Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 413

I had problems with the ending of The Lord of the Rings, but it had little to do with Frodo and Sam’s fate.

Quora recently asked the question:

Would the Lord of the Rings have been more satisfying with a different ending. Specifically, what if the eagles hadn’t rescued Frodo and Samwise from Orodruin after the destruction of the One Ring?

In other words, should Frodo and Samwise died after destroying the ring. 

J.R.R. Tolkien was a firm believer in “eucatastrophe,” or the sudden, unbelievable, positive turn of events, and the appearance of the eagles was certainly that. The debate is interesting and worth reading, but I have always disliked the appearance of the eagles at the end of the book for one simple reason:

If the eagles were able to rescue Frodo and Samwise from the Orodruin, why couldn’t they have simply brought the hobbits to the mountain in the first place? Why risk so much (including the loss of the ring) on a dangerous and seemingly impossible quest when an eagle could have simply flown Frodo over the mountain and allowed him to drop the ring therein?

It’s always bothered me.

It’s bothered others as well. Perhaps Tolkien himself. He later said of the books:

“The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being unfortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.”

I’m not sure how I feel about the fates of Frodo and Samwise. I’m happy that the hobbits lived, but I can certainly see the literary merit in the death of Frodo and Samwise.

But the sudden appearance of those eagles made all of the struggles of the three books seem a little silly in light of the overwhelming air superiority that the forces of the white seemed to possess in Middle Earth.

The greatest source of discontent in my marriage may be this Cadillac commercial, which I adore.

My wife and I do not fight.

It’s not that we are opposed to fighting, and we’re certainly more than happy to argue a point when the time is right, but we just don’t disagree on much at all. When we disagree, we listen to each other and usually reach resolution absent any emotional response.

I don’t think either one of us as ever yelled at the other or even raised our voices.

This commercial, which first aired during the Oscars, might be one of our greatest sources of disagreement in our marriage. At the moment it ended, I turned to Elysha to declare my heartfelt affection for the commercial, only to be stopped as she was already declaring her hatred for it.

We discussed our differences of opinion. We each made a case for our position. She forward me a piece by a writer who supported her view. I watched the commercial again and again, reaffirming and strengthening my opinion each time.

We cannot agree on this commercial.

I won’t attempt to argue Elysha’s position here other than to say that the focus on materialism was just one of the elements that she despises.

Many agree.

But I love this commercial. For years, I have listened to a handful of friends describe the joys of the Spanish, French, Greek or Portuguese lifestyles, complete with long, afternoon lunches, siestas, shorter work days, copious amounts of wine, late night dinners and a slower, much more measured pace.

All of this sounds lovely until the Germans roll into your country with tanks and occupy it for years until those crazy, driven, hard working Americans and their fast-paced, high-stakes, never-stop lifestyle come to save you.

All of this sounds lovely as long as someone, somewhere is busy inventing air travel, telephonic communication, artificial hearts, television, lasers, the cure for polio, toilet paper, space ships, nuclear power, the Internet and everything else that those non-siesta loving countries are not.

All of this sounds lovely until your unemployment rate hits 27% (as it has in Greece and Spain) and your banking system nearly collapses the European Union and requires an international bailout.

I am one of the least materialistic people I know. I am writing this sentence on a hand-me-down table while sitting in a hand-me-down chair and staring into a living room of hand-me-down furniture. My car is twelve years old. My iPhone is at least two generations old. The television in our home is 13 years old and incapable of streaming Netflix. I don’t wear jewelry of any kind and refuse to wear any item of clothing that displays a name brand.

I am not interested in the accumulation of things.

But this is not a commercial about things. It’s a commercial that celebrates the driven, goal-orientated lifestyle that so many Americans lead. It’s a lifestyle that can result in great luxury (like a backyard pool and a Cadillac, which both sound lovely to me), but it’s also a lifestyle that sent astronauts to the Moon. It’s the lifestyle that liberated Europe, invent countless technologies, advanced countless others, cured diseases, halted Communist aggression and made America the wealthiest nation on the planet.

We are certainly not a perfect country. We have many problems and have created many, many more. The American lifestyle has certainly contributed greatly to climate change, and our decisions about where and when to deploy our military might are not always wise or just. We live in a society where the gap between rich and poor widens by the day, and our educational system is failing our children.

We have many, many problems. 

But if an asteroid is suddenly discovered on a collision course with Earth, which country will the world turn to for salvation?

If a nation rises up and threatens to take over the world by overwhelming military force, who will the world turn to for help?

When natural disasters strike, which nation, more than any other, sends supplies, rescue teams and cash?

We do.

We do it because we can. We can because we are not eating long lunches and enjoying afternoon siestas. We do it because we are those crazy, driven, hard working Americans who seem to suddenly make all the sense in the world in times of crisis.

We work hard, we make our own luck and we believe that anything is possible.

Sometimes it works out, and you are able to afford a backyard pool and a Cadillac. I can’t, but I’m working on it, and good for those who can.  

The Moth: Deformed Cow and Moonlight Deer

The following is a story that I told at a Moth StorySLAM at Housing Works in New York City in July of last year. 

The theme of the night was Wanderlust. I told a story about my last minute trip to Virginia to see a cow.

I finished in first place.

Barbara Green is a literary hero in a small town in Italy. And in my heart.

I love this story.

I received an email last week from a librarian in southern Italy. It reads:
_________________________

Dear Matthew,
We write from a public library of a very small town in the South of Italy, in
Salento (Puglia), near the city of Lecce (TUGLIE). A library which hasn’t got any financial resources sufficient to buy books frequently. However thanks to the generous collaboration of many authors and editors, the number of books as well as of readers grows day by day.

Since your books are so successful among our young readers that requests are growing increasingly, we will be so grateful if you would collaborate to the increase of our heritage through a donation of your series of books (in Italian), maybe through your Italian publisher.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you for your interest.
Yours sincerely,
Silvia Sperti
_________________________

I was honored by the request. Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend was a bestseller in Italy, and it’s always thrilling to hear from international readers, and especially librarians. To date, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend has been published in 23 countries worldwide.

By contrast, I have only traveled to one country outside the United States in my entire life, and that was Bermuda for my honeymoon.

Yet almost every day, I communicate with readers outside the United States via email or social media about my book. 

I passed the email onto my agent with the request that she forward it onto my Italian publisher, but I also sent it to my mother-in-law, Barbara, who demands to read all positive news about my books and publishing career.

My mother-in-law then proceeded to reach out to the library on her own, using Google translate to send her message. She exchanged emails with the librarian, and once she had secured the address to the library, she ordered Italian editions of my book via Amazon.it and had them shipped directly to the library.

Readers in a small town in Italy will now have greater access to my story thanks to the initiative of a small town librarian, a technology that I use almost every day to seamlessly communicate between languages, and most important, the kindness and generosity of my mother-in-law, who couldn’t stand the thought of readers anywhere waiting for my book.

North Korean nightmare

Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, is the one point of light in the middle of darkness between South Korea (on the right) and China (on the left) in this recent image taken from the International Space Station.

A good reminder that as proud as you may be for your accomplishments, geography plays an enormous role in the outcome of your life.

A new favorite photo of my children

Taken by my wife in, of all things, a bookstore.

Facebookless friends

It just occurred to me:

My three closest male friends are not on Facebook. Two have no accounts whatsoever, and the third has an account that he has never used. 

I can’t decide if I have the most impressive assemblage of friends in the world or simply a collection of Luddites.

Resolution update: February

1. Don’t die.

I still kick ass at not dying.

2. Lose ten pounds.

One pounds gained in February. Oops.

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a week.

Done.

4. Launch at least one new podcast.

Author Out Loud, my first podcast, is still yet to launch (and therefore still not my first), mostly because of scheduling issues. Once we have that podcast running smoothly, we can think about adding a second podcast.

I’m sucking on this goal, if you haven’t noticed.

5. Complete my sixth novel before the Ides of March.

Revisions on the next novel are interrupting the writing process a bit, but I’m still making good progress. I still love this book.

6. Complete my seventh novel.

I sent the first half of this manuscript onto my agent to see if I should continue work on it. I await word.

7. Sell one children’s book to a publisher.

Still working on revisions for The Little Bad Wolf and two other manuscripts.

8. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

I made a decision to reduce the scope of my memoir and focus primarily on the two years that encompassed my arrest and trial for a crime I did not commit. These two years also include an armed robbery, the onset of my post traumatic stress disorder, my period of homelessness and the time I spent living with a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

There’s plenty of material for for a memoir in those two years, I think. 

I also think a reduced scope will make for a better memoir and open the door to future memoirs from  other periods of my life.  

Work has begun on this project.

On the advice of a Moth producer, I have also transcribed five of my Moth stories and sent them to my agent with the thought that we may consider publishing them as well. I await word on that as well.  

9. Host at least one Shakespeare Circle.

Nothing scheduled yet.   

10. Write a screenplay.

The first step is to purchase Final Draft, the software required to write a professional screenplay. I have yet to take that step. 

11. Write at least three short stories.

No progress. 

12. Write a collection of poetry using existing and newly written poems.

No progress.

13. Become certified to teach high school English by completing one required class.

One class and $50 away from completion. Hopefully a class that I can find and complete over the summer.

14. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a physical newspaper.

No progress.

15. Attend at least 10 Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended a Moth StorySLAM in February, bringing my total events to four. Sadly, my name was not drawn from the hat.

16. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

I’ll be competing in my sixth GrandSLAM in New York City in two weeks. After four second place finishes (including three by a tenth of a point), I’m not holding my breath.  

17. Give yoga an honest try.

No progress.

18. De-clutter the basement.

No progress.

19. De-clutter the shed

No progress.

20. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2013.

No progress.

21. Produce a total of 6 Speak Up storytelling events.

Our next show is scheduled for March 29. 

22. Deliver a TED Talk.

I will be delivering a TED Talk in March in Somerville, MA.

23. Set a new personal best in golf.

No progress until the spring arrives.

24. Find a way to keep my wife home for one more year with our children.

Still looking doubtful.

25. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Three days late.

A unicorn and the tendency towards loss aversion result in cleaner teeth and a new idea in behavior management.

The pre-gifting of the stuffed unicorn as a reward for the excellent behavior that we expected from my daughter during her recent dentist appointment was a stroke of genius on my wife’s part because of the nature of loss aversion.

In economics, loss aversion refers to people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains. The unexpected loss of $100 is significantly more painful than the joy of suddenly finding $100.

This tendency has been demonstrated again and again across cultures in a  wide range of contexts. 

But how often do we ever take advantage of this tendency?

As a teacher and parent, I normally establish an expectation and an associated reward, and only when that expectation is met does the child receive the reward.

Complete your chores and receive your allowance.

Write an essay that meets my requirements and receive an A+.

Work hard all week and behave well and you can eat lunch in the classroom on Friday.

But my wife flipped that paradigm in an effort to get my daughter to sit in the dentist chair and allow the dentist to do her work. She pre-rewarded Clara with a toy and the knowledge that if she did not behave well, the toy would be taken away.

She utilized Clara’s tendency toward loss aversion to change a behavior, and it worked beautifully. Clara refused the fluoride and balked at the flossing, but she sat more patiently than ever before.

   

Could parents and teachers do this more often when attempting to change the behavior of children?

Here is your allowance. You’ll need to pay me back at the end of the week if you don’t finish all of your chores.

I’ve entered an A+ in my grade book for the essay that I am assigning to you. If you complete the essay on time and meet all of my expectations, that A+ will remain.

I’ve planned for you to eat lunch in the classroom on Friday unless your effort or behavior cause you to lose this privilege.

Should parents and teachers be utilizing loss aversion more often?

Could employers find ways of utilizing loss aversion to improve employee performance and production?

I think so. With four months left in the school year and a lifetime of parenting ahead of me, let the experimenting begin.

Man collects Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts turn 50 this week. Man enjoys his 3 minutes of fame.

I’m a huge fan of Pop Tarts. I almost never buy them because I can’t help but eat the entire box at one time. But I would eat then every day if I could.

Not the chocolate or cinnamon nonsense. Good old fashioned frosted strawberry, cherry or blueberry for me.

 

But even if I didn’t love Pop Tarts as much as I do, I would’ve loved this video. The fascinating history of Pop Tarts (including how they got their name and the fiery toaster), along with the way in which the Pop Tart collector has chosen to present himself, makes this a three minutes worthy of your time.