Friday Potpourri

Today felt marginally better than yesterday-- the sun was out and it warmed up to 40 degrees-- but we were still fairly chilly when we had an unexpected and rather lengthy fire evacuation because something started burning in a cooking class-- I was about to call it a fire "drill" but it wasn't a drill, it was an actual fire-- albeit a very small one-- which interrupted an important discussion in Creative Writing where I was informing my students that The Beatles were not fro the midwest, they were from England . . . seriously . . and I today also introduced my sophomores to the idea of a "very special episode"-- a concept from the 1980s and 90s where a normally humorous TV program tackles a delicate or controversial event with the appropriate gravity . . . the one I'll never forget is the WKRP in Cincinnati episode about the Who concert where 11 people got crushed to death . . . a total bummer . . . we had a very special episode of class today about the LA fires-- and it is to be continued next class!-- perfect . . . I'm going to try to make the lesson into a very special podcast because it would take too long to describe here and I've got no time to sit and write because I'm about to finish my week-long triathlon of old man sports on a bad knee-- I played indoor soccer on Sunday, morning basketball on Tuesday, and now I'm about to go play some indoor pickleball-- if my knee holds up, I'll be very pleased.

Cold and Gray Thursday

I took a mental health day yesterday and it turned out to be quite productive-- I cleaned two bathrooms, went to the gym with Ian-- he was actually able to play a little basketball on his reconstructed ankle-- and then Ian and I fixed a broken light pull switch in a ceiling fan, a two-man job if there ever was one (he flipped fuses in the basement until the fan stopped and then it took four hands to take the fan case apart; hold it the bottom part; strip the wires; remove the old pull string switch; replace and reconnect the new pull string switch; and then reassemble it) and we rewarded ourselves with a sushi lunch and then I took a nap-- later my wife and I watched episode two of Get Millie Black-- highly recommended-- but then reality loomed its ugly head . . . when you take off a Wednesday, you have to go to work the next day-- and it's not even Friday!-- and this morning was frigid and dark and bleak and I am really struggling to see the dim light of Spring Break, which is many months away-- so I started my class today with the movie clip to symbolize how I was feeling: Bill Murray giving a "Groundhog Day" weather outlook, "You want a prediction about the weather . . . I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."

Our Team Only Had Nine Available Hands

Yesterday morning I made my triumphant return to 6:30 AM basketball, and while I was certainly limited in my movement because of my gimpy knee and unable to "help" on defense (which is my euphemism for fouling the fuck out of anyone who enters the paint in my vicinity) I was in fine shooting form (at least at the start of the session, my shot got progressively worse as my knee grew stiffer) and I drilled three long three-pointers in a row to lead our team to victory in the first game . . . and what a team it was-- I was limping around, Jeff has a strained calf-- and Frank, the old and venerated retired AD who is in his 70s and probably shouldn't be participating in the first place was coaxed into playing one game-- and I didn't notice until we began that Frank was wearing one glove, one green fluffy winter glove . . . and this is because he recently had surgery on his hand and needed to protect it-- needless to say, he did not shoot, dribble, or touch the ball-- but then he gracefully bowed out, undefeated, and we picked up Kyle, a fast, strong twenty-five-year-old athlete-- so all was good-- and then I learned that another player on the court was in his twenties and I was like: this is not fair, I think anyone in their twenties should have to be handicapped, like a jockey that's underweight, and wear a weighted vest. 

A Costco No-go

According to my neighbors Pernille and John, you never want to make the mistake that I made yesterday: you never want to go to the Edison Costco on a Monday (because the store is so crowded on Saturday and Sunday that, in a Yogi Berra-esque paradox, no one goes there on the weekend so they all go on Monday . . . also, I think some shoppers permanently reside in the store-- I surmised this by the way they amble about with their carts, like they've got absolutely nowhere to go).

Medieval Times, Good Times?

 

I just finished a new episode of We Defy Augury-- ten reasons Medieval Times were better times than you might have imagined . . . thoughts loosely inspired by Ian Mortimer's history book Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter, Christopher Buehlman's fantasy novel Between Two Fires, and Connie Willis's science fiction novel The Doomsday Book; 

Special Guests: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Janeane Garofalo, The Beastie Boys, George Carlin, Rick Moranis, MF Doom, the Monty Python Troupe, Kiefer Sutherland, 100 Gecs, Metallica, Arya and the Hound, Jimmy Walker, the Wu-Tang Clan, and medievalist professor Dorsey Armstrong.

The Knee Holds Up

I am pleased to announce that I played over an hour of indoor soccer this morning-- despite my wonky right knee-- and while I can't really drive a ball with my right foot, I was able to run, trap, and pass-- which is all you can ask for . . . but importantly, I got to see the soccer gang again-- I haven't played for a year-- and while there were a couple of new faces, it was mostly the same old guys . . . and we're just getting older.

Yet Another Reason I Hate Fucking Cars

Like most rational aesthetes, I find the Tesla Cybertruck to be a hideous and bulky eyesore, but it seems there is a way to level up the offensiveness of this sheet metal behemoth . . . and that is by adding an on-the-nose vanity license plate label which identifies what kind of car the license plate is adorning (in this instance, CYBR1) and this, of course, falls into the same category of objectionable taste as wearing a Weezer t-shirt to a Weezer concert-- you just don't do it (nor do you wear a Dungeons and Dragons t-shirt to a session of D&D, as I once pointed out to my older son) unless you write something witty, ironic, and meta . . . perhaps I could get a vanity plate for my Sportage that says "Kia Pet" or this Cybertruck owner could get a plate that reads "Pedo Boy" or "Compensating for my Tiny Penis."

 

Aspirational Actions

Instead of doing "Dry January," I am going to listen to more of Art Pepper's cool jazz and J Dilla's comprehensive catalog.

O! The Irony! The Hypocritical Unreliable Irony!

Today in Creative Class, we started our unit on first-person/unreliable narration, but I somehow got off-topic and while I was in the midst of describing the awful car accident my children and I witnessed on Tuesday and warning the students about the perils of walking, biking, and driving on Rutgers campus in New Brunswick and reminding them to really take their time going through intersections, even if the light is green-- right in the middle of diagramming all this on the whiteboard, a particular gym teacher poked her head into my classroom and she chastised me for something that happened yesterday . . . and I immediately knew how what she was about to say was going to fit the lesson-- because yesterday afternoon, when I was racing out of the school parking lot at the end of the day, I ran through the stop sign and cut her off-- and this happened several times previous because I'm a bit reckless when I'm trying to escape the school grounds-- so she censured me for my driving, I apologized profusely and I promised it would never happen again and then she left and I turned to the class and said, "You see my hypocrisy here? The unreliability in my narration? I'm warning you about being careful at intersections and meanwhile, I'm a hypocritical menace . . . we are all biased and unreliable narrators!" and then I was inclined to say "That's a wrap, you can all go home" but there was still 56 minutes left in the period, so I had to keep teaching but now I am truly going to take my time at intersections, I have learned my lesson twice in as many days.

There Are No Cheetos in Europe

You'll have to do your own research because I can't really make sense of all the available information, but on the newest episode of Derek Thompson's podcast Plain English Michael Cembalest (Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy for J.P. Morgan Asset Management) says that Europe allows 44 chemicals in its food while the U.S. allows over 700-- and he explains that's why it's not a great idea to invest in Europe-- too many regulations-- but that's why their food tastes so good . . . and if you attempt to confirm these numbers, you get all kinds of weird facts and figures-- Europe allows 300 food additives while the US allows over 3,000-- and there are readily available lists of various whiteners and fillers and dyes and preservatives and carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals the US allows as food ingredients, which Europe does not allow-- I don't really know what to make of all this information, but maybe I'll continue to invest in US companies, but seriously think about moving to Europe when I retire (if all the chemicals don't kill me first).

I Hate Fucking Cars

The boys and I were having a lovely Orthodox Christmas-- we went to the Y and played some basketball and then hit La Catrina for lunch, but on the drive home, when we got to the intersection of Hamilton Street and George Street-- where Hamilton turns into Johnson Drive-- the Zimmerli Museum was on our left-- we got a sober reminder of the ephemerality of life . . . the light was green and I was just about to enter the intersection when a medium-sized red car came FLYING down George Street (and this is a street with college dorms on it) and this red car smashed into the back of a white car that had just proceeded into the intersection-- the very car in front of us, and this spun the white car into the concrete wall in front of the Johnson and Johnson property (thank god no one was standing at this intersection waiting to cross, a spot that my son Alex walks through every day on his way to work) and the airbags went off inside the white car and I got out and (carefully) crossed the intersection to see if the people were all right and Alex and Ian called 911 but luckily there happened to be a couple cops nearby who immediately took control of the scene-- maybe they were already in pursuit of this vehicle? which would explain the high speed on this road?-- and because the white car got clipped in the rear of the car, not the driver side door, the two women in the car looked like they were in decent shape-- the passenger was fine and the driver looked stunned but she responded to my voice and the side airbag probably kept her from hitting her head-- meanwhile the red car that ran the light doing 40 or 50 mph on this 25 mph street was up ahead on the side of the road-- it hit another car and came to a halt and the the police checking that out-- and the weird thing is this wasn't a yellow light turning red situation, the red car had a solid red light-- so Alex surmised that perhaps the red car driver panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake-- something that occurs all too frequently and is often blamed on "sudden uncontrollable acceleration" but is actually caused by someone stomping on the wrong pedal . . . whatever the reason, this crash scared the shit out of the three of us and we all agreed to take it slow through every intersection, whether driving a car,  on foot, or riding a bike-- because of the existence of idiots and the half-assed manner in which our automotive based world is designed-- although honestly, this happened so fast and chaotically that it would have been difficult to avoid even if you were paying close attention nd driving defensively and all that and we were very lucky that we weren't in the intersection when this happened-- we were moments away-- and the last time I saw anything like this was over a decade ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Weird Energy on a Weird Monday/Friday

Strange things were afoot at EBHS today-- unlike most schools in the vicinity, we are off tomorrow for Orthodox Christmas (because we have a large number of Coptic Egyptian students) and so today felt like both a Monday and a Friday-- one day week!-- and to exacerbate the strangeness, we had a weird schedule because of an elective fair, which means I had to spend an inordinate amount of time with my 25-student sophomore honors class-- and while they are quite nice and academically diligent, they are also very energetic, chatty, clueless, and unlearned in the ways of mankind-- and I'm used to teaching seniors, who at least know how to pretend to be normal people-- and on top of all that, it snowed all day and so the students were flipping out about that (admin released the seniors early so they could slowly drive out of the parking lot-- for most of these kids, it's the first time they're driving in snow) but despite all this, we managed to finish Godzilla Minus One in Creative Writing class-- I cried-- and I even managed to grade a few essays through the tears-- which was the purpose of showing the film, I need to grade, but I always get sucked into the movie-- and now tonight is a mini-Saturday, so I'll enjoy the Rutgers/Wisconsin game and tomorrow is a mini-Sunday, so the plan is: head to the gym with the boys and then take them out to lunch . . . thank you Julian Calendar!

Giants vs. (Second String) Eagles

Difficult rooting conundrum today: The Giants played the Eagles and while I would like to start rooting for the Eagles, because of my South Jersey roots and Saquon Barkley, I don't think I have it in me to ever root for the Eagles over the Giants (but I do think I can muster some rooting strength for the Eagles in the playoffs since the Giants are eliminated) but then today's game because even more of a perplexing puzzle because in one sense, all Giants fans were rooting for the Giants to lose today so they could get a better draft choice-- but it was impossible to root for the Giants to lose to the Eagles, even the second string Eagles-- just because you can't turn that shit off . . . but I was still kind of psyched when Reed Blankenship grabbed Drew Lock's final toss and ended the game in the Eagles favor . . . there's always next year.

Dave Speculates on (Probably) the Dumbest Use of a Quantum Computer (It's All Probabilistic)

As far as I understand this recent quantum computing breakthrough-- which is not very far at all-- but from what I do grasp, the possible reason why the computer can do such complex computations so quickly, computations that would take a normal computer more than the life of the universe, is because the quantum computer is harnessing alternate realities and doing parallel computations in the multiverse-- so if I could get a hold of one of these computers, perhaps I could access the various sentences Alternate Daves are writing in various alternate universes and select the best of these alternate sentences and essentially subcontract my work out to the multiverse (which is quite different than relying on AI to write my sentences, which would be soulless and derivative . . . but harnessing the thinking power of infinite Alternate Daves, that's something much more on brand).

Some Things That Are Completely Different

If you're looking for some batshit crazy apocalyptic sci-fi, I highly recommend Robert Charles Wilson's novel Spin--  I won't even try to explain all the consequences of the "spin membrane" that is mysteriously placed around the earth (by a mysterious superior alien race that scientists refer to as The Hypotheticals) but the stars go out early in the book and then some very well-depicted political and psychological and scientific chaos ensues-- and the book really makes you think about time, as a concept-- the book is the first in a trilogy (but apparently the other two books are not as good, so I'm going to skip them) and if you've read or watched The Expanse series then you'll find some familiar themes-- and if you're looking for a batshit crazy surreal almost sci-fi movie, you might like I Saw the TV Glow, a mesmerizing story about two disaffected teens in the 90's who share an obsession with a strange supernatural TV show called The Pink Opaque . . . the fictional world of the show begins to bleed into the "reality" of the of Owen and Maddy's constrained suburban lives-- and Maddy's complete and utter acceptance of this alternate reality sends her on a quest to find her true identity and gender, a quest that Owen is reluctant to embark on or even comprehend-- it'sa film full of weird imagery, awkward moments, and fragmented horror.

It's Already Thursday!

While it was not fun to get up early and get dressed and make lunch and walk the dog in the dark and drive to school and make photocopies and finally start grading those synthesis essays, it was fun to see my friends and colleagues and chat about winter break-- and this was even more fun when one of my fellow English teachers reminded me that it is Thursday-- even though the day really had Monday-vibes . . . so this was more of a "soft opening" of the school and next week we'll really get down to business and learn something.

Dave Carries On Carrying On

Yesterday, on the last day of 2024, the usual themes unfolded-- I was sore from my second shingles vaccine but I went and played pickleball anyway-- wearing my knee brace of course and some KT tape on my Achilles tendon-- and I'm glad I went because even though I was a little sluggish, for one brief moment I was quick and coordinated, and I chased down a very wide ball and hit a crisp and perfect "around the pole" shot-- and then I took a much-needed nap, but still felt kind of lousy from the stupid shingles shot, but rallied enough to drink some mezcal at the neighborhood New Year's Party . . . so while I'd like to make some 2025 Resolutions here, things such as: I'm actually going to change my diet and lose weight; I'm actually going to start stretching every day and do all the recommended exercises to preserve my body and I'm going to give up alcohol during the week, at this point, realistically, these things are probably not going to happen so this year I'm just going to try to do the same shit I did in 2024, and continue to rinse and repeat until things really get Yeatsian and truly fall apart.

The Books Dave Read in 2024

1) The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon

2) More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

3) They Walked Like Men by Clifford D. Simak

4) Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

5) Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen

6) All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

7) Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells

8) Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz

9) The Charm School by Nelson DeMille

10) Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer

11) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

12) The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

13) Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs by Benjamin Herold

14) The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski

15) Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

16) The Fifties by David Halberstam

17) Outside the Gates of Eden: The Dream of America from Hiroshima to Now by
Peter Bacon Hales

18) A Year in the Life of Shakespeare:1599 by James Shapiro

19) One Good Turn (Jackson Brodie 2) by Kate Atkinson

20) Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta

21) Faithful Place by Tana French

22) Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present by Fareed Zakaria

23) The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty

24) When Where There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

25) The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

26) The Man in the Flannel Gray Suit by Sloan Wilson

27) A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz

28) Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler

29) The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

30) Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah

31) The New Me by Halle Butler

32) The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

33) Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

34) Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

35) The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

36) A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

37) Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

38) Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter by Ian Mortimer

39) Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo

40) The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew Bacevich

41) Supernova Era by Cixin Liu

42) Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

43) The Wych Elm by Tana French

44) Spin  by Robert Charles Wilson

And We're Back . . .

Saturday morning we left our children in charge of the house and the dog-- they're certainly big enough-- and headed to Philly for the weekend, but first we picked up my parents and dropped them at the Trenton Airport, then we met Mel, Ed, Julie, and Rob at the Mount Laurel Topgolf-- both stops were on the way to the City of Brotherly Love-- and though it was wet and cold, the bays are always heated and the beers are always cold at the Topgolf . . . 

then we drove to center city, parked the car, and checked into the hotel (Sonesta) and hit a bar (The Dandelion . . . very British and cozy, with great cocktails and beers) before a comedy show at Helium (we saw Gareth Reynolds-- he was excellent, very quick-witted, lots of crowd work, and some very funny stuff about technology) and dinner at Dan Dan Noodles--

Sunday morning we went to Carpenter's Hall and did a walking tour of the Old City, split a cheesteak at Shay's,

and then I threw on a green golf shirt and we went to a packed to the gills McGillin's Olde Ale House to root for the Eagles-- I am allowed to occasionally root for the Eagles in this time of famine for the Giants because I have lots of relatives in South Jersey (that were originally from Philly)  

 

and then we walked WAY south, well below South Street, to a little neighborhood that puts up a lovely light show (this is called Miracle on 13th Street . . . so I've now seen Miracle on 13th Street but I've still never seen Miracle on 34th Street)

and then we walked all the way back to center City, stopping for a couple of espresso martinis-- the White Elephant is highly recommended-- and we ate some delicious bao buns and other Asian delicacies at Sampan . . . we were seated facing the kitchen and holy shit are those guys churning out food and then we shuffled back to the hotel, 32,000 steps later, and slept very soundly--

and we finished the trip at Reading Terminal Market, of course, purchasing sausage, sharp provolone, and hot soppressata as souvenirs.

Go Eagles?

My wife and I  logged a lot of steps in South Philly today, watching the Eagles and seeing the historical sights and the 13th Steet lights and while I was rooting for Saquon to amass as many yards as possible, I might be too old a dog to defect from the Giants to the Eagles, despite all my south Jersey relatives ( but it was fun while it lasted, I cheered along with the crowd in Mcgillins and remembered what it was like to root for a good team).

Timothee Chalamet Should Stay in the Desert

I really hate the idea of a modern musical biopic-- the newest one is about Bob Dylan . . . A Complete Unknown-- because if you want to see a movie about Bob Dylan, just watch Dont Look Back and observe the man himself, not a Bob Dylan impression by someone who wasn't even born when Dylan was the voice of a generation-- I can understand a movie like Amadeus or Lisztomania because there's no film of those folks, but I refuse to see Ray and Walk the Line and Rocketman . . . it's much more fun to see a film about a fictitious band, like Spinal Tap, or a fictitious band that becomes a real band, like The Commitments, than it is to evaluate a musical impersonation for 120 minutes (and the most fun of all is when a tribute band nails all the songs, but looks nothing like the original musicians).