Monday, November 27, 2006

Just Another Manic Monday

Behold, my next million dollar idea, or, at least, the formulation thereof. This last sentence is what you call "inserting an introduction that doesn't really tie into your major theme, but you want your post to tie itself up at the end, even at the riskof dropping the reader abruptly into a second paragraph that is only tangentially related to the first."

Lots of people like to read, right? Or at least, many people, like me, enjoy telling people that they've read important books. Unfortunately, many people also have this little commitment called "having to work in order to earn money." This "money" is then exchanged for goods and services, like "being able to live inside," and "eating everyday." Because of the huge commitment from work, many people just don't have the time or mental capacity left at the end of the day to really pore into a porous work of fiction.

But,

what if there were some way to get through books at a decent pace without having to invest long periods of time into it? Further, what if there were some way to market this?

Now, I know that many of you will say, "What about speedreading and/or books on tape? Would those methods not effortlessly help the precocious, pretentious reader to read without more effort?"

My rebuttal? Yes with a but. While both of those methods would help the reader get through books, they have flaws. Speed reading is, based on my understanding of it, more effortful than effortless, and, if you are truly trying to appreciate the beauty of the language of the classics, it seems that reading quickly would not help you achieve that fact. Books on tape might help you appreciate the language, but I find that it's difficult and expensive to find the titles that I want.

So what is the solution? I don't know, but if somebody could figure out a way to teach people to read every word with understanding , AND teach the reader to get through a book quickly so that it didn't seem quite so overwhelming, I think that that person would make a million bucks.

I haven't quite figured out the method, but when I do, I'm sure that you'll see me hawking it on late night infomercials. And by "me," I mean some celebrity who's down on his luck and is looking to earn a chalupa.

3 comments:

Thany said...

It has been a looooooooong week without you AC.

Greg said...

Uh... you just blew my mind.

Am I the only person who prefers gordita over chalupa?

Analyst Catalyst said...

It is good to be missed, and I am glad to be back.

And Greg, the gordita certainly has many things going for it, but the added crunchiness of the chalupa tends to take my vote, although that cheesy gordita crunch or whatever the devil it's called is pretty doggone tasty.