Whiz/Kagan

 Thanks to all for the Whiz responses, which neatly divided into those who took the word "present" as an adjective and those who took it as a verb, with "us" as object.  I personally liked the latter, as being the more surprising, but I have to admit that the former had a better case, as evinced by the original, which comes from an essay by the hot new novelist Rivka Galchin (cf th New Yorker's "20 under 40" list of rising fictioneers.)  The essay was on Borges, and the sentence -- so involut...