DO YOU REALLY HAVE TIME TO READ THIS?

by Robert Lopresti

Every day the New York Times is delivered free to my doorstep.

Well, not really my doorstep. Actually it’s the door of the university library where I work. As I understand it, the dozens of free copies they provide every day is part of the American press’s last-ditch attempt to convince the next generation that real news comes with ink-stained fingers.

This wealth of free information creates a dilemma for me. How much time do I want to spend reading the news every day? Sure, I’d like to read it all but the governor has this crazy idea that I should spend forty hours a week doing the work she pays me for. (And by the way, out here in Washington state forty hours means eight to five, boyos, none of that wimpy nine to five stuff you elite easterners get away with.)

Where was I? Oh, finding time.

I definitely go over the front page, looking for good news. (Good news can be defined here as any of certain political figures confessing their transgressions, apologizing profusely, and then tragically tumbling into a pit of agricultural byproducts . . . not too likely, but you have to admit it would make the front page.)

But what about the Arts section? I mean, not only do I read books, watch TV and occasionally pay nine bucks to watch ten commercials followed by a series of car chases, but I also write fiction. I produce art, or a reasonable facsimile. Shouldn’t I find the time to read about it? Call it market research, if nothing else.

But I find that in my sixth decade I am less willing to give each article a chance. As soon as I conclude that I am not going to read that book, or watch that movie, no matter how good the review, I’m on to the next story. And reports of live shows, three thousand miles from my northwest retreat, are easy to skip.

The Canadian novelist W.P. Kinsella once said “I don’t have time to read non-fiction.” (And by the way, while he is best known for Shoeless Joe, which was turned into the movie “Field of Dreams.”) Kinsella’s dozens of short stories include a few wonderful mysteries. Try “Dance Me Outside,” and “Yellow Scarf.”

And yet I know that a story idea may be hiding in any article – or ad. Reading about TV shows that had not yet been renewed or cancelled gave me “On The Bubble,” which was published in an MWA anthology.

Somebody once said that the amateur writer feels guilty when he is writing, and the professional feels guilty when he isn’t. I feel guilty either way which just proves I’m a writer who was raised Catholic. (And because I’m a librarian I also feel guilty that I can’t identify the source of the above line.)

Of course, one of the clear advantages of the short story is that it takes less time to write, and to read. In our short attention span world that ought to be something we can leverage,

Finding time

You may ask, if I don’t have time to read the paper, why am I writing a blog? Well, one reason is to find a new way to think about writing. The concept of “mindfulness” has a New Age quality, but I like it. Writing about writing is good for the mental muscles.

Getting back to the Paper of Record for a moment, I am happy to say that as of today I am liberated from the Times’ section called “Arts, Briefly.” For years this column has obsessed with the legal problems of a British rock musician named Peter Doherty – whose existence I would be entirely unaware of except for their reports on his bookings and pleadings.

Recently I swore that the next time Pete showed up in “Arts, Briefly” I was done with it, and on the day I am writing this, he did. So that liberates about five minutes a day, which gives me the time to throw in the following bit of net wisdom.

Another thread from the web

My friend Jacquie recently graduated from library school. At her first interview for a librarian position she was asked to – quickly! – name her five favorite search engines. That’s a great question. As a newly minted information retrieval professional you had better be able to think beyond Google. So for the record, here are my Top Five in alphabetical order: Ask.com, Clusty, Dogpile, Google, and USA.gov.

JLW adds: For all of you who subscribe to the RSS thread and didn’t get a chance to visit with the Midnight Mystery Players’ rendition of Rob’s short story “Crow’s Avenue,” here is a podcast.