The Benefits of A Quiet Life Should Not Be Underestimated

 Tuesday was another of my write-offs. I worked 5 hours with a total of 15 minutes for breaks. I blacked out when I lay on the bed when I got home.

All I accomplished was adding an entry from my prison journal to this blog. Those posts will start running on May 1.

And today was much of the same as Tuesday, except I did the dishes. Also, I did not order a pizza because I was too tired to do dishes and cook. I also cooked up a pork chop and hash browns.

Around 7 pm, I took a trip down to the convenience store for supplies.

I have now scheduled my prison journal posts to run from May 1 to May 10. I expect to finish off the packet in the next few days.

I did get through some of the email, also.

Well, one of our institutes of higher learning stands up to Trump: Frat Party University Will Not Comply with the Trump Administration’s Demands (McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

Why one should visit Chesterfield, Indiana: Our Day at Camp Chesterfield (Roadtirement)

Scholars Have Lost the Plot! (Public Books)

The phrase “close reading,” despite the familiarity of the component words, is a piece of discipline-specific jargon. Guillory helpfully clarifies that close reading is just one specific scholarly subtype of a broader range of practices he labels “reading closely,” encompassing “all instances of careful or methodical reading, whatever the aim or context of that reading.” Consider, for example, the varied ways that lawyers, actors, or the New Yorker’s legendarily exacting fact-checkers read texts closely.

***

Yet something is now shifting, and Guillory’s book gives a clue as to why. A century ago, close reading emerged as a new way to identify and celebrate the superior value of great literature at a time when vast quantities of mass-market literature (which was often plot-driven “genre” fiction) as well as new narrative media like movies and radio serials were competing for audiences’ leisure time. Today, however, the most threatening antagonist to “great” literature isn’t reading for the plot, but, rather, the “skimming or browsing practices of reading” fostered by the internet, smartphones, and social media. Push notifications and snippets of text and video hijack our attention briefly but constantly. In this context, reading for the plot, which once was judged disposable and mindless, starts to seem, by virtue of its extended duration and power to grip us, like an admirable act of sustained attention.

Perhaps enduring rereadability is being replaced as our culture’s criterion of literary value with, simply, “sustained attention.” You may have noticed people, or even yourself, lamenting that they “no longer read.” But as Christina Lupton pointed out to me in a podcast conversation, when we feel that we’re “no longer reading,” what we’re usually missing is not reading in general (encompassing things like emails, websites, social media), but, specifically, the sustained linear reading associated with printed books, and in particular the immersive power of the novel

And I thought a book's worth was in its reading. I think I agree with the essay, that academia is to blame for the denigration of the plot. Plot and character are for me intertwined. I want to see what happens to the characters.

Transportation is a problem for me, I thought to be getting a car and going out of town on Friday. I botched my vacation request, instead.

I mention this because, if I could, then I would be going to several of the events listed in Mirror Indy's Explore new art and stories by Indy’s creative class of 2025.

My prison journal surprises me by how old are some of the ideas I continue to live by. I might surprise my 59-year-old self how well I have maintained our goals.

Stories rejected:

We regret to inform you that your work was not accepted this time. However, we hope you will consider submitting again in the future. 

Sincerely,

The Helix Team

 That was for "Visions of Colonel Tom". I submitted to them on May 20, 2023.

Thank you for submitting to Qu. We appreciated the chance to read your work, but unfortunately, the piece was not right for us at this time.

We would be interested in seeing more of your work, so we encourage you to submit to us again in the future. Our next open submission period will begin on May 15, 2025.

Thanks again for your interest in Qu.

Sincerely,

The Editors

Qu Literary Magazine

That was for "Desperate Men Committing Desperate Acts". 

And there I leave you, until tomorrow.

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