A ramble of text

[permetaform]

[this speed reading test] says that I read slightly above average, but I couldn't help but wonder if it's just the reading material. I've noticed that the more boring the reading material the faster I skim, probably a combined survival habit garnered from college, a shitload of bad!fic, and an insane flist.

And the inverse of this is true, for me, too: the better the writing, the slower I read...until you get to certain shatteringly good poetry and I just. stop.

and reread.

and reread again. slowly. chew the lines in my mouth and feel the shape of the words as I say them, in different ways, with different implications. phrases thick enough to write novels off of, stories and stories and stories layered one upon the other, forming sheets upon sheaves of ideas bound loosely with thought and covered with this human skin. (That is, I hear, how they describe demonic text, but if ideas are demonic then let me be damned)

And seconds, minutes, hours could be spent devining the meaning of a loaded phrase, words spoken but shaded, descriptions spare but heavy.

Can one judge the speed of reading? Can one judge how much you comprehend?

How fast can you understand the meaning of a novel crammed into the space of a phrase?

A child can read a line of Shakespeare in seconds.

An adult might never completely finish reading that one line.

This type of text, this subtexted type of the written word, is what I love reading and is what I love writing and is what I love being fannish in. I love places where my mind can play, I love creating my own stories from subtext.

This, I think, is why I'll always love Smallville more than Queer As Folk, why I'll always love Saiyuki and Trigun more than Yami no Matsuei.

This, I think, might be why I adore the "surface" movies, the B-action flicks, so much. In the end, The Fifth Element was about saving the universe, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico was about the life and death of mexico, and Pirates of the Caribbean was about a man and his ship. The human inter-relationships were the catalysts that made the movies flow, but they were never the entire *point*, they were never the base, the matrix, nor the core of the pain and the joy that draws me into a fandom.

There is two, that make up fandom. The source and the fans themselves...and with 'flawed' or 'loopholed' sources especially (SV and HP, I'm looking at you) there is more of a chance for me to mentally 'play' with the source. There is more subtext, a gap, a...point of interaction?

a place, perhaps I could say, where I can make love to the canon?

heh.

canon/permetaform otp!

tho I sleep around, and the bastard kids are mightily insane...

[]

lierdumoa's vidded QaF to Eminem.

Let me repeat this, so that you get the massive and absolute rightness and insanity of this undertaking:

She has vidded Queer as Folk to Eminem.

Is that not brilliant?

Go see.

Comments

[tanacawyr.livejournal.com]

... the better the writing, the slower I read...until you get to certain shatteringly good poetry and I just. stop.

WOW. This is amazingly true. I wasn't sure how to put it when I learned about this speed-reading test and why I thought it was shallow, but ... this is it. I don't WANT to rush it anymore. If I'm reading something, it's good enough that I want to let it roll over my tongue and enjoy it, like sitting a tiny bit of wine on my tongue and inhaling past it slooooooooowly, to get all the nuances, so I can pick it up and turn it over in my hand to see all the facets. Reading FAST, or TRYING to read fast, was a thing for me when I was younger, but now it seems like having a gulping contest with a bottle of 50 year old port. WHY!? STOP! Slow down, savor it -- let the words sit in your head a bit or else you'll miss way too much.

Not to mention that reading nonfiction at that speed is flat-out impossible. You read a sentence, and you stop -- and you think, "Okay, what about what happened 250 years ago? Hold on, that was his grandfather, so now it means that King Whoever must have been thinking about XYZ all that time ... okay, next sentence."

Rushing that is worthless -- renders the words into McDonald's french fries to be pounded as if you're racing a clock.

A child can read a line of Shakespeare in seconds.

An adult might never completely finish reading that one line.

Brilliant.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

The only time I've really cared lately about how fast I read is (a) when I'm trying to catch up on my flist and didn't budget appropriate time to get sucked into LJ, or (b) when I want to delve through LotR before watching one of the films, just to be able to figure out how far before the film begins to start reading.

*shrug*

[tanacawyr.livejournal.com]

Yeah ... it's handy to be able to read extremely fast sometimes. It's like a workman skill. For pleasure, it's delightful to let the words rattle around a bit before you swallow them. :-)

[permetaform]

Rushing that is worthless -- renders the words into McDonald's french fries to be pounded as if you're racing a clock.

::nods:: seriously.

Brilliant.

::beams and glomps you for the pimp::