Break Out the Lemon Drops

The famous Lemon Drop cocktail is a deceptively strong martini, made with fresh lemon and vodka. Any vodka drink that tastes more like lemonade than vodka is one to be wary of, but I recently, and uncharacteristically, polished off a few. The occasion was my...

The Hack for Going Blank During a Talk

During his popular, one-man comedy Defending the Caveman, actor Rob Becker went mute. He couldn’t remember the lines of a show he’d written and performed hundreds of times. Apologizing to thousands in the audience, Becker exited the stage. Days later, recovered, he...

Rabbit Trails

After “Joseph” pitched his new company, a chorus of potential investors tossed questions out like excited birds chirping in a zoo aviary. But no one in the throng asked the “right” question. Instead, the group of smart, seasoned executives were led down a rabbit trail...

Supreme-Court Smile

There’s a scene in the current movie On the Bases of Sex relevant to anyone making a presentation. It’s the story of struggling young attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s game-changing court case before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, a court one-step below the US...