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.