Day: August 22, 2023

kathy at the funhousekathy at the funhouse

at an arcade, a sort of funhouse place, large, cavernous, dark,
there was an empty seat beside you. we were all of us players
of the funhouse video games to sit and wait in these seats
while the games were explained, then we would be allowed to play.

i sat beside you. you told me your name was kathy, but i knew this.
we first met when you were sixteen and i was seventeen.
you were still sixteen, but i was as i am now, except i was still married.
the funhouse had distorting mirrors. they all do.

it was a boy’s night out for me. i had wandered for the first time
into this funhouse. we sat and listened to the long instructions
as to how to play and win the games, but i didn’t care to win,
nor even much to play. i was there looking for what everybody
looks for but never can give a name to. you were spunky and flirtatious,
told me how good you were at the games, told me, you’ll see.

it was time to play. we got on our knees, as instructed, before
the video games. i didn’t know how to play mine, didn’t much care.
it was something to do with spaceships shooting other spaceships.

you finished yours before i finished mine. it turned out you hadn’t
done so well after all, but it was time for you to leave.
there was a man there, smiling and friendly and, if not young,
he was younger than i am now. i thought he was your boyfriend,
and i was disappointed until you told me you wanted to see me again
and asked me for my number. he remained smiling.
he may have been your father.

it was late. the funhouse was closing. we all had to leave.
i pulled out my wallet and fumbled for a card, finally finding one of my own.
i gave it to you and told you to call me at my office, not telling you
not to call me at home due to the wife. (but kathy, i don’t have a wife,
not any longer. haven’t had one for years.) you said you would call,
saying it in a way that means it is true, then you left.

i went outside, into the night where many other young persons
were making their ways back home, some getting into cars while others
waited for buses. i wandered the parking lot, looking for my car,
the funhouse workers eying with suspicion this old man
who had come to play with the children. i held my car keys in my hand,
but my car had been stolen while i was inside playing games.

(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)

the interviewthe interview

she asked me what sort of experience i had

i told her any sort that she could possibly want

she asked me what kind of wage i would need

i told her i would work for free and pilfer everything she owned

she asked me if i knew how to file

i told her there was no jail that could hold me

she asked me if i liked to drink

i told her i’d rather hold a pebble under my tongue

she asked me if i smoked in bed

i told her i would if she set me on fire

she asked me when i could start

i told her i had never stopped

(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)

“In learning any subject of a technical nature where mathematics plays a role, one is confronted with the task of understanding and storing away in the memory a huge body of facts and ideas, held together by certain relationships which can be ‘proved’ or ‘shown’ to exist between them. It is easy to confuse the proof itself with the relationship which it establishes. Clearly, the important thing to learn and to remember is the relationship, not the proof. In any particular circumstance we can either say ‘it can be shown that’ such and such is true, or we can show it. In almost all cases, the particular proof that is used is concocted, first of all, in such form that it can be written quickly and easily on the chalkboard or on paper, and so that it will be as smooth-looking as possible. Consequently, the proof may look deceptively simple, when in fact, the author might have worked for hours trying different ways of calculating the same thing until he has found the neatest way, so as to be able to show that it can be shown in the shortest amount of time! The thing to be remembered, when seeing a proof, is not the proof itself, but rather that it can be shown that such and such is true. Of course, if the proof involves some mathematical procedures or ‘tricks’ that one has not seen before, attention should be given not to the trick exactly, but to the mathematical idea involved.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)