4 June 2003 
The Finishing of a Book
If you’re like me and you like to read a lot, you will know that there is something special about finishing one. Especially when the volume is a long and laborious one. There is a certain sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that goes with turning the last page. Usually my eyes can’t help but get ahead of themselves and look at the last sentence.
My friend Colby has an interesting theory. He thinks that the finishing of a book should take place all in a long, sustained bit of reading. One should free oneself of all distractions for about an hour, and just read to the end. While I agree somewhat, life is not always so peaceful as to allow a final sustained hour.
One unique thing that I tend to do when I read the last page is to pick up another book and read at least a page or two of another. Does this make me a chain-reader? Who knows? This probably stems from the unwillingness to sit and reflect on what I just read, because good reflection is hard work.
Take, for example, tonight. I finished Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, and immediately picked up another volume (to be named later). The Moviegoer was one of those very compelling novels that I know I will be contemplating for some time. So, instead of dealing with it then, I practiced the simple art of procrastination once again.
3 June 2003
Chicken Little
The Dixie Chicks appear to be at it again. The lead singer, Natalie Maines, wore a T-shirt with some less-than-subtle initials on it, apparently aimed at rival country singer Toby Keith (isn’t it funny how much country music is resembling professional wrestling these days?).
The Chicks were again booed, which makes me think that may not be all about making money. They have certainly alienated much of their audience, and now it looks as if they intend to alienate their colleagues as well. The encouraging thing that I see in all of this is that in the eyes of the public, celebrity is not all-important. Perhaps I’ll write more later about pervasive nature of celebrity in our culture, but for now this is good news.
2 June 2003
“Reality” Check
As I was flipping through the channels tonight (this is the phrase people use when they don’t want to be embarrassed at what they were watching), I caught about 15 minutes of one of the new reality shows called For Love or Money. Apparently the formula of this show is that 15 women vie for the eligible bachelor and then can either reject him and take a million dollars, or keep him. The catch is that he gets to weed them out according to his own interests.
The little that I watched of the show was, of course, absurd. What was noteworthy enough to write about here was that there was nothing noteworthy about the show. How ironic it is that so-called “reality” TV shows are all plugged into the same formula. The original novelty of the “unscripted” TV show was its unscriptedness. Now it appears the networks have realized that real life is boring and needs a little scripting of its own to make it interesting.
This makes me think again about the nature of leisure. People seek reality (they must or the networks wouldn’t have put 20 new reality shows on in the summer) even in their leisure. Perhaps reality TV shows are a way we try to compensate for the fact that we usually aren’t really living when we watch TV. At least, we think, someone is really living. But the formulaic nature of numerous reality shows betrays the fact that it isn’t reality at all.