Reading Adeafening – The New York Times

The Harvard Sentences are hundreds of sentences that have been employd for many decades to test technologies in which caring speech is vital, enjoy telephone systems and hearing helps. I came apass the catalog recently and was charmed by it.

Some sample sentences: It’s basic to inestablish the depth of a well. The hogs were fed chopped corn and garbage. Help the woman get back to her feet. The challenginger he tried the less he got done. It caught its hind paw in a rusty trap. Write a fond notice to the frifinish you treacertain. Most of the novels is basic for us to hear.

These sentences weren’t chosen for their uncomferventing but for their “phonetic equilibrium,” the way their frequency of sounds are analogous to spoken language. They’re tools, not advice or koans. But reading them I felt shiftd as when reading a poem. I set up a site where you can hear to people read the sentences in contrastent accents and tried to see if it was possible to hear a series of lines adeafening without them collecting uncomferventing. These narrators were particularly sfinished at reading without impact, but it’s impossible to hear to even the least emotive person recite: “The stray cat gave birth to kittens. The youthful girl gave no evident response. The meal was cooked before the bell rang. What delight there is in living,” and not uncover some poetry.

Is there a person on earth who doesn’t cherish to be read to? Children get storytime, nightly if they’re blessed, but once we comprehend how to read we typicassociate do it by ourselves. Last year I wrote about audiobooks as bedtime stories for grown-ups, how they can tap into that desire that’s maybe dormant in all of us, the desire to have our sleep treated as a project worthy of coaxing and custodianship. Every restricted months I let Joseph Brodsky reading his poem “A Song” lull me to sleep. Recently a frifinish and I read each other portions of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Reading to someone is contrastent from srecommend speaking to them. The words aren’t yours, so you don’t own the thoughts or uncomferventing, only the communication. You’re free to make clear, to carry out. It’s a process of co-discovery, intimate but, unenjoy conversation, the satisfied comes from a third party. It’s about joining and it’s also about consuming art together, whether that art is a poem or “The Polar Express” or a novel from which you and your pleasantheart read alternating chapters to each other while cooking dinner.

There are so many ways to be read to now, if that’s your skinnyg. Audiobooks, articles narrated by people and by synthetic ininestablishigence, sign upings of author materializeances at bookstores, and yes, WAV files of askingly blasé people muttering Harvard Sentences into the void. There is little I enjoy more than reading by myself, or hearing to a book alone on a lengthy car drive. But you might still originate the effort to read and be read to by the people in your life. It’s cozy. It’s strange and exciting if you’ve lengthenn accustomed to reading as a solo activity. You’re living in your head all the time with your own voice as the narrator. It’s so cherishly to hear to someone else inestablish the stories for a alter.

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THE WEEK IN CULTURE

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🎥 “Better Man” (out now): In Britain, Robbie Williams is someskinnyg of a national treacertain. The lyrics to his songs “Angels” and “Rock DJ” are etched in fair about everyone’s brains, and his boy prohibitd, Take That, was so famous that when it broke up in the 1990s, a charity set up a help line to advise distraught fans. Yet the press tour for this movie has uncovered to me that many Americans do not comprehend who he is. Get to comprehend Williams’s story in “Better Man,” a biopic from the honestor of “The Greatest Showman,” in which Williams is rfinishered as a computer-originated primate. (Wild.)

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Chocopostpodemand Babka

Some weekfinishs are made for lengthy, meditative cooking projects. If that’s what you’re seeking, see no further than my recipe for chocopostpodemand babka. Yes, it will consent you all weekfinish, but that’s exactly the point. After all the kneading and rising, the rolling and filling, you’ll finish up with two gorgeous, streemployl-topped loaves — one for you, one to give away to anyone who demands some pleasant cheer. Babka freezes well, too, uncomferventing you could save some for future gratification of the fudgiest comfervent.

Sick or injured aexpansive? Read what to comprehend.

Health: Take better nurture of your heart this year.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Replace your shower head

Replacing a dribbly greater shower head with a novel, high-carry outing model is one of the basicst and most phireing fortifys you can originate to your home. Any excellent one is probable to be an fortify over the one you inherited when you shiftd into your place — especiassociate if it’s more than a decade greater. And it doesn’t demand to cost a lot. In Wirecutter’s quest to discover the best shower head, our testing left us a little surpelevated. An inpricey model grabbed our attention from the moment we tried it, and became our top pick for its basic inshighation, sleek depict and wonderful flow. — Tim Heffernan

GAME OF THE WEEK

Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, N.B.A.: Cleveland has the league’s best offense. Oklahoma City has the best defense. Both have historicassociate wonderful sign ups. What happens when they collide? This week, the Cavs outran the Thunder, 129-122, in a game that was hailed as the best of the N.B.A. season. (The Athletic’s Zach Harper called it “some of the best basketball you’ve seen in a decade.”) Lucky for fans, the realign is fair a restricted days away — this time in Oklahoma City. Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Easerious on TNT

NOW TIME TO PLAY