A Short Sentence about a Long Book
Bipolar Beach Day
Ahh . . . Spring Break . . . finally: Cat and I headed to the beach, and while the water was very, very cold, the air was alternatively very very warm and randomly-- if the breeze shifted-- quite chilly; we ate amazing sandwiches at the Speakeatery in Asbury and then stopped for some beer at the Source Farmhouse Brewery (I had the nitro-conditioned Irish Red Ale . . . it took several minutes to pour and had the character of Guinness but with a malty flavor: delicious) and then we got some bread and cheese at Delicious Orchards . . . a good day (aside from the traffic and construction on Route 18 . . . will it ever end?)
Dave is Brave
Dave Defeats the Youth
Spring "Fake" has begun-- I headed off to school today, rather glumly, because this was supposed to be Spring Break, but we used too many snow days, and so we have school today and tomorrow-- and the day was something of a waste but we made the best of it-- I oly had six students first period (in a class of 28) and my two other classes were less than half full, so instead of doing my planned lesson, we did a REAL test of intelligence: we played Scattergories-- which is an incredibly stressful word game and good way to ward off dementia-- and I'm proud to say that I crushed these teenagers (and I'm sincerely proud of this-- even though their brains are atrophied from cell phones, social media, and AI, Scattergories is a game where you can lose to a twelve-year-old if you lapse in focus).
Dave Implements a Solution!
I was getting stressed about saving the enormous audio files for my new podcast (Pig on the Wall) on my very old computer and rather old external hard drive-- and I was starting to back things up on a little SSD drive that I use for school, but that wasn't going to hold everything, so I finally solved the problem today and backed everything up in IDrive . . . it cost a few dollars-- but far less than buying a new computer!
If a Toilet Gets Cleaned, But My Wife Doesn't See It-- Did It Happen?
I did a bunch of chores around the house this afternoon: vacuumed, cleaned a bathroom, did some laundry, put the mattress cover and sheets on the bed, did the dishes . . . but accomplishing these tasks doesn't really make me happy-- I won't feel any satisfaction until my wife gets home from my cousin's baby shower and acknowledges my industry.
Too Much Music For One Sentence: Prog Rock vs. The Cars
I just finished the highly entertaining The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel-- or I found it highly entertaining; it might not be a book for general audiences-- and while the start of the book covers bands that you might know, from Procol Harum to King Crimson to Yes, Genesis, Soft Machine, and-- of course: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer-- you might be surprised by the extent of the cross-pollination within the scene and the extent to which record companies funded and allowed for absolutely wild, bombastic, innovative music to be made and published-- including lots of solo efforts (Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman made a 40-minute progressive synth rock opera based on Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth? and it was a commercial success?) and then the book moves along to Rush and Marillion and Dream Theater, and finally to the remnants of prog rock-- how the old bands fell apart (or learned how to craft singles like Genesis) and how there are some remnants of prog rock in bands like Porcupine Tree and The Mars Volta-- and the book certainly got me to listen to some "new" music from long ago (or rather recent music, such as Porcupine Tree) but Weigel also details how punk rock and new wave put an end to prog rock as the darling of the critics and ended any radio play that these epic songs were getting . . . and I am also reading The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told by Bill Janovitz and you can see why people were so excited for this new music-- it's tight and catchy and skillful but also forward-facing and progressive, and The Cars first album is a perfect example of this-- 1978 was when prog rock was starting to decline and artists like Blondie and Elvis Costello and The Talking Heads and Devo and The Police released great albums (and there was also a slew of great rock albums: Van Halen, Some Girls, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Dire Straits, Shakedown Street) and while Rush did release "Hemispheres" in 1978, a prog rock classic-- pop music was trending toward shorter songs-- and this was partly fueled by punk rock, which gained popularity in this same time frame . . . "Never Mind the Bollocks" came out in 1977 . . . anyway, I prefer the new wave stuff and what it spawned to most prog rock (although "Close to the Edge" by Yes is a masterpiece) but Weigel's book got me to listen to some pretentious but exciting musical experiments, and it's usually good to open your mind to new music (except when Hitler got really into Wagner).
Teaching: Not the Job I Signed Up For . . .
The Winds are Dark
My wife and I just finished the third season of Dark Winds, the AMC show based on the Tony Hillerman novels, and the show lives up to the title.
A Physicist Would Think Those Wings Need to Be Bigger, But It Was the 1970s and Everyone Was on Drugs
Feeling Like Garfield
There are Mondays, and then there are dark, damp, rainy Mondays when your lunch consists of two hard-boiled eggs and some honey-roasted peanuts.
A Bad Day at Pickleball is Better than a Good Day at Work
I Thought Last Year Was Well Organized?
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My cousin Kim pronounced last year's Easter Pizza resurrection as "total chaos" with no "quality control," and so this year things were much more organized, and generally the experts did the delicate work of folding dough and making the "toes"-- so my wife had to work all afternoon (and so did some small children) while I only had to cut some sausage and then got to watch basketball and drink beer-- and this year's pizzagaina were notably more uniform and delicious than last year's batch-- and I am certainly better at eating them than making them.
Daddy Needs a New Computer for Audio Processing
My iMac-- which is now over a decade old-- is laboring under the duress of the large audio project I am working on . . . but VCU gutted it out in overtime last night, netting me 11 points in the "select 8 and get the points for the seed" pool and Kentucky pulled it out in overtime today (7 points my way!) and Louisville and Illinois and Vanderbilt all won . . . so if Hofstra steals a miracle win over Alabama and St John's wins tonight, I might have the cash to buy myself a new-ish Mac Mini.
Menacing Ladybugs?
Today is my favorite lesson in Creative Writing class: we read James Wright's lovely meditation on nature, "A Blessing," and then my students attempted to draw the scene:
and we read a few other poems that convey tone, including "The Second Coming" by Yeats-- and with this apocalyptic poem, I always ask them what animals would contribute to the arid anarchy of the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, the giant Sphinx stomping across the desert surrounded by indignant desert birds-- so what animals would fit with this scene?-- snakes and spiders and crocodiles and vultures and ravens, creatures of that ilk--
Dave is Well Appointed
Can Chinese AI Predict American Madness?
I probably shouldn't reveal this, but I'm using DeepSeek—the cheap, knock-off AI—to craft the perfect NCAA bracket. However, I'm sure someone else is using it to cure cancer.
Pickleball Weekend
Two away Cross Club Pickleball matches in one weekend is one too many-- I played well yesterday at the Pickle House down in Robbinsville (I was lucky enough to have a fan club-- my brother and his buddy Craig came and drank beers and watched me play, and I always play better at any sport when my brother is around . . . family confidence) but today our team got spanked at the Pickle Palace up in Whippany-- I think we were a bit tired from yesterday's match (and we had a few subs playing, who were not ready for this level) but losing at pickleball is still more fun that not playing at all.
We Used to Hang Out in There!
The Corner Tavern—the bar in New Brunswick where I met my wife (actually, I met her just outside the bar, when I exited—because she was only 20 at the time—this was 1992, and I was with my best buddy Rob, and she was with her best buddy Tammy—and we married the two of them eight years later) and now this bar seems to be some kind of Superfund site, in a perpetual state of industrial decontamination.
Enough of This Shit
By the end of parent-teacher conference week, the contrast between the demeanor of the English teachers with the parents and the demeanor of the English teachers in the English Office had reached such a stark contradiction that if I detailed this phenomenon further, it might be detrimental to our employment.
March: In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion?
Will I Ever Escape From Stalingrad?
I thought it would be a good idea to read Vasily Grossman's epic WWII novel Stalingrad, but now that I'm 700 pages deep and trapped in the mines of the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, I'm wishing that I had decided to read something a bit shorter-- like another Tony Hillerman novel (we just finished watching two seasons of Dark Winds-- an adaption of Hillerman's Leaphorn and Chee novels: 1970s crime and mysticism on the Navaho lands in New Mexico . . . good stuff).
Into the Bath!
Let's Never Do the Time Warp Again
I was very happy yesterday, after the Knicks threw up another airball in a messy game against the Lakers, when the announcer blamed Daylight Saving Time for the poor, rhythmless play by both teams.
Time for a Nap
Meet Us at the Shepherd and the Knucklehead?
Epic Fury?
I'm not sure why we're calling this coordinated attack on Iran "Epic Fury"-- I thought Iran was epically furious with us-- not the other way around: we don't usually chant "Death to Iran," but the Iranians have certainly embraced the slogan "Death to America."
Trying to Illuminate Things
Today was dark, both weather-wise and literacy-wise . . . it was one of those days in class when you're fairly sure that nobody has read what they were supposed to read, or if they did read it, they didn't comprehend it-- and so you have to retreat and start from square one (also, I learned today that high school do not know about the Abu Ghraib prison travesty . . . so I explained it to them, because that knowledge might be relevant again: the dire costs and consequences of attempting a regime change in the Middle East and then determining how to treat various detainees).
I Did Not Know There Would Be Costumes
Dave: The Master
The Good Doctor and I Celebrate Yet Another (Rhyming) Birthday
Dr. Seuss and his cat-- they knew some good tricks--
They made a big mess for rainy-day kicks.
Thing One and Thing Two ran wild-- yikes!
Like my two boys when they were young tykes.
Then the Cat in the Hat-- he cleaned up the mess--
with his high-tech machine, with panache and finesse.
But now Seuss is dead, and my kids are old.
They are tall and mature; they cannot be controlled.
Time is a force that we just cannot fix . . .
Seuss is long gone, and I'm fifty-six.
Lesson Learned
Resilience
After gently digging it out, my bamboo—which was buried underneath two feet of snow-- has sprung back to life.
Look Before You Drink
Seniors . . . The End Is Nigh
A student that I know quite well was taking forever on a quiz, and so I said to him, jokingly, "Okay, Nico, finish it up . . . take your D like a man," and while I meant "D" as in a poor grade, he interpreted it another, much filthier way-- which I immediately realized and said, "or C-, you know what I meant," but it was still pretty funny (almost as funny as moments before, when Nico's friend Frankie shoved two apple slices into his ears, and instead of chastising him, I said, "What are you listening to, Apples in Stereo?" but of course, no one appreciated that joke because they had never heard of The Apples in Stereo-- and you just can't explain that kind of thing) and these are my seniors in February . . . what's going to happen in June?
Dave: Still Learning Stuff?
My students did presentations today about works of art that tackle "the establishment" or a particular system-- racism, colonialism, authoritarianism, capitalism, ageism, sexism, etcetera-- and so from one group I learned that Lababus are the quintessential symbol of rampant consumerism-- they are a collectible "ugly-cute" doll that you buy in a mystery blind box, and there are various rare and secret designs, fueling overconsumption wiht a sociopathic social media marketing campaign . . . and if you don't want to spring for an actual Labubu, then you can buy an ersatz version, a "Lafufu."
Pretty Good Day (Post Blizzard)
Most excellent snow day: did all the shoveling yesterday, and the roads were clear this morning, so I played pickleball and then met my wife and son Alex for lunch-- and tomorrow is already Wednesday!
Spring Break!
AI . . . So Intelligent But So Artificial
I spent nearly two hours this morning uploading images and prompting various AI models in an attempt to make a podcast logo-- I can't show you the logo yet because then I'd have to kill you, the podcast is still in the secret development phase-- but I was astounded by how powerful and also totally noncompliant and incompetent AI image-generation is-- I might have been able to do the task faster on my own (but probably not as well) but the inability of the AI to make things bigger or centered or parallel is wild-- the AI can come up with some pretty fantastic ideas but tweaking them is very very difficult . . . in fact, I might show a real artist what the AI came up with and let them have at it.
Three Things Dave Can't Avoid, So He'll Kill Two Birds With One Stone (But Not Three Birds)
Three things I can't avoid: death, taxes, and this impending snowstorm-- so I guess I'll do my taxes on Monday (because we're not going to have school) but I hope there's not so much snow that I die!
I Can't Explain What I'm Doing, But I Know I'm the Best
If there's one thing I know how to do better than my wife-- and perhaps everyone else in the world-- it's loading the dishwasher —there's an art to it . . . all the dirty plates, bowls, containers, and cutlery need to get maximum exposure to the streaming jets of water.
Finally, a Country Song to Which I Can Relate
Five! That's Three, Sir.
Almost on the Button
My wife-- who loves to distort idioms into new phrases that often make better sense than the original-- read the weather forecast and noticed that high winds were predicted, and so she remarked "button down the hatches," and I said "it's batten, not button . . . batten down the hatches," and then we had to check exactly what a batten is:
a batten is a long, flat strip of wood or metal, used to secure something in place . . . such as the hatch on a sailboat.
(Don't) Send Help
The best part about Send Help-- a gory, over-the-top Sam Raimi survival thriller-- is that frumpy, nerdy Linda from accounting, played by Rachel McAdams, slowly becomes Regina George-- or an unhinged, even more deranged version of that character . . . and I should point out, before I incur her wrath, that it's actually Linda from Strategy and Planning.
Buggin' Out with Bugonia
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons give riveting performances in the wacky Yorgos Lanthimos film Bugonia-- you won't be able to turn away; they are both eminently watchable-- but beware: the ending is insane, and while it might be a delusion or a dream, there are no clues to separate the surreal finale from reality . . . enjoy!
Schrödinger's Swordfish
Today, in preparation for a Valentine's Day dinner with my wife, I went to Archar Seafood in Somerset and bought some very expensive swordfish (the last time we got swordfish from there, it was exceptional) and placed it on the back driver-side seat and drove home, and then when I pulled into the driveway, I grabbed my gym bag and went into the house-- and I should point out that it was warm today, a balmy 46 degrees-- and then, when I was in the kitchen-- miracle of all miracles-- I remembered that I left the fish in the car, that I put it onto the back seat, and so I went out and retrieved it, no harm, no foul . . . but I came very close to turning that pricey swordfish steak into a warm, bacteria-laden, rotten mess, which would have ruined both dinner and the smell of my (relatively) odor-free car . . . but who knows how the mind works-- it's truly a black box, sometimes remembering things at the right time, sometimes minutes later, sometimes the next morning, and sometimes not at all.
A Gift More Meta Than the Matrix
Since I teach high school, I rarely get gifts from students-- occasionally, because of my last name, a kid gives me some sort of pelican totem (which I find pretty weird-- I've had students named "Bella" but I've had no desire to give them a bell . . . although this drawing of me AS a pelican is sick) and if I do get a gift, it's usually a Dunkin' Donuts gift card-- but a kid surprised me today with one of the best (and weirdest) gift I've ever received: an ink stamp-- made by VistaPrint-- which, when pressed, emblazons-- in black ink-- "David Approved" AND a picture of me as Cypher from the Matrix . . . he stumbled upon this picture of me as Cypher on this blog, and he found it highly amusing and thus made this stamp-- so now if something is REALLY REALLY good, but only then, I'll give it this bizarre stamp of approval.
But How Do You Run a Hotel?
My wife and I finished the first season of The Night Manager-- and while the show certainly delivers John le Carré-style espionage, corruption, and intrigue, it is also a bit of a bait-and-switch: Jonathan Pine spends a surprisingly short amount of time as a hotel night manager, and we learn very little of the inner workings of room booking, room service, room rotation, the effects of working the night shift, how to deal with unruly guests, noise complaints, soused folks at the bar, etcetera-- because it doesn't take long before Pine switches from late-night hotelier to undercover spy, infiltrating the inner circle of a ruthless arms dealer . . . so if you're looking for a show that actually teaches you how to run a hotel, my loyal fans have suggested Fawlty Towers and Schitt's Creek.
The Mailman Bringeth the Shame
I had a generally lovely day off today . . . until this afternoon: I went and got an X-ray on my knee (including the extra-special "sunrise" view) so that I can get approved for the gel shots, and-- miraculously-- I was in and out of the radiology place in fifteen minutes; so then I went to the gym; then I picked up my son Alex in New Brunswick and we got some lunch-- he's an absurd figure because he burned himself with kitchen oil on his left hand: his hand is all bandaged up with gauze, so it's gigantic, a lollipop and he can't really wear a jacket because he can't get his hand through the sleeve and he also can't put the hand down because his fingers hurt, so he just holds it up at an angle while he's talking to you, which is disconcerting until you get used to it-- but he was still able to eat sushi with his right hand (though he's lefty) but no chopsticks-- and then I took a long nap and woke up refreshed and did some work on my top secret audio project and then I took my dog for a walk on the snowfields at the park, and you can actually walk now because the snow has softened up-- so a wonderful day-- UNTIL I opened our PSE&G bill and was properly chastised: we spent $64 more on electricity than the average household in our area and we've spent $1,119 more on electricity this year than the most energy-efficient household in our area-- so obviously, all our computer use and space heaters and Ian's massive stereo and computer and the bathroom electric baseboard heater are eating up a lot of current-- but mainly I want to punch those energy-efficient fuckers for making me feel guilty.
It's All Relative?
It's a balmy 36 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I suppose I'll take my dog for a walk on the ice fields in the park.
If Only My Right Knee Felt as Mediocre as My Left Knee
The Best Place to Be a Regular
We braved the cold with our old friends Mel, Ed, Rob, and Julie in Princeton yesterday: after lunch, we explored the recently opened Princeton University Art Museum-- Princeton University has always had an incredible art collection, but it was crammed into a smaller building-- but now everything is on display in an enormous 146,000-square-foot modernist building with 32 galleries stocked with incredibly art and history, Monet's "Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge" and a Manet and a Pisarro and a Van Gogh and a Rodin and an unfinished studio version of Jaques-Louis David's "The Death of Socrates" and several detailed Roman mosaics from Antioch, Turkey and much ancient ceramics and sculpture . . . and it's free! you just wander in! and then we went over to the newly renovated Triumph Brewery, which has the nicest lounge and the best jazz around (and the beer is great too) and we also noticed that Princeton did a much better job with snow removal and street and sidewalk shoveling than New Brunswick (and especially the no man's land between Highland Park and New Brunswick . . . Princeton, that's where the money is . . . and the endowment money . . . 36 billion dollars of it).
Not the Best Place to Be a Regular
My son Alex, who lives with his girlfriend in a studio apartment in New Brunswick, burned his hands with cooking oil while cleaning up last night, so my wife drove him and Ava to the ER-- once again-- Alex forgot his wallet, but because he is a "regular" there, they had all his information-- and while the burns aren't too bad, and they wrapped both his hands in gauze and told him he should be better in a day or two, there were some weird happenings . . . the ER doctor used the cream that Alex brought with him from his last cooking burn, which seems odd: sort of like a BYOB restaurant, this was BYOM hospital? and then, once Alex had been treated, my wife had to drive the two of them fifteen minutes to the 24-hour Walgreens in East Brunswick to get medicine because the pharmacy in the hospital was closed? this makes no sense-- what if you didn't have a car?-- and shouldn't you be able to get the medicine you need at the hospital in the city and not have to drive out to the suburbs? our health care system is byzantine.
Dave is Put on the Spot and Answers the Ultimate Question (with a Question)
I was reviewing the structure of a synthesis body paragraph in my College Writing class, and I told them they really needed to explain the connection between the different texts, between the different sources they are using to support their argument-- because kids like to just say "similarly" and leave it at that-- and so I reminded them to look at the sample paragraph that I wrote and how it took me 25-plus words to get from one text to the next:
"The Citadel, a self-designated military academy once known for violent hazing traditions, followed a similar historical pattern, adopting a system that seems absurd from the outside but resists mitigation"
and one of my most diligent students, who loves to pepper me with questions, asked, "Well, which words should I use?" and this struck me as a funny thing to ask, because that's essentially the ultimate question not only in English class but also in life-- I said to her, "Use the best words to say what you need to say . . . think of it this way: maybe you're going to ask a special someone on a date for Valentine's Day . . . which words should you use to ask them out? . . . I don't know the answer to that; every situation is different-- you just have to try some words and see if they work!"
Although . . . There Are a Lot of Days Off in December
Over the (Metaphorical) Hump
Today was our last midterm, and tomorrow begins the third quarter, so though it seems we are in the dead of winter and there is no end to school in sight, if you think of the school year as a work week we are "over the hump" -- and I do indeed thinko f the school year as a work week-- so therefore we are trudging through the snow towards Spring Break, which represents Thursday night (and when I was hiking around th epark yesterday witht he dog, literally trudging through the snow, I realized that what I needed were a pair of snow shoes).
Definitely NOT the Bee's Knees
My right knee hurts-- pretty much all the time-- so either the cortisone shot has worn off, or the cold weather has made my synovial fluid less viscous and thus less able to lubricate my knee joint . . . but whatever the reason, my knee has been hurting, and it does hurt and I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt in the future-- whether I'm exercising or not exercising, sedentary or walking, on naproxen or off naproxen-- and especially when I'm driving-- so I think I have to suck it up and get the gel shots.
Dave Gets It Done in the (Relatively) Balmy Weather
Crokinole!
Last night, I introduced the Canadian game "crokinole" to some friends, and while much fun was had by all, there was also some complaints of finger soreness and lack of flicking power, which kind of boggled my mind-- but I guess I've been training my pointer finger for over a month and now it's got crokinole strength . . . which I'm taking for granted.
The Dog Days of Winter
My dog Lola is growing bored-- this cold snap has prevented her from walking the trails, paths, and sidewalks, and she hasn't visited the dog park in over a week . . . and on the one hand, she's catching her frisbee again and playing tug-of-war, activities which she abandoned in her middle age, so it's fun to resume them, but on the other hand, she's obsessed with eating the frozen rabbit feces in our backyard (which are, oddly, identical in shape, size, and color to dog treats) so I'm really looking forward to when it gets into the thrities next week and we can go for a hike again without her paws freezing (even Musher's Secret wax doesn't work when it's near zero!).
Miraculous Coincidental Serendipity Does NOT Save Dave Ten Dollars
Old Man, New Shit . . .
Not only did I lose my ID and scan-in card yesterday, which caused me difficulty getting in and out of the building and making photocopies (although it shouldn't have caused me so much difficulty making photocopies-- apparently I could have typed my school ID number into the copier, and it would have released and printed my files but I didn't learn this until I had walked back-and-forth from my classroom to the copy room several times) but I also dealt with a new disciplinary issue-- which is saying something because I thought I had dealt with it all-- but I have a student with long dreadlocks, which he likes to hang like a curtain in front of his face and eyes, Cousin It's style—and then sleep in class-- and after months of repeatedly waking him up, I finally got annoyed enough to write him up-- because he slept through a lockdown drill—and then we got into a debate about whether he was allowed to cover his eyes with his hair-- his perspective was "it's my hair," and my perspective was: I need to see your eyes to see if you're sleeping or not and that's why we have a no-hat rule and sometimes you have to deal with hair, such as in shop class you need to tie it back-- and though he complied yesterday and moved his hair out of his face but I have a feeling this is going to be contentious . . . we shall see.
Dave's School ID Does a Jeremy Renner
On "A" days, I usually walk outside during my off period with a couple of other English teachers, and though it was cold today, we decided to brave the elements and get some steps in-- we walked out the back gate and into the neighborhood and hiked through the icy and slushy suburban streets, avoiding several snowplows (we discussed Jeremy Renner's snowplow mishap while doing this) and then, once we made it back into the warmth of the school, I noticed that I lost my school ID and swipe card . . . it must have slipped off my body while we were walking, and I did NOT retrace my steps and try to find it (it probably met a similar fate to Jeremy Renner) so my reward for getting some fresh air is going to be a trip to the Board Office and a ten dollar fee.
Thanks! For Blowing People Up and Perpetuating the Human Race, So We Have More People to Blow Up!
I'm nearly finished with Patrick Ryan's small-town Ohio saga, Buckeye-- and the book features both harrowing tales from WWII and harrowing tales of pregnancy and child-rearing . . . so perhaps we should say "thank you for your service" to both soldiers and moms.
Hey Trump, We're Throwing the Red Flag
A Cold Day in Jersey is a Temperate Day in Minnesota
Crokinole , Primetime
My wife and I were watching the wonderful Australian show Colin from Accounts, and Gordon and Gene were having some incomprehensible, awkward conversation that we couldn't quite parse because of the Aussie accent, but then we realized that they were saying "crokinole," the fantastic Canadian game that I bought our household for Christmas-- apparently, the game is growing more popular by the minute!
Little Girl With a Big Voice
Last night's "battle of the bands' was very entertaining, but I did not realize that part of the responsibility of judging the contest was that I had to offer feedback to the bands after each song, American Idol style-- luckily, though there were three judges, I was the first to speak each time so I could grab the low hanging fruit and comment on it . . . and while all the bands were talented and fun, it wasn't really a contest, because the sophomore who was on The Voice had assembled an incredible band and she can REALLY sing, she just belted out her songs-- including Toto's "Hold the Line"-- very impressive, so much sound coming out of a little kid!
The Opera Isn't Over Until Dave Says a Bunch of Annoying Shit
I am judging a "battle of the bands" tonight at my high school, and apparently, there is a rubric to help us judge each band, but as the official English 12: Music and the Arts teacher, I feel it might be necessary to point out to whoever is running this event that musical taste is extremely subjective and depends upon how you perceive and value certain musical elements-- such as rhythm, melody, lyrics, authenticity, and timbre-- I'm all about timbre . . . but someone else might not value timbre the way I value timbre-- and then there's is how much novelty you can tolerate-- Ornette Coleman's free jazz isn't for everyone-- so in a sense it's almost impossible to judge music from a variety of genres-- you've got a better chance of making a qualified aesthetic assessment if you are only focusing on one particular genre: prog rock or hip-hop or boom-bap or UK trap . . . but I'm probably just going to keep my mouth shut and just check off the boxes.
Looming Precipative Dread
How can I concentrate on writing a sentence when an impending cataclysmic snowpocalypse is headed our way?-- especially when my wife's district budgeted ZERO snow days into the Edison school calendar (someone needs to tell her school board that the mandatory SEC warning applies for winter weather as well as stocks: past performance is not indicative of future results) and so she will most certainly lose days off her Spring Break-- and my district budgeted one measly snow day . . . I'll go out on a limb here (out on an icicle) and predict we will have three days off due to this storm . . . and it's not even February.
Headlines Fit for the Onion (If Only They Were Fictitious)
I don't know whether to laugh or cry lately when I read the Times . . . absurdity is hard to reckon with-- but I'm going to record a few actual updates and headlines for posterity:
Six Prosecutors Quit Over Push to Investigate ICE Shooting Victim's Widow
U.S. Stocks and Bonds Fall as Trump Ramps Up His Threats Over Greenland
Trump Wanted a Nobel, Now It's Greenland
and, of course, the only fitting place for our dickweed of a POTUS in Greenland . . . unemployed.
Teenagers, They're (Coco) Nuts
Last Tuesday night, just before bed-- after a long day of fitness: I played basketball in the morning and then went to PT for my hamstring in the afternoon-- I suffered something new, a hamstring cramp-- I've had calf cramps in the night, but never a hamstring cramp-- it was a painful and frightening two minutes-- and when I told my senior English this news, two bros, Frankie and Nico-- a wrestler and a weight-lifter-- insisted that I needed to drink Vita Coco coconut water because it contains lots of potassium and keeps you from cramping-- and I always like to take the advice of teenagers, more for the humor than the sagacity, so I bought a bottle and drank some today before playing pickleball and I am going to give those two students a firm talking-to because Vita Coco is disgusting in both consistency and flavor (and I love coconut) so I guess I'll have to stick to eating bananas (and this incident, as zman cleverly pointed out, is nearly a mirror image of a previous, rather awkward moment of Dave).
Picaresque Pairing
We finished a picaresque TV show last night-- The Lowdown-- which is about Lee Raybon, a rogue journalist (played in masterful Lebowski-esque fashion by Ethan Hawke) who tries to uncover the sordid truth about Tulsa . . . and I just finished a picaresque novel today-- Tim O'Brien's America Fantastica, which is also about a journalist, but a washed-up, ruined compulsive liar of a journalist, who travels through conspiratorial America, trying to make sense of nothing, O'Brien narrating the tale in the manner of Charles Portis, hurtling from one location to the next, one character to the next, in broadly derisive but always entertaining absurdist satire.
Hot and Cold
Saturday night, my son left the oven baking at 450 degrees all night-- he heated up some late-night pizza and then forgot to turn it off, so I awoke to a very warm kitchen (but luckily, the house did not burn down) and then two days ago, my wife came downstairs for breakfast, and it was freezing cold-- because my son left the sliding door open all night . . . perhaps his next mistake will make things just right.
Magical Micrographia
We Exist in an Afterthought
Today, after we watched a TED Talk about how bad architecture has ruined American cities, suburbs, and public spaces, I took my students on a "field trip" the the English Office, the cramped, claustrophobic, cluttered, and windowless space designated for the twenty English and Special Ed teachers that live upstairs in our high school to eat, socialize, plan, and rest between teaching class-- it's truly a soulless and ugly space and the fact that some paid adult with an architectural degree actually designed this space as an office for teachers is mind-boggling and very sad.
Out of My Depth
After attending morning basketball for the first time in a few weeks (the steroid shot in my knee seems ot be working) I am covering a Senior Health class today-- a number of students and teachers are out of school because the service for the student that got shot and killed is in Paterson today-- and I'm not sure if I could actyually teach this class with a straight face: there's a handout on the teacher's desk and the first words on it are "fetus" and "semen" and the kids are doing some project about contraception-- my only advice was that children are very expensive, especially if they drive a car or go to college.
Quite a Monday
Today was a long and emotionally taxing day at school—but there were emotional support dogs.
Ugly Monday Looming . . .
Not looking forward to going to school tomorrow: apparently, an East Brunswick senior was shot and killed yesterday by another teenager in Sayreville-- it's going to be a sad day, not sure how the seniors are going to react to this.
To Prepare, I Took a Long Nap
My friend is having a 60th birthday party tonight, and it starts at 8 PM . . . that's nearly past my bedtime, and I'm only 55!
Some Good TV
Some high-quality TV recommendations:
1) if you're looking for something dark and artsy (and filmed in Italy in beautifully rendered black and white) and you don't want a ton of unnecessarily loud special effects (e.g., Stranger Things), then check out Andrew Scott as Ripley;
2) if you're looking for a different kind of alien apocalypse and some phenomenal acting from Rhea Seehorn, check out Pluribus;
3) if you love The Big Lebowski, then check out Ethan Hawke playing a shambolic character loosely based on the Tulsa citizen journalist Lee Roy Chapman in The Lowdown.
GoldiDave
As I get older, I like the cold less and less-- I used to love it, but now it makes my knee ache and my body stiff-- but because it was unseasonably warm today and our school building's heating system is ancient and defective, the English Office was HOT . . . roasting hot, hot enough that we were sweating while eating lunch-- and thusly I remembered that I don't like the heat either . . . I'm only happy when the temperature is just right.
Poem of Dave
When I get old and pass away,
this is all I want them to say:
there was a guy named Dave
and he wrote a sentence every single fucking day.
Dave Mans Up in Front of the Ladies
I'm hoping that this doesn't become more frequent than an annual tradition, but I once again went to the sports medicine doctor-- Dr. Navia-- and (once again) she said that the best way to fix my knee was to stick a giant needle in it, full of some kind of steroid (cortisone? I didn't ask) and once again, she had an intern with her-- and while Dr. Navia is young, her intern appeared much younger-- childlike, a female Doogie Howser-- and, on a positive note, things were better than last winter, when my knee was full of fluid and also needed to be drained-- this time, I was more proactive-- and (once again) because it was two young ladies diagnosing me, I agreed to let them stick a large needle in my knee (I didn't want to look like a coward in front of them, but I think if it were a dude, I would have passed) and then Dr. Navia asked if it would be okay for the intern to administer the giant needle, and while my brain was saying "NO!" my mouth said, "sure," and then they talked some shop about where to stick this big needle-- I'm not sure if the intern ever did this before-- and my hands were sweating, as I gripped the examination table, and I looked at the wall instead of at the big needle-- but they numbed me up pretty good, so all I felt was a bunch of pressure-- not all that much shooting pain-- and then it was over and I limped back to the car and went home and fell asleep early and then woke up in the middle of the night, totally amped and hyper-- that's one of the side effects of getting a steroid injection-- but miraculously, today my knee feels great and I can run again and I'll be playing pickleball this Friday and basketball next week . . . so it looks like a I won't need gel shots for a couple of years, unless I really fuck it up.
Elite Summer Camp, Elite Apartment Building . . . Same Difference
Liz Moore's fantastic novel The God of the Woods is both an excellent thriller and a multi-generational family saga; it feels a bit like a Donna Tartt novel-- although not quite as expansive-- and has something in common with another book I read recently and loved: The Doorman by Chris Pavone-- in both there is the conflict and collaboration between social classes, especially the relationship between the uber-rich and the service industry class that often caters to these privileged rich folk . . . here's what Judy, a female state police investigator-- a real rarity in the 1970s—thinks about the dynamic between these two classes of people:
What will she do now, wonders Judy, if the Hewitts lose the camp? If the Van Laars cut them out entirely, as they’ll no doubt do, snapping the thin thread that has stretched for decades between the Hewitts and Peter the First? And she answers her question herself: They’ll be fine. The Hewitts—like Judy, like Louise Donnadieu, like Denny Hayes, even—don’t need to rely on anyone but themselves. It’s the Van Laars, and families like them, who have always depended on others.
anyway, The Doorman and The God of the Woods are the two best novels I've read in quite a while, chekc them out . . . I've got to head to the sports medicine doctor to get my knee checked out.
But He Deserved It . . .
Yesterday, in the YMCA locker room, an older guy next to me was whistling Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"-- the chorus AND the verse-- and I'm proud to say that I did not punch him in the face.
Do Dogs Understand Phase Transition?
Capitalism Undone . . . by Mutants
To kick off 2026, I finished yet another Clifford D. Simak classic sci-fi novel, Ring Around the Sun, and this one is full of big ideas: pristine parallel earths; mutant humans--who may or may not know they are mutants; telepathy with alien races; corporeal temporal stasis; consciousness transfers-- it's too much for one book (from 1952!) but it is mainly a story of scarcity and abundance and how to break our capitalist, materialist consumer society with "forever" products engineered by mutant humans and imported from various parallel earths, to break the supply-and-demand system and allow humans to progress to something transcendent-- but at what cost, at what cost?
There's More to Life Than Table Tennis, Right?
My wife and I rang in the New Year with a trip to the Rutgers Cinema to see Marty Supreme, which was a highly entertaining way to start 2026-- the film is packed with fast-paced dialogue, chaotic action scenes, and plenty of scams and hustles, plus a concatenation of Safdie-style bad decisions . . . and as a bonus, the table tennis feels authentic (although not as authentic as this clip of the actual Marty Reisman defeating Victor Barna in 1949) and though most of the movie is a wild and messy ride, the story has a lovely resolution and moral: there's more to life than table tennis.