As I'm reading through The Art of X-Ray Reading, by Roy Peter Clark, I find myself thinking of the scene in Annie Hall when Annie and Alvy have just met that day and she invites him up to her apartment for a refreshment and conversation.
In the X-Ray Reading book, the author counts words, commas sometimes, syllables--analyzes all kinds of stuff that I would not have thought of -- and I replay the Woody Allen scene in my mind where he asks her,
So, did you shoot the photographs in there, or what?
Annie
Yeah, yeah, I sorta dabble around, you know...
Alvy
They're - they're - they're wonderful, you know. They have ... they have, uh - a - a quality.
Annie
Well, I-I-I would-I would like to take a serious photography course soon.
Alvy
Photography's interesting, 'cause, you know, it's-it's a new art form, and a, uh, a set of aesthetic criteria have not emerged yet.
Annie
Aesthetic criteria? You mean, whether it's, uh, good photo or not?
Alvy
The-the medium enters in as a condition of the art form itself. That's-
Annie
Well, well, I ... to me-I ... I mean, it's-it's-it's all instinctive, you know. I mean, I just try to uh, feel it, you know? I try to get a sense of it and not think about it so much.
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When I'm writing, I'm not very much like Roy Peter Clark, I'm more like Annie Hall.
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