12 April 2012
It was freshman or sophomore year of high school, and we were working on our projects in the computer lab. It was a group project in which we were assigned a particular decade; our task was to describe the historical events, culture, literature, popular activities and trends of the time period.
A high school computer lab is a place of merrymaking, hijinks and general work avoidance. Ours was no different. A group had left their Powerpoint open, but was in another part of the room for some reason. A mischievous fellow from a different group leaned over, making sure everybody could see him, highlighted some text on a slide, and changed it to "gay." Ha, ha. It was trolling of little effort and maturity, easily undone by a CTRL-Z. I resumed work on our project and forgot about it for several weeks.
The time came to give the presentations, and we stood before the grouped US History classes. Perhaps 60 students were crammed into a double-size classroom. We all marched up and took our turns presenting to the class. The 1890's, 1900's, and 1910's went smoothly, albiet with plenty of stuttering, slide-reading and aversion to eye contact that accompany high school freshmen as they present.
Then came the 1920's. Their slideshow was great - loaded pictures of flappers and stock market charts. A quiet, studious Indian kid was presenting the culture section. He flicked to the first slide, Literature, and competently discussed Hemingway, Proust and "The Great Gatsby." Then he moved to the next slide, Music.
The slide contained a single sentence, stark black-and-white Times New Roman: "The music of the 1920's was gay."
For just a second, he hesitated. His eyes widened. This was unexpected.
Then, in an incredibly deft piece of live patter, he covered it! He launched into a spiel about how the mood of the 1920's was festive and bright, leading to a gay and happy musical trend. He even explained that the reason the slide was blank was that it was supposed to have jazz music playing - but the school computer couldn't handle the file! Everybody believed him.
I will never forget the kid who didn't catch an entire slide had been changed to the word "gay," but was brilliant enough to convince everybody he meant for it to be that way.
Presentation God • Opuss № I