What is the beauty in the written word? I write this question on a summer afternoon, on a park bench. I had grown accustomed to being one of a few inhabitants at this park, and the only one reading/writing. But today I had difficulty finding a seat at all; around each corner, the next bench…
A Tale for the Reader
In the past few months, I have had the experience of students and their parents remarking that they found me to be a "profound" thinker. I have no idea what they mean, nor what "profundity" comprises. In hopes of emulation (and I would caution them against such misguided flattery), they asked how I came to…
To Feel With Flesh Entire: On the Speed of Observation, Pt. III
Let's try yet another angle. Thus far in our analysis of "close reading," we have focused on the temporal effects of reading slowly; but, just as easily, one could also refer to "close reading" as an intensity of experience. The very metaphor of "close reading" indicates that there is at hand a dilemma in choosing…
“Reading and Writing Is Hardly Living”: On the Speed of Observation, Cont.
In the preceding argument, I chose as my introduction a song from Dirty Projectors. While the choice might appear somewhat arbitrary, particularly when put in alignment with all the other philosophers cited, it was not in the least random. (Especially when the task at hand is to determine re-cognizable qualities of insight and profundity, to…
“Stillness is the Move”: On The Speed of Observation
Paradoxically, impossibly, "stillness is the move." Or so says the band Dirty Projectors, in my favorite song on their album Bitte Orca. The oxymoron is, of course, a play on words--how can something be at once still and moving? (Pace physicists, I'm not talking relativity here.) It's a common kind of bon mot, delivered with…