dual personalities

It is that time of year again. Graduation time–which means commencement speeches. Ugh. It is the time of year when the least appropriate people (entertainers and comedians and politicians) make advisorial speeches. Aaron Sorkin. Jane Lynch. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. But people want to be entertained. They want snappy one-liners.

I thought I might find some good ones for a blog post, but just try googling “commencement address”. You come up with nothing but tripe.

At daughter #2’s graduation last year, the best her top-10 university could come up with was some cartoonist.

I remember nothing noteworthy from his speech.

Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, was the speaker at my graduation from Smith College.

I remember nothing from her speech.

Betty Friedan, a leading figure in the women’s movement in the U.S., spoke at my sister’s Smith gradation in 1981.

I remember I thought she gave a good talk–there were some good take-aways and she refrained from haranguing us. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember any of what she said.

The highly touted speech at Kenyon College by David Foster Wallace in 2005 is, in the last analysis, just depressing. He tells the graduates to be conscious and aware, which is what I’m always saying: Pay attention! But he doesn’t tell them to be grateful. No wonder he hung himself a few years later.

As always, my expectations have been and remain, too high.

My nephew Foster making a thought-provoking and rousing senior speech at his high school graduation–the exception to the rule.

Well, don’t forget to wear your sunscreen.