Because of my career in telemarketing and recording audiobooks, I have excellent presentation skills.
While I am confident I could stand and deliver a normal TED Talk, what I am most interested in doing is recording something close to the letter for the TED Talk application. The auditorium filled with my voice.
On stage, there is a faux brick building with a sign that says "The Bank of Kate". Outside a mailbox. On the back side of the stage a simple hanging door to simulate a home.
From time to time, a person dressed as a mailman whistles past the mailbox. Never leaving anything.
Towards the end of the narration, out would come a family. The mom ,Ms. Kate, would be dropped off at the door with a sack lunch and a thermos of coffee.
The bank sign would light up, and the now open sign would be flipped.
The woman would open the door, pour her coffee in a mug and check the mailbox. Nothing.
She shakes her head and we see her go into the bank. On the walls are her poorly executed diagrams of her great ideas. Done in crayon or marker on construction paper or paper plates.
She sits at her computer and types, Making exatrated faces. Loving her ideas. Becoming bored. Occasionally gets up to check the mail.
The day ends and she turns the bank light off, except for one,.
She flips the Open sign to Closed. Sighing to herself and checking the mailbox one last time.
The days continue like that, with the stage lights simulating nights and days starting to flicker at a quick rate, the woman ultimately ending up scribbling on paper plates and walking back and forth between the home door and the bank, throwing them out, flinging them. Seeing how high they can go, how far she can throw them.. She falls to the floor with a crash. The lights go out.
The lights rise, and the woman is awoken on the floor in the middle between the two places by her young son. Surrounded by the paper plates she had flung everywhere.
Get up, the child mimics with an overacting face and bodily expressions.
He drags her to the bank door, throws open the barrier, picks up the wireless keyboard, and throws it into the trash.
The kid drags a table and two chairs outside the bank and plops his mother in a chair. She looks bewildered. He points off stage to where a line of people has formed.
The boy walks over to the first person. Opens the velvet cord, shakes the person's hand, and escorts them over to his mother and openly gestures for them to take a seat. He hands the person a bottle of water and a pack of saltine crackers. Doesn't ask if the man wants water. Doesn't ask if the man is hungry. Doesn't wait for an acknowledgment of thanks. The boy just assumes the person's journey to get to the bank was long and does what is expected.
The mother stands and shakes the person's hand.
The audience sees that the person has a piece of paper that displays a request for information on vertical farming. The person mimed asking how much they would be paid if they provided this.
The mother thinks and runs to her office and grabs an idea.
--refrigerated travel sales like a rolling refrigerated suitcase for kids to sell drinks while walking down the side walk
The man takes the idea and points his finger towards the sky and smiles. Rushes off stage to grab a kid of his own they shake hands and smile. Deal accepted. Vertical Farming informatin will be incoming.
The father and son walk off. Ms. Kates young son runs after the two and hands the boy a business card and mimes "Shhh its a secret".
Ms. Kate's son, who is now becoming something of an assistant, his confidence growing more and more with each task he takes on, walks to the queue of people and removes the velvet ropes and shakes hands with the next person who steps on stage with a crayon drawing of a snake or lizard.
Ms. Kate shakes her head, her arms stuck out at her side like duck feet. Ms. Kate knows nothing about those things.
She points up one finger in order to say one minute please, and she directs the man to a chair off in the distance and reaches for the trusty phone to dial someone who may know something.
Ms. Kate's son scoffs at her and shakes his head no.
He plucks the phone from her hands and sends a group text.
Suddenly, a group of kids armed with notebooks and pens rushed in. Raising hands to talk and ask questions about what the problem with snakes and lizards seems to be. One kid is too afraid to raise his hand, whispers to another what question he has, and so she raises her hand and asks the question for him.
And the process repeats itself.
Maybe someone dressed as an astronaust could show up and have a piece of paper that says "Mars?"
And Ms. Kate directs them to chairs alongside the group of children with their questions amd lets her young assistant know that she needs five minutes and to entertain the que while she is away,
Into her bank she goes pulling out 3 giant notebooks. One that says Space Hospital, one that says School and one that says Ms. Kate's Ship.
She takes a fun pointer stick and rapts on the boards to explain without words that if they wanted Ms. Kates help to terraform Mars, then she wanted a Space Hospital, a School, and under no circumstances were they to look under the cover of the notebook marked Ms. Kate's Ship.
They all nod in agreement with one noisy astronaut trying to peek a look under the notebook marked "Ms. Kate's Ship" (I picture Jim Parsons for this).
A little girl from the group, talking to the guy about lizards, notices and rushes over and scolds him, points to the words, and asks him to sit back down in his seat or leave. The noisy astronaut sticks his tongue out at her as he sits down. She wags her finger back and forth and points to Ms. Kate.
The lights fade out as the audience sees the astronaut get handed a potato and two pieces of sliced Wonder Bread.
The lights come up, and the stage now has a platform with a UN replica stage.
We see the woman now old and grey, walking with a cane, and the young son now dressed in a suit with a jacket that has a pizza slice embellished on it, with a video game controller in his pocket rather than a notebook and pen.
The woman sits down in a chair and the boy steps up to the platform and says
"I am normally a very humble person, so while I am honored to have the opportunity coupled with the physical and mental capabilities to list off all the great ideas, potentially world-changing ideas I have, I am only able to do so because I was supported by many different people. While I am about to use the word “I” more times than I ever have in my entire life, I hope when you hear it, you picture yourself in the situation because I do not care where you come from or what you have or have not accomplished in your life; you have something to add to the conversation."
Final current falls
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Throughout the time that the prerecorded essay/letter is read, the screens can be filled with people and children holding up signs with their great ideas or simple things like "I matter," "I want to be president," "I want to be a vet". Maybe a few kids could walk by the mailbox with a piece of paper that has some of my most ridiculous and unsupported ideas, like a shark that has AI integration to recognize plastic in the ocean based on their density or some other measurable variable, or the giant Ferris wheel that collects pollution. Maybe they could look at it and throw it in the trash because there was no place to put it because the bank wasn't open yet. Maybe there's an element to community to it. Like Ms. Kate wants a piano to work on, so someone drops by and trades her a piano for a bag of pens or something else. Maybe Ms. Kate can't decide whether to refurbish the piano with chalkboard paint or whiteboard paint, so she leaves the decision to her family. And they decide to split the space down the middle with an old baseboard. Problems arise when trying to figure out how to shape the baseboard around the arc of the piano. Ms Kate's family inspects it and all start trying things. Ms. Kate smiles and slowly sinks away to a lawn chair to enjoy a good book. Looking back at them and knowing they will figure it out and she left the project in good hands. Maybe she gets busted and doesn't get to read the book, maybe she doesn't.
Finally. I thought about maybe just having the cast be children all dressed up as adults. But child exploitation does not align with my ethical beliefs.
My choice not to be on stage is not entirely based on my decision of anonymity, but rather more that it almost seems the proper thing to do. I have always wanted a symposium, and in a way, by narrating it, I do achieve this.
In addition, it is almost a final capstone. What if one day I can not go out and do this myself? What about the people who can not stand and deliver because of age, abilities, or suffering from not only economic poverty but also being time poor? Shouldn't they be inspired, too?
I am very flexible.