Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

Speeding Up, Dumbing Down

The first time that I heard of the concept of “speed reading,” I think that I was in elementary school. Being firmly in the realm of the imaginary at the time, I liked to pretend that I could do it (I also boasted of various super-powers at different times…ah, childhood). I wanted to be the superstar that could blow through the novel that everyone else was sluggishly complaining their way through for class.

In the real world of today, I’m a relatively slow reader. I read a lot in volume, but I still progress through books slowly, at least compared to my friends and to Karen, who devours a 300-page novel in a night. One of the reasons that I progress so slowly through books is that I pause periodically to digest what I’ve read. I like to think about it, reflect on it. For that reason, I tend to only move through a few chapters at a time before putting a book down for the night. I would rather really know a few books than to be loosely acquainted with many. I guess I read like an introvert.

Increasing my quota by hastening my reading time was never really something that held any appeal for me. Whatever the pace with which one read, I reasoned, pausing to engage and think through what you’ve just read is important. That part of the process just simply can’t be rushed.

The idea of speed-reading is useless to me in my “old age.” I think that’s why I cringe when I hear of a popular app like ReadQuick, which is built for the purpose of teaching us to read faster. If history shows us anything, it’s that speed and quality are almost always mutually exclusive. When multi-tasking is a prized activity and there’s always more and more to accomplish on any given day, sacrificing our engagement with the written word is something that could carry very drastic and long-reaching consequences.

Perhaps I should take comfort in the fact that trends tend to be cyclical. Maybe slowing down will one day once again by all the rage.

Not-So Private Eyes

Last week I was having one of those random conversations with a colleague that occur when you both need to take a break from doing whatever task it is that you’re attempting to accomplish. Specifically, we were talking about Google Glass, because only days before I had experienced my second encounter with Google Glass “in the wild.” My experience had been during a professional networking dinner. During this dinner, I had been disabused of the notion that Glass requires a verbal command from it’s user to do things like record video or take photos. I had learned that, with a few taps on a connected tablet, images and video could be taken with no one else in the room any the wiser.

I still suffer a bit of a creep factor when thinking about Glass.

This led to a discussion of how often we are recorded each day. Which led to talking about the absence of the expectation of privacy in a public place, which is how traffic cameras and the like are both legally and ethically justified. Glass is different, though, because being with someone who is wearing it degrades our expectation of privacy in private spaces, something to which we have previously been entitled.

My colleague thinks that recording everything has positive implications, because video records are the ultimate historian. The camera, in theory, doesn’t lie (although it’s amazing what can happen to the truth with a few edits). His perspective is that history would be preserved more accurately if everything were recorded at all times.

Well, theoretically, its difficult to disagree with him there, although one would have to wonder how history would account for the negative space (you could watch someone do something, but perhaps never piece together why they had done what they did).

Stepping beyond the theory into the realm of the pragmatic, however, I think that there’s another issue at play. John Twelve Hawks toys with the idea in his novel, The Traveler, the idea of the panopticon. In society, just as in Bentham’s prison, people will always behave as though they’re being watched if they believe that they are, or could be, watched at any given time.

My concern is that we are already languishing in a culture that is driven by appearance, eschews depth whenever possible, and brands and markets everything, including people. With that level of shallowness already in place, what are the implications of feeling as though we are watched all the time? What would be our reaction? Could we ever be (to use an over-used expression) authentic with anyone again? The potential social damage of Glass goes beyond even more immersion in data from an augmented reality technology. It threatens to bring a decline to what are already tenuous human relationships that occur only on the periphery of our screens.

A Review of “Wonder Woman, Volume 1: Blood”

Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: Blood by Brian Azzarello

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wonder Woman has never been a title that I read on its own. In fact, I can only recall buying one issue in my life, and that was somewhere back in the the mists of my childhood because the cover grabbed me. Like many DC titles, however, I became at least mildly interested after the launch of the New 52, inasmuch as I followed it’s flagship title, Justice League. In those pages, I became interested in Wonder Woman as one of the primary three heroes in the DC Universe, now presented not as a character about whom my wife complains (“A Lasso of Truth? Really?”) as still being presented as inferior to male characters, but here painted as a strong character worthy of her Amazonian past.

So, I was glad to (finally) make the time to read the collected first volume of her initial story arc in the New 52.

I was impressed, but I’ll say up front that this collection didn’t absorb me like some of the other New 52 titles. The art I found to be a bit sporadic. While the cover art, being particularly poor, isn’t representative of the interior pages, I still found many of the pages displaying clunky characters drawn with heavy-handed lines and confusing movement from panel to panel. That said, there are moments of brilliance, particularly in the facial expressions of Queen Hera.

The writing far outshines the art, with delicate foreshadowing and powerful dialogue between many characters, but especially on the part of our protagonist (“Peace? Your mocking lips spit a word your tongue has never tasted.”). The movement of the story is well paced as collected into a graphic novel, though I’m not sure how it would have felt in individual issues. The balance between narrative, dialogue, and action is thoughtfully and intentionally achieved, and the action sequences are violently intense when present.

The first installment of Wonder Woman’s origin story is told here, as she realizes that the legend of the childhood in which she has grown up believing is a lie, and as she races to protect a girl pregnant with Zeus’ illegitimate child as the wrath of Olympus threatens to kill her where she stands. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of this story is the way in which the legendary Greek gods and goddesses are portrayed, at times very thought-provoking (Hades with his face obscured by the burning candles on his head, or Ares as a rail-thin African warlord drinking in a bar), and at times with particular humor (Hermes sitting on a sofa with a remote control in hand and his leg in a splint).

I originally rated this story at three stars. Why? Well, first off, stars are so arbitrary, but necessary on Goodreads. Secondly, because this story, while well written, just didn’t move me along in it’s premise. As a hero story goes, it felt…dry to me, as much as the craft of the writing may have had shining moments. My final decision when writing this, though, is a four-star review, because the character development sinks in after letting the book sit for a day or two. In these pages, we meet Wonder Woman as a hero for today. She is a warrior, one of the most powerful heroes in the DC Universe (watching her lift a car is impressive enough, but the first panel in which she enters with a shield and battle axe will alter your perception of the character forever). I wish that I had read these issues when the New 52 originally launched, as it would have helped me to make more sense of the character in the pages of Justice League. Here, I was about twenty pages in before I truly heard her voice, but then there was no turning back. Because we also see Wonder Woman as a woman, insecure in her heritage, mourning the loss of her mother before she could make amends, strongly drawn to familial connections, and strongly persevering through her losses. If you imagined a flat or two-dimensional character here…if your perception of Wonder Woman as been that of my wife’s, a character with unrealized potential left to languish on the fringes of a male-dominated hero universe…then for that reason alone, I would recommend this book. Even if the story leaves you lagging behind a bit as it did me, you’ll be glad that you now truly know Diana, the Princess of the Amazons.

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The Common Core, A Common Problem

I am not an educator. Let me just say that up front.

I know many educators, though, my wife among them. Some of my closest friends are, or have been, educators by profession. The common thread among all of them is that, with the possible exception of one, they all hold the No Child Left Behind law in extremely poor regard.

No, I’m not going to violate my rule about not posting about politics here. This isn’t political, I promise.

Before moving to New England, I spent four years in a position that contracted into the public school system. I saw my share of classrooms first hand. I met many colleagues who are extremely competent educators, and whose hands are tied by the limits of objective test scores and narrow-minded curricula. Because of what Karen and I have both experienced in public school classrooms, we are seriously considering pursuing home-schooling options for our daughter, because neither of us trust the quality of education that will be received in the public system. The things that aren’t taught leave a gaping absence in my mind. This is a difficult decision for me, because I think that the social experiences of public school are very important, and I myself am the product of primarily public education. The point of the experience, though, is just that…education. If our children aren’t learning enough of the right things…acquiring an acceptable fund of knowledge, to use the jargon…then there sort of isn’t any point.

I’ve been reading a lot about the common core standards of late. Again, I’m no educator, but I am (and I don’t say this to be in any way narcissistic) well-educated, and I am at a point in my life at which I can think back to how I got that way. I am also a stake-holder in this situation now that I’m a father, and I’ve seen my share of how American students receive a sub-standard education that is quantified by test scores, up close and personal. The common core standards, as I understand them, are designed in part to push back on No Child Left Behind. From what I read, I’m hesitant.

Some of my friends are in support of the common core standards. Some are not. I’m firmly undecided, but skeptical, as the core issues at hand…namely, that education is operated as a business and driven toward numerical measurements of success, primarily in mathematics and sciences at the near exclusion of the humanities…seem to remain unaddressed.

The aspect of the common core that gives me the most pause is it’s emphasis on “informational texts.” A significant percentage of time is expected to be spent by students reading these so-called informational texts…that is, texts that talk about what they just studied. I have no difficulty envisioning less time spent with the primary sources (which is the subject actually being engaged), and more with other scholar’s (perhaps of arguable reputation depending upon the political bent of the school board in question) opinions about those primary sources.

That is, before my daughter reads a critic’s analysis of Salinger, I want her to have read and engaged a significant sampling of Salinger herself, because that’s how independent critical thinking develops. And, if American culture is painfully short on anything, it’s critical thinking.

Perhaps I’m paranoid. Perhaps I’m pessimistic. I’ve certainly been accused of both in the past. Perhaps I’m also of the age where I’m beginning to despair at the disparities between the children of today and my own experiences. Those potentialities notwithstanding, I remember my senior year in high school, when I took “Advanced Placement” English. I was exposed to some of the most influential literature of my life that year (we had to read four books the preceding summer as a condition of admission to the class, and continue to read a book on our own and generate a critical paper every three weeks during the year, aside from what the class covered as a unit). I learned to think critically about literature. I learned how to write critically. As a result, I learned a lot about life. None of my undergraduate English courses were as difficult…or as rewarding…as that high school English course.

I resonate with my friends who find their students at the undergraduate level woefully unprepared for the level of thinking a university requires. I want to have enough faith in the public education system to not be concerned about sending our daughter there in the future. I want to see the arts and humanities in their rightfully equal footing with the sciences and math. I want to know that our daughter will be pushed to read great literature like I was my last year in high school.

In my admittedly limited scope of knowledge, but substantial scope of experience, on the subject, I’m not at all convinced that the common core standards are moving us in the right direction.

That said, with our education system in the condition that it is, the bar for improvement is decidedly…and tragically…low.

I believe that we would become a much more civilized culture if we rid ourselves of the misconception that individuals with certain titles, while those titles may well be deserving of respect, are not somehow better than the rest of us.