strange sympathies
{a collection of stories, projects, taunts and fragments by Michael Stewart}
About Me*
By James Allen
From: After Hours Online, the Magazine (an interview excerpt with Dicky Short Arms)
AHO: It’s said that you never forget a face. Remember this one?
DSA: Sure. Longfellow.
AHO: Why Longfellow?
DSA: Well, first time he come in was with The Hammer and The Professor. They’re at the table, Hammer banging it pretty good, and the kid’s over at the bar, writing in a notebook with a feather or something. Listening to the broads and the short pockets. Louie told me later the kid asked him for a “stout on tap.” What the fuck.
AHO: It was probably a quill. He has phases.
DSA: Yeah, well the kid caught a good roll. Clean Phil went on break and happened over by the bar and saw what was up. Let no one tell you Clean Phil don’t have a heart. He gave the kid a tap on the shoulder and a look and the kid put the notebook and feather away.
AHO: That was the end of it?
DSA: No. Gaffer caught wind of it, the nosy fuck. So he started in on the kid when he finally got a seat at the table. Hey, kid, he says, you like to write? Like Lupica? The kid don’t know Lupica so he just looks at his cards. Like Puzo? And I know Gaffer has emptied his inventory and the next question is gonna be, Like those Watergate guys? So I say, Like Longfellow you dumb fuck.
AHO: You know poets?
DSA: Shakespeare. Never read a word. But I know he’s the best so I went with Longfellow. Everything’s got to be earned.
AHO: Longfellow was great too.
DSA: Kid earned it, over time. Filled his pockets pretty good. Tipped Phil right.
AHO: He’s been back?
DSA: Just once. Alone. I wouldn’t let him in. No place for a kid.
AHO: He’s like thirty. A poet.
DSA: Yeah.
*Hesitant to fill out this section myself, I asked several friends and strangers to do it for me. Each time you load the page one of their creations is randomly selected and displayed. But if you are looking for one in particular you can find them all laid out here. If you would be interested in submitting one just send me an email and I’ll put it up.
About the Title
The title is a play on the term odd sympathy, which was first coined by the physicist Christiaan Huygens. He used the term to explain the strange behavior he noticed in two of his grandfather clocks: no matter when the pendulums were released they always migrated to a sympathetic swing, one pendulum always opposite the other.
The term also defines several other behaviors:
The fireflies of Southeast Asia (the Pteroptyx malaccae) who flash in unison. (A trait which is mimicked by the the Photinus carolinus and Phoruis frontalis of North America during an annual mating ritual.)
The chirping of crickets, which always act in unison.
The possible habits of menstrual cycles known as the Whitten effect.
The moment when the applauding of a crowd suddenly constricts and finds synchronicity.
If you are interested in the phenomenon, there is a wonderful article to be found at The Athanasius Kircher Society and another here at The National Institute of Standards and Technology.
This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.