Don't compliment students. One kid's compliment is another kid's insult. Restaurant staffers also take note.

As a teacher, I abide by a simple and unusual rule in my classroom:

No compliments based upon physical appearance. 

I do not comment on a student’s wardrobe, hairstyle, shoes, or anything else related to the student’s image, even if he or she asks. 

Student: Mr. Dicks! What do you think of my new haircut?

Me: I think your memorization of the multiplication tables is outstanding!

Some think this policy a bit extreme, but having grown up wearing hand-me-down clothing and the cheapest of sneakers, I am well aware of the seemingly harmless praise that is often lauded upon the girl in the pretty dress or the boy in the dapper sports coat. 

While the student being complimented might feel great, what about the other students in the class, some of whom might rarely be complimented on their appearance?

One person’s compliment is another person’s painful reminder of what he or she does not have.

Besides, as a teacher, a student’s physical appearance is of little importance to me, nor should it matter to any teacher.  While I’d like them to be physically fit, I tell my students that I care about their words and deeds. Nothing more.

Even so, it wasn't an easy habit to break, as our society often seems hell-bent on praising a child’s appearance at every turn. It probably took three years to strip all compliments based upon physical appearance our of my teacher lexicon.

Today, I inform students of my policy on the first day of school, and their response is universally positive and appreciative.  

While some adults have understood and even admired this policy, many think that it is unnecessary and even ridiculous.

But not all.

After reading his piece in the New York Times entitled One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do.  I suspect that Bruce Buschel might appreciate my policy on physical appearance.  His list includes: 

42. Do not compliment a guest’s attire or hairdo or makeup. You are insulting someone else.

While I’m not sure if complimenting a student’s appearance means that you’re insulting another student, there’s a good chance that you are neglecting one or unintentionally making one or more students feel subpar, and that’s bad enough for me.

Promoting sexism? Maybe. But will anyone care?

BOYS ARE DOGS is the YA title that garnered some attention when it was published for reportedly being sexist. Amazon’s product description is this:

“Middle-school boys act like wild animals.

That’s what Annabelle discovers on her first day in her brand-new life. Birchwood Middle School is totally different from her old all-girls elementary. In fact, lots of things in Annabelle’s life are totally different now that she’s back from summer camp. There’s mom’s new boyfriend, a new house, new friends—even a new puppy that likes to chew on Annabelle’s clothes. Well, at least the puppy comes with a leash and a training manual! If only she could say the same for the boys . . .

Featuring Annabelle’s hilarious take on friendship, boys, and her all-new life, this novel / survival guide perfectly captures the joy—and agony—of junior high school. And it might just teach you how to tame the wildest beast of all, the teenage boy.”

When Scholastic began promoting the book in 2009, I was warned that this “sexist book” might make its way into the hands of my students, and based upon the title and the summary of the book, it’s an understandable reaction.  Any book that compares boys to dogs and implies that the same training methods used on puppies can also be used on teenage boys might appear sexist, except for one important thing:

Boys don’t care. And men really don’t care either.

Sure, there comes a time when boys want girls to like them, but if my wife agreed to marry me but thought that my behavior resembled that of a dog, would I care?

Not really.

If a teenage boy convinces a pretty girl to accompany him to the prom, will he care that the girl attempts to use dog training techniques to improve his behavior?

No way.

Author Leslie Margolis thinks that boys are dogs?

Whatever.

According to my sources, that has been the general reaction by boys to this book. It’s the same reaction that girls get when they wear a shirt that says:

Boys just don't care.

In my decade of teaching, I have seen this shirt or variations on the shirt dozens of times, but not once has a boy or his father complained that the shirt is sexist or degrading.

But imagine what might happen if a boy came to school with a shirt that read:

Girls are losers.  Boys are bruisers.

Or…

Girls smell.  Boys are swell.

How long would it take a girl or her mother to scream sexism, and rightly so?

About half a second is my guess.

Yet boys simply ignore these shirts and go back to their kickball games.

Fathers hardly notice them at all.

And mothers continue to purchase these shirts for their little girls, failing to see the double standard that a message like this presents.

BOYS ARE DOGS might be sexist. I’m not sure. I haven’t read the book yet.  But even if it is sexist, it’s unlikely that any boy in my class would care, and this is a mindset that I hope my daughter can achieve someday.

When you stop caring what other people think, the world becomes a much easier place to live.

Strange days

A friend of mine suggested that I post this, which I wrote a couple years ago. He thought it might be a good way for readers to get to know me a little better. I have edited the original piece slightly to reflect changes in my life since I first wrote it.

____________________________________

Here are some strange things about me:

I haven’t vomited since the riding on the Music Express at Rocky Point Amusement Park in 1982.

When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend named Johnson-Johnson, named after Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder, so my mother presumed. This imagery friend was so real that many of my childhood memories include him, as if the little boy had actually been there. I can recall my mother telling me years later that Johnson-Johnson had never existed and being stunned by this revelation.

I am able to drink more alcohol than anyone I know, and yet I have never suffered from a hangover. In fact, I feel extremely good the next morning. My friend, Scott, once referred to me as a drinking God. Despite this, I do not drink anymore. I prefer Diet Coke and apple juice.  Alcohol possesses no allure for me.

Early on in my relationship with my wife, I was eating breakfast with her parents.  In lieu of coffee, another drink that I do not consume, I ordered a large glass of apple juice. Her father responded with, “Apple juice? Who orders apple juice?”

Years later, I still don’t understand his question.

But I digress. Back to my strangeness.

I have never bruised. Not once. Despite having been injured more than anyone I know, including a car accident that sent me into the windshield and left me clinically dead for a few minutes on the side of a road, I escaped without a single bruise. Many other life-threatening injuries, but no bruises.

This ability to avoid bruising led me to form my own band of superheroes a while back. Sounds strange, I know, but it was a difficult time in my life. I was living alone in a cruddy little apartment above an apartment that reeked of curry.  I was maintaining a serious relationship with a fictional character from a now defunct television series (which was outstanding during its one season). It was a tough time for me, so anything to take my mind off my troubles was good.

So one evening I decided to start a band of modern-day superheroes. In order to join the team, all you had to have was a superpower that was also somehow connected to a personal weakness or flaw. Like Superman. The fact that he came from the planet Krypton gave him his remarkable powers here on Earth, yet Kryptonite (a piece of Krypton) could kill him while he was on Earth.

Classic superhero motif.

I was Mr. Indestructible. I cannot be killed (having been brought back from death twice already) nor can I be bruised, yet I tend to be hurt all the time. Torn rotator cuff. Bad knees. Concussions. You name it. Strength and weakness tied together. Get it?

My friend, Bengi, was Ocular Man, since he has 20/10 vision and can see anything from about a mile away. But he is so frightened about getting water in his eyes that he has to wear a hat with a brim during a rainstorm.

My friend, Shep, was Mediocre Man, since he can do just about anything, but he can’t do anything exceptionally well.

There were other contenders for a spot on the team, including my wife, Elysha. She can identify any song and artist within three seconds of hearing it. It’s freakish how quick she is. And her musical knowledge ranges from the Ink Spots to the Beastie Boys.

I sometimes wonder if she’s some kind of musical-identification savant.

If Elysha had made the team, her weakness could have been her terrible sense of direction (unfortunately, this does not tie in well with musical identification). She once drove for an hour across Connecticut to the border with New York, stopped off at an exit for a coffee, gotten back on the highway, and driven almost all the way back home before realizing that she is headed in the wrong direction.

There was an evening years ago when she headed for the restaurant’s kitchen, thinking it was the exit, even though the door that we had entered (and would presumably exit) was in plain view of our table.

Still, I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

You may be wondering what the purpose was in forming this band of superheroes (other than to distract me from my misery).

That’s easy.

We planned on battling our evil nemesis, Gary, also my friend. I thought that Gary would play the role well. He seems kind of evil and he’s easy to anger. Getting him to battle us wouldn’t be difficult, I surmised.

Alas, nothing ever became of my band of superheroes. Elysha entered my life and my sanity returned. But I still think about those brave souls, ready to give their lives in order to fight against evil Gary, with the fate of the world in the balance.

Those were good days.

Free

I find myself with more than a hundred books that I’d like to eliminate from my life. They are excellent books, classics, bestsellers, collections of essays, etc. I just don’t have any reason to keep them in my house anymore. There are too many books that I have not yet read to ever imagine going back and rereading these.

There are some that I have kept. I’ve held onto my Vonnegut, my Twain, all of my poetry, and a few others for which rereading might someday happen, but the Marquis de Sade and The Valley of the Dolls?

Probably not.

But what am I to do with them?

Libraries won’t take them except for once or twice a year, and I always seem to miss their collection days.

Selling them on Amazon or eBay would net me almost nothing and consume an inordinate amount of my time.

I’ve thought about giving them away at my signings, creating some kind of game with my books as prizes, but how will a bookstore feel about me giving away books when they are trying to sell books to their patrons?

Suzanne Munshower of The Guardian recently wrote about this issue, urging readers to avoid throwing the books away, suggesting that people instead giving unwanted books to friends or donating them to a used bookstore.

I like both ideas, but there is no used bookstore local to me, and how am I supposed to pass off a copy of the Marquis de Sade to a friend? For the past six months, I’ve literally been driving around with about two dozen books in my backseat, a small percentage of the number I am trying to eliminate, hoping for that perfect moment when someone will want or need one of my books.

It has yet to happen. Oddly enough, the sudden need for a random classic piece of literature has not come up yet.

So in my backseat they remain, waiting for that new owner to step forward or for that used bookstore to appear on the horizon. I won’t throw them away, but I wish that I lived in the world where these books possessed a greater attraction for those who have not yet read them.

Where have all the rebels gone?

Blogger Jason Kottke recently wrote about the differing approaches to "being an adult." In his post, he establishes two kinds of adults: A: Those who have set aside their childish ways

B: Those who rebel against the lack of freedom of childhood.

“Basically opposite approaches,” he writes. “Responsible adulthood and irresponsible adulthood.”

Kottke continues:

The A people feel that being an adult means eating healthfully, being financially responsible, dressing to meet the expectations of others, flossing regularly, servicing your vehicle regularly, etc.

Folks who take the B approach feel that adulthood means that you can eat candy for breakfast, drink too much, fail to keep careful track of your finances, stay up late, play hours of video games a day, skip dental cleanings for three years, order the steak instead of the salad, etc.

This issue is actually at the center of my current manuscript, so the post appealed to me a great deal. But I don’t entirely agree with Kottke’s distinctions.

I tend to be someone who constantly wonders where all the rebels have gone. I cannot understand what causes the adolescent hellion, the twenty-something non-conformist and the teenage idealist to suddenly accept, embrace and surrender to the traditions and mores of modern society. I marvel at people who are my age; former activists, dreamers, militants and all-around challengers of authority, who have become so thoroughly invested in suburban conformity, expectations of appearance, the etiquette of the masses, and an overall concern with the opinions and values of the majority that they have begun to resemble the conservative, staid, judgmental, risk-free nature of their parents.

Have they forgotten the vows made as teenagers and young adults?

Have they chosen to ignore the disdain that they once felt for the rigidity and formality of the adult world?

Have they failed to remember the anthems of their youth?

I think so, and it makes me crazy. I thought that I would be a member of the generation that would tip conformity and convention on its head. I have been disappointed. The majority of people who are my age seem to have eased themselves into the stream of the compliance and traditionalism. This is why clever websites like My Parents Were Awesome even exist. As the site says:

Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome.

I agree, but look at the majority of them now. Free-wheeling? Super awesome? That’s starting to become a hard thing to say about people my age, and I’m still barely out of my thirties.

I tend to lean towards non-conformity. I challenge conventional wisdom whenever possible. I question the most basic rituals and procedures of society. I dress for comfort and personal preference rather than the expectations of others. I refuse to wear any item of clothing (save sneakers) that that is adorned with a designer label. I no longer wear ties, finding them to be little more than decorated nooses with no discernible purpose. I don’t drink coffee, tea or alcohol. I still write embarrassing comments in the Memo sections of my checks when presenting them to a friend as payment. When I guy shakes my hand with excessive force, I whine like a little girl, asking him why he’s so mean. When someone knocks on a locked bathroom door, I respond with Monty Python quotes. I still play video games with my friends from time to time (and would do so more often if I had the time). I think that dessert can be a part of breakfast, and I long for the day when I am still hungry enough to enjoy a slice of pie after my eggs and toast.

If you were to ask my friends, they would likely identify me as one of Kottke’s type B adults.

Yet I floss regularly. I like to think that I am financially responsible. I may not eat as well as I should, but I try, and I work out at the gym almost daily. The distinctions that Kottke makes, responsible versus irresponsible, are not quite accurate when describing these two forms of adults, but they are close.

I believe that a type B adult, the kind who does not conform to society’s expectations and challenges convention, can still be responsible when it comes to taking care of him or herself. Despite my desire to tip the world on its head, I don’t want my teeth to fall out, my house to be foreclosed upon, and my heart to explode at the age of 45. I would argue that a person can reject the traditional construct of adulthood while still maintaining a healthy, financially independent lifestyle.

One does not need to live in sloth and destitution in order to be, as someone described me recently, “interesting but difficult.”

A person can reject the trappings of adulthood and still floss regularly.

I wish more would. In both regards.

An homage to great storytellers everywhere

Wash, rinse, dry, repeat

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are together again in the film adaptation to ALICE IN WONDERLAND, a book that I found to be utterly unreadable.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland…

Haven’t they made this movie at least once already?  And perhaps twice if you count the animated version of the film?   

  

Worst million dollars ever

The now-defunct USFL Gamblers sponsored a contest in 1982 that gave away one million dollars to one of their fans. 

The terms of the deal:

$50,000, paid out over twenty years, beginning twenty years later, in 2002.

Unbelievable.

Once more with feeling, for all you Buffy fans

I love this stuff.

Stupid name

So my Yankees will be playing against the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series starting on Wednesday.

I don’t want to sound mean-spirited, but what kind of stupid name is the Phillies? 

The original name of the franchise was the Philadelphia Philadelphias, a name that is quite ridiculous and even worse when said aloud, but is Phillies any better?

Imagine if other major league teams took Philadelphia’s lead and started name their team similarly.

The New York Yorkies.

The Boston Bosties.

The San Diego San Diegoies.

The Yankees should crush the Phillies just on the basis of name alone.

Let’s hope…

Many hands make light work

Writing is not always a solitary process.

In addition to a crew of faithful readers who are kind enough to read my books as I write them, chapter by chapter, I also have a stable of readers who are nice enough to help me with my blog as well, offering me editing and revising suggestions when needed.  My wife is often my first line of defense against my typical typos and other blunders, but lately, others have joined in the fray.  A European reader has most recently been the first to fire me an email when I make an error on the blog, and other friends step up from time to time as well. 

All are consistently and remarkably insightful in their suggestions for revision, as my good friend, Charles, was this morning, when he wrote:

“In your post "Kudos from readers in Greece and Norway" you use the word alternate twice.  The correct word is alternative.

I am somewhat shocked though.  I just looked it up on Merriam-Webster.com and they list that alternate is acceptable usage.  I guess since so many people have used alternate erroneously in place of alternative that the definition has been added.  Strunk and White definitely don't concur with this.  Alternate implies a cyclic change (from Latin alternus: "one after the other"), whereas alternative means a choice between two options.”

And to think I get editing advice like this for free…

Like Charles, I do not like it when errors are made acceptable based upon the frequency of their usage.  My least favorite commonly accepted error pertains to the phrase “beg the question,” which does not mean to raise or illicit elicit a question, no matter how many newspaper writers, television reporters, politicians, or NPR correspondents use it this way.

The correct definition, from http://begthequestion.info, is:

Begging the question is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.

A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive" -- they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.

If you could join me in the crusade to rid the world of this improper usage, I’d greatly appreciate it.

This is my new favorite photo of my daughter

The presence of my wife in the photograph is just a bonus.

Kudos from readers in Greece and Norway

It turned out to be a busy day in terms of SOMETHING MISSING.

I received a total of four emails today, from a variety of readers, all writing to express their love for the book.   

Two readers, including one from Norway, requested that I write a sequel to Martin’s story.  I get this request quite often. 

A third expressed her appreciation for the positive portrayal of an obsessive-compulsive character, and the fourth, a UCONN student studying abroad in Greece, wrote about how she and her classmates have been passing around the book during their trip and loving it.

I find all of these people to be remarkably kind in their willingness to take the time to write to me, and as always, I responded to them in kind. 

I ended the day with a visit to a local book club that read SOMETHING MISSING during the past month.  Having a few book club visits under my belt, I’ve learned that it’s much better to arrive about thirty minutes after the start time, giving book club members time to chat and generate questions without the sometimes intimidating presence of the author.  It was a lovely evening, filled with talk about the book, the publishing industry, my writing process and my next book. 

Most interesting was their predictions for how the book was going to end, including an alternate alternative ending that never occurred to me and one that I have yet to hear from any other reader. 

I prefer my ending to the story, but this new idea would have certainly been interesting to explore. 

If the book were a DVD, perhaps I could’ve included alternate alternative endings as part of the DVD extras. 

A day at the movies

My wife and I enjoyed the rare double feature today, managing to squeeze in Zombieland and The Informant all before 3:30 PM.  Zombieland turned out to be a private screening and The Informant had only one other couple in the theater with us.

Despite the dearth of eyeballs, both were excellent films.  Zombieland is outstanding.  Dare I say perfect.

The Informant, based upon a true story that I first heard on This American Life, was also very good.  I thought that the soundtrack and the overall pitch of the movie were a little off, but the story and performances were great.   

Seeing back-to-back movies, my wife and I were also subjected to a large number of movie trailers, including two different trailers for the upcoming disaster film 2012.  The trailer attached to Zombieland was a less than hopeful view of the destruction of the world, whereas the trailer attached to The Informant focused upon mankind’s continued survival against great odds.

Interesting how Hollywood views the audiences for Zombieland and The Informant as very different sets of people.    

I also noticed that the trailer to Zombieland, as it appears on the film’s official website, shows an alternate scene from the movie.  In the online trailer, a zombie-stripper is wearing considerably more clothing that in the actual film.

More movie trailer manipulation than I would have ever imagined.  

Speaking of movie trailers, my wife nearly cried upon viewing this movie trailer this afternoon.

Naturally, I did not.

Martin’s eBay expertise garners some attention

SOMETHING MISSING protagonist Martin Railsback poses as eBay power seller Barbara Teal, an empty nester with a love for high end fashion and a flair for the dramatic.  Martin uses eBay as a means of fencing some of his more valuable acquisitions. 

The muse for Martin’s alter-ego was my mother-in-law, Barbara Green, who is also an eBay power seller, specializing in high-end women's fashion.  Almost all of Martin’s skill and understanding with eBay comes from the experience of the real-life Barbara, and the eBay postings listed in the book are actually derived directly from some of my mother-in-law’s actual listings.

Recently, a representative from InternetMarketing.com, a company that creates educational materials for prospective eBay users, discovered the book, read the section on Martin’s eBay exploits, and contacted me, asking for permission to write about the book and include one of Martin’s eBay listings in their post.

That post was published to their blog today.

Worth paying a second college tuition

In the debate over whether or not to have a second child, my wife might just win the argument by agreeing to purchase and wear these tee-shorts with some frequency.

If only…

In the spirit of the new film adaptation of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE comes the Mo Willems classic:

Borders Books in Farmington, CT

On Sunday I made an appearance at Borders Books and Music right down the road from my school. As always, I spoke for a while, read a little bit from SOMETHING MISSING, took some questions from the audience, recommended a few books, and finished off with a brief signing.

This was my most local appearance so far, just ten minutes from my home, so my wife and daughter were able to attend as well.  I can’t tell you how fun it is to see my daughter sitting in the audience, listening to me share stories about the book, even if she spends much of the time babbling and fidgeting in her mother’s arms. 

As a result of the bookstore’s proximity to home, there were many recognizable faces in the audience that day.  Friends, colleagues, and students (current and former) were mixed in with a few nonpartisans, and it made for a much more informal and casual atmosphere.  Adults and kids asked lots of questions, and many of them were quite insightful.

In my last few appearances (including this one), budding writers have been asking me about my writing process, specifically inquiring about my preference of the keyboard versus the pen. While this question seems innocent enough, I’ve gotten a sense that these people are searching for the right answer, longing for the means by which their work might instantly improve.

I’m a keyboard man.  Unless I’m writing short poetry, which I will do from time to time (I’m currently working on a poem about a boy named Gilly who tastes his cremated grandfather’s ashes out of curiosity), I am always composing on a laptop.  But I don’t think this is necessarily the correct way to write.  While I cannot imagine writing fiction longhand, am I expected to believe that Shakespeare’s work would have been any better had he been writing on a MacBook Pro?

I doubt it.  

Unfortunately, I don’t think it works that way, and these writers, hoping for a quick and easy solution to their writing struggles, are out of luck. 

Unless, of course, you believe Charles Bukowski, who discovered word processing at the age of seventy.

MUST LISTEN

I can’t recommend WNYC’s RadioLab podcast enough.  Fascinating, science-based stories that are brilliantly produced.  I have recommended this podcast to many friends, and every one, without exception, has thanked me later for it.  

However, if you can only listen to one RadioLab story for your entire life (a tragedy, indeed), find twenty minutes and click on this story about Stu Rasmussen of Silverton Oregon. It’s just terrific, and the ending is fantastic.

It might even make you cry, though naturally, it did not do so for me. 

Vying for a spot on The Moth

The Moth is a not-for-profit storytelling organization which features true stories told live on stage without notes.  I’ve been listening to their weekly podcasts for a long time and attended a live performance earlier this year.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Looking for an opportunity to tell me own stories, I flirted with the idea of creating a Connecticut version of The Moth, which currently is based in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and Chicago.  But then Moth organizers recently put out a call to potential storytellers as they launch the new Moth Radio Hour.  If selected, storytellers will have the opportunity to record their story for the radio program with the possibility of being asked to appear live on stage as well.

Good enough for me! 

And since I have been blessed (and cursed) with an interesting life, I am full of stories, ready to tell.  Yesterday I called The Moth and recorded my first, one-minute pitch, a pretty tame story by my standards but one that can be quite funny when told right.  If I don’t hear from The Moth in the next month, I will call back with a new pitch. 

Here was my first:

In high school, I was an average sprinter and a sub-par long jumper. One day my coach announced that he needed two more pole vaulters to compete with our state champion, James Dean. These two vaulters, Coach explained, must be capable of clearing opening height in order to qualify for the district relays, and at that point, the team had no one. And so after an eventful and amusing tryout, Matthew Dicks, Jack Daniels, and the great James Dean became the Blackstone Millville Regional pole vaulting team for the next two years. During our first meet, James cleared opening height with ease, but Jack and I failed miserably on our first and second attempts. If we both cleared opening height on our final attempts, James’s eventual vault of eleven feet would be more than enough for us to take first place. Failure would mean that our team would be disqualified and would earn no points from the vault competition. More importantly, if I failed but Jack succeeded, I would be faced with the additional stigma of having cost the team a chance at a gold medal. As Jack approach his third and final attempt, I found myself secretly hoping that he would fail, taking the pressure off me. Even though his failure would undoubtedly cost me a gold medal, there was far more at stake in this competition. Meaningless adolescent pride and misbegotten social standing. I’d love an opportunity to tell this story.