Why I Hate Potlucks

I hate potlucks. I hate potlucks so much I call them potyucks. You expect a dinner but end up with a plate full of rice, rolls, and cookies. Someone always brings a bucket of KFC original recipe, but the bucket only has fifteen pieces, and they are gone by the time you get to them. I know some of you are already typing your comments: "My ward has the best potlucks..." or "My mom always makes this amazing dish..." Hold off for a second, because there is a much deeper reason for my communal dining hatred. There are exceptions to general rule of potluck crappiness, and I will get to those eventually. 

A potluck is a game theorist's worst nightmare because there is a logical, gaping flaw in the incentive system that the potlucker relies upon to create a good meal. The flaw is the same one found in the insinuated explanation of the Nash Equilibrium from the movie "A Beautiful Mind." We need a quick review of the movie before we dive headfirst into the three rice dishes, unlimited rolls, and cookie fest that is a typical potluck dinner, about which even John Nash himself would have turned to his imaginary friends and said, "Screw this, guys. I'm going to Taco Bell."

The explanation I refer to is when Nash and his friends are hanging out in a bar. A beautiful blond woman walks in with her less-attractive brunette friends behind her. Nash has his "aha" moment. The friends begin to joke about how they will fight, "shall we say swords, gentlemen, pistols at dawn" to be with her.

Friend:  Have you remembered nothing? Recall the lessons of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics.

All together: In competition, individual ambition serves the common good. 

Friend: Every man for himself, gentlemen. And those who strike out are stuck with her friends. 

Now the scene is set; the blond looks over, and Nash sees her face flash. Here comes the breakthrough. Cue the mystical music.  

Nash: Adam Smith needs revision. 

Friend: What are you talking about?

Nash: If we all go for the blond, we'd block eachother. Not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they would all give us the cold shoulder because nobody likes to be second choice. But what if no one goes for the blond? We don't get in eachother's way, and we don't insult the other girls. It's the only way we'd win. That's the only way we'd all get laid. 

And...scene. 

However, there's a problem with this scenario, and this same problem creeps up when you examine a potluck mathematically. Let's assume I am one of Nash's two other friends. Nash is right: I would go for the blond just like all the other guys. 

But let's say we follow Nash's advice, gather around a pool table and hash out a game plan. Here are the strategies I have to choose from:

A. Hit on the blond. 

B. Hit on friend #1.

C. Hit on friend #2.

D. Hit on friend #3. 

We decide to listen to Nash and agree that strategy A is not an option. So I choose strategy B, Nash chooses strategy C, and our other friend chooses strategy D. This is the agreement we make when we put our hands together, yell "break!" and start the execution of our plan to get laid by non-blondes. After we leave the pool table, what do you think will happen?

We will all go for the blond.  Why?

If I, as an individual in the group, know everyone else has chosen a strategy that does not involve the blond, I have a voluptious incentive to deviate from my present strategy and hit on her. However, every other man leaving the table thinks the same thing. So we end up crowding the blond, even after we've created a strategy for exactly the opposite.

A Nash Equilibrium is a list of strategies, one for each person, such that if each player knows the strategies of the rest of the group, he has no incentive to deviate. The payoff for deviating must be less than the payoff for sticking with the plan. That is why all this "What if no one goes for the blond?" business is not a Nash equilibrium, because I am going for the blond if I know nobody else is. So what would be a Nash equilibrium in this scenario? 

Let's say I am stronger than both Nash and our other friend combined. If I said, "Listen, I'm going for the blond. If you guys go for the blond, I will take you out to the alley behind this bar and smash your face in with a crowbar." 

Now I get the blond, and my friends (if I can call them that after this exchange) have no incentive to deviate from their strategies of going for her friends, because they know there's no way they will get laid with a smashed face. We all follow the plan because the plan is the best thing for each individual. 

Now let's transfer this knowledge to the scenario of a potluck dinner. A potluck is an agreement between a group of people to each bring a dish from one of usually four or five categories: Main Dishes, Bread/Rolls, Desserts, Drinks, etc. But let's assume, to start, that we only have one category: Main Dishes. Usually everyone assumes this will be a great meal because everyone will bring their "favorite" dish. I will also assume that a big bowl of rice or pasta does not count as a main dish. What would you say if you asked your mom what she was cooking for dinner and she said "We are having just plain white rice!" or "Cooked pasta!" Exactly. Not a main dish.  

The blond, the holy grail in this scenario, is to make something as cheap and quick as possible. Her brunette friend is the strategy to make something delicious and dinner-worthy. Granted this is an oversimplification, but I'm not going to list every strategy in the potluck strategy set. 

Everyone agrees to the unwritten potluck law: to bring your favorite dish (by the way, this scenario works whether or not there is a sign up sheet).  That is the brunette: we all agree to bring something dinner-worthy. But, with little accountability mechanisms or potluck regulations, as soon as we leave the pool table incentives such as cooking-time and the value of a dollar cause nearly all of us to deviate from our agreed strategy, and for the same reason Nash and his friends would deviate: if everyone assumes everyone else will stick to the agreement to bring something dinner-worthy, I can get a great dinner for ten minutes and fifty cents worth of rice. I'm going for the blond.   

This is even more evident in a multiple-category potluck. Ever wonder why the Breads and Dessert categories fill up quicker than the Main Course on a sign up sheet? It's cheap and easy to make cookies or buy a cake and essentially trade that for a full hot meal. Ever wonder why more desserts and less main courses seem to show up, even though your sign up sheet has them equal? People don't bring what they sign up for, because it's not rational to do so. If I see all the slots for desserts and bread filled up, I'm forced  to bring a main dish. Therefore, I will either make a crappy, cheap main dish, or I will just bring a dessert and not tell anyone. The incentives to deviate are stronger than the incentives to keep my agreement. 

I know some of you think this is not true, because you've been to a few amazing potlucks in the past. Guess what: it is true, and the potlucks you're thinking of inadvertently created a Nash equilibrium to solve it! There are two ways to achieve Nash equilibrium: make the blond uglier, or the brunette prettier. 

This best example of this I can think of is in my ward back in Washington DC. At their monthly potluck, they had thick Middle Eastern meatballs, juicy BBQ chicken, and taco salads. And they always had leftovers. Why does this potluck work, where others fail?

The answer is this: the meatballs were called "Brother Ahmad's Middle Eastern meatballs," the BBQ chicken was referred to as "Sister Johnson's Amazing Chicken," and the taco salad was known as "Elder Wayne's Southwest Taco Salad." Every month, the members of this potluck knew their names would be attached to the dishes they presented. There was a good pride incentive to make the best dish possible, and to make enough so that everyone could try it. The better yoru dish is, the more you want to make. 

If the potluck is a one-time thing, you could require each dish to have the name of the person who made it. The public reason could be because you want everyone to know whom they should thank for this dish. But the private, real reason is to create a barrier to deviation, because nobody wants their name associated with a crappy dish. The blond just got a little more homely, thereby forcing a Nash equilibrium on the potluck. 

Another way is to make the brunette eclipse the blond. This can be done with a positive incentive structure like a main course contest, where each member of the potluck votes for their favorite dish, and the winner receives a prize. Also, if you have a sign up sheet, no one will try to sneak in a dessert instead of a main course, because everyone will know they didn't keep their word. Now there is both a desire to win and a a reason to put your name on your dish; a double Nash whammy! 

Potlucks are like negotiations. Successful ones have incentives and barriers that force each party to perform his part of the agreement, because that is the best course of action. The Middle East peace negotiations suffer from a broken incentive structure. Maybe it's time a mathematician got in on those negotiations and opened up a can of whoopnash. But please don't bring that to the next potluck, unless you're bringing a bucket of KFC to go with it. 

Why I Read Fiction

As most of you already know, I accepted the call to be a traveling husband while my wife finishes her studies in Amman. Upon landing, my first order of business was to find a bookstore. Kristi and I took our guidebook's advice and trekked out to a small bookstore/coffeeshop in downtown Amman. 

I don't really like bookstore/coffeeshops. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because one is a disseminator of knowledge, while the other produces mere mocha and free wifi. Maybe I see the backslash as a futile attempt to reconcile the deep concentration required for reading with the rapid, mindless humor of tweets and status updates. Bookstores are not social networks. They're where I go to escape social networks.

Nevertheless, we browsed the merchandise. Economics, Business, Politics, Humor, Sex, Mystery, and Love. Titles like, Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite and Don't Take the Last Donut: New Rules of Business Ettiquette and Finding Your Love Without Losing Your Life. I passed all these with a frenzy

I found sustenance in a small dark corner with a shy nameplate that said, "Literature." But it was only a mirage. There were a measly fifteen books; all with orange casing; all grossly overpriced despite the authors' expired copyrights.

"Did you find anything?" Kristi  asked.

"No."

"Well, are you sure? Why don't you just get something?"

"No, this is not what I want."

I found my bookstore on top of a staircase with exactly eighteen steps and a sign at the bottom of the staircase that read, in English, "You are 18 steps away from probably the best bookstore in Amman." It reminded me of a Ford advertisement recently that said, "Our quality is now equal with that of Toyota."

Probably the Best Bookstore in Amman hosted a large collection of literature from Hemingway, Tolstoy, Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald. I bought the unabridged version of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo--the title because I hadn't read it since high school, and the version because I have eight hours a day to kill. 

I immediately began to devour The Count of Monte Cristo. I read about Fernand and Danglars' betrayal of Edmond Dantes as the United States threatened to veto Palestine's United Nations bid for statehood. As the stock market plummeted due to fears of a Greek default, I was thrown out of the Chateau d'If in a body bag and discovered the treasure behind the twentieth rock on the Island of Monte Cristo. As protestors occupied Wall Street and demanded changes to a currupt system, I took revenge against the corrupt prosecutor Villefort and his self-serving invocations of the law. And, finally, when the seemingly unimportant nation of Slovakia stood tall and made its voice heard against a new Greek bailout, I bouyed up the feeble, yet honest, Morrel family with my treasure. 

When my friends and I visit bookstores, I immediately set sail toward the vast sea of literature only to find myself alone in my skiff. As a friend once said when I tried to convince him to read War and Peace, "Why would I spend so much time reading about an event that didn't occur to characters that didn't exist?"

This is an excellent question. A novel is an investment of time that could be spent building a repretoire of business terminology or solidifying one's knowledge of C++ or the Middle East peace process. In this higly specialized, obscenely competetive society, what value does a piece of literature have if you cannot quote from its pages in a job interview, or use the information to rise in the company's ranks?

The above question reminds me of Villefort's paralyzed father, Noirtier. Confined to a wheelchair without the ability to move or speak, Noirtier's body is lifeless except for his bright, large eyes that burn with anger, droop with compassion, and shine with love. Noirtier cannot work or play; he can only think and feel. But his eyes have more power than the words or actions of the most powerful members of the household. His power comes from the depth of his feelings and his ability to feel them. 

I don't mean to downplay the importance of non-fiction. The knowledge of subjects such as history and economics are vital to our society because they provide lessons that guide us in our actions. But it's feelings like compassion, love, vengfulness, and hate that separate us from our primate ancestors. Non-fiction teaches mankind how to think and do. Fiction teaches us how to feel. 

Fiction is not about made-up characters; fiction is about made-up ideas with characters and plot lines superimposed on top. This requires the reader to dig and reflect on the novel's themes more so than the straight-forward way non-fiction disburses information. We must attack a novel with the weapons the Russian General Kutuzov used to attack Napoleon: patience and time. We must fill the bathtub with the author's words and soak in them.

I learned from my wife that precious jewels of wisdom are not easy to come by or cheap to purchase. As I read novels, sometimes a passage will burrow into my soul and grow until it bursts in a desire to share it. One particular night, near the end of War and Peace, I read these words about Pierre that changed my life:

Pierre's insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and, loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was worth loving them.

I interrupted my wife's work in my excitement to read her this passage. When I finished, I looked up to see if it touched her heart like it did mine. She just smiled and said, "That's wonderful. Who is Pierre?"

She then kindly explained to me that the passage does not mean to her what it did to me, because she didn't know Pierre. I realized that this quote would mean nothing to me as well if I had not suffered, rejoiced, and matured with Pierre over three months of late nights and bloodshot eyes. I received this revelation only after I proved my devotion. 

Devotion to what? Perhaps devotion to the belief that there is more to life than what the news leads us to believe. I don't read novels to escape life. I read novels to peek at life from the platform of God. Twelve-hundred pages and four months to catch a glimpse of the infinite is worth the price. 

I read fiction because I hope to see life through Noirtier's eyes, full of passion and color that transcends the monotony of my job applications and my bank account. Otherwise, I would be doomed to look through the lifeless, billboard eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg at the charred remains of autoshops and railroad tracks that are covered in ashes and lead to nowhere.  

Shortcuts

I sit in a metal chair that feels like someone has their elbow in the back of my neck. We are traveling over a desert, and the pilot just took the intercom: "It looks like we will be able to take some shortcuts on our way to Denver, so we will have you there on time. We may even be a couple of minutes early."

Shortcuts? We are flying 230 miles per hour over a roadless mound of dust: isn't this the ultimate shortcut?

This announcement saddens me. I enjoy listening to two friends talk across my body about regression analyses, business strategy, and operational management. They come from Chicago, like me, but, unlike me, they are working on their MBA. I chime in every once in a while to say things like, "Oh, so you're doing a strategic analysis on Netflix? Here's an analysis: Don't eff with stuff that works." and "I have many business ideas, but I never do any because I don't have the money. Or maybe I'm just lazy." Jokes designed to make business geeks laugh.

The man to my left asked for no ice in his mixed drink. But as the flight attendant hands him the drink, she begins to apologize. There is ice. "I'm so sorry," she says. "Would you like me to bring you a new one?" He smiles and takes the drink with ice in it. Things would have been different, he decides, if the older, less attractive one had messed up his drink. But she's young and cute: she gets a pass.

Both men pull out their tablet computers and finger-massage until they get what they want. I tell them they are making me feel out of date. This laptop under my hands was the hot new thing a couple of years ago. Now it pales in comparison to sleeker designs; kind of like the other flight attendant with the better memory.

These two men are now my friends. I make them laugh with unthinkable business ideas, and they give me advice on how to choose a career. We chuckle over drinks with ice in them. They glance at the flight attendant who added three cubes when she shouldn't have. I want to run into the cockpit and beg the pilot to nix the shortcuts. 

We're Going to Be Alright

We're going to be alright

As long as there are stretched summer days,

Canines that chase tennis balls,

Charcoal,

and children

Conquering cardboard continents.

Moving silver trinkets; collecting rainbow cash;

crossing go with

sticky purple popsicles.

Seventh inning stretches,

sprinklers spitting at small striding bodies.

Water everywhere.

Brooks, boats, beaches.

Balancing acts on boards.

Smashball and bonfires.

Bikinis

and grills.

Bursting with hot dogs striped red, yellow, green.

Tired chess players and ice cream trucks. 

Sunblocked skin smell.

On Love and Cupcakes

I just bought a cupcake for my wife from a "cupcakery" in Georgetown. The girl working the cash register helped me pick out the perfect cupcake which, now that I look back, was the safest choice for my wife's tastes: a dark chocolate cake covered with a layer of vanilla frosting. If you ever need to understand the intricacies of what makes a good cupcake, call my wife. She will rattle off a list of variables such as texture, density,moistness, and, my favorite, proportion of cake to frosting. She sees an artistic creation where I see a ball of baked goo.

I walked the quarter-mile back to our apartment and tried my best to minimize the embarrassment of holding a cute brown paper bag with "Sprinkles" scrawled across it. My mind plucked a memory I had already filed in a cabinet marked "Do not open until your children get married." I remember locking that cabinet, but my mind insisted on running the combination.

The memory was of two nights ago, when my wife and I got all dressed up for a night out. I put on a nice pair of jeans which, in the middle of a DC heatwave, says something special with regards to the occasion. I even ironed my long-sleeved black shirt that accentuates my chest (once, on a date my freshman year of college, this girl looked at me, frowned, and said, "Has anyone ever told you that you have an abnormally wide chest?" She may not have liked the size of my chest, but Kristi doesn't seem to mind). My body looks like half of an hourglass with a tire stuck in the middle.The black shirt accentuated the hourglass because it was small in the shoulders. And it diminished the tire because it was black. My wife looked ravishing in a black-and-white striped skirt and black leggings. She is the full hourglass without the tire.

What was the occasion? I was taking my wife out to dinner. If there's an occasion more special than that, I don't know what it is. We walked in scorching heat to a ritzy Italian restaurant and I tried my best not to sweat. We got to the restaurant, put our name on the hour-long waiting list, and looked at the menu. I was born with two distinct chromosomes, so naturally I skimmed the prices. And my heart dropped to the extra button on my black shirt when I realized that we couldn't afford any of them.

So I did what husbands do: I made up excuses to cover up the real reason why we couldn't eat there. I said trivial things like "I don't want to wait an hour" and "It's too hot in here" to hide the fact that I, a husband, could not provide a luxury that my wife desired and deserved.

That night I couldn't sleep. I wondered, "What can I give my wife?" Yes, it's a superficial question. But husbands know the feeling. You have somebody you want to give the world too, but you have to settle for packages of Starburst gummies, or extra-butter microwave popcorn, or a box of cereal, or a short-stemmed rose. 

Just as feelings of inadequacy crept over me, I had an idea. I realized I could  give her the world on a silver platter, and made a plan to do so. I slept soundly with that hope.  

After the sun rose, while she showered, I combined pancake mix, milk, and ricotta cheese in a big bowl. I sliced butter onto a sizzling pan and poured the batter on top. The pancakes started to bubble, so I turned them. The butter had melted onto the pancakes in shapes vaguely similar to continents on a globe. When she came out, I flipped the little worlds onto a plate. It wasn't a silver platter, but it worked just fine.

My wife has these little creases in between her eyes and cheeks that I call her "smile lines." The cause is a smile so big it creates a wedge between her cheek and her lower eyelid, forcing her eyes to squint. Over time, the wedge became a permanent diagonal line. They are a natural tattoo for a naturally happy person. Her smile beamed so bright I wondered if she could even see me, let alone the circles on her plate. I like to think I contributed to those little creases that morning.

I locked that memory back into my file cabinet for a time when my son wants to give his wife the world, but can't. The cupcake rocking in the little paper sack cost me three dollars. I hope one day I can surprise her with a mixture of diamonds and gold instead of a mixture of flour and water, but a cupcake will do just fine for now.

I took the cupcake home and placed it on the table. Should I tease the surprise until later in the evening? Naw, I'll just give it to her as an appetizer for dinner.

We're having pancakes tonight.

On Fishing and Running for President

I don't know the direction this note will go. My mind hasn't given me a break from a discordant feeling since yesterday, similar to the one you felt on the first Christmas Eve after learning that Santa Claus isn't real. 

I opened a book but found that my lack of focus forced me to read every paragraph twice. So I dropped the book, turned on Claire de Lune, and tried to clean my apartment. During the sixth repetition of the song, I found myself pacing the room with a stack of gym clothes in my hands. That's when I sat down and started to write. I hope the words loosen whatever is clogging my brain. 

I haven't written anything in a while. I need to amend that: I haven't typed anything in a while. I keep a journal in which I push my pen up and down to create my letters. I cross out ill-fitting words and manipulate letters when I mess up. Writing each word gives me time to think about the next word, and allows my brain to organize sentences more fully as I write their predecessors. Typing makes words come and go in a blink, which allows only a blink to assemble my thoughts. I can't churn thoughts out like jelly beans from an assembly line.  

Yesterday I saw Jon Huntsman declare his candidacy for President of the United States. Let me preface this by saying that I like Jon Huntsman. He seems like a true statesman cut from the same cloth as a hero of mine, Clemens Von Metternich--a quality lacked by recent Presidents. He exudes pragmatism. I still can't say if he will inspire Americans. But he has already inspired me with his assertion that "the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who is the better American."

After he announced his candidacy, his family embraced him onstage. His wife and daughters looked beautiful in solid-colored dresses, and his adopted Chinese daughter waved an American flag. When they left the podium, Mr. Huntsman saw the cameras directed at him. He rose his hand and gave the standard, and slightly cliche, frozen wave to an invisible crowd. It was a great photo-op with New York City in the background. I thought about how this whole event was funded with family money made from the invention of the McDonald's Big Mac box. It doesn't get more American than that. 

I watched as he walked under a tarp and sat across from Sean Hannity. Portable lights, bulky video cameras and discharging flash bulbs surrounded them as they discussed the announcement. I looked beyond their interview and, as the image of a billionaire presidential candidate and a nationally-recognized television personality blurred, a new scene came into focus.

About a hundred feet away, three fishermen stood on the harbor's edge. I watched one reach into a dirty white bucket and grab a live anchovy. He was meticulously inserting the hook through the fish's lower jaw so as to keep it alive to attract predators. My grandpa taught me how to do this on my first (and last) deep sea fishing trip when I was twelve. From him, I learned how to read where the tuna are, how to hook a fish when it hits, and how to fight it as I bring it in. But I was best at inserting the hook in the anchovy and puking incessantly. We sat on the boat's bow under the stars and he told me stories of when he quit high school to gut fish and bait lines on a fishing boat. He goes on walks with my mom in the mornings now and is starting to slow down. That last sentence was hard to write.

I watched the fisherman on the harbor's edge cast his line into the water, while another pulled his out and checked the bait. They laughed together. What were they laughing at? Maybe the man had patiently waited for a nibble for an hour, only to discover his bait escaped the hook when he casted. Maybe they joked about how they will be going hungry tonight, or how Lady Liberty needed to scare some fish their way. Maybe the beautifully overcast day, the light salty breeze, and the cityscape of New York City overcame them. They didn't even notice the event just to the right of them. They were too focused on anchovies and each other to care.  

Hannity ended the interview after a couple of quick pictures. Mr. Huntsman, surrounded by reporters and photographers, walked towards the fishermen. Then he jumped in his black Escalade and his entourage left. I felt like Cindy Lou Who did when she catches the Grinch stealing her Christmas tree and asks, "Why?"

Why didn't he ask them how the fishing was?

Is it that he didn't notice or, worse, that he didn't care? He waved to an adoring throng of imaginary fans for the cliche "American President" photograph, yet didn't ask three fishermen about their luck. His video touts him as "preferring a greasy spoon to a linen table cloth," yet he bolted to the comfort and safety of his Escalade instead of to the fisherman's dirty buckets and smiling faces. 

I know there are logistical issues and other circumstances that I'm not taking into account. Maybe he was late for another engagement, or he was instructed to go straight to the car. But he could have taken a minute to ask those fisherman how their day was going, and the type of fish they were chasing. Politicians are quick to label what is American and what is un-American, but they neglect to do things that are truly American, like asking, "How's the fishing?" to a few men with poles in the water. 

I love this question. My wife and I were walking back from the Potomac River recently when we saw a fisherman on the water's edge. I asked him how the fishing was. He replied, "I can't complain. I just hope I can catch something as beautiful as your wife!" It made us laugh all the way home. 

I don't know why watching Mr. Huntsman rush away had such an effect on me. Maybe I looked at the fishermen and saw my grandfather, in his faded blue jeans and T-shirt with a marlin swimming across the front, looking out over the ocean and saying old-man cliches like, "Even if we don't catch anything, this still beats the hell outta working," or "Always wear sunscreen so you don't look like me." Maybe, by ignoring these fishermen, Mr. Huntsman was ignoring my grandfather.

Like I said, I don't know why this had such an effect on me.

But now, for the first time in a little over twenty-four hours, I can read in peace.