density, speedreading.

I have always thought of myself as a slow reader. I'm not the fastest writer in the world either, but in the realm of writing, my pace is commensurate with the average college-edu-ma-cated joe, I think. My reading pace is just about high school appropriate.

That's why I have an undeniable interest in these speed reading courses that float around the web and through concrete space too. I've started up with them over and over again, only to abandon them quickly because they don't do shit for me. I pick a book off my shelf and give it a quick perusal, and no matter what, I pick up nothing. nuss-ink at all.
In the last couple days though I've realised what my problem was all along: my book shelf. It's filled with dense, intricate materials, written by writers richer in knowledge than expressive ability. The only piece of English language fiction up there is "labyrinths" from borges, and the rest are on either economics, philosophy, or the japanese legal and criminal systems.

So when the speed-reading teachers tell me to read the first sentence of the paragraph, and then "skitter" the body of it, and read the last sentence, I get zero from it. Adorno and Veblen and others have this charmingly anti-consumptive trait. They will not be swallowed in one gulp.
Lately, I've been reading a couple of other more simple books, aimed at regalurr folks. Shit flies by.