Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 81

Hope Diamond smudges

During our recent visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC, the kids and I had the chance to see the famous Hope Diamond up close.

If you don’t know the history of the Hope Diamond, it’s worth reading—a fascinating tale of crime, intrigue, politics, mystery, and revelation.

The diamond is displayed in a glass case in the center of a room, rotating slowly on a pedestal. The room was crowded with people waiting their turn to see and photograph the gemstone. As I was waiting my turn to get close, my phone rang. It was Elysha, who was enjoying lunch with our friend.

I stepped away to take the call.

Midway through our conversation, I turned around to check on the kids and spotted Charlie. He had somehow wormed his way in front of the dozens of people in the room and was staring at the Hope Diamond, his small hands pressed against the pristine glass case, blocking an entire side of the display case with his body and plastering the glass with fingerprints.

“Charlie, please remove your hands from the Hope Diamond’s display case!” I shouted.

A woman beside smiled, laughed, and said, “A collection of words probably never spoken before in the history of the world.”

I’m quite sure she was correct.

Do a lot of work

On the first day of class, photography students were divided into two groups:

On the left side was the quantity group. The professor told them their grades would be based on the total number of photos they took over the course of the semester.

On the right side was the quality group. They were told their grades would be based on the excellence of a single image they produced.

At the end of the term, University of Florida Professor Jerry Uelsmann was surprised to find that the best photos were actually taken by the quantity group. Not the students tasked with coming up with the perfect picture.

The lesson from this experiment – which I teach in my book “Someday Is Today” – is this:

Do a lot of work.
Don’t stop doing a lot of work.
Make as much stuff as you possibly can.
Make bad stuff and good stuff and everything in between.
Seek progress over perfection.

Chemical weapons begone

The United States announced on July 9, 2023, that it had destroyed its last stockpile of chemical weapons, making it the last of eight countries that had declared reserves under the Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy them.

The United States once had 30,000 tons of chemical agents.

Russia had at least 40,000 tons.

Today, neither country possesses any chemical weapons.

A few rogue states still possess a very small number of chemical weapons, but those numbers are also dwindling.

Syria deployed chlorine and nerve agents in its civil war with horrible effects, and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un used a nerve agent to kill his half-brother. Still, chemical weapons as weapons of mass destruction no longer exist on planet Earth.

Good news is so often ignored. People would rather complain than compliment. Lament rather than exalt. They choose pessimism over optimism at seemingly every turn.

I like to highlight moments of enormous positivity whenever possible. Let’s rejoice in nations taking a massive step toward a better world.

I don’t love land acknowledgments, but I could be wrong.

I’ve spent some time with the Mohawk nation of Canada, teaching them storytelling, and over the years, I’ve worked with people of indigenous origins many times, but otherwise, I don’t have any friends or current colleagues who descend from indigenous people.

At least as far as I know.

So I find myself wondering:

How do indigenous people feel about land acknowledgments?

I’ve met at least two storytellers who directly descend from indigenous people, and in both cases, they have told me that they prefer the word “Indian” to “Native American” or “indigenous people,” so it’s hard to know what to say sometimes and what is preferred.

A land acknowledgment, in case you don’t know, is a statement before an event recognizing the indigenous people who originally inhabited the space where the event is happening.

In terms of these land acknowledgments, I have a couple of thoughts:

First, I have yet to make a land acknowledgment at any of the shows that I produce. I can’t help but feel like doing so would make me a hypocrite since I’m not doing anything to correct or mitigate the injustice that I am publicly acknowledging.

Essentially, I’d be saying, “I acknowledge that this land was probably stolen – through force, coercion, or deception – from the indigenous people who once lived here. And with that, let’s start the show!”

This feels wrong to me, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe land acknowledgments are appreciated and beloved by the indigenous communities. But unless I’m taking some kind of action to right the wrong or support the victims of this injustice, a land acknowledgment feels like a meaningless attempt at placation.

Or worse, in some cases, an attempt to look good in front of others.

I also can’t stand when a performer takes the stage and makes their own land acknowledgment prior to their performance. Not only does it seem to malign the producer or host who failed to make the acknowledgment at the top of the show, but it also strikes me as self-aggrandizing.

A performative, almost peacocking demonstration of their cultural sensitivity.

Again, I could be wrong about all of this, and if you have indigenous roots, I’d love to hear from you.

Confirm my instincts. Set me straight. Either would be great.

Boar no good

The seemingly impossible happened:

I found a meat that I do not like:

Boar

I ordered a pasta dish with a boar ragu, and I did not like the boar at all.

I can’t believe it.

Ironically hot

At one of the many middle school concerts that Elysha and I attended last year, I (and presumably many others) noticed a female student and performer onstage wearing a black tee shirt with the words “Ironically hot” emblazoned across the front.

It was unexpected. Surprising, even.

Especially considering the rest of the performers wore the prescribed white or black shirts without any words or iconography.

I couldn’t help but think:

Those parents don’t know how to say no.

Judgmental, I know. Terrible of me. I’m a horrible human being.

I’m also admittedly making an enormous assumption.

In fairness, maybe the idea of purchasing an “Ironically hot” tee shirt for a seventh grader and wearing it to a middle school concert was her parents’ idea. Or maybe the decision came with her parents’ full endorsement.

Perhaps her mom wore the same shirt to her own middle school concert years ago, so donning it was a family tradition of sorts.

Or maybe her father thought it was amusing and subversive and, therefore, entirely appropriate for a middle school event.

Or perhaps it was just an accident. The student simply grabbed the first shirt on the pile and failed to notice the words printed across the chest.

Regardless of the rationale behind the decision, I’d like to take an objective stand against any middle school student broadcasting to the world via their shirt that they are “ironically hot” in a school concert setting and perhaps anywhere else.

Many years ago, a student arrived on the first day of school wearing a shirt with “Sexy 10” printed across the front.

I had the same feelings about that particular choice of clothing:

Those parents don’t know how to say no. And being able to say no and stick to it is a critical skill for parents. Teachers, too.

I have similar thoughts when I see a third grader with their own cell phone. Or when a student eats four packages of Oreos – four cookies to a package – for a snack every day. Or when a fifth-grade student sports a fake tattoo on his neck that reads “Guns & Girls.”

All things I have seen in my 25 years of teaching.

I suspect that none of those parents understood how to say no.

Or alternatively, maybe all of those parents thought that those decisions were righteous and just.

I’m not sure which is worse:

Thinking those things are okay or not being able to say no to your child.

Probably a tie.

Again, all of this is terribly judgmental on my part. I’m a horrible person.

Not fighting

I was recently arguing via text message with my friend Jeni.

We argue in real life, too, but when we’re apart, texting is a great way to annoy each other.

Jeni is a storyteller who teaches alongside me in my workshops from time to time. During a week-long workshop at a yoga center, one of our students once asked, “Are you guys okay?”

Apparently, our incessant arguing made some of the people in the workshop think that we were really angry with each other.

We were fine, of course. We just see the world differently sometimes, and to Jeni’s credit, she’s never afraid to go to war with me.

Our aforementioned recent argument via text message is basically this:

Matt: You can do more than you think! You’re more capable than you believe! Onward!

Jeni: Everyone is talented in different ways, dummy. I’m doing an amazing job being me. Stop selfishly assuming that everyone is just like you.

We went back and forth on this topic for a while, but then Jeni ended the conversation in a way that I think is perfectly emblematic of our friendship:

“You’re crazy. Bye.”

Three words that say so much.

I’m lucky to have a friend like Jeni. Most of the time.

A great ending can fix almost anything

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Elysha, Clara, Charlie, and I were aboard an airplane heading to Washington, DC. Charlie had been talking about this flight for weeks. It would be his first since 2019, when we flew to Florida to spend a week at Disney before the pandemic.

Charlie is obsessed with aviation. He has a pile of books on the subject. Spends loads of time on flight simulators. Watches videos about airplane construction and operation. He’s visited Connecticut’s Air and Space Museum in Connecticut twice in the past three months.

He couldn’t wait to be flying again.

But when we found our seats in row 18 of the plane, we discovered that we were sitting in a row without a window. Charlie was devastated. Ultimately, he could crane his neck and look out of the window behind us, but it certainly wasn’t what he had been dreaming about for weeks. To his credit, he made the best of it, but he was deeply disappointed.

Meanwhile, Elysha and I were also suffering. Three women sitting behind us – two behind me and one across the aisle behind Elysha –  were talking. Loudly.

Exceptionally loudly.

Their conversation was so loud that when Elysha and I donned headphones and maximized the volume on our devices, we could still hear their conversation.

They were loud beyond imagination. Comically loud. It was the kind of loud that makes you wonder if someone paid an enormous sum of money to prank us with these unrealistically loud women.

Worst still, their topics of conversation were atrocious.

No joke, they included:

A recent colonoscopy. So much about the colonoscopy.Emails that needed to be sentTheir frustrations with navigating automated phone systemsBananas vs. orangesMeetings that needed to be scheduledMeetings that had already been scheduledMeetings that didn’t need to be scheduledDecisions about wedding guests and seating chartsA grandmother requiring her granddaughter to drink V8The speed of planes vs. trainsA debate over pants vs. skirts on airplanes

Everything they said was benign and trite and painful.

Between Charlie’s disappointment over the window and these three megaphones of misery, it was an awful flight.

Then the clouds parted.

As we were exiting the plane, Charlie peeked into the cockpit of the plane, and Clara mentioned to the flight attendant that Charlie wants to be a pilot when he grows up.

“Well,” said the flight attendant. “Then he should meet the captain.”

Less than a minute later, Charlie was sitting in the copilot’s seat, identifying controls for the captain thanks to his time using flight simulators, including the one specific to this plane.

Sort of a dream come true for him and maybe the best moment of the entire vacation for him.

I often say that the beginnings and endings of stories are the most important parts, and it’s true. Three minutes spent in the copilot’s seat washed away all of the disappointment and frustration of the flight and made it one we will never forget.

Eggcorns

I had never heard of an eggcorn until I saw this video, but I found the topic fascinating.

I think you will, too.

An eggcorn is a  word or phrase resulting from a mishearing or misinterpretation of another word or phrase wherein the substitution sounds similar or identical to the original meaning.

“Free rein” and “free reign” is a good example.

The actual, or original, phrase is “free rein,” meaning to give a horse a loose rein, but the often misused “free reign,” meaning a monarch who rules unfettered, has a similar meaning.

Turns out I’ve been misusing “just desserts” and “just deserts.”

Which one is correct?

Watch the video. You’ll enjoy.

Single space of course

Back in 2008, I wrote the following screed against the movement from two spaces after a sentence to just one.

The two-space rule was a fossil of a time when people typed with typewriters. The extra space was needed to delineate the beginning of a new sentence because the spacing between words was uneven on a typewriter.

Computers do not suffer from this problem, and thus the two-space rule died a slow, necessary death.

But back in 2008, I stood opposed to this change, which gives me hope:

If I can change my mind about something that I once despised with every fiber of my body, then maybe others can change their minds, too:

Red Sox fans could become Yankees fans.

Trump supporters might finally see the light.

Bigots could stop weirdly obsessing over other people’s genitals.

Golfers who take mulligans might finally choose dignity, ethics, and sportsmanship.

New Yorkers could stop inserting street corner locations into all of their stories.

People who have never deigned to try a Domino’s pizza but routinely denigrate it might order one and discover how delicious they really are.

Change is possible. Hope springs eternal.

If you’re curious, here is my two-space diatribe from 15 years ago:
____________________________

In the recent debate over how many spaces should come after a period, I unequivocally come down on the side of two. In the words of this blog’s author, “Taking the extra space away from a period strips it of its dignity.”

Unfortunately, it appears that forces are mounting against this belief, including the Associated Press and the much-despised MLA:

“Use a single space after the period at the end of a sentence.” — The Associated Press Stylebook

“Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual.”

Global warming and nuclear proliferation have nothing on this vile and dangerous movement to remove the double space after the period. It must be stopped. Please join me in opposition to this insane and unnecessary movement.

I hope Doubleday agrees with my opinion, or I may find my first novel, Something Missing, maligned with one space after each period.

I shudder even to consider this possibility.