Chastened by having learned (not
from the headline, but from the actual body of the article, run on an inside
page of this morning’s New York Times Week in Review [as we
longtime-readers still denominate that once-venerable section]) that (but you
have likely already ceased reading -- the first parenthesis being a visual cue
to click off to somewhere else) that
(as I was saying, before I so rudely interrupted myself) -- that (in short) our
young countrymen (and countrywomen in particular) these days no longer read to
the end of any article longer than a line or two --
Ah, but already I have overtaxed
your Web-nurtured attention-span;
allow me to refresh it with this wordless image of a companionable
hamster:
(There, perhaps we may resume) --
being cognizant, then, as some of
you may recall from the last episode --
though many of you will simply have joined us in medias res, having skipped the boring intro and zoomed right to
the hamster OMG how cute --
here for the benefit, accordingly,
of both cohorts, we here recap in the manner of “24”:
PREVIOUSLY
on the World of Dr Justice
Ancient,
ailing Dr J, propped up on pillows,
with
a fresh-brewed pot of French-roast
on
the night-table near at hand,
peruses
the front-page of the morning’s Review
and,
without having the patience to finish reading it,
proud
that he even made it midway,
immediately
writes up a blogpost
boasting
of his achievement
and
berating his juniors
for
their deficient Fleiss & Sitzfleisch
…
-- uh-oh, time for another
Attention Refresh, okay here’s Chloe, OMG isn’t she hot -- --
Being, then, of sound mind and in
full possession of my faculties, I take this pen in hand (no wait, where was I; lost the train of thought) --
[bunny-break while we regather our
wits]
To resume:
… this mini-essay by Karl Greenfeld [the author’s name as printed is actually longer, but we have no time for such long names] -- a tiny splotch of text on the front page -- we’re talking Print Edition here [collective groan from the Millennials] -- whose title would be too time-consuming to reproduce, but whose SMS acronym would be FCL -- surmounted by a vast rectangle of meaningless graphics, itself a metaphor for audience inclinations in these sadly fallen times --
GOOGLE ALERT
Warning to Blogger
Your
pageviewership has plummeted by 97%
since
this essay began;
Recommend
emergency measures
(extracting our silver hammer and
smacking the cabinet beneath the
In
Case of Dire
Emergency,
Break Glass
sign, I deploy this as a last resort:)
 |
|
Lose
Weight Overnight !
Shed
calories with self-abuse!
|
-- in fine, said essay reveals the latest slogan of the present
meta-analphabetic generation:
TL; DR
which, anglicè, is as much as to say
“Too
Long; Didn’t Read”
O tempora, O --
[character-limit exceeded;
terminating comms]
~
For those of you who
actually read an entire book anymore,
try this one!
(Don’t worry, this
one is broken up into short stories,
and bite-size
philosophical entremets)
~
[Appendix] For you cultural-literati who wish to
dazzle your next cocktail party with witty observations about the fab-ulous Riemann Hypothesis,
here is Dr J’s handy guide to All U Need 2 Know
about the R.H. :
Q: WTF is this so-called Riemann Hypothesis?
A: Some kind of big-deal math thing.
Q: Zzzzzzzz…
A: Nono, you don’t get it: Whoever sorts out the Riemann
Hypothesis, controls cryptography, and thus the world.
A (long pause): …
Sorry. U R not cleared 4
that.
Q: Hmpf. So okay, so who came up with this
Hypothesis?
A: Some guy named Riemann.
Q: Anyone I might know?
A: Unlikely. Dead white male.
Q
(dubiously): Dead straight white male?
A: Come to think of it, nobody knows. People had different priorities in
those days. Like, um, math …
Q: OK, we’re outa time here. Gimme my pick-up line.
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