Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I agree that short guys and short girls have different, with some
overlap, sets of problems.

Like buying clothes. I'm too short for normal clothes. However, I am
short waisted and have long legs for my height, so petite clothes look
funny on me. I'm too overweight for normal clothes, and not heavy
enough for fat chick clothes. I wear a lot of elastic waists, and I own
a grand total of one dress because I just can't find one item that
fits both my top half and my bottom half.
  

    


   well, there could be some really negative reviews out there just waiting
to trip us up!

   but yes, it's aimed at kids 12-17, basically -- adventurous young readers
and teens.
  

    
Just read this from the beginning.

And, do you feel there is a bit of truth to SGS, or Short Guy
Syndrome, where a short male makes up for it with arrogance?  I've
known some short guys who were cool, and others who were exceptionally
arrogant.

Myself, at 6'+, I'd gladly swap 6 inches with anyone.  I'd drop to
5'6" and they could be taller, and I'd quit banging my head on things.

Also, I know someone who is a midget, and he promotes that fact.  He
works for a local bar, and suggested they add the phrase "...and a
midget" to their advertising. Great guy, not arrogant at all.

So, what do you think makes some short males arrogant, and others not?
  

    
I've shrunk from 5'9" to somewhere around 5'7" over the last 40 years.
 I have short legs -- short enough that the shortest standard pant
legs (29") are really a bit too long, especially if the waist slips
down below my too-large abdominal protrusion.
  

    
The "arrogant" thing is so complex.  It relates to "uppity nigger" ---
i.e. don't be so rude as to try to be equal to one's betters -- in
some ways, and yet we have all seen people "overcompensate" in awkward
and uncomfortable ways for feeling at a social disadvantage. 

Maybe it's healthy.  A parent wouldn't want to teach a small child to
be meek, after all. 
  

    
"uppity nigger"

Bingo!
  

    
I did have one short male friend back in college who was a caricature
of the overcompensating short guy: puffed up his chest when he walked,
and seemed to be standing a bit on the balls of his toes, his chin
would pop up and out whenever he spoke as though to be propelling his
words upward.  
  

    

  yeah, I find the range of behaviors among short people, and have met
plenty of arrogant tall people. VERY arrogant tall people, in fact. So some
short men compensate? Sure. Just ask Napoleon. But I see short guys
compensate by building social skills, by being clever, just as much. I try
to make people laugh.
  

    
lisa, you were college friends with tom cruise???
  

    

  Lisa, you were college friends with Nicolas Sarkozy?
  

    <scribbled by brian Wed 20 Mar 13 18:19>
  

    
I was at the hardware store this morning and passed a man who  was my
height (5'3.5") or a little shorter. I had this urge to tell him about
your book, but didnt.
  

    
good call. 
  

    
If you want to tell people about this book, a good place would be
outside the office of the doctors who give out growth hormones to
kids....
  

    
seriously, i think it would be a great choice for any kid who is 
developing a healthy suspicion of the media and advertising and does not 
like being marketed to. i remember a study of what kind of anti-smoking 
advertisements were the most effective with teenagers and it was 
definitely not the YOU ARE GONNA DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE ones (teenage 
translation: ooh, danger! cool!) or the YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO SMOKE ones 
(which were mostly cynical ones made by cigarette companies as "education" 
-- there is of course no better way to say ENTICING to a kid than "this is 
only for grownups") -- it was the YOU ARE BEING TARGETED AND MARKETED TO 
BY CYNICAL WEALTHY CORPORATIONS. 
  

    
Marjorie's right, of course.  While this book is great for short folks, it's
even better for critically thinking young people.  You've given them a road
map of sorts to decipher the language of manipulation.
  

    

Marjorie, that's the TRUTH campaign, pioneered in Florida with tobacco
settlement money. It's worked better than the old approaches, for sure.

   it's quite the subversive little book, isn't it?

   y'all really get what I was trying to do. It's a joy to read these
comments.

    Brian, there is a section of the book that discusses the fact that it
can be a drag to be tall, by the way...
  

    
This may be more for adults than kids, but I recently came across an
article about "The Biggest Lies People Tell in Online Dating."

<http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/07/07/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating
/>

The author compared the stated heights in online dating profiles with
the actual distribution of heights in the population. Perhaps not
surprisingly, it appears that both men and women exaggerate their
heights by about 2 inches. The article claims the data also indicates
that taller people have more partners, up to a point, and that taller
men receive more unsolicited messages from women than shorter men do.
(Conversely, shorter women receive more unsolicited messages from men
than taller women do). 

It seems to me that much of this is not really statistically valid or
fully supported by the data, but I'm not qualified to evaluate the
claims. I'd be interested in your take on the article.
  

    

  I'm traveling in Louisiana today for a story, and won't be checking in or
commenting. Talk among yourselves!
  

    
Louisiana in July.  Even without the aftermath of catastrophe, and
even for somebody like me who loves the culture, summer's a daunting
time to travel in the Gulf states. Stay cool, John!
  

    
and eat well!
  

    

  very hot, and hot weather makes helicopter rides uncomfortable...  I
survived the day, however, and had a largely lovely dinner...
  

    
John, or anyone here, have you heard from any actual kids that have read
your book?  I did give it to a 14 year old girl, but I haven't heard from
her yet.
/
  

    

  I would so love to hear what kids think. So far, though, I've heard
nothing from kids... amazing response from adults, but I do not know if the
tone I struggled to find actually reaches young readers. I tried to get my
youngest, at 13, to read it as a tester, but he smirked and said "I'm not
your target audience." Tall bastard.
  

    
How strange that you originally wanted to write it for adults, but were
directed toward this other audience instead.  Now it's the adult audience
that seems to be reading it.  Is it possible that we read it *for* our
children?