"The faster things go, the more we feed that part of ourselves .... We don't feed the part of ourselves that likes quiet."
David Foster Wallace speaks here, as part of a longer interview, on American attitudes toward literature (I disagree - the issue is education, not geography), and our growing inability to sit quietly and encounter works of culture, undistracted.
As a fan of Wallace's, and as a man who enjoys a bit of doing nothing, I understand his point. We are changing, and part of that change is that we don't quietly contemplate a single work of art as we once did. We browse while watching television. We chat while reading a magazine. We prefer to listen to audio commentary while contemplating a painting.
The last time went to Cannes, I spoke with an older American producer about ebooks, and shared my desire to create rich media experiences for readers. He was outraged. "The last thing I want messed with is my time alone with a book."
But let me suggest this - if we like to tweet and facebook while we watch television, shouldn't this be seen as a new way of enjoying media? Starling see it that way.
And if, like me, you find that while reading on the iPad, you open Maps to look up a location, or Wikipedia to read background, or Google to understand context, shouldn't we see this as something new - a more committed engagement with literature - rather than something bad?
I'm all for sitting quietly doing nothing. But perhaps, as authors and producers, we should consider our new audience, and invent new ways to serve their engagement with our work.
Kevin Slavin on Starling:
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