(no subject)

That was interesting. He's really not as terrible as he seems on paper; he's got to be the most nervous person I've ever met, which I'd forgotten from when he came to Shepherd Singers last year to teach us how to do overtone singing. His hands shake, but not constantly, so you know it's not Parkinson's or palsy or anything. His manner of speech is even more hesitant than mine, which has an odd effect on me; in proportion to the timidity of my conversant, I become more confident. It may have been the situation, since I'd been hired to tell him what was wrong with his paper, in a position of moderate authority, but it felt like he was my student or something.

He was very careful to explain the reasons behind everything he wrote, but deferred to me in nearly every case I wanted to change something, and ended up paying me fifty bucks in cash, which was more than I was expecting. It was a fairly pleasant experience. I could get used to being the Shepherd faculty's editorial go-to guy.

Those curious about what would make a man right about his being the premier figure in a field, go listen to one-man Renaissance counterpoint.