Cool technology: lidar (it's like radar . . . with lasers!) and it is being used to discover load of archaeological sites in the dense, impenetrable jungles of Mosquitia . . . scary technology: algorithmic high-frequency trading . . . it's like investing . . . with lasers!
Warning. This is Gross.
If you aimlessly scratch at a pimple behind your earlobe, it can bleed a lot.
One For the Actuaries
I am assuming, from an insurance compensation stand-point, it is better to wait for a windy day and let your tree get knocked down by nature, rather than pay a certified arborist out-of-pocket to do it ahead of time.
Very Fine Gradients of Class Warfare
I know this isn't the best trait -- as a coach or an athlete -- and it has probably been handed down to me from my father . . . but whenever my team has away game in a town that appears to be much richer than my hometown, I ineluctably feel extra-motivated to give them a beatdown, and so as we entered lovely Basking Ridge, and drove past the rolling hills of Basking Ridge Country Club, I said to my son Ian, "We've got to kick these rich kids' butts today" and then -- as punishment for my classism -- when we got out of the car and Ian took a look at the opposing team, he said, loudly, in front of several Basking Ridge parents: "they don't look like rich kids" and I had to explain to him that we shouldn't say things like that (even though I did) but still, I am happy to report that we did indeed kick their butts, a great victory of a lower-upper middle class town over an upper-upper middle class town.
Boogers Part II (in 2-D)
While not nearly as epic as this booger story, this is a cautionary tale for students and teachers alike: I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that every educator has lost a student's assignment at some point . . . whether it was misplaced or tossed aside by another student during peer-editing or fell under the desk or got picked up by another teacher . . . so I always give kids the benefit of the doubt when they tell me that they handed something in; this scenario was playing out last Wednesday, and so I did the first thing I always do, which is check the pile of papers -- because sometimes I forget to grade one, or a student mistakenly staples another kid's paper to his own . . . and we found the girl's paper in the pile, but it was connected to another student's (graded) paper not by a staple, but by a booger -- or I'm 75% sure it was a booger, I didn't any testing to determine exactly what it was, but it sure looked like a booger, and we don't use rubber cement in high school.
Killing Is Worth It!
The first two seasons of AMC's The Killing focus on two Seattle homicide detectives trying to solve the murder of a high school student -- Rosie Larsen -- and the writers kept me guessing until the last moments of the last episode of the second season . . . I think the ending of the case rivals that of the best final TV episode ever made (The Shield) . . . the solution is both surprising and perfectly logical; Mireille Enos plays Sarah Linden perfectly . . . she's a homely, unmedicated and possibly more neurotic (but in a realistic way) Seattle version of Clare Danes in Homeland . . . and though the show is dark, rainy, and bleak, unlike Danes, Linden has someone she can rely on, her partner -- Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) -- and they bring the buddy genre to new levels of weird awkwardness (and since I'm making absurd analogies, I will also say that at times Holder and Linden look and act like the bizarro world Moulder and Scully).
My Son Successfully Sails the Seas of Cheese
We commanded our children to make my grandmother a hand-made card for her 91st birthday, and in less than a minute my nine year old son Alex came up with this corny Hallmark-style stanza:
No matter how old,
no matter how young,
I will always be
your great grandson.
No matter how old,
no matter how young,
I will always be
your great grandson.
Dave's Weather Report (Including the Sinuses)
Unusual weather for central New Jersey today: sunny and dry, with clear skies and low humidity . . . and a 70% chance of boogers.
What Did Birders Do Before the Internet?
There is a bird in my yard that says "cheeseburger! cheeseburger! cheeseburger!" and it only took me three minutes to learn that it is a Carolina Wren (and not a black-capped Chickadee) though both these birds say "cheeseburger," but the Carolina Wren says it much faster and clearer . . . but why I am I wasting my time using langauge to explain this . . . watch the Youtube video!
That Point Doesn't Count . . . The Ball Was Dead and I Wasn't Ready and the Sun Was in My Eyes
My seven year old son Ian is the king of the "redo," which is short for "do-over," which is short for "I love to cheat."
More Fun Things About Owning a Dog
That's a strange ball in the middle of the living room . . . I don't remember the kids playing with that . . . it's kind of oblong and fleshy-looking . . . and it smells really good in here . . . I think I'll take a closer look . . . hmm, that's not a ball . . . it's a chicken carcass, stripped to the bones . . . I suppose the lesson here is that if you own a dog, you can't leave the house for more than ten minutes if you've left a rotisserie chicken on the counter (and I won't go into detailed consequences of this feast, but I will say this: the next day, when I arrived home from work, I had to carry the rug outside and hose it down).
Graveyard for Resolutions
Every so often I notice that I still have two failed New Year's Resolutions prominently displayed on the top of the sidebar (to the right of this sentence) and while I was going to remove them, I have decided to keep them for the time being because I like the reminder that most of our "deep plots do pall, and that should teach us"; I may not have become an expert in Canadian culture, or committed a 100 songs to memory, or become a virtuoso at the banjo . . and I may not continue to fast on Mondays and Wednesdays for the rest of my life, but the important thing is that I gave it "the college try" and not only that, I learned a few things about Canada (and also learned that I have oceans of ignorance about our neighbor to the north) and I memorized the chords and lyrics to a few songs, and I discovered that even though I don't play my banjo any longer, my wife won't let me sell it, because she likes the way it looks on the wall . . . and so I will attempt to eat nearly nothing on Mondays and Wednesdays, though I know that most days, I am doomed to fail, as are most people are when they make resolutions, but that's okay . . . we would be a sad species if we never made them at all.
Dave Cannot Assess the Situation (Even Though He Refers to Himself in the Third Person)
I have gotten so busy living my life, that I don't consume the same amount of literature, television, film and pop-culture as I used to . . . and I'm not sure if this is making me wiser and more experienced, or simply tired and dull.
Dave Learns Something! Maybe Even Two Things!
Although I am a self-proclaimed Master of Vocabulary, every so often a student stumps me with a word (and I'm not talking about slang . . . I learn slang from the kids all the time -- my favorite new term this year is "ratchet") but last week I learned about word that's in the actual dictionary that I never dreamed exist -- a girl in my Creative Writing class wrote a poem about working in a shoe-store (she actually works in a shoe-store) and she used the word "brannock," and apparently a brannock is the device used to measure someone's shoe size.
My Children Are Both Overachievers
I didn't think my boys were capable of it, but this year's school pictures are the worst yet.
Third Grade Forensics
My son Alex gave me the lowdown about what was being debated on the playground Monday: cougar vs. owl in a fight to the death . . . and the setting was "the plains" and this occurred "at night," probably because both animals are crepuscular (Alex didn't use the word "crepuscular," but judging by his conversational topics, he will be soon).
More New Music from The Moving Rocks
The Moving Rocks are on a roll -- here is the second song from the very-low concept album I am working on; it's called "Many Lives" and the lyrics are over at G:TB . . . I recorded this song after reading this book and so my recording process was different than usual -- I started out by creating some rhythmic loops and interlocking them in various patterns, and once I had this musical framework, then I wrote the lyrics and added the guitar -- and this theme was certainly an influence as well, but that's probably obvious.
Spring Issue of Lifewild
Spring is here, and with it a new issue of Lifewild Quarterly . . . an online magazine that my friend Adam puts together . . . I have written a carefully researched article about Canadian geese and their feces, and there is a piece by my friend Eric as well, along with some cool art: check it out if you can (there's also a Winter Issue).
Beer Might Be Like Jazz
My new favorite beer in the universe is Switchback Ale, a delicious amber brewed in Burlington, VT and sold in 22 ounce bottles -- and I was surprised that BeerAdvocate gives it a fairly run-of-the-mill review, but then I remembered tasting this highly reviewed "world class" beer, which was way too hoppy and bitter and fruity and spicy for my primitive palate . . . and so I think my taste in beer, like my taste in jazz, might not be that sophisticated . . . I love Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, but have some trouble with Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman; if you are unsophisticated as well, then I highly recommend Switchback: it is smooth, delicious, high in alcohol, unfiltered, and has a scent and flavor vaguely like Magic Hat #9, but not as fruity.
It's a Great Time for Wealth Inequality and Music
Unemployment is high and the the environment is going to hell in a handbasket, but if you like music, then times couldn't be better: I heard a snippet of some rhythmic Latin jazz on WBGO Wednesday morning, but didn't hear who the artist was . . . and forgot about it until Thursday, and then I went to WBGO's web-site and found the playlist and learned that it was an Eddie Palmieri song called "Listen Up" and so I popped that into Spotify (which now streams at my workplace) and I was suddenly immersed in some phenomenal Latin jazz by an artist I had never heard before . . . this is a vast improvement over the methods we used when I was a kid (putting a cassette in the boom box, and then racing to the radio to hit record whenever a good song came on) and while I know there are folks that will lament the loss of the mixed-tape or the album . . . or even the investment of paying for a record, which forced you to really listen to it, I still prefer the magic of the internet over those antiquated auditory customs (and I'm sure there are those hi-fi purists who hate the fact that most music is listened to on crappy computer speakers these days).
It's Hard to be a Man in the 21st Century
Last month, I helped a female teacher create a "Manliness Survey," and making the survey was so entertaining that we discussed the issues in my English class -- it was fitting because we were in the middle of Hamlet, and while there is no question that Hamlet is intelligent and eloquent, there is debate over his machismo -- and this resulted in another student and me having a one-armed push-up competition in front of the class, and during this display of unbridled masculinity, the girls were yelling "We don't care! This is stupid!" and the guys were yelling "It's all about push-ups!" and while this was a lot of fun, it made me remember that on that same weekend, Catherine made me take the kids to Target, in order to shop for the two birthday parties that they were attending, and we bought some Squinkies and Pokemon cards, and while I was doing this, I saw my friend Rob, with his kids, doing the exact same task . . . and we said "Hi" to each other and then went our separate ways without commenting on how unmanly we were behaving . . . it was Saturday morning and we should have been chewing tobacco and using power tools, but instead we were both pushing shopping carts at Target, and I was learning the distinction between Squinkies and Zinkies.
Two Choices Make Things So Much Easier
If I could be the star of any TV show, there are only two choices that come to mind -- I would either want to steal David Hasselhoff's role on Baywatch or be Jeremy Wade on River Monsters . . . and I'm pretty sure that for heterosexual males, these two choices are the archetypal options for this hypothetical question -- they've got everything covered . . . you can either travel the world, hooking into giant freshwater fish with a rod and reel, with a dedicated staff helping you find the action . . . or you could run around with a bevy of hot lifeguards, saving the day every episode, with the added bonus of beautiful California beaches and weather . . . so which do you choose?
Same Dave Under a Different Name
I have grown tired of Greasetruck as my fictitious band-name, and so I am changing it -- it's not like I have to consult with anyone! --and so the name of my new (also fictitious) band name is The Moving Rocks (The World's Second Greatest Rock Band) because I like the origin story of this name . . . anyway, here is my first song under this new moniker -- I am hard at work on recording a Moving Rocks album, and perhaps if I am extremely motivated, I will find some real live people to actually flesh out this project, but until then, this is nothing but Dave (and I've replaced the usual rambling psychedelic monologue with a guitar solo!)
It's Fun to Eat Junk Food and Watch a Lot of TV
Sometimes it takes an injury to remember how wonderful it is to eat salty and sugary snacks in alternation, while getting completely sucked into a TV show . . . especially when every episode is available on Netflix . . . I have watched thirteen episodes of The Killing since last Thursday, but season one doesn't wrap everything up in a neat package, so I need a new injury so that I can watch season two equally as fast.
Miracles: I Generate Them
While zealous fanatics of Sentence of Dave know that I am no stranger to miracles, I realize that some of my more skeptical readers question the authenticity of these wondrous happenings, and might even doubt my hagiographic qualities . . . but this example will certainly sway them: last Wednesday night, while playing basketball, my leg popped out of the hip socket -- or that's what it felt like -- and I knew to stop playing, but it didn't seem like that bad of an injury, but the next morning it felt much worse, and by mid-day Thursday, much to the amusement of my colleagues, I was curled in a ball on the floor of the English office, unable to find a position to relieve the excruciating pain in my right hip and leg -- and so I had to do the unthinkable . . . cancel soccer practice AND miss pub night, and despite taking Advil and Aleve, I couldn't sleep and my hip kept getting worse and worse, so I took off work on Friday and went to the doctor -- who despite having a very calm bedside demeanor, still scared the crap out of me, since he kept mentioning X-rays and MRI's and physical therapy and possible surgery . . . but the first step was to get an X-ray, which was an epic trip in the rain, considering I needed the use of a cane to get in and out of the car, but luckily all that showed up on the x-ray was a bone spur and lots of wear and tear, so he thought it was probably just a bad "bone bruise," where bone hit bone on the spur, and then everything swelled up, and so I spent Friday in incredible pain, taking a prescription anti-inflammatory drug, and I was unable to sit up, or walk very far . . . and in order to get off the couch, I had to undergo ten minutes of weird gyrations (including a step when I had to crawl on the floor) and I was feeling pretty low -- like I was done playing sports forever, even with my kids, and probably wouldn't even be able to attend Ian's soccer game on Saturday, let alone coach it, but when I woke up Saturday morning, I was able to get out of bed without a problem, and though my hip was sore, it didn't hurt . . . and I now realize the acute difference between those two states, and so I was able to walk the dog, coach the game (we won! Ian scored!) and rejoin the ambulatory world . . . and now I have a new lease on life, an appreciation of the simple things, and I have sworn to take it easy until I am fully healed and not jeopardize my health and the well-being of my family and myself by vainly taking part in adult athletics, because I am long past my prime . . . unless . . . unless . . . this miraculous recovery is a sign from the powers above that I should continue to recklessly participate in sports aimed for people many years younger than me, and I am sure that my stupid brain will slowly rationalize the latter logic, and I will act just like Steve Martin's character Davis in Grand Canyon.
That's a Killer
Though my injury sucks, it is allowing me to watch and enjoy the first season of the AMC's Seattle noir murder mystery show The Killing . . . and I especially enjoyed it when local senator Ruth Yitanes tells councilman Richmond that his mayoral bid is over, because of his association with the murder of a high school girl, and that soon he will be "the punch line of a dirty joke."
The Medium Might Be a Message
Neal Stephenson's ponderous, otherworldy and philosophical novel Anathem may be the perfect book to consume on an e-reader -- although it's disturbing not to know exactly how far I am through the book (30% . . . but 30% of what? I don't know how many pages it is) but I can see the monastic avouts in the concents of Stephenson's world carrying around a similar gadget . . . still this book isn't for everyone, as there is more description of architecture than there is conflict, which is probably why the electronic version is only $1.99 on Amazon.
The Looming Specter of Death and a Tonka Truck
I re-injured my groin/hip playing pick-up basketball Wednesday night, and part of me wonders whether I am getting old and should give this kind of stuff up, and the other part of me wonders whether getting drunk and stepping on a Tonka truck did more damage than I thought at the time.
Bags, Cans, Baskets, Etc.
During our vacation in Vermont my wife got to spend more time than usual with me, and so while she got to see how I operate out in the world, I had to endure her criticism -- which was always warranted, but I'm used to doing things in my own particular style, and when she's not there to witness my own particular style, then I think everything is going just fine; here are three examples from the trip that come to mind:
1) I have a poor sense of direction, but I like to drive -- especially in mountainous terrain, because controlling the car keeps me from getting carsick -- and over the course of our week vacation, we took quite a few drives -- for lunch, to snowboard, to shop -- every single time we approached the town of Weston, I had to ask my wife which way to turn (left) and if she asked me which way I thought I had to turn, I would yell, "Just tell me!"
2) we had to take the trash to the dump, because there was no garbage service at the house -- and I put the trash can in the back of the mini-van -- but the seats were folded down -- and so I tried to use the seat-belt to hold the garbage can in place, but every time I stopped short, the can tipped over, spilling garbage juice into the car, and the first two times the can tipped I told the kids to unbuckle their seat-belts and run back there and right the can -- which they thought was awesome . . . "We're walking around in the car while it's driving!" and I was thinking, "Welcome to 1978" and then my wife ended the party by asking, "Why didn't you put on of the seats up and put the can in the well?" and I told her that sounded like a great idea, and that I wasn't sure why I didn't think of that (perhaps I am an idiot?) and when I stopped the car and went back there and tried it, the garbage can fit perfectly and did not spill;
3) at the grocery store, I noticed that Switchback Ale was only $3.99 per twenty-two ounce bottle, instead of the $5.99 per bottle price at the beer store, so I brought six bottles up to the register, along with a frozen pizza and a rotisserie chicken -- and the old lady scanned the beer first, and put the large bottles in three little paper bags -- two beers per bag, and while Catherine was getting out money to pay for everything, I decided that my part of the transaction was over, and grabbed one of those little plastic grocery baskets and put the beer in it, and the old lady gave me a funny look and said, "You're going to bring that basket back, right?" and I said, "Of course, I'm just afraid if I carry these bags loose I'll have an accident," and then left, but my wife got to see her slow head-shake of disapproval at my strange behavior, because she was going to put those three paper bags into another plastic bag, which I didn't anticipate, because I have no patience and very poor communication skills (unless I'm talking about something I just read).
1) I have a poor sense of direction, but I like to drive -- especially in mountainous terrain, because controlling the car keeps me from getting carsick -- and over the course of our week vacation, we took quite a few drives -- for lunch, to snowboard, to shop -- every single time we approached the town of Weston, I had to ask my wife which way to turn (left) and if she asked me which way I thought I had to turn, I would yell, "Just tell me!"
2) we had to take the trash to the dump, because there was no garbage service at the house -- and I put the trash can in the back of the mini-van -- but the seats were folded down -- and so I tried to use the seat-belt to hold the garbage can in place, but every time I stopped short, the can tipped over, spilling garbage juice into the car, and the first two times the can tipped I told the kids to unbuckle their seat-belts and run back there and right the can -- which they thought was awesome . . . "We're walking around in the car while it's driving!" and I was thinking, "Welcome to 1978" and then my wife ended the party by asking, "Why didn't you put on of the seats up and put the can in the well?" and I told her that sounded like a great idea, and that I wasn't sure why I didn't think of that (perhaps I am an idiot?) and when I stopped the car and went back there and tried it, the garbage can fit perfectly and did not spill;
3) at the grocery store, I noticed that Switchback Ale was only $3.99 per twenty-two ounce bottle, instead of the $5.99 per bottle price at the beer store, so I brought six bottles up to the register, along with a frozen pizza and a rotisserie chicken -- and the old lady scanned the beer first, and put the large bottles in three little paper bags -- two beers per bag, and while Catherine was getting out money to pay for everything, I decided that my part of the transaction was over, and grabbed one of those little plastic grocery baskets and put the beer in it, and the old lady gave me a funny look and said, "You're going to bring that basket back, right?" and I said, "Of course, I'm just afraid if I carry these bags loose I'll have an accident," and then left, but my wife got to see her slow head-shake of disapproval at my strange behavior, because she was going to put those three paper bags into another plastic bag, which I didn't anticipate, because I have no patience and very poor communication skills (unless I'm talking about something I just read).
Complaint or Humblebrag?
I should count my blessings that I have complaints like this one about my children: sometimes my older son gets so wrapped up in listening to audio books that he doesn't pay attention when people talk to him (right now he's really into Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series . . . it's sort of like Harry Potter crossed with mythology).
This Sentence Was Written Under Duress
I apologize for the poor quality of this sentence, but I am feeling light-headed because of the stupid fad-diet that I have vowed to adopt for the rest of my life; it's called the 5:2 Diet and it started in England -- the gimmick is that you "fast" two days a week and eat what you like the remaining five days . . . but it's not really fasting, it's just eating very limited calories two days a week (600 calories for men) and the craze for this diet serendipitously coincided with my reading of Jared Diamond's new book about hunter-gatherers and the success of their feast and famine diet . . . so I am going for it, and I don't do things half-assed (actually, yes I do) so I made the promise in the English office that I would fast on Mondays and Wednesdays for the rest of my life -- and I'm writing this late Monday afternoon, and so the fasting is really catching up with me (though I correctly spelled "serendipitously" on the first attempt!) but if I can hold out another couple of hours, with just a salad for dinner, then I can go to sleep and really pig-out tomorrow (and one of the problems with this diet is that you need complete control of your environment . . . two weeks ago, I had made it through the bulk of Wednesday, but my wife walked int he door with two delicious smelling pizzas and I broke down and ate four slices).
I'm Really TRYING to Be Enlightened . . . Really, I Am
If you haven't seen the HBO series Enlightened, starring Laura Dern, then be sure to check it out -- it's funny and horribly awkward, and Dern -- who has a nervous breakdown at work in the first episode and attends a life-changing holistic rehabilitation center in Hawaii --returns to her old life, sort of . . . she's been severely demoted and has to move in with her estranged mom, but despite this, she is trying to become a better, calmer, less-materialistic, less bitter, more optimistic and hopeful person -- an "agent of change" -- but most people don't want to deal with this sort of person, and not only that, she's barely holding on to this new persona . . . I often feel this way when I vow not to lose my temper because of my children -- I can usually hold it together a few days (Serenity now!) and then I explode; the show alos reminds me of the Nick Horby novel How to Be Good . . . most of us our trying to be good people, but we wouldn't want to live with one (and I just read that the series was cancelled due to low ratings, despite critical acclaim, and that is actually a perfect end for the show).
Am I Misanthropic or Merely Grouchy?
In some respects, I'm glad the weather has finally turned spring-like, but the downside is that all the amateurs crawl out from hibernation and get in the space that has been mine all winter . . . these fair-weather folk clog up the sidewalks and the park and the tennis courts and the ball fields.
Two Very Very Important Questions
The house we rented in Vermont last week had Playstation 3 and Rock Band set-up in the basement, and after many hours of playing (and I must say that I am a pretty good Rock Band guitarist and drummer) two questions come to mind . . . one of which the internet answered: Question #1 . . . Are actual rock stars good at Rock Band? -- and there are loads of YouTube videos proving that actual rock stars usually CANNOT play their own songs on Rock Band . . . Question #2 is . . . Why don't they have a Jazz Band module for Rock Band? and while I love jazz, Bruce McCulloch answered that question long ago: if you like jazz, then you, sir, are my nemesis!
My Children Are Animals (and I am Inured to It)
Yesterday, I picked my kids up from school (plus an extra kid, as a favor) and I made the mistake of trying to talk to a friend for a moment, which gave my kids and their friend time to start wrestling, tackling each other, and slamming each other to the pavement -- which I noticed but didn't really address, because that's how they generally behave -- but because this was right in front of the school, two school aides and a teacher rushed down, to break up the melee, and I had to walk over and claim the children -- two of whom I explained, were "brothers" and then when I tried to finish my conversation, they started in again, and by the end of this round, Ian was kicking Alex in the head -- and my friend had to yell at Ian . . . and while this was horribly embarrassing, it was good for me to see how others view my children's behavior -- behavior which I am so used to that it doesn't faze me -- and all I could see on people's faces were expressions of horror.
I Hate to Say I Told You So . . . or Do I?
I hate to say "I told you so," but I told you so (and actually, like everyone else, I love to say "I told you so") and it wasn't me telling you anyway, it was someone far more respectable -- Diane Ravitch -- and she had the backing of Campbell's Law . . . so no one who reads this blog should be surprised as to what happened at Beverly Hall's school in Atlanta.
The Jungle is Low in Sodium
If you don't want to change your ways, then do NOT read the chapter on diet in Jared Diamond's new book The World Until Yesterday . . . like Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, it reveals some eye-opening dietary facts . . . except that Pollan points out the dangers of adopting a modern diet of corn 2 and corn syrup, and Diamond reveals the dangers of staple food laced with sodium and sugar, two ingredients that hunter-gatherers in the jungles of New Guinea do without -- and they have no incidence of stroke, diabetes, heart attack, coronary disease, and many of the other modern illness that plagues civilized man -- so I am going to try to eat less refined sugar and less sodium, which is difficult, because they both seem to be in everything -- but these are the only habits I am going to adopt from hunter/gathers, because while I agree with Wilfrid Oakley that "man may be captain of his fate, but he is also victim of his blood sugar" I don't think I am ready to abandon the elderly in the forest once they cannot move with the tribe, or commit infanticide if a child is born too close in age to the oldest child who is still on the teat, or adopt the treachery ideal of southwestern New Guinea, where it is even better to invite your enemy to share food and kill him than it is to kill him on the battlefield . . . "tuwi asonai makaerin!" (we have been fattening you with friendship for the slaughter!)
Big Announcement!
I loved our vacation in southern Vermont so much that I have convinced my family to abandon their hectic central Jersey lives and move with me to the Green Mountains -- and, of course, we will be living off the grid, growing our own granola and tofu, sugaring our own maple syrup, and doing without the internet . . . so no more Sentence of Dave, instead I will be keeping a daily journal, and I will write this journal with a quill pen, on hand-made vellum, and I will lock this journal in a wooden chest, which I will bury under our sugar-shack, and long after I am dead and gone, perhaps someone will exhume it, read it, and enjoy my posthumous wisdom.
Snowshoeing = Snowshoeing
I went snowshoeing for the first time in my life last week, while we were on vacation in Vermont, and I must say that the experience of snowshoeing is exactly as I imagined it . . . it was no easier or harder than I imagined, and I sank into the snow the exact amount I have always imagined I would sink into the snow while wearing snowshoes, it was exactly as exciting as I imagined (not very, compared to snowboarding, but very practical and relaxing) and so while I recommend snowshoeing -- it's exactly as fun as you imagine it to be -- you don't actually have to get out into the snow and do it, you can just think about doing it and it's pretty much the same experience (besides the cardiovascular benefits, of course).
Circus Peanuts Beware
The Vermont Country Store in Weston is over-priced and full of kitsch, but these minor faults are overshadowed by the vast array of free samples: dips and chips and salsa; local cheeses and pepperoni; fudge and cookies . . . if you're trashy enough, you could skip paying for lunch next door at the Bryant House (the associated restaurant) and just graze your way through the enormous store, which is actually several connected old buildings; the candy section fills one of these structures, and it is a joy to behold, several hundred square feet of every kind of chocolate, sweet, and confection possible -- arranged in a maze of jars and bins and cases . . . and from this horn of sugary plenty -- to avoid gluttony -- we decided to each choose a small scoop of ONE item -- Ian filled his bag with candy blackberries and raspberries; Alex chose candy Lego bricks, Catherine got dark chocolate covered cranberries, and I had a hankering for black licorice -- but there was a LOT of black licorice to choose from: ropes and strands, dog shaped licorice, swirls, rounds, twizzlers, etc. -- I finally decided on some smallish rhombus shaped pieces with the word "ZOUT" stamped on each piece . . . I assumed this was the brand of the candy, but when we got into the car and sampled our treats, I nearly had to spit mine out -- it was incredibly salty . . . and I soon learned, after doing a bit of research, that zout means "salty" in Danish, and I had purchased the infamous Dutch double-salted licorice, which might not be a candy at all, and instead some sort of folkloric remedy for sore throats . . . some folks on the Internet mentioned eating it as a "rite of passage," and all this is fine and good -- you might know that I am a fan of the circus peanut, and not because of the taste of course (circus peanuts taste horrible, like disintegrating Styrofoam) but simply because they exist at all and people continue to buy them and someone must be eating them . . . but I do believe there should be some sort of warning on this Danish double salted stuff, because now I have a bag of them, and the only way to unload them is to foist them off on unsuspecting people who don't speak Dutch.
Bonus Post! Good Friday? The Best Friday
I am about to pour a triumphant local Vermont beer: we survived four days of family snowboarding without mishap (though my children nearly died several times sledding in the yard of our rented "cabin," which is actually nicer than our real house) and while most of the time when I am on vacation, by the end of the week I am getting that "this place is real nice but I'm looking forward to going home" feeling, I am NOT getting that feeling this time -- and that is probably because we lucked out with the weather . . . could be the nicest week of spring weather in the history of Southern Vermont.
Comparing and Contrasting Insane People (with an extra dash of irony)
While I recognize the irony of someone like myself judging lunatics who write lots of words on the internet, I still can't help offering my two cents: last Spring Break we ate an amazing little taco joint in New Paltz called Mexicali Blue, and while the Yelp reviews are generally quite positive, there are also some fascinating narratives sprinkled in the mix, about mischarges for guacamole and enduring loud music -- long competent narratives with loads of details . . . in fact, if they weren't written on a restaurant-review web-site, these people might pass for educated and normal . . . and we spent this Spring Break in Southern Vermont and when I drove through Ludlow, on my way to get some new bindings for my snowboard, I saw a little shack called Taco's Taco's (that's how it is spelled on the sign) and I love tacos, so I checked the Yelp reviews and while I will definitely never visit this restaurant, I am glad I visited the reviews, because while they are bad, they are also wonderfully written, informative, entertaining, and quite funny . . . especially "Tasteless Tacos, Bogus Burritos, and Nasty Nachos," written by David K from Fort Lee, New Jersey, who describes his "first taste of nachos at Rye Playland Ice Skating Rink" and says that they were "totally better" than the nachos at Taco's Taco's . . . he also calls their Spanish Rice "one word: disgraceful" and claims that the rice is not only an insult to Spanish people, but to all people "of Hispanic descent."
A Tough Fruit to Digest
I highly recommend Tyler Cowen's e-pamphlet The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better . . . it is a quick read with a powerful thesis: we are not as rich as we think we are . . . and the stuff that made us feel rich in the first place, the low hanging fruit we grabbed and ate, is pretty much a thing of the past -- there is no more free and cheap land, the major strides in public education happened last century (at the beginning of the 20th century, very few people went to school or university -- intelligent or not --and Cowen argues that we have reached an age of diminishing returns in education . . . now everybody goes to school) and there haven't been many life changing scientific breakthroughs recently -- aside from the internet, which is a special case, because though it eases the shock of the stagnation, it is mainly free, and wonderful for those folks who are "intellectually curious, those who wish to manage large networks of loose acquaintances, and those who wish to absorb lots of information at phenomenally fast rates," and so though we still have our Constitution and relatively cheap fossil fuels, they are only two of the five . . . and in areas of great gain, such as financial innovation, these innovations do NOT translate into gains for the American people (and might translate into losses) as "recent and current innovation is more geared toward private goods rather than public goods," unlike the innovations of the 20th century: refrigeration, transportation, sanitation, mass communication, electricity . . . I agree with this, though the internet is super-neat, it pales in comparison to an indoor toilet, and I will still pay my plumber more to fix my pipes than I will pay for an internet connection.
Transitions? WTF!
Last week, my wife texted me the following message "U need to pick up the boys from your parents' house on the way home; I took out meat meat for tacos for dinner" and I told her I would pick up the kids and then I chastised her for not using a transition between two very different ideas -- thus creating an abrupt non sequitur of a message -- and I sent this message despite receiving advice NOT to send it from the women in the English office . . . because I thought it was humorous, but my wife thought it was "kind of annoying" and so I suppose that transitions are unnecessary in texts and I won't bring it up again (and of course, my wife used a period, not a semi-colon, in her text but I don't want to ruin the integrity of Sentence of Dave and so I made that slight adjustment . . . I apologize to all parties for being "kind of annoying").
Cheap Electrical Fun
Just before I go to sleep on a cold, dry winter night, I strip off my black fleece sweatshirt so I won't get hot once I am under the covers, and the last thing I see before I close my eyes is a pyrotechnical festival of static electricity, caused by the fleece rubbing against my head, made all the brighter because I am inside a tunnel of black fabric . . . and if you haven't experienced this, I suggest you try: it's inexpensive, safe, and a suitably dreamy image before you settle into a cold and comfortable night's sleep (and this is in direct contrast to what happens before bed on a hot, humid summer night . . . I peel a sweaty t-shirt off my hairy torso . . . and instead of receiving a visual treat, I am punished with an odorous olfactory slap in the face).
Saving It . . . Forever
This smart and spot-on post about amateur art by my friend Rob made me realize that the reason I have never actually tried to paint a picture -- though I love the idea of slapping some colors on a canvas -- is because I secretly think I would be an awesome and amazing painter, and I know the only way to ruin this pleasant fantasy is to actually try painting . . . there are several other things in this very particular category of "stuff I am purposefully avoiding so that I don't find out that I'm not as good I would imagine I would be" that I can share with you: for instance, I just know I would be a natural at curling -- so I'm never going to visit Bemidji, Minnesota and try my hand at the sport . . . I'm also positive that I would be an excellent actor, and the best way for me to preserve this opinion is to never try out for a play . . . and I am as certain as certain can be that if I took the time to buy some new clothes and actually put some effort into dressing myself, that I would be the most fashionable guy around . . . and as long as I continue to wear fleece pants out in public, I'll never have to worry about this theory being refuted . . . so what are you avoiding on purpose so that you don't have to face the sad reality that you aren't a natural at it?
The Human Memory is Strange, Wondrous, and Stupid
Though I most definitely saw the film, if you were to ask me "Do you remember Remember the Titans?" I would have to say no . . . but I do remember Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Total Recall, and Memento quite well (and Dark City is an odd, in-between case).
I Am Mean (But Not Golden)
My friend Stacy and I each both teach Philosophy this year, and we were talking about Aristotle's Golden Mean . . . Aristotle says for every virtue there is a deficiency and an excess (so for the virtue of courage, the deficiency would be fear and the excess would be recklessness) and he says that it is admirable, but very difficult, to find the "golden mean" of each virtue -- the exact right amount of each thing you should be; we challenge our students to choose a virtue and apply this philosophy, and we usually do one ourselves: I decided that I needed to work on the virtue of "patience" -- and I definitely have a deficiency of patience . . . I lack patience when I drive, when I walk the dog and he won't poop, when I walk through the hallways at school, when I am eating, when I go to live music shows, when I go out to dinner, at the theater, when I am ready to leave a party, when I am tying my kids' shoes etc. etc. and Stacy was nice enough to offer to print out a question sheet for this assignment that she had saved from the previous year . . . and as the paper slid from the offic printer, and she tried to hand it to me, I grabbed it out of her hand, and read it . . . and it said "Please return ASAP" and nothing else, and before I could turn my filter on, I asked my friend Stacy this question: "What kind of asshole are you?" and then I realized that this was simply the flip side of a piece of recycled paper, and that the question sheet was on the other side -- but by this time it was too late . . . luckily Stacy has a great sense of humor, and she thought my horribly rude response was very funny, and not only that, she hopes that I do NOT succeed in improving my patience because she gets great enjoyment from my inappropriate spontaneous and ridiculous behavior, and -- of course -- the irony was not lost on either of us that if I can't be patient even while I am designing a lesson about my own patience, then I am probably not going to imrpove it anywhere else in my life either.
If You're Reading This You Are Probably WEIRD
In his new book, Jared Diamond explains that the human subjects studied in the vast majority of psychology experiments are WEIRD, and that may be skewing the results -- and you are probably WEIRD too . . . Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic . . . and if you are WEIRD, then you might learn a lot from The World Until Yesterday, and I highly recommend it: nine mongongo nuts out of ten.
Setting the Youngsters Straight
Every year, it seems that I have one annoying class . . . it's usually a large class in the middle of the day, just before lunch, when the kids are fully awake, but also have low blood sugar -- and every year, when I am expressing my annoyance to this annoying class, one of the students kindly asks me if I am having a bad day . . . because these students aren't annoying individually, they are annoying as a horde of thirty boxed-in teenagers . . . and so they can't believe that they would ever be annoying; and every year, I have to explain to this annoying class that if I am in a bad mood, and expressing this to them, it is not from some outside influence -- because I am a consummate professional -- and the reason I am in a bad mood is a direct result of their annoying behavior. . . and this always shocks them a bit, and makes them laugh: I think it is human nature to think that if someone is in a bad mood, it's certainly not my fault, there must be some other reason, some reason outside of me, because why would anyone ever be angry at me?
Tickets, Time, and Anxiety
I am not a big fan of live events -- a shortcoming of mine -- and this is because I'm not a terribly flexible person and I don't like the lack of control a live event entails . . . so last weekend was quite a test for me; Friday night, I saw Louie CK at the State Theater, and despite having to wait until the 10 PM show, which is far past my bedtime (unless I'm throwing darts in a bar) it was well worth it -- Louie killed and he did entirely new material and performed for ninety minutes . . . a long set, but he pulled it off (though it was a bit dry and hot in the theater, not this hot, but still, it made me sort of parched, and I couldn't pause the show so I could get a drink, another reason I don't love live performances) and then on Saturday night, Whitney and his step-brother picked me up and drove me up to Chatham, where we were meeting a bunch of guys and then going to Montclair to the Old 97's/ Drive-By Truckers show . . . but when I got in the car and asked Whitney what I owed him for the ticket, he said, "I don't have a ticket for you" and after some heated discussion and a review of texts sent (he texted "I'll check on tickets" and I misinterpreted this as "I am getting tickets") I realized that I didn't have a ticket for the show, which made me very nervous, as I don't like live performances to begin with, and I especially don't like them when I'm unsure of some component (I'm still angry about trying to scalp INXS tickets at the Spectrum 1987, and instead buying expired '76ers tickets) but luckily the show wasn't sold out, and I was able to get in . . . but then I had the opposite problem . . . there was no leaving: both bands were great, though I was more partial to the Drive-By Truckers . . . but the show was FOUR HOURS LONG . . . which is really testing my attention span, and another reason I'm not a huge fan of going to a live performance (and these night-time live performances were bracketed by two daytime travel soccer games, one of which I coached . . . in the snow . . . and I didn't plan very well for this live-weather event and my young son nearly froze, as my wife was getting her hair done and so I dressed him for the weather, but I dressed him the way I would dress, and I am a 190 pound hairy man, and he is a fifty pound hairless seven year old).
The Most Athletic Thing I've Ever Done (and Possibly The Most Athletic Thing ANYONE Has Ever Done)
You may have completed a triathlon or done a "tough mudder," or perhaps you've scored a hole-in-one or climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro . . . and while these are all impressive athletic feats, they pale in comparison to what I did late Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning) after a long evening of beer drinking with the boys -- Zman was nice enough to let us crash at his house after the Old 97's/Drive-By Truckers show, but Zman was not nice enough to adult-proof his house . . . and I thank him for this (and his very young son . . . if Cole were a girl this probably wouldn't have happened) and so here's what hapened: while I was carrying an open jar of Grey Poupon mustard to the living room -- for use on some pepperoni and cheese -- I stepped into the box-bed of a Tonka toy dump truck, and when the truck rolled forward, with my foot on the bed, this propelled both my feet into the air, so that my body was three feet aloft and horizontal to the ground -- and it was in this moment, parallel to the hardwood floor, that I thought to myself: "the mustard! I can't spill the mustard!" because I didn't want to get Zman in trouble with Zwoman, because his insensitive fraternity brother stained the couch with mustard . . . and so instead of breaking my fall with my hands, I took one for the team, fell flat on my side (with a resounding thump which brought everyone running) and I spilled not one drop of mustard . . . nor did I suffer any lasting injury, and though I don't remember this, Zman reports that in my stunned state, I said to him: "I just did the most athletic thing anyone has ever done."
Another Note to Self . . . This is How to Create an Infinite Loop
An easy way to hear my wife use profanity is to spill some granola on the counter, and then instead of cleaning it up, simply sweep it off the counter and onto the floor where "the dog will get it" but the dog gets scared when my wife uses profanity, so this created a infinite loop of me calling the dog over to lick up the granola, my wife yelling at me for my slovenly habits, the dog skulking away because he thought he was in trouble, the granola mess still being on the floor, and so -- once again -- I call the dog over to eat the granola, my wife yells at me for my slovenly habits, the dog skulks away because he thinks he is in trouble, the mess still on the floor . . . and so finally I swept it up, and I won't do that again (in front of my wife).
Why Are We Living Like This?
Americans can't sleep as it is, yet we spring the clocks ahead so we stay up later, consuming more fuel and stuff, and get alarmed even more than usual by our alarms -- and then there's the children, of course, who we claim to care about -- but we send them to school at an ungodly hour to begin with (a school district in Minnesota that switched to a later schedule found many positive benefits, including a boost of over 200 points in the tope students average S.A.T. scores) and then we screw them even further and wonder why they can't pay attention, and then, to top it all off, we put the Superbowl on late at night on a Sunday . . . why, Chronos, why?
It's The Fortnight of Time
Due to a serendipitous confluence of influences -- including the annual "spring ahead" of Daylight Saving Time, the fact that I'm a few hundred pages Neal Stephenson's epochal science fiction novel Anathem, the coincidence that Stacy and I just showed the most realistic time travel movie ever made (Primer) in philosophy class (it's also the most difficult time travel movie ever made -- it's fun to team teach something that neither teacher understands . . . and then we have the students read Chuck Klosterman's time travel essay, where he confesses that he didn't understand the movie either) -- anyway, due to this convergence of time-themed stuff, my mind has been preoccupied with all things chronological . . . and so when I asked my class on Monday "How is today an example of time travel?" they instantly got the answer: that we had all travelled into the future an hour because of Daylight Saving Time . . . and in some more rational parallel universe, where they don't practice such absurd manipulation of the clock -- we were all still sleeping in our warm beds or perhaps just waking up and sipping coffee, instead of sitting in class, bleary eyed, wishing we had time machines so that we could go back in time and sleep more . . . and I'm probably going to keep obsessing on this theme, and my wife won't let me talk about it any more at home -- the blog is my only outlet -- so I apologize, but there is probably going to be a fortnight's worth of time posts.
My Children Need to Visit New Guinea
Jared Diamond, in his new book The World Until Yesterday, claims that among New Guinean hunter gatherers, the Andaman Islanders, and the Piraha Indians of Brazil, children of nine or ten years old often leave their families to journey to other villages and live with foster parents, cousins, or other various allo-parents -- these children are autonomous, entrepreneurial and adventurous . . . meanwhile, my kids can barely tie their own shoes.
Strategic Birthday Logistics
When carpooling children to a birthday party, always offer to do the drop-off -- it's much smoother than pick-up, when things can run late, and you have to deal with goody bags and social niceties (I learned this the easy way last weekend, when we got a text from our friend Ruth, who was picking up Ian -- the party was supposed to end at 7:30, but we got a text from her at ten of eight that said: "things are running late here" and I thought to myself: sucks to be her . . . trapped in a room full of eight year olds hopped up on sugar, while the wife and I are starting an episode of Game of Thrones).
A Plea to Cronus: Obliterate Daylight Saving Time
Monday morning, I had to use the light from my cell phone -- which prominently displays the time -- to locate my dog's poop so that I could pick it up . . . and, of course, two mornings previous, at the same time, I was able to accurately locate my dog's poop without the aforementioned device . . . Cronus, Greek Titan of Heaven, strike down the mortals who have profaned your domain!
My Kids Are Weird (and not with the program)
Basketball season has come to an end, and soccer has begun -- despite the snow -- but you wouldn't know it in my house . . . for the past two weeks, my boys have spent every moment of their free time shooting mini-basketballs at a nerf hoop on the closet door; they really should have been doing this all season, as they are a couple of chuckers (but they can both handle the ball and play defense, so I can't complain) but, oddly, during basketball season all they wanted to do was toss around the football (and since Ian's soccer game was cancelled on Saturday account of snow, we went out and played tennis).
This Metaphor is not for the Weak of Heart
In my "Year as a Week" metaphor, we have entered Thursday -- Spring Break is around the corner and then there's just the sloppy slog through the last two months of the year -- Friday! -- and the weekend is here (summer vacation) . . . but in my "Career as a Week" metaphor, I'm only in the middle of Wednesday: I've got to work as long as I've already worked before I can even consider retirement, and that's only if the pension system remains self-sustaining -- if it collapses, then I'm probably still in early Tuesday in my "Career as a Week" and I will never reach the weekend (retirement) and instead will simply work until I keel over and die in front of a class full of teenagers (who will most likely have the internet implanted in their brains, so they can text each other telepathically, while I am trying to teach them Hamlet).
Dumb Phone
I am being technologically taunted into getting a smarter phone; when my friends send a barrage of group texts, my phone only gets "receipts" of the messages, but can't retrieve them -- and this is worse than not receiving the messages at all, because the receipts alert me to the fact that everyone is making plans and making jokes about the plans, but (unless I annoy people for a summary) I'm not privy to the actual information.
I Don't Care If You Can Find Your Hometown on a Map, But You Should Know This . . .
If I were able to get one message across to the people of America, it would be: the left lane is for passing.
Does This Make My Property Value Rise Or Plummet?
To make up for yesterday's ultra-nerdy post, today I present you with something visceral and easy to understand -- a sea monster! -- the creature pictured above was caught two years ago in the Raritan River, the same river which flows a few hundred yards behind my house -- and the horrific beast is called a "sea lamprey"; they are apparently fairly common in the murky waters of New Jersey's least scenic river and while my children think this photo is the bee's knees, I'm not sure if it's a selling point for the location of my house -- I will have to ask my realtor.
A Very Nerdy Connection
Here's one for all the dorks out there: I was reading Jared Diamond's new book The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? . . . and not only that, but I was reading it on my new Kindle -- and so I made an electronic bookmark when I ran across this passage: "a traditional tactic without parallel in modern state warfare is the treacherous feast: documented among the Yanomamo and in New Guinea: inviting neighbors to a feast, then surprising and killing them after they have laid down their weapons and focused attention on eating and drinking" because it reminded me of the infamous Red Wedding in George R.R. Martin's third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series . . . and my internet research revealed that Martin's Red Wedding (not to be confused with Billy Idol's White Wedding) was inspired by an actual historical event -- the Black Dinner , a treacherous feast in Scotland in the year 1440 . . . indeed!
Lunch of Champions?
Note to self: after the kids stay up far past their bedtime on Saturday night and need a two hour nap before their basketball game on Sunday, do NOT feed them cake (and only cake) for lunch to "wake them up"-- Ian played defense with one hand in his pocket, and Alex -- after we won the game -- got in a kid's face from the other team and taunted him (Alex does claim that the kid made fun of him for his dimunitive stature at school, but it was still very embarrassing for me, as I am his father and the coach of the team and thus feel a twofold responsibility for his behavior).
A Reason to Endure Static
I am a fan of FM radio -- despite the fact that I end up hearing a lot of sitar music (WRSU) and pleas from Alec Baldwin for money (NPR) and dissonant noise-jazz (WPRB) and classical flute (WQXR) and (even worse) Jethro Tull style flute (Q104.3) -- because once in a while you hear something so wonderful and unpredictable that it makes your day; Saturday morning on the way to the gym, I was listening to Newark's jazz station (WBGO) and I heard this tremendous couplet, in a song by Bobby Rush called "What's Good for the Goose" . . . in which a woman makes a calm ultimatum to her cheating husband: "Eye for eye, tit for tat/ if you give away your dog, I'll give away my cat."
Honors High School Students Say the Darndest Things
I thought the line of the year (from one of my high school students) occurred when I was teaching an excerpt from The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, and we were reenacting the play when Lawrence Taylor cracked Joe Theisman's femur in half -- we had a football and a number of students set-up to execute the infamous flea-flicker, and I asked the class which way the running back should go and a fashionable little senior girl yelled, "Backwards!" and when I questioned her as to why the running back should run backwards, she said, with total sincerity: "He's the running back . . . running back" and we laughed about that for a few days, but I think I've got a line to top it; I was doing a bit of improv slapstick while teaching Hamlet, and during the portion when Hamlet instructs the players not to laugh at their own jokes, I spilled some water on myself -- and kept a straight face when the class laughed -- and then I misplaced my water bottle too near the edge of the desk, so that it spilled all over the floor . . . and then the students realized that I was doing this on purpose, to mirror the words in the play, and another student realized that there was a puddle on the carpet in another section of the room -- because I had done the same thing third period -- and one concerned student, yelled -- before thinking it through: "But now you spilled all your water . . . how are you going to do it last period?" and I got to explain to this eighteen year old honors English student that we have running water in our school -- in both fountains and faucets, and so there was plenty more of it to spill on the floor.
Me and the Doctor: Together Forever
If Seuss were alive, he'd be very old,
one hundred and nine years I am told;
I doubt very much that I'll make it that far --
but I have a tattoo of a fish in a car!
Dave Coins a New Verb
Tuesday after school, while I was walking the dog, I blair-witched myself in the small patch of woods between Donaldson Park and the Donald Goodkind Bridge . . . but after twenty minutes of walking in circles, I was able to extricate myself (and my dog) before Rustin Parr slaughtered us in his shack.
Consumer Reports: Good to Have and Easy to Cancel
I would like to give Consumer Reports a five stars out of five product rating; not only was the site extremely useful for buying a used car, but it is the easiest automatic payment to cancel in the history of the internet (and it still allows you access to the site until your subscription runs out, but it doesn't automatically renew unless you jump through a bunch of hoops . . . this is how things should be on the internet: convenient, useful, and efficient . . . unfortunately, this is not the case for Sentence of Dave: if you stop reading regularly and cancel your relationship with the site, then a little gremlin will come to your house, sneak into your bedroom, and read the sentence aloud in a screechy voice at 4:30 AM each and every morning, until you convince seven other people to start reading the blog on a daily basis).
The Tree Grows Close to the Apple
Andrew Solomon's book Far From the Tree explores astonishingly difficult ethical dilemmas, such as:
1) should parents have the rights to genetically choose a child with a disability? . . . essentially insure that their child is deaf like them, or a dwarf like them . . . a process which might be regarded as the reverse of having a "designer baby"
2) when should a parent abort a child? . . . is a disability a burden? something to be dreaded? or is it something unique that should be celebrated?
3) what is a disability? should we be able to screen our children for being gay or on the autism spectrum? and then be able to terminate them?
but despite these heavy questions, the final message of the book is a positive one: most parents do not want any other children than their own (though Shakespeare's Henry IV does wonder if some "night tripping fairy" has swapped his ne'er-do-well son with the heroic Hotspur . . . but in the end, he learns that Hal is the son for him) and parents will undergo mental gymnastics and passionate displays of emotion to love and enjoy and connect to whatever offspring they bear . . . Solomon ends saying "sometimes, I had thought the heroic parents in this book were fools, enslaving themselves to a life's journey with their alien children, trying to breed identity out of misery," but then he comes to the conclusion that all parents do this, they all seek some connection with their children, but also celebrate their individuality, and somehow see their children as different from all other children -- and so the tree that the proverbial apple doesn't fall far from is like an Ent, it may move closer to the apple if necessary, as the miraculous parents in this book did -- in figuring out how to care for deaf kids and the schizophrenic kids, kids with autism and severe disabilities, kids that commit crimes or are the product of rape, transgender kids, astounding prodigies, and kids with Down syndrome -- this is an intelligent and inspirational book and it will change the way you view the world, but it's super long, so you may have to read it in sections or choose the chapters that interest you; still, give it a shot, it is ground-breaking and heart-breaking, and it keeps things very real.
1) should parents have the rights to genetically choose a child with a disability? . . . essentially insure that their child is deaf like them, or a dwarf like them . . . a process which might be regarded as the reverse of having a "designer baby"
2) when should a parent abort a child? . . . is a disability a burden? something to be dreaded? or is it something unique that should be celebrated?
3) what is a disability? should we be able to screen our children for being gay or on the autism spectrum? and then be able to terminate them?
but despite these heavy questions, the final message of the book is a positive one: most parents do not want any other children than their own (though Shakespeare's Henry IV does wonder if some "night tripping fairy" has swapped his ne'er-do-well son with the heroic Hotspur . . . but in the end, he learns that Hal is the son for him) and parents will undergo mental gymnastics and passionate displays of emotion to love and enjoy and connect to whatever offspring they bear . . . Solomon ends saying "sometimes, I had thought the heroic parents in this book were fools, enslaving themselves to a life's journey with their alien children, trying to breed identity out of misery," but then he comes to the conclusion that all parents do this, they all seek some connection with their children, but also celebrate their individuality, and somehow see their children as different from all other children -- and so the tree that the proverbial apple doesn't fall far from is like an Ent, it may move closer to the apple if necessary, as the miraculous parents in this book did -- in figuring out how to care for deaf kids and the schizophrenic kids, kids with autism and severe disabilities, kids that commit crimes or are the product of rape, transgender kids, astounding prodigies, and kids with Down syndrome -- this is an intelligent and inspirational book and it will change the way you view the world, but it's super long, so you may have to read it in sections or choose the chapters that interest you; still, give it a shot, it is ground-breaking and heart-breaking, and it keeps things very real.
Highly Unlikely (But Very Awesome) Ways to Die
According to The Week magazine, on average, an asteroid larger than 250 feet in diameter penetrates our atmosphere once a millenium -- and I have decided that instead of living in fear of this, I am going to embrace death by asteroid as a wonderful way to die -- in the same category as being eaten by a large carnivore or spontaneously combusting . . . I watch my diet, exercise regularly, and try to avoid using tobacco (with various amounts of success) because I don't want heart disease or cancer or diabetes, but we've all got to go, and it might as well be quick, relatively painless, and really awesome (and I suppose the best way to go would be if I got hit by a spontaneously combusting large carnivore from another planet that somehow got propelled into space and penetrated our atmosphere).
You Talkin' To Me?
I was walking my dog in the rain, and as I passed the Stop and Shop parking lot my son's soccer coach stopped his minvan to talk to me about the dramatic double-overtime high school basketball game we both watched at the RAC on Friday night (East Brunswick vs. St. Joe's) and while I was chatting with him, a rather decrepit looking bag lady strolled by, pushing a cart full of stuff, with her wet and bedraggled dog, and my dog -- as dogs are wont to do -- sniffed her dog's ass, but apparently this was some holier-than-thou bag lady and she took extreme umbrage at my dog's canine perversion and so she yelled at me . . . though it's not like I sniffed her ass (nor would I want to) and I know that I am responsible for my dog's behavior, but I don't think I can get him to refrain from sniffing other dog's anuses, and so even though I was taken aback when the old hag yelled, "HEY! WATCH IT!" to me, I guess if you're possessions are limited and your main companion is a dog, you'd be very protective of him, rear end and all, and so if I see her again, and I am with my dog I will steer clear.
My Son: Gross Out Comedian
Overheard from my son Alex in the shower: "Mommy, that zit hurts . . . oh, here's another zit . . . squeeze . . . oh no, that's not a zit, that's my nipple!"
Some Things That Are Expensive
Through a discussion in the English office, I learned that all of these things are quite costly: replacing your old windows, redoing your aluminum siding, installing a new front door, and making a high quality lasagna.
The Paradox of Being a Teacher and a Parent
I am a hypocrite, because I hate when my kids bring home a lot of homework, yet, as a teacher, I am a contributor to this problem . . . luckily we are reading Hamlet right now in class, and he offers two easy solutions to this dilemma: 1) I could commit suicide 2) I could put on an "antic disposition" and feign insanity, thus excusing me from both helping with homework and assigning it . . . and the bonus with the "antic disposition" solution is that you get a vacation from life -- paid for by your health insurance -- but you have to be a really good actor to pull it off (which I am not).
Ask A Philosophical Question . . .
The other night my son Alex, as he was stepping into the shower, asked me "What controls our brain?" and I normally wouldn't be prepared to answer such a puzzler -- but I had just read over Marvin Minsky's book Society of the Mind in preparation for the philosophy class that I teach this semester -- so he received an extemproaneous lecture on consciousness, how it might be produced by various independent modules in our brain, how it leads to self-reflexive thought etc. etc. and I am certain he'll never ask that question again.
No Plunge For 2013
For the first time in several years, we did not attend the Sea Isle City Polar Plunge -- the house we normally rent for the weekend was flooded out and we didn't find another place; instead we went to Philly for a night with several other couples and had a very different, much more civilized experience: we stayed at the historic Thomas Bond House, visited the art museum, ate fine Italian food, shopped at the markets, and saw a cover band that was the polar opposite of LeCompt . . . LeCompt is gritty, Jersey, weathered, and exceptional -- and this weekend made me realize how excellent they are; the only good thing I can say about the band we saw this weekend -- their name is Lima Bean Riot and they are heralded as one of the best cover bands in Philadelphia --is that they sound like the radio . . . they play horrible music, might be lip-synching, and incorporate a large number of medleys into their infinite set list of crap-pop, but if you turn your head, you wouldn't even know there was a band in the bar -- the auto-tuned noise coming from the PA speakers could have been WPLJ.
The Real Question
Looking back, I have decided that I phrased yesterday's too moralistically . . . too much in the manner of Immanuel Kant's "ought," and the real question should be: how much do you help your children with their homework?
A Sentence Request From My Wonderful Wife
My wife would like me to crowdsource this question, as we have an ever-so-slight difference in opinion: how much help should parents give their children on their homework?
3 +1 = Anger
So this is the scene: Ian is putting something in the kitchen garbage, I am getting coffee out of the microwave, and Catherine is fiddling with something on the counter -- which means all three of us are in one tiny area in our wonderful, large kitchen -- we are all jammed into the entryway between the kitchen and the eating area . . . and it is through this area that Alex tries to wedge himself, though he could have gone the other way; the result, of course, was anger.
Cooking Strike Day 13
Due to unappreciative children and an empathetic spouse, my wife went on a two week "cooking strike" -- and the first night was a wonderful reverse of the typical: I slaved away in the kitchen, making portobello mushrooms stuffed with shrimp and diced peppers, baked with cheese on them; and then felt like January Jones in an episode of Madmen when Catherine called and said she was going to be late for dinner because she was at happy hour with some friends -- she's damn lucky that nothing got burned -- but as the days wore on, I lost my appetite for exciting meals, especially because of the planning that cooking entails -- and so in a manner of days my cooking became perfunctory (including this incident, when I simply defrosted some soup that Catherine made weeks ago) and I am looking forward to when the strike finally ends, and I can enjoy my wife's cooking again . . . and I want to state -- for the record -- that I have learned my lesson: though I was a picky eater when I was a child and know what it's like to have to eat something that you can't stomach, I will never side with my children again on one of these issues because I don't want to suffer a labor dispute like this ever again.
Puuuuuuuullllll iiiiiittttttt . . .
It's that time of year again -- the time of year when, because of Hamlet, I entertain all topics supernatural, and challenge spirits to manifest themselves in my classroom . . . and this always gets students talking: a girl was kind enough to share a story of her own encounter with an apparition; she was playing Bop-It with her cousin, and the batteries ran out, so they took the batteries out of the Bop-It in order to replace them, and suddenly -- without batteries -- the Bop-It started speaking . . . and since I always play the role of the skeptical Horatio in these matters, I asked her how the Bop-It intoned the commands once the batteries were removed . . . but then I answered my own question; I whispered in a low, drawn out voice: "twiiiiiiiiiist iiiiiiitttttt . . . puuuuulllllll iiiiiiiittttttt . . . boooooooooooooooopppppp iiiiiittttttt" and now I can't stop using this haunted Bop-It voice . . . every time I see a Bop-It toy or someone tells a ghost story, I feel compelled to speak as I imagine a haunted toy might speak (perhaps I am possessed?) and the appropriate parallel is that I feel like Jerry, on Seinfeld, when he gets addicted to using the "Hellooooo" voice and sacrifices his girlfriend for the voice.
Can't Afford $24.95? Go to H-Mart!
If you don't feel like driving all the way to Camden, and then shelling out nearly twenty-five clams for admission to The Adventure Aquarium, but you still want to see Korean mudfish, abalone, sea squirts, tilapia, giant crabs, and snails -- all alive in tanks and tubs (plus piles of dead octopus and smelt) then head to the Edison H-Mart -- the Korean version of Wegmans -- the boys and I went last week, and in some ways it's better than an aquarium . . . because you can eat your souvenirs (I actually bought a few baby octopi, which I marinated and then grilled: delicious, and only $3.99 a pound).
Grand Opening of an Absurd Acronym
The long vacant building in Highland Park that once housed Charlie Brown's is finally reopening, as a Korean BBQ Chicken place, but apparently in Korean, BBQ doesn't mean barbecue . . . it means "The Best of the Best Quality," and BBQ Chicken is a chain, with 2800 stores in Korea, 157 in China, and many others scattered around the world -- including two in Mongolia! -- and, judging by the web page, I think we Highland Park folks are in for a really bizarre treat . . . I can't wait to sample "the best of the best quality chicken" and the "Sausage Set," which features "the highest level of delicious smoked sausage" . . . THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF SAUSAGE! . . . NO SAUSAGE HAS EVER ACHIEVED A LEVEL HIGHER THAN THIS SAUSAGE!
Blonde People Got No Reason To . . .
My son Alex -- who does not really look like my son, as he has a beautiful head of blonde hair -- noticed that all the protagonists of his favorite books and movies are NOT blonde: Harry Potter, Batman, Dr. Who, just about every anime character in existence, etc. and this led to him complaining about his lack of choice for Halloween (why he's thinking about Halloween in Februruary is beyond me) but he is right, his only options from his pantheon is Draco Malfoy or Luke Skywalker, neither of whom appeals to him.
More Parent Abuse
My eight year old son Alex, who believed he was being unfairly forced to clean up a mess that his brother Ian created, when asked by my wife what he wanted for breakfast, replied: "a small dish of relaxation."
I Taught That Kid Everything He Knows!
So I'm reading Andrew Solomon's tome Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, and I'm plugging my way through the "Autism" chapter when I run across two familiar names in the same sentence: Temple Grandin and Ari Ne'eman; Temple Grandin is a well-known author, professor, and designer of humane cattle-handling equipment . . . and she is also autistic and a major advocate for autism . . . and Ari Ne'eman is described as "the founder of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network," but that's not how I know the name . . . I remember the name because several years ago I taught a student by that name, a very very smart student with Asperger syndrome, who not only could wax eloquent about politics and the law, but was also very aware of his social difficulties, and knew how to compensate for them with various strategies and techniques . . . and so with the help of the almighty Wikipedia, I now realize that this student is enormously famous in the world of autism advocacy -- and not only did he found the aforementioned autism network (at the ripe age of nineteen) but President Obama also appointed to serve on the National Council on Disability, and so he is the first person on the autism spectrum to ever serve on the council; Ne'eman is mentioned several times in Solomon's book, and I'm glad I serendipitously discovered this, as I may have never known how far he's gone (and no one else in our school knew this either, which is mind-boggling) but it's also a bit daunting when a student I taught several years previous has already done more in his short life than I will probably do in the entirety of mine . . . but I can always resort to the ancient theme prominent in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice . . . the idea of status and contract . . . no matter what Ari Ne-eman accomplishes, no matter how many accolades he accumulates, I will always have the status of being his teacher, and I will always be able to say: "I taught that kid everything he knows."
Parent Abuse
I told my son Alex that he needed to eat some more of his mother's delicious home-made chicken soup (which he ate without complaint two nights previous) before he could leave the table and get back to his homework . . . it was one of those ugly Tuesday nights . . . and so Alex put his spoon down, dipped his index finger into his soup bowl, licked his index finger -- which in his mind counted as "eating some more soup" -- and then he excused himself from the table, and I'm proud to say that once I processed what he did -- which took a moment -- I did not strangle, beat, spindle, or mutilate my firstborn son (but my head nearly exploded and there may have been some yelling).
Italy vs. Holland vs. Beirut
To describe raising her child with Down Syndrome, Emily Perl Kingsley wrote an inspirational modern fable called "Welcome to Holland" and her conceit is this: when you are expecting a child, it is like preparing for a trip to Italy . . . you buy guidebooks, learn some phrases, anticipate seeing the Colosseum and Michelangelo's David. . . but if you have a child with a disability, the plane lands and the stewardess says, "Welcome to Holland!" and this is quite a surprise, as you were expecting to go to Italy, and all your friends are in Italy, discussing Italian sights and sounds . . . but you will eventually realize that though Holland isn't as flashy as Italy, it has its merits (tulips and Rembrandts) and you simply have to adjust . . . but this metaphor isn't for everyone: I am still plugging away at Andrew Solomon's magnificent and gigantic book Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity and one mother of an autistic child wanted to clarify that for her it's not like this at all, and so she penned a fable for the parents of children with autism and called it "Welcome to Beirut."
Cast Your Vote For the Best Robot
While we were waiting for the check at my favorite local Mexican restaurant, Costa Chica, my son Ian and I had a robot drawing contest, and we were with a large group of people, who nearly unanimously voted for the wrong robot -- my son's robot -- but I am thinking that everyone was logy from excess of food and drink, and possibly in error . . . so please be serious and remember every vote counts: which is the better robot?
Apples, Trees, Ducks, Llamas, Bop It, etc
My wife and I were watching Girls on Friday night, the kids tucked away in their respective beds, but every so often, from up the stairs, we heard a "Whoo . . . whoo" and then a pause, and then another "whoo," so I lowered the volume on the TV, and then we realized the sounds were coming from my younger son Ian's room -- he was still playing "Bop It," the version where you occasionally have to yell into a little microphone to keep your streak going . . . lately, he's been obsessed with it, he's mastered the expert level where you also have to react to sounds that correspond to each action -- he actually got over one hundred on that level and it moved to some super-advanced level where there are corresponding colors as well as strange sounds and the usual "pull it!" and "twist it!" commands; he now holds all the records on the contraption . . . and it's hard for me to argue with his dedication, because I behaved the same way the other day with the stupid phone app "Llama or Duck" and while this obsessive behavior for simple physical tasks may be an annoying habit, or even pathological if taken too far, it's probably not the worst character trait to possess . . . though Ian will learn soon enough that no one else cares very much how many points you score in Bop-It or Bulls-Eye Ball or darts or corn hole or any of these other minor diversions: it is in your mind alone that you are the victor.
It Did Have Two Holes In It
Phone call from who my son calls "second in command" at his school -- apparently Alex and his buddy found a broken board in the auditorium, and they thought it was really cool because it was "painted black and had two holes in it," and so Alex and his friend concocted a plan: they would smuggle it out of the auditorium and into his locker, so then he could then bring it home (to do God knows what with, even he can't answer that question) and so Alex asked to go to the bathroom, and successfully filched the broken board, but when he tried to stuff it into his locker, he got caught red-handed; his consequences were no recess for the the week, for lying about having to go to the bathroom and taking something that wasn't his . . . and I hope he's learned his lesson, and the next time he sees a really cool broken board with two holes in it, he gets his friend to steal it (although that might not matter, because Alex's accomplice also lost recess for the week).
Seven Reasons Kids Should Watch Rocky
I just watched Rocky with my children, and I highly recommend it for young boys, as the film contains some valuable life-lessons for them:
1) if you stop smoking and run around carrying bricks, you will get back into shape;
2) breaking fingers for a sleazy loan shark will get you nowhere;
3) when you get as old as Mickey, no one will understand what you're saying;
4) turtles can choke on moss;
5) working in a meat packing plant is depressing and may lead to arthritis and alcoholism;
6) it's nice to have a recurring theme song;
7) and finally, even if you don't win, as long as you stay on your feet and get beaten to a brain-damaged bloody pulp, then it's still a moral victory and you should be proud of yourself.
Awkward Dave Returns in the Form of a Duck (or a Llama)
Awkward Dave reared his ugly head last Tuesday, and if it wasn't for my colleague Chantal, things might have gotten really awkward, but she heroically stepped in and saved the day; to understand the situation you need a bit of backstory . . . fifteen minutes before this Awkward Moment of Dave, I was introduced to a very silly game on Kevin's phone, called "Duck or Llama": the game is simple but frustrating, you are shown a picture of a duck, or a picture of a llama, and you must press the appropriate button -- "Duck" or "Llama" -- VERY quickly, or you lose; I was terrible at first but once I got the hang of it, I got quite good and scored sixty correct answers in a row . . . more than double what anyone else got; the pictures get more and more ridiculous and abstract: there are line drawings and close-ups and llamas with sunglasses and duck-butts and rubber ducks and stuffed llamas, and everyone has the same stupid story at the end of their round . . . either, "I was doing really well, and then I mistook a duck for a llama!" or "I was doing really well, and then I mistook a llama for a duck!" and this is the sort of thing that I can get obsessed with, which is why I don't have a video game system in my house, and so when a woman from another department, who runs a committee that I am part of, totally went out of her way and came upstairs to the English office solely to help me sign-up for a workshop at Columbia University, I really, really tried to pay attention to her; she showed me some forms and explained how to fill them out . . . but then, without realizing it, I picked up the phone -- determined to get one hundred correct answers in a row -- and started playing "Duck or Llama," and I guess this nice woman, who totally went out of her way to help me out with this project, made quite a face, but luckily my friend Chantal saw the face, and was a good enough friend to yell at me and tell me to focus, and this was enough to break my obsession with the game and allow me to finish the now rather awkward social interaction with the woman who had gone out of her way to climb the stairs and find me in the English office and help me out.
Sometimes the Apple Falls Horizontally
I am slowly making my way through Andrew Solomon's magnum opus, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity . . . and while everyone likes to comment when the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and the kid acts just like his parents (and my boys certainly fall into this category: I have two little versions of myself running around the house, doing Dave-like things, which can either be exhilarating or extremely frustrating) Solomon has tackled a much wilder event -- when the apple falls "horizontally" instead of vertically; when parents give birth to a child nothing like themselves . . . the book has chapters on Dwarfs, the Deaf, Down Syndrome, Autism, Schizophrenia, Prodigies, Transgender, and more -- and each chapter is nearly the length of a book; Solomon himself is a horizontal child -- he is gay -- and though his parents were accepting of him, they still weren't the same as him, so he writes the book from an unusually personal perspective; I have just finished the chapter on the Deaf, and it made with grapple with an ethical dilemma that I didn't even know existed; when hearing parents have a deaf child, they have to immediately decide if they are going to implant a cochlear implant, which wil give the child an ersatz but workable version of hearing, or instead, immerse him in the culture of the Deaf -- sign language -- or do something in between, with speech therapy . . . and the Deaf community views the implants or the attempt to make a deaf child learn to speak as "the final solution," a way to eradicate Deaf culture, which is apparently rich and thriving . . . some radical Deaf believe that hearing parents with a deaf child should give the child up to the Deaf community, but this strikes me as insanely unrealistic . . . Harlan Lane, a Deaf community advocate, wrote: "the relation of the hearing parent to the young deaf child is a microcosm of the relation of the hearing society to the deaf community; it is paternalistic, medicalizing, and ethnocentric," and so the question becomes -- as technology and medicine and genetic screenings start to eliminate hearing loss -- is the Deaf community something worth saving? . . . and if you think I have the answer to this, then you''re sadly mistaken, as I'm having a hard enough time getting my own children, who have excellent hearing, to listen to a word I say.
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