After lunch, I walked out to my car because I knew I had some gum there, but when I reached into my little gum pouch, I realized that the thing I felt was a used piece of gum that I had stashed there and never tossed out, not a fresh piece, which was both gross and disappointing.
Common Nothing
Years ago, I would give my students on "life quizzes"-- little fun tests on facts that most of society considered common knowledge . . . and I remember they would always struggle with the boiling point of water (in Fahrenheit) and I could understand why-- 212 is not the most memorable number-- but I recently learned that now the vast majority of high school students also do not know the freezing point of water . . . they were in the ballpark with their guesses, which usually ranged from 16-30 degrees but only about a quarter of them knew that it was exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit-- so perhaps they are quietly quitting the American system of measurements and adopting the metric system?
Very Short and Cheap Field Trip
Today in my English 12: Music and the Arts class, the kids were diligently reading and taking notes on a chapter from Susan Roger's excellent book on the formation of musical taste, This Is What It Sounds Like: What The Music You Love Says About You, when a student raised her hand and said, "Spotify Wrapped came out today . . . can we get our phones out and look at it? This is a music class!" and I thought for a moment and overcame my aversion to ever letting the children touch their cell-phones and said, "Sure" and we grabbed our phones and went outside into the freezing cold-- because Spotify is blocked on the wifi inside the building and we don't really get cell reception inside (unless you are close to a window) and we stood in the brisk winter air and shared our favorite genres (Jazz Funk for me) and our favorite artists and and our most listened to songs and all that and it was a lovely five-minute field trip (until we all got very cold and went back inside to watch the morning announcements).
Sage Advice from Ferris Bueller and Hamlet
It's twenty years to the day since my youngest brother passed away-- this time frame is shocking to me, but as Ferris Bueller reminds us: "Life goes pretty fast, if you don't slow down and look around once in a while, you could miss it"-- so here's to slowing down and enjoying the time we have, and as Hamlet reminds us (after he survives his pirate adventure and prepares to duel Laertes) sometimes we can't slow things down, they become impending and inevitable so "the readiness is all"-- we don't know what life will throw at us, or when things will happen, so all we can do is enjoy the good times and be prepared for the worst.
Right Back To It
We now enter the three-week slog before Winter Break-- and while some of us teachers might not make it until the end and will end up crying under our desks, broken and despondent, amidst piles of ungraded essays, I am determined to give it the ol' college try and try to teach through these dark days with energy and alacrity-- but today was rough, I attended the 7 A.M. early morning faculty meeting (to avoid staying after school) and then planned and graded my ass off during my prep, essentially became a game-show host second period for a spirited lyric-fill-in game, and then taught Creative Writing mock-epic tone and fairy tale tropes so they could have some fun writing a story, and then went back to grading synthesis essays during my study hall duty . . . my back hurts, my eyes hurt, my brain hurts . . . and that's only day one.
Happy Birthday and Happy Thanksgiving . . .
Today is my wife's birthday, and there have already been TWO birthday miracles:
1) our local and venerable candy factory, Birnn Chocolate, actually made a batch of dark chocolate raspberry jellies-- they are by far the best in the known universe . . . honestly, most raspberry jellies made in America taste quite gross (apparently these taste more like the European version) but for whatever reason, Birnn rarely makes them and we haven't had them in years-- this is odd, since they are by far the best thing that they make . . . but I am no chocolatier and times are tough on the choclate front-- apparently, because of global warming, ageing trees, and gold mining, there is a cocoa bean crisis and quality chocolate (and cocoa beans) are hard to come by-- I learned this from the Asian lady that has worked at Birnn for many, many years-- she gave me an entire lecture on the current global state of chocolate and cocoa beans;
2) I managed to clip and upload my favorite cinematic Thanksgiving scene-- a moment from the excellent Thanksgiving movie Pieces of April-- if you haven't seen it, it's worth a watch-- excellent ensemble cast, and a funny, poignant, dysfunctional-family-over-the-holidays story with a brilliant plot . . . I'm sure I broke some copyright laws in posting this scene-- I had to pirate the file, then convert it, then load it into iMovie, then clip the appropriate portion-- but I've been searching YouTube for it forever, and no one has ever posted it-- so this is my contribution to the digital disaster-- I hope someone enjoys it.
IT's True, Tomorrow IS Another Day . . .
This morning, I started screwing around with a very special digital something that I wanted to post today, but then I got sidetracked and forgot all about it-- perhaps tomorrow?
Black Friday = Dark TV Show?
We joined my mom yesterday for a fairly mellow Thanksgiving—the first one without my dad—but we had plenty of good Pilgrim food that he would have enjoyed . . . and this morning, on Black Friday, my wife is watching the darkest of shows, a Netflix series called "The Big C," which is about a mom dying of cancer . . . I'm not sure why she's doing this to herself, but she says she likes it— I also noticed that the great character actor Oliver Pratt is once again playing the husband of a victim of cancer (he also played this role in the excellent Thanksgiving movie Pieces of April) but as for me, after reminiscing about my dad and my brother yesterday and all the other folks absent from the table, I'm more in the mood for "The Chair Company" or "The Big Bang Theory."
Thanks, Andrew Hickey!
I am thankful for all the usual things, of course-- family, friends, a steady job, shelter, hot water, a loyal dog-- but I am also thankful that Andrew Hickey, creator of the absurdly detailed and comprehensive podcast "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs," has finally arrived at Led Zeppelin-- I just finished his two part "Dazed and Confused" episode and it was quite a journey-- at the start he mentioned The Zombies album Odessey and Oracle and I had to listen to that for a few days-- it's fantastic chamber pop-- and a similar thing happened in an earlier episode when he introduced me to The Beach Boys album "Wild Honey," another music rec from Hickey I'm quite thankful for . . . anyway, I think there will be more songs that I'm interested in from this point forward and his song-by-song analysis of the first two Zeppelin albums and the entire story in general illustrates what a wild scene was happenign in the late 1960's-- musicians collaborating, competing, stealing songs from each other, stealing songs from blues musicians, then distorting them, putting their own spin on them, claiming them as their own-- leading to a tangled web of credits and plagiarism and payouts and future lawsuits and fantastic music.
Future Crossing Guard!
This morning, as I was weaving through the back roads on my way to work (because all the main roads have been under construction) I came to a STOP sign in front of a fairly crowded school bus stop and a middle school kid who was crossing the street in order to get to the crowd of kids at the bus stop outstretched his arm and gave me the hold-up sign-- he must have been worried that I didn't see him, or that I didn't know he was about to cross the street and that I would run the STOP sign and hit him-- and then when he got far enough across the street, he gave me the thumbs-up sign, as in: now it's safe to go and you won't hit me and I found this very endearing and helpful and this kid definitely has a future as a crossing guard or an assistant ref or an airport tarmac crewman or a sign language interpreter or some other job that requires well-timed body language.
Two InterestingWorks of Art To Help You Get Through The Week
I've come into contact with two oddball works of artistry this week, and I am enjoying both immensely:
1) The Zombies' 1969 album Odessey and Oracle-- while I knew a couple of tunes on this album: "Time of the Season" and "A Rose for Emily"-- I certainly never listened to the album in its entirety, but I heard Andrew Hickey mention it favorably during his comprehensive, super-detailed podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs and so I gave it a shot and I truly love this album-- although I suppose it's slightly psychedelic, to me it seems more like a cross between The Beach Boys and a less raucous, more baroque version of The Sgt Pepper-era Beatles . . . anyway, I highly recommend giving it a listen, it's a fantastic collection of well-structured, catchy, and genuinely profound songs;
2) The Chair Company, an absurdist Tim Robinson comedy in the style of Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave Now . . . but even more so-- this is a show I have to watch alone, as my wife does not tolerate Tim Robinson comedy, but I find it wonderful-- Robinson plays Ron Trosper, a mall designer who suffers a public workplace fall due to a malfunctioning chair and gets sucked into a conspiratorial corporate mystery-- this is a workplace comedy, but unlike The Office, where the zany antics of Michael Scott and his staff make the workplace into something beautifully hilariously funny, in The Chair Company, work seems to be destroying these characters, reducing them to screaming, cringey disasters-- but there are also slapstick moments, genuinely emotional moments, and instances that are just suprising and laugh-out-loud funny . . . but only if you dig Tim Robinson.
The Miracle of Hot Running Water (and Sanity)
Like most people, unforeseen expensive house repairs put me in a dark funk (although this particular repair was not exactly unforeseen, it was more imminent and inevitable . . . but still, replacing a tankless Navien hot water heater/boiler is not a particularly fun or anticipated purchase-- it's not like buying a dirt bike or a jet ski) and that funk obviously carried through the weekend-- because I went to early morning basketball (which is normally on Tuesday but because it is Thanksgiving Week, we had an unprecendented Monday game) and the main reason I went was so I could take a hot shower before school-- over the weekend, I showered at the gym-- and obviously I also wanted to play some basketball, but my knees and hamstring weren't especially excited about waking up early on a Monday, after playing a few hours of pickleball on Sunday, and I had some trouble getting moving and then when I got to school, I realized I had forgotten my school bag at home-- the very important bag with my school issued computer and my gradebook and all the items I needed to grade-- so I had a choice to make, I could either drive back home and get my bag, and miss basketball-- or I could play basketball, check out a loaner computer, and make the best of it . . . I decided on the latter, which was the right choice-- I had a good time playing basketball and though I had trouble getting the loner computer to do anything I needed, I still managed to print out some guided reading questions, right before class, and teach the bulk of Act IV of Hamlet . . . and show some movie clips-- but I didn't get any grading done-- and then when I got home, I received some good news-- the plumbers were able to install the tankless boiler/heater without any problems, improve the venting and draining, use the larger gas line, and fix everything else that needed fixing, without any additional cost-- and I did remind my students to appreciate the miracle of hot water in their homes and I also told them that I was proud that despite all the financial and cold-water related trauma over the weekend, I managed to hold my sanity together, unlike poor Ophelia.
Spin Cycle Sanctuary
After watching the Giants blow another lead, I took a number of large laundry items-- comforters, afghans, a small rug-- to the local laundromat to be washed in bulk, and I am finding it strangely relaxing here, listening to the hum of the dryers and the slosh of the washers and the chattering of children, while I drink a can of Coke and read my book . . . it's almost making me forget that the Giants should have kicked that field goal instead of gambling on fourth down.
Rutgers Basketball = Jets
My wife and I purchased some cheap Rutgers men's basketball tickets for the game last night-- $15 each for the second level-- and now we know why . . . I had assumed they would slaughter the realtively obscure Central Connecticut Blue Devils, but that was not the case: Central Connecticut played much better basketball than Rutgers-- they had a couple of excellent three-point shooters, they rolled and cut to the basket better than Rutgers, and they moved the ball and executed skip passes (setting up open threes) better than Rutgers . . . so even though Rutgers had more inside presence (Ogbole) and bigger, stronger athletes, it's apparent than Rutgers has NO pure shooters, no offensive rhythm, and no real team chemistry-- so they are going to truly get killed when they start playing Big 10 teams . . . the grouchy old guy in front of us appropriately summed up the situation, just before leaving (early) when he said, "I could have gone to a Jets game."
Water, You Can't Live Without It (But You Also Can't Have It Dripping From Your Appliances)
I thought I was taking a mental health day today-- I drank some beers and ate some hot chicken last night, and I had plenty to do around the house, so it was an ideal day to take off-- but then Ian, who was sleeping on the futon in the basement, came upstairs this morning and said, "the water heater is leaking" and, unfortunately, he was correct, so now my restful and productive day has turned into something else: sopping up water with towels, running a fan, the two of use figured out how to shut off the hot water (three levers, which we conveniently marked with black tape many years ago) and now the wait for the plumber to arrive, which will hopefully be sooner, rather than later . . . best laid plans.
AI and Computers, You Can't Live With Them, But They Will Be Our Overlords
I nearly forgot to write a sentence today because I burned my eyes out trying to grade senior synthesis essays about Susan Faludi's "The Naked Citadel" and Hamlet-- a brand new combination of texts which did produce some fascinating ideas . . . but I made the kids handwrite the essays to avoid the whole AI issue and much of their handwriting is close to illegible . . . I'm getting too old for this shit, so perhaps next time I'll make them handwrite and then allow them to type that up, with some revision-- but there's honestly no good answer.
Suspect Signage
A brand-spanking-new sign has been erected by the powers-that-be atop the hill by my house, the Donaldson Park slope otherwise known as the "sled hill"-- but I guess you can't call it the "sled hill" if there's "No Sleigh Riding" . . . although if you're going to be literal, then a "sleigh" is a sled drawn by horses or reindeer and if that's the case, then I completely agree with the sign: there should be no sleigh riding on the sled hill, especially if young children are sledding, as they might get stomped, kicked, or trampled by the ungulates pulling the sleighs . . . but mainly I believe this new rule is unfeasible, impracticable, and unenforceable and some teenagers are going to yank that sign out of the ground and toss it in to the nearby woods very soon-- and honestly, if the winters continue in the manner of the last few years, kids might not even have enough snow to disobey the sign (but let's hope they do, as I want to see how it all goes down).
Socks Suck
I don't know about you, but I am ALWAYS ripping my socks when I put them on-- this certainly happens frequently when I yank on old socks, but it also occasionally happens when I pull on brand-new, quality socks-- such as the sock pictured above (a new sock from the Columbia outlet, with a reinforced heel and toe) and so I consulted the internet, and-- as usual-- I did not like what I found: perhaps I have ill-fitting shoes and there's too much friction, or perhaps-- more likely-- I have rough skin on my feet and so I generate a lot of friction when I pull my socks on and so, according to the web, I should moisturize my feet . . . yuck, that will NOT be happening . . . I do not truck with moist feet-- I might also have jagged toenails, which can compromise the sock's stitching-- and that's certainly possible, while I do a good job keeping my toenails short (because I like to wear open-toed sandals in school) I can't always control jaggedness-- it's hard enough trim my nails at all and some of them are forever fucked up from when I ran that stupid mountainous marathon in Vermont-- and the last suggestion I read, before I gave up and determined that I'm just going to be a person who rips a great deal of socks, is that I could wash my socks separately and delicately, like cashmere or something, and I was like: fuck that . . . I'll just buy more socks.
Monday . . . Oh Yeah
I wish I could spend time writing a witty and entertaining sentence, but I've got to do other amusing Monday-type things, such as rake and bag some leaves in the backyard, unload the dishwasher, then load the dishwasher, and-- finally and most fun of all: take apart the oven door so that I can access the screws to refasten the outer handle.
Betty When You Call Me, You Can Call Me Sir
I am proud to say that I have completed my soccer referee training, and I am now a licensed referee-- today I had to drive to Newark and do the field training, and I learned plenty:
1) there are a LOT of nuanced flag signals for Assistant Referees to master;
2) do NOT blow the whistle when a goal is scored-- because you don't want to draw attention to yourself at a time when the players should be in the spotlight . . . just point to the center of the field, indicating that's where the restart will occur;
3) hold your yellow card straight up in the air, as you are warning the entire field of play what will and will not be tolerated;
4) do not wear your whistle around your neck; keep it in your hand, so as (and I quote) NOT to look like a "seventy-year-old-lesbian-gym-teacher."
Dave's Brain is Crushed with a Metaphorical Falling Goal
I endured seven hours of a soccer referee certification course today-- we viewed hundreds of slides, I took many pages of notes, we watched many videos of entertaining fouls, and now my head is swimming-- I am realizing it's really hard to make the correct call in real time (it's even fairly hard when you can replay a video several times) and one of the teachers -- a British fellow-- was a real stickler for using the proper terminology, which is tough because all kinds of Americanisms have crept into our parlance-- it's properly called the "penalty area" not the "penalty box" and it's a yellow card for "unsporting behavior" not "unsportsmanlike conduct"-- unsportsmanlike conduct is a fifteen year penalty in American football . . . and here's a situation the entire class got wrong: if the goalie has possession of the ball and one of his own teammates punches him in the face, then because this is a striking foul during the course of play, the other team is awarded a Penalty Kick . . . so the moral here is don't punch your own goalie in the face when he has possession of the ball-- no matter what he said about your girlfriend (or whatever prompted this hypothetical insanity) and I also learned when to downgrade a DOGSO red card to a SPA yellow card (and a PK) and other such technical issues, such as the difference between SFP and VC . . . SFP is serious foul play and VC is Violent Conduct-- SFP occurs when there was some attempt to play the ball but the foul is excessive, VC occurs when there is no attempt to play the ball . . . both are red card/sending off fouls but VC is a worse suspension-- you also need to check the five S's-- shirt, shorts, shinguards, shoes and socks . . . and most importantly, make sure the goals are secured with sandbags or spikes, because occasionally players get crushed by falling goals . . . so that's priority number one-- and I'm sure this is a job like teaching, where you need a lot of experience and practice before you start to get things right-- I feel like I'm starting this path a bit late in life (there were lots of teenagers at the course!) but I think i'll get a better idea of what it takes tomorrow when I go to Newark for my field session.
The Ghost is a Meta-Ghost!
What a fucking week-- loads of standardized testing and proctoring, and then actual teaching-- the seniors were not as fascinated as I am by the mind-blowing possibility that Shakespeare played the Ghost of Old King Hamlet and thus, in scene 3.4, when Hamlet visits his mother in her bedchamber and gets very sidetracked by his Oedipal obsession with his mom's sex life with Claudius, he describes her "honeying and making love" in the "rank sweat" of their "nasty sty" and things get so gross that the Ghost visits to remind Hamlet to "whet" his "almost blunted purpose" and exact revenge on King Claudius and leave his mom "heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge" and stop berating and harassing her and get on with killing Claudius-- so the implication here is that the writer and director of this rambling and brilliant play about drama and procrastination gets up on stage and chastises and reminds the main character to get on with the plot of the play because he has lost his way and gone off on a filthy Oedipal tangent-- so he's essentially chastising and reminding himself that this play needs to get back on track and Hamlet needs to fulfill his father's demand for revenge-- the writer and director is directing both Hamlet and himself-- but thsi is a moot point because the play already exists (and has a run time of four hours) so it's actually too late to do anything about the inherent structural problems of the play . . . and perhaps nothing should be done because the structural problems actually lay bare the possibility that most theatrical presentations are contrived and imitate humanity abominably and that perhaps the only way to truly portray a human is to break all structural confines and expose him over four hours and 1506 lines (the most of any Shakespeare character) but it seems even Shakespeare is wary of this, and thus enters as the Ghost to chide Hamlet of his tardiness and push him to move the plot along . . . it's fucking super-meta and very wild but tough to convey last period on a Friday (but the students were fascinated and disgusted by the Franco Zeffirilli/Mel Gibson version of the scene, which REALLY plays up the Oedipal nature of the dialogue-- so at least that caught their attention (and then I went to Happy Hour and the ladies were discussing a hypothetical beach trip to Aruba in which they would all be topless and there was much postulation on how their toplessness would be perceived . . . I contended it would not be a very big deal, and they had already seen me topless, so what's the difference?
Standardized Testing . . . Ugh
New Jersey's NJSLA adaptive field test was delayed due to technical issues with the testing platform, but that didn't stop the state from implementing a statewide field test of some non-adaptive version of the test . . . so the sophomores and juniors in my school have been testing for three days, totally screwing up the schedule and stealing hours and hours of class time from ALL the classes (the seniors get to come in at 10 AM . . . wahoo!) and the long and short of this is: we are never going to finish Hamlet . . . which is fitting and totally on brand for the level of procrastination in the play, but I guess to truly enact this I would have to sabotage and destroy the test, but not until all the time was wasted and the test was in its final throes of evaluation . . . my wife is also suffering through this-- she teaches fifth grade-- and her kids had to write for two hours straight yesterday. . . you would think a fifth grader would need to LEARN more stuff, at that point in life, and that regular class time would be very valuable . . . who wants to read two hours worth of fifth grade logic?
The Rockettes Got Legs (and they know how to use them)
Yesterday, one of my colleagues-- who was a serious competitive dancer-- was lamenting the fact that the Rockettes have recently removed the height requirement-- if they had done this years ago, she hypothesized, her entire life could have been different (but I'm deeply dismayed by this development . . . I think a Rockette should be lithe, long, and leggy).
So Close to REAL Literary Perfection
I had a wicked headache today-- probably due to a combination of playing morning basketball, the drastic change in the weather, and not enough caffeine-- so I went to the nurse's office for some Tylenol; on the way out of the office, I nearly smacked a student with the door-- the door opens out into the hallway traffic . . . poor design-- and I said to the student, who luckily was not on his phone and dodged the heavy slab of wood, "I nearly sent you to the nurse's office . . . with the door of the nurse's office! Talk about irony!" and he laughed-- probably because the door did not hit him (and perhaps because of my briliant comment, even more brilliant because I delivered it while enduring a headache) and now there's a small part of me that actually wants to hit a kid with the nurse's office door, just hard enough that so the kid has to go to the nurse's office (but no harder, I'm not heartless) because it would be such a wonderful example of irony.
Doing What the Lady Told Me . . .
Although my wife and I have returned to our regular, mundane lives, the memories of Gettysburg linger-- especially the Cyclorama-- a 19th-century form of visual entertainment featuring an enormous panoramic, 360-degree immersive painting, often with dioramas around the base of the painting to add a degree of three-dimensional realism . . . the Gettysburg Visitor's Center has one, painted by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux and his team of artists, depicting Pickett's Charge, the climactic and farily suicidal Confederate attack on the Union forces in Gettysburg on July 3, 1863-- the Cyclorama was completed in 1883-- and several copies were made-- and the paintings toured various cities and were viewed like a movie-- fantastic experience . . . and I will also remember the stories of the Shriver family-- we took a tour of their house and the old lady giving the tour was enthusiastic and grisly in her descriptions of the horrors of war and the tragedy surrounding the Shrivers-- they were slated to open a basement saloon and ten pin bowling alley, when war reared its ugly head and George left to serve the Union, and then, as the Battle of Gettysburg loomed, the house was abandoned for a bit, and used by Confederate sharpshooters (who were shot themselves-- there is still blood in the attic) and George Shriver ended up in the notrious and terrible Andersonville POW camp, where he starved to death . . . anyway, if you go to Gettysburg, be sure to tour this house and be sure to see the Cyclorama-- and at the end of the tour of the Shriver house, our tour guide implored us to read the diaries of the Shriver family and she said we should be writing down the mundane details of our own lives, because you never know what future generation might find interesting . . . and I have been!
There's No Offside on the Battlefield (but there should be)
No Civil War-related material today, as we drove home from Gettysburg this morning, and now I am slogging through my soccer referee modules-- which must be completed before my referee training next Saturday . . . perhaps I'll understand Law 11 by then (Offside).
The Battle is Over
Earlier today we finished touring the Gettyburg Military Park, and just moments ago I finished James McPherson masterful and massive Civil War history book "Battle Cry of Freedom" and now I am going to take a well-deserved nap, glad that I own many pairs of comfortable shoes and will not have to take part in Pickett's Charge.
Gettysburg: A Whole Lotta History (and beer)
Some of the Gettysburg experience: Seminary Hill, Cemetery Hill, Pickett's suicidal Charge, Little Round Top, Big Round Top-- with my sense of direction, I would have definitely gone to the wrong Round Top-- thousands of corpses to bury . . . before the pigs got to them (and they weren't discerning between dead bodies and nearly dead bodies) a stench of bodies so bad it could be smelled several towns over, so many smells that paranormal experts insist that these ghostly scents still pervade the battlefield to this day, hastily assembled rock walls, the lone civilian casulaty Jennie Wade, philandering Dan Sickles and his amputated leg, the Dobbin House and a pile of amputated limbs, many monuments to many men, and so many bars and craft beers-- at one stop a rather inebriated lady asked us if we had been daydrinking and then said she had been to 17 bars in one day (maybe not this day) and then she proceeded to compare random people at the bar to celebrities. . . we saw faux-Freddy Mercury and an impoverished man's version of Rocky's trainer Mickey, then today we went for a rugged hike in Caledonia State Park and saw 19th century furnaces and hearths, and of course, many old houses-- made of stone and brick-- and we have read many placards, listened to many historians and guides-- and I've been plowing through some Civil War books, so in the end it is far too much history to digest (plus the film and the museum!) but the Military Park is very well-marked and quite easy to navigate (for its vast size and scope) and you really can understand how this infamous and pivotal battle went down.
Got a Whole Lotta Plants
Longwood Gardens is a horticultural wonderland, but it is NOT a quick stop on the way to Gettysburg-- we were waylaid there for quite a while (and we could have spent more time there had we planned it . . . the place is vast and has indoor greenhouses and outdoor meadows, forests, fountains, lakes, landscapes, farmhouses, and intricate wood structures-- we will have to stop there again in a different season, right now it's all about various chrystanthemums).
War, What IS It Good For?
After You Bring Her Back, Do You Have to Bring It Back?
Bring Her Back, the new Australian horror film by directors Danny and Michael Phillippou, tells the story of a foster mother named Laura who adopts two children-- Piper (who is blind) and her older step-brother Andy . . . but it turns out Laura wants the blind child as a vessel to resurrect her own dead child-- and she has learned how to perform this sinister (and disgusting and very scary) ritual from a sketchy VHS tape, which she often consults during the film (the tracking is terrible on this tape) and I was wondering where exactly she rented this VHS tape-- it doesn't seem like the typical Blockbuster fare-- but if you search that question on the internet, you'll end up down a weird rabbit hole as there is apparently an ARG (alternate reality game?) about the film . . . but I was quite satisfied (and totally petrified) by the film itself-- I had to watch an episode of Big Bang Theory once it was over, to erase the spookiness, and I don't think I'll be investigating this ritual any further-- but the real question is: after you "bring her back" and transport a deceased soul from the netherworld to this mortal coil, then if and when do you have to bring it back, the VHS tape, to the rental store?
Finally, Our Special Purpose is Unveiled
I'm not sure if other people do this, but my friends and I have a text strand where we text each other our puzzle results-- Wordle, Connections, Framed, etcetera-- and though we occasionally banter about other subjects, it's mainly puzzle results, and I know this is a waste of cloud storage and energy consumption and that we are taxing data centers across the nation and contributing to the environmental devastation wrought by these data centers, which need massive amounts of electricity to operate and use massive amounts of water to cool the massive amounts of computers in these centers-- but now we have transcended puzzle results, and as my friend Craig texted, "we finally made it to the interpreted art phase of the Wordle" and perhaps this is what separates us from all the AI that also resides in these data centers with all of our puzzle results and so I will continue to interpret my Wordle patterns in creative ways for the good (and calamity) of humanity.
Alcohol is Less Fun When You're Old
We went out with friends last night, and I was a bit foggy this morning, and I wasn't sure why-- I didn't drink that much last night-- but my wife informed me that she only drank one glass of wine at dinner and that I consumed the rest of the bottle-- and I guess the wine atop an espresso martini and an IPA is more alcohol than I can handle these days . . . note to self.
Less Synth, More Zippers
As usual, at the gym today, I was simultaneously working out AND trying to expand my musical horizons-- multi-tasking!-- and today I was exploring various prog rock albums (I wandered down this avenue by listening to the Alan Parsons Project album I, Robot . . . which combines yacht rock and Dark Side of the Moon sci-fi psychedelia) and I was giving the Genesis album Selling England by the Pound a whirl and I was not really digging it, but my phone kept falling out of my shorts when I moved from machine to machine so I utilized the secret zipper pocket but when I went to take my phone out to switch my music, I found that the zipper was stuck, and even though I was jacked up on weight-lifting and creatine, I could not budge said zipper and so my phone was inaccessible and I was stuck listening to this godawful Genesis album until I finished working out and got in the car and used "hey Google" to switch back to The Alan Parsons Project and then I had to use a pair of scissors to cut this secret pocket open and retrieve my phone-- so fifty years ago, bands could make prog rock, full of synthesizers, fantastical instrumentation, advanced recording techniques, incredible mastering, and layered sound-- but now it's 2025 and we still can't make zippers that work consistently and smoothly.
Dave Begrudgingly (and Apathetically) Participates . . .
This year for Halloween, the English Department decided to dress as various book titles-- e.g. Rachel wore a catcher's mask and carried a loaf of rye bread for The Catcher in the Rye-- and while I do not like to dress up in any kind of costume . . . or generally be festive in any way other than drinking alcohol and eating good food, I didn't want to suffer the ire of the department and last year I managed to skate by with a minimalistic "costume" and avoid public shaming, so I tried the same tactic this year-- I dressed as I often dress: khaki pants, a light-weight short-sleeved button down shirt, and knock-off Birkenstocks BUT I also brought in a cowbell-- and I told people I was dressed as Ernest Hemingway (close enough) and I was portraying For Whom the (Cow) Bell Tolls and while I was mildly shamed for lack of effort, once I explained myself, the ladies pretty much left me alone-- which is all you can ask for in this kind of situation.
There Comes a Time in a Man's Life When He Must Give His Regards (to Alan Parsons)
I'm always surprised when I stumble upon some music-- whether new, old, or obscure-- that mesmerizes and enthralls me . . . the past few weeks it's been W.I.T.C.H. and "zamrock" and the past few days it's been The Alan Parsons Project-- why, O, why? did I disregard Alan Parsons for all these years?
At the Buzzer
As I was about to fall asleep, some subconscious beacon from deep in my brain reminded me that I did not write my sentence today, and now I have shut that beacon off and I can slide into a dream state.
Pained Epiphany
I needed a break from reading the dense and detailed (but very well-written) slog that is James M. McPherson's Battle Cry for Freedom: The Civil War Era, and so I dove into the 2025 Arthur C. Clarke award winner Annie Bot by Sierra Greer-- Annie Bot is a sci-fi novel about the perfect android girlfriend, and while the book starts with a light, technologically provocative tone (warning . . . or perhaps selling point? there are robot/human sex scenes) but as I got further int othe story, I realized that though I was trying to read some sci-fi to escape the disturbing rationalizations, racism, and inhumanity of the Civil War, that Annie Bot and Battle Cry for Freedom are both ultimately about slavery and autonomy . . . but my NEXT book is going to be fun!
Monday Monday, Can't Trust That Day
The natives (i.e. the high school students) were annoying today-- restless, sleepy, and chatty . . . perhaps because the PSAT is tomorrow, so there are no classes?-- who knows, I don't pretend to understand these hormonal teenage creatures, but-- in an attempt to defeat the Monday Blues, I whipped up a crockpot of chili, which is now simmering away and should be ready in twenty minutes.
Two Letters Make a Big Difference . . .
My wife and I finished watching Fisk-- a deadpan, often cringingly awkward, but ultimately heartwarming Australian workplace comedy-- and we are now watching Task, and though the two titles are a slant-rhyme, that's the only similarity . . . Task is something completely different from Fisk: relentlessly bleak, Pennsylvania rural, and full of characters that are hopelessly mired in poverty and pain.
Perp Walk? Poop Walk . . .
If you see me walking my dog, but I'm doing a strange shuffle, forwards, backwards, sideways . . . dragging my feet through the grass, exerting maximum friction, that means I'm doing the "poop walk" and that I previously stepped in dog poop and I'm trying to-- as the Rolling Stones sing in "Sweet Virginia"-- "scrape that shit right off" my shoes . . . this is my method: after I step in poop, I usually immediately take off the shoes and put them on my deck in the sun-- as it's no use trying to get the shit off when it's still moist and sticky, and then the next day I will go out on the porch and don the shoes and do the poop walk around the park and then I rinse and repeat for a few days and usually after three poop walks, the shoes are clean again.
Let's All Get Along, Fellow Companions (and Spell Words However We Want)
There's nothing more American than spelling stuff however the fuck we want to spell it; this goes for brand names, of course: Kwik-E-Mart . . . Froot Loops . . . Chick Fil-A . . . Lyft . . . Kool . . . and there are plenty of words that we spell differently than the British: center instead of centre, gray instead of gray, defence instead of defense-- but in the end, who cares?-- brands use different spellings so they can secure copyrights and garner attention, and language is a river and these little differences are water under the bridge . . . BUT my buddy Whitney, who is a spelling and grammar egghead, actually pointed out a spelling anomaly that is quite interesting (thanks, Whit) and-- after I've been challenging my classes, fellow teachers, random strangers and even my wife to this oddball spelling experiment and-- unlike most etymological word origin accounts, this one is NOT stupid and boring (did you know that the word "stupid" comes from the Latin stupere, which means to amaze or confound, but it suffered from typical pejorative semantic drift and by the 16th century it meant someone mentally slow . . . and that the word "boring" stems from the verb "to bore"--a repetitive and tiresome motion of drilling a hole by hand . . . see what I mean? stupid and boring . . . perhaps even shallow and pedantic) BUT try this experiment and see if you get the same results as me . . . ask someone to spell the word "camaraderie" and you should get some interesting results-- "camaraderie" is the French version of the word and an acceptable way to spell it, but in North America the spelling evolved into "comradery" and this change probably happened because of Communism and the Cold War and the assumption that these unified Russkies loved to call each other "comrade"-- or at least they called each other that in the movies and on TV . . . and whether or not this is how the alternate spelling arose, what I have found is that most people now use a hybrid spelling and use bits and pieces of each word and often spell the word "comraderie"-- or something close to that-- and I speculate that this will be another acceptable spelling in a few years . . . I hope you are stupefied and amazed by this etymological conundrum and do not find it stupid and boring (in the modern sense of those words).
Mystery Solved (Crystal Clear Footgear)
If only there were a method—some mnemonic . . . a way to jog my memory—to remind me which pair of my hiking shoes is waterproof.
Dave Escapes the Silo . . . and Laughs and Laughs
My life has improved exponentially since I quit watching the boring, colorless, slow, pedantic, ponderous dystopian TV show Silo . . . what a drag-- since then I have been mainly watching comedies : Fisk, Platonic, Pokerface, and my guilty addiction: The Big Bang Theory . . . Fisk is an Australian, female-oriented version of The Office-- but it's much shorter and the story arcs are fast, furious, heartwarming, and fucking hysterical; Platonic sounds cheesy but actually tackles some fairly intricate issues about marriage and relationships in a zany madcap fashion . . . and Rose Byrne is a comic genius, and Kitty Flanagan, who plays Helen Tudor-Fisk, is the Australian version of Rose Byrne; Pokerface has a dark underbelly but Natasha Lyonne always brings the laughs, even when things get perilous; and when I tell people I'm watching The Big Bang Theory, they react in two ways: totally condescending or "oh yeah, that show is hysterical" and I'm siding with the latter opinion, I find the show utterly wonderful-- I never saw a single episode before last month and watching Jim Parsons play Sheldon and recite those incredibly long and bombastic punch-lines is mesmerizing-- and apparently it was NOT easy for him to memorize those lines, he really had to work at it, every single episode-- and I also feel like the show owes quite a bit to Seinfeld . . . it's often about nothing, the relationships rarely change (so far) and Howard Wolowitz looks like a miniature version of Jerry, but he has the self-absorbed concupiscence of George-- and he's ostentatiously Jewish-- and yes there is a laugh track but it doesn't really bother me (in fact, it might enable me to watch this show alone, something I rarely do . . . I'll watch live sports alone because it feels like other people are there but I will rarely watch a TV show alone . . . but maybe I just needed a laugh track to keep me company).
Some Things That Were Said Today
My team started off hot at morning basketball today, we won the first four games handily-- and we only had ten players, so there were no substitutes and the other team had Frank Nop, the venerable ex-AD who is 71 years young and jogs over for the camaraderie and usually just plays a couple of games-- and Frank told me he just had a virus and wasn't at 100 percent-- so after we won the fourth game, I said, with perfectly good intentions: "Why don't we mix up the teams?" to which Travis responded "fuck no!" and apparently that was "bulletin board material" and then our (motivated) opponents won the next four games, tying the series at 4-4 . . . so we had to play a quick game to three to settle the series (we won, but since we only played to three, there will be an "asterisk" next to this victory) and then during the school day, when I was pacing around, trying to keep my back loose-- which was tightening up because of morning basketball-- so I was stretching and pacing while the kids wrote a paragraph-- one of my students asked me: "Do you have ADHD? Because you always have to be moving or doing something," and I said, "I don't think I have ADHD because I'm pretty good at focusing but I do need to be doing something, unles I'm taking a nap, and I'm happiest when I'm playing some kind of sport or game that involves moving around because then I know what to do with myself" and she said, "So you're not the kind of person that can sleep real late and lie around in bed all day" and I said, "Nope, I'm up like a shot in the morning, doing stuff, until I get tired and go to sleep."
After Yesterday's Giant Disaster, Dave is Faced With Six Distinct Choices
After enduring the Giants once-in-a-generation historic collapse yesterday-- apparently for the last 1,602 games, teams leading by 18 points or more with six minutes to go were able to close out the game-- but that streak is over and the Giants, losing 33-32 to the Denver Broncos, are the ignoble breakers of that streak . . . so after suffering through that emotional roller coaster, I am faced with several options:
1) the logical choice: never watch sports again;
2) defecting and becoming a Philadelphia Eagles fan . . . this otion involves moving to Pennsylvania, making new friends, never communicating with my old friends, and creating a new identity from scratch;
3) using the contraption from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to erase that game from my memory;
4) only watching relaxing, less fervent sports, such as golf, squash and curling;
5) carrying on in a positive manner and hoping that this team will develop into something good sometime soon and this will be a mere bump in the road to great success;
6) wallowing in infinite futility like my friends who are Jets fans.
No Kings, Just Queens Assigning Chores (from out of state!)
My wife is away on a ladies' trip to Rhode Island (but she's still assigning me chores from out of state: water my garden, take my car to the car-detailing place . . . is this legal?) but in between pickleball, lying on the couch, and doing my wife's remote bidding--
I still managed to find time yesterday to ride up to Morristown with Stacey to visit Cunningham and her toddler Quinn and attend the "No Kings" protest, which was pretty tame, honestly: no antifa organized leftist terrorism, no counter-protest, not even any rock-throwing . . . just some speakers and a fairly large but very orderly crowd carrying a bunch of signs . . . the only conflict that we saw was a young Matt Walsh wannabe wandering around with his cellphone asking people "what is a woman?" but then he wouldn't stay and engage with anyone-- Stacey said, "Aww . . . you haven't been with one yet?" and I yelled: "Don't watch The Crying Game! Then you'll really be confused!" and then I realized my reference was from 1992 and no one got it (except Stacey and this old lady next to us who called the youngster "a piece of shit"-- she laughed) but apparently the proper, conservative answer is "an adult human female" and once you start differentiating between sex and gender or bring up x and y chromosomes and social constructs, then you're an antifa indoctrinator or something . . . anyway, it was good to see so many people out at the various protests, peacefully protesting our piece-of-shit, anti-democratic, norm-breaking, possibly pedophilic, certainly pussy-grabbing, tariff-loving, polarizing, nepotistic, emolument abusing, insurrection inciting, felony pardoning, crybaby election loser, golf cheater, justice department weaponizing, EPA and Education dismantling, conspiracy mongering, media manipulating, journalism oppressor, lying, dog-whistling, race-baiting, shithole country hating, tax evading, bankrupt businessman, crypto charlatan, transactionally moral, quid quo pro corrupter, appointee of quacks and incompetents, penis-breath of a President (and I could go on and on).
Dave Gets Physical With Physical Graffiti!
Today my writing is on Gheorghe: The Blog, and I'm quite proud of it, but you're going to have to read this piece by my buddy Whitney and this piece by him as well (and do some listening) and then read my witty rejoinder . . . I promise you, it will be worth it!
Friday . . . Whew
To celebrate working all five days of this grueling five-day week-- and the 24,000 steps I accumulated over the course of the day, comprised of powerwalking and pickleball . . . plus a bike ride-- to commemorate this triumph, I am writing nothing of substance today.
Quitter?
I was shooting the shit with another veteran educator yesterday, and we were discussing our exit strategies from the field when a student wandered back into my classroom to collect her bookbag-- she had left it there when she ran to the nurse-- and she overheard a bit of our conversation and said to me, "Mr. P. wait . . . you're quitting?" and I said, "Nancy, it's not called quitting, it's called retiring! I've been doing this job for 31 years!" and she processed that insanity for a moment and then said, "Well, I'll really miss you . . . oh actually, I'll be graduated, so I guess it doesn't matter" and I said, "I'll miss you too, it's kids like you that have kept me coming back . . . but enough is enough already!" and she agreed.
All the Pretty Good Horses
After we read James Wright's serene and transcendent poem "A Blessing," I like to have my Creative Writing students draw the scene-- at a minimum, they are required to sketch two graceful, docile "Indian ponies" that can "hardly contain their happiness" and if they're really cooking with gas, then they can also attempt to draw the narrator, who is so entranced by these kind and mysterious animals in the twilight that he says, epiphanically: "Suddenly I realize that if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom" and, year after year, the results of asking kids to draw beautiful horses are extraordinary: .
and I do NOT allow the students to use their computers or phones to look at horses before they draw, and the point of this exercise (besides my amusement) is that for most of us, it is much easier to use our words to convey tone than it is for us to visually represent tone, especially if the tone is enchanting . . .
and there is a bonus message to this lesson; noted writer Garrison Keillor once had James Wright as a teacher and Keillor describes Wright as lecturing through the haze of a hangover while smoking cigarettes and ashing in a tuna fish can-- so think on this irony: this unkempt figure wrote some of the most beautiful and evocative lines of poetry in the English language-- this should be inspirational to all of us, you don't have to be a beautiful person to write a beautiful poem . . .
but you do need some real skill to DRAW a beautiful horse.
Dave's a Killer . . . Dave's a Mess
Dave is crushing it today; he's a killer . . . for the second morning in a row, he solved the Wordle in two guesses, and he also made a triumphant return to morning basketball, despite a tight lower back, and shot 5/7 from behind the arc . . . but Dave is also a mess; he's feeling the mounting pressure to solve the Wordle in two again tomorrow and there's just no way it's going to happen and his back also hurts when he sits in a chair-- but he's not allowed to complain about his back after he does athletic endeavors or his wife is going to kill him, because he doesn't let it rest enough and she doesn't want to hear that shit when Dave is bringing it upon himself-- so strike that complaint from the record, Dave's back feels great! . . . but he's still nervous about tomorrow's Wordle.
Automobiles, Automobiles, Automobiles (and The Cult)
A very un-Dave weekend, but I survived and had a pretty damned good time, despite all the traffic: Saturday morning, I drove my Kia Sportage forty minutes through typical New Jersey traffic to Zman's house-- there's no good way to get there from Highland Park-- and then after listening to a few tales of Zwife's driving misadventures, we got into Zman's Alfa Romeo and headed up to Hopkinton-- home of Gormley and also the town where the Boston Marathon starts-- but we had to wade into epic traffic on the Hutchinson or the Cross Bronx or the Merritt-- who the fuck knows the difference between those roads?-- so we stopped for lunch at Zuppardi's Apizza in West Haven, which was delicious-- and then fought through a bunch more traffic on the way to Gormley's lovely abode, in the piney, fern gullied, rock-walled suburbs of Hopkinton-- and then we took a walk through the hood, where we did NOT encounter a beach ball (fucking AI is destroying reality) and then got ready to head to the show, which was in Boston city center, at the Orpheum-- and Gormley's wife drove us in, through even more traffic (thanks Liz!) and we hopped out at a traffic light and then I had to chase down the car because I left my phone charging in the backseat . . . I caught up to Liz as she was turning right, knocked on the window, jumped in and grabbed my phone, and then jumped out of the car before anyone could even beep at her-- a random middle-aged white dude was impressed by my alacrity and he said, "nice move!" and I held up my phone and told him "my ticket to the show is on here!" and he said, "Are you going to see The Cult?" and I said, "Yes I am!" and then we went to jm Curley's for drinks and food and then walked to the Orpheum for the show-- the opening act was a noisy duo called The Patriarchy-- but the lead singer was a lady . . . ironic!-- and then The Cult came out as The Death Cult, the goth-punk band that preceded The Cult-- and Ian Astbury was in some sort of Native American dress-robe and they played all the old stuff from Dreamtime and before (e.g. "Gods Zoo") and then the curtain went down, we restocked our beer, and then The Cult came out as The Cult and played all the old favorites, from "Wildflower" to "She Sells Sanctuary"-- I especially enjoyed a stripped-down double time version of "Fire Woman" . . . I guess they were like: we're required to play this but we're going to do it quickly . . . anyway, it was a great show, the band seemed especially energized and invigorated playing the old goth-punk stuff-- Billy Duffy had to actually pay attention to what he was doing instead of cranking out the power chords and the drummer, John Tempesta, is exceptional and really laid down those culturally appropriated tribal beats-- I did have to tell the guy in front of me to lower his phone-- he seemed to think he was filming a documentary-- but once I said something, he stopped holding it up without any conflict-- and in general, the crowd was very pleasant-- it was essentially a convention of burly middle-aged white males, a few still sporting long hair but most bald or balding-- and everyone looked like they were trouble thirty years ago but had since more-or-less assimilated into normal society-- it made me think of how long a history I have with this band-- I first saw them on the Electric tour in July of 1987 at the Felt Forum-- so 38 years ago-- it was an insane show-- they opened with "Bad Fun" and the moshing was actually violent and Ian got stuck on top of a amplifier at one point and roadies had to help him down . . . there's not many bands that I saw in high school that are still touring (The Who are probably the only other band that fits into this category, although I think they are done now) and then after the show we went back to jm Curley's for a nightcap and caught a ride back to Hopkinton (thanks for arranging that ride, Gormley!) where I finished the leftover pizza and hit the sack and then Zman and I got on the road early and hauled it back to Jersey-- that's more car-time than I prefer to do but I chewed some gum and enjoyed the good craik (as they say in Scotland) and Zman's flawless driving and now I'm home andd getting ready for school tomorrow . . . a whirlwind weekend.
Road Trip with Zman!
On my way to Boston to see The Cult open for themselves . . . I will explain further once I fully understand this paradox.
Do the Right Thing (and Be Punished For It)
After school yesterday, the pickleball gang was meeting at the new pickleball courts in Buccleuch Park-- fourteen new courts!-- and Buccleuch Park is in New Brunswick, adjacent to the Rutgers College Ave campus-- so the perfect distance to bike ride from my house in Highland Park . . . this would be a great warm-up for my hamstrings and hips AND I wanted to do the right thing and not add more traffic and pollution to the general mayhem that is New Brunswick/Rutgers at the start of the semester so I took a look at Google Maps and noticed that the shortest route was one I had taken before-- you go across the Route 27 bridge from Highland Park to New Brunswick, and then you go past the homeless encampment and through a tunnel that goes under the bridge and then you take a narrow, overgrown, pavement path in between Route 18 and the south bank of the Raritan River-- and the path is definitely decrepit and ruinous and in disrepair, full of trash and overgrown with ragweed and poison ivy, but it's not closed-- so I rode this path, which I hadn't been on in many years-- since COVID?-- and I passed some sketchy looking holes in the fence and a homeless guy actually shooting heroin-- the needle was in his arm-- and I had to pass very close to him because the path was so narrow and I didn't want to fall down the cliff and into the river--
and I finally got to the stairs which lead to a bike path bridge over Route 18, and then this bridge connects to the Rutgers campus bike path-- but when I reached the top of the stairs, the gate to get out was chained and padlocked--
so after going through all the stages of grief and doing a lot of cursing-- I could SEE the Rutgers children and see the Rutgers buildings, but I could not escape the caged bridge and there was no way across Route 18 there-- it was a multi-lane freeway under and overpass with a high concrete divider in the middle-- so after much profanity, I texted the pickleball crew, told them I would be late-- and carried my back back down the stairs, rode the overgrown path, passed the homeless guy-- who had now set up a tarp and was shooting heroin again . . . I had to walk my bike past him so as not to run into him-- I said, "right behind you, man . . . the gate was locked!" but he didn't seem to feel my pain-- and then I biked all the way back to the bridge, crossed over into New Brunswick proper and biked through the College Avenue campus to the park, where I played some pickleball, and then I biked home in the ensuing darkness, using the New Brunswick bike lanes-- but there were some assholes parked in the bike lanes in places so I yelled at them-- and my next move is this: I'm going to write an irate letter to the city of New Brunswick-- they either need to indicate that this bike path is closed or they need to clean it up and open the gate-- but this anecdote is a microcosm of our bike paths in Middlesex County-- there are some decent ones but none of them connect particularly well and there are always dangerous unprotected sections and it's really not viable to bike places unless you're willing to risk your life . . . so that's one of the many reasons everyone is in their car creating traffic (some of the other reasons are that people are stupid and people are lazy).
Excremental Learning
They say an old dog cannot learn new tricks and that might be true, but an old man learned a new trick this morning-- my lower back has been hurting, and so I've been having some difficulty picking up and bagging my dog's stool . . . especially on our morning walk, when my body is not warmed up-- but this morning, I took a very wide stance-- that is the key, widening the stance-- and then I did a semi-lunge to pick up the yucky stuff and it was much easier: an old man learns a new trick!
The Old Man Takes a Day
Twenty years ago, when I took a "mental health day," I would go extreme mountain biking, or hiking, or fly-fishing at the Ken Lockwood Gorge for a run on the beach or something epic, but I am obviously getting old-- today I took the day off because I couldn't sleep last night because of my lower back and hip, so I went and got a massage; then to Costco where I spent an inordinate amount of money on mundane items; and then took an epic nap . . . but now my back and hip feel better and I think I'll be able to carry on tomorrow.
Methought the Kids Knew This Word
Woe is me . . . or perhaps I should say: "sad is me" or maybe "methinks I am sad" because yesternight, methought that high school seniors knew the meaning of the word "woe" but today, while teaching Hamlet, I learned that the majority of students do NOT know the meaning of the word woe-- or as my fellow Language Arts teacher Denise said: "the distance between the students and the English language keeps growing larger."
Hypothetical Hyperbolic HW Nearly Foments Real Revolution
Last Friday, my senior College Writing class read the first scene of Hamlet, and we learned that the nation of Denmark is worried about an unsanctioned Norwegian invasion, led by a vengeful Young Fortinbras-- who wants to recover the lands that his father lost in a battle with Old King Hamlet (who appears in the play as a ghost) but Young Fortinbras did not get permission from his bedrid uncle to spearhead this invasion so Young Fortinbras has gathered a wild band of desperadoes and organized a rogue mercenary army to do his bidding . . . but the Shakespearean description of this is rather dense and difficult reading, so I always preface it by saying, "Ok, this is your homework over the weekend"-- which piques their interest-- and then the kids are confused but, slowly but surely, we figure out the passage:
Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes
For food and diet to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in it, which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost.
and the students finally recognize that I am telling them to collect-- or "shark up"-- their most "lawless" friends and acquaintances and go out and do some vengeance upon their enemies and perform some deeds that "hath a stomach in it" and we chuckle about this absurd suggestion and move on . . . but I now realize that my sarcastic hypothetical hyperbole might have been lost on a few students because a kid from my class passed me by today in the hall and he asked, sincerely, "What was that homework we had to do again? It was confusing," and I was like, "Yikes . . . I was just kidding . . . please don't shark up a bunch of lawless resolutes and form a rogue army and recover any lands by strong hands and then say I had anything to do with it."
How to Prevent Munchausen by Proxy and Stockholm Syndrome
My "robust immune response" to the flu and COVID vaccines has finally dissipated-- and while my symptoms were real, I'm not sure my wife and my friends actually believed me-- and my wife was certainly not controlling me using the Munchausen by proxy method . . . I'm too intolerable when I'm sick, so no one in their right mind would try that bullshit on me-- I also think I'm too annoying to be involved in Stockholm Syndrome (in either direction) and the way to prevent that from happening is also to be really annoying . . . I will keep y'all posted on how to prevent other weird syndromes (e.g. Jerusalem syndrome, Paris syndrome, Capgras syndrome, Stendhal syndrome, the Cotard delusion, and the Fregoli delusion) in the future.
Hypothetical Schadenfreude Alleviates Dave's Misery
Yesterday at school-- for the good of the children, the old people, the country in general, science, and my immune system-- I got both the new COVID booster and the flu shot (COVID booster on my left shoulder, which is still very fucking sore, and flu shot on my right shoulder, which is less sore) and I am unhappy to report that I couldn't sleep last night-- I had the chills and everything I've ever injured in my entire life aches (including my fucking back) and I feel like absolute garbage today and the only thing that will make me happy is if the people at work who neglected to get the vaccines get really sick and have a bad case of vomiting and diarrhea (at school . . . in front of all their students).
Battling Two Vaccine Shots While Writing A Review For One Battle After Another
My wife and I saw One Battle After Another, and all I can say is that I'm proud of Paul Thomas Anderson (and all the excellent actors and actresses in the film) for making such a spot-on, brave, funny, compelling, satirical, dystopian, and incredibly topical film . . . the film seems to be set in a parallel universe that reminds us that we are now living in a Trumpian parallel universe-- how things might have been if they actually got the vote count right in Florida!-- and in this universe, late 60s Black Panther/BLA and early 70s style Weather Underground liberal violent resistance is still happening and is now directed toward undocumented detainment camps . . . and this sort of violent resitance-- freeing detainees, robbing banks, housing undocumented immigrants-- would be difficult because of the amount of digital surveillance (but the film attempts to address this) and the government is portrayed as a parody of our current regime-- everyone sounds like Stephen Miller and Trump-- there is fear and paranoia of the enemy within and the aliens trying to invade . . . but the film also portrays the futility of violent revolution, how it usually ends in imprisonment, betrayals, informants, ratting, snitching, hiding, drug abuse, loss of purpose, difficulty rejoining society and all the rest . . . Leonardo DiCaprio really lenas into his role as Bob Ferguson-- and the film is often laugh-out-loud funny . . . anyway, I'm fading fast, I got both my flu shot and my COVID shot today (fuck you, RFK) so I'll end this review in incoherence, as I think I have a low-grade fever, but remember-- time is a human created construct that doesn't actually exist . . . but it controls our lives.
The Call Is Coming From Inside the Hat!
After I play pickleball, I hang my sweaty baseball caps on the clothesline across our back deck so that they can air out and dry-- yesterday, just before I went down to the park to play, I grabbed a hat off the clothesline, put it on my head, and then I went inside my house to fill a water bottle . . . and while i was filling the bottle, I felt a lump on my head and I felt the top of the hat and there was a bump-- but the bump was inside the hat . . . weird . . . so I took off the hat and felt my head . . . no bump-- very weird-- but then I looked inside the hat and there was a large spider in there, which had been sitting on my head, causing this lump in the hat . . . and, perhaps because I was all alone, I was surprisingly calm, despite my intense dislike of spiders, and I shook the spider into the sink and squashed it (and then checked my head for other spiders, but I was in the clear).
Get Out of Your Car and Regain Ambulatory Autonomy!
When I get to school early, I like to "pull through" and get a spot with my car facing out, and to get one of these coveted spots, I often have to park between two other cars, and I am finding more and more that when I pull between these two cars, there are still people inside the cars and these people continue to sit there while I hop out and grab my stuff and start my day . . . so I asked in the English Office and apparently lots of people like to sit in their cars once they arrive at work-- which seems totally fucked up to me, I can't wait to get out of the car . . . I hate sitting, and I hate being trapped in a little box, and I want to regain ambulatory autonomy-- but evidently these people want to sit in a little metal box and talk on the phone or listen to one more song or listen to some inspirational self-help guru-- I heard that shit emanating from one parked car-- or they're just avoiding going into the building because they hate work or they are introverts or they get anxious-- but my advice to these people is:
1) stop idling and polluting the air;
2) get out of your car and live your life!
Just Give Me Some Time, Dammit!
On the basketball court, I need a fair bit of time to set up for a three-point shot . . . and in the kitchen, I need a fair bit of time to set up to cook a meal.
My Back, Unlike World Liberty Financial, Is In the Red
My back is no longer back in the black-- it's in the red, deep in the red . . . so I should NOT have played three hours of pickleball yesterday, nor should I have read the news-- as far as I understand it, Trump pushed out US attorney Erik Siebert because he refused to pursue "trumped up" charges on James Comey and replaced him with an inexperienced beauty queen named Lindsey Halligan AND Trump also essentially received a quid pro quo bribe from an Abu Dhabi investment fund, to the tune of a 2 billion dollar investment in World Liberty Financial, and then the Trump White House reversed restrictions on the export of Nvidia AI computer chips to the U.A.E.-- though I guess this deal hasn't gone through yet becuase of security concerns, but still WTF?-- and, worst of all, my classroom is especially dank and smelling of mold because it was so unseasonably hot and humid over the weekend . . . such a Monday.
My Back is Back in the Black
I was out of commission for a day, but now my back is back in the black so forget the hearse because I never die-- I played three hours of pickleball today, stiff back and all-- basically, I've got nine lives and I'm abusing every one of them, so look at me now: dinking and slamming and winning hand battles . . . I'm just making my play and I'm hitting a wicked backhand flick as a speed-up as well, so don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way-- perhaps my back is back in the black because I hit the sack early last night-- but even one day of rest is too long for me, it's been too long and I'm glad to be back, with my gang, going out with a bang, looking at the sky and realizing it's time for lunch.
Back to School: Not Great For My F$#king Back
For the first time in a long, long time, my lower back has seized up-- probably from playing basketball yesterday morning and then teaching three 83-minute periods and then going to happy hour at B2 Bistro and sitting on a barstool for several hours . . . who knows? . . . but I am unable to put socks on and will be lying on the couch all day (not the worst sentence for Dave) and I need to start going to acupuncture again.
Sandy Hook, The Mule Barn, Idioms, Lanternflies, Always Sunny . . .
Malcolm Gladwell: Explaining the Big Picture, Anecdotally
New episode of We Defy Augury up-- "Malcolm F$%cking Gladwell" . . . my thoughts (loosely) inspired by his new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point . . . and while I also delve into his other books and theories-- I try to keep it light and breezy, as would befit a podcast about the master of light and breezy non-fiction writing . . . but eventually I get stuck in the weeds (as one is wont to do when analyzing Gladwell's anecdotal evidence).
The Four Rings of Marriage?
There's an old joke about the "three rings of marriage" . . .
1) the engagement ring
2) the wedding ring
3) and the suffering
classic stuff . . . but-- if you have a lisp-- there's also "the swallowing" . . . to explain: a few nights ago I stumbled into the bathroom in the dark-- it was probably 2:30 AM-- urinated and then groped for the plastic water cup . . . and I guess I had trouble locating the plastic water cup because I turned on the bathroom light-- and I normally do NOT turn on the bathroom light and I just fill the cup in the dark and drink some-- but for whatever reason, I turned on the light and I thank the Lord of Sun and Light (Amun-Ra?) that I did so-- because just before I drank, I noticed that there were two objects in the water cup-- rings!-- and the water was weird and soapy . . . my wife decided to clean her wedding ring and engagement ring and she ill-advisedly used the grope-in-the-dark-bathroom-water-cup (and placed the cup on the bathroom counter!) and so I came very close to swallowing two of the rings of marriage . . . and then there would have been much gastrointestinal suffering before those things returned to the light of day.
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