Short Attention Span Theater

galeries
Feeling a bit short on time? Not ready to read anything longer than a tweet? Is tl;dr your favorite acronym? This post may be for you.

I know, I know, this is WordPress, not Twitter or Instagram or even Facebook. It’s a blogging site – most folks are OK with the notion of reading more than two sentences at a go.  But still, if I told you that you could spend your limited time looking at pretty pictures rather than slogging through yet another blog post, would it catch your attention?

The observant will have already found the secret of short attention span theater on this blog – it’s been there for nearly a year.

Haven’t figured it out yet? Getting dangerously close to your tl;dr limit?  (That’s “too long; didn’t read” for folks who don’t speak acronym.) Scroll up to the top of this page and look for the menu items.

Here there be Galleries! I’ve recently updated these little art rooms, adding more pages for the photography I’ve included in the blog over the last 7-8 months, and expanding the menu system so you can jaunt across the world much more quickly than I did.

We wouldn’t want to take too much time traveling, right?

The menu starts off big picture: North America, Central/South America, Europe, and the South Pacific Region. At the next level Oregon has a submenu, but all the other options lead directly to a gallery page.

A gallery page can have multiple gallery thumbnail sets, each set preceded by links to the blog posts that contained them.  If you see a picture and want to know the backstory, all you need do is scroll back to the links and off you go.  Those links will open a new browser tab so you will not lose your place in a gallery.

Clicking on a picture starts a slide show for that gallery, and a link in the lower right of a picture display will lead to a page with a full sized image.

So, if you’re tired of reading or just want the instant gratification that can come with pictures, this is a quick and easy way to do it.

But I warn you, you could get sucked in; there’s a lot of pictures in this exhibition, and backstories for the lot.

So much for short attention spans. 😉

 

Author: Dave Ply

See https://daveplyadventures.wordpress.com/about/

26 thoughts on “Short Attention Span Theater”

  2. Actually, I’m a longread kinda person. I didn’t even know what tl;dr meant until you so kindly explained it. I’ll mosey on over to your galleries now.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. Now I’m thinking what plays would be put on in the ‘Short Attention Span Theatre’. And would there be any need for seats? Well, perhaps for those who decided to read a book instead…oh, no…wait, make that glance at a tweet on their iPhones…there could be a whole (long) post in this one…
    But, I’ll meander through the galleries anyway, Dave.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Here we have (or lately had – I’m a bit out of touch) an event called Short & Sweet. That’s plays of up to 10 minutes duration. It’s possible to say a surprising amount in 10 minutes.

      If your script is picked for the festival (woohoo) you get to see it onstage! A fun event, because even if you don’t like one (or more) of the plays, it doesn’t last that long.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      2. Yes. Beginners’ luck. A friend and I heard of a Short & Sweet Competition to be held in Australia, had a few wines, knocked out 10 minutes worth of dialogue about an armed hold up in a butcher’s shop, and sent it off. Our play wasn’t picked for performance (we got the “Nice, but…” type response). A while later we were notified that the same thing was to happen in NZ and did we want to re-submit our play? We said, “Yeah, but we’ll have another fiddle with the script.” Which we did, and it was selected. When it was performed, my friend and I were bemused that 3 of the 4 actors (2 men, 2 women) used English accents. Later, we asked them why. They said, “Well, we’ve all got this speech defect. We’re Poms.” :- )

        Liked by 2 people

      4. Before Jon Stewart became famous for “The Daily Show”, in the early 90’s he hosted one called “Short Attention Span Theater” on the Comedy Channel. I never actually watched it, but it featured short clips from comedy routines and movies on HBO and Cinemax. (HBO owned the Comedy Channel). Although I had to look up the show for this comment, I did remember the title – it seemed appropriate for this day and age.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Personally, I like words and pictures, so I’m glad that the photos are backed up with posts. But that’s a very nice way to organize your blog posts, especially since so many people don’t like long reads these days (which I admit makes me incredibly sad, but that’s a whole other story I’ll probably blog about some day!) My only requirement for longer posts is that they be well-written, which yours always are.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Ah, the secret is out – it was just an indexing ploy to get people to read my old posts!

      I admit that if a post runs over 1500 words or over 15 pictures I start losing interest. (I guess that means a picture is only worth 100 words these days.) If I’m in the mood for something longer I have a stack of books…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. You’re in luck Dave because this is at least one reader who was born before the 1980s and so I have an actual attention span. However, that’s a nice feature. Thanks for pointing it out.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. It has occurred to me that the outbreak of ADHD is due more to the wide variety of distractions available these days than some particular mental illness. Folks haven’t had to learn to focus on one thing when they’re in their formative years (only having one thing available to focus on), so they don’t really know how to focus at all. Sure, there may be a predisposition to flitting about like a hummingbird much as there seems to be a predisposition to addictive behavior, but how much is nature and how much is nurture?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  6. I’m still a big fan of the word. I’ve even been known to enjoy heaping PILES of them.

    But I sure love a good photo (or painting) too. THAT’s what I really enjoy about the blogosphere. I’m learning that it’s possible to combine the best of both media (and video if you’re feeling frisky).

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Yes, if you can find folks who do it well it makes for both enlightening and entertaining fare. I’ve been studying video lately, both shooting and post processing. If I take that up too I guess I can be called frisky, as well as a jack of all trades and master of none.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. It’s both a vast world and a small one. Vast because some places seem unreachable, especially in the day to day context. Small, because despite the vastness we can still share far away places.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. This is a very nice idea, you have some lovely photos to display too. Just had a quick look at the galleries and it pans out very well. I actually like reading long posts, note to self must learn to cut mine down now!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Reblogged this on Plying Through Life and commented:

    Once upon a time, I created a set of gallery pages that provide a quick way to check out the photography from past posts without having to access them individually. I’ve just updated the galleries, and rather than explain the lot I’m reblogging the post that introduced the galleries in January of last year- Short Attention Span Theater.

    PS: I’m about to do some traveling, so if you don’t see any blog posts or me responding to your posts for a few weeks, not to worry.

    Like

    Reply

  10. Well heck, now I’ve spent all this time reading through the comments, and gotta go, will have to check out the galleries tonight! But the commentary can be interesting, too! Perhaps you should limit or edit them down to acronyms IDK?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Commentary adds spice, flavor, character. Occasionally a picture comes along that speaks for itself, much like a well cooked steak not needing a fancy rub. But for the more mundane, the extra flavor can turn an ok series of shots into something much nicer.

      But then some people like bland…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment