Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 524

“Sticks and stones” does not apply in Italy

If I were an Italian man, I would attempt to put an end to this immediately:

An Italian court just ruled that insulting a man by telling him he has “no balls” is now a crime.

The court ruled that such a slur is a crime as it hurts male pride.

“Apart from the vulgarity of the term used, the expression definitely also has an injurious quality. It refers not only to the target’s lack of virility but also to his weakness of character, lack of determination, competence and coherence — virtues that, rightly or wrongly, are still identified as pertaining to the male gender.”

There is nothing more emasculating than a law designed to protect a man’s feelings.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that all these women were have sex in front of me?

I’m not sure which part of this column is more stupid:

The part where L.G. from Phoenix asks if it is appropriate for her sister to be reading FIFTY SHADES OF GREY in front of their father (while clearly taking a passive-aggressive swipe at her sibling in the process)… 

… or the part where The Boston Globe’s Robin Abraham asserts in her Miss Conduct column that reading this book in public equates to a public sex act.

Fifty shades of gross! Your poor father was probably only feigning unconsciousness out of embarrassment.

Reading in public is a fine, improving act. As a city dweller, I have always enjoyed the way public reading creates a barrier — yet a permeable one — between the individual and the people surrounding him or her. You have a sense of fellow feeling with readers, don’t you? Oh, look, that guy over there likes the New Yorker, too. Commuters catching up on the newspapers, students plowing through dense academic tomes, “escape” readers with their lurid science fiction or crime paperbacks . . . reading in public gives people a little window into your mind.

And therein lies the, er, rub. The purpose of Fifty Shades of Grey is to arouse the reader, which means that reading it in public is about as appropriate as feeling yourself up in the coffee shop. You are forcing other people to witness a sexual act.

There’s so much wrong with this response (and there’s more in the column if you’d like to see her complete answer), the stupidest being:

“Reading in public is a fine, improving act.”

What the hell does that mean? Improving? Is this a column written for nineteenth century girls attending finishing school? Has Abraham declared herself the arbitrator of all public activities? Is it her role to determine which activities are “fine and improving” and which are less so?  

“A fine, improving act?”

Could she sound more pretentious?

And did you notice the way she matches readers to their choice of books?

She is a New Yorker fan, of course.

Students read “dense academic tomes” as if they’ve stepped right out of a Harry Potter film onto the bus. No Kindles or Nooks or iPads for these young people. Dusty, intellectual books for them. 

“Escape” readers read “lurid science fiction and crime paperbacks,” because apparently everything written in these two genres is considered lurid in Abraham’s mind. 

And did you notice her use of quotation marks around the word escape? What’s the point? It’s almost as if Abraham cannot deign to touch the concept of an escape reader without first bracketing the term inside the protective confines of the quotation mark.

God I hate this women.

But of all the stupidity contained within her response, this is the worst:

“The purpose of Fifty Shades of Grey is to arouse the reader, which means that reading it in public is about as appropriate as feeling yourself up in the coffee shop.”

Is she serious? I have yet to read FIFTY SHAES OF GREY, but I am having a difficult time envisioning the reading of this book as a sexual act. 

My mother-in-law read the book on her Nook, which means she could’ve been reading it in my presence. I have no way of knowing for sure. 

Am I to believe that my mother-in-law may have been engaging in a sexual act in my presence?

In fact, I have seen dozens of women reading this book in public over the last three months. Am I to believe that each of these women were engaging in an act akin to masturbating in a coffee shop? If so, I wish someone would have told me about this sooner. I would have paid closer attention to these deviants.

Hell, maybe I should’ve called the authorities.

A woman was reading the book on the treadmill beside me last week. I had no idea how shocked or embarrassed I was supposed to feel. No one warned me. Little did I know what this sexual deviant was doing beneath the veneer of a high impact cardio workout.

I feel dirty just thinking about it.

And slightly stupider for reading this ridiculous column.

A surprising response to my request that women stop wearing makeup

Yesterday I wrote a post that essentially criticized women for wearing makeup. I knew that I might be stepping into a hornet’s nest with my comments, but I felt strongly enough about them to risk the sting.

Twenty-four hours later, I thought I’d update you on the reaction to the piece, because it was both plentiful and surprising:

First, every person who disagreed with my position responded in a reasoned, thoughtful, and polite manner, which is more than I can say for myself at times, so thank you.

Second, the response in general was surprising. Through Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, actual human conversation and email, the response to the post (more than 60 respondents in all) was 80/20 in favor of my position.

I was astounded.

I am also cognizant that this is probably not a true measure of opinion. Readers who disagreed with my position may have simply scoffed at my ideas and moved on, whereas women who have spent much of their life makeup-free were more likely to respond with support and appreciation.

Still, 80/20 is overwhelming.

I also heard from several women who acknowledged that on a logical, objective level, it’s true that makeup does not make sense and might even be damaging to female self esteem, but because we live in a society that deems otherwise, they will continue to wear it.

One reader said:

“It’s true that I probably only enjoy wearing makeup because I have been taught to enjoy wearing it by women before me. And I’m even willing to acknowledge that it probably doesn’t help a woman’s self image. But that doesn’t change the fact that I enjoy wearing it.”

I thought this was an excellent point.

In discussing the issue with my wife last night (even though she rarely wears makeup, she was less than enthusiastic about my approach to the issue), I said, “Can’t we agree that if we had a chance to start the world all over again, we should probably start it without makeup.”

“Yes,” she said. “And that’s what you should have said that in your post.”

As usual, she makes a good point. Rather than simply criticizing women for wearing makeup and asking that they stop, it might have been more productive to take a less personal, more conceptual approach to the issue.  

I’ll also take a moment to acknowledge that a small percentage of men wear makeup as well, as at least two readers pointed out. Yes, it’s true that some men wear makeup, but I considered the the number so small that I did not feel the need to mention it in the post. Also, I hardly think that young boys are being taught to need makeup by their older male counterparts. Regardless, I wish these makeup-wearing men would remove their makeup as well.

Even more so.

Lastly, I’d like to end with a quote from a reader that I simply adored. She said:

“I don’t wear make up because I feel like I’m apologizing for my face if I do.”

I suspect that I will be using that quote often.

Foreign editions have arrived!

The Greek, Spanish, Catalan and large print UK versions of MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND arrived today.

Just three more weeks until the US version hits the bookshelves. While the international success of the book has been thrilling, it will be nice to finally see it on a bookshelf in real life.

 

Resolution update: July 2012

In an effort to hold myself accountable to my yearly goals, I post the progress made at the end of each month. 

I’ve now passed the halfway point of the year, and to be completely honest, I am not pleased with my progress thus far. Goals that should have been completed long ago remain unfinished, and as a result, others are beginning to look less and less likely.

I’m not pleased.

1. Don’t die.

No one came even close to killing me last month.

2. Lose ten pounds.

Lost 5 pounds in the month of July. Unfortunately, I had added 10 pounds since January, so I am 15 pounds away from the goal. But at least I’m moving in the right direction now.   

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a day.  Also complete at least two two-minute planks five days per week.

Done.

4. Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

Flute still broken. Broken flute still in car.

5. Complete my fifth novel before the birth of my next child.

Not complete. I’m working hard, though. I promise.  

6. Complete my sixth novel.

Looing forward to returning to my sixth (and seventh) novel after I manage to complete the fifth novel.

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

I am struggling to find a clever end to a picture book. Once I do, it will be sent to the publisher for review. I am tempted to crowd source a clever ending because I’ve been pondering this problem for three weeks without any luck.

8. Complete the book proposal for my non-fiction, photographic  collaborative project.

The novel and the memoir are simply taking precedence at time.

9. Complete three chapters of my memoir.

This project, which will be part of an overall proposal, will be completed this summer after the novel is finished.

10. Complete at least twelve blog posts on my brother and sister blog.

No posts in July. We remain stuck on three, and I have yet to get a laptop into my sister’s hands.

11. Become certified to teach high school English by completing two required classes.

I have located and registered for the first of two classes that I need, and it was the class that was considerably more difficult to find. I begin taking classes in the fall.

12. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a newspaper.

Same as the previous two months. I published a piece in Beyond the Margins in April, which is not exactly a newspaper but is a great place (and maybe even a better place) for an author to publish.

I still have two pieces currently in the pipeline with hopes of both finding their way into print soon. My editor and I are actually working on one this week. I also wrote a blog post last month that I chose to keep off the blog in hopes of placing it somewhere else as well.

So there’s plenty of potential.

13. Attend at least five Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I competed in my third Moth event, a GrandSLAM championship, on July 17 at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan. Details about the evening can be found here and here.  

I plan on attending (and hopefully competing if my name is drawn) at two more Moth events this summer. They are:

Tuesday, August 14 (Theme: About Time)

Thursday, August 23 (Theme: Yin/Yang)

If you would like to attend either of these StorySLAMS with me, please let me know. I’m always looking for company.

14. Complete the necessary revisions of our rock opera (The Clowns) so that it can be staged as a full production in 2013.

Revisions are nearly complete. A local playhouse is very excited about producing the show, and the director and I met last week to discuss the revisions that are needed. We will be going to New York next month to cast the show, and we have actual dates for the performances at that I can share soon.   

15. Rid Elysha and myself of all education debt before the end of the year.

Incremental progress has been made in July.

16. Give yoga an honest try.

I have a friend with some free classes who has offered to bring me to a lesson. I have yet to take her up on her offer. 

17. Meditate for at least five minutes every day.

I mediated for five minutes a day on everyday in July, and it has become a surprisingly important part of my day. At this point it simply remains a means by which I clear my mind, but if that is all it ends up being, that might be okay.

18. Agree to try at least one new dish per month, even if it contains ingredients that I wouldn’t normally consider palatable.

In July I tried bruschetta, which I liked, and quinoa, which was okay.

19. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2012.

The race is planned for the fall. 

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

Done.

No makeup, ladies. Please?

On an objective, logical, and unbiased level, can we all please agree that it is twisted and bizarre that men spend every moment of their public lives without a spot of makeup on their faces while many, if not most, women are uncomfortable and unwilling to even leave the house without it?

This fact alone would seem to imply that men possess a natural beauty that women do not, which is obviously not the case.

As one of many men who prefer when women do not wear makeup, this has always annoyed me. I’ve always felt that women are much more beautiful absent any makeup and that confidence is infinitely more attractive than any amount of makeup that a woman could use.

And it’s not as if the makeup goes unnoticed to the untrained eye. We all know that your lips are not that red. We all know that your cheeks are not normally that pink. Your eyelids are not naturally dusky, and yes, we can all see the concealer that you are wearing, even though no one will ever tell you so. As masterfully as it may be applied, it’s no mystery when makeup has been applied, and we all know that it’s being used to cover or enhance something that the woman does not like about herself.

As the father of a little girl, this annoyance has now moved into the realm of genuine concern. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel like she needs to wear makeup, and I know how difficult a message this will be to send with so many women walking around the world painted and caked and smeared with the stuff.

But there’s hope.

First, my wife wears almost no makeup, and on the rare occasion when she uses it, she wears very little. If Clara ends up being anything like her mother, I will consider it a victory over the forces of makeup.  

Even better, there is apparently a trend for female celebrities to post photographs of themselves without makeup.

From a recent New York Times piece on the subject:

Female stars have been rushing to publish photos of themselves without makeup. Last week, Rihanna, known for her brightly colored hair and makeup, posted a photo of herself on Twitter looking like the girl next door, makeup free and with braided pigtails. That followed a quadriptych of photos she posted several months ago, showing her looking as if she had just rolled out of bed, albeit with flawless and radiant skin.

The writer, Austin Considine, questions whether these photos are being posted as a publicity stunt, but I don’t care why they are being posted as long as the celebrities keep it up. They are promoting a positive message either way. I want more of this.

Objectively, we must realize that the only reason we think it strange or daring or unusual for a woman like Rihanna to post a photo of herself absent any makeup is because we have come to expect most women, and especially female celebrities, to be wearing makeup whenever they are in public.

But there is no innate reason for women to wear makeup. Women’s skin is not unnaturally flawed. Women’s lips are not unnaturally pale. Women’s eyelids were not meant to be blue or green or purple. There was no tragic eyelid transformation to a more fleshy color as a result of Hiroshima radiation or high fructose corn syrup.

We have come to expect women to wear makeup because women wear makeup.

Perhaps if more celebrities decided that it is somewhat sad and fairly insane for women to feel the need to spend the time and money painting their faces while their male counterparts are walking around without the same need or expectation, things could change.    

I don’t know who the hell AnnaLynne McCord is, but I am her newest, biggest fan as a result of her recent decision to post a photo of herself without makeup and her comment on the subject:

In May, the actress AnnaLynne McCord posted an unvarnished photo of herself, her face dotted with red blemishes.

“I woke up this morning and decided I’m over Hollywood’s perfection requirement,” Ms. McCord wrote in a Twitter message accompanying the photo. “To all my girls (and boys) who have ever been embarrassed by their  skin! I salute you! I’m not perfect — and that’s okay with me!”

I’m going to get this photograph and her tweet blown up into a poster, and when she’ old enough to read, I’m going to hang it in my daughter’s room. Right over her bed. I realize that I might be fighting a losing battle when it comes to makeup, but at least I’m fighting.

2012: Products I can’t live without

Back in 2010, inspired by lists created by tech geeks like Michael Arrington and Kevin Rose, I created a list of products I could not live without.

Today I present my updated list of products I could not live without.

Gmail
Google Docs
Google Calendar
Google Chrome
Mint (financial accounting software for the computer and mobile device)
iPhone 4
Twitter
YouTube
Carbonite (automatic, instant online backup)
ZipList (a syncing mobile grocery list that we use for shopping)
Evernote (note-taking program for the computer and mobile device)
Dropbox (file syncing across my computer, mobile device and the cloud)
Asus laptop
Snapfish wireless headphones
WordPress (my website and blogging software)
Instapaper (saves webpages for later reading on computer and mobile device)

Some interesting comparisons between the 2010 and 2012 lists:

My 2010 list contained 14 items. This year’s list contains 16 items.

There are 7 items on the 2010 list that appear on this list as well, including the all the Google products, Mint, the iPhone (though the version has changed), and Carbonite.

ZipList has replaced Grocery IQ for my shopping list because it can sync between multiple mobile devices.

Twitter has replaced Facebook in terms of my indispensible social media tool. The amount of time I spend on Facebook is marginal. 

The mobile version of Chrome has replaced Opera Mini. It syncs open tabs between platforms and is just as fast as Opera.

Evernote replaced the pre-loaded note-taking program on the iPhone, which was so useless that it did not make my 2010 list even though I was using it on a daily basis.

WordPress replaced Typepad, which was another product so disappointing that even though I used it almost every day, it did not qualify as a product I could not live without in 2010.

YouTube has gained even greater importance in my life now that it is the primary means by which I can get her dressed in the morning and ready for bed at night without protest. A ten-minute episode of Charlie and Lola or Winnie the Pooh is just what I need to start and end my day without a fight.

I can totally picture that in my head.

The following descriptions can be found in Oliver Sacks’ THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT AND OTHER CLINICAL TALES. They describe a man who awoke one morning thinking that his left leg was not his own. Both sentences describe the same man, just a couple paragraphs apart from one another, and both are completely insane.

I have no idea what Sacks was thinking, but these have to be the most  impenetrable, inane descriptions of a person that I have ever read. 

His expression contained anger, alarm, bewilderment and amusement. Bewilderment  most of all, with a hint of consternation.

He gazed at me with a look compounded  of stupefaction, incredulity, terror and amusement, not unmixed with a jocular sort of suspicion. 

Parenting is supposed to make you sad, frightened and neurotic. Don’t make your kids suffer by mitigating the pain.

When I was a boy, I spent much of my summer at a Camp Yawgoog, a Boy Scout camp in Rockville, Rhode Island. My troop would spend a week at camp, and then I would spend another 2-7 weeks at a campsite designed for boys who wanted to spend more than just one week away from home. It was called Camp Baden Powell, and it consisted of a mishmash of boys from various Boy Scout troops around the country and abroad who were overseen by a theoretical Scoutmaster but were essentially on their own unless they got into trouble.

These were some of the best days of my life. The freedom, the independence, the personal responsibility and the decision-making that I was afforded helped to make the me the person I am today.

It was also fun as hell.

Parents were invited to visit the camp on Sundays, but this was an opportunity that my parents never exercised. I was also required to send a postcard home every Wednesday. If I did not arrive at the dining hall with one in hand, I would not be served dinner.

I often opted to eat a candy bar for dinner or stockpile bread at lunchtime rather than take the time to pen a missive to my parents. For my time at Camp Yawgoog, I was blissfully disconnected from the rest of the world.

As a parent, I will probably send my children to summer camp someday. Ideally, my son will find his way to Camp Yawgoog like his father did, and if I had my way, my daughter would as well. While my children are away at camp, I know that I will miss them a great deal, and I may even find myself nervous about the prospect of turning them over to the care of people who I don’t know all that well.

But as a parent, this is part of my job. I want my children to experience the same level of independence and personal responsibility that I did while away at camp, even if this means cutting the cord for weeks at a time.

It is not supposed to be easy. It may be hard on my children (for about four seconds), and it will most assuredly be difficult for me and my wife. Heart wrenching and frightening, even. Of this I have little doubt.

I have seen it many times before.  

For the past several years, I have taken my fifth grade students on an overnight trip to a nearby YMCA camp. For some students, this is the first time that they have ever slept away from home for any reason. Over the years, I’ve had to work hard in order to convince some parents to place their child in my care for those three days. Though I was always sympathetic to their needs and feelings, I never truly understood how difficult it was for some of these mothers and fathers until I became a parent myself.

A few years ago I had a student whose four older brothers and sisters had never spent a night outside the family home until after graduating from high school. As you might imagine, the idea of sending their youngest child away for three days was unfathomable to these parents, but through much discussion, repeated reassurances, some light-hearted cajoling and a smidgen of tough love, I managed to convince her father (the decision-maker in the family) to send his daughter to camp with me.

On the morning we were set to leave, he arrived at school to tell me that he had changed his mind, and once again, through hard work and many assurances, I managed to convince him that sending his daughter to camp with her peers was the best decision he could make.

When we arrived back at school three days later, her father was standing in the parking lot, waiting for me. As I climbed out of my car, he reached out, took hold of my arms and hugged me. He told me that the first night had been incredibly difficult for him, but by the time the sun was setting on his daughter’s second night away, he had come to realize how important this experience would be for her. “It was like a door opened for me,” he said. “I had to realize that this was not about my feelings but about what was best for my child. I called my other children and apologized to them for not realizing this sooner.”

I think I learned as much about parenting that day as he did.

This is why the recent trend for sleep-away camps to keep parent and child intimately connected via technology is one that I find disappointing and foolish.

From a recent TIME piece on the subject:

Summertime’s rite of passage — sleepaway camp — looks very different than it did a generation ago. No longer are children’s weeks away marked by subdued parental longing and the occasional piece of snail mail. Camp used to be a place kids went to learn self-reliance and discover themselves away from the watchful eyes of mom and dad, but now technology is allowing parents to keep tabs on their kids even from afar.

In a nod to helicopter parents’ inability to cut the cord, overnight summer camps are hiring staffers to take pictures of campers and post them on their websites or on their Facebook pages, or on the website of Bunk1, a service that hosts camp photos, facilitates emails between campers and their parents and exists solely to allay — or feed — parental anxiety.

I realize that the world changes constantly, and with it, parenting methods change as well. I am not opposed to change, nor am I foolish enough to believe that the way I was raised was ideal.

Nevertheless, I do not support this recent trend, and I think it is reflective of a overall trend in parenting that concerns me. In recent years, I have noticed more and more parents attempting mitigate the hardship and pain sometimes associated with good parenting by failing to impose limits on their children and refusing to allow their kids to struggle and suffer and learn life’s hardest lessons. Unwilling to make these difficult decisions, these parents are placing their own emotional needs ahead of their child’s developmental needs, regardless of the effects this may have on their children.

These are the parents who know they shouldn’t allow their toddler into their bed every night but continue to do so because stopping would be too difficult or painful for them.

These are the parents who feed their child chicken nuggets every night for dinner rather than providing a more balanced diet and sending the child to bed without dinner if necessary.

These are the parents who complete their child’s homework for them rather than forcing their child to face the consequences the next day at school.

In short, these are the parents who cannot be tough on their children because tough decisions are difficult decisions, painful not only to the child but to the parent as well.

Parenting was not supposed to be easy. Difficult decisions need to be made, and quite often, these decisions are most difficult on those required to make them. A crying toddler locked out of his parents’ bedroom will forget about the pain long before the parent who had to bury his or her head beneath a pillow in order to drown out the wails.

This is the cross that a parent must bear.

Whether my parents disconnected from me at summer camp because of thoughtful decision-making on their part or a general disinterest in my life (based upon the majority of my childhood, it is probably the latter), I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I was permitted to spend my summers at a Boy Scout adventureland where I was forced to fend for myself, fight my own battles, battle the occasional bully and develop a strong sense of  independence.

I don’t have a single photograph from my days at Camp Yawgoog, and while it would be nice to have a few of those memoires captured on film, I would take zero photographs over the prospect of being followed around by staffers whose job it was to document my existence at various times in the day in order to post my progress on Facebook so my parents could be happy.  

In the words of psychologist Michael Thompson, who wrote Homesick and Happy about the importance of summer camp:

“You can’t have your child away from you at camp physically but attached to you psychologically. That’s missing the point.”

The right way to make a commercial

I rarely watch any television that has not been pre-recorded. As a result, I almost never see commercials anymore. I simply fast-forward past them, thus denying the advertisers of their opportunity to pitch their products to me.

As a result of this time-shifting, advertisers are now looking for new ways to get viewers to watch their commercials, including hiring actors from the show to star in the commercials, thus blurring the lines between entertainment and advertisement.

Alternately, advertisers could simply write great commercials with hooks that grab the viewer, like this one, which I refrained from fast forwarding last night after catching the first couple seconds of the ad.

The first few lines of dialogue are perfect. They’re smart, funny, self-aware and completely relatable. I couldn’t help but continue watching.

And the rest of the commercial was just as good. While attempting to sell me a car, the writers presented me with a compelling character, told an amusing story and arguably weaved in a bit of social commentary as well.

I may not run out and purchase a Venza anytime soon, but I’ll be inclined to watch the next Venza commercial based upon what I’ve seen so far.