5/19/2009

Tell No One is a sharp, emotionally draining French thriller in the vein of The Fugitive, and I give it sixteen croissants out of a possible seventeen . . . but the only complaint I have is that the Frenchman who plays the lead looks WAY too much like Dustin Hoffman, to the point where at times I thought Dustin Hoffman was making a cameo in the film, but then I would realize that it was just Francois Cluzet again-- this was very distracting, and I'm not sure what the remedy is-- maybe the foreign film market is only big enough for one of them, and they should shoot it out at high noon or maybe they should only appear jointly in movies where they always play separated twins, one raised in France and one in America . . . the odd thing is, everyone seems to know about this uncanny resemblance (thus the split image, it popped right up on Google) BUT NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

5/18/2009

While I was driving back from Wawa, I saw a mailman look at a piece of mail, then throw his hand in the air, then look back behind him angrily-- but then, get this, he didn't turn around and walk back to where he looked: so that piece of mail is definitely in the sewer.

5/17/2009

Young people having sex is pornography, old people having sex is slapstick: what kind of movie are you in?

5/16/2009

After Catherine deduced what happened with the Magic Bullet, she said she might need to start a blog titled "Sentence About Dave" but she's obviously not an avid enough reader of my blog-- because it's already been done (although it wasn't very long-lived, but how many of you can say you both write a blog and have had a blog written exclusively about you? how many of you? none of you! unless your name is Paris Hilton . . . so I'm in good company).

Philadelphia: The Cheese Isn't Just on the Steaks

I took the kids to the Philadelphia Museum of Art yesterday, which they enjoyed-- there is a good collection of armor and halberds and pikes and swords and old guns and a decent sampling of all the masters, modern and ancient, including a great painting of Prometheus with his liver being eaten by a giant eagle-- and they also enjoyed the famous view of Philly from the terrace, but when I showed them the clip from Rocky when he runs up those same steps, they didn't seem to enjoy that very much-- maybe because the 70's keyboard in the theme song is exponentially cheesier than you remember.

5/14/2009

Apparently, to get the Magic Bullet to actually chop anything, you have to attach some kind of sharp spinny thing-- otherwise, it just makes an annoying noise (another lesson learned during my week of preparing dinner . . . that was my mother's day gift to Catherine, I thought it would be easy but it's going to kill me).

Ian Gets Stung While Wearing Pajamas

Rough week for Ian: he got bit on the arm by a kid at school-- the biter's teeth made vampire fang marks but luckily the kid had all his shots; Ian also has a cut under his foreskin; and, on top of that, last night, while he was in his pajamas, after story time, moments before he was about to snuggle up in bed, he stepped on a bee that found it's way into out house (probably on my clothes while I was planting a tree) and so we went from serenity to hysteria; I grabbed the bee off his foot and threw it, but I couldn't find the stinger, and then I couldn't find the bee and wondered if someone else was going to step on it . . . but Catherine managed to locate it, and it was dead, and the stinger was lodged between Ian's toes-- a tender spot and hard to get at (kid's toes are tiny!) but he handled it like a little man and definitely know he's not allergic now.

5/12/2009

Wisdom from a jaded five year old to his younger brother: after a LONG Sunday, the boys finally finished their dinner and Alex asked if he could have a treat; I told him that his treat tonight was a shower, and while he was stomping up the steps he said to Ian, "This treat is a rip-off."

Godzilla Movies Are Funny Because They Are Dubbed

Catherine and I started watching the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In and it was dubbed, so after a moment I switched the audio to Swedish and put on the sub-titles; Catherine then called me "the most annoying person in the world," which I said was a little extreme, and then I told her that everyone switches from dubbing to sub-titles if it's available (except the Italians, who demand all movies be dubbed-- they can't stomach hearing any language but their own) and we made a ten dollar bet about what audio setting the person who recommended the movie used, so this sentence is TO BE CONTINUED (but I am correct, right-- no one listens to the dubbing, do they?)

5/10/2009

I told Alex that some clovers have four leaves and that these are considered lucky, and for a while he searched for one, but was unsuccessful . . . and then he told me that "luck wasn't real, anyway" so it didn't matter (so now I suppose I have to tell him the story of the fox and the grapes).

Use Soap?

At our faculty meeting there was discussion about the swine flu and certain concerns were expressed-- including one woman who brought up the fact that to procure soap from the dispenser, you must touch the metal pump with the palm of your hand . . . and that this could be a vector of H1N1 transmission: despite this possibility, I'm going to follow Tom Hanks' odd and on-the-nose advice to Tawny Kitaen in Bachelor Party . . . he tells her: "Have a fun shower-- use soap!"

5/8/2009

Charlie Kaufman's new film Synecdoche, New York is tragic, but it reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite in one important way: both movies are kind of tough to sit through, but definitely entertaining to think about once you've watched them (but I still prefer Eternal Sunshine and Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, which are fun both to watch and to think about).

5/7/2009

A few weeks ago, Catherine must have put the floss away in the little box that holds deodorant and brushes and I didn't see it in there until this morning . . . so for the past couple of weeks, out of sight truly was out of mind, in fact I had forgot that there was even such a thing as flossing-- normally I look at the floss and feel guilty about not flossing (but rarely floss) but once the floss was removed from my line of sight, it actually disappeared from my brain as well.

5/6/2009

I like to think that I try to do a small part for the environment: I've stopped drinking out of disposable plastic, I try to abstain from eating large mammals because of the waste they produce, and--when possible-- I walk instead of drive . . . and I try to convince my students that these small differences make a big difference when everyone changes their behavior, but occasionally I push my luck, as I did last week when I tried to convince my creative writing class--composed mainly of females-- that they should buy one dress that they can use for the prom, their wedding, and any other formal occasion-- and, to drive the point home, I may have even lied and told them that we made my wife's wedding dress into a set of napkins and a bedspread, but, though the idea was met with disgust and repulsion, perhaps it will germinate in their heads and one of them will start a revolution which will cripple the fashion industry but cut consumption of clothing exponentially (and at the very least, this creative writing class, which started out very shy and quiet, to the point that I wondered if they would ever talk, has now become vociferous, outspoken, and often verging on violence because they have bonded in order to attack a common enemy-- which is me).

My House of Cards is Impregnable!

I'm a couple hundred pages into William D. Cohan's book House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, a minute by minute account of Bear Sterns financial apocalypse-- and while I can't really recommend it, it's technical with a lot of big numbers and the wretched excess and hubris is pretty understated, when compared to The Winter's Tale or King Lear-- I will say this: it seems if that if people think there's a problem with your brokerage house-- if the stockholders or the repo people or the overnight credit people or the analysts or the ratings companies or the SEC or the banks or FED or the writers at Fortune or the rumor-mill or anyone else even entertains these thoughts, then the thoughts can create a mathematical reality and a meltdown can happen at the speed of an idea . . . and the other thing I learned while wading through the numbers, which are all in the billions, is just how funny it is when Dr. Evil tries to hold the world ransom for "one million dollars."

5/4/2009

I'm thinking of creating a spin-off blog titled Fragment of Dave, where I

5/3/2009

I'm giving the second season of The Riches one million bloody hammers out of a possible five: Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver and all the other actors are great, and it is the most stressful show to watch-- while still being funny-- since Deadwood (and it has that same method of starting each show ten seconds after the last show ended).

5/2/2009

After the fat man heard about the shark attack, he puffed his big cigar and said, "That's why I don't swim."

5/1/2009

Little did she know, but the young lady in the lane next to me (who was certainly a college-level swimmer, or possibly a professional swimmer, but most likely some kind of cyborg government swimming experiment-- genetically modified with certain part replaced by machinery) was in the race of her life . . . against me, just a regular human, not even wearing a Speedo-- and that is why I am so sore today.

Last Wishes

I would prefer not to die of the "swine flu," as there is nothing more embarrassing than people repeating "swine flu" over and over at your funeral (if I had my druthers, I would prefer to be eaten by a large carnivore) but there is a more humiliating way to "shuffle off this mortal coil" than swine flu: testicular elephantiasis.

4/29/2009

I guess it is unusual for a dude to buy fabric by the yard at Wal-Mart, but I needed some thick material to staple to the plywood walls in my little music studio to deaden the echo . . . the girl who worked in the sewing and crafts department was so amused by my awkwardness that she gave me an "extra spin" (which is not nearly as dirty as it sounds-- it just means she rolled an extra yard around my bolt of fabric without charging me for it, actually-- that sounds dirty as well).

4/28/2009

I see the appeal of Dancing with the Stars: the girls are really hot and scantily clad, so you can't stop watching because you want to get a clear look at them but you can't get a clear look because they move their bodies so quickly, convincing you that they are wearing less than they are actually wearing, but then once they stop, you realize they were wearing more than you thought while they were dancing-- or maybe some people actually like to watch dance?

4/28/2009

So my students are presenting various ethical dilemmas and how to resolve them, and a group of boys is presenting a case about plagiarism and the kid who is talking has on the exact same green and white striped golf shirt as me, so I very dryly ask him: "But how far do you go with this idea, for instance, if someone were to wear the same exact shirt as someone else, could that be said to be plagiarism? would it be intellectual theft? to wear the same shirt?" but he didn't get it, and neither did anyone in the class; in fact, one smart girl said, "Mr. Pellicane, I don't think that's a very good parallel to their dilemma" and so finally I had to point out my joke, which is not very funny at all . . . and then we had to backtrack and let the boy reiterate what he said because I wasn't paying attention to him, I was just thinking about setting up my brilliant joke, which obviously wasn't so funny.

4/27/2009

Enough of this hot weather, I'm ready for winter again.

King of the Road

I like to think that I'm a pretty calm driver, but this must not be genetic (or else my kids inherited some bad driving genes from my wife) because my children are absolute assholes on their big-wheel tricycles: the other day at the park, Alex nearly ran over a dog, and I think he may have intended to hit it; Ian actually ran a little Asian woman off the path and into the mud-- and I know this was with intent-- I watched him go out of his way to accomplish this; and after I took Ian's big-wheel away and made him walk, Alex who Catherine had instructed not to drive through a deep puddle, went ahead and did it anyway, and then tried to zip around Catherine and Ian, but cut it too close and ran Ian over, giving him road rash on his arm and knee . . . and this was just one particular ride on one particular day and we do a couple laps around the park with similar results every day . . . so the question is why do I continue to embarrass and torture myself and the answer is that I have a very short memory, because every day that it's not raining it seems like a good idea to me to take a relaxing cruise around the park: hope springs eternal in my optimistic mind that today will be the day that everyone behaves in a civilized manner.

4/25/2009

Our neighbors (who were in their kitchen eating lunch) got a treat this weekend when they saw me trick Catherine into cutting my hair-- she thought she was giving me my usual, a number one head shave, but I had grown my hair out over break and wanted her to trim the sides with the angled attachment for the clipper, but she insisted she couldn't do it and I had to resort to vociferous and loud persuasion until finally she took a swipe at me and cut a gouge in my head, which made her very angry and she refused to cut the other side and even it out and by this time we were both yelling and I took the clippers and cut the other side myself, without a mirror because we were in the backyard and I pleaded with her to cut the rest but she refused and told me to go to the barber, which I did, but it was Sunday and the barber was closed, so then the whole thing started up again, still in the backyard so the Coens could watch and I finally got her to shave my head in the usual style and now I'll probably never grow my hair out again even though there is some hair up there, but I'll never get to enjoy it because I'm too cheap to go to the barber (even though in the midst of our argument Catherine told me that I don't care about my appearance and asked how I would like it if she acted like that and then she threatened to get really fat and not wash or comb her hair-- but I knew this was an empty threat because she's too vain to actually go through with that just to punish me).

Peccary vs. Pessary

The Group (by Mary McCarthy) is a frank book about eight Vassar girls in the 1930's who speak candidly about men, sex, contraception, finances, and sexism-- and though I pride myself on my extensive vocabulary,  I had to look up the word "pessary". . . and I'll bet that you don't know what a "pessary" is either, and we are not talking about a "peccary," we are talking about a "pessary"-- and believe me, they are not interchangeable at all.

You Fix One Thing . . .

Let it be known that my bookshelves are done and painted-- but that means I have to remove the boxes and boxes of books that I stashed under our beautiful handmade Syrian sleigh bed, which is a creaking, sagging piece of crap-- the boxes of books are holding the mattress up-- and so now I will have to fix THAT.

A First For Dave (and Possibly All Men)

I am very pleased with what maintenance did to the thermostat in my classroom during Spring Break; when I came back there was a note on the white board that said "The slider now controls the room temperature" and I like to keep my class really cold (I'm always hot and it keeps the kids awake-- plus human memory works better in the cold, kind of like a computer) and I usually do this by opening all the windows, which generates a lot of complaints, especially from the ladies, and sometimes outright rebellion-- they start climbing on the cabinets and closing the windows, despite my threats-- but yesterday I was able to get the room really cold without opening the windows, and then when my creative writing class, composed mainly of girls, came in and shivered, I pointed to the windows and said, "I know, it's cold in here so I kept all the windows closed today" and they BOUGHT IT and said, "We know, it's not you today, it just feels cold in here" and I'm very proud of this because it is the first time I have ever beaten a bunch of women in a battle of wits.

4/21/2009

So it turns out yesterday was Earth Day, Pot Day (I looked up why, the legend is that a crew of California high school kids in the 70's would always meet at Pasteur's statue to get stoned at 4:20 PM, which was the time detention let out) The Ten year Anniversary of Columbine, Hitler's Birthday and the Day Benny Hill died: which did you celebrate?

4/20/2009

The other night we watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was quite good-- the studly Spanish painter teaches you how to pick up two beautiful women at one time, he's quite skillful in both art and love, but even more impressive is my artistic eye . . . we knew nothing about the movie, just took it out of the Netflix sleeve and popped it in the player, but as it started I said, "That's Woody Allen's FONT! They stole Woody Allen's FONT! " and in a moment we learned that it is actually Woody Allen film . . . so I guessed the director by the font of the credits: although my wife wasn't particularly impressed with my precognizant aesthetic sense, I'm sure there are hordes of beautiful young women who will read this and swoon.

4/19/2009

While I was peeling a large ripe mango, my son Alex asked me: "What rhymes with mango?" and I impressed myself with the quantity and quality of my answer-- if you want to play along, stop reading now and see what you can come up with . . . I quickly said, "Durango-- a town in Colorado-- tango-- a Spanish dance-- Django (Reinhardt)-- a four fingered gypsy guitar player--and fandango, a movie website and also some kind of exotic dance" but Alex wasn't that impressed and he said "You forgot 'mango'" and laughed, perhaps thinking of the time Homer Simpson appreciated when his softball team rhymed "Homer" with "homer."

This Guy's Picture Is In The Dictionary Under "Man"

High marks for David Graham's new book The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Forest (I give it eleven poisoned arrows out of twelve) but I definitely felt lame and civilized reading it on the beach, nursing a Spring break hangover, my toes in the surf, kids digging contentedly in the sand, contemplating which seafood joint we should frequent in between pages-- this guy Percy Fawcett was a man (despite his first name) and though his adventures eventually killed him, he makes Indiana Jones look like a flower sniffer.

4/17/2009

Radio newscasters need transitions: "Beautiful day today, Going up to 62 with plenty of sunshine, unemployment is still on the rise in New Jersey . . ."

Andre the Giant as a Thespian? Inconceivable!

Yesterday, I was behind a green box truck with an official black and white sign on the back that read: INEDIBLE BAKED GOODS . . . this reminds me of The Princess Bride-- when Andre the Giant tells the Evil Sicilian that the word "inconceivable" does not mean "what you think it means."

The Invention of Air: A Solid Review

Steven Johnson's excellent new book The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America is mainly the story of scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestly, who had a Forrest Gump-like ability to be in the right place at the right time (until the rioters burned his house down and he had to seek sanctuary in America) but it's also a reminder, for me, at least, of how radical the founding fathers were as thinkers, and how much science and logic were a part of their thought process . . . to the point where Jefferson expunged all the magic and mysticism out of the Bible and created his own edition and the usually optimistic and chipper Ben Franklin, drawn away from his cherished science and into politics at the end of his life, ended up writing sentences like this (thus making him a compatriot of mine in both opinion and style): "Men I find to be a Sort of Beings very badly constructed, as they are generally more easily provoked than reconciled, more disposed to do Mischief to each other than to make Reparation, much more easily deceived than undeceived, and having more Pride & Pleasure in killing than in begetting one another, for without a Blush they assemble in great armies at Noon Day to destroy, and when they have killed as many as they can, they exaggerate the Number to augment the fancied Glory; but they creep into Corners or cover themselves with the Darkness of Night, when they mean to beget, as being ashamed of Virtuous Action."

Expectations vs. Reality

The first morning of our vacation I got up early to read, and Alex woke up soon after and he told me his favorite part of the day was sunrise, when the sky was "purplish orange" and he sat down and looked at a book and everything was peaceful and wonderful and then he asked if we could play chess and I said, "Sure" and made him a bowl of cereal and then I went to the car to get the magnetic chessboard . . . and in the two minutes I was gone Alex violently bit his tongue, screamed bloody murder, ran to the bedroom to wake up Catherine, found the bed-room door closed, yanked on it-- not knowing that Ian, woken up by the screams-- was pulling on the other side, got into a tug of war with the door . . . which ended when Ian let go and the door smashed Alex in the face-- and all this happened while I was gone-- so I tiptoed back into the condo with the chessboard to this grisly scene and realized that vacation had officially begun.

4/13/2009 I am back from vacation!

Something NOT to do on vacation: go out for many beers with your old college buddies, wake up the next morning and eat two extremely dense made to order donuts, then go to the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island and climb down into the hold of the Elizabeth II, a replica of the boat the colonists came on four hundred years ago-- because it's really claustrophobic down there and it's slowly rocking from the waves-- which is never good when you're hung-over-- and there's fifty eighth graders on a school trip, and, most difficult of all, there are dudes in authentic colonial garb, who talk with accents, and pretend that THEY ARE FROM COLONIAL TIMES . . . and they never break character, even with the adults-- which scares me, it's fine to pretend with the kids, but I don't know who they're trying to fool or if maybe they hire insane people who actually think they're from the late 16th century or what, but I'd like to know where they go at night and if they drive a car there.

Momma Spanx . . . The Director's Cut

When an attractive pregnant woman on the phone in the office politely asks "Do you have Momma Spanks? The full length version?"-- what crosses your mind? . . . because I know what crossed my mind-- a very,very dirty film-- a dirty film with two versions: an extra-long uncut version with LOTS of incestuous spanking and other bizarre sexual practices, and a shorter, edited, and tamer version-- but my attractively pregnant colleague was insisting on purchasing the unabridged and extra-perverse version, and my mind was ripe with curiosity as to why the tamer version wasn't sufficient for her sexual deviance-- but as it turns out, "Momma Spanks" is not a pornographic film . . . it is a type of slimming panty-hose for pregnant women and these "Spanx" come in two lengths, full and half . . . and the lesson here is that I should have never asked, as my fantasy was far more wonderful than reality.

A Rule To Live By

You know you're getting the stomach-ache you deserve when your wife picks up a block of cheese that you left on the counter and says "You didn't eat this, did you?" and you say "Yeah, why?" and she says, "Because it's covered in mold" and your five year old son chimes in with this adage: "You should really look at food before you eat it, Daddy."

4/10/2009

This semester my Creative Writing class is comprised of a bunch of girls: they hate it when I open all the windows and 90% of them know what a "seam ripper" is (a term that appeared in a girl's poem, which I was curious about).

4/9/2009

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree-- Alex said to me, "I don't know everything, Dad, but I know a lot."

4/8/2009

Although the Pulp song "Common People" is one of my favorites, Jarvis Cocker's premise has been refuted: there's plenty of rich folk living like common people in England these days (I mainly wrote this sentence so I could refer to Jarvis Cocker-- that's one of the best names ever, right up there with Dick Trickle and Horselover Fat).

4/7/2009

The Spiderwick Chronicles is pretty good as far as those kind of movies go, better than Harry Potter, but it is definitely not for young kids-- it's actually scary and we're going to have to wait a couple of years before we watch it with Alex and Ian.

4/6/2009

I thought I had a lot in common with my nerdy students, but after seeing last Friday's "Collision" Dance Competition I realize this may not be true-- they can dance (but I also saw that the key to dancing is to have long black straight hair to fling around, so I'm growing mine out).

4/5/2009

Long ago, at a wine tasting festival in Virginia, I got a chance to meet Sam Snead-- I ambled into the tent, said, "Hey Sam, can you still kick out a light-bulb?"-- something i had heard he could do when he was young and limber-- and was escorted outside by the bouncers.

4/4/2009

I was excited that my son Alex (5 years old) was holding his own in a game of chess with an older kid-- it was a new plateau, they were quietly playing in the living room while we talked to our friends-- but obviously Ian didn't see it that way, he's only three and he still doesn't know how all the pieces move, so I guess he felt left out and he expressed his frustration by spitting on the board.

Of Triffids and Chrysalids

Some science-fiction reviews: Danny Boyle's Sunshine is pretty good, lots of slow-paced space scenes like 2001 and some actual science to back it up, but it gets confusing and presses for a big ending; John Wyndham's 1955 novel The Chrysalids is really good, a precognisant story of religion, mutation, and evolution: lots to think about, and it actually has a working plot and realistic dialogue . . . so now I've got to read his other famous one: The Day of the Triffids.

Grown Men Should Not Possess Fruit Roll-ups

Catastrophe averted: I removed a fruit roll-up from my shirt pocket just BEFORE I threw the shirt into the wash.

4/1/2009

Bad news: I'm wrapping it up, I'm packing it in . . . I've got no more to say-- I've run out of ideas and my life isn't interesting or significant enough to continue this blog . . . plus, I've had an epiphany, writing these sentences is self-indulgent and selfish, I should spend more time with my family, or better yet, doing charitable deeds . . . I just can't justify it any longer, and then there's the run-ons, the grammar errors, the lack of punctuation and proof-reading and the images that barely connect to the sentence: so I'd like to thank you all for reading and commenting (although part of me thinks this is all your fault) and I am now on to bigger and better things, spiritual transcendence, perhaps, or just greater humility about my place in the universe.

3/31/2009

I left my car at the Grove Friday night, Catherine met me out after the Collision Dance Competition and when it was time to go, I thought it would be more fun to ride home with her and listen to satellite radio (we DEFINITELY did not leave my car there because I had too much to drink) and when Catherine dropped me off the next morning we saw a few other scattered cars in the lot and laughed about the other over-indulgers that had to leave their vehicles and then two of the cars moved-- and they were BOTH teachers, it was a long week and everyone was a chaperon for the Competition, because of the near riot last year -- so we chatted and laughed about that coincidence and then wondered if certain regulars always met in the parking lot on Saturday morning to fetch their cars, grunted at each other in half remembrance and then went about their day, foggy and hungover.

3/30/2009

The Sentence of Dave now-- at no extra cost to you, the reader-- provides links to the opinion section of both The Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle; so there is no excuse, after reading a sentence by Dave (TM) you can then analyze Dave's opinion through a conservative and a liberal lens, and then-- and only then-- can you arrive at a fair and balanced insult to hurl at Dave (who will be the first to admit how annoying it is when people refer to themselves in the third person, and will anticipate and dismiss any insults on that particular theme).

3/29/2009

Senioritis has arrived: several of my seniors were trying to cover their second semester text book by wrapping (not taping) a single sheet of 8 by 11 paper around the book (one student used the tissue paper canary yellow detention form for being late to class).

3/28/2009

My younger son Ian's reaction when Alex went to swim lessons but he did not (his age group was all filled up for this session) was awful (but also kind of funny, just because he's so cute)-- he went upstairs, crept into his bed, and curled up in a state of abject depression; when I asked him what was wrong, he said, "I want to be BIG-- I want to be big like you, Daddy."

Warning Warning.

The warning for today's sentence may be unnecessarily ironic.

Irony Warning!

The meaning of today's sentence may not be what it literally says! Dave might actually be content with his monotonous life! The events that he speculates about might actually be happening! Danger! Danger! Irony!

Rinse, Repeat . . . Pretty Sweet

My life has been so boring and monotonous lately (get up early, practice the guitar, go to work, grade essays, come home, have a snack, play with the kids, talk to Catherine, take Alex to swim lessons, help cook dinner, drink two beers, watch half a movie, read for twenty minutes, fall asleep, repeat ad infinitum) that I almost wish something cataclysmic would happen: perhaps the world economy could collapse, or the ice caps could start melting, or we could have a mass extinction similar to the one at the end of the Cretaceous . . . but then I think, it's not good to root for awful things to happen and I should be happy with my mundane life.

3/26/2009

In case anyone is concerned, my cyst wound is healing nicely, because I have good "tissue granulation," but maybe this was just the doctor blowing smoke up my ass, because he also said that when this is all said and done, I might have a "stela" shaped mark on my back-- which sounds really nice, but apparently means a scar in the shape of a cross (and all I could find about "stelae"-- which is the plural of "stela"-- were definitions about funerary towers . . . thus the image).

3/25/2009

In these hard economic times, it is important to remember that there are two ways to look at any political issue, and it is also important to remember that both ways are most certainly wrong.

3/24/2009

The ticket lady cautioned us that the Imax movie Sea Monsters was a bit scary, and I thought she was referring to the acting-- the B movie actors playing the paleontologists were outright awful (since when does one paleontologist say to another, "You'd better get your tools!")-- but my son Ian took this more literally: he nearly jumped out of his skin when the Tylosaur came from the blue depths and swallowed the super-sized shark in one gulp.

3/23/2009

I am wondering just how angry I am supposed to get at my children when they do not listen to me; I know it's bad for my heart to get angry, and I know it scares the hell out of my kids, but they DO NOT respond to my voice (or my wife's voice) until they detect rage-- until then, they just don't think it's pressing enough to respond; so the question is: do I allow them to be run over by a truck or fall into an open sewer or get gored by a rampant bison to avoid looking like an enraged lunatic in public, or do I continue roaming the earth red-faced, always either about to yell or just getting over a fit of yelling?

3/22/2009

It took thirty three years for me to learn that Evelyn Waugh was a man.

3/21/2009

A student told me this story yesterday, and it was so bad that I have reproduced it here verbatim: "Last night at work, I met this guy and he totally reminded me of this other guy I know."

3/20/2009

Does anyone know where I put my banjo finger-picks?

The State is Never Right

If there's one thing I've learned about politics from reading Nixonland: the rise of a president and the fracturing of America, it is that neither political party is for states' rights: if a state wants to legalize medicinal marijuana or pass civil rights laws, then the Republicans are against states' rights . . . and if a state wants to make abortion illegal or remain segregated, then the Democrats are against state's rights.

3/18/2009

If you live each day like it is your last, then very soon one of them will be . . . if you live life to the fullest, soon you will be very fat (or at least that's what would happen to me . . . maybe some people would spend time with their family or repent their sins or do a lot of crack, but I have a feeling that if someone told me I had one day left to cram in everything I could, I would be most concerned about planning my meals-- I think that I would skip breakfast foods entirely, and instead have tamales with mole sauce for breakfast, and then go from there . . .)

The Wrestler: This One Hit Me Below the Belt

I give The Wrestler nineteen staple-gun wounds out of a possible twenty-- and it's worth seeing on the big screen because the movie is almost entirely visual-- the screenplay must have been a pamphlet-- and, I must warn you, it is PAINFUL to watch this thing-- you're not sure if you're watching the decay of a fictitious character called Randy the Ram, or if it's actually Mickey Rourke falling apart on screen: it's painful to watch him take a shower, walk down the street, try to read a book, play his own character on a Nintendo game with a neighborhood kid, work the deli counter, et cetera-- and though Marissa Tomei-- Randy's stripper love interest-- is naked a lot, which was one of the reasons I wanted to see the movie, she's not very sexy: she's painfully skinny, her face is drawn and tired, and, Like Randy, she's a little too old to be in a profession that relies on a youthful body; as a bonus, the movie is set in New Jersey, and between the grainy film and the Acme that time forgot (in Rahway?) and a scene on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, this story makes the New Jersey of the Sopranos look like Beverly Hills.

Two Reasons to See Happy

I give Mike Leigh's new movie Happy Go Lucky nine trampolines out of a possible ten-- it's very funny and the soundtrack reminds me of the opening theme of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

3/15/2009

We did a double take and then used the internet to check the facts, but it is sad but true-- the median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was 7,500 dollars . . . that's right seven thousand five hundred dollars, writing it out insures that you know that I didn't make a typographic error; this is what I propose: we all buy vacation homes on the same block and instead of summering in the Hamptons or Chatham, we head out to our Detroit porches to drink Mad-dog 20/20 and hit the rock-- not only will we be saving money, but someday Detroit will rise again and we can cash in . . . so who's with me?

3/14/2009

As my sophomores liked to nebulously state in their essays: Alexander Rodriguez and I are similar and different . . . we are similar because we both just had our cysts drained, but we are different because ARod is going to need six to nine weeks of recovery, while I played indoor soccer four days later (albeit poorly, and sweating copious amounts of wine and take-out Indian food-- it was no treat to cover me, I'm sure).

My Greatest Contribution to Western Culture

Edison had his light-bulb, the Wright brothers their aeroplane, and Ben Franklin his eponymous stove . . . but I don't think I will ever invent anything tangible . . . although I HAVE invented something incredibly useful, but it is a concept, not a thing: my invention is a dinner-time mind-trick called the "don't eat it" game; when you want your kids to eat something, you simply point at the item and say, very seriously, "Do NOT eat those green beans, especially not those three-- those are mine and I don't want you to eat them" and then you go back to eating your meal, and inevitably, the child will take the green beans you pointed at, steal a glance, make a devilish face, and then scarf them down . . . because it's fun to disobey; the funny thing is, now my kids know the trick, but they often still insist that I do it just because they enjoy it so much, and they eat so much faster if we play-- even though they know they are being manipulated; I know my creation isn't as valuable as the polio vaccine or the internal combustion engine, but it has caused me more happiness than either of those inventions . . . plus it's portable and very cheap to manufacture.

3/12/2009

My five year old son Alex told my wife that his friend Tiko said he "didn't like Jews" so they had an awkward and serious conversation about racism and prejudice, but it turns out (this was clarified at dinner last night, inadvertently in a story about how Tiko was eating strawberries) that Tiko has no problem with those of the Jewish faith, it is "juice" that he abhors (perhaps he meant O.J. Simpson, which may or may not warrant another serious discussion).

Kids Say the Darndest Crassest Things

I thought the youth of today were crass, but check out this tasteless gem from Rick Perlstein's new weighty book on American politics, Nixonland: "In October of 1967, militants marched on the Pentagon, sporting signs like JOHNSON PULL OUT-- LIKE YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE."

3/10/2009

Do other people, when they sample free meats, cheeses, and crackers from the enticing little bubble shaped displays at the grocery store, chew slowly and pretend to savor the tidbit-- as if saying, I'm taking my time and tasting and evaluating this item, because if it's really good, I might purchase it-- even though there's no way in hell they're going to purchase it, and they are actually just feeding their faces . . . or is it just me?