The Truth Doesn't Always Sound Good

I made a musical trivia quiz today for my Music and the Arts class and part of the quiz was about which artists were popular in each decade, and I learned that the artists that sold the most albums in the 1990s were not the artists I thought were popular at the time (aside from Nirvana) because I thought everyone was listening to Pearl Jam and The Pixies and Soundgarden and 2Pac and Biggie and the Wu Tang Clan and Rage Against the Machine and Weezer and Radiohead and Beck and Jane's Addiction and Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and the Beastie Boys and the Chili Peppers and Smashing Pumpkins but I was in my twenties and demographically skewed . . . here's the actual top ten selling artists of the 1990s:

Céline Dion

Mariah Carey

Garth Brooks

Whitney Houston

Nirvana

Michael Jackson

Metallica

Backstreet Boys

Shania Twain

Madonna.

Trump = Don Quixote?

Donald Trump-- in one of his most deranged moves to date-- continues his quixotic battle against windmills, halting five developing wind farms off the East Coast and essentially, according to the New York Times, "gutting the industry" and vaporizing ten thousand jobs and jeopardizing billions of dollars in investments . . . Trump cites fabricated "national security concerns" as the reason for ending these green energy projects, which were supposed to power 2.5 million homes and will instead reduce the efficiency of the electrical grid and make us more reliant on traditional (and expensive) energy sources . . . what is wrong with this man, and why isn't anyone in our government standing up to him?

(Slightly) Brighter Days Ahead

Today is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and thus the darkest fucking day of the year . . . but tomorrow we will have a couple more seconds of sunlight and by January-- and this has something to do with the tilt of the earth and angles and lag time and ellipses . . . way above my pay grade-- we'll be gaining two minutes of sunlight each day . . . which will be fantastic because when it's dark like this, I want to go to bed at 7 PM.

Follow the Link For the Recs . . .

I did my usual "Seven Books for Reading" post over at Gheorghe: The Blog today . . . if you're looking for a good book, check it out.

Not Following Directions (Because They Are Insane)

Does anyone actually:

1) rinse and drain quinoa thoroughly in cold water before cooking?

2) determine doneness by the visible germ ring on the outside edge of the grain?

because these are the specific instructions on the back of TRADER JOE'S Organic Tricolor Quinoa, and while I like to follow food hygiene instructions and recommendations--

1) quinoa grains are much too tiny to rinse in a colander-- they would go through the holes!

2) quinoa grains are way too small to examine in such a precise manner;

so WTF?

Enough With the Time Wars . . .

I'm not sure how-- serendipity, I guess-- but I just finished another sci-fi book written in the 1950s that details a war being waged throughout time . . . this one, The Time Traders, by Andre Norton, is much faster-paced than Simak's Time and Again-- although it features an American rehabilitation prison/time traveller program, a hostile advanced alien race and the Russians, and everyone is at odds with one another, this is really more of a Bell Beaker-era (2000 B.C.) survival tale, with some interesting anthropological details (and a bunch of sci-fi action) and the usual cautionary lesson, that when you fuck with the past, things are going to get ugly-- but with the additional idea that there may have been great technological wonders in the past, whether alien-made or human-made, that were lost in the haze of the millenia-- modern humans have only been around for 300,000 years . . . in the millions and millions of years of life on earth, advanced technologies could have risen and decayed and left no trace (although this is highly unlikely-- they probably woudl have left some chemical fingerprint or isotopic anomaly).

Dave "Works" From Home

I decided to give working from home a try today-- I've got a cold, and I'm losing my voice, so I didn't feel up to inspiring the youth to write without "help" from AI . . . despite my illness, I did sweep, vacuum, and mop the floors and I cleaned three bathrooms, but no matter how much you clean the floor, there's still dog hair-- it's very resilient stuff.

Even With Some Help, I Don't Think Our Brains Will Ever Work This Well

Time and Again is more profound and serious than most of the Clifford Simak books I've read (Mastodonia, They Walked Like Men, The Goblin Reservation, City) and while the book has some fun sci-fi tropes-- a war throughout time, androids that can chemically reproduce vying for human rights-- it also has that 1950s transcendent evolutionary vibe that seems naive today . . . the idea that humans will eventually, possibly with the help of alien intelligence, become something mentally more, something psionic and telepathic and revolutionary . . . and maybe I'm being pessimistic and thispsychological transcendence is possible, but I'm more of the feeling that the huan race is going to be perpetually stupid until we exterminate ourselves.

Are People Actually Working at Home?

Despite the cold and the ice and the preponderance of delayed openings in the surrounding counties, Middlesex County schools did NOT have a delay this morning-- so I'd like to send a big FU out to anyone who "works from home."

Ignoring the Unspeakable

Today was an apt day to finish  Omar El Akkad's book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (a title which reminds me of a book I read about the Rwanda genocide called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families) since the news is filled with unspeakable gun violence and mass shootings-- which Americans will be ignoring soon enough-- Akkad wants people to stop looking away from the horror, especially the horror in Gaza, perpetrated by what he views as the ugly business of imperialism, supported by the U.S. military industrial complex, political machinery, and media . . . here's a passage from the end that gives an idea of his tone:

One day there will be no more looking away. Looking away from climate disaster, from the last rabid takings of extractive capitalism, from the killing of the newly stateless. One day it will become impossible to accept the assurances of the same moderates who will say with great conviction: Yes the air has turned sour and yes the storms have grown beyond categorization and yes the fires and the floods have made life a wild careen from one disaster to the next and yes millions die from the heat alone and entire species are swept into extinction daily and the colonized are driven from their land and the refugees die in droves on the border of the unsated side of the planet and yes supply chains are beginning to come apart and yes soon enough it will come to our doorstep, even our doorstep n the last coded bastion of the very civilized world, when one day we turn on the tap and nothing comes out and we visit the grocery store and the shelves are empty and we must finally face the reality of it but until then, until that very last moment, it's important to understand that this really is the best way of doing things. One day it will be unacceptable in the polite liberal circles of the West, not to acknowledge all the innocent people killed in that long-ago unpleasantness.

it is rough stuff and an especially controversial topic around my area because we have both a sizeable Jewish and Muslim population, there are people on both sides of this issue, and I don't see any resolution other than more violence, suppression, terrorism, displacement, starvation, military incursions, explosions, and horror.

More War

 

Another dark episode of We Defy Augury . . . some thoughts (loosely) inspired by Daniel A. Sjursen's book "A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism" -- I got so bogged down in the shit in this one that I've decided to take a break and perhaps pursue a different idea for a podcast-- because I really don't want to make an episode based on the book I'm reading now, Omar El Akkad's indictment about the liberal media and governmental response to the Israel/Palestine conflict One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This  . . . his point, that the logical, moral position is not halfway between the right and the left-- as they are both ignoring reality-- and the center is as morally repugnant in it's policy and more milquetoast and unfocused, especially when atrocities are being committed and a people are being displaced and destroyed . . . I'm about two-thirds of the way through and I don't see a happy ending to this story, now or in the future.

If You're Getting Up Early, You Might As Well Shoot the Ball

While I normally avoid Route 18-- it has been under construction for years-- I will sometimes gamble and take it when I'm playing early morning basketball, as there's less traffic at 6:15 AM-- but today, instead of lane closures, the entire road was closed and so I arrived at basketball late and angry and had to sit the first game-- but this did give me time to warm up, and either the extra shooting practice or my road rage inspired me and I made my first five shots, all three pointers-- so five in a row for the fifty-five year old-- which made the youngsters very excited . . . but they also started switching off and covering me very tightly . . . so I took a couple more NBA range shots, which oddly, went long, perhaps because I've been ingesting creatine and I'm super jacked-- but whatever, it's quite fun to have the hot-hand once in a while.

Trump: Making China Even Greater

I'm not sure I fully understand all the layers of irony and absurdity in the latest economic news, but Trump seems to be offering American farmers (particularly soybean farmers) a 12 billion dollar bailout because  they have been adversely affected by his unilateral implementation of tariffs-- especially on China, which used to buy U.S. soybeans-- so we're using taxpayer money generated by the tariffs, which decreased exports, to bail-out the farmers-- who will have to store the soybeans or sell them at a deep discount-- creating market instability and the need for government assistance; meanwhile, China has found other suppliers and has also made its way into other markets, partially fueled by the absence of the United States in these markets because of Trump's tariffs-- so China has increased its trade surplus by over twenty percent, to the tune of a trillion dollars . . . meanwhile the United States is running its usual trade deficit (which doesn't seem to be influenced in any particular way by tariffs and has to do with other economic forces) and apparently many large businesses have been absorbing the costs of the tariffs but come January there may be cost increases to reflect this . . . this is all above my pay grade but it seems to me we should want China to be buying stuff from us-- such as soybeans-- but I also understand that globalization has its costs (thus, our populist president) but I think the genie is out of the bottle and it's too late to turn back the clock, so we want to be as involved in the global market as we can be . . . but what the fuck do I know, I'm just a dog (sometimes, for an extra treat, Dave has me write his blog).

Everyone Got Some Help

After listening to many episodes of Andrew Hickey's "History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" and reading a fair amount about the influences and origins of Shakespeare's plays, one thing is clear: art is collaboration, often with the people who came before you (even if you don't want to give them any credit).

Youth . . . It's Determined by When You Were Born

Today, one of the morning basketball players said to me: "You're a veteran teacher . . . when did you start teaching?" and I said, "1995? 1994?" and he said, "OK, that's two years before I was born-- so how has teaching changed since then?" and I gave him a rather long-winded answer, which involved living through the digital revolution, starting out with books and paper, ending with computers, on and on and on-- and by the end of my answer, I was ready to retire (but instead I went to my Music and the Arts Class and told them they needed to have more arguable points in their essays—they were being very hesitant to offer their opinions, so I told them, "look, we're not talking about abortion or politics, it's just music" and then we read Carl Wilson's essay "Celine Dion and Me" and I had all the students write some music on the board that would thoroughly embarrass them if other people heard them actively listening to this particular music-- like if they were blasting it out their car windows-- and we all had a good time . . . although several kids wrote 100 Gecs, and I love 100 Gecs—but I still wasn't offended because it's only music).

Heading Out to the Park

Singing "walking the dog, walking the dog" to the tune of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" makes taking my dog out in the frigid weather slightly more bearable.

I Live in a "High Brow" Town!

 Highland Park (and my buddy Craig) recently made Fox News-- because Highland Park High School has a "Socialist Club"-- but the best thing about the utterly pointless article isn't that my town is full of radical liberals (although it IS the most liberal town in Middlesex County, yet we still have Turning Point USA Club . . . you can't prohibit a school club for political reasons) but the best part is that our town is referred to as "well-to-do" and "high brow"-- which is absurd, considering close to 40 percent of the school students are on free-and-reduced lunch and our grocery store isn't a Wegman's or a Kings or a Whole Foods or even a Trader Joe's, it's a SuperFresh (nor do we have a Wawa or a 7-11, we have a Fresh Mart) but it's still very nice of Fox News to inflate the worth of our real estate . . . thanks!

Ardnakelty: Things Behind Things Behind Things

In Tana French's thriller, The Hunter, the rural Irish mountain town of Ardnakelty reminds me of the newish Bon Iver tune "Things Behind Things Behind Things"-- and retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper is pulled farther and farther into these rings within rings (this is the second book in the series, the first is The Searcher) and you know what happens once you get pulled in, it's tough to reach escape velocity; an evocative, slow-burn about how gossip and history and small-town mores can sometimes fuel animosity, violence, and worse (and I believe I have now read the complete of ouvre of French, who many conisder our greatest living mystery writer . . . I think I am one of them).

Carbage

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.