“It Never Stops”
November 30, 2011
Between the Herman Cain “Pokemon speech” Saturday and the dueling Obama and Clinton speeches Tuesday—it’s been a hell of a busy week here at Vital Speeches. In fact, I complained about it in a sympathy-seeking blog post Wednesday.
Two days later, my Wednesday whining reminds me a little of the director of the Polish Museum of America, an institution that sounds bigger than it is. It’s located in my neighborhood, and I once walked down there to dig around in the local Polish newspaper archives, for some neighborhood research I was doing.
Though the museum was just as empty and silent as you can imagine on a rainy Thursday afternoon, the director gave me a put-upon air, before grudgingly translating a few obits to me, his voice echoing in the entombed stillness of the place.
Suddenly the phone rang—a reporter from the Chicago Tribune, asking for the proper pronunciation of a certain Polish name—and when the director hung up, he shook his head wearily.
“It never stops,” he said.