Three things I read this week
Star Wars, Taylor Swift doesn't exist, writing book
Obsolete Man’s article about losing the ability to read has gone moderately viral on Substack - congrats! - and I’ve noticed a lot of people saying that they can relate.
As someone who reads a book a week, and has been doing so for many years, I’m in a position to offer a few practical tips to anyone who’s lost the ability to focus on the written page. If you’re struggling to read the way you once did, here’s what I recommend…
Drop all literary pretensions. Give up on War and Peace or The Power Broker for the time being. If you weigh 350 lbs and you want to run a marathon the first step isn’t to run ten miles. The first step is to walk around the block. Find an engaging, unchallenging and exciting book to read. A real page turner. It could be a romance novel, Harry Potter, a sci-fi series, whatever you find the most interesting.
Buy a physical copy of the book, no Kindle or reading on your phone. You can get a great deal on used books with eBay. Just make sure that you buy a book rated as “good” or “very good” condition.
Set aside 20 minutes every day to read. NO PHONE! You must sit with the book for 20 minutes. It’s ok if you end up staring at the wall the whole time. What’s probably going to happen is that you get so bored that you start reading the book just to keep your mind busy. You CANNOT have your phone nearby.
You may want to read several books at the same time. For example, I’m reading the 1,200 page novel Shogun. I’m up to page 1,000 and in the time it’s taken me to get there I’ve read three other books cover to cover.
Always have books ready to go. You need to keep the momentum going so you should have books on your shelf that you’re excited to read. As soon as you finish one book, start another. I am constantly searching for good books to read so that I have one at hand whenever I finish my current specimen.
Depending on your schedule, try reading for 20-30 minutes first thing in the morning, before you turn on your phone or computer.
You may find it helpful to brag about what you’ve read. This can be a useful motivation! Literally a third of this Substack is me just flaunting what I’ve read. Being able to share your literary accomplishment is good motivation to get you to read a book all the way to the end.
Even as your reading abilities improve, always keep a few page turners around. If you’re reading a difficult book and feel stuck, start a page turner. The most effective method for keeping your brain sharp is to read every single day. Once you’ve gotten into the habit, don’t lose it!
To give you a head start I thought of a few exciting books you could read. Sci-fi is my favorite genre for page turners, so this list is biased that way. If you don’t like space, vidja games or the future then you’ll have to do your own research.
Ender’s Game
Leviathan Wakes
Diamond Age
Snow Crash
Ready Player One
Reading is a muscle like any other. It atrophies if you don’t use it, but that doesn’t mean you’re screwed. It takes a conscious effort to redevelop your ability to read, but I’m convinced that anyone can do it.
1 - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - An Unbridled Rage
Wait, that’s not reading!
No, you unusually astute observer of observables, it’s not. But as weighed by intellectual nourishment, this review of The Rise of Skywalker is pretty damn close. Mauler is a film critic on par with the Critical Drinker. What sets them apart is diatribe length. The Drinker’s reviews can be viewed on your lunch break. Mauler’s are twice as long the movie.
Then there are the phrases. Lovely, beautiful things like, “that character suffers from cognitive flatulence,” “he’s as useful as a gelded walnut,” and “what a wobbly dildo!”
Mauler is entertaining, but more importantly he has taught me how to dissect film. Plot, theme, character arc and more. Time very well spent.
2 - Taylor Swift does not exist
Only the dangerously deranged, those whose eyes have long since calcified into unseeing milky orbs from long years of subterranean living, are fooled by Taylor Swift’s cosplay at humanity.
There’s so much more than meets the eye with this “woman,” and mainstream media refuses to report on any of it. Mercifully our dutiful correspondent from the outersphere, Sam Kriss, has not been cowed into kowtow to the great lie. For onto us he delivers the truth: Taylor Swift does not have a belly button.
What follows is entirely speculative. But I think—I think—I know what I was so afraid of here. Where is Taylor Swift’s navel? What does a navel mean? Well, as I suggested in my notes, a navel means separation from the amniotic unity of being; it marks the point where we have been torn away from the apeiron and into our limited, earthly selves. By not showing her navel, Taylor Swift was identifying herself with the infinite. But your navel also marks you out as a created being; it slots you into the grand chain of reproductive existence. And Taylor Swift was absconding from that too: she was positioning herself as something uncreated and eternal.
3 - Definition
reintarnation - noun
rē-(ˌ)in-(ˌ)tär-ˈnā-shən
1 a: To be reborn as a hillbilly
4 - Certainty
He knew that he would not be buried in this valley but in some distant place among strangers and he looked out to where the grass was running in the wind under the cold starlight as if it were the earth itself hurtling headlong and he said softly before he slept again that the one thing he knew of all things claimed to be known was that there was no certainty to any of it. Not just the coming of war. Anything at all.
The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy
5 - Writing Short
As per my New Years’ promise to more gooder writing get, I read the book How to Write Short. A solid 2.5/5.
For a book claiming to teach the art of concise writing, there was a frustrating absence of brevity. Multiple sections should have found their way to the chopping block. No, I didn’t need a four-page explanation of why it’s OK to include internet slang in my writing. Yes, sometimes people write interesting things on Twitter. No, I didn’t need you to explicitly tell me that. Repeatedly.
Still, at the final tally I found enough meat to make chewing the gristle worthwhile. The first part of How to Write Short is the superior half. You could just read that then chuck the rest on a dusty shelf.
I read a book about every two weeks and then text a picture and short review to my daughter and her two kids (12, 15). One of them usually writes something (Awesome Grumpy!) and promises to send me what they're reading (never happens). They'll have something to say at my funeral and I have a record of all the books I've read.