December 13, 2007 by Les Smart.

Barry, Barry

Big and hairy

How did your muscles grow?

What’s your excuse

For steroid use?

Don’t tell us you just didn’t know.

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December 13, 2007 by fbk.

I’m out to change the world, again.  I’ve decided that my goal for the next ten years is to eliminate all accounting and IT departments in America.  Both are departments based around functions, being techy or good with numbers.  I want to see departments built around true business processes, departments with one primary output.   Instead of “Accounting,” let’s see a department of Monitoring, Measurement, and Management.  Instead of just measuring the money and being involved in three or four pieces of different processes, let’s have a more holistic view that measures quality and suitability as well as profitability.

And, instead of having a bunch of support departments based on functions, like HR, IT, Facilities, etc., why not have departments that deal with support in stasis and in adapting the corporation.  The problem with an IT department in most modern organizations is that its fingers are in everything.  Most large corporate changes wind up funneled through the IT department.  Need a new purchasing system, or even an ERP?  Give the project to IT.  But most IT people eat with their fingers and speak a foreign language known as GEEK.  Ask most IT folks what the impact of a project to the business is, and they’ll give a blank stare or spew technical facts and figures.  Give an IT project manager an opportunity to change the business, and the solution is usually hardware and software.  What about the people?  What about training?  Do we need to change the facilities?  Oy!

Yes, I know there are many good IT project managers who really do understand the business and all of the “soft” issues with change, but running changes out of an IT department is usually asking for trouble.  If you are adapting the organization, there ought to be multiple views: people (HR), technology, etc.  And that ought to be in an adaptation department.

So, take all of those support departments, moosh them together, then split them into departments for maintaining stasis and for adapting the organization.

There’s more to my thoughts than this, but accountants and IT professionals should be forewarned: I’m out to change your lives and organizations.

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December 11, 2007 by Les Smart.

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December 9, 2007 by fbk.

Les reminds me of many of my rants about poetry and modern poets in my earlier years.  I’ve calmed down a bit on the subject after finding formalist poetry magazines and that there are still writing programs where forms are taught.  All is not lost on the subject, even if one might think so if all one sees is Poetry.

But, today, I come not to rant about poetry, but to share a bit in this season of sharing.  It seems your humble curmudgeon is associated with an organization that does a Christmas collection program every year for a local shelter.  And so, I buy a stuffed animal to make a child smile.  This year, the critter that attracted my eye was a big ape or monkey-like thing.  Its arm and leg on each side are of a piece and adjustable as to length.  So, the owner can make their monkey have short legs and long arms, long legs and short arms, or medium length limbs all around.   Or even one leg short with a long arm and the other side with a long leg and short arm.  I’m sure this fellow will be quite fun for any child.  But, a store-bought monkey is something anyone could have.  It isn’t unique, even if nice for a child in a shelter for battered women and children.

So, I usually decide to include a little poem to make each stuffed animal a little more unique.  I print the poem off on nice paper, roll it up as a scroll, and tie it onto the animal with a ribbon.  Here is this year’s inclusion:

Montmorency “Monty” Monkey

His arms and his legs can be long or quite short
and he’ll misbehave like a terrible sport.
He’ll bounce all around like an acrobat clown
erasing all traces of gloom or of frowns.

There are other things that our Monty might do
Like waltzing around in your mother’s best shoes,
Or swinging from lamps to go hanging on Gramps
And drawing the curtains to climb like a champ.

A monkey’s a monkey and not like a child,
Who could not misbehave and never runs wild.
So, play all you want with wild Monty the monk,
But do be polite and don’t act like a punk.

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December 7, 2007 by Les Smart.

     I have been writing, reading, and reading about poetry for almost four years. I believe that the powers that be today in our poetry world and many poets in that world are snobbish and elitist. The standard of “good” poetry today has been fabricated of elements that make merely understanding a poem a struggle for an average reader. My suggestion that poets might consider widening the appeal of their work frequently is met with a question that demeans the average reader and demonstrates the elitist attitudes of many poets, “So, you want me to dumb it down?”     

     Before continuing to read this rant, go to any on-line bookseller’s site and do three searches: 1) understanding novels, 2) understanding short stories 3) understanding poetry. If you actually do this you will find that virtually nothing exists in the first two searches, but what about the third?     

     The Modern Era of poetry (1901-1045) was a time when poets decided to break from traditional poetry to experiment and be innovative. Free or open form poems became popular because they were not as restrictive as rhyming and metered poems.     

     The Post Modern Era (1945-1989) continued with this experimentation, but the content became more ironic and confrontational. The beat poets emerged and experimentation flourished.      In the current Global Era there is a mix of ethnicities, forms and rapidly shifting images affected by electronic media, the instant society.

     Through it all, the quest for originality and the infusion of Symbolism has moved the art form far away from the common reader. The vast public only experiences poetry today in popular song lyrics and greeting cards.

     (The Poetry Foundation did a survey of readers in this country and the statistics should be alarming to the striving poet. You can look it up on their web site. You will find that only about 14% of the public read on a regular basis and a very small portion of those readers read poetry. Why? Ask your non-poetry reading friends.)

     Symbolism was a movement that began during the Victorian Period primarily in France. Charles Baudelaire was it’s founder and Arthur Rimbaud, Stephane Mallarme, Paul Verlaine, and Paul Valery forming a group that almost created a completely symbolic world. They were trying to evoke states of feeling or awareness, often without discernable, concrete meanings. Suggesting things without stating them directly.

     This use of symbols is referred to as private symbols because it leaves two parts of symbolic patterns out and open for the reader’s interpretation. (Hour-glass sand = passage of time = aging or wedding ring = marriage = love and commitment) Symbolism leaves out the last two parts and the reader has to either determine what the author meant or provide their own association. Think of what a recent divorced person or someone in a gay relationship might conjure up when they read about a wedding ring.

     Now let’s throw into the mix the fact that originality is highly desired today, new images, new symbols, new metaphors, new similes, new, new, new. One of the worse things a poet can hear at a critique today is that their poem or any part of it is cliché. We must be new and original.

     Unfortunately, with this quest for originality rhymed and metered poetry is no longer respected. (Try to get some published.) Traditional forms are seldom used and even the old standard Sonnet is often bastardized in search of originality.

     What I have found as I interact with other poets is that many can’t handle rhyme or meter. Strictly structured poems like Ballads, Sestinas, Villanelles, and Rondeaus are way beyond anything they wish to attempt. Yet they will say that the forms are too restrictive to allow them to express freely.

     I fell like the little boy who speaks up in the crowd and tells the emperor he is naked. All the poets around me are interpreting poems and talking about how beautiful they are. They say, “poems don’t have to mean, they just have to be.” They say, “don’t ask a poet what their poem means, tell them.” I have a friend who wants me to at least agree with him that a poem doesn’t have to have intent.

     Poems are usually short and sweet, perfect for our generation of the five-second sound bite. Yet, how many people buy poetry books? How many major publishers publish poetry? Are you satisfied that your greatest possible audience is a small portion of the 14% of Americans who read on a regular basis?

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December 5, 2007 by Les Smart.

Is there anyone out there that truly understands the majority of the poems published in Poetry?

 I receive a gift subscription to this erudite publication and every month I attempt to read it and, if I have the energy, I try to understand the poems they’ve published.  Now, I’ve been struggling to write poetry since August of 2003, I read a lot of poetry, I attend poetry workshops and poetry readings, I read books about poetry, I’ve been published and I have a BS degree in Education.  So - why is it that reading Poetry makes me feel stupid.

 This publication is held up as one of the most respected in the field and yet, as I peruse the work on their pages, I want to shout, “Someone tell them Emperor he’s naked!  Please stop trying to make believe any of it makes sense!  Please!”

 This, unfortunately, is the drivel that the elitist poetry establishment who are more deeply embedded in the halls of academia than Bin Laden is in the hills of Pakistan.  It is being protected and revered by them more voraciously than extreme Islamicists defend their beliefs.  In the process the figurative heads of understandable poems are being lopped off and held up in ridicule.

 Mention rhymed meter poetry to a poetry professor and watch him sneer before he gags and/or giggles.  Read a lyric rhymed piece at a gathering of these snobs and be prepared to be stoned and, if they can see past their turned up noses, they may even hit you.  What must they think of Frost, Service, Longfellow, Poe, and so many of the masters?  Are they willing to denounce and reject their work as ‘non-poetry’?

 Thank you for reading my rant.  I am on my way to the Hallmark store to read some published poetry I can understand.  Don’t tell the poetry establishment.  I don’t want to risk a possible Fatwa.

 Les

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December 3, 2007 by Les Smart.

Dear Readers,

In this world I am Leslie Existential Right. Since I will be subjecting you to my thoughts and emotions I will fain you calling me Les.

“Why Leslie Existential Right?” you may wonder.

Well, Leslie is for the actor Leslie Howard who played the dreamer and true love of Scarlett O’Hara’s life.  Ashley was a gentleman, as am I, and I had, furthermore, already chosen the name Les so Ashley was out of the question and this explanation is as good as any I can come up with at this time.

 Existential comes from my belief in the individual’s unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices.  I hope you will see that belief reflected in my posted musings. 

Smart is not necessarily because I want to present myself as being intellectually elite but rather that I will attempt to present my thoughts in a clever and fresh manner.  It is also the last name of my idol, Maxwell Smart.

If you don’t like this explanation or any of my posts, read someone else. 

Yours truly, 

Les

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December 2, 2007 by fbk.

It may be that we’ll soon be seeing a new face…er…well, having a new voice on the blog.

Just thought you should know.

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December 1, 2007 by fbk.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to put up with poor manners on the part of a decently attractive member of the opposite sex?  Things I’d strangle a man for, I just shrug my shoulders when a pretty woman does it.  Thinking about this recently, I was wondering if I’m really a total, unreconstructed chauvinist male of another era, or if it’s just something deep-seated in human nature.

One example is talking too much.  Dominating conversations is certainly an example of poor manners.  Admittedly, my standard of what constitutes talking too much may be more stringent than most anyone else’s, but people ought to watch cues and stop or slow down on the cascade of chatter.  But, with a lovely lady, I might just stop listening to what she’s saying and think about other things, rather than interrupt her or send her on her way, as I would with a gentleman who violated the same rules.

Yes, for any who are curious, the drift of my thoughts does tend to go toward, “I wonder what she’d be like in bed,” or, “I wonder what she’d be like in bed with a ball gag?”  I am a male, after all.  For instance, in my youth, I had this one supervisor with magnificent legs…

But, is it really a favour to such women not to stop their rudeness?  (Well, with my former supervisor, I really had no choice, and her legs were exquisite.  Did she think that my eyes were tilted down out of respect for what she was saying?)  Wouldn’t it be better to stop them and help coach them on being concise?  And wouldn’t it save trouble later when something has to get done quickly, and you have to send the little chatterbox out of the room to get the work done?  I have a feeling that this is a much more universal trait.  Why else would the phrase, “Yes, dear,” ever have come into the lexicon?  It’s purely a statement said by someone thinking of the efficacy of ball gags, while not paying attention to the chatter.  So, I’m fairly sure this trait is universal among men. 

I don’t know if it’s true of women, though.  If a real “dreamboat” sails by and is dominating the conversation, do woman tune out, nod occasionally, and think about the man’s features?  Of course, this really begs the question whether women ever pay any attention to anything a man ever says, or if they’re always focused on their internal monologues.  I’ve certainly known some women who paid attention and conversed equally.  But I’m nobody’s dreamboat, more of a nightmare harbor tug.  So, what about it, ladies?  Do you do the same as men, and let things pass more when the person being rude is pleasing in other ways?

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December 1, 2007 by fbk.

In an earlier post, I mentioned a fellow I called the Alpha Bore.  Despite the promise to myself, I have been to dinner with him several more times.  And a few of those times, we dined together alone.  He has shattered all of my theories about him.  When dining alone with him, he is really quite good company.  There were companionable silences.  There was conversational back-and-forth.  The few stories he told were new, funny, interesting, and appropriate to the conversation.  So, I must come up with new theories to explain his behaviour with the larger audience.

The best initial theory I have developed is self-defense.  Did I mention the other fellow we are often out with is also a bore?  So, maybe he talks to preclude this other guy from carrying on?  He had worked with this fellow before, and they had eaten dinner together many times.  Maybe, the Alpha Bore had just heard the other fellow’s geek-out topics too many times and developed this strategy as a defensive ploy?  The only semi-hole in this theory is that he was also this way when it was a different third person.  Now, that person is pleasant enough.  Even when on geek-out subjects, it’s easy enough not to mind.   (Perhaps another post about that later?)  But perhaps the Alpha had also had enough of that person in previous assignments?  This is possible.  The only thing is that I know that I’d bore myself with such a strategy.  If the company talks too much, I’d rather ignore them than try to out-bore them.  Still, it could be an explanation for this fellow.

Another explanantion that I’ve tried to fit onto the fellow, is that maybe when we’re out with a larger group, the other members are responding with interest to his stories.  Maybe when we’re one-on-one, he picks up on strong cues from me to just-shut-up-and-eat-I-want-to-watch-people-not-hear-you-babble.  But it strains credulity that anyone could be responding with that much interest.  And I was watching the others to a certain extent.  I really didn’t notice anything that would bring on such a thorough cascade of words.

Another theory is that he likes to show off in a crowd.  After all, he isn’t bad when it’s just the two of us.  Maybe it’s larger groups where he feels the need to be dominant?  This theory might be workable to explain things, although maybe the word dominant is the key?

I did tag this fellow the Alpha Bore.  And maybe it really is an Alpha thing.  Could it be that he only feels the need to demonstrate conversational dominance if he’s challenged?  One on one, since I have no interest in conversational dominance, he may not feel the need to talk so much.  But when any of the others are about, he talks.  Admittedly, if he didn’t, either of the other two certainly would.  So, maybe this is actually his way of asserting himself as the Alpha?  This is about the best theory I now have, unless a mixed explanation is the reality.

Humans are complex enough creatures that it may well be a mixture of self-defense, alpha dominance, reading signals I’m not seeing since I’m not speaking, and sheer crowd-wowwing.  Whatever the true case, the Alpha Bore can be very decent company at dinner, so long as nobody else is there.

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