the discipline of really hearing
He’s trying hard to really hear the speakers—he’s stayed in the habit he’d developed as an Ennet resident of sitting right up where he could see dentition and pores, with zero obstructions or heads between him and the podium, so the speaker fills his whole vision, which makes it easier to really hear
Context
Listening rendered as a physical craft: Gately positions his body so the speaker fills his whole field, pores and teeth and all, because really hearing is not automatic and has to be worked for. It's the book's one repeatable technology of contact stated as a seating chart — reception treated as effortful, deliberate, defeatable by a head in the way, the exact opposite of the passive spectation the same institution exists to cure.