Spencer Bailey

In the summer of 2008, we took a trip around the world together and we had been apart for most of high school, college, didn't get in a single fight on this trip.

I mean, it was just like pure kinship, twinship, whatever you want to call it, put ourselves in some uncomfortable positions all over the world and, and,

Everything was sort of just like we were totally in sync.

Because of the injuries from the crash, you struggled early on with reading comprehension for many years and had to effectively relearn how to process text across a page.

What did it feel like to discover language slowly and almost physically?

I've never thought about it that way.

I mean, I will say I definitely feel like I was usually fairly on par with the class or trying to be.

I was always very good at spelling.

Like, I remember, you know, fifth grade spelling bee, I was like the runner up.

But like...

Reading definitely came a little bit slower for some reason, and I'm not quite sure why that was, other than that probably my brain injury.

I mean, Trent took to reading faster than me.

I love how you described it as physical because there's something about the physicality of holding a book in your hands, sort of moving slowly across the page, approaching words and looking at words almost as physical objects, as something aesthetic.

Back to the fine schmecker thing.

But yeah, I definitely feel like

My love of reading, my love of words, my love of literature kind of came from that slow reading experience.

And perhaps I guess to tie it to today, I'm still slow reading.

I feel like what I do with the podcast, what I do with the slowdown is a form of slow reading.

especially in a world that feels just, like, incredibly fast all the time.

Is it true that reading Jhumpa Lahiri's book The Interpreter of Maladies at 17 made you want to become a writer?