What is your preferred platform for taking in information?

[girldetective]

Tonight I went to see a contemporary bent of Streetcar Named Desire. Sometimes I understand Streetcar from a historical or social perspective, and always I see the the relationship of the characters individually and as a whole. In the play tonight I saw Williams' characters a little differently. In the script I usually see the fault lies with all three main characters. In the film I understand much of the fault lying with Blanche herself, her own mental illness so to speak. But in the play tonight it was Stanley who stood out as the main ogre and instigator of everyone's pain.

I was talking to someone about this who told me he never reads plays because he doesnt like the stark play format; he prefers narrative. Whereas reading and turning the pages of a play is something I relish; but I also like narrative and description. I got to thinking about people who prefer to read fiction vs non, newspapers vs TV, comics, manga, and so on.

I suppose we all read some of all of it and in every venue, but what are your usual, tried and true platforms for taking in information? And do you prefer to read on a screen or with paper pages?

[Charlatan]

I enjoy many different forms. They each have their different flavour (so to speak).

I love theatre, film, television (which is different from film), literature (i.e. books), comics...

What I don't like is poetry. Sure I can appreciate some of it but largely I just don't like it. Perhaps I am just a slave to narrative story telling or perhaps I am just a bit lazy with my interpretive skills.

[lotsofmagnets]

i try to be diverse and use the ´net, tv news (especially al jazeera) and printed meida for news type information. when on the net i look closely at articles (especially wikipedia) and check references on a frequent basis (it´s one thing to actually give references, it´s another if they are actually valid references.) other forms of media include music but i´m not very inclined to watch movies and plays and i´m extremely picky when it comes to poetry. i´ve read mostly non-fiction books but have read and re-read the hitchhiker´s guide several times (they just showed the movie on tv in iceland last night ) and i got a fair way through the dune series before i re-read the 1st hitchhiker´s book and it ruined the dune series for me somewhat.

[ratbastid]

This is a really funny question. The whole question seems to arise from the notion that a play is "information".

I disagree with that. A play isn't information, it's art. There's no "who's more to blame" in Streetcar. If you're looking for the Right Answer, you're going to be frustrated. Williams quite deliberately left Streetcar ambiguous. It's one of the qualities that has had it endure as a work of art. You'll find that no two productions are identical, ever. Different directors will be emphasizing and de-emphasizing different things. Different actors will be making different choices with their characters. The message, in every single production, will be different.

When you read a play, it's like looking at the frame of a building that's being built. The structure is in place, but you have to fill in the blanks in your mind. It's not until a director and a company of actors applies their talent and craft to it that it becomes something with a message, meaning. Often when you read a play, you perform these interpretive functions in your own mind, but if not, you're reading something that's basically lifeless.

That's versus a novel or short story or, in some cases, a poem, which are meant to be read off the page. A prose writer just has a lot more WORDS to create the scene with, and the form is intended to be lifted off the page straight into the mind. One could argue that the same interpretive process is happening when reading prose fiction, but I'd say there's a lot more "author's intent" available when reading a completed work rather than instructions for mounting a production of something.

Some poetry, by the way, is meant to be heard (Langston Hughes comes to mind), and some is meant to be read off the page. Imagine a reading of e e cummings. "A leaf falls!".... massive applause.

[girldetective]

Ratbastid is correct. It is a funny question (really I think a sloppy question) and a play is not information per se, such as a tech manual. It most definitely is art and that is how I see it too. When writing the question I was thinking of collections of words that impart communication and that we learn from. And art is certainly communication and I do learn from art. I was also thinking of learning specifically via words vs visual. Another thing I was considering at the same time was the printed page and how the future of the printed book is an industry buzz. I could/should have included recordings too.

Of course I am not looking for a "right answer". There is not one, and of course that is not really all there is to WIlliams' play if you take in the time period and social overtones. And of course that it is an enduring classic that directors and actors can do their things with. I have thought that was obvious and a given. That is a beauty of the form.

One of the things that I appreciate about a play's structure is the author's use of communication through conversation or sound, with little description. It can allow the one doing the reading to direct and act the parts simultaneously and to perfect or alter it in re-readings. Although some playwrights have taken meticulous care to be descriptive of their stage and surroundings, most do leave much of that to the reader which is a collaborative function that i appreciate. I like the freedom to imagine characters based on what I learn of them while reading and sometimes I think of them in different settings or time periods upon re-reading.

Poetry. Yeah. Floyd Skloot is going to be reading some of his stuff tomorrow night. And check out Kerouac on YouTube reading with on the Steve Allen Show (i posted that somewhere on tfp). Not only is it different to hear poetry read aloud as compared to reading it, but when you hear the author reading his own work it lends a realness.

[ratbastid]

Originally Posted by namako

Not only is it different to hear poetry read aloud as compared to reading it, but when you hear the author reading his own work it lends a realness.

It can.... But not all authors are good readers. I watched a video of William Carlos Williams completely butchering sections of Patterson one time. It's like he'd never seen it before. Disastrous.

Incidentally, when our local repertory theater did Streetcar a couple years ago, they sponsored a "Stella-yelling contest", where people could come down onto the stage and yell "Stelllaaaaaa!" as loud as they could, and win a prize.

[girldetective]

I love that.

Edit: So, do you prefer to read on screen or paper?

[snowy]

Wherever, however there are words--I want to read them. It doesn't matter if they're printed in a newspaper, magazine, novel, poem, Internet site, whatever. I read voraciously. I also watch some television and listen to public radio, but generally I prefer to read in order to obtain information.

[dlish]

im a news junkie.

im in the same line as snowy. ill read anything i can get my hands on. i generally dont like bias or one sided views. i tend to sway towards those that give both sides of the story, without deciding what i should be agreeing with or not.

but thats why i read so many different views, because everyone is different.

i generally prefer to read though because radio and tv will always be skewed one way or other...and at least its more credible if you have some refrences too.

[girldetective]

Tpop recently told me that it had been years since he'd read the Oregonian. That surprised me. I should have asked where he gets his news.

[guyy]

I don't like fiction unless it's trying to push the limits of the form. I can read Ulysses, but i often have trouble suspending belief when it comes to more orthodox stuff. It helps to read in a foreign language that i'm not so great at. That way the struggle with words occupies my mind, and i don't end up asking myself why a narrator is narrating at me. WG Sebald was good.

I generally don't enjoy poetry, but i do like theatre. I grew up going to the movies every Sat., but i'm finding movies less and less compelling. (Why do multi-millionaires bother making stuff like Indy Jones XLII?) There are still some things worth seeing, but usually the movies i enjoy are the old ones.

I go for rumours, word of mouth, philosophy, critiques of political economy, sociology (Bourdieu is my beach reading), magazines & journals. I used to read newspapers, but i generally don't bother anymore. It seems like the decent ones have all folded. I do read a few non-US papers on-line.

We listen to a lot of community radio, too.

[Bear Cub]

Highly detailed technical documents and blueprints.


When you work as an engineer, you like things to be as clear cut as possible.

[snowy]

Originally Posted by namako

Tpop recently told me that it had been years since he'd read the Oregonian. That surprised me. I should have asked where he gets his news.

That's a shame--in my travels across the United States I've read a lot of other newspapers, and the Oregonian is one of the best. It's on my daily to-read list, along with the NYTimes and my local paper.

He could get his news from one of the other two major choices in Portland--the Tribune or Willamette Week--and there are other weeklies as well, like the Portland Mercury. Personally, I read Eugene Weekly because it deals more with issues in the Valley.

[Jinn]

did your name change between the time you posted this and now? I swear im seeing things..

[girldetective]

At home I like the Oregonian too, as well as the WW. My friend J swears bythe Mercury. When I travel I make a point of picking up a newspaper from whatever city Im in, even I dont have time to read it until later. I glean a lot of info about an area that way. Another way I get topical info (as well as cool souveniers) is in grocery stores. I like talking to locals and browsing.

[Willravel]

I can't give you a complete answer until I've seen Herman Melville's Moby Dick on powerpoint.

[thingstodo]

Newspapers. I read several a day. I can control the pace, don't need a power supply, can save sections at will, skip past the sections I don't want to read, fold them into smaller sizes, take them to the can and not worry if I drop them in water or anywhere.

[Martian]

Originally Posted by Willravel

I can't give you a complete answer until I've seen Herman Melville's Moby Dick on powerpoint.

I'm tempted to do this now.