The Writer's Poke

My wife would have you believe that I'm a sexy beast. But here's the world's worst kept secret: For just about everyone in the world except her, I'm not. Would I mind being a popular object of desire? That's an interesting question. And I guess the answer would be: no, I wouldn't mind, as long as being objectified didn't turn me into a Fabio-style running joke. It's always made me curious, though: how do hot chicks feel about being sexualized ? Do they dig it? Children, I know there's no right or wrong answer to my query, but most must. Although we've been told that the objectification of women is wrong, because it inevitably leads to viewing women as less than human, we know that such a belief is incomplete. In fact, such a belief is probably more damaging than the potential problem it warns us against. Tangent: Ever notice that no one complains if you objectify someone for their IQ? Maybe it's time for fans of Einstein to unite and put an e...

The past is farther away than the nearest star. We reach for it with our memories, but like a pawn in a game of chess, we can never move backwards. How does one measure ten years? A decade is such a short period of time, and yet as I look back ten years, I make startling discoveries. Ten years ago, I wasn't married. Ten years ago, I had lived in the same state my entire life. Ten years ago, I had never made more than $20,000 in a year. When we look at the stars, we see them from the perspective of the Earth, as though where we are in the universe is the center, and the stars are on the periphery. Likewise, when we look to the past, we assume that the present moment is the place we start when measuring distances of time. With each passing day, we have the opportunity to achieve more. But paradoxically, the more we achieve, the less satisfied we may become. Achievement becomes a burden that some cannot escape, and the longing for a simpler time draws us back to the past. We may or m...

Many consider Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8 1/2 to be one of the best films ever made. I don't know if I would go that far, but it certainly is cerebral. Much like Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, reality, memory, and fantasy blur together. The scene from the film that sticks out most to me is when all of the women in Guido Anselmi's life assemble in one room. Here are his wife, his mistress, old girlfriends, and possibly even women that simply caught his eye for a brief moment on the bus. What an odd and potentially horrifying scenario! And yet, all the women wear big smiles, and everyone appears to be having a jolly-good time -- almost as if they are attending a pleasant memory reunion of sorts. Why do certain memories stay with us? According to Edmund Bolles , "We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay attention to what we want." So what exactly does Guido want? That's a question that works on many levels,...

Meredith Brooks keeps releasing albums, bless her heart. But basically she's a one-hit wonder best known for her 1997 song "Bitch." Some of you might remember that song, whose refrain goes: "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm mother" etc. In essence, Brooks is saying: there are many different facets to my being, so don't try to categorize me. I have to tell you that I find it somewhat ironic that her entire musical career, then, has been completely engulfed by this one song. Although she's released a number of albums since this song, people heard "Bitch" so many times that they decided they never needed to hear another Brooks song for the rest of their lives. And yet, I was sitting in my office the other day, and someone's cell phone went off in the hallway. Brooks' song was the ringtone, and someone was apparently calling for the "Bitch." What does your ringtone say about you? Or, if you don't ha...

When I realized that Tavi could start repeating back what I was saying, I quickly taught her to say "Daddy's awesome!" Now she can say it on command, and sometimes she will even say it voluntarily out of the blue. Pretty cool. And, well, I am awesome. No doubt. But am I more awesome than Eta Carinae , a star that is 4 million times brighter than our own sun? Carl Sagan used to be fond of saying, "We're made of star stuff." And when you think about it, that's pretty darn awesome. But what makes humans more awesome than even the most humble star? Some might say, "We have the ability to realize just how awesome we are." Really? Is that all it takes to make us more awesome than stars? Where do stars go when they die? Nowhere. No one claims that there's a heaven for stars. Yet, we, that are made from stars, do have a heaven? Strange what self-reflecting beings can come up with... What makes you so awesome? "If we long to believe that the s...

Those that have taught (or taken) Freshman Composition in the past 15 years are probably very familiar with Judy Syfer's classic 1971 feminist essay "I Want a Wife." In it, she assumes the voice of the typical male chauvinist, describing all the things a good wife must do: not complain, please sexually, put herself second, take care of the kids and all of the housework, etc. Throughout the essay, Syfer's running refrain is "I want a wife," and after she's done cataloging the wife's "traditional" duties, she rhetorically asks: "My God, who wouldn't want a wife?" Of course her point isn't that a wife should be defined in the traditional way. She shouldn't be the husband's servant. The essay calls for liberation and a redefining of what we think a wife should be. About twenty years later, RATT released a song called "I Want a Woman." This song is so complicated and deep that it would be impossible for me ...

I watched Pinocchio for the first time last night, and what a quaint story it is by today's standards. Here's a wooden puppet that would love to become a boy, but to do so, he must prove himself. His task is to avoid lying, avoid smoking, and for god's sake, avoid playing pool. Real boys know right from wrong, and they choose to live according to their consciences. Most of the focus in the movie is on Pinocchio, but it's quite clear in the Paradise Island segment that boys who "sin" aren't any better than marionettes (or jackasses). They're just controlled by different strings. Pinocchio's "conscience" is Jiminy Cricket, which is interestingly a euphemism for Jesus Christ. Unlike a "real" conscience, and unlike Jesus Christ, Jiminy is not perfect. He's a little bit of a ladies' man, and one wonders if perhaps sometimes a conscience itself doesn't need a conscience. But both Jiminy and Pinocchio grow by film's ...

The sound is a little off, but the lyrics are crazy-good. Mariah fans and anti-Mariah haters alike should be able to appreciate this one...

http://www.laughbreak.com/lists/numbers_of_the_beast.html This scummy kid walked out of the bathroom, and the first thing I noticed about him was his earring. In 1987, not too many guys wore earrings at my junior high. His was an inverted cross, and I remember wondering why anyone would want to wear an inverted cross. To my mind at the time, that was a symbol of Satan, and I couldn't understand why anyone would want to join the losing team. Later that year, I found myself doodling the number 666 on one of my notebooks. When my dad saw the notebook on the kitchen table that night, he nicely recommended that I scratch out that number and not ever doodle it again. Why? I asked. How can that number have any meaning? Surely the devil doesn't really have a "human number." But Dad explained that it wasn't the number that mattered so much as how other people would perceive the owner of the notebook. Somewhere between seeing that boy coming out of the bathroom and doodling...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AGiq9j_Ak In the original 1992 Gatorade commerical staring Michael Jordan, a chorus of children sing "If I could be like Mike" while a montage of basketball images cascade across the screen. In four specific scenes, we see Mike hold a Gatorade product in his hand, but only in one of them does he hold the cup to his lips. Does he actually take a sip? The scene cuts away before we can know for sure. And what exactly does "Be Like Mike" mean, anyway? The message at the end of the commercial isn't very subtle: "Be Like Mike. Drink Gatorade." The commercial actually ends with this command (in black and white no less). Whoever designed the commercial didn't want you to simply "be like Mike"; they wanted to make sure that you got the message that you should be drinking the green liquid (and how exactly do you describe the taste?) at all times. If we are to "Be Like Mike," does that mean that we should ...

As careful readers of my blog will recall, as an undergraduate in college I wrote a poem called "Zugzwang und Zwischen ." This was the first time that I explored the idea that freedom from choice could be beneficial. It's surprising what you find out about yourself when you spend a lot of time writing. I'm not sure I would have ever expressed that belief had I not written a poem about it. But give it some thought and see if it doesn't make some sense. Isn't it true that most of us sacrifice choices in our lives? Why on earth would we do that, unless we expected to receive some sort of benefit? Example: most of us marry, and for most people, marriage is a contract between two people -- you "forsake all others." In other words, you give up choices, yes? And at least initially , most people find value in the institution of marriage, yes? Now, we can quibble over how high the divorce rate is, how many people cheat on their spouses , etc. But just take t...

Back in the late 1980s, a professional wrestler named Ted Dibiase took on the moniker of "The Million Dollar Man." The gimmick made him one of the most hated heels in the business, and his signature laugh told everyone that he had the money to do whatever he wanted. Back in those days, wrestlers still lived their characters 24/7, and wrestling promoter Vince McMahon would pay for Dibiase to be driven around in limos, fly first class, and utilize the services of a personal servant /body guard, Virgil. When Dibiase couldn't buy the World Title, he simply had the Million Dollar Belt created. " Everybody's got a price" was Dibiase's catch-phrase, and maybe fans loved to hate him because they recognized the truth in that statement. Who can blame the rich for acting rich? Wouldn't we all act like the Million Dollar Man if given the chance? Of course the ultimate price movie, Indecent Proposal , came out in 1993. Yes, Demi Moore's character did ac...

I almost hesitate writing this one, because it's not my intention to jinx the man. Religious leaders tend to have some pretty nasty skeletons in their closets, but thus far, Joel Osteen seems to be exactly what he appears to be. And I have decided that Osteen is my favorite Christian. The first time I saw him on TV, I was flipping through the channels in an effort to cure my insomnia. And there was this guy's smiling face. My wife calls me a funny atheist, but sometimes I like to watch TV preachers doing their thing, and this guy hooked me in. Something about him was different. First off, he could give an entire sermon without once providing a Bible reference. Some might think that a weird thing to appreciate about a preacher, but I liked it. He clearly knew his Christian philosophy, but he didn't feel the need to footnote every line of text. In other words, he could think for himself, and he didn't spend an entire sermon paraphrasing or explaining what a particular ...

One of the best non-fiction books I've probably ever read is Chip Heath and Dan Heath's Made to Stick . Heath and Heath explain why some ideas stay with us, while others just fade away. Their main premise is that sticky ideas have six basic qualities: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotional connectedness, and the element of story. Looking at the blog attached to the book, I noticed that the authors posted a link to The World of 100: http://www.toby-ng.com/graphic-design/the-world-of-100/ This link takes statistical data about the world and uses picture graphs to present the information. It's difficult to visualize statistics for 6 billion people, so instead the creator of these graphs breaks it down to the world as though it were made up of just 100 people. Thinking about the data from that perspective is really kind of neat. For example, instead of trying to image that 2 billion people in the world are Christian, try to imagine that 33 people out o...

I know I've dissed routines before, and I still hate mornings mainly because of the routine involved in starting the day. But my daughter shared an epiphany with me last night, and I'll try not to forget it. Every night, we read books. Then Tavi has her bath. When bath time is over, Linda brings her out wrapped in a towel, and Tavi calls for "Daddy kisses." Once properly kissed, we apply her butt wipe, put on the overnight diaper and PJs, and sit down together in the dimly-lit living room. Then Tavi will walk back and forth between us, give hugs and kisses, and try her best to negotiate a few more bedtime stories before walking off to her crib. In the crib, everything must be just so. Her silky blanket must touch her face, her bottle must be within arm's reach, her baby that recites the child's prayer must be at her side, and her Piglet doll must be in view as well. Some routines rock. What are the best and worst parts of your average day? "The secret of ...

What exactly is a billion years? It's a hard concept to even imagine. To explain how long humans have been around in comparison to the universe, Carl Sagan used the metaphor of the calendar. If the universe began on January 1, the Milky Way galaxy wasn't formed until March, the sun and planets in our solar system didn't form until August, and single-celled life didn't appear until September. When did humans appear? Oh, around 10:48 p.m. on December 31. In other words, we've only been around for a little over an hour, and Columbus's voyage to the Americas happened a second ago. We really have no concept of eternity. But let's assume the universe had a beginning. Scientists now believe the universe is about 14 billion years old. And from all evidence, the universe seems to be expending ever outward at an incredible rate. Can it expand forever without consequence? Some scientists suggest that it cannot. Think about filling up a balloon. Eventually it pops, and ...

"We couldn't have done it without a dual income." -- Carl Smith Can you imagine making money from dueling ? I think that's probably even better than earning a wage from playing Russian roulette. Granted, "dual" and "duel" are homonyms, but a lot of words share the same letter sequence and hold quite different meanings. There must be literally hundreds of these dual words, and here are just six off the top of my head: match, spring, fall, quarter, stroke, wave. And I bet it wouldn't take you very long to brainstorm another hundred or more. In context, you can determine the right meaning of the word being referenced; and it's true that you can easily figure out that a word might change meaning depending on whether it's being used as a verb or a noun, etc. But still, it's fun to visualize the wrong use of the word, and think about how it totally changes the intended meaning of the sentence. Makes you feel sorry for all of the people tr...

I stumbled across "Antoine and Colette," which is an interesting French short film from the early 1960s. Shot in black and white, it's the story of a young boy infatuated with a hot chick. Towards the end of the film, he lays it all out for her: Let's set things straight, he tells her. Just don't lead me on. Of course she hasn't been leading him on whatsoever. She doesn't mind if he hangs around, but if she has something she'd rather be doing, or other people she'd rather be with, she makes it quite clear that he is not the first priority in her life. As it turns out, her parents are much more "in love" with him than she is. They see in him a nice boy, but that's probably all that Colette sees in him too. And by film's end, her parents have invited him to supper, but then there's a knock on the door and a new man has arrived to take Colette out for a date. Antoine is left to watch TV with the parents. Awkward? Uh, yeah... The...

I like the Sir Mix-a-lot mash-up better, but this one with Nine Inch Nails is worth watching, too.

So we've been talking a lot about rain on facebook today... This next video has nothing to do with rain, but I found it while doing a rain video search, and it's just about the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. Tell me you don't agree?