appraisal

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Eye contact in communication can be dicey. A look can be an invitation or an invasion, a challenge or an appraisal. A lot of appraising goes on in Los Angeles. I flew out there recently from Pittsburgh, visiting Diana, a producer friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in several years. The trip was a combination of research for a script that I'm rewriting, meetings with industry people, and catching up on old times. Part of the research was checking out the Hollywood culture. One evening, we had dinner at the Palm Restaurant, a rustic, semi-pricey watering hole billed as a hangout for celebrities. Diana wanted to check it out as background for the characters in the script. The appraising started as soon as we were led to our table. Every now and then, people tell me that I look "distinguished." I'm in my late fifties, and I choose to believe they mean it and that the phrase is not code for "getting up there." As Diana and I walked to our table, we passed a couple seated at a booth. **End Summary** Topics: eye contact]]> communication]]> Los Angeles]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Jay Speyerer has been a writer, a speaker, and an educator for more than 30 years, successfully helping people achieve their communication goals in body language, memoir writing, e-mail, cross-cultural communication, and presentation skills. Want to communicate better? Find out how at his web site: => http://www.jayspeyerer.com