Speechwriting odds, and storytelling ends

I've been holding onto this stuff too long. But before I threw them out, I wanted to pass them on:

• Fine speeches? That’s old-school vocab. According to a young communication correspondent, it’s now “top-notch speaking content” we’re after.

• Speaking of top-notch speaking content: “A speech is not a literary composition,” said Dick Goodwin, speechwriter to JFK, RFK and LBJ. “It is an event, not to please the exegesis of language, but to move men to action or alliance.”

• She sounds like lots of speechwriting clients we know. “I hate writing stories,” said novelist Jenni Diski, who died last month. “I hate plot. I hate characters. I just know that I have to have them or I think I have to have them, but they’re not really what I want to be writing about.”

• And finally, there’s one dusty item here in my file that says only, “Ed Sprinkle, plus Big Daddy Lipscomb plus Bulldog Turner.” I have no idea what that means, but I feel it speaks for itself and I thought I’d pass it along. —DM