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.