Bad Poetry. Again.

Today at work I found myself writing bad poems whenever I took a break. I don’t know why. I don’t write poems often. But I can be consistently bad at it. I tweeted about it, and someone asked to share one. So, here you go, dear reader, a bad poem from a work break:

You Don’t Fit

You don’t fit

In aisles too narrow for your hips

Should have turned sideways

Instead of bumping into things

Bruised body parts

Purple on white

Your head and torso do not fit in this

Awkwardly touching and avoiding

Exactly same polarity

I told you, you don’t fit

In clothes too tight for your tits.

 

I Stand Corrected

I’m at work listening to a discussion between two of my co-workers. I’m not part of the discussion, but they are outside my office, so I can’t help but hear what they say. Let’s call them C and M. C narrates what happened to a meeting last night, what decisions were made and how this affects M. She tells M “because you are in this position, based on what they decided on the meeting last night, this thing will happen to you.” M responds with a “yes”.

The thing is that everything C says about M is wrong: he is not in the position she says he is, so he will not be affected by the meeting’s decision the way she is describing. C talks like she really knows what she’s talking about. When C goes to another office and she’s out of earshot, I tell M: “What C says is wrong. You are not in that position. Nothing of what she just said will happen.” He laughs and says he knows.  “Why didn’t you tell her”, I ask. “Oh, because she thinks she’s right”, he responds.

And this is something I don’t like. M didn’t bother to correct C. Now C will go on and tell the same thing to other people  in the same confident manner. And possibly spread the same incorrect thoughts and conclusions to others. Why does one not bother to correct someone is something I can’t understand. I can’t stand quiet when someone says something I know for a fact is wrong. I will correct them. Not because I like correcting people, but because I like people to know the true facts.

We all have opinions, we all have perceptions. Some of them are right, some of them are wrong. For instance, I always thought the singer of Beach House is a man, because it sounded like a man to me. Once in a conversation, somebody referred to the singer as a “she”, which prompted a back and forth, “it’s a she”, “no, it’s a he!”. In the end I googled and turned out I was wrong. It is nice to now know the singer is a woman and not make a full fool of myself the next time I’m talking about Beach House.

There are people, though, who do not like to be corrected. They take corrections as arguments or negativity. When something is objective (e.g. if it is 9 a.m. it is morning, it cannot be night) as opposed to subjective (e.g. mornings are great or mornings suck) there is really no argument to be made. Correcting people is not an argument. It’s continuous education, it’s continuous learning. When I say something with the wrong accent or use the wrong preposition (by the way, why is it so hard for me to use the right preposition?) I want to be corrected. Because this is the only way I will learn how to say things right. This is how I will be a better person, this is how I will not sound ignorant or stupid. I want to improve, I want to be better. All corrections are welcome.

I Bore You With My Last Night’s Dream

Our dreams are boring to everyone but us. So let’s get the boring rolling with my last night’s dream:

I went to a bar that was supposedly owned by Jennifer Lopez. I ordered a beer that was on the list. The woman behind the bar was Trina of Trina’s Starlight. She entered the name of the beer in her iPhone, and said that it would take the delivery person one hour to get it to the bar.  ”One hour?”,  I asked surprised. “Yes, one hour”, she said “because they make it in Waltham. ” I was trying to understand the concept, so I asked her “So, if it was a Harpoon it would take less time, because they would bring it from South Boston?” “Yes”, she replied.

I drank another beer that they had, and I paid for it. Trina apologized for not having the beer I had ordered first, and said the next one would be on them. Unfortunately, I had to leave. I tried to find my jacket, but the place was getting very busy, so they had moved it around. I got a little anxious trying to find my jacket, but I located it on a planter. The crowd was now women and men in their 40s-50s.

I got home and a little while later the phone rang. It was Jennifer Lopez’s mother saying that Jennifer would like to talk to me. I said sure. Jennifer came to the phone and said she was sorry that they didn’t have the beer I had ordered. She sounded like she had a cold. She said that they had recently opened the bar, so she was looking for feedback from the customers. I told her that it wasn’t a big deal really, I had ordered something else and was happy with it. She asked about the staff and I told her they were all very nice and helpful. She said that I could go back to the bar sometime next weekend, and my beer would be on them, as an apology. I thanked her and hang up. I don’t think she had asked my name, so I wondered how they would know at the bar, I was the person who got to have a beer on J-Lo.  And then I realized it was bizarre that I was on the phone was J-Lo and she was asking for my feedback. I couldn’t wait to tweet about it.

The only question I have now is how did J-Lo get my number.

King (a poem by Matthew Dickman)

I’m always the king of something. Ruined or celebrated,

newly crowned, or just beheaded. King of the shady grass

and king of the dirty sheets. I sit in the middle

of the room in December

with the windows open, five pills, and a razor. My life long

secret. My killing power and my staying

power. When the erection fails, when the car almost hits

the divider, I’m king. I wave my hand over

the ants bubbling out of the sidewalk and make them all knights,

I sit at the dinner table and look into the deep

dark eyes of my television, my people. I tell them the kingdom

will be remembered in dreams of gold. I tell them

what was lost will be found. So I put on my black-white

checkered Vans, the exact pair of shoes

my older brother wore when he was still a citizen in the world,

and I go out, I go out into the street

with my map of the dead and look for him,

for the X he is,

so I can put the scepter back in his hands, take the red

cloak from my shoulders and put it around his, lift the crown

from my head and fit it just above his eyebrows,

so I can get down on one knee, on both

knees, and lower my face and whisper my lord, my master, my king.

The Loud Eater At The Movies

Last night I went to see the movie ‘Like Crazy’. I went by myself, because I wanted to be alone. I wanted quiet, I didn’t feel like socializing or talking to anyone. I went in the theater and it wasn’t particularly busy. As is the custom these days, I had to sustain ten minutes of loud previews. Then the loudness passed and the movie started.

‘Like Crazy’ is a quiet movie. What you hear is low-key dialogue, as opposed to loud explosions and cars crashing. Unfortunately, the quiet tone of the film was interrupted by the loud eating of the couple to my left. These people were eating their pop corn with remarkable vengeance. It was as if the pop corn had inflicted major pain upon them and it was revenge-time. They were attacking the paper bag like it was the last available food on earth. And do you know what happens when you attack a paper bag? It makes a loud noise. And do you know what happens when you are munching pop corn? Yes, that’s right, you are very loud and the person to your right is wishing you would choke on it.

At some point I thought my spell was successfully cast, as the guy started coughing. “Oh, wow, he is choking”, I thought to myself. But after gulping some soda down, he stopped. He resumed eating like a pig. It felt like it was the endless bag of pop corn. There was always more for these people to attack.

After an hour or so there was no more noise. They had successfully devoured everything. They stopped. I rejoiced. At last I was able to enjoy the movie with nothing to annoy me. At some point the guy from the loud couple got up to go out. In the process he managed to knock over everything in his way, as well as stomp on the pop corn paper bag he had placed on the floor. I just wanted to turn and yell at him “What the fuck is wrong with you?”. But I didn’t, I remained civil.

While the loud eater was out, the movie ended. This was a movie exploring a long distance relationship. It was a sweet and understated movie. The ending was particular emotional and touching. Not because something extraordinary happened, but because of the way it showed how the two characters had changed, and what the relationship had morphed into after a year. It was an ending fit to the overall mood, yet powerful. The boor had missed the ending, pretty much the best thing in the movie. Oh, sweet silent revenge.

When One Of My Photos Appeared On A Book Cover

I take photographs. Occasionally I take lots of photographs. When I have time I might edit them, and then post them on flickr. Occasionally, someone sees one of my photos and they contact me to see if they can use them in their website. Most of the time, people just use them in their blogs or twitter or facebook by simply linking to the flickr image, or just provide a short credit with my flickr username. I usually decline use of my images for commercial purposes: I am not a professional photographer, and I would rather see a business hire a professional photographer for images they would like to use on their website or other publications.

Back in April of this year, a writer contacted me regarding one of my photographs. It was one I had taken during the snowstorm of January 2011, titled “SnowDay Love“. I was walking on the bike path towards Davis Square and there was this couple holding hands walking toward me. All was white with snow, the trees at Seven Hills Park forming a nice arch overhead. Everything was beautiful and I was really happy with the photograph.

The writer -Tom Weston of Boston – said they had discovered my photograph on flickr. He sent me a very nice email with a brief description of the book, as well as a draft of the conceptual design for the book cover asking for permission to use my photograph. This is how he described his book:

I can think of no one deserving of a wider audience than Lise Meitner, the protagonist of FISSION. Based on the life of the real Lise Meitner, it is the story of a woman who overcame sexism, fascism and two world wars to discover nuclear fission and spark the race for the atomic bomb. FISSION begins in 1906 Vienna, as Lise becomes the first woman to obtain a PhD in physics from the University. It follows her to Berlin where she rises to be the Director for Physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and endures as a Jew in 1930’s Germany, before she flees the country, one step ahead of the Nazis. Exiled in Sweden, on a walk through the snow on Christmas day, Lise discovers nuclear fission. Following her discovery, she is lauded as Woman of the Year, but is ultimately betrayed and controversially denied the Nobel Prize. All of this plays out against the backdrop of the 20^th century: the fall of the Austrian Empire, two world wars and the atom bomb at Hiroshima. Lise’s story is packed with many famous people from that period: Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Adolph Hitler, Eleanor Roosevelt, President Truman and Kaiser Wilhelm II, to name a few.

Lise Meitner sounded like an exceptional woman with a very interesting story. I was intrigued. And as I mentioned Tom was very nice, he said that although they could not offer me monetary compensation (he is self-publishing), they would credit me in the copyright page and offer a complementary copy of the book once it is published.

Oh, yes, the inevitable lack of monetary compensation. Under other circumstances, I would say no. But I liked the story, Tom was very polite, and I was flattered that someone wanted to put a photograph of mine on their book cover. I replied to him granting permission to use the photograph under certain conditions: I will retain the copyright of the photograph, they will have to credit me in the copyright page, the permission is for the image to be used on the hard cover and paper back book covers only and only of those published by his publishing company, if they would like to use it for any additional material or purposes they would have to ask for permissions again, and finally I asked for three copies of his book singed by him once it is published.

Tom accepted, and offered three hard cover and three paper back copies of his book, all signed by him (there’s some compensation after all). After that he sent me a couple of quick email updates, and it was great to hear that ‘FISSION’ was published in August (it can be purchased from amazon here).  In early October I received my three copies, with a very nice thank-you note. I look forwarding to reading the book soon.

This is a photograph of the book:

And this is the original photograph:

HONK! Festival 2011

This past weekend HONK! invaded Somerville. It was the once-a-year crazy scene with awesome brass and marching bands flooding Davis Square. It was the time of the year when young and old glow joy. HONK! is the festival of activist street bands, and the crowd is invited to participate and show support for the message. What is the message? You can read it here, but by just looking around I could see support for democracy, peace, sharing, the environment. It’s also about participating in the fun, and that’s not really a tough one to do.

It was fun wandering around. By the end of the day Saturday the square was overcome with the smells of HONK!: sweat, multiple varieties of body odor, pot. And then Sunday was the great parade when the bands joined by various groups, march down Mass Ave from Davis Square in Somerville to Harvard Square in Cambridge. You see policemen, Mayors, cross-dressers, people on stilts, people-wheels (you know, like a hamster-wheel but with people instead of hamsters). You see weird, you see crazy, but it is all fun and it is all good. HONK! is just another thing that make me love my neighborhood.

I took some photographs, you can see the full set here.