Split sides and will power

From Russ Tamblyn to Cyd Charisse in a 5-minute read. 1 if you skip to the end.

I have some favourite dance scenes in quite a few films and just met a ballet teacher and want to talk dance with him. But, before I do that, I will be the lord of the dance with you. One of my favourite scenes is the rooftop gang in West Side Story or, Russ Tamblyn again, him as the youngest of the kidnapping paramours in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I think he was absolute tops, no one better, but he hasn’t always had that happy a life, and I’m sorry about that. I must read his Dancing On The Edge when he finishes it – I think we all have done that at some point. Did you realise he made 65 films? Amazing.

There’s a scene in a film – I think it might be An American in Paris [EDIT: it’s Singin’ In The Rain] – in which Gene Kelly, who could also trip the light fantastic a bit, does a number with Cyd Charisse, and I was sitting as a boy watching it with my parents, and I noticed that Miss Charisse had a bright red dress on with split sides and no shoulder straps. I turned to my mum and asked “How does a dress like that stay up?” Dead pan and without further comment, my mum replied, “Will power.” And it was, when you think about it. But you do need to think about it. I noticed a few years ago that people had started having “length of read” estimates put on their links and articles. “5-minute read” or whatever. That gets me thinking as well.

What is a “5-minute read”? I was a fast reader at school, top of the class and had finished the “story progression” of whoever it was, Peter and Jane I think, before anyone else. I learned to read fast, but I can’t remember any of the antics that Peter and Jane got up to. I wasn’t really paying that much attention to the story at 9 years old. It was the reading I was doing.

Now, I tend to read in order to find out the story, and how long that takes is really of no importance. I keep up the reading with will power, or because I can’t stop reading. “5-minute read” – is that click bait (“Don’t worry, we’re not going to waste too much of your time in informing you on this subject”), or to put off Ph.D. students, who’d really rather spend more than 5 minutes researching into something? What about the kids who were below me in my reading class at junior school? Do they take 5 minutes, or 6? Who decides it’s 5 minutes anyway – some “measurement algorithm”?

It’s not about whether the article takes 5 minutes to read or not – how many sit with a stop watch by them as they read? It’s actually about whether you think the article looks interesting and whether it captivates you to want to read more. And, if that’s the case, you don’t really care how long it’ll take to read it.

Besides which, it’s not about the reading; it’s about the thinking, or the laughing or the outrage that the reading provokes. Outrage at an invasion, that already wanes after a week. Laughing at a joke that isn’t funny any more once everyone starts to tell it, filled with the bubbling humour it evoked in you once. Or thinking in depth about an apparent banality that questions something you see as everyday and unworthy of a moment’s reflection.

I wonder if one day, they’ll publish copies of the Bible with a notice on the front “17-year read” or whatever. In fact that’s a lifetime’s read. And some 5-minute articles are as well. Because it’s not about the read, it’s about the thinking that comes afterwards. And that might split your sides but it’s held up with will power.