I've found myself making a slower return to a similar activity - checking for upcoming author readings. This is for the simple explanation that these events, unlike concerts, have not quite found their way to a new normal. My two best sources, the Harvard Book Store and the Brookline Booksmith, both seem content to remain in a 2020 frame of mind - the former's calendar lists virtual events out to August 10 while the footer on the latter's equivalent opens with an ominous "events will take place virtually until further notice". I've found these results so discouraging that I haven't even considered resuming another pillar of this routine, which is a simple Google search that starts with "greater Boston author readings" and ends with the date of the upcoming Sunday. This is not a disguised reboot of a recent post where I described (some would say ridiculed) a local community's slower than average (some would say slower than everyone) acceptance of the New Normal. Who would I be to imply that these local literary institutions don't have the freedom to make decisions as they see fit? It would be particularly rude to make this complaint on July 4, of all days. But I, too, have a certain freedom, which I've expressed for over a year by ignoring these virtual event offerings. My hunch is that many share this sentiment.
I initially thought my problem was rooted in the calculus of how I measured a given event's appeal to me, which I feel is a fairly straightforward calculation - when a local business hosts a virtual event, it competes against anything else that I can access virtually at a given moment, and the fact is that author readings tend to perform poorly in these comparisons. The virtual event poses an odd question - would you like to watch this author read from a book, or would you rather use the same screen to watch anything else ever produced in the history of human entertainment? The past year has demonstrated that if I am going to be at home then I would prefer anything, even TV, to a virtual author reading. (Quite frankly, my top preference in this case would be to just read the book.) I suppose it's possible that a virtual reading will someday come along which changes the equation, but I suspect my response would be similar to the way I've been watching the NBA Playoffs or Euro 2020 - a few hours later via DVR, when I can skip the tedium of commercials, substitutions, and video reviews. Or, it would be like how I listen to podcasts, which are the closest approximation of a virtual author reading - I download or track the newest episodes, then I listen to them when it's convenient for me.
As I noted above, considering the relative appeal of a virtual author reading in comparison to other media options was my initial thought, and there is certainly some truth to the mathematical approach. However, I've recognized more recently that this argument ignores a fact about my pre-pandemic life, which is that I'd never bothered with an author reading unless it was in-person. It's not so much that a virtual event had a lesser appeal relative to a rerun of Arrested Development - it was that a recorded version of an event intended for a live audience never held any appeal to me. This is reminiscent of going to the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2019 - despite never having watched a single minute of the recorded footage from past conferences, I had a great time at the event when I attended in-person (1). You wouldn't be faulted for thinking this was somewhat inconsistent (or that I would watch recordings of future iterations, which I haven't) but to me it seems perfectly natural because the virtual option is not a substitute for in-person, but rather an entirely different event. I think what happened in this past year is that in my mind I automatically assumed the virtual author reading would be like a recorded version of an in-person reading, and I therefore ruled it out as a feasible option.
It's possible that I was too careless with my assumption, but I have some anecdotal evidence that I was on the right track. If I recall correctly, one of longtime TOA favorites Tim Harford or Chuck Klosterman commented that he found logging on for virtual book events to be a major improvement over the grinding schedule of an in-person tour. It doesn't surprise me when I think about it that this would be the case because I suspect the experience of someone featured for an event wouldn't differ much whether the event was in-person or virtual - there would be some banter with the host, a bit of reading from the book, and a few questions from audience members. It would, to a certain extent, be entirely predictable, but this might be easier to handle if the author could log off at home rather than have to go to some strange hotel. On the other hand, as I learned at the Sloan Conference the experience for someone in the audience instead of at home is actually quite different based on the fact of it being live, mostly because there is an element of spontaneity in terms of interacting with both the presentations as well as fellow attendees. From my experience, this element of spontaneity is a decisive feature and the potential of it determines whether I ultimately consider attending. I'm not sure it's as simple as the difference of predictability and spontaneity, particularly as there is no rule saying an in-person event must have spontaneity (or vice-versa). I can't quite put my finger on the exact factor - and I'm tempted to wave it away with something more general, like "the human element" - but it's clear to me that whatever it is, broadly speaking the in-person event has it while the virtual version lacks it.
I am hoping that these author readings return soon - like many, I have enjoyed the freedom of choice that has accompanied the widespread pivot to virtual options for many events, but I suspect like is also the case for many I am finding that these options have not replicated a critical ingredient that brings life to the in-person event. It's like going to the grocery store and finding nothing appetizing among the endless choices - I start to wonder if we have exchanged something intangible about quality in return for adding to the perpetually accumulating list of options. Of course, I don't want to create the impression that I'd like others to rush back to in-person events purely for the sake of my entertainment. I will make do, I suppose, reading books and watching TV until everyone is ready. I think for me the time will be right when the only reason for hosting events virtually is the justification that virtual is a substitute for the in-person edition. I obviously disagree with such a line of thinking. There may not be anything easily explainable about why being in the live audience is better than being at home, but I think others have made it clear enough that we would be better off accepting this as a universal truth, applicable to events of all forms. There is a reason that I check those websites, once or twice each month, for concert tickets - I could stream replays of past shows, often carefully selected for the flawless quality of the "live" performance, but I'd much rather hear a few mistakes while part of the crowd, enjoying the freedom of the future's spontaneity.
Footnotes / endnotes
1) The substitute effect
It may also have some similarities to the way I once thought about ride-shares: when I regarded them strictly as a substitute to cabs, I never saw the appeal because I never used cabs. Why would I use cabs due to the mere fact of a new user interface? Once I considered it as a separate product, I understood that the product exposed an inactive user base who had simply found cabs too tedious or expensive for regular use. Too often, we group ideas, processes, or products together as substitutes when it would be more appropriate to think about these as opportunities to grow (or shrink) the accessibility to or affordability of a subsequent effect.
