Carousel of Torture

Although I highly recommend The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World-- for the maps and the descriptions of rides, attractions, food, and traffic patterns in the parks-- I also think the writers are completely insane, for one very good reason . . . give me a moment to explain: my parents offered to wait in the twenty minute line for The Haunted Mansion with my kids, giving my wife and I a few precious minutes of free time (our plan was to meet them back in Tomorrowland at the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, which would give Catherine and I time to grab a beer while we waited-- little did we know that The Magic Kingdom is a dry land after all) and since there was no beer to drink, we went on the PeopleMover and nearly fell asleep, and then, in our somnolent state, we ambled into an "audioanimatronic theater production" called "Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress," which begins with a scene in a kitchen in the early 1900's where a mustachioed man talks about the technology of the day, and then the theater rotates to another kitchen-- a few decades later-- and the same man talks about the technology, and there's some stuff going on in the wings, some youngsters with a desire to do their hair in beehives and dance, and a girl trying to lose weight with some kind of belt contraption, and then the ride went a bit haywire, and the mustachioed man-- who had the look of a third-rate porn star-- kept singing the same song over and over and someone made an announcement that we would soon be moving along and that the 26 and 1/2 minute show would take a bit longer . . . 26 and a half minutes? . . . and finally, we moved through a few more decades of "Progress" and then there was a hip, video-game playing grandma who actually said, "We smoked'em!" and then there was some special effects when the voice activated stove misheard Grandma's score and turned the oven to 550 degrees (what video game scores in the hundreds?) and smoke spewed from around the oven door, and then finally-- finally!-- the Carousel of Progress (which my usually sunny and optimistic wife named "The Carousel of Torture") let us back into the sunlight, yet the Unofficial Guide people-- who are generally accurate in their descriptions-- call the mustachioed porn star narrator "easy to identify with" and they say the attraction is a "great favorite among repeat visitors" and they include it on all their touring plans . . . and so I have two questions: What were they smoking when they went on this thing? and How does Disney put this ride next to Space Mountain?

Why? Why? Serendipitous Student Connections #4 . . . Discreet/ Discrete/ Lord of the Rings / Salad

A student asked me how to spell "discreet" and I asked her, "Which one?" and she gave me a confused look, and so I explained that "discreet" means subtle and prudent, but "discrete" means individually distinct, and she said, "They're nearly opposites! Why are they doing this to us?" and though she was vague with her angst, I understood her sentiment completely-- as students must perceive the English language specifically and education in general as a byzantine labyrinth with rules made up by some abstract and obtuse They that enjoys derivatives and vectors, homophones and homonyms, paradoxes and contradictions, gerunds and participles, the tiniest of minutia and the grandest of theories . . . and minutes later the same student, on a pedagogical roll, created a lovely and perspicacious analogy on what it's like to read Lord of the Rings (a certain English teacher demands this of students who would like a college recommendation from him) and I found her critique of Tolkien quite accurate: "Reading Lord of the Rings is like eating a big salad at a restaurant, you never get to the end of it."

The Family Fang: A Meta-Book For Meta-People

This book, like the Steve Coogan movie The Trip, probably requires two ratings; Kevin Wilson's new novel, The Family Fang, is not about vampires, but it's far scarier, because-- in a sense-- it's about all parents and what they do to their kids out of love . . . Caleb and Camille Fang are performance artists, and they perform their "pieces" without any rehearsal, in the real world, in order to "subvert normality' and create chaos . . . which is not all that unusual today, in the Age of YouTube, so Wilson wisely sets the stunts in the 1980's to avoid commentary on the present, and instead makes the book about Caleb and Camille's children, Buster and Annie . . . referred to as Child A and Child B; Camille and Caleb use Child A and Child B as props in their wild, unconventional, and unpredictable art . . . so not only is the book a satire on parenting-- with the children in an Artistic Operant Conditioning Chamber-- and Caleb and Camille the Skinnerian experimenters-- but the book also becomes commentary on art itself, and how parents consider their children the greatest work of art, and how artists will always have to compromise their art once they have children-- though Caleb and Camille try to refute their mentor, who told them to remain childless, as "Kids kill art," but the straw that breaks the camel's back is when Caleb and Camille secretly engineer an accident that forces Buster, the stage manager of the high school drama company, to play Romeo to his sister's Juliet . . .  Buster refuses but his father persuades him, saying: "Think of the subtext, a play about forbidden love will now have the added layer of incest," and the show is stopped by the principal in the second act when Buster finally plants a kiss on his sister; the kids detach themselves from their parents once they learn the truth about this incident, but when Buster is shot by a potato gun and Annie's acting career hits the skids, they return home and unwittingly fall into their parent's final piece . . . and the book has a dramatic pay-off worthy of a regular novel, despite it's meta themes-- it turns into something of a mystery, but more in the vein of this show-- to conclude, it's a perfectly written book, but if you don't care about art or meta-art, then I'll give the book seven topless scenes out of ten . . . if you do care about art and meta-art, then this book is a perfect ten rest-stop abductions out of a possible eleven.

Can You Even Buy Pants in Florida?

I didn't bring any pants on our trip to Orlando-- just shorts-- despite the fact that I had space in my bag, because I thought we were headed to the tropics . . . but I was wrong, we were headed to the sub-tropics (still, I'm far more knowledgeable than my son Ian . . . when the plane touched down in Orlando he said, "So now we're in Canada?") and I have learned in the past few days that sometimes it gets kind of chilly in the sub-tropics, but it's worth being chilly to see the satisfaction on my wife's face . . . because I briefly tried to persuade her to not bring any pants, but-- wisely-- she ignored my advice, and brought plenty of pants (and she's gotten good use of them) and nothing makes a person happier than being able to say "I told you so," especially if it's about something trivial, like pants, and not something awful and awkward, like, "I told you not to have sex with your first cousin, and now look at that kid!"

The Best Ride of the Day at Disney's Hollywood Studios

Though I rode The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, I couldn't tell you if it's the best ride in the park (because after we saw the view of Disney Studios from the 13th floor, and then started free-falling and being winched back up-- repeatedly-- I curled into a ball and closed my eyes . . . although I do recollect that my butt levitated off the seat each free fall . . . my intelligent son Alex had the same reaction as me, but my wife and younger son Ian were unfazed, which leads me to think there is something wrong with their brains and inner ears) and although I was very impressed with the 3-D effects of Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, and Jim Henson's Muppet Vision and the real effects of the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, they don't win the prize for best ride either (and neither does the ride out to Orlando International Airport to pick up my parents: because there are two, count them, two tolls on the tiny connector road called the Beachline Expressway) and so the prize for the best ride on that Sunday was the fourth quarter of the Giants/ New England game-- we caught it after the ride to the airport; four lead changes in the final fourteen minutes and a Giants victory with a one yard pass from Eli Manning to Jake Ballard with 15 seconds remaining to play . . . snapping a twenty game win streak at home for the Patriots . . . once again, though I tried to get out, the Giants have sucked me back in.

Serendipitous Student Connection #3 (Poison/ Needle/ Mick Jagger Knitting)

My students have been on a roll lately-- I've been teaching for nearly twenty years, and I thought I had heard it all-- but apparently I haven't. . . for example, I was doing a lesson on metaphors and cliches in my Creative Writing class the other day, and I always begin the lesson by asking the students to crumple some of their old assignments into paper balls and then I play Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and I instruct them to pelt me with paper every time they hear a cliche (and there are at least twenty . . . count them!) and they thoroughly enjoy whipping paper at me, and from a pedagogical standpoint, they are learning to respond with disgust to poor writing . . . oddly, I never get beaned all that much, because the nerdy kids sit up front, and they can rarely throw well, and the kids who can actually throw always sit in the back of the room, and it's hard to propel a crumpled paper ball that far; after that madness, I play a well written song with a flower metaphor, the song that is the exact opposite of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," because it uses one metaphor to develop the tone, and specific details to evoke the metaphor . . . the song is The Rolling Stones "Dead Flowers," of course, and as I play it I ask comprehension questions, such as: "So what's the problem with this relationship?" and the kids figure out that the narrator and his "ragged company" don't really fit into the circle of society to which his girlfriend belongs-- her world of "silk upholstered chairs" and "Kentucky Derby days"-- and when I ask what it means to seek solace in a "basement room/ with a needle and a spoon/ and another girl to take my pain away," the kids usually know that the needle and the spoon are drug paraphernalia . . . but last week when I asked about this, a very sweet girl said in her kind and innocent voice, "Is he doing some sewing to forget about her?" and I got this great image of Mick Jagger knitting away with his grandmother in order to get over his unrequited love.

Serendipitous Student Connections #2 (Prank/ Revenge/ Merchant of Venice)

If you're a regular reader, then you are probably acquainted with my new recurring feature (Serendipitous Student Connections) but don't worry if you missed the first episode-- the premise is simple-- sometimes a kid says something in class that is so unexpected that it changes the entire course of the lesson . . . and this doesn't happen that often, because once you've been teaching a number of years, you can predict what most of the responses will be, but once in a while there is the example that surprises you and makes you see the literature in a different light; for instance, in my Shakespeare class, we recently finished 12th Night and are now in the midst of Merchant of Venice, and both these plays have themes of revenge in them (Malvolio's last line in 12th Night is: "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" which is an odd-- but deserved-- note on which to end a comedy, and Merchant of Venice revolves around Shylock and his desire for a pound of flesh from his anti-Semite rival Antonio) and Shakespeare is smart enough not to choose sides and instead hold a mirror up to the dark side of human nature and the very real and rational desire for vengeance . . . and so when one of my students walked into class and said his life was starting to resemble Merchant of Venice, I knew that his example was going to be good-- this student is a soccer player and he played a prank on one of his soccer buddies: he had all this player's friends text the player a simple "Congratulations" message and then he created a very persuasive but completely fake web page that named his friend the MVP of the Middlesex County Soccer Tournament-- and his victim, like Malvolio, was a rule-following honorable soul who had played well enough to be deserving of such a title-- and because of this, the victim fell for the article hook, line, and sinker . . . and at this point my student realized that he had to tell the truth to his friend, before he started telling everyone about his "award," which was fictitiously created and digitally distributed on a fabricated web page . . . but when he told his buddy about the prank, he attempted to set the rules of revenge-- he knew his friend would have to seek revenge but he wanted to control exactly how his friend would punish him-- and this is exactly what happens in Merchant of Venice-- but of course it is difficult to dictate vengeance and emotions in contractual terms-- and so my student, who is much smaller than his victim, persuaded his victim that though he absolutely deserved revenge for this emotionally humiliating prank, that the revenge couldn't be physical (because the victim could easily beat up the perpetrator, he's a much larger kid) and had to be in the same genre as his prank-- emotional-- but I explained to him that in the milieu of vengeance, the rules are always broken . . . Osama bin Laden wanted to liberate Muslim holy sites and get revenge for American influence in Saudi Arabia so he blew up civilians in an office tower . . . and then the United States invaded and decimated two entire countries to exact our revenge against bin Laden . . . Whitney and I threw some apples at a door in our fraternity house and it started a cycle of revenge that ended in a friend nailing a dead raccoon to someone's door . . . and so the cycle of revenge is never predictable and never reasonable, and-- as Shakespeare illustrates-- sometimes it takes a woman to put an end to the silliness, because women never hold a grudge . . . right?

You're Getting Warmer

Some farcical conversation with my son Alex about what the Ark of the Covenant contains in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark: Alex: It wasn't God in there. Who's the guy who lives under the ground?  The evil guy? Dad: Satan?  Alex: No . . . Dad: Beelzebub? Alex: No . . . Dad: Mephistopheles? Alex: No . . . Dad: The Lord of the Flies? Alex: No . . . Dad: Lucifer? Alex: No . . . Dad: Hades? Alex: No . . . Dad: Pluto? Alex: Yeah . . . him. Maybe it was him in that box.

A Good Way To Spend All Hallow's Eve

After several hours of trick-or-treating in the cold with my kids, I retired to my bed to read Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's graphic novel Locke and Key, and I can think of no better way to conclude a spooky holiday than this: the story is gripping, the art is mesmerizing, and Sam will inhabit your dreams . . . I wish I could have read it to my kids, but it's way too disturbing and violent: nine abandoned wells out of ten.

Serendipitous Student Connection #1 (Moth/ Snow/ Wife)

Sometimes a student says something so incisive that it completely changes the direction of a class discussion, and even the tone of an entire lesson; for instance, this week I taught Virginia Woolf's posthumously published suicide-note of an essay, "The Death of the Moth," and when we read the description of the moth's futile fluttering from one corner of the window to the next-- because it was trapped between the pane and the screen-- I asked the class who had done this before: shut a bug inside a window between the glass and the screen, and several kids raised their hands and admitted to this cowardly act, and we agreed that sometimes it is quicker, easier, and more convenient to isolate and ignore the problem of the bug instead of taking initiative and actually swatting, squishing, or removing it . . . but then one girl looked me squarely in the eye and said, "Why don't you just kill the bug? Why leave it in the window for later?" and I told her that is exactly what my wife would say in this instance, and that there were two kinds of people-- those that kill the bug immediately, and those who shut it in the window so it can suffer a slow death and be dealt with later . . . and then I told the class what happened on the weekend . . . we had an unusual October snowstorm and my wife instructed me to shovel the snow and then she got all dressed up in a tight dress and sexy boots and headed off to a baby shower and I took the kids sledding and when I got home, I was tired and wanted to watch the Giants game, and the sun was out, so instead of shoveling the driveway and the porch, I decided to let the sun melt the snow-- the same way you might let the sun dehydrate and fry the bug trapped in the window pane-- but the sun failed me, failed me miserably, and my lovely wife arrived home in her sexy boots to the same amount of snow that was there when she left and instead of reminding me to shovel it, she went ahead and shoveled the driveway and porch in her tight dress and sexy boots, and I think she did this so she could shovel even more guilt on me when she found me half-asleep on the couch, watching the football game .  . because she's the kind of person who kills the bug-- she doesn't leave it trapped in the window for later-- but the real question here is: Why do women get all decked out for a baby shower?

Non-stalgia

If you haven't seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in a while, you've probably forgotten just how annoying Kate Capshaw is-- she can't hold a candle to Karen Allen-- and she's even more annoying than that little punk Short Round.

I Uncover the Roots of My Ennui (And Use Other Annoying Words)

I know how obnoxious it is to complain, and I also know how obnoxious it is to use the word ennui (it's almost as obnoxious as using the word jejune, but not quite as obnoxious as using the word myriad . . . and then, of course, there is the word plethora . . . don't even get me started on that one) but last week in the English office, I had an epiphany (also a very annoying word) and realized why the fall is such a difficult time for me at work . . . it is because I can still remember the idylls of summer . . . the free time, the leisurely reading, the travel, the lack of a schedule, the swimming, the ocean . . . I'll stop before I cry . . . but once winter settles in, the memories of summer fade and I embrace the bleakness because I can't recall any other way to live.

Halloweenies

Just when I thought my kids were smart-- as they both received glowing academic reviews from their teachers at parent/teacher conferences-- I witnessed empirical evidence to the contrary . . . my wife and I took the kids pumpkin picking (in the snow!) and if you could have seen the distended, wobbly, asymmetrical pumpkins that my sons tried to persuade us to purchase, then you would certainly have doubted their intellectual capacity as well . . . in the end we had to convince them to abandon their stunted, misshapen choices and revise their pumpkin picking criteria . . . but, once we got the pumpkins home, they had more success as jack-o-lantern consultants, advising me how to carve each jack-o-lantern face, and-- you be the judge-- I think I did some kick-ass carving this year (I also added a bonus photo of the two incompetent pumpkin pickers, doing manual labor as punishment for their poor judgement).

One Movie: Three Ratings

I loved watching Steve Coogan's new road movie, The Trip, but it's tough for me to recommend it to anyone other than Steve Coogan fans; the conceit of this faux-documentary is that Coogan invites his not-so-close friend Steve Brydon-- a Welsh impressionist and actor-- on a journalism assignment in which they will review high-end dining in northern England, but Brydon is an ersatz replacement for Coogan's girlfriend, as they are having a "hiatus," and while much of the film is Coogan and Brydon improvising comedy and impressions, there is also dark undercurrent about age, success, sacrifice, and the value of family in the film . . . but much of it is self-referential Coogan nonsense (Ah-Haaaaaa!) which will only appeal to the Cooganophile . . . and so for Coogan fans I give this movie nine octaves out of ten; for Michael Caine fans I give it seven scallops out of ten; and for non-Cooganites, I give it five little men in a box out of a possible ten little men in a box.

Music Cures The Existential Blues

As I sit here grading papers and listening to Grant Green, I realize that my Jeep's broken car stereo-- which has not worked for several months now-- may be having severe implications on my mood . . . every morning, on my drive to work, I am alone with my shitty thoughts, my raspy voice, my tuneless whistling, and my lame drumming on the steering wheel-- which is no way to start the day-- but then, of course, this is how people spent most of their time before the technological revolution: listening to the sounds around them, or perhaps grunting and banging to break the silence, but usually alone with their shitty thoughts . . .  so it's no wonder Hobbes described the life of man as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" . . . he needed an iPod.

What Balls May Come?

Some miracles bite you in the ass-- such as Moses parting the Red Sea or the Bills starting the season at 4 and 2 -- but others require a moment of reflection in order to appreciate their glory . . . and the  miracle I am about to describe falls into the latter category (although some people, even upon reflection, did not appreciate the miraculous nature of the following events, leading them-- for my benefit-- to post a definition of the word "miracle" on the office cork-board); Sunday, at my weekly pick-up soccer game, my friend Mario returned a soccer ball that I had left behind several weeks ago-- a ball that I figured was as good as gone (I'm not very vigilant about keeping tabs on soccer balls, as I have so many floating around in my car) and then on Wednesday of the very same week-- at my weekly pick-up basketball game-- my friend Gene (who I hadn't seen since the summer) said, "Hey, I have the basketball you forgot in trunk of my car, the one you left in the summer" and I was pleased and surprised, pleased because I refused to buy a new basketball-- which makes no sense, since I didn't think I'd ever see the one I lost again . . . it was more as a punishment for being so stupid that I felt I should go without a ball-- and surprised that he'd kept the ball that long, and that he remembered to put it in his trunk for the game, just in case he saw me . . . and then it took me a day to realize the miraculous magnitude of the conjunction of these two events: that two balls-- both of which I had given up for lost-- were returned to me in the span of four days . . . certainly a minor miracle if there ever was one-- and now I am excited to see what other balls will be returned to me in the near future . . . because things like this usually happen in threes (although with balls, it might be more appropriate if they happened in twos).

Remembering Louie

Morning darkness, loads of essays, plantar fasciitis, weariness from coaching soccer, and general ennui with the constant routine were getting me down, until I remembered what Louie Zamperini had to endure . . . and how he had to endure it without Wikipedia Click-Olympics, Tetris, or Netflix . . . and now I feel better.

The Case of The Returned Kite

A reverse-mystery story for your reading pleasure: two Saturdays ago, which was as blustery a day as they come, my kids and I went down to the park with a gigantic jet-plane kite-- a kite created to familiarize children with profanity, as building it required a fair amount of swearing and flying it was extraordinarily intense and required a steady stream of expletives; this kite didn't just rise into the sky and stay there-- this kite liked to swoop and dive, and it came with a special "Tri-Wheel" string spool which stripped off string faster than a fishing reel (and resulted in me getting an extremely painful friction burn on my finger) but we finally got it airborne and it did look really cool as it swooped and dove and Alex actually got some control of it, but he had to keep running back and pulling, then running back, then pulling, until finally he was so far away and the kite was over the patch of woods at the edge of the park and then the kite did the inevitable, it swooped in to a tree, and I will be the first to admit that I wasn't so sad that it got stuck because it was a dangerous kite that required far too much skill and effort to fly, but still, I did my best to get it out of the tree (my wife was angrier that we lost it, but she wasn't there for the entire time and didn't know the dangers inherent in this particular kite) but the string snapped, and so I left the scene-- rather pleased that the devil-kite was at the top of a very tall tree and we went over to a friend's house for drinks before a dinner outing, but then we had to stop back at home to get jackets and the kite was sitting on our front porch and we live near the park and it's a small town, but still, it was pretty odd that someone knew where to return the kite . . . and it was also a bit ironic, since I was happy that this particular kite was lost in a tree because it was a danger to my family, but it turns out my lovely neighbor saw us walking home from the park with a spool of string and no kite, so when the wind blew it out of the tree she knew just where to return it, and so I am sorry to say that we will have to fly it again.

Dave Gives His Permission For You To Proceed

There is absolutely nothing wrong with screwing off the shaker top of a canister of rainbow jimmies and chugging a mouthful (or two).

Click-Olympics

Stacy introduced the English department to an engaging new game Friday afternoon; here's how it works: 1) everyone needs their own computer with internet access 2) everyone needs to agree on a starting point on Wikipedia-- such as "Beethoven" or "Goldie Hawn" or "lobster" or any of the other 3,772, 967 articles on the site-- and everyone playing needs to get that particular agreed upon Wikipedia page up on their screen 3) everyone needs to agree on a goal, the Wikipedia article that will end that round-- for our example we'll go from "Beethoven" to "bacon" 4) everyone should start the round at the same time, and then you may click on any hyper-link on Wikipedia in order to link your way from the "Beethoven" page to the "bacon" page . . . you may also use the "back" arrow on your browser, but that's it . . . the game is oddly compelling because you have to speculate several clicks in advance-- and once you head down a wrong path it's easy to get lost-- but it's surprising how quickly and elegantly you can get places; for instance, if you start on "Beethoven," you can click on "infectious hepatitis"-- which possibly caused Beethoven's death-- and from there you can access "The Center for Disease Control and Prevention" page and then "food borne pathogens" and then "cooking" and the "cooking" entry contains a picture and a link of some tasty looking "bacon wrapped corn" and if you've beaten everyone else to the page then voila, you have won a round of what I like to call "Wikipedia Click-Olympics."

Bossypants

Tina Fey's book Bossypants is exactly like an episode of 30 Rock . . . fast-paced, full of clever jokes, and  over before you know it . . . the only downside to this formula is that it's tough to recall much from either an episode of 30 Rock (except Alec Baldwin's advice: "Never go with a hippie to a second location") or Fey's memoir (all I remember is that photo shoots are fun, her dad is a bad-ass, and once female comics get old, everyone considers them "batshit crazy") and though she's not quite as articulate as David Sedaris or as neurotically absurd as Woody Allen, she's certainly playing in that ballpark and there's nothing saccharine or forced about her humor . . . and I will also point out that in all my trips to the library-- and I'm not going to lie: I go to the library a lot-- this is the only time a librarian at the check-out desk commented about a book I was checking out (she told me the book is really great and Tina Fey is so smart and clever and recommended the audio book because Tina Fey reads it herself): nine scars out of ten.

If A Tree Falls, Marshall Curry Will Get the Shot . . . And Interview Everyone Who Saw It Fall

Once again, Marshall Curry has documented a fantastic story, covering all the angles in an even-handed and comprehensive manner in under ninety minutes . . . his first documentary, Street Fight, is a masterpiece of editing, and his new one-- If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front--is equally as compelling; it tells the tale of a group of eco-terrorists in Oregon that target the forestry industry with a campaign of arson, and how Daniel McGowan-- who was once a member of the group, but since moved on-- is haunted by his radical past . . . and Curry gets access to members of ELF, other radicals, forestry workers, informants, prosecutors, the sheriff, law enforcement agents, and McGowan and his family . . . so the film is full of ambiguity, contradictory logical positions, and documentary gold . . . and Curry, wisely, never shows his hand but instead lets the viewer decide what to make of the ethics of the case: ten old growth redwoods out of a possible ten (and could that be Bansky standing on the redwood stump in the picture?)

I Am A Hero (Sort Of)

My neighbor called me the other day because her baby daughter had an engorged deer tick stuck to her head, and she wanted my help in removing it . . . and so I briskly walked to her house, ready to offer my aid; after some sizing up of the tick we decided that she should hold Natalya's head still, and I should try to pluck the little black tick from amidst her wispy blonde locks with a pair of tweezers . . . but babies move their heads a lot, and they don't appreciate someone holding their head still, so the odds of tick removal did not look good, but I decided to take a shot at it anyway, and-- on my first attempt-- with a deft and skillful pinch, I snagged the tick and removed nary a hair from baby Natalya's head . . . and the fact that the "tick" actually turned out to be a tick-shaped piece of dried food should have no bearing on the assessment of my heroism.

Film Buff

 My wife and I were walking up the stairs, to put the kids to bed, when we heard a civilized discussion emanating from the bathroom-- and this stopped us in our tracks because we've never heard our kids having a civilized discussion anywhere, let alone the bathroom (which is usually a place of mayhem, chaos, and poorly aimed urine); Alex asked Ian "which character in the movie he liked the best" and Ian said he liked the eleven year old with glasses and Alex informed him that he was "the main character" and then Alex said he liked "the old guy who kept giving the kids clues" and Ian politely asked Alex why he liked him . . . and Catherine and I exchanged a tacit glance, both of us impressed by our cultured and refined children . . . and  then the two of them walked out of the bathroom and Ian was still wearing jeans and a t-shirt but Alex was butt-naked, and when we saw him, my wife and I laughed at the incongruity of the dialogue and the nudity and Alex also realized how funny the tableau looked and so he started running around-- bare-assed-- shrieking and yelling like a savage, and Ian (though still fully clothed) followed suit.

I Corrupt My Six Year Old Son

My son Ian wants in on the Taco Count-- and though I realize this is no way to encourage healthy eating habits, I can't proscribe him from the fun without being a total hypocrite-- and so I am keeping track of his taco consumption (which is impressive, he's now eating four tacos at a sitting-- two hard shell and two soft shell-- the same amount that my wife eats) but I am going to prorate his Count for both his weight (which is 1/4 of mine) and the time (three months instead of twelve) and so for each taco that he eats in the next three months, I will multiply it by four to compensate for his small size and then multiply again by four so that it is equivalent to a year of taco eating . . . so each taco he eats will count as sixteen 2011 Tacos . . . and he's already eaten eight tacos in October . . . so that's 128 pro-rated tacos for his annual count.

Retraction (Yogi Berra is NOT Dead)

Yesterday, in a cascade of self-referential meta-madness, I explained that it is very difficult to consciously create an adage in the style of Yogi Berra, and then I quoted a colleague who-- in a heated description-- inadvertently coined such a phrase (If you saw her, you'd know what she looks like!) but then--accidentally-- I penned my own Yogi Berraism, when I said that "Yogi Berra would be smiling in his grave" if he heard Katie's wonderful maxim . . . because not only is Yogi Berra is not dead (he's 86) but skulls are always smiling, so the metaphor doesn't really make sense . . . and I am hoping that this post doesn't kill Berra, because I've had a history of killing celebrities with my attention (the first song I ever sang in front of a class was "Delia's Gone" by Johnny Cash, and he died the next day-- which made my students extraordinarily happy-- and in college, I started reading Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene, and he was dead within hours, so I've definitely got some kind of voodoo magic . . . or a more logical explanation is that I am a prodigal consumer of arts and literature, and so over the course of my life it would be more odd if no one died that I was perusing at the the time).

Katie vs. Yogi

I have praised the laconic anti-wit of Yogi Berra, and I even tried to invent my own Yogi Berra-esque adage-- and I learned that it's not the kind of thing you can consciously create-- but once in a while someone says something so perfectly true and paradoxical, that you know Yogi is smiling in his grave . . . and so when my colleague Katie attempted to describe an extremely inappropriately dressed high school girl, she got so worked up about the sleaziness of the student's outfit that she passionately told us: "If you saw her, you'd know what she looks like!"

Patience and Saliva

I swam at lunch on Monday-- we had a workshop, so no students all day-- and on the way back to school I stopped to pick up lunch, and though I was pressed for time, I decided to forgo the robotic convenience of ordering a sandwich at WaWa, and instead I patronized a local place in Milltown; I had to wait in line, and it took a long time for them to complete my order, and I was ravenous because of my swim and the several hours we spent poring over the National Core Standards, so--naturally-- when I got in my car, I tore open my "Grand Canyon," a turkey sub loaded with roasted peppers and marinated mushrooms, and took a bite to appease my hunger, but then I made one of the most civilized and refined decisions in my young life . . . I decided not to shovel the sandwich into my mouth as I drove because I didn't want to get oil all over my shirt (there were some cute grade school teachers at the workshop) and because I wanted to sit in the sun and actually enjoy the final minutes of lunch . . . so difficult as it was, I re-wrapped the sandwich and started driving-- and, of course, I got behind an old lady and hit every light, and by the time I got to the school I was drooling like one of Pavlov's dogs-- but I was still extremely proud of myself; I felt mature; I was able to delay my gratification and enjoy my food . . . this is a big step for me and let me offer an example as to why: a number of years ago, after a long car ride to Nags Head, when Whitney and I stopped at Petrozza's Italian Provisions for a rare authentic Italian sub south of the Mason Dixon line-- which we planned to eat on his deck while looking at the Atlantic Ocean-- instead, in a wonderful instance of simultaneous unplanned gluttony-- we both finished our gigantic sandwiches before we even reached the car . . . and-- as Whitney recalls-- we had a pretty good parking spot.

Genre Definitions (Back By Popular Demand)

One of the exciting recurring features here at Sentence of Dave is called: "Dave Defines Science Fiction," and though I'd be hard-pressed to top my original definition, this new one adds a wrinkle . . .  so without further fanfare, here it is: fantasy is how things never were, and science fiction is how things will never be (and this highly entertaining and much discussed topic is recurring because I'm reading a good science-fiction novel by Richard K. Morgan that corresponds to my original definition . . . though I could care less about the protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, I love exploring the world he inhabits; the book is called Altered Carbon and the London Times blurb is accurate: "This seamless marriage of hardcore cyberpunk and hard-boiled detective tale is an astonishing first novel").

Do You Understand BitCoin?

I learned about BitCoin in a pathetically analogue way (a hard copy of the October New Yorker's "Money Issue") and though I'm not sure I completely understand the concept, I am still fascinated by the story and will attempt to give the short, short version here: in 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto created a sophisticated, cryptographically secure code that created a new currency called BitCoin, and these coins could be "mined" by entering a computer lottery that rewards speedy computing power-- and at the start it was relatively easy to "mine" Bit Coins because few people were attempting to crack the code, but now it requires an extraordinary amount of computing power to "mine" a BitCoin because so many computers are competing . . . and-- though they have no physical presence or financial backing-- BitCoins have an actual market value (a little over four dollars a coin) and they can be traded for real currency and products and kept safe in "wallets" and Nakamoto's code ensures that no digital BitCoin can be spent more than once (and all transactions are public, though the "wallets" can be owned by anonymous users) and Satoshi seems to be a cipher himself, no one has ever uncovered who he really is-- but his code has so far proved to be impenetrable . . . if it could be compromised then the coins would lose all value . . . and he could also be considered criminal, if the new currency competes with the American dollar, and then his action could be considered treasonous, and there is the question of who needs an anonymous digital untraceable type of cash . . . possibly people involved in sketchy activities, but don't go by this rambling summary, do your own research and get back to me on what you've learned on this most marvelous invention of the digital age (and I'm not sure the guy who wrote the New Yorker article actually understand what BitCoin "mining" is either-- according to Wikipedia, BitCoin mining actually helps to cryptographically ensure that no individual BitCoin gets double spent, so a "miner" uses processing power to attempt to create unique "blocks" which keep BitCoins safe from hackers and the miner is rewarded by the network with a set amount of BitCoins if your computer can create one of these cryptographic blocks).

Mesomorphic

As I grow older, my figure more and more resembles that of the late Kirby Puckett.

A Harsh Dictum

When I mentioned that I might start wearing sleeveless t-shirts (because I'm always hot) my wife said that she would not be seen with me if I chose to wear such apparel in public-- unless I was playing basketball-- but I see plenty of people wearing sleeveless shirts who aren't actually playing hoops (though they might be on their way to play basketball . . . who can be sure?) and I don't see the problem . . . as long as you're not at a high end restaurant.

Please Tell Me Your Kids Do This

Saturday, we went for ice cream after Alex's soccer game, and while we were waiting for the lady to scoop the cones, Alex, who is seven years old, scraped a sprinkle off the counter-- out of a streak congealed ice cream that had been sitting in the unseasonably hot sun-- and nonchalantly popped said sprinkle into his mouth, as if he was sampling a bar snack . . . and I chastised him for his decision, but I am wondering if that's just typical behavior for a hungry second grade boy.

If You're Angry and You Know it Clap Your Hands

I've read a few books on the current economic crisis and watched the documentary Inside Job, and while these works explained the complexities of the collapse and certainly assigned some blame, none of them channeled the powerless frustration and anger that I have towards both our government and big business . . . but Matt Taibbi addresses this in his book Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That is Breaking America, which began as a Rolling Stone article; he points fingers, calls people "morons" and "assholes" and far worse, and refers to Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" . . . he skewers Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson and Lawrence Summers and Obama and Reagan and Clinton and both Bush presidents and everyone else involved in making decisions about our economy . . . and the result is frightening and comprehensive condemnation of our economic system, portraying it as an unregulated, backroom dealing casino that rewards the super-wealthy at the expense of the taxpayers, and, sadly, there seems to be no simple solution . . . there's nothing we can do, no party we can vote for, because the result will be the same . . . and while we debate red and blue state issues-- while half the nation rails about "overweening government power" and the other half protests against "corporate excess"-- the real problem is that our system is a combination of both these problems, and the media is never going to extensively cover complicated and boring issues like the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act and the loosening of the Commodity Exchange Act and the actual ramifications of ObamaCare, and so instead we debate about abortion and health-care and tax cuts-- we argue about if gas prices have increased because of demand from China or because we need to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge-- while the real business of America is done between the mega-banks and the government and the usual suspects, behind a green curtain that shields them from the democratic process that is more show than substance.

A Good Rule To Know

My son Alex told me that at school last week, he had to write a safety rule on a star shaped piece of paper, and that the teacher then put all the stars on the wall . . . he also said that most kids copied rules from the movie that inspired this lesson . . . Captain Buckle, a police officer, reminded the students to "always go places with a buddy" and "look both ways when you cross the street"-- but Alex was proud that he thought of an original rule-- a rule Captain Buckle did not mention . . . a rule his father taught him . . . and so his star on the wall reminds people of something very important: "no metal in the microwave."

A Joke That Doubles As An IQ Test

Here is something fun and annoying to do to your friends: explain that you are about to tell a joke, but that the joke also doubles as test of their intelligence-- this will make them anxious to get the joke, but chances are that they won't-- and then say, "A termite walks into a bar and asks, 'Where's the bartender?'"

Synco-what?

Though I pride myself on my large vocabulary, I've had my troubles recently . . . and now I'm faced with writing the most difficult sentence in my career, and it is about learning the clinical term for something that afflicts me, but I really do not want to write this sentence, for reasons I will soon explain-- and I suffer this solely for you, my diligent readers; last Wednesday in the English Office, my colleague Rachel said a string of words that sounded nothing like English: "He had a vasovagal response . . . it's a syncope," and so I asked her to explain and during her explanation, I started feeling lightheaded and my fingers started tingling and I got a strange sensation in my chest and I felt very nervous . . . almost as if I was going to pass out . . . and that's when I learned the truth: I often suffer from vasovagal responses, especially when people are talking about blood and fainting, which is a common trigger for the response . . . not that I mind actually seeing blood-- but I have trouble thinking about it (probably due to my gigantic imaginative brain) and so even as I write this sentence in the school library, I feel as though I might plant my face into the keyboard, but I soldier on anyway, dizzy but validated, because my response has a definition and and so I am not a freak.

Death Be Not Proud of A Turtle

The boys and I took a trip to Sandy Hook last Thursday, and despite the rain, poison ivy and mosquitoes, we had a good time, especially out on North Beach; Ian's highlight was the dead terrapin he found in a foamy and debris filled tide pool-- he poked it with a stick and when the head bobbed to the surface, we noticed that the eyes had been eaten out of the skull-- and this grisly image must have stuck with him because on the car ride home he said, "I'm proud that I found that turtle, but I'm not proud that it was dead and had no eyes."

One Thing At A Time

When trying to improve at a sport, it's best to focus on one skill at a time: in the heat of competition it's near impossible to remember anything, let alone two separate things . . . and so I gave my son Alex one thing to improve during his soccer game on Sunday, and I think the "one thing at a time method" worked, as he played well and assisted in his team's only goal . . . what skill did I ask him to work on? . . . just before he ran onto the field, I told him to try to avoid prolonged holding and "adjustment" of his genitals during the course of play-- as this not only made him lose focus on the ball, but was also inappropriate in mixed company-- and while he wasn't perfect in this endeavor, he was certainly more successful than in the previous game, and that's all you can ask of a seven year old boy.

Bite Me?

Last week during first period, one of my students announced that she had successfully passed her Road Test and was now the proud owner of a New Jersey Probationary Driver's License, and another girl turned to her and said, "Did you get somebody to bite it?" and I found this statement odd and said so, and she explained that it's good luck to get someone to bite your new driving license . . . but none of the other kids had heard of this tradition, nor had the students in the class next door . . . but I did find this reference to what must be a rather obscure practice, which may stem from biting a gold coin to tell if it's real (and the resultant Olympic tradition of biting your gold medal).

A Contradiction So Bottomless That Even Dave Cannot Resolve It

I love the television show Community and I love claymation . . . but I hate the claymation episode of Community.

Thanks Dan

Lately, I've been obsessed with the TV show Community . . . it's a sitcom satirizing traditional TV Tropes (and if you haven't been to the TV Tropes web-site, block out a few hours and check it out) and creator and writer Dan Harmon, in an interview in Wired magazine, explains his method of organizing beats, scenes, episodes, and entire seasons of the show; he calls his graphic organizer an "embryo" and he ensures that the elements are present at every step before he moves on . . . and so last week, while I was teaching narrative writing in my composition class, preparing kids to write their college essays, I told a number of stories (not that I don't tell stories the rest of the year) and I found that my stories subscribed to Harmon's organizer, as did the narrative models we used from the text (Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" and "Salvation" by Langston Hughes and "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris) and so here is Harmon's embryo, in case you want to try it out:

• 1.  A character is in a zone of comfort
• 2.  But they want something
• 3.  They enter an unfamiliar situation
• 4.  Adapt to it
• 5.  Get what they wanted
• 6.  Pay a heavy price for it
• 7.  Then return to their familiar situation
• 8.  Having changed

and while all stories don't conform to this pattern-- especially once you get modern and post-modern and characters never adapt (Kafka) or fail to get what they want (Hemingway) or do not pay a heavy price (Nicholson Baker) or remain static during the course of the story (Camus)-- I think that the most satisfying stories-- whether your talking Into The Wild or Moby Dick-- usually do follow this archetype.

Asymmetrical Asynchronous Control

My parents have a pinball machine in their basement, and my Dad was impressed that my son Ian could  use the flippers independently-- apparently even some adults have trouble with this skill-- but Ian mastered this when he was three . . . and he seems to have some weird control over both sides of his body-- he kicks lefty and throws righty-- and he's always had the ability to raise one eyebrow, and in a far more natural manner than Mr. Spock.

Dave's Second Best Idea Ever!

Fans of this blog may recall Dave's Best Idea Ever, and might even be familiar with some of Dave's Bad Ideas, and so-- because Dave is a humble man who responds to the opinions of his readers-- I will let you decide which category this new idea of mine belongs, but-- not that I mean to sway you-- based on empirical evidence, I think it should be in the former . . . and I will warn you that this is a Soccer Idea, but I think that even non-soccer folks will appreciate its brilliance . . . The Problem is this: it is difficult to get very young soccer players to pass the ball to their teammates, or even to remember that their teammates actually exist, and so I wanted to create a drill that not only encouraged passing, but also had an element of immediacy to it, and not only that, I wanted the drill to reward passing instead of dribbling, which is difficult to do when the players are young and the skill levels are various, but I figured out the solution to this insoluble problem and I present it to you free-of-charge because I consider this blog to be my public service to the universe (because there's no way I'm ever going to serve hobos at a soup kitchen) and so here is the answer: zombies . . . little kids know how to act like zombies, and so I made one child be the "zombie" in the drill, and this "zombie" must hold a ball out in front of them (which is a bit mummy-like, but no one questioned it, and it slows them down) and then I instructed the zombie that all he or she desires is to zombie-walk at the ball and tag the person with the ball at their feet with their "zombie-ball" and so I put three kids in a box made with cones and told them that they have to keep the ball inside the box and away from the zombie-- but they can't get tagged by a zombie or kick the ball out of the box, or else they become the zombie-- and the zombie moves slow enough for just about any player to have enough time to look up and make a decent pass, but the zombie is fast enough (and usually making scary noises) and this encourages the player to get rid of the ball quickly and to pass it to a teammate . . . instead of just dribbling aimlessly . . . and the drill certainly makes them realize that there are other people on their team, and they understood quickly enough that the best way to defeat the zombie was to stay spread out and kick it far away when the zombie approached, and, for once, they were doing something that approximated actual soccer, passing a ball around from person to person-- and even though they were only avoiding a zombie, it still made them behave in a totally different way than they normally behave on the pitch-- and one group got good enough that I had to introduce a second zombie . . . and now I am dreaming of an entire side of zombies, forcing the children to spread out and knock the ball around like a miniature Manchester United . . . so all I can tell you is, give it a try and enjoy the results, and I am positive you will admit that this is in the running for Dave's Second Best Idea Ever.

A Sight Gag Just For You

You might recall that I permanently damaged my iPod while swimming with it in a waterproof case called an Otterbox-- but I was lucky enough to know a student with an ex-boyfriend who worked at an Apple Store, and, despite the water damage, he set me up with a new iPod, which I did not submerge underwater-- but I still used my old Otterbox to protect the new iPod from rain and sweat, until the Otterbox's head-phone jack broke . . . and now I need a new water-resistant case for my iPod, but until I get one I am using a Ziploc sandwich bag as an ersatz but physically humorous water-proof case, and now I am actually becoming resistant to buying a new case for my iPod because it's so much fun to tell people in the office that I just got a great new water-proof case for my iPod (and most people at least feign some interest because it's a technological subject . . . Katie actually asked if I got an Otterbox) and then once I've built up some interest and drama about my new-fangled waterproof case, I pull out my iPod, in the clear plastic sandwich bag, with the headphones snaking out of the corner, and the people laugh and laugh, and I think to myself: I could have been a great prop comic, just like Carrot Top.

The Rise And Fall of North Eastern Fall

Some folks love the smell of napalm in the morning, but not me-- I love the smell of decaying fungus in the morning . . . last Sunday morning to be specific, I was loving the reeky, sweet, pungent odors of an entire wheelbarrow full of weird toadstools, giant fan shaped fungi, and clusters of long stemmed mushrooms, all of which needed to be removed from my backyard, as they were quickly turning to a bug infested slime . . . and I know I shouldn't complain about things I can't control but this is the worst fall ever-- what happened to late September Sunday morning sitting on the porch in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, drinking coffee in the crisp autumn air, enjoying the rattle of dried leaves, without having to fend off giant jungle mosquitoes?

Where's The Beef . . . From?

Here at Sentence of Dave, the staff occasionally provides more than the usual drivel, and this is one of those occasions; in the past, I revealed the shocking nature of beef brisket and today I will discuss another cut of meat, the hanger steak . . . Wikipedia explains that "it is derived from the diaphragm of the steer" . . . but "diaphragm steak" sounds disgusting (and is also difficult to spell) and so it has more conveniently been referred to as skirt steak and "the butcher's cut" because it has long been a butcher's secret as to how delicious it tastes . . . I got to try this steak at The Frog and The Peach-- a well-regarded rather expensive restaurant that I would ordinarily never visit, but because it was Restaurant Week in New Brunswick, they had a 35$ Prix Fixe menu and so Catherine and I decided to treat ourselves, and it was well worth it-- the hanger steak, which is very lean and has the potential to be tough if it's not marinated and cooked right, was sensationally good-- I don't eat much beef these days and I almost never eat a steak, but if I could eat one of these every night, I would: hanger steak is super lean (and I hate any fat on my meat) and very firm and consistent . . . essentially it's steak that looks and tastes as little like a chunk of cow as possible, and that's the way I like my beef; coincidentally, the night before, I was out late at the Park Pub, and on the way home I got a cheeseburger from White Rose-- and it was late enough that it was technically the same day as our outing to The Frog and The Peach, and so in a short span I consumed two very different grades of beef . . . with a substantial price difference between the two meals . . . a White Rose cheeseburger costs $3.05, including tax (I had to borrow a nickel from Connel) and so it was less than 10% of what the hanger steak cost me . . . and though White Rose doesn't point out what cut of meat they use in their burgers, the important part of the story is that both meals were equally delicious.

Yin and Yang

I stayed out far too late at the Park Pub on Thursday night, and was suffering at school the next day-- and I knew I had a long afternoon in store because I had an away game . . . which equals two long and loud bus rides, Friday afternoon traffic, and lot of waiting around at the school with 21 eighth grade boys -- but I accepted this as my punishment for staying out late and drank some coffee and resigned myself to my fate . . . but then it started to rain buckets and the 9th grade coach told me his game on Saturday was already cancelled and I thought to myself: Odd, the universe is going to reward me for staying out late . . . my game will be cancelled and I'll have the afternoon off but when I went to the Athletic Office to hear the good news, I was informed that my game was still on, and again, I took the news stoically because I felt that the universe should punish me for staying out late . . . and the afternoon wore on and I grew more sleepy, but I received no e-mail cancelling the game, and so I got some candy and coffee on my way to the middle school, parked, carried the water cooler and ice chest into the building, and ran into one of my soccer players, and he was coming out the school door in jeans . . . and he informed me that they made a last minute announcement that the game was cancelled . . . and so I got into my car and texted my wife the news and she informed me that my parents had taken the kids for the night and that it was Restaurant Week in New Brunswick and we were going out for a nice meal . . . so in the end, the universe rewarded me for staying out late, which may seem odd, but I think it is because I accepted my punishment so willingly and with such stolid resignation.

Vocabulary Woes . . .

Friday afternoon, Liz was scrambling to make photo-copies in the English office, but the machine was jammed, and so I gallantly offered to walk across the school to the copy room and make her the copies (I actually wasn't being that chivalrous, I was hung-over and needed some exercise and a purpose in my life) and she thanked me and said, "Can you judge it for me, also?" and for a moment I was stumped-- I assumed "judging it" was some obscure photo-copy terminology . . . perhaps it meant to shrink down the text and copy it horizontally, like leaves in a book or something . . . and so I said, "I don't know how to do that," but she explained that she just wanted me to attempt the quiz and decide if it was fair-- so as I walked across the building I took a look at it, but when I saw it was a matching vocabulary quiz I nearly lost interest (because as everyone who has the patience to listen to me knows, I claim to be a walking dictionary) but then I noticed that this was no ordinary vocabulary quiz . . . it was only seven words, but these were the words: convivial, congenial, amicable, affable, jocular, levity, and cordial . . . and, you had to discern between seven extremely similar matching definitions, and needless to say, I did NOT get 100% and perhaps my claim that I am a walking dictionary is a bit overblown . . . but perhaps I'm a walking thesaurus.

A Sporting Paradox

 

I've been reading Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport, and one of the many fascinating things the authors point out is that though America is thought of as the great proponent of the "free-market," its sporting leagues are much more socialist and egalitarian than other countries-- we have salary caps and media profit sharing (in the NFL, all television profit is shared equally) and merchandise profit sharing (outside of New York, the Yankees receive only one-thirtieth the profit on each cap sold, the same as every other team in baseball) to ensure that there is some parity in our professional sports, while the countries with far more socialized governments-- countries with a larger "safety net," with unionized labor and government health-care, and cradle to the grave benefits-- let soccer players be bought and sold like commodities on an exchange, and let the teams with the most money (i.e. Manchester United) reign supreme.

Another Movie

If you're single, self-indulgent, past your prime, seeking love, and drink too much, then you'll really dig Mike Leigh's new movie Another Year, and empathize with poor Mary-- but otherwise, you'll cringe during almost every scene, but I still recommend the film . . . the acting is perfect and the actors are imperfect, and the result will make you feel good about your repetitive, mundane life . . . and if it gets you down, then watch a more upbeat Leigh film: Happy Go Lucky.

Even Subjective Questions Can Have Wrong Answers

My Shakespeare class was asking me a number of questions about how Shakespeare's plays were enacted in Elizabethan times, and while I had a few answers for them, I eventually had to admit that one of the best uses of a time machine would be to go back and see a production Hamlet or Twelfth Night at the Globe Theatre, and then I asked the class to speculate on this hypothetical question: if they had two chances to use a time machine to see something in the past (not alter history) then what was the other thing they should see-- besides a Shakespeare play-- and a student quickly guessed the other "correct" answer . . . which is a dinosaur, of course, and a few students debated my "correct" answers-- someone suggested the Lincoln Assassination, which I must admit is a pretty good thing to go back and see-- and I decided to ask my friend and colleague Kevin, who was teaching English next door, if he knew the correct answers to this thought experiment . . . and I am so glad I asked him, because my classes laughed about his answer for the rest of the day (and I will admit that it was before 8 AM in the morning and I caught him off guard, but still, his answer was egregious) and so after I posed the question, he thought for a moment and said, "So it can be anything in the past, personal or in history, right?" and I confirmed this, and then he thought hard, searching for the correct answer and finally said, "Maybe I should see my own birth?" and then he realized what he said, and I said to him, "You want to see yourself coming out of your own mother's uterus! That's disgusting!" and my class agreed that no one should want to see their own mother's distended private parts (and I know Kevin's mother, which made it worse) and Kevin realized his error and tried to back-pedal quickly: "Okay, I take that one back . . . how about a dinosaur . . . I'd like to see a dinosaur" and we all agreed that was a better choice.

A Question of Curd

My wife took a bite of her salad Sunday night and instantly decided that the bleu cheese had gone bad, but-- despite the fact that she has a more acute sense of smell than me-- I questioned her judgement because I'm not sure there is any way to ascertain if certain stinky cheeses (such as Roquefort, Limburger, and Stilton) have passed their prime . . . and though we checked the package and found that the cheese was three days beyond the expiration date, I could taste no difference and I suffered no adverse effects from the slightly stinkier stinky cheese.

Dish Washing Corollary #245

My wife has often corrected my method of loading the dishwasher-- apparently I don't categorize and group like items, and as a result I don't maximize the number of items that can fit on the bottom rack . . . and I'm also a bit cavalier with the kinds of items I place on the bottom rack and this leads to all kinds of trouble-- but Saturday Catherine also informed me of a Dish Washing Corollary with which I was not familiar: if the dishwasher is running and someone has just washed all the other dirty dishes, pots and pans that did not fit into the dish washer by hand and so the sink is totally clean and clear, then you should not toss a dirty dish into the sink (even though this is the normal protocol . . . the dirty dishes eventually get loaded into the dishwasher) because the sink is clean and someone has put in the time hand washing all the other dishes and so you should hand-wash this lone dish in order to show appreciation for the work the other person has done (even though hand-washing a single dish is a major waste of water, which I pointed out . . . and then I picked up another dirty breakfast dish off the kitchen table and asked, "Do I have to wash this one, too?" and then I dropped the subject because I knew I was pushing it and didn't want to get in big trouble . . . but, for the record, I'm not sure about the logic of this Dish Washing Corollary).

I'm Still Waiting . . .

Still no apology for The Potato Chip Incident (and while I'm on the subject, still no apology from my neighbors for the Out of Control Ivy Bed Incident . . . and you may be thinking: Who does Dave think he is? How can he demand apologies when he's constantly offending people?-- but after I put my foot in my mouth, I always apologize for my gaffe . . . unlike some people).

I'm Waiting . . .

Still no apology for The Potato Chip Incident (obviously the author of the offending e-mail is neither familiar with the experiments of Dan Ariely nor the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

The Potato Chip Incident

I ran the 8th grade soccer try-outs last week, and it was a stressful time both for me and for the forty-three prospective players that I had to evaluate . . . so when I received an e-mail Wednesday night from a disgruntled player that had the words "belittled" and "disrespected" in the first line, I took it quite hard, but then by the second line I knew this was not the kid writing to me, but a parent posing as the kid, because of the the phrase "to have a grown man embarrass a thirteen year-old boy in front of all his peers is truly not something I would have expected from a coach" and then by the third line I knew that this was something even more bizarre than an irate e-mail from a parent posing as a kid, as the reason cited for the narrator's anguish was "the potato chip comment"; I read the e-mail to my wife, at a loss as to what it meant or what had happened, as I remembered this particular player as being a bit chubby and unable to keep up with the running-- so much so that I never actually spoke to him (I run with the kids and so if you're at the front of the pack, then you get the added bonus of being able to chat with me . . . otherwise, I'm setting up drills and small sided scrimmages and taking notes on players) and so I sent an apologetic e-mail back to the "kid" saying I was sorry he felt this way, but that I only remembered showering the players with compliments (they're the strongest group I've ever had) and that perhaps he misheard or misunderstood, as I did not recall any "potato chip" comment or even remember making any comment to him . . . and then a few minutes after sending the e-mail, I remembered what had happened-- and if you're expecting another Awkward Moment of Dave, you're going to be disappointed-- while we were running full field sprints at the end of practice, this player went down to a knee in the middle of the field and started rubbing his leg and so I jogged over to him and asked him if he had a calf cramp and he confirmed this, and so I said-- as I've said to players a thousand times before-- "Okay, keep rubbing it, drink lots of water, and when you go home, eat a banana or some some potato chips" and then the rest of us ran on and I explained to the players that bananas have potassium and potato chips have sodium and potassium, and those minerals help with cramps (I could have also recommended kale, but 8th graders aren't usually partial to obscure leafy greens) and-- thinking back-- I'm sure the chubby kid with the calf-cramp missed the nutritional component of my advice, as he was in a world of pain that only a calf-cramp can create, and so I sent another e-mail to the "player" explaining that when I told him to "go home and eat a banana or some potato chips" that I was being serious because these foods cure cramps and I included a link to a web-site that explained the physiological reasons for this, and I explained that I was in no way belittling him or disrespecting him . . . and I am guessing that the kid didn't interpret the comment this way either, but that when he went home, he told his mom that try-outs were very difficult and that he got a cramp and that the coach told him to "go home and eat potato chips" and his mom-- who is probably more sensitive about the kid's weight than the kid is-- interpreted the tone of this phrase for the kid-- she heard this as me telling her chubby son that he was worthless and should "go home and eat potato chips"-- and so she wrote the angry e-mail that unfairly accused me of picking on a thirteen year old . . . and what really gets my goat is that once again, I am owed an apology and I'm never going to get it, because the kid never showed up to try-outs again and the mom never wrote back explaining how sorry she was, either posing as her son, or--  as she should do-- as herself, but this time contrite and penitent.

Dave's Radical New Diet!

Diet Tip #2: here is the best way to avoid snacking at night . . . once you finish your dinner, go straight to sleep.

My Big Chance To Earn A Darwin Award!

I can't wait for the cold weather to arrive-- and not just for my usual reasons-- I also have some evidence there might be a wasp's nest in my Jeep because 1) my son Ian found a wasp hiding in the floor trash and 2) while I was driving to work on Monday, in silence because my stereo no longer works, I distinctly heard buzzing coming from the back of the car . . . and the back of the car is full of coaching equipment, trash, and-- most significantly-- debris from when I ripped out a rotting wood fence and used my Jeep to transport load after load of wood and ivy and brush to the park dumpster (so lots of sticks and leaves and organic material like that) and there certainly could have been a few wasp eggs in that mess and now it's covered by coolers, a med-kit, cones, balls, and other soccer related stuff, and there's no way I'm cleaning all this out, so my only hope is that we get an early frost that kills them before they decide to swarm me . . . otherwise, you might read about my horrific wasp induced car wreck on this site.

How Do You Not Be "That Parent"?

I am finding it extremely difficult to watch my son Alex's travel team soccer games without "coaching" from the sidelines . . . I think I have coached soccer too long and I have lost my ability to simply be a fan; I'm trying to chat as much as possible with the other parents to divert my attention from the game, but it's a losing battle-- inevitably, I have to disperse some of wisdom I've garnered from nearly twenty years of coaching and so I yell: "Spread out!" or "Relax and pick your head up!" or some other brilliant phrase that will certainly ensure a victory for the Eagles (and I am certainly aware of the irony of yelling the word "relax").

My Wife Is A Terrible Alcoholic

My wife is not a raging alcoholic (and I am thankful for this) but she is an awful alcoholic . . . around dinner time she often opens a beer or pours herself a glass of wine, but she always misplaces it and never finishes it; I usually find it later-- half-full-- on the counter or next to the computer . . . she apparently doesn't know that if you pour yourself some alcohol after a long day of work, then that stuff should stay glued to your hand until you finish it . . . she does the same thing with coffee in the morning: she says that she "likes the idea of having a cup of coffee" but never finds the time to sit and actually finish a mug (I usually find her coffee cup-- hours later and three quarters full-- on a book shelf or next to the TV).

A Psychological Question

I am an introvert and-- for me-- being around people is like drinking alcohol: an initial sugar rush, loss of inhibitions, and the usual giddiness-- but after too much time with people, the inevitable hang-over results and I need time alone to re-charge . . . and I wonder if being an extrovert is the opposite: if time alone, time without other people to interact with, actually drains an extrovert-- the way Bill Compton drains Sookie Stackhouse in the back of Alceide's truck-- and they need to be around people to feel normal, energetic, and grounded again.

A Very Special Episode of Sentence of Dave

In memoriam of the Ten Year Anniversary of 9/11, I'd like to postulate a theory about a fraternity brother and rugby teammate of mine that died that day-- we called him Lud and he was an excellent guy with a habit for butchering idiomatic phrases . . . I recall him saying "blond as a bat" and "all bundled up like Utah Jack" and "kids were younger in those days," and perhaps those who remember him could contribute some others . . . and I am wondering if my wife has been possessed by Lud's spirit, because she has been exhibiting the same trouble with stylistic expressions and cliches-- although Catherine's make a bit more sense than Lud's-- here are a few examples (along with the original phrase): "fly by the handle" instead of "fly by night:";"sun cancer" instead of "skin cancer";" speed ball" instead of "fast ball";"buttons and whistles" instead of "bells and whistles";"summer shanty" instead of "summer shandy" and "living with the fishes" instead of "swimming with the fishes."

Coming Delusions

Once again, I am contemplating writing a novel-- but I'm not going to reveal too much about the plot, because I don't want to get everyone excited over something that I probably won't follow through on-- but I will tell you this: there's a shitload of robots . . . and they're living in the jungle.

Frankly Sookie, I Don't Give A Fang

It's been a summer of True Blood, and while I love the show-- cheesiness and all-- I could care less about Sookie and Bill's tumultuous affair . . . in fact, besides Sookie's mind reading and one-off impression of how Bill says her name, I wouldn't mind if those two were eaten by werewolves . . . I'm much more interested in the minor characters, the sub-plots, the supernatural, and the satire . . . it reminds me of how I felt about Cheers when I was a kid, I was far more invested in the adventures of Norm, Cliff, Coach, Woody and Frasier than I was in Sam and Diane's love/hate relationship.

I Burst A Metaphorical Balloon (Only to See It Inflated By A Kinder Soul)

The Annual Labor Day Rutgers Pool balloon toss ended in a draw, because all the remaining competitors' balloons burst on the final throw . . . and so I declared curtly, "Nobody wins," but the sweet mom next to me smiled and simultaneously declared the opposite: "Everybody wins!" 

I'm Back, Back in the Sisyphean Groove

The futility of reality has rudely interrupted my idyllic summer: after bailing Hurricane Irene induced sewer water from 2 AM until 7AM, we finally got the basement dry . . . but then a deluge sprang from the shower drain, and despite our bucket brigade, we could not lower the tide, and so all our previous labor was worthless . . . we had to admit defeat and carry my mother-in-law's furniture and belongings upstairs; the next day, while we were cleaning up, my back neighbor-- who lives at the bottom of the ivy covered hill behind my house-- motioned me over and very nicely explained that her husband thought that my stone-henge wall project was slightly over the property line and asked if I could move some of the rocks in case "they wanted to build a fence in five years" and though I was extremely pissed off at this, for reasons I will explain shortly-- I remained civil (I knew her husband-- who I've never talked to-- put her up to it) and I never mentioned that I had to tear out our original wood fence because their ivy engulfed and destroyed it, despite my attempts to trim it from our side, and I also didn't mention the countless cases of poison ivy I endured clearing out their weeds and vines and jungle-growth-- for the last six years, without even a "thank you"-- and despite the fact that my stones are clearly on the original fence line, which -- I checked the deed-- was build a bit inside our property line, and despite the fact that the rocks are to: 1) keep the hill from eroding 2) hold my mulch and top-soil in place 3) provide a beautiful border for the row of arbor vitae I've planted-- of which they will get a better view than me-- and 4) these stones will provide some physical buffer that will block the spread of their ivy, a buffer that I can stand on so I can do their yard-work because they have NEVER weeded this ivy bed or trimmed the ivy, despite this all this, and despite the fact that all my mother-in-law's furniture and household goods from the flooded basement were on our porch being dried and cleaned, despite all this, I decided to be diplomatic and roll a few of the giant rocks a up the hill a bit to assuage them . . . though as soon as I find some even bigger boulders, I'm stacking them atop the ones I have so that they slowly slide down and crush their ivy . . . and in truth I'm actually glad for all this pointless labor, because it is mentally preparing me for the endless waves of essays that my students will soon be handing me, from which there will be no respite until next summer.