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).

Knee Update (Breaking Knees)

My knee is working pretty well now that they drained the fluid, so I got to play some pick-up basketball with my son Alex yesterday at the Piscataway Y, which is always a blast-- my three-pointer was on and Alex can cut to the basket and use his right or his left, and I know I won't be able to do this forever-- pump fake an outside shot and then pass the ball to my son going to the cup, so I've got to enjoy it while I can-- and then my wife and I headed out to see Nosferatu-- which is fabulously grim and dark and very well conceived, but a bit long-- and since we purchased tickets ahead of time, we thought we were showing up late, after the coming attractions, but it seems no matter how late you show up to the movies, there are always many many trailers-- the 2:30 PM showing didn't actually start until 3 PM . . . so by the end of the movie, my knee was a bit stiff and I limped out of the theater and into the darkness-- when the film began the sun was out but once we left the theater, it was not safe, Nosferatu's shadow lay across the land.

Which Wych Elm?

The answer to the titular question is: the wych elm in the garden of Ivy house, the one keeping a sordid secret-- but it's going to take some preliminary reading to learn this, and some of it isn't going to be pretty: brain damage, brain cancer, and a lucky, privileged young man brought to his knees by events from his past-- events that had consequences that he was oblivious to then but are horribly apparent now . . . I'll say no more, aside from the fact that The Wych Elm is another masterful mystery from Irish-American author Tana French.

Christmas Day Stats? Is That a Thing?

While it was nice to watch the Knicks win on Christmas Day (and to see Mikal Bridges light it up) and my son Alex and I were also entertained by the animated "Dunk the Halls" version of the game, we got sick of all the talk of Victor Wembanyama's "Christmas Day Scoring Record"-- that's just not a viable statistical category-- too small a sample size (especially for such a large human being).

The Decline and Fall and Reclining and Icing and Draining and Rising Again of Dave's Right Knee

Yesterday, I went to the doctor's for my right knee and while it wasn't as fun as self-diagnosing and self-medicating, it was probably more informative and more therapeutic-- and it was kind of fun because the resident and the doctor who worked with me were both fairly cute young ladies, which made all the pressing on my knee and twisting and pulling of my leg slightly more tolerable than if it were a couple of dudes-- and that might be sexist, but whatever, I like to believe they were a bit more delicate and definitely more personable than the typical male doctor-- anyway, after all the prodding, they determined that it was a tight IT band and some arthritis related to patellofemoral pain syndrome, which caused some serious swelling and a lot of fluid around my knee, so Dr. Navia said that I could either take naproxen for two weeks or she could numb up my knee and stick a needle in and drain the fluid and then shoot a steroid in there to reduce the swelling-- and while this would hurt a little she promised it wouldn't be too bad-- so I opted for option two, even though I was hungry and I had been there quite a while-- so they numbed me up and started sticking needles into my knee and looking on some ultrasound monitor-- and I wisely looked at the ceiling so as not to see what they were doing, although they did a LOT of talking about what they were doing, I guess because the main doctor was teaching the resident-- so I had to overhear quite a bit of graphic detail about finding pockets of fluid, switching sutures, and how many milliliters of gunk they sucked out-- but they were pleased with all the yucky yellow bloody pus/fluid/gunk they drained and the "debris" they moved out of the way, but the doctor said my knee wasn't going to be happy with her during the night, once the anesthetic wore off-- and so while I was able to walk out of the office and even run up to Thomas Sweets to purchase a gift and Mamoun's for take out-- later in the day and last night my knee really started to throb-- but I took my naproxen, drank a few beers, etc.-- and when I woke up this morning, my knee felt much better and I have full range of motion again-- yesterday, I couldn't straighten my leg because of the swelling, so it looks like I am on the mend. 

Right Knee Stuff, Part Two

One of the many incredibly essential things I do on this blog is keep track of all my athletic ailments-- so that when I injure myself (or reinjure myself) I have some idea of when I last fucked up this particular body part and how long it took to heal and what exercises I did and all that . . . so yesterday I played some indoor pickleball and my right knee started hurting but I was playing so well that I couldn't stop-- I'm using a new technique with my two-handed backhand, instead of trying to get both hands on the short paddle handle, I'm just slapping my left hand on the back of the paddle, two or three fingers splayed on the surface, and this works wonders-- and I've also added a backhand flick, a backhand roll, a deceptive speed-up, and a decent lob to my arsenal of pickleball weapons-- and the important thing to remember is that pickleball is NOT tennis . . . I started out playing mini-tennis but now I've adapted to the peculiarities of this game (and if you want to see a really peculiar game, check out Padel . . . you can run out the door!) but one of the things I'm doing is hitting the return of serve on the run forward, so I can get to the kitchen line immediately, but I guess that's a lot fo starting and stopping and so my right knee is killing me, hopefully due to "patellofemoral pain syndrome/chondromalacia patella"-- which is what Dr. Morton diagnosed me with back in the summer of 2021, which just means that my kneecap doesn't always stay in the groove and sometimes rubs on the bone and causes arthritis and swelling-- but I'm proud to say that I'm headed to the doctor this morning to get this checked out, instead of reading WebMD for a few days and self-medicating . . . although I did make the mistake of searching "when do you need a knee replacement?" and I definitely check a few of those boxes-- but I'm going to go to the doctor and see what he has to say before I make any big decisions (also, I am NOT a doctor, so there are no decisions for me to make, aside from what stupid thing I'm going to search next on the internet).

Thus Endeth the Birthday

After three weeks of celebrating my wife's birthday, it's time to switch gears (and celebrate Christmas and New Year's) but we had a great turnout for Friday night for some drinking and dancing . . . and it turned out that a couple of the members of the band were Edison teachers, so Cat got a birthday shout out at the Kefi ballroom, and then despite my wife's state of inebriation at the end of the night (and Stacey and Ed's generous offer of a ride home) she wanted to walk back to Highland Park in the snow, because "it would be good for us" and so we made the trek home, slowly but surely, while I offered both moral and physical support (and at least she followed one piece of my advice and she wore sensible shoes, her Dock Martins, instead of heels).

 

These Photos Literally Symbolize the Seasons

 

To commemorate the end of fall and the first day of winter (which is also the shortest day of the year) I offer you two dog photos, one taken a few days ago and one taken this morning-- and while I am not a good photographer, these photos speak to the changing of the seasons despite my general photographic incompetence (but I did attempt some artful cropping!) and the thing to remember is that from here on in, each day will have a little more sunlight-- approximately one minute more-- and soon our fearless leader, Donald Trump, will be inaugurated and he will bravely eliminate Daylight Saving Time and restore this additional sunlight to its proper time and place.

You'd Think We've Have Teleportation By Now

You'd think it would be easy to connect your phone to two Bluetooth speakers at the same time, so they play the same music simultaneously-- or let me phrase that, I thought it would be easy to connect my phone to two Bluetooth speakers at the same time, but I'm not a computer engineer so I don't understand how Bluetooth is designed and the limitations of this technology . . . so I Googled this conundrum and here's the problem:

1. Bluetooth's Client-Server Model: Bluetooth operates on a client-server model where one device (your phone) acts as the client and the other (the speaker) as the server. This means your phone can only establish one active connection with a single speaker at a time.

2. Dual Audio vs. Multipoint: While some devices support "dual audio" (sharing audio with two connected devices simultaneously), this is not the same as playing the same audio on two separate speakers. Dual audio is designed for sharing audio to two different headphones, not for playing the same audio on two different speakers.

3. Bandwidth Limitations: Bluetooth's bandwidth is limited, meaning it can only handle a certain amount of data at a time. When trying to send audio to multiple speakers, the bandwidth might not be sufficient to maintain a high-quality connection to both speakers simultaneously.

4. Latency and Synchronization: Even if you could send audio to multiple speakers simultaneously, there might be a delay in the audio reaching each speaker, leading to a noticeable lag or out-of-sync audio experience.

to which I say: "BOO! Bluetooth, BOO!" which I hope will inspire our computer overlords to fix this issue (and yes I know there's an app-- I tried AmpMe but I couldn't get that to work either-- the only thing that kind of worked was having my wife join my Spotify "Jam" and then she could play the Jam on a different speaker but there was some latency-- the age of my phone may also be contributing to this situation).

Seven Things For Reading

Happy Gheorghemas! . . . you'll have to enjoy a daily dose of my brilliance over there today: Seven Things for Reading.

Some Compromise . . .

Taffy Brodesser-Akner-- author of the modern relationship farce/mystery satire Fleishman is in Trouble-- has a new novel out: Long Island Compromise, which is a compelling family saga (and a satirical look at the wealthy Jewish diaspora of Long Island) and I got a Kindle version for $1.99 on Amazon-- a steal-- in fact, the meaning of the title (which is wonderfully filthy) is worth that price alone.

Am I Special? Or Just Gross? Or Neither?

Does everyone else fling little white specks of food onto the bathroom mirror when they floss their teeth, or just me?

The Medium is the Scooter

Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan said: "the medium is the message" and I think this is particularly true in sports: in the 1930s, the golden age of radio-- baseball, horseracing, and boxing were the most popular sports in America and these were the perfect sports to describe in an audio broadcast-- they are easy enough to narrate, there are slow moments either before or during the action so there's plenty of room for anecdote and description (I grew up listening to Phil Rizzuto tell stories about his barber during Yankee broadcasts) but as televisions got bigger and gained higher and higher definition, basketball and football gained popularity-- these are games where everyone is moving around at once and you need to see the action-- and you can choose where to look-- you can check out the defensive formation, or the blocking scheme, or the guy posting up in the paint-- it's impossible to narrate it all so it lends itself to a visual medium . . . and the internet appears to lend itself to sports gambling and fantasy sports, where people don't even bother with the narrative of an individual game but instead watch clips and short videos and consume statistics-- and TV has tried to keep up with this with the NFL Red Zone and such, which is essentially football coverage on crack . . . and who knows what the next medium will be for consuming sports-- flying your own drone over an event or being in a 3-D VR stadium-- and then who knows what sport this medium will lend itself to-- perhaps croquet will make a comeback.

Looks Like I Love Donald Trump?

 

While I'm not going to start purchasing Donald Trump Commemorative Gold Coins or Donald Trump NFT Trading Cards . . . or Donald Trump Drinkware, Headware, Golf Essentials, Yard Signs, or Candles?-- but I will begrudgingly celebrate him in a bigly way if he actually manages to make good on this particular promise he made on "Truth Social" to eliminate Daylight Saving Time-- honestly, if that were the cornerstone of his campaign platform . . . or of Kamala Harris's platform, that would have been enough to garner my vote-- this is something that can actually happen and could make all of our lives more stable-- plus, while I do think the government should be inspecting our food, incentivizing clean energy, and protecting our wetlands, wildlife, and open spaces, I don't think the government should be meddling with time.

The (Derivative) Art of the Tribute Band (Name)

Last night we saw two tribute bands: Big Foot County (The Grateful Dead) and Run, Rabbit Run (Pink Floyd) at the Kefi Ballroom, the venue that was once the nightclub Perle and has now been refashioned into an excellent live music venue-- something New Brunswick desperately needed once the Court Tavern shut down-- and the sound was superb, the beer was cold, and there were free samples of Timeless marijuana products (you could suck a cloud of vape out of a weird electronic genie bottle with your very own plastic straw . . . because of the strobe lighting, this seemed like something out of Bladerunner) but more interesting than all that is the art of naming your tribute band. . . I like the direction these bands went -- a random lyric-- as opposed to "punny" names like Proxy Music, The Rolling Clones, The Faux Fighters, and Deft Leppard-- those are groaners (although there is a one-man Def Leppard cover band that goes by "Jeff Leppard"-- that's pretty boss) but, for no good reason, I'm slightly more open to all-female tribute band puns, e.g. "Hell's Belles" and "Lez Zeppelin" and "ZZ Topless" but I still think something that takes a moment of thought, like The Crystal Ship (The Doors) or The Rocket Queens (Guns N' Roses) is more hip than a pun (but, of course, tribute bands are not very hip at all-- which begs the questions: when do you give up on your dream of being a famous, unique, and creative musician and dedicate yourself to playing one band's songs? is it when every time your band plays a particular artist, everyone goes nuts and you realize that you sound like them more than you sound like yourself? that's quite an artistic identity conundrum) and I can see the more obscure method of naming your tribute band as a fun bar game-- you say a hypothetical tribute band name and everyone tries to unravel the origin . . . if I were to say "The Lobster Telephones" you'd need to figure out that this is a hypothetical Cult cover band, the name pulled from a lyric in the song "Aphrodisiac Jacket" or if I were to say "The Sandy Crustaceans" then you'd have to surmise that this is a hypothetical Pixies cover band, the name culled from "Wave of Mutilation"-- it's not a game for the faint of heart-- and I should end this rambling discussion with the silliest tribute band name of all-time: Scrantonicity . . . Kevin's Police tribute band in The Office.

The Suburban/American Scream

I never thought I'd finish this new episode of We Defy Augury . . . I was synthesizing together too many books and too many thoughts and I got completely overwhelmed, stuck in the weeds, and gave up-- but then I set the goal of recording at least five minutes of audio a day and I managed to trick myself into conquering the mountain of notes and material I had amassed-- so this is my longest episode, with plenty of tangents and clips and special guests and long-winded bombast, but it is finished, for your listening pleasure: 

"The Suburban/American Scream"

thoughts on the history and future of the American suburbs (loosely) inspired by four books:

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

2) The Fifties by David Halberstam

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

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

Special Guests: Monty Python, Bill Cosby, Rush, Descendents, Bob and Doug McKenzie, Edward Scissorhands, Arcade Fire, Dead Milkmen, Malvina Reynolds, Helen Keller, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Bruce Springsteen, and The Who.

Canine or Cow?

It should be noted that this fearsome creature, our loyal companion Lola-- who spends most of her time guarding us-- would happily be a vegetarian: she loves broccoli, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, and pepper slices and will wait attentively while we are slicing and dicing produce for a salad until she receives a handout.

Let the Kids Have Their Memes

Yesterday in my English 12: Music and the Arts class we finished watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, a provocative film about the nature of art directed by Banksy-- an artistic agent provocateur-- and our discussion about the purpose, value, and definition of compelling art somehow led to the meme with the fiendishly grinning blue Grinch and the caption "that feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow"-- an absurdist bit of humor that makes about as much sense to me as when the students yell "pumpkin!" in class . . . and you could trace the origin of these memes and attempt to understand why Gen Z kids find them funny . . . or you could do what I did and decide to let them alone-- because memes are this generation's punk rock (or hip-hop or alternative rock or math rock or heavy metal or any of the many musical genres that my parents do not understand) and while there really hasn't been a new musical genre that only the youth listens to and understands-- in fact, most kids listen to pop music, rock music, and hip-hop, the same stuff folks my age were listening to when we were teenagers-- so the kids deserve to have their own weird universe of pop culture, that bewildered adults denigrate-- thus if you are over thirty, stop watching TikTok and trying to emulate the youth, and instead, read a fucking book.

Lord of the Flies is Lame (No Tanks)

If you think Lord of the Flies is a bit tame and you want a book where the kids really go bonkers then check out Cixin Liu's Supernova Era . . . a supernova eight light-years away unleashes a pulse of radiation that hits the Earth with delayed but deadly consequence-- leaving only children under thirteen immune to the eventual (9 months or so) chromosomal decay and death-- so as adults face imminent death, they race against time to train the kids to take over the planet-- and then the adults die and the kids act just like kids and utilize none of the wisdom passed to down to them and instead squander time and resources and engage in insane war games in a globally warmed Antarctica and then things get really batshit wild and the book addresses one of the truly unfair things about human life on planet earth-- the fact that where we are born very likely determines our destiny.

Hey Kinesiologists and Tape Experts . . . Does This Shit Really Work?

 

Ages ago, my wife bought some clearance KT Tape and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since-- but yesterday before pickle ball, I decided to give it a whirl and literally "throw some tape" on my sore Achilles tendon, which has been my Achille's heel lately (and please notice and revel in the proper use of apostrophes here . . . normally apostrophe-use is my grammatical Achille's heel but I am trying to remedy this shortcoming) and while I can't say for certain that the tape helped my tender tendon, I also don't think-- in a Hippocratic sense-- it did any harm.

Multiview! Multiview . . .

Today was an exciting day in New Jersey on the YouTube TV multiview-- you could watch the Giants AND the Jets at the same time-- and both games came down to the wire, I was toggling the volume back and forth like a madman . . . and then the Giants blew it-- their chipshot field goal attempt was blocked-- and they were eliminated from the multiview . . . and then the Jets blew it in overtime . . . but it was fun while it lasted.

We Escaped the Room, but My Wife Did Not Escape the Inevitable March of Time

My wife figured out that the best way to celebrate her birthday with larger-sized children (and their smaller-sized girlfriends) is to do an activity-- last year we went to Top Golf-- and this year we navigated a fairly tricky escape room set in a comic shop and the hostess chick said we "crushed it"-- we only needed one clue-- and she said we were fun to watch because we actually cooperated and most families bicker and fight quite a bit-- and then we went and got some thin crust pizza at Frankie Fed's, a very Jersey pizza place where the apostrophe is optional . . . and when we got to Frankie Fed's, we enacted the escape room in reverse-- we circled the restaurant twice, trying every door but not finding our way in -- first we entered the kitchen, then a backroom with a take-out counter, but we finally found the actual entry door, which was obscured by a large Christmas bow.

 

If You Don't Think Everything Sucks, You are the Victim of an Illusion

The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew Bacevich addresses the question asked by Rabbit Angstrom in John Updike's 1990 novel Rabbit at Rest: "Without the Cold War, what's the point in being an American?" and the answer may be an exercise in dark futility because the tenets that we thought were bulletproof and led to us vanquishing Communism haven't turned out to be made of Kevlar:

1) capitalism and globalization come with corruption, inequity, and environmental and social costs;

2) same with the military-industrial complex and all the "forever wars" we are fighting;

3) the rest of the world doesn't think American autonomy and freedom are the bee's knees

and so Bacevich whips through the recent presidents-- Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump-- and explains how they were all deficient to varying degrees . . . but he also points out how the first Trump term wasn't nearly as impactful and catastrophic as the pundits predicted . . . and so the book concludes with the question from the start: "What does it mean to be an American?" and we wonder if being an American has to be different than being a Canadian (or a Belgian or a Malaysian or any other country that doesn't profess to be a shining example of exceptionalism, a City on a Hill) and this may not be a question that is answered in my lifetime . .  we shall see.

Your Achilles Heel is Actually Herculean

I had to cover the track coach on Tuesday at morning basketball-- the match-ups were off because Jeff, the other old man, was out with a strained calf-- and covering this fast youngster involved a lot of backpedaling, consequently, my Achilles tendon was stiff and sore Tuesday night and Wednesday-- and I found great amusement recounting this to my English classes because there is no more literary injury than a sore Achilles heel-- but there is another layer of paradoxical irony to this situation: apparently the Achilles is the strongest tendon in the body, so if Thetis was going to leave any part of her son's body out of the River Styx, the Achilles tendon was a good choice-- and I am hoping that now that I have learned this ironic fact, my Achilles will heal more rapidly than it would have when I thought it was the weakest link in the skeletal-muscular chain.

That's a 2024 Wrap, Spotify Style

It's Spotify Wrapped Day, and nothing is more fascinating than your past self-- last year my number one artist was Waxahatchee and four of my five top songs were from the Waxahatchee album St. Cloud . . . this year, though I would not have guessed this (because I've been listening to a lot of Afropop and jazz lately) I did this obsessive absurdity one better-- my top artist was once again Waxahatchee and all five of my top songs were from Katie Crutchfield's new album, Tiger's Blood . . . I guess I wore that album out last spring (and then we went to see her in the summer) although if you asked me to name my favorite song, I would say "Lone Star Lake" and that was not on the list (which consisted of Right Back to It, 3 Sisters, Evil Spawn, Ice Cold, and Bored) which is kind of strange-- and the other artists in my top five are Ty Segall, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Ezra Collective, and The Smile . . . the first time in a while The Grateful Dead did not make my top five; in other Wrapped news, there was no genre breakdown in this year-- pretty annoying-- especially since I listened to over 39,000 minutes of music and 1,556 artists, so it would be nice to know the breakdown of all that-- perhaps they'll bring that feature back next year.

Dave is No Freddy Krueger

I was discussing "mock-epic" tone with my Creative Writing class this afternoon, which made me recall the first words my wife said to me this morning, just after she had arisen: "I had such a bad dream last night . . ." and I immediately imagined the worst-- murder, mayhem, abduction, forced entry, a high-speed chase-- but then she finished her sentence: "you were a litterbug and you wouldn't stop or listen to me."

Dave Suffers Ridicule and Derision (While Microwaving His Lunch)

When I pulled my lunch out of my cooler today in the English Office, my friend Cunningham was visibly (and audibly) appalled -- normally I eat some sort of delicious homemade meal: leftovers or a fresh salad, occasionally a sandwich-- but today all I had was a Trader Joe's Chicken Burrito Bowl . . . normally Catherine and I do some serious cooking and meal prep on Sunday (more Catherine than me, often) but this Sunday we ate a late lunch/early dinner at Bonefish Grill-- we had to use some gift certificates-- and we had a few drinks and watched the Jets squander another fourth-quarter lead and then we went home and relaxed-- on a Sunday! . . . we were still in Thanksgiving/Birthday weekend mode and so we had cupcakes for dinner and did no meal preparation for the week ahead-- so Cunningham called me "trash" and truly enjoyed disparaging my "TV dinner"-- such judgment!-- even though this bowl was quite delicious; check out the Trader Joe's description:

"seasoned chicken breast, brown rice, red quinoa, black beans, corn, bell peppers, Cheddar cheese... this is a hearty bowl . . . its Southwest style, smoky chipotle sauce marries all of those flavors and textures together and turns a bowl into a meal" 

but I guess because my wife has always set such a high standard and I always bring in great fresh lunches, there's no deviating from this path . . . anyway when I got home from school, I set out to realign the universe and I made a batch of delicious and colorful chili, which is simmering right now in the crockpot-- so chili for dinner, chili for lunch tomorrow, and God help whoever has to cover me tomorrow morning at AM basketball, because this chili contains plenty of garlic, hot peppers, and beans.

What The Substance Lacks in Substance It Makes Up in Boobs (Both Old and Newfangled)

The body-horror film The Substance is most definitely lacking in the substance category: some serious plot holes need to be filled in, especially regarding the shared consciousness between Elisabeth (Demi Moore) and her "better self"-- but stylistically and visually the movie excels and even the editing is grotesque and perversely fun-- there's lots of nudity but it's not very sexy, the female figure is deconstructed under both the male gaze and the female gaze until all those concupiscent curves become splintered and fragmented, somehow unwholesome . . . and then things get really weird . . . eight spinal taps out of ten.

Correlation? Causation? Who Knows . . .

My wife turned 53 today but apparently, the Rutgers men's basketball team did not know this, and they squandered their lead against Texas A&M.

The First Rule of Caddyshack is Different Than the First Rule of Fight Club

So we truly had a happy Thanksgiving this year (tinged with a bit of sadness because my parents are still down in Florida-- my dad needed to finish rehab for some bruised ribs and wasn't ready to board a plane yet, but they are headed home next week) but we Facetimed my parents while were at Jim and LouAnne's, my brother's parents-in-law, and despite the fact that I got yelled at by Louanne for hating and forsaking all Thanksgiving food and the fact that the Giants totally suck ass, a good time was had by all-- especially after last year's events at the same household (we were lucky to be invited back, which was very kind, and-- also kind-- no one there brought up last year's events which my son Alex described as a holiday episode of "The Bear") . . . here's a basic account of how it went down, minus some of the crying and melodrama: 

Ian forgot my wife's approaching birthday in the car and I think this ticked Alex off and then at Jim and Louanne's words were exchanged-- some sort of insults directed at corresponding girlfriends-- and Ian was especially sensitive because he had recently withdrawn from college-- and Alex's insult really enraged Ian (Alex claimed this is a thing guys do-- insult each other's girlfriends but I explained to him that this is NOT a thing guys do and is a good way to get killed) and so Ian got up from the table and punched Alex in the back of the head-- and this went down in the basement so I didn't see any of it-- the kids were down there-- so I get pulled from the upstair's kitchen table to sort this out -- Alex was on the front stoop, bleeding from his lip, and Ian was down the block so I was talking to Ian on the phone and then I walked back to the stoop and Ian had come back there and now the whole family was out there-- my brother's wife Amy and her brother and my brother, sorting the whole thing out, but then Alex decided to get his shot in because Ian sucker-punched him and so Alex punched Ian in the face and there was another scuffle-- and I'm used to breaking these two up, I've been doing it for nearly two decades-- even though now they are WAY too big to be fighting-- so I step in to separate them but so does Amy's brother Tommy and he falls and sprains his ankle-- and everyone calsm down but Tommy is hurt and the party is a mess-- my mother is a disaster and and we're incredibly embarrassed and decide to leave immediately, so Catherine doesn't get to eat any of the apple pie she made and Alex has a paper towel on his lip but does not seem to have a concussion and he was the designated driver so he drives us home, dabbing his bleeding lip and mouth the whole way (even though I only had a bit to drink-- but he insists on driving, perhaps so he can't beat the crap out of Ian or vice-versa) and when we get home, we tell the kids that tomorrow they will be making phone calls an apologizing and all that and then we get a good look at Alex's lip and it's split an punctured from the fork that was in his mouth when Ian hit him-- so Ian, Alex and I go to the emergency room at 8 PM, sit in a hot stuffy room together for a long time-- the only entertainment being a very cute crew of young ladies that are the plastic surgery/stitching team-- it's weird when you get old and doctors are so much younger than you-- and everyone was really nice at the hospital and these ladies didn't bat an eye at this insane fucking story-- they had obviously seen far worse-- and Alex was a real trooper and got six stitches in his lips and we didn't get home until midnight-- quite a Thanksgiving--but luckily, his wound healed without a scar-- nice job emergency room plastic surgery/stitching team!-- and my children have gotten along extraordinarily well since this incident and are following the first rule of Caddyshack (which is different than the first rule of Fight Club).

Happy Thanksgiving (with Qualifiers)

Happy Thanksgiving . . . unless, of course, you were a Wampanoag, slaughtered during the chaotic violence of King Philip's War because of the colonists' insatiable desire for land-- Harvest Festival be damned-- although if you were a Native American back then, I guess you could have been thankful that you were alive in the first place, and had not perished from the diseases the English settlers brought to the New World . . . and the Native Americans that did make it until the 1800s didn't have much to be thankful for either, as they were forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern U.S. to Oklahoma, marching and dying on this "Trail of Tears" . . . but at least we commemorate the Native American culture by eating some pumpkin pie once a year . . . yuck (and don't even get me started about gravy and mashed potatoes . . . I really don't like historic American food).

Detroiters . . . Don't Bring It Up Around My Wife

So as a rule-- or an eccentricity, I'm not sure which-- I don't watch TV alone (unless it's a sporting event because then I feel like I'm part of the crowd) but there is an exception: there are a small number of shows that I consider hysterically funny and my wife detests-- such as Saxondale-- and so I have to go it alone with these programs (unless my son Alex is home, because he enjoys I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson as much as I do) and now there's another show to add to this category, Detroiters-- which also features Tim Robinson (who my wife finds incredibly annoying) and the utterly charming Sam Richardson . . . the show is an absurdist combination of Madmen and Dumber and Dumber . . . but perhaps even dumber . . . anyway check it out, it's on Netflix right now (along with A.P. Bio with Glenn Howerton, which, thank the lord, my wife DOES find funny) if you're looking for something stupid, surreal, and very funny.

I Probably Need a New Phone (But I'm Not Buying One)

I started to watch the Netflix documentary Buy Now: A Shopping Conspiracy-- which honestly seemed a bit hokey and melodramatic . . . but still a good reminder that there are a bunch of smart people trying to get us to consume ever-more goods that we don't need, especially around the holidays-- but my wife said: "I don't think you should watch this right now" because I'm already irate enough around Black Friday, so I turned it off . . . which was a good idea.

F#&k All Phones

I just spent thirty minutes trying to send a mass text about my wife's birthday celebration on my Android phone (using a third-party app called Textra) and I received a bunch of error messages and I have no clue who got the initial message-- and I can't see the morning basketball group chat because someone with an iPhone started the chat and so I can't join with my Android-- so I had to join on my wife's phone (which is annoying for her because the AM basketball crew sends a lot of lame GIFs) and while I had to cave, it seems like everything is pushing me to switch from Android to an iPhone . . . even though I hate the monopoly Apple has over phones and messaging in the United States (and I hate the fact that I can't put an SD card in an iPhone so I can download all of my Spotify music and photos).

Lola Defeats Urethra Bacteria

Our very concerned and conscientious veterinarian just called and our dog Lola is finally in the clear-- she recently endured some rather expensive bladder-stone removal surgery, and now she's eating some rather expensive prescription anti-bladder-stone dog food, and now her rather expensive extensive urinalysis has finally come back negative-- which is positive!-- she originally had some awful antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection that our vet was VERY worried about but she took some rather cheap human antibiotics and they worked . . . and hopefully this weird infection was the cause of the bladder-stones and so we won't have to deal with this again.

My wife + idioms = weirdness

I was telling my wife a story about how some boys tore down some class council election posters when my sophomore class took a walk around the building-- our periods are 83 minutes long, which is absurd, so I usually break it up with a lap around the school, but it's gotten cold so we had to walk inside, giving these three boys an opportunity to vandalize a rivals election posters-- and so I told my wife that I was no longer taking that class on walks because "the rotten apples spoil the bunch" and she started laughing and said she just realized that she butchered that exact idiom with her fifth-graders earlier in the day-- quite a coincidence-- she told her class that "the bad egg spoils the bunch," somehow combining the idea of a "bad egg" with the old Ben Franklin adage (which is actually "the rotten apple spoils his companions") but I explained to her that:

1) eggs don't come in a bunch

2) a bad egg doesn't spoil the rest of the eggs in the dozen because eggs have separate little compartments in the container and they are also insulated by a shell

and she found this logic so funny that she asked her class the next day if they noticed how she misused an idiom and a girl raised her hand and repeated my wife's distorted maxim back to her-- and my wife told the class that she really appreciated that no one corrected her and shamed her (as I often do) and then she told them about some of the other idioms she's butchered and she said the class was laughing so hard they were crying and one girl insisted that my wife was lying about these mixed metaphor mishaps but my wife told her that this was no exaggeration (and she believes this started happening more frequently twenty-five years ago when she got several migraines that were so bad that they thought she had a minor stroke and that this destroyed the idiom section of her brain-- but my theory is that she doesn't remember these phrases as single units, and instead substitutes synonyms for words within them at will, creating new phrases that are very close in meaning to the original saying).

You Know Hermano?

Let us celebrate this cold, dank, dark rainy Friday afternoon with good coffee and the mellow musical stylings of Hermanos Gutierrez . . . the Swiss-Ecuadorian brothers that play expansive spaghetti-western instrumentals with a King Tubby/Ennio Morricone vibe.

Two Things I'll Never Understand

While I'm starting to get the idea of 5/4 time, here are two things I will never, ever get right, no matter how hard I try:

1) knowing which side of the court to stand on when my friend Ann and I "stack" in pickleball;

2) which direction to place the ear-hook when I'm putting on my JLab Go Air Sports-- you'd think I'd get it right fifty percent of the time, but I seem to always get it wrong.

Take Five and Think About Five

I am trying to compose a song in 5/4 time-- the time signature with five quarter notes per measure?-- and most recognizable in the Mission Impossible theme song and Dave Brubeck's eponymous tune "Take Five"-- and while this video is supposed to be helpful, I'm not sure that it is . . . but Logic does have a way to change the time signature to 5/4, so I've got five "quarter notes" per measure now and I'm creating some Frankensteined music that might be in this oddball rhythm-- I will keep you posted.

Costco: Hyper-Capitalist Crucible

I made my triumphant return to 6:30 AM basketball this morning-- my pulled rib muscle feels much better and once again I can launch (chuck?) my patented long-range-high-arcing-randomly accurate three-pointer-- and I even dribbled the ball a few times, wending my way around the court; soon after, I had to wend my way through the halls, to get to my class to teach, dodging and weaving the masses while carrying my gym bag-- no easy task-- but all of this was light work compared to the swerving and weaving I did driving to Costco and the much more aggressive shopping cart pushing maneuvers I performed inside Costco-- I left work early to run this errand and thought things would be relatively mellow on a Tuesday afternoon but making my way through the traffic on the Route 1 jughandle was something out of Mad Max-- everyone was out roaming around burning fossil fuels and everyone sucks at driving once I arrived there was no respite: the Costco parking lot and warehouse were equally insane . . . just a moronic wasteland of people and cars and shopping carts-- and I am a fast walker and a fast cart-pusher, I've got places to go and things to do, but everyone else inside Costco always seems to be puttering along, browsing cheap cargo pants and remaindered books or stalled out and scrolling on their phone, their enormous Costco cart blocking the aisle-- it's infuriating, especially once I've grabbed the frozen salmon and shrimp, because then I want to get the fuck out as soon as possible, before the seafood defrosts, and I will lay waste to anyone in my path-- young, old, romantically entwined, bickering, whatever-- get the fuck out of my way!-- and then, once you get to the front, you've got to choose a line . . . and you'd better choose carefully . . . you need to evaluate the cashier, evaluate the carts, evaluate the idiots pushing the carts-- but I made it out alive and relatively quickly (though, to my chagrin, I left the dog crate in the back of the car, and I had bought both paper towels AND toilet paper, plus a case of wine and several cases of beer, so I had to put the beer and wine inside the dog crate so I would have enough room for the rest of the stuff in the back seat) and then I got to decompress at acupuncture and erase the stress from all this manic hyper-capitalistic behavior (and now I'm drinking some Conehead beer that I bought at a steep discount-- the irony! . . . I'm using the very stuff I bought in the stressful crucible of Costco to relax because I got stressed out going to Costco).

Gross Meatbag/Corporeal Irony!

Today in class, my College Writing students wrote a synthesis essay about the "Always Be Optimizing" chapter of the Jia Tolentino book Trick Mirror-- and while my colleague Cunningham wrote a wonderful prompt about how Tolentino describes women with an odd triad of imagery, as "gross meatbags, robots, and spiritual beings," I couldn't handle the term "gross meatbag"-- too visceral-- and so I changed it to the more academic-sounding "corporeal" and then told the children Cunningham's phrasing-- and there certainly is some "gross meatbag" imagery in this chapter, including a vivid account of a woman "queefing" in Tolentino's yoga class . . . so the kids had to write about the tension between these three portrayals of women and what it revealed about the world-- and, ironically, during last period, while I was robotically grading the previous class set of essays, and trying to inspire my current class to transcendent new heights of learning, the lunch of lentils, chicken, and cauliflower that my wife packed for me (which I had eaten an hour previous) made its way all the way through my corporeal digestive system, and so I had to make a hasty exit from class, quickly use the bathroom, and then return as though nothing unusual had happened . . . because, as I mentioned earlier, I don't like talking about that kind of gross meatbag stuff.

Ivermectin For All . . .

I have finally recovered from Friday's COVID booster and flu shot-- I felt crappy all day yesterday: aches, a headache, low fever, and fatigue . . . but soon enough I won't need any vaccines-- when R.F.K. Jr. takes over as the minister of Health, Human Services, and Abundant Full Stops . . . because then I'll be able to get government-approved ivermectin and raw milk to combat all the diseases.

Mike Tyson for President?

While we recently learned that a very old, amoral man could make a comeback in the political arena, that's not so easy in the actual arena-- so while all the old, amoral people (like myself) were rooting for Mike Tyson, he had a better shot at winning the presidential election than beating that jacked youngster last night (and while the main event was nothing special-- aside from when Jake Paul's trainer shot water down his shorts to cool off his junk-- there was plenty of spectacle before the fight: two women beating each other to a bloody pulp, and-- randomly-- Mike Tyson's bare flabby ass).

Dave Womans Up

Today's sentence is in honor of my perseverance and valor because I really" "manned up" at school today and suffered both a COVID booster shot AND the flu shot at the annual vaccine clinic-- and I took these shots ON THE SAME SHOULDER! with my colleagues watching me!-- and I place quotations around the phrase "manned up" because my wife womaned up and endured both these shots a few weeks ago and she had no symptoms or side-effects . . . but my immune system is especially robust and so I assume I'll be down for the count tonight.

Things Fall Apart . . .

I was having a healthy and efficient post-vacation week-- cooking lots of excellent meals; exercising intelligently; avoiding alcohol; recording some music; cleaning up after myself-- but today is where it all fell apart: the dishes have piled up, the garbage needs to go out; there's a shitload of laundry to be done; I'm drinking some delicious Honey Brown Ale that I bought in Annapolis from Forward Brewing; and all I've done so far today besides go to work is play pickleball and write this sentence.

Tennis vs. Pickleball

I played some pickleball this afternoon at Castleton Park with seven guys I know quite well from playing there for the last three years and I am certain a good time was had by all-- lots of exciting play, some sun, not too much wind, plenty of jokes (especially about Kevin's anger at having his pop-up pickleball stool stolen-- he left it behind Monday night in Highland Park and when he came back it was gone-- and he pronounced all of humanity "scumbags" and "thieves" . . . so sad, but also kind of funny) and plenty of socializing while waiting to play; meanwhile, on the adjacent tennis court, a dour guy with a hopper of balls was diligently practicing his serve-- alone-- and his serve looked pretty good, he was getting into trophy position, with a nice knee bend, and some good whip to the racket-- and if you want to be good at tennis, that's what you have to do, practice your serve for hours, alone (or in a lesson) but if you want to get better at pickleball, you just meet some friends and play (although I guess you could drill alone for hours, but you're not going to get the some benefits as practicing your serve in tennis-- there's no one dominant shot to practice in pickleball-- the serve isn't that much of a weapon and you're going to hit every kind of shot every time you play-- and a bunch you never thought existed too).

What More Could You Ask For?

I've been taking creatine and Metamucil every morning for several weeks, so I am both jacked AND regular.

Almost Forgot . . .

Fun (and gross) fact I learned from our Blackwater Refuge kayaking tour guide while we were perusing muskrat burrows: the Eastern Shore of Maryland hosts a muskrat skinning contest-- which means you first have to hunt the muskrats (and then after you skin the muskrats, you eat the muskrats!)

Leaf Blowers Blow

I'm not going to polarize this country even more than it already is-- but I HATE the sound of gas-powered leaf-blowers and I think folks should rake their leaves the old-fashioned way (or at least hire someone-- legal citizen or not-- to rake their leaves the old-fashioned way) but I'm not going to exacerbate matters further and declare that there are only two kinds of leaf rakers-- I'm not looking to be controversial and there is obviously a continuum of styles of leaf-raking and it's not an entrenched two-party leaf-raking system where you can really only reasonably choose between two styles-- but at the two poles of leaf raking are the obsessive raker who starts raking and bagging and doesn't stop until ALL of the leaves are removed from the lawn/yard and while I admire this style of raking, it is not my style-- then there is the irregular and sporadic raker, which is how I do it, the guy who randomly rakes a few leaves and puts them in a bag but doesn't necessarily fill the bag and maybe just leaves the bag in the yard, half full. . . because there's always tomorrow and there will always be more leaves and it's really organizationally difficult to rake ALL the leaves and honestly, if you leave some leaves on your lawn and the wind blows the right direction, they might end up on an obsessive leaf-raker's lawn, and that sort of solves the problem . . . plus fall is all about decay anyway and won't some of these leaves that you do not rake and bag decay and add nutrients to the soil?

Excellent Indian Food on the Eastern Shore

We returned home from the Eastern Shore of Maryland this morning and our house, our dog, and our son were all in one piece-- so a successful trip-- we had a good time with my wife's niece and her husband in Eastport . . . I loved the brewery and the local bars and restaurants so much I'd like to move there (if it wasn't for all the flooding) but maybe I'll settle on moving to Cambridge, a historical Eastern Shore town that seems to sit a little higher above the water (or at least most of the town . . . I am frankly amazed at how close to volatile bodies of water people will build houses and this trait is truly on display in Maryland) and while I was not surprised that the brewery and bakery were both excellent in Cambridge, the biggest surprise was that the restaurant our AirBnB lady recommended, Bombay Social, served some of the best Indian food we've ever eaten (and we live adjacent to Edison, New Jersey!)

Maryland, More Scenic Than You Might Think

A kayak was definitely the best way to explore the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge . . . we saw several bald eagles up close, including one that was adding moss to a gigantic eyrie high in a pine tree and once we were done paddling and hiking therefore, we headed to downtown Cambridge for beers at RaR Brewing and a walk along the piers to the lighthouse . . . who knew Maryland was so scenic?

Cheers . . . with Ghosts

Last night,  after a delicious meal at The Fox's Den, we stopped at the colonial-era Middleton Tavern for a nightcap (and some live music) with the locals-- the vibe of the bar is "Haunted Cheers" and then today we took a boat ride past the Naval Academy and up Spa Creek, past all the yachts and fancy homes, and I was thinking this is a lot of fucking boats, the most boats I've ever seen and then the captain of our little tour boat told us that the harbor and creek were totally empty now and there were no boats at all, compared to October-- so obviously I have no fucking clue what a lot of boats look like.

You Are A Future Fossil (If You're Lucky)

This morning, you might be lamenting the fact that the American people have spoken . . . and they overwhelmingly selected an antediluvian orange wanna-be fascist who dog-whistles to white supremacists; poses a danger to the EPA, the NOAA, the NWS, USDA, and NNSA; trusts Russian intelligence and Vladimir Putin more than the FBI and there CIA; worships tariffs, deportation, and grabbing women by the pussy; paid a porn star hush money; and loves lying about his golf scores, Arnold Palmer's penis, selling commemorative coins of himself, and over-charging foreign emissaries and American officials at his hotels and various properties . . . but it's only for four years-- you might need to hike out to the Calvert Cliffs in Maryland to put it in perspective and remember that we are all just future fossils (if we're lucky enough! if our rotting carcass is washed into a limestone crevasse where it can slowly be covered and replaced with silt as we decay!) and see the exposed layers of the earth from the Miocene (5 to 23 million years ago) and sift for ancient shark's teeth and fossilized shells . . . afterwards we had lunch in the oddly tropical weather (but I can't mention global warming now that Trump is back in power) on Solomons Island, we sat out on the deck at The Island Hideaway and watched the boats-- that place is an odd little nook on the western side of the Eastern Shore-- a well-appointed and well-situated place that must be hopping in the summer-- so much so that many ambitious dockowners have built semi-permanent micro-house boats on their docks so that they can AriBnB them out and make some extra cash-- God Bless America . . . and while I think Trump is a gauche douchebag, I'm still rooting for him to make some good choices, because we're all in this together.

Super Tuesday

Big day: woke up early; voted for Harris instead of Stein . . . because my wife threatened me-- possibly felony? . . . then went to the gym-- and while I can lift weights, my pulled rib muscle still hurts, especially when I sneeze-- and it hasn't rained in 47 days, so I'm sneezing a lot-- terrible coincidence of a particular muscle pull and an oddball fall weather pattern-- is there a word for unserendipitous? . . . then we headed to Havre de Grace (no one can pronounce it) and wandered through the Graw Alley Art Park, which is full of murals illustrating Havre de Grace's history-- including a depiction of a tawdry and bygone local brothel from the early 1900s-- The Red Onion-- excellent stuff, every town should have a large and colorful tribute to a brothel-- then we had a delicious and cheap seafood lunch at the outdoor Promenade Grill; then stopped at a rest stop so Cat could get some coffee but the millennial Asian couple in front of her were taking so long reading the menu that she stormed out; then made our way through some traffic to Annapolis; got slightly lost in the narrow winding roads of Maryland's capitol city, finally unloaded at our AirBnB, then drove to Eastport and found some free parking and drank some delicious beer-- including a prickly pear jalapeno lager-- at Forward Brewing; and now we're heading out on the town-- and maybe we'll try to stay up and see who wins this stupid election.

There's A Little Kicking . . .

A couple of SNL skits that English teachers find very amusing.

 

Just Listen

greasetruck · Just Listen To It

New greasetruck track-- "Just Listen To It"-- to celebrate the extra hour of sleep (but we will have to pay the piper in the spring . . . I still don't understand why we do this to ourselves).

The Hirsute Diet

I groomed myself extensively today (with the help of my wife, of course . . . who else would be game to shave off my asymmetrical pelt of back hair) and once I was done trimming everything: chest, legs, shoulders, beard, etcetera and I  shaved my head, I got on the scale and I think I lost a pound!

Dave Gets Professionally Developed

I took my first dose of creatine this morning, along with my Metamucil, before heading to work for a "Professional Development" day-- ironic quotes intended-- but I shouldn't have been optimizing my body for the drivel that was to come  . . . while we got some work done on our own in the morning, the lengthy afternoon workshop-- the content of which may have been due to last year's absolutely unscandalous "yearbook scandal"-- was titled "Courageous Conversations" and it was the most boring, simplistic, insulting, uncourageous, abstract, evasive, and utterly useless workshop I have ever attended, in my thirty-year teaching career-- and that's saying something-- it was like an episode of The Office-- without the jokes . . . and while I was embarrassed for the presenters, I also didn't really want to participate and bail them out because the content was so bland, obtuse, avoidant, and insipid . . . wow.

Dave Goes "All Out" for Halloween

While I generally do not partake in costume-wearing at work, I didn't want a repeat of this epic failure and so when Liz K. told me to dress as Hamlet for Halloween, I quickly and congenially agreed (aside from the cape she wanted time to wear-- like Edna says: No capes!) and I really went all-out, I purchased a "Get Thee to a Nunnery" t-shirt on Amazon (which is a big deal for me because I generally do not wear t-shirts with words or slogans on them . . . once my yellow "Mosquito Control" t-shirt disintegrated, I was done with that phase of my life) and so I was one of the "main characters" from the novels and plays we teach-- perhaps you can identify some of the others . . . my wife opted for something less educational, but right on the nose for her: "a rock star."

I Guess I'll Ask Joe Rogan . . .

I'm getting older, and I like to play sports, so the question is: should I start ingesting creatine?

No Joy in Dave-ville

This morning, while playing basketball, I took an elbow under the right side of my ribcage (from a "kid" I taught in 1996) and I think I strained or bruised an intercostal muscle-- so it hurts to take a deep breath, it really hurts when I sneeze, and there is no joy in my life because it also hurts when I laugh.

Self-Checkout: Is It SUPPOSED to be Ironic?

Today, I scanned a full cart of groceries through the "self-checkout" register at Stop & Shop, and I only needed help from a human employee four times (twice because when I put down bags, it triggered some kind of shoplifting warning—you have to press a button before you put a bag down, or the scale decides the weight of the bag is some unscanned item—and once more to scan some apples and then a fourth time to scan some grapes).

Dave Survives a Normal Amount of Weekend Events

Four social events in one weekend, which is not my style, especially after. along week of school and parent/teacher conferences . . . too many social interactions and too much stimulus and not enough napping and reading time can sometimes make me cranky-- but I guess keeping busy is good right now (otherwise I might get sucked up in all the election bullshit) and so Friday night, my wife and I attended the Jimi Hendrix/Pink Floyd tribute band show at Pino's . . . the Hendrix cover band was comprised of some locals in their early twenties and they put on a great show-- but they were certainly the opening act, as the Pink Floyd show was absurdly good---- ten of the best musicians in the area squeezed onto the little stage in the back of the liquor store/bar/club, including a chick whose only job was to do the wild operatic back-up vocals during "The Great Gig in the Sky" and several keyboard players to reproduce all the sci-fi sounds and they served up several hours of all flavors of Floyd, songs from Dark Side and Animals and The Wall, and they even played some Pipers at the Gates of Dawn-- at one point a guy turned to me and said, "This shouldn't be free" but these guys do it for the love-- and hopefully the bar gives them a cut because the place was packed . . . then I played in a pickleball tournament down in Trenton (Mercer Bucks) where my partner and I got banged up-- rough draw-- but the competition was fun and the place was hopping and I never got to see young five plus players play-- the open even was wild, those guys get really low-- and there were phenomenal women players as well-- so a good experience-- and then I headed straight to my brother's house from there, for a birthday poker tournament-- and while I lost at pickleball, I got incredible cards at poker-- knocked my brother out-- we had two exciting all-in scenarios-- and ended up chopping the pot even though I was well ahead, so a nice ending to the night, and then I slept over at my brothr's house, drove home in the morning, went to the gym with my wife, then played some more pickleball, and later today we are headed to my parent's with the kids to celebrate Marc's birthday with them, before they head to Florida . . . and then I have to go to work tomorrow?

Coneheads Are Not Funny

Our dog Lola survived her bladder stone surgery and hopefully, this will solve her urinary tract issues, but she's rather despondent now because she has to wear a cone for the next ten days-- she's bumping into doors, she can't see the stairs as she walks down them, and she can't plop her head on your lap when you're watching TV . . . so she's quite annoyed but keeping her chin up-- but like me, she does not find a conehead amusing at all . . . did anyone think the coneheads were funny?

The Horror? The Horror!

 

New episode of We Defy Augury-- "The Horror? The Horror!" . . . this one contains thoughts (loosely) inspired by three Paul Tremblay horror novels: Horror Movie, The Cabin at the End of the World, and A Head Full of Ghosts . . . 

Special Guests include: Joe "the Zombie" Biden, Donald "Apocalypto" Trump, Foghat, Bernard Herrman, John Carpenter, Evil Dead, Hector Berlioz, Joey, Rachel, and Randy Meeks.

THIS Is The Person Responsible For My Child's Education?

It's the second day of parent/teacher conferences and I'm sitting here waiting for some parents to arrive and my room is hot and I'm tired from the conferences last night and teaching all day today and I'm starting to nod off, full from lunch (and a little gassy) and I can't imagine I'm going to impress any of these people-- which is fine, because then maybe they won't come for the next round (and moments after I wrote this sentence, I ripped a loud fart which echoed off my plastic wheelie chair-- just as a dad turned the corner into my room . . . I rolled my plastic wheelie chair around a bit, looking at it like it was the culprit for the fulsome sound).

It's Not Easy Seeing Brown

My nose is dry, my lips are cracked, and this long streak of unseasonably dry, hot weather has made me realize that New Mexico might be a nice place to visit, but I do not want to retire there. 

Life Is Too Short to Look Both Ways When You Cross?

Last week, while I was driving to work, I saw a dead deer on the side of the road and that deer carcass projected the message that life is short, life is transitory and fleeting and ephemeral-- you're here and then you're gone-- so you don't have time to screw around, you don't have time to dawdle-- there's no time to look both ways before you cross the street, you've got to just make your move-- that dead deer symbolized the transitory nature of life . . . but at the same time, IF that deer had looked both ways, if that deer had been a bit more cautious, delayed and looked both ways, if that deer took its time crossing Route 18, then that deer might still be roaming around-- most likely chowing on everyone's hostas-- so the deer simultaneously symbolized the transitory nature of life AND poor choices leading to tragic consequences-- the dead deer symbolized two things at once, both negating each and augmenting each other, the juxtaposition of the symbols overlaying the bloody carcass (the dead deer probably also symbolized something about technology and nature not dovetailing together very well, but life is too short to think about things like this).