On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 12:08:50AM -0800, Steven Brust <skzb at dreamcafe.com> wrote: > At 09:57 PM 11/25/2002 -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > > "Listening to music while reading is like putting ketchup on steak." > >What does that *mean*? I'm a vegetarian, so I don't really understand > >how ketchup affects steak. > It means you are covering over the flavor of the steak, which is reasonable > in the case of badly prepared steaks (although even then, you can certainly > do better than ketchup). Ketchup is a very poor match for steak. Proper sauces can contrast and combine with the flavor of the steak. Ketchup is sufficiently strong and different to be jarring, dischordant, and overwhelm the subtle flavorings. > >To the left, I do sometimes listen to music while reading, and I find > >that sometimes what I'm reading is so interesting that I start > >ignoring the music, and sometimes the music is so compelling that I no > >longer give the text my full attention. > Yes. Exactly. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts. It depends on how the music complements the text, and how intrusive the music is. I listen to very text-friendly music -- carefully chosen to occupy a different part of my mental space than reading a book or programming or writing does. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt