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From the abstract of the article “Oscillations of heart rate and respiration synchronize during poetry recitation” in American Journal of Physiology—Heart and Circulatory Physiology:

The objective of this study was to investigate the synchronization between low-frequency breathing patterns and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) of heart rate during guided recitation of poetry, i.e., recitation of hexameter verse from ancient Greek literature performed in a therapeutic setting. Twenty healthy volunteers performed three different types of exercises with respect to a cross-sectional comparison: 1) recitation of hexameter verse, 2) controlled breathing, and 3) spontaneous breathing…. In conclusion, recitation of hexameter verse exerts a strong influence on RSA by a prominent low-frequency component in the breathing pattern, generating a strong cardiorespiratory synchronization.

Is it safe to assume the Pfizer is attempting to patent all of Homer?

+ ABCnews article about the study

Abebooks.com has released the results of a Student Survey of 2,000 students aged 16 to 30 in which females said they’d be more likely to buy books recommended by John Kerry, while their male counterparts said they’d go for Bush’s recommendations. (Does that mean the guys just don’t want to read or they only want to read about baseball?)

Among the other illuminating (read: terrifying, perplexing, obvious) findings:

– 60% of students surveyed believe their life would make a better novel
than reality TV show;

– The most popular choice in literary roommate for male and female
respondents was Bridget Jones, followed by Frodo Baggins, and
Virginia Woolf;

– 80% of students who spend over $1,000 a year on books have sex more
often than students spending less;

– When asked what they would most like to have tomorrow, 11% of
students chose new shoes while a whopping 50% chose a “new lease on
life”;

This is all troubling on so many levels. The trucking in cliches, the possible future explosion of the “better-than-a-reality-show” novel. I want to know if both sexes really chose the same roomies, as it seems unlikely. (The Frodo joke is too easy.) And newsflash: kids with more money get laid more because they can afford more drinks!

I’ve got a reality show for you: Virginia Woolf and Bridget Jones share a room in the literary afterlife. Where apparently writers and characters would be equally real. Sucks for the writers.

Okay, going to watch Amish teens go bad now. Not proud.

In choosing to tell a police procedural from an attitudinal sock monkey‘s POV, Penn Jillette makes novel’s promise disappear:

On some level, the story has potential. Sock isn’t a standard police procedural, because the Little Fool isn’t a cop; he’s an obsessive, unhealthy outsider, redefining his relationship with a dead woman in order to give his life meaning, and in the process, reconstructing his perspective on the world in potentially revelatory ways. But the sock-monkey-protagonist gimmick twists his perspective from intriguingly off-kilter to disturbingly off-kilter, and throws almost as much obfuscation into the mix as the punchy writing style and the song lyrics and movie quotes that pop up in nearly every paragraph. Rather than giving Sock a place in the pop-culture lexicon, the nonstop referents and endless rabbit trails feel like meaningless noise, a magician’s distraction from the real sleight-of-hand going on under the table.

Rake sez: Still easily the best sock-monkey-protagonist novel of the last few years…except for this one.

Frank Bascombe is back.