Four Top 5 Lists I Would Actually Read (And 5 Clarifying Parenthetical Statements To Compliment Them)
The great philosopher and rapper Dood Computer once opined ‘nowadays the attention span is short.’ As a sufferer of ADHD, I empathize with the impatient masses, I’m always in a hurry. Articles formatted into numbered-lists are a superb way to skim information and get only the meat and potatoes of the content. The problem is, emotionally and intellectually speaking, skimming an article doesn’t fill me up like meat and potatoes, it’s more more akin to boosting a couple French fries from my friend’s plate.
Simply put, I don’t want to fucking read. That must be the explanation for skimming articles, right? Well maybe. I notice when reading list-style articles, I often skip the useless, arbitrary, self-absorbed introduction…
…And simply read the bold text beside each number. I’d blame this on my ADHD, but I don’t think it’s inherent to those of us lacking in dopamine receptors. It’s just kind of a thing for us entitled, hurried, ain’t-nobody-got-time-for-that, worker bees. We want the info fast and now and it had better make us exhale air sharply through our noses, the 2018 replacement for laughter.
Surprisingly, I’ve found when I read a more traditional style article on say, The New York Times or WaPo, I read the whole thing. Maybe I’ll take a break in the middle to work on my masonry, or whatever it is I do when I’m distracted, but I almost always finish it at some point. So I’m going to blame the format for begging a skim, rather than calling the masses lazy, illiterate, sphincters. It’s all-too-tempting to gather up readily available pertinent information and move onto the next thing, rather than giving something a thoughtful read.
Whether I’m right or wrong, this point of view allows me to maintain a feeling of grandeur and so, I’m not going to argue with it.
Here’s a numbered-list of numbered-list articles I’d actually read to completion.
1. The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
Personally, that would be number three for me in an article titled Top Five Quotes from Cormac McCarthy’s Southern Gothic Masterpiece, Blood Meridian (And Seven Things You Didn’t Know About Glanton’s Gang)
2. Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.
In an article titled “Top Five Least Coherent Statements Ever Made By A Human Being (And Five Great Whiskeys To Get You Through Another Election Cycle)” I can’t imagine this actual Donald Trump quote could be topped, but if you think it can, enlighten me!
3. BLAAAAM!!! Up in the club, eastside, hoo ride, true juggalo scrub. They know me up in valet parkin’. They know me don’t be parkin’ there cause they chargin’. Where the fuck these bitches at? I be the Anybody Killa with the gitchy sack. I’ma smoke where I wanna smoke, FUCK DAT! Snake skin Hatchet Gear with the alphabet hat, biatch. I’m ready, bring all these hoes, sick of hood rats at party sto’s.
Am I doing this right? The above quote would probably crack the list of Top Five Most Thought Provoking Lyrics From Juggalo Rappers (And Five More Great Whiskeys To Get You Through The Realization That These Lyrics Are Slightly More Coherent Than Things Donald ‘The Human Dementor’ Trump Says)
4. π
This actually wouldn’t place in my Top Five Darren Aronofsky Films (And Five Reasons Why He’ll Never Top Paul Thomas Anderson). But it definitely is a solid film and would be worth an honorable mention.
