I was in Boston for a couple of days last week, participating in a CMU Alumni Event (which was decently attended but was predictably, by over-managed design and micro-managed preparation, terribly uninteresting!), but the trip itself was well worth it because (a) there was a fun Fashion Show at the Liberty Hotel where I was staying (and the Vesper was well done!) and (b) I had breakfast with Swati Gupta (of MIT, on Quantum+Optimization mostly, but at the very end, on independent films and SAA Representation), and she connected me with Sriram Emani (who is the co-founder of IndianRaga, which some of you may remember from the classical Indian version of Shape of You, original by Ed Sheeran. that went viral in 2017), whose new short film Jam Boy is doing well (won the DCIFF Best Short) and (c) had a catch-up meeting with Bill Lichtenstein (recall that WBCN and the American Revolution won the 2019 DCIFF Best Documentary Film) on our current documentary Broken (recall We Won!).
Back in Pittsburgh over the weekend, I composed this poem on the occasion of Rita Dove reading at International Poetry Forum:
Lone Capitalist
The McLaren stayed home—
poets are not yet ready for it.
I slummed it in the SL 550,
a compromise to “fit in” poverty.
The viburnum had no such restraint.
All the way down my driveway
it flung its white globes at the morning—
each one a small, excessive yes.
In the parking lot, a stranger exclaimed:
Beautiful car!
Thank you, I said.
He didn’t know
it wasn’t even my second favorite.
Inside, the auditorium gathered its hush:
folding seats, a lectern,
the particular silence
of a room preparing to be confirmed.
I knew the feeling well—
the only one of my kind
in a room not built to contain me.
Then—an English professor
from thirty years ago.
Her smile, the width of memory.
She remembered how much I loved the Bond sequences—
gun barrel, silhouette, desire—
spilled across a hundred-and-seven inches
of wall that believed in itself.
What she didn’t know:
I had once owned an Aston—
driven it top down.
Fantasy wasn’t gripping enough.
I came for the words themselves—
the way they move when handled well,
the way they sound when spoken well,
the way they make me feel.
Last time I sat here
it was Arundhati Roy—
Booker halo still warm—
and I, the lone capitalist
in a room full of sanctimonious socialists.
The professor smiled,
replying:
“You are still the only capitalist
in the room.”
Then the lights shifted.
Rita Dove walked out.
I closed my eyes—
alone, savoring her words.
Those who know me well would have already noticed that the title of this post is a riff on:
Lone Star is a 1996 American neo-Western mystery film written, edited, and directed by John Sayles. On Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 140 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.8/10.
Talking about movies, I am delighted that RAGS Foundation is the sponsor of four awards at MSPIFF45:
Some of you have wondered Does he have a Day Job? Yes, I do. Here is a WEF White Paper on Quantum and Energy:
Here is my interview with Network World on the recent hype on Quantum:
And, I will be Keynote speaker in a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) event in DC coming up (May 7th, 2026):
