The Harvard Sentences are hundreds of sentences that have been used for many decades to test technologies in which understanding speech is essential, like telephone systems and hearing aids. I came across the list recently and was charmed by it.
Some sample sentences: It’s easy to tell the depth of a well. The hogs were fed chopped corn and garbage. Help the woman get back to her feet. The harder he tried the less he got done. It caught its hind paw in a rusty trap. Write a fond note to the friend you cherish. Most of the news is easy for us to hear.
These sentences weren’t chosen for their meaning but for their “phonetic balance,” the way their frequency of sounds are similar to spoken language. They’re tools, not advice or koans. But reading them I felt moved as when reading a poem. I found a site where you can listen to people read the sentences in different accents and tried to see if it was possible to hear a series of lines aloud without them gathering meaning. These narrators were particularly skilled at reading without affect, but it’s impossible to listen to even the least emotive person recite: “The stray cat gave birth to kittens. The young girl gave no clear response. The meal was cooked before the bell rang. What joy there is in living,” and not detect some poetry.
Is there a person on earth who doesn’t love to be read to? Children get storytime, nightly if they’re lucky, but once we know how to read we typically do it by ourselves. Last year I wrote about audiobooks as bedtime stories for adults, 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 few months I let Joseph Brodsky reading his poem “A Song” lull me to sleep. Recently a friend and I read each other portions of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Reading to someone is different from simply speaking to them. The words aren’t yours, so you don’t own the thoughts or meaning, only the communication. You’re free to interpret, to perform. It’s a process of co-discovery, intimate but, unlike conversation, the content comes from a third party. It’s about connecting 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 sweetheart read alternating chapters to each other while cooking dinner.
There are so many ways to be read to now, if that’s your thing. Audiobooks, articles narrated by people and by artificial intelligence, recordings of author appearances at bookstores, and yes, WAV files of curiously blasé people muttering Harvard Sentences into the void. There is little I like more than reading by myself, or listening to a book alone on a long car drive. But you might still make 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 grown 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 lovely to listen to someone else tell the stories for a change.
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THE WEEK IN CULTURE
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CULTURE CALENDAR
🎥 “Better Man” (out now): In Britain, Robbie Williams is something of a national treasure. The lyrics to his songs “Angels” and “Rock DJ” are etched in just about everyone’s brains, and his boy band, Take That, was so popular that when it broke up in the 1990s, a charity set up a help line to counsel distraught fans. Yet the press tour for this movie has revealed to me that many Americans do not know who he is. Get to know Williams’s story in “Better Man,” a biopic from the director of “The Greatest Showman,” in which Williams is rendered as a computer-generated primate. (Wild.)
RECIPE OF THE WEEK
Chocolate Babka
Some weekends are made for long, meditative cooking projects. If that’s what you’re seeking, look no further than my recipe for chocolate babka. Yes, it will take you all weekend, but that’s exactly the point. After all the kneading and rising, the rolling and filling, you’ll end up with two gorgeous, streusel-topped loaves — one for you, one to give away to anyone who needs some sweet cheer. Babka freezes well, too, meaning you could save some for future gratification of the fudgiest kind.
Sick or injured abroad? Read what to know.
Health: Take better care of your heart this year.
ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER
Replace your shower head
Replacing a dribbly old shower head with a new, high-performing model is one of the simplest and most satisfying upgrades you can make to your home. Any good one is likely to be an upgrade over the one you inherited when you moved into your place — especially if it’s more than a decade old. And it doesn’t need to cost a lot. In Wirecutter’s quest to find the best shower head, our testing left us a little surprised. An inexpensive model grabbed our attention from the moment we tried it, and became our top pick for its easy installation, sleek design and fantastic 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 historically great records. 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 rematch is just a few days away — this time in Oklahoma City. Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on TNT
