How would you react if you looked up and saw people flying overhead?

The inimitable (I mean that in a nice way) Colleen Anderson has an amusing post on her blog about the time she met me at a World Horror convention.

Or did she?

Please watch this profound video from Karl Johanson about the proposed new SOPA Bill. Don’t know what that is? Don’t worry… the video will explain all:

Amen.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Spectacular… I wish I’d been there to see it myself (though I did see something similar, if infinitely more modest, once…)

In my last post I talked about reading a story I wrote as a kid at Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids.

Here’s a recording of my reading from that event , courtesy of organizer Dan Misener.

It runs about five minutes forty seconds:

Attended a really cool event Monday night put on by the inimitable Dan Misener of CBC Radio Sparks fame.

It was called (if memory serves) Grownups Read Stuff They Wrote As Kids.

I’d been wanting to attend one of these events for a while now.  This was the ninth or tenth one Dan has put on.  Dan and his wife are about to leave for France for a year, so I knew this was going to be the last one for awhile, so I made sure I attended.  And I volunteered to read.

So the weekend before I perused my three scribblers full of juvenilia, mostly written between the ages of 12 and 14 (Grades 7 to 9) for school.  I chose three potential pieces, each one varying degrees of ridiculous.  Although I remember thinking quite highly of them at the time I wrote them!

I walked to the Garrison Pub at Ossington and Dundas with Dan an hour and a half before the event.  I told Dan I had mixed feelings about reading my stuff.  On the one hand I felt a sense of betrayal toward my younger self because I would essentially be mocking that kid’s work.  And as a kid I had been proud of my writing.  I thought I was pretty good at it.  On the other hand, I noted, maybe the kid deserved to be mocked, because the one piece (the one I eventually read) had been written as homework, sitting before the television.  Even so I had thought it was pretty good at the time (it wasn’t, really).  (Ooh, there’s that pesky sense of betrayal again!)

We got to the club and it turned out nobody had set the chairs out.  So Dan and I (and the club’s sound guy) got to work setting up the chairs (two other readers eventually joined in).

We got under way at 7:30.  The place was packed — an impressive turnout.  I was the fourth reader.  The first two readers were awesome.  One guy read from a monster book he had written in Grade One, complete with cool monster pictures.  He was quite funny.  I can’t remember the second reader’s material as I type this (it’ll come to me long after I’ve posted this, no doubt) but I remember it was entertaining and well presented.  I began to have serious qualms about reading the story I had selected.  I didn’t think it was either good enough or bad enough.  I was afraid it would fall flat.

I didn’t hear the third reader because I was busy behind the stage trying to pick out a better story.  But Dan introduced me by saying I would read a science fiction story, so I was stuck with the one I’d selected.

Fortunately the audience was laughing by the second sentence.  They continued to laugh throughout.  Bottom line, I didn’t bomb.  Of course, the story had not been written as a comedy; I don’t think there was a single line in it that was supposed to be funny.  So although I didn’t bomb, I did completely betray my twelve year old self.  What a heel.  But it doesn’t bother me at all.  Because ya gotta be able to laugh at yourself, whatever age you are.

It was a great night.  The rest of the readers were terrific. A standout was a woman names Laura (I think) who read a will she had written at the age of nine!  Surreal and quite amusing.  I was really glad I participated, and many kudos to Dan for putting an event like that on.  (It’s simple, he told me on the way over.  Book the club, which is surprisingly cheap, get readers to sign up on line, arrange for the sale of tickets online, and Bob’s your uncle.  The odd time you might have to set up the chairs yourself.  Ticket sales go to fund the venue with excess funds going to charity.  A class act, Mr. Dan Misener).

I think he’ll be putting more of these on in a year, when he’s back from France.

Which means, of course, that the next one will have to be in French.

So that last post was a bit of an unusual one for Assorted Nonsense, but as Homer Simpson once said after drinking a bottle of mouthwash (I think it was mouthwash), What are ya gonna do.”

I’ve read it two or three times now and I must say when I saw Grondzilla’s comment, “How very odd,” I had to laugh, because (with all due respect to the author of the piece) it IS rather odd in the context of Assorted Nonsense.

I suppose a legitimate question would be, why did I allow it to be posted here?  And the short answer is because the fellow asked if he could post it here, and I could see nothing offensive about it.  And (almost) anything goes, here at Assorted Nonsense.  It is assorted nonsense, after all.

Which is not to say that I think Eric’s piece is nonsense.  It’s actually chalk full of good advice.  ”Shower your partner with compliments.”  ”Let your partner know you appreciate them.”  Nothing wrong with either of those.  ”Never allow bad feelings to harbour.”  Can’t argue with that.  ”Choose your battles.”  Common sense.

Our opinions begin to diverge in the subsections entitled “It’s a Small World” and “One Strike You’re Out.”  I would never warn my partner “Remember, the world is a very small place!”  Sorry Eric, but that just sounds a bit creepy to me.  Right up there with The Police song “Every Breath You Take,” which, if you think about it (and as Sting himself has pointed out) is actually a really creepy song.  The big problem with the advice you pose here is that you’ve forgotten about the concept of trust.  I would never remind my partner that the world is a small place, or tell her “Hey, Jane saw you at such and such a place” because A. I trust her and B. I’m not creepy.  Or try not to be.

Likewise with “One Strike You’re Out.”  Because you see, there must be opportunity for redemption and forgiveness.  Nuff said.

But how churlish of me to publish the fellow’s piece and then take it apart (except that I warned him I would do exactly that, and he was good natured enough to accept those terms).

The bottom line was that Eric’s stated goals were to get his name out there and practice his craft, and I agreed to help him do that.  And I don’t care that a by-product of this is helping promote his other web site.  Links to other web sites are the currency of the web, it has been said.

So thanks Eric, and good luck to you.

Okay, right away you’re probably thinking three things:

1. Has Joe’s site been hacked?  This is very unusual content for Assorted Nonsense.  and the answer is no, the site hasn’t been hacked, and yes, it is rather unusual content.

2. Why is Joe thinking about cheat proofing relationships?  Is there a problem with Joe’s marriage?  And the answer is no, there is not a problem with Joe’s relationship, and I will explain all in a moment.

3. Joe’s blogging again!  Yes, I would still like to blog every day, the trick is finding the time.

So what’s this all about?

Well, this fellow Eric J Leech emailed me a while back asking if he could write a guest post for Assorted Nonsense.  I gather he normally writes for a dating website called datingwebsites.org and he’s looking to practice his craft.  So I checked him out and he seems human.  As near as I can tell there are no hidden agendas here, other than the fact that he’s obviously promoting the aforementioned website, but I don’t think there’s anything sinister about it.

So I said what the heck, absolutely you can write for Assorted Nonsense.  It’s content after all.    And he submitted the following article.

The opinions he expresses are his own; I may express my own opinions on his thoughts in the comments section.

Take it away, Eric:

How to Cheat-Proof Your Dating Relationship-
By Eric J. Leech, writer for Datingwebsites.org

If you want to cheat-proof your relationship, whether it involves marriages, long-term relationships, or casual hookups from dating websites, hopefully you’re doing so as a precautionary step. If your loved one has proven to be untrustworthy, instead of cheat-proofing, you may want to try “loser” proofing your life, first. This translates into either getting rid of your cheating spouse completely, or overhauling your website’s profile, so that you no longer welcome these types of individuals into your life. However, considering there are more than a few good catches left in the dating sea, I’ll assume we’re dealing with one of them, and commence with the advice on how to cheat-proof, your lover’s loins from going south for the winter.

Curiosity Saved the Relationship
Your best defense is to shower your partner, with compliments, and curiosity. When a dating partner feels neglected, they will look for excitement outside of the relationship. This may include going to bars, hanging out with friends, or perusing dating websites during the wee hours of the morning. To feed this anxious energy, be curious about your partner. Find new ways to experience and learn about each other, through common interests and hobbies.

Appreciation
Let your partner know you appreciate them. Give praise when they deserve it, and say, “thank you,” whenever they do something special. Most importantly, do something nice for your partner at least once a day, whether it’s a love note, special dinner, or back massage.

Action Over Reaction
If you sense something is wrong with your dating partner, ask them about it. You should never allow bad feelings to harbor. Make it a practice to see how things are going. Ask them if there is anything about the relationship that isn’t working, or any of their needs that are not currently being met. Listen, and take all requests seriously. Take notes if it helps. The worst thing you can do is hide your head in the sand to the obvious signs of a problematic relationship. Action, beats reaction, in the majority of relationship difficulties.

Choose Your Battles
When you do decide to air out any differences, make sure you’re arguing over a real problem. Many disagreements are caused by external symptoms (coming home late, drinking with friends, etc.), rather than the true cause (lack of communication, intimacy, etc.).

It’s a Small World
Remind your partner that the world is a very small place. Keep in mind, the word “spying,” had no part in that sentence. You don’t want your partner to think that you do not trust them. Friends can be an especially valuable tool for this. The phrase, “My friend Jane saw you at the…” can do wonders to remind your lover that there are watchful eyes around all the time.

One Strike You’re Out
There is no three strikes your out rule, especially when it comes to dating, marriages, and cheating. Everyone gets one chance, and if they fail, they should be out on their ear without a Q-tip. People are either faithful or they are unfaithful. There is no gray area in this matter. Dating website’s members will be less likely to cheat, if they know they only get one chance.

Positive Reinforcement
To harvest positive energy, concentrate on the pluses of the relationship, rather than the negatives. Partners who are constantly complaining or nagging, create negative feelings, literally training their partner to avoid them (bad energy, breads worse energy). The easiest way to do this is to concentrate on rewarding your partner for what they are doing right (compliments, praise, etc.), and eventually the good will outnumber the bad. This is the most effective way to modify unwanted behavior, without creating a wedge between the two of you in the process.

Happy Thoughts, Happy in Love
If you are having a difficult time finding the good in your partner, remember what attracted you to them in the first place. If you are still drawing a blank, look into yourself, and ask if it is really your partner who is the problem. It may have more to do with you, then them. In other words, bored, unhappy people, experience boring and unhappy relationships. When you feel good about yourself, your partner will feel good about you, too!

I just finished Leonard Susskind’s book The Black Hole War, which is a fairly interesting book about the debate Susskind (and others) had with Stephen Hawking (and others) over whether information is lost once trapped inside black holes or whether it’s eventually released in the form of what they call Hawking radiation (which, if I understand correctly, is essentially black holes evaporating over millions or perhaps billions of years).

I say fairly interesting because although it starts off quite readable, it gets quite dense near the end, almost as though Susskind lost patience with his target audience about that point and started writing only for his more gifted readers/pupils (eg. not me).

The book was more fascinating than interesting, and not just for its physics.  Susskind calls the debate a war, but one has the sense that it was a war mostly manufactured in Susskind’s mind.  I’ve no doubt the topic of the debate was real, and I can easily see why Susskind was horrified at the notion of information being forever lost in a black hole, which would be in direct contradiction of the first law of thermodynamics (which states that information cannot be either lost of destroyed), and why he would be doubly horrified that this didn’t seem to bother Hawking any.  But I had a strong sense throughout that it was a war of which Hawking was largely oblivious.

Susskind seemed to have a complicated relationship with Hawking.  He respects Hawkings accomplishments as a physicist, but seems to resent Hawking’s celebrity status and fame (or perhaps is jealous of them) although he doesn’t dispute that Hawking deserves them.  I don’t blame Susskind for this; it probably is annoying to have someone like Hawking as competition.  It doesn’t matter what Susskind accomplishes in his life, he’ll never be as famous as Hawking.  And he can’t even really resent Hawking for it.  How can you resent a man who’s suffered from ALS his entire adult life?

In the end Susskind claims to have won the Black Hole War, Hawking apparently conceded the point after recent developments made it clear that information is both irretrievably captured by black holes and released by black holes in the kind of stunning sophistry that only physicists (and small children who insist on having their cake and eating it too) can exhibit.  Physicists call it complementarity (the idea that ideas having contradictory properties can be separately analyzed).  (Parents call it impossible).

Although I am interested in all this stuff, and mostly accept it, you can’t read it (at least I can’t) without wondering when somebody’s going to step up and point out that the emperor has no clothes.  Especially considering how often scientific theories have usurped their predecessors throughout history (ie. the atom gives way to subatomic particles which gives way to strings as the smallest possible indivisible objects, classical physics gives way to relativity which is usurped by quantum mechanics which gives way to string theory, and so on).

Physicists are like players in a game preoccupied by how the game is made rather than just being happy playing the game, like most of the rest of us.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.