Dinner Sparks with Friends

to read or to watch ...

A few weeks ago, I got into a lively debate with a friend about reading books vs. watching TV. We weren’t exactly shouting at each other but there were fireworks. Wine was involved, on my part at least, and a couple of glasses tend to make me more talkative/combative.

And the topic struck a chord in both of us.

Because there’s nothing more personal than the way we choose to be entertained.

I prefer reading, she watches a lot of TV.

So, we argued the meaning of “active” and “passive” brain activity, and we sparred around stimulation of the imagination. I used loaded words like “sponge” and “spoon-feeding” that raised my friend’s hackles, understandably.

It went on for a while. Eventually, we ran out of steam, our respective husband’s eyes glazed over, and we called a time-out.

In case you wonder, we’re still friends.

That conversation, however, kept bugging me.

Is reading really better than watching? Without searching too far, I could find examples to torpedo my own arguments.

Item 1. - I resisted watching Game of Thrones until the penultimate season because I enjoyed George R.R. Martin’s books so much I didn’t want to be disappointed by the show. In my head, I’d done my casting, built my own sets and scouted locations without budget constraints, and I was happy with the result. Thank you, HBO, I thought, I’m good! Then I watched an episode with my niece and I was impressed. Their Wall was bigger and better than mine … damn.

I binge-watched the entire thing. Twice.

There’s something to be said about spectacular visuals that serve a strong narrative. Even if I still like my Jon Snow better.

Item 2. - Books make you think. TV serves the dish pre-digested. Okay. But not all books are mentally challenging and not all shows are weak soupy slops. Assembling the Pulp Fiction patchwork was at ton of fun. Wrapping my head around Better Call Saul was intellectually satisfying. I can think of a few books that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. The lesson: be honest, compare apples with apples, good with good.

Item 3. - Dogmatic pronouncements are irritating. “Reading comic books isn’t reading.” “Kids who read comics won’t read real books.” “Pulp isn’t literature.” Do statements like that make you cringe? Ergo, I’m not going to scream that “TV makes you stupid.” Even if some TV … and some celeb pseudo memoirs … You get my drift.

A lot of people have studied the reading vs. watching wrestling match.

The conclusions are mixed.

Learning seems to stick in the brain better when reading is involved, but as YouTube proves (at least in my house) a 2-minute video does the job too. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has shown that different areas of the brain are activated when reading or watching. So, no, you are not brain dead when you watch the Super Bowl, unless it’s a really lame game and the beer cooler is down to the dregs. Imagination, however, is more stimulated when you read fiction than when the story is displayed to you on TV. But, just to confuse matters even more, people on average remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, and 30% of what they see. Also, they remember 70% of what they write & say, and a whopping 90% of what they do! Actions speak louder than words indeed. This comes to you courtesy of Edgar Dale who developed “The Cone of Experience” in 1946. Focus is also stronger when reading. Getting lost in a book beats multitasking (snacking, chatting, playing with the cat) while watching TV.

Does this prove anything? Did my friend win the argument or did I?

No, of course. We’ll still be drawn to our favorite entertainment and defend it with tooth and nail. Hopefully we’ll keep varying the pleasures. She’ll tell me about the fantastic show she watched and I’ll tell her about great books I read. And we won’t run out of stuff to talk about. It’s a tie and a truce.

Short stories

Reckon Review published one of my favorite stories - Spy Head. A retired cop and the boy he saved meet once a year, on the anniversary date of the rescue. They talk around the events and search for meaning. The story is free to read online. Give it a click. That little red pavilion in the dunes inspired the story. It sits higher up than it seems in the picture. A quick reminder: all my stories are linked on the website www.shawmystery.com.

What I’m reading…

Douglas Lumsden’s A Troll Walks into a Bar. The first in the Alexander Southerland PI series. Hardboiled fantasy. Is that a genre? It doesn’t matter. It’s a fun read. As if Philip Marlowe had a couple of drinks with the Brothers Grimm.

Monsters: We’re all a little different. A collection of three horror novellas that riff gleefully on the genre. Creature from the lake, creature in the woods, creature caught in a repeating time loop. I don’t read horror often. I couldn’t put this one down.

In non-fiction, I’m deep into Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile that looks at the Churchill family in 1940-1941. It’s a boon to writers that everybody kept a diary in those days. Will anybody get that much insight from our social media rants?

Bits & Pieces

• A Bob Dylan quote on creativity (published in the Wall Street Journal):

“To be creative you’ve got to be unsociable and tight-assed. Not necessarily violent and ugly, just unfriendly and distracted. You’re self-sufficient and you stay focused.”

If the man says it …

• Isn’t Brendan Gleeson wonderful?

No, I haven’t watched The Banshees of Inisherin yet. I watched Calvary (McDonagh, 2014) the other night. It’s labeled a dark comedy. I find that more than slightly misleading. Talking about films that make you think… and Aidan Gillen is in it. He’s as slippery and alarming as his “Littlefinger” character in GoT. There, I’ve tied the pieces of this newsletter together… neat.

To conclude: A Mandarin Tart recipe

Because we need a splash of color in the gray of winter.

I have to do this one again. It’s a bit time consuming but so satisfying. I found the recipe here: Humble Crumble. A picture of the result. It isn’t seasonal, just too good to resist.