Thirty Minutes with Deepti Kapoor

 Good Morning, y'all.  

I'm reading this big fat thing (a little free library find) because on the back jacket Rumaan Alam promises me it will be

 " a good, old-fashioned gangster story, impossible to put down.  It's a novel garlanded with Shakespearean flourishes--star-crossed lovers, secret identities, complicated conspiracies--exploring timeless questions of family, loyalty, and fate."  

As such it seems like a good pairing for the show I am currently bingeing on Netflix (Animal House).  I might as well say here that I have some concerns that Animal House, like a show my teen recently watched, AP Bio, might be fronting some "it's OK to be an awful white man doing criminal things" agenda. . . but that's beside the point of my post today.

I started reading at home, in the new reading set up, at 10.03 am.  I had a coffee (iced) with me.  

It took me a while to get back into who/what/where as I just started the book last night and the setting and characters haven't really taken hold yet. I was irritated by an image I found contradictory ("lava hours . . . air so cold it scars" 16), but didn't shut the book in a fit of pique.

I got distracted by wanting to move my side table so I could reach my coffee more easily, but then settled in relatively well, accessing some of the nuance Kapoor is slowly building (eg the enslaved protagonist is taught to mask his Dalit caste by saying he comes from a Kshatriya household).

The dogs barked, I read.

I thought about notes I need to make after a long and difficult meeting yesterday.

I hit a nicely focused zone (10.20ish)

The dogs barked.

I thought about when today I want to venture out in the heat and go to the gymn.

The dogs barked.

I got up and found two cookies to eat (chocolate chip)

I read and regretted the cookies.

I finished reading at 10.33 am.

I don't have a succinct reflection to tie this post up with, except to say I felt pretty focused, and read attentively and receptively, and yet: look at all those distractions!

Keeping it Real (and the future of reading)

 

Whelp, I am insistently un-intsagrammable, not AI, real: pictured is the new reading set up.  The chair and stool were bought at an estate sale about two years ago and have been resurrected from the basement.  The lamp/ table was a gift from a colleague when my apartment burned down in 2014. I believe it had belonged to his grandmother in Florida.  The vacuum indicates that I am blogging mid-housework.  There's an outlet with no cover (oh the glamor!).  On the couch in the background, a black dog and a white dog.  Oh, and on the wall the one thing I made in art class last summer which was accidentally good(ish): "Prison."

I write to you from the doldrums.  1) Only read the newspaper if you are strong enough of spirit to cope with your own powerlessness in the face of terrible things; 2) Only attend academic Board meetings if you are strong enough of spirit to cope with your own powerlessness in the face of terrible things.

Re: #2

I teach at a liberal arts college in the US.  I like it.  I teach in an English department.  I was chair for ten years and saw enrollments in my major decline, mirroring national trends.  Yesterday, at the meeting, there was more data about declining enrollments in the Humanities, and rising enrollments in STEM.  It's not a surprise, it's just a reminder.  It comes alongside the imperative "we need to teach students AI so they are job ready" and a recent article about an MIT study showing how much stupider we get when we use AI.

Guh.  It  all makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a pencil.

I asked one of the two teenagers I live with, one who goes to Hackathons and codes for fun, what would induce him to study a Humanities major:

Teen: "Well, I am torn between Computer Science and History, but I'll probably take Computer Science."

Me: [mouth agape] "History?  I never knew you liked it."

Teen: "Yeah, but I won't take it because Computer Science will be faster and I'll get a job."

Me: [thinking I have the solution, perhaps to all problems with Humanities enrollments in the whole wide world] "Would you double major?"

Teen: "No.  Those subjects are, like, opposites.  It would take extra courses."

Me: "What if it didn't and taking the double major meant you covered a lot of your general education requirements?"

Teen: "Still no.  I want to be able to focus the majority of my effort on my major."

He can be a bit of a semantic arse, my teen, but I love that he word played his way out of the conversation.

What is the solution though? Reading fiction is an excellent thing for the brain.

Perhaps the advent of AI will send people to an English major because they really don't want to lose their minds?

Guh.  I still have the "poke my eyes out with pencils, I can't stand it," feeling: I'd like an iron clad solution please, one that isn't rooted in my just being scared of losing my profession, one that shows a cost/ benefit ratio in which reading fiction in fact pays off.  

Please advise, gentle reader.

Ten Minutes of Reading

 Ok, so I timed myself and everything.

Today I have been reading at Vent, a lovely coffee shop, not at home.  Why?  Not sure.  Home has a good desk set up for laptop work (writing, the million emails, administrivia, teaching prep), but currently, honestly, not a good reading spot.  I mentioned the couch in my last post, but the couch is actually so well positioned for watching TV . . . 

I am going to steal an armchair out of my son's basement gaming room and make a reading nook somewhere on the main floor.  Stay tuned.

Anyway, here are my notes from the coffee shop.

    Ten minutes went by really fast.  I could read for longer, and I guess for work I often do. I have practice which gives me an unfair advantage (Are we competing, gentle reader?).  

     I was distracted by: the music (a cover of a song I almost but couldn't quite recognize), the man next to me (who drank two double espressos in quick succession, chased by a small glass of fizzy water and a phonecall in Russian), and wondering if the barista would give me more hot water for my tea (I waited and asked after reading).  Actually it's a bit hot in here too.

    Honestly it was all slightly uncomfortable.  Why am I not reading in libraries more often?  It's what they are for.  Reading.  In a quiet place.  This is obvious, but struck me like an epiphany: Oh right!  LIBRARIES.

    I accidentally started my reading of Reilly's Greta and Valdin at a place I had marked because I thought it was funny, not at the spot I had actually finished reading at last night:

        "I hope Freya doesn't say anything too weird to her."

       He shakes his head.  "I can't guarantee that.  My friend Ben came over a few months ago, and it really felt like she was implying that if he didn't want to be in a relationship with a horse, then he didn't really respect all living beings." 

  The fact that I started here meant the rest of my reading was re-reading pages I had already read at bedtime: an interesting experiment in itself.  Which is more distracting, fatigue or cafe-life mid afternoon? I noticed more things, and cross referenced the "Characters" page for clarification more often. I think my mid-afternoon brain is sharper, but that it is also less settled.  I think it's easier to write than to read at this time of day (this post is also being written at Vent).  I think if I read for longer I would be distracted more, but also, would read more deeply when I was reading . . . ?  A theory to test.

Aiming for 15-20 next time.  Meet you there, friend.

Summer Reading & Focus Challenge

 In a class I teach, I have students do "reading labs" in which they read fiction of their choosing and comment on the effect it has on them (any effect, emotional, physical, psychological etc.).

I want to pose myself a summer challenge that is kind of based on those labs.  I can read at bedtime for a few minutes but that is a sleep-aid type of reading.  I want to sit, with a book, during the daytime, and see how long I can read for.  

Problem: It is really hard to read without distractions.

Goal: Get better at focusing on reading.  I'm going to start with ten minutes*, and hope to build up, by the end of my summer (August 13) to sixty to ninety uninterrupted minutes.

And I will blog about my experience! (Among other things)

[*Ten minutes??! Is that all you are starting with?! 

Wait! you say, Aren't you a professor??  

Yes! I reply,  And even I fidget, procrastinate, scroll my ass off when I should be focused.  Welcome to the world of easy digital dopamine hits . . . that leave my life about as enriched as an all candy-floss diet would]

Unacceptable, disqualifying actions: 

Digital: checking email, responding to texts, doom-scrolling, reading my horoscope or social media.   I like a hard copy book partly because it is easier to step away from all the devices. I will use actual books for my challenge.  Bonus: no advertisements!!  No one is trying to sell me something while I am reading.

Physical: getting up to make tea, eating a snack, interacting with the pets (some of this is out of my control--the pets cannot be utterly silenced), using the bathroom, cleaning, doing yoga . . . really anything that is not reading.

Acceptable: 

Taking notes on the book, or on the experience of reading it (no devices for the notetaking--just pen and paper).

Pausing to think about the book.

Setting Matters:

I like to read at cafes, but there are lots of distractions.  I think this experiment will have to take place at home.

I like to read on the couch, with a cushion on my lap to hold the book up so it is closer to my face and I don't have to  hunch my neck over like a dowager.

If I had a hammock, I might read in a hammock.

Maybe I will sit on the floor sometimes. (Note--no moving  to a different setting mid-session)

A gigantic Lazy Boy would be perfect.  I had an immense one when I was an undergrad, and I did all my reading there.  I loved that thing.

What to read?

I'm going to read novels.  For me the exercise is about inhabiting a narrative, its world, and the perspectives it contains.  

It'd be different to read non-fiction items, but still a valid exercise if that is what you would like to do?

It is hard even for me to focus, and I know that ultimately I like to read.  If one were starting with a dislike of reading, this challenge would be hard.  Somewhere in the middle of that continuum is someone who liked reading when their age was in the single digits and is interested in trying to re-cultivate a liking for it.

Feel free to join me in this challenge and write me (I THINK you can add comments using the "comments" thingy below) to let me know how it goes?

Unboxing

 Behold, this is what happens when a Luddite does an “unboxing” post.

But first, do I deserve to open the box?

Sort of.  I completed many irksome tasks.

Really, I think I have earned this treat because of yesterday’s seven hours at Urgent Care with an anxious and vomiting teenager, a saga prolonged enough that a social worker brought me a cup of tea, with eleven packages of sugar on the side:

So, let us begin:

What did I even order.  I don’t remember.

Oh, it’s going to be a good summer after all.  Check it out!

My hoky photos are intentional btw.  You can tell I am real.

Oh, box

Oh, box!  I have still not earned the pleasure of opening you.  I can’t even remember what I ordered it has been so long.

Meanwhile, I am reading Greta and Valdin : it’s set in New Zealand, which is cool.  It has character names that I am finding confusing though.  Maybe that’s because I only read a few pages at bedtime each night?  Maybe the author Rebecca Reilly did what I sometimes do in my own fiction writing, which is commit too hard to a bit that should be funny and good because of its complexity, but actually takes a lot for a reader to get in to and so winds up being less funny and less good as a result?

I’m also still working on Enders’s Gut. Today’s newsflash? The gut makes 95% of our serotonin!!

If I am very good

 If I am very good and finish at least some of my irksome administrative tasks, I may open this box of books:

Advice for Non-Readers Who Think They Should Be Reading

 First, get rid of "should." There is actually no moral high ground in reading, in spite of the fact that it is demonstrably good for you.  Exercise and vegetables are also good for you: we already know these things and don't need to be told.  

Let's say you enjoyed reading a long time ago, maybe when you were a child, and you don't enjoy it now and would like to try to enjoy it again: this might be the blog post for you.

I agree with Zadie Smith that reading takes practice, and with Maryanne Woolf that one's skills can get rusty.

My advice?

* Start small.  

Maybe you try reading a short story or two? (I have Abbey Mei Otis's Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories by my bed right now).

 Or maybe that's still too much: flash fiction is a great genre: entire stories in 300 words or less (Dan Rhodes's Marry Me is one of my favorite collections in this genre). 

Or maybe a novel that has short chapters (Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry is great.  I think the series tanked? I didn't watch it.  Don't let that put you off the book.)

* Start simple.  

Maybe you don't want a complex cast of characters in a multi-generational family epic to contend with at first.  Maybe something that keeps you in the head of a single narrator over a relatively simple plot line (Elizabeth Strout O William!, Allegra Goodman Sam).

Or maybe you start with a travel narrative, which will also keep you in the head of a single narrator and, while there is generally some kind of arc to the narrative, the basic premise is "person travels from A to B with interesting results," one's focus can fade in and out a bit and the narrative will forgive you (J. Martin Troost The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Alexa Bruie Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath ).

*Start with something YOU want to read.  

It doesn't have to be Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, or Faulkner.  Vampire novels intended for adolescents? Great.  The Kama Sutra?  Wonderful.  Whatever you want to read is a great thing to be reading.