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IT'S TIME TO
SHORTEN THE TIME |
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Since Vladimir Putin seems to be considering blowing up the
world, I thought it would be nice to get to know him a little better.
I went on Amazon and quickly ordered the most
up-to-date biography of the psychopath, aptly named "Putin," by
someone named Philip Short. It was delivered promptly a few weeks ago.
"864 PAGES!!" I cried when I opened the
package and saw the girth of the book. "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THAT
MUCH ABOUT THAT CREEP!"
My wife, as usual, was not sympathetic. "Amazon
tells you how many pages. You just didn't bother looking."
She was right, of course. But it got me thinking about how
everything seems to be stretched out these days. Whether it's biographies,
self-help books, documentaries or Netflix series, it's quite often
overkill.
Since I had bought the book on Putin, I started reading
about the world's most dangerous nut. By the time I got to page 37, I was
glassy-eyed. I wanted the dirt, and Instead was getting details that were
of little interest to me.
Needless to say, I didn't come close to finishing the book. I
put it down and picked up another one, "Caste," by Isabel
Wilkerson, which is a history of racism in the United States, Germany and
India.
I found this one fascinating, and I loved it, for about 150
pages. Unfortunately, it was 496 pages long. What gets into these authors?
As far as I know, they're not paid by the page.
Yet they drag out their thoughts to interminable lengths,
repeating over and over again the same theories or concepts, albeit with a
different angle. As I said, I loved the book and the thoughts. But why so
many pages?
The self-help books are the worst. A friend is reading about
the diet craze of intermittent fasting. Definitely worth reading, but the
author somehow stretched it out to 304 pages. How could you possibly write
about fasting for 304 pages?
It reminded me of my father's ambition to write a
best-selling diet book. He was going to title it "The Surefire Way to
Lose Weight ." It was about 250 pages and each page had only two
words: "Eat Less."
That's more like it. Instead, we get books that go on and on,
regurgitating simple concepts in order to look like a comprehensive study.
Television has gone down the same road. Streaming networks
can't seem to have a one-hour, or even two-hour murder mystery or
thriller. They have to stretch it out to at least eight episodes. That's
EIGHT HOURS of watching before you find out who did it!
I experimented the other day. My wife and I watched the first
episode of a murder mystery on Netflix, and then skipped episodes two
through seven. Then we watched the final episode and discovered the
culprit.
Seemed like we didn't miss a thing. A couple of
characters disappeared along the way, but they were inconsequential. We
nailed the bad guy, and didn't waste six hours with all the fluff.
Maybe I'm just more impatient than most, with an attention
span of a three-year old. But there's lots of shows to watch out there,
and lots of books to read, and I'd rather choose quality over quantity.
Someone could make a fortune condensing books like
"Putin" from 864 pages to about 200. Or "Caste" from
496 pages to about 200. Or "Fasting" from 304 pages to about 14.
Take the best parts and sell the condensed version as an option. I know
I'd buy the shorter version.
It's been done before. When I was a student at Cal in the
'70's, I survived by buying "Fybate Notes." It was a small
publishing company in Berkeley that took textbooks and lectures and
shortened both into a nice little package that enabled lazy students like
myself to pass the class.
All the pertinent information was in the Fybate Notes. You
could skip a class, and just buy the notes. You didn't even have to buy
the textbook. The Fybate Notes would get you through in a fraction of the
time.
Same information, without the fluff. That's what we need
today. People like me want less, not more. Bring back television series
like The Rockford Files, or Gunsmoke, or Mannix. Bad guys were caught in
an hour. Make a law that books can't be more than 200 pages.
Those of us with short attention spans would appreciate it.
Along with lazy students.
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