Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 442

My daughter’s inaccurate self portrait

I love it, but I have to say, it doesn’t look anything like her.

Marital advice courtesy of a Moth StorySLAM victory

A friend and I attended The Moth’s StorySLAM at the Bitter End last night. He’s about 15 years younger than me, and while we waited in line outside the club, we talked about his recent experiences with dating in New York. I advised him that above all else, he should avoid getting married before the age of 30.

“It’s the best advice I can give you when it comes to getting married,” I said. “If I look at the people who I know who got married before 30 and the people who got married after 30, the after-30 crowd tends to be much happier in their relationships.”

Later on in the night, I was fortunate enough to have my name was drawn from the tote bag. I took the stage and I told my story, and I was fortunate enough to win.

It’s my fifth StorySLAM victory in a row, which is an incredibly lucky streak. While my performances have all been solid, many other factors come into play when competing in a Moth StorySLAM, including the order that your name is chosen from the bag, the storytellers whose names are not drawn that night and the demographics of the judging teams.

I’m not attempting to be humble in any way by saying that winning five in a row requires an enormous amount of good fortune.

Still, my performances had to be good, too.

After leaving The Bitter End, I texted the good news to my wife, and she texted three words back to me:

You are unbeatable.

I turned to my friend. “Forget my over-30 advice. It still applies, but I have something better. Find a girl who you want to spend the rest of your life trying to impress.”

I turned the phone to him so he could see my wife’s text.

“Find a girl who can say something like this to you and make you forget everything that anyone else has ever said to you. Find someone whose words mean more to you than anyone else. When the happens, you’ll know you’ve found the right girl.”

Winning five StorySLAMs in a row has been a wild ride that will surely never be repeated, but those three words that my wife texted to me last night means more than all my victories.

Ten years after we started dating and seven years into our marriage, and I’m still trying like hell every day of my life to impress the girl who became my wife.

That is the key to a successful marriage.

A recap of this weekend’s Speak Up event, plus an update on the future of Speak Up

Thanks to everyone who came out to Speak Up on Saturday night. The event was an enormous success, with an enthusiastic, standing-room only audience of more than 200 people.

Real Art Ways decided to move our show into a much larger space for this most recent event, and for the weeks leading up to the show, Elysha and I were nervous that we wouldn’t have enough people in attendance to fill it. Doors were supposed to open at 7:00 on Saturday night but by 6:50, every seat was filled and people were finding places along walls and dragging benches into the space to create seating.

We couldn’t have been more thrilled. Or relieved. Thank you for the support.

Many thanks to our storytellers as well, who were amazing.

Julie Threlkeld told us a terrific story about finding her first college roommate.

Bill Wynne told us a story of how a boy from New Jersey became an award-winning Hawaiian singer.

Charly Weiss reminded us that even after more than a decade of teaching, teachers can still learn a lot from their students.

LB Muñoz told a powerful and tragic story of how the loss of a friend changed her life forever. 

Trish Milnamow told us a story about her lifelong battle with nicotine addiction.

Barbara Klau offered us a hilarious and poignant view of what it is like to grow older in a world filled with body piercing, tattoos and more.

Okey Ndibe regaled us with amusing and thought-provoking stories about Nigerian culture shock in America.

It was truly a spectacular show. 

If you weren’t able to make the show, our next event is November 9 at Real Art Ways, and while our lineup of storytellers is not entirely settled yet, the storytellers who we have booked so far are fantastic.

If you would like to pitch us a story for the November 9 event, you have until Friday to do so. Email your pitch and your bio to speakupstorytelling@gmail.com.

We’re considering a couple of possible changes to Speak Up that we would like you to consider and comment on if you have an opinion:

1. Our first two shows were free, but we are considering charging an small admission price to future Speak Up events. The proceeds from this admission would be used to:

pay for advertising and promotion
cover our costs for each event
pay for the design and construction of a website dedicated to Speak Up (rather than the Facebook page which we now operate)
Pay for the production of a podcast where these stories could be later broadcast for people who are unable to attend an event
Help to cover some of the costs that Real Art Ways incurs for each show

If you have an opinion on what that admission cost should be, we would love to hear from you.

2. Based upon feedback, we are considering moving the start time from 7:00 to 7:30 or 8:00 in order to allow people to eat dinner before the show.  If you have thoughts on this, please let us know.

3. I am considering teaching 6-week storytelling workshop to help build the storytelling community in the Hartford area and give storytellers the skills and confidence to take the stage and tell a story of their own someday. The workshop would culminate in a storytelling event in which the participants would have an opportunity to perform in front of an audience of their friends and family. If you might be interested in a workshop like this, please let me know.

Thanks again for all the support, and we hope to see you on November 9th!

        

She’s in preschool and already criticizing God

As a reluctant atheist, it will be interesting to watch how my children’s belief in God develops. Part of my hopes that they are able to find the faith that eludes me, but part of me would understand if they struggled with religion as I have.

Yesterday my daughter seemed to walk this line perfectly.

Clara:

God made the world, Daddy. And then on the seventh day, he was so tired that he rested.

She paused for a moment then added:

I wouldn’t rest on the seventh day, Daddy. I’d play. I’m never too tired to play. Silly God.

The kind of love that I was probably too much of a jerk to experience firsthand

I can’t help but wonder if my sister and I ever spent time like this when we were little.

I don’t think so, which makes me so sad for me and my sister and indescribably happy about the love that my children share.

Maybe there just weren’t enough pictures taken when I was young to capture moments like this, but I suspect that I was more rough-and-tumble with my sister than sweet.

The Patriots are proof-positive that perspective is hard, if not impossible

A friend and fellow Patriots season ticket holder sent this to me yesterday in one of the weekly email exchanges that we have prior to every game.

I thought it summed things up perfectly:

Tom Brady’s career record as a starting QB now stands at 139-39, making him the first quarterback in NFL history to be 100 games over .500.

In fact only twelve quarterbacks in NFL history have even won as many as 100 games. Pretty amazing – it’s the equivalent of going 13-3 for 10 straight seasons.

Think about all the wins we’ve witnessed, many firsthand, and yet the losses are burned into our memories like they only happened yesterday.

    

Assuming a supervisory role

I told Clara that we needed to find the remote control if she wanted to watch Arthur. “Can you help me find it? I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “You go look for it, and I’ll make sure you’re moving fast enough. Now go! Fast!”

She’s still in preschool, and she’s already adopting her father’s obsession with delegating responsibilities whenever possible.

It’s also possible that she’s more Machiavellian than I thought. 

 

A good old fashioned book mobile!

Look what we found in the midst of a poorly advertised festival in downtown Hartford last weekend:

An actual book mobile!

Operated by Penguin Books, it was a joy to see for both me and my daughter, who immediately picked up a book from the children’s section and asked her mother to read to her.

We need more of this. We need a lot more of this.

    

Sunday Assembly, an atheist’s version of church, seems a little too good to be true.

Sunday Assembly, an atheist’s version of church that is growing exponentially, seems a little too good to be true. 

The idea is simple: it has all of the community spirit, engagement, and inspiration of a church without any of the religious aspects. Each service has at least one guest speaker, from economists to poets, a moment of reflection and, above all, repeated entreaties to get to know the rest of the people there.

Add to this already near-perfect format a combination of “mini-rave” breakout sessions, ‘80s power ballads, competitive games and mass karaoke, and Sunday Assembly becomes almost impossible to imagine.

I think I may have to see it to believe it.

I have a friend who says that for him and his family, God stands for the Great Out Doors, and this allows him to honor and worship what he believes is most important by playing golf, tennis, kayaking or hiking on a Sunday morning.

Not bad, I’ve always thought, but this might be better. 

I think I would still prefer a round of golf or a Patriots pregame tailgate to Sunday Assembly, but if there is snow on the ground and the golf courses are closed or the Patriots are playing out of town, this might be a reasonable alternative.

Speak Up storyteller: Okey Ndibe

On Saturday, Elysha and I will be producing our next Speak Up storytelling event at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT. The theme of the evening is Schooled: Lessons Taught and Lessons Learned.

Doors open at 7:00. Stories begin at 7:30. The event is free, and no ticket is required.

Eight storytellers will take the stage and tell true stories on the assigned theme. During this week, we will be featuring each storyteller here in order to give you a peek at what to expect on Saturday night.

We hope to see you there! 

________________________________

Okey Ndibe is a former Fulbright Scholar and currently a visiting professor of Africana literature at Brown University. He earned an MFA and PhD from UMass, Amherst.

He is the author of the novels foreign gods, inc. and Arrows of Rain. He also co-edited a book titled Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa. Since 1999,

Okey has written a column on Nigeria’s political, social and cultural affairs that is widely syndicated by Nigerian newspapers and numerous websites. His unsparing stance against official corruption in Nigeria earned me inclusion on a government list of “enemies of the state.”

A widely traveled lecturer and raconteur in Nigeria, Okey frequently give lectures and readings in Africa, Europe, and on college campuses in the US and Canada. In 2010, the Nigerian Peoples Parliament elected him as speaker.