: not a blog

28 jan 07

The tangents in Moby Dick are what make it a good book! The chasing the whale parts are the most boring.

really? i've never read it.

in fact, the only books i've ever read are judy blume's superfudge and steven king's pet semetary, ca. 1983 and 1986, respectively. i didn't read (or at least didn't comprehend) a single essay i was assigned to read in my art theory and history college courses; i just did a paragraph or two, then babbled away in tangentially-related complete sentences, which is one of my principle talents (got me through high school english class, too).

reading books makes me impatient. i also lose my concentration, and i find myself thinking about something else while my eyes move over the text. by the time i catch myself, i've done a page and a half or so. then i have to start the section over and hope it doesn't happen again. sometimes i go over the same few paragraphs three or four times before giving up, and deciding that i really just don't like to read.

the problem is a combination of my brain being unsuited for reading, and the content of most books (or at least parts of them) being uninteresting (to me).

i haven't tried to read (a paper book) with my new glasses yet.

i got glasses.

i'm not nearsighted or farsighted, but rather have all-around blurry vision that gets worse at night. i discovered this only because i was having trouble reading addresses and street signs at night (i deliver pizza for a "living"). but once i put them on, the whole world got startlingly sharper, even during the day.

there just aren't that many books worth reading, and reading is enough effort fo me that i don't want to do many test-runs.

i'm exaggerating (i also read a light in the attic by shel silverstein), but my assertion that i'm a crummy reader is correct. i don't even dare think about trying to get through a single chapter of moby dick, even though i was genuinely impressed with the quality of edward gibbons's prose in the decline and fall of the roman empire. i briefly had my nose in it while picking through the 2,000 or so pages to generate a good screenname for AIM. i found "flesh or lentils", which i think is decent.