Do Radical Islamic Terrorists Desire Red Mercury?

According to urban legend, "red mercury" is a incredibly rare substance which is attracted to gold and repelled by garlic, and it has incredible capabilities; The New York Times explains its purported powers: "when detonated in a combination with conventional high explosives, red mercury could create the city-flattening blast of a nuclear bomb" and-- even more conveniently-- it is rumored that a bit of the stuff could fuel a neutron bomb that could fit in a lunch bag; I hadn't heard of the stuff until yesterday, but apparently the myth of this non-existent material has been around for decades and recently ISIS has been sucked in by the hoax . . . I guess if you're into that kind of eschatological apocalypse, then red mercury is just too damned convenient not to believe in . . . but I've also learned that Graeme Wood's Atlantic article "What ISIS Really Wants" might be exaggerating the fundamental religious element of ISIS's ideology and that the article (and current conservative idiom) might be wrong in saying that we are at war with "radical Islamic terrorists" for several reasons:

1) there are plenty of radically fundamental Muslims who abide by the Koran and aren't violent or on a jihad or in any way associated with terrorism, just as there are plenty of radically fundamental  Mormons who aren't polygamists and plenty of radically fundamental Christians who aren't part of the KKK or The Aryan Nation;

2) we never refer to the Nazis as Christian Fascists, like Indiana Jones, we just say: "Nazis, I hate these guys;

3) there's no reason to constantly associate the 1.5 billion non-terrorist Muslims with the bad apples in Syria;

4) this is probably less of a war, and more about trying to prevent criminal acts from criminally minded people with various abnormal and psychotic and sociopathic and delusional and obsessive and violent proclivities;

5) a terrorist is a terrorist, and scholars are at odds about their motivations, but in the end, if someone is willing to strap a bomb around their waist and blow themselves up in a crowd, it doesn't matter if the act is religious, or indignance over the American invasion of Iraq, or anger because of Saudi cooperation with America or simply because they consider Paris to be the world capital of "prostitution and obscenity" . . . it's still a lunatic act by a lunatic group, and there's no real reason to lump them in with the whole . . . and if ISIS thinks that about Paris, what do they say about Bangkok and Amsterdam?

The Test 24: Stacey Demands (More) Numbers

Stacey demanded another quiz about numbers and I was more than happy to comply; the result is the best episode of The Test yet . . . Cunningham puts Bud Abbott and Lou Costello shame; Stacey does math that would inspire Newton; and Dave questions the capabilities of the human mind . . . there is judgement, ridicule, condescension and derision, but in the end, a good time is had by all . . . so take a shot, see if you can outperform the ladies, and if you're not careful, you just might learn something.

Sorry Ian, But It's All Downhill From Here

Normally here at Sentence of Dave I like to focus on the life's negatives -- this is where I do my literary grousing and grapple with existential crises and my monumental awkwardness . . . but life does deal out the occasional miracle and while normally this kind of drivel is for Facebook, I want to document this moment here so my son Ian can refer to it in the future-- unfortunately, he'll probably realize that the rest of his life was slightly downhill from this point; the backstory is that we were playing the last game of our travel season, against a big physical team that was stronger and faster than us-- and has a full-time professional trainer-- the last time we played them, they went up 1-0, but we were on our little dirt field, and in the second half we kept chipping the ball to our black belt striker, and he scored three miraculous goals, two half-volleys and a full on bicycle kick . . . and they were so angry at our audacity, that there was an altercation on the sideline between parents and it was quite nutty for a kid's sporting event, but yesterday we went to their field,  up in Bridgewater, which is wide and long and grassy, and we couldn't keep up with them on it, they were just bigger, and faster, and stronger . . . but our goalie kept us in it, sacrificing his body multiple times to prevent goals from large players barging through our defense . . . so I was happy that we were only down 1-0 and I would have been content to end the season with a hard fought close loss against a better team-- we had put in a real team effort to keep the deficit that low-- but our kids kept persisting and attacking, though time was winding down, and I gave them two minute warning, the one minute warning, and then I told them they had no time and just to knock the ball towards the middle, which they did . . . and there was a final melee in front of the goal and the ball went flying out, off one of their players, so it was our corner kick, with little or no time left, and my sturdy (portly?) little Ecuadorian striker grabbed the ball and put it into play immediately-- brilliant for a fourth grader-- and it bounced off someone's back in front of the goal and came rolling just outside the eighteen yard line, and my son Ian stepped up and launched a shot over the keeper's head and into the far upper corner of the goal and there was much rejoicing and then the game and the season were over and though it ended in a 1-1 tie, our kids were jubilant and the other kids were crying, and that's going to be a tough moment for Ian to top, a last second goal to tie the game in the waning moments of the season-- life just doesn't give you too many of those opportunities, and most of the time, you screw them up (although-- and I don't mean to brag-- I had an impressive moment myself this weekend: I stood on the highest step of our ladder, with no spotter, and used a shovel to wedge a piece of loose aluminum siding back into place-- and I almost fell several times, but I didn't give up . . . just like my team, I persevered in the face of insurmountable odds and the siding seems to be staying in place: victory!).

Forever Phones

I recently went off my parent's cell phone plan, and since I'm cheap and a disciple of Neal Postman-- and I sincerely haven't made up my mind about the value of these newfangled smart-phones and certainly don't really want to pay the data charges on a technology I'm not certain about, especially since I'm surrounded by wifi all day-- and so I chose to go with an inexpensive service (PTEL) and a simple plan . . . twenty dollars a month for unlimited phone and text, and no data-- but the nineteen dollar phone I bought from PTEL has very small texting keys, and I've got fat unwieldy thumbs, so I went on Ebay and purchased an unlocked version of my trusty old Pantech P2020 for twenty dollars and I wish this thing had the properties of a "Forever Stamp" but I know that the screen is destined to die (that's what happened to my old one) and the the charger is a already a little touchy, but the texting keys are absolutely huge and fit my thumbs perfectly and the touchscreen is just big enough to be useful . . . and really, I'm far enough into the future, it's not like I need anything more than this (aside from a flying car, of course, but more on this theme tomorrow . . . and if you're looking to get me an early Christmas gift, I could use a few more of these things, so when they break I can just switch the SIM card over).

Forever Stamps . . . Literally

Yesterday, on my wife's instructions, I went to the post office and bought a roll of one hundred Forever Stamps and I had one envelope to mail that needed a stamp, so right after I purchased the roll of stamps, I tried to peel the label off so I could use one right then but after several tries I decided that I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't want to destroy one of these super-valuable Forever Stamps so I gave  the roll back to the lady behind the counter and asked for some assistance and she couldn't get the roll open either and so she took it back behind the shelves and someone else tried to get the roll open and at any other place of business, at this point they would have given me a new version of whatever I had just purchased, and taken back the defective version, but this was the US Post Office and so the lady and the other person (I don't know if they were male or female because they were in the back) finally worked the roll open, but it took nearly forever and then I still had trouble getting the first stamp loose from the roll and the ordeal was so traumatic that I'm not going to write any more letters or send any more post cards . . . not that I have done either of those things in the last decade-- in fact, I'm interested in seeing how long it takes us to use one hundred Forever Stamps, and this post will be a reference point . . . I am guessing two years . . . so the forever stamps took forever to operate and they are going to take forever to use.

Dave Unironically Attends a Zumba Class

After school on Thursday I attended my friend Stacey's renegade zumba class (it's renegade because she's not certified) and I am always going to refer to it as "renegade zumba" because that sounds more badass than "certified zumba" . . . and if you're wondering why I did this fairly non-badass thing, though I'm such a badass, it's because I'm finally addressing one of major shortcomings in life: I'm not that strong a dancer . . . in fact, I can't dance . . . and so I'm doing an experiment on my body and brain-- I'm going to see if I can learn to move to the beat; I did have one miraculous moment when I was watching Stacey's sneakers in the mirror and I thought they were my own feet, because I was in time with the beat and moving my feet in the proper manner, but that was only one moment  among many, many missteps . . . but at the very least, I am learning a few things to attack my biggest problem with dancing: what do you do with your hands?

The World 2.0 Gets Dave All Wound Up

A perfect confluence of bizarre events nearly brought my brain to its knees recently, but luckily I have this blog where I can mix metaphors and spew detritus and then continue with my life: Cat and I finished Mad Men earlier this week, and that had me thinking about changing times and how hard it is to adapt-- and, then of course, there were the Paris attacks and the resulting technological controversies raised: metadata programs and electronic surveillance and privacy issues, and this dovetailed with what we were investigating in class . . . my students listened to  The Modern Moloch, a podcast on the history of the automobiles in the city, and how corporate lobbying changed our relationship with the car from "death machine" to "love affair" . . . and we used my Neil Postman's warning that technology is not neutral, that every piece of technology is "a burden and a blessing" to link the podcast to Leon Neyfakh's excellent article on texting and driving-- "A Deadly Habit"-- and Neyfakh and Roman Mars seem to agree that certain pieces of technology are beyond our control, and actually control us-- whether they psychologically override an already engaged prefrontal cortex, making us unable to make a good decision about using our phone while weaving through traffic, or make us change the way we relate to and coordinate with people-- including ability or inability to encrypt "personal data"-- which could contribute to terrorism but could also protect people's digital information . . . or past technology could control the infrastructure and architecture of our cities and suburbs in the future, this was the power of the car in the 1930's, after auto lobbying groups ensured that cars would have the right of way in every corridor of our country . . . these groups made us change our perception on who is to blame in an accident (instead of reckless drivers operating a dangerous vehicle it became the fault of those damned jaywalkers, walking like rubes where they shouldn't ) and while all this changing world stuff was rattling around in my brain, my son Ian's friend came flying down the street on a hands-free motorized scooter . . . and if you don't have a ten year old son then you might not know that these things are all the rage and my son Ian is now begging us to get one, and they've gotten pretty cheap and they are neat and they do work, but when he asked me if he could get one, I really had no answer for him . . . I told him he would have to wait for me to think about it (and then his friend did some lobbying and he's an eloquent little kid, he said: "my parents were skeptical too, and they took some convincing, but it's really cool!") and while I'll probably cave in on this, I'm not sure I'm even equipped to make the decision-- I don't know if a ten year old should have an electrically charged hands-free motorized vehicle which travels fifteen miles an hour and I don't know if I'm even capable of ever figuring this puzzle out-- it might be safer than his long board, but then it might not . . . and are they street legal?-- anyway, to add to this technological existential breakdown, yesterday our principal made an announcement to remind the students that though we are a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) school and though kids can use their cellphones in the halls between classes (one earbud policy) that they cannot take any pictures with their phones or record any video (I think this was in response to a fight in the hallway: kids were taking pictures and video of it, which is bad for two reasons-- these images may come back to haunt the kids at a later date and the school promises parents that their kids images won't be taken in school and used anywhere unless unless permission is granted) but I don't think the two rules are compatible-- I don't think you can let kids have phones and then tell them not to use them the way they primarily use them . . . to take pictures and video of things . . . I don't think humans can handle having the device and then not using it in all sorts of ways that are habitual and generally socially acceptable, prohibited or not, so I think we should take all the smartphones and put them in a pile and run them over with our cars . . . and our hands-free motorized scooters.

The End of an Era . . . The End of Madmen

I'm very sleepy this morning because we watched the final episode of Mad Men last night, and while I won't reveal any spoilers to those of you who haven't finished the series (although I thought the ending would be more tragic, because of the ominous animated sequence during the opening credits, where Don flails about in an infinite dream-like fall . . . it's not like the end is a barrel of laughs, but there is plenty of joy mixed with the pathos-- it's more like the opening is a symbolic fall for the archetypal '50's stone-jawed businessman and I think the weird hug in the penultimate scene is about the shifting gender roles happening in America in the early '70's . . . although if you've got to hug a weird crying stranger in a therapy group to usher in a new era, then I might want to get left behind) but more importantly, it took me seven seasons to learn that the title of the show is Mad Men . . . not Madmen . . . and I'm surprised that the grammar Nazis who visit this place never caught the error . . . perhaps they never watched the show, or perhaps they were letting me slide because everyone pronounces it as one word.

I've Only Known Enrico Palazzo For 27 Years

Friday night my wife went out with some ladies, and the boys and I were left to our own devices; we decided on take-out burgers and film appreciation; I went with The Naked Gun, which streams on Netflix, and I was quite surprised by the year of its release-- 1988, because I had this false sense of nostalgia about this movie; I really thought I had watched when I was very young and very immature, and then continued to enjoy the repetition of the silly jokes during future viewings, but apparently I watched it when I was almost a full grown human (eighteen years old, but still very silly) and found it profoundly funny . . . and I still do: "it's Enrico Palazzo!"

An Autumn Miracle

Last week, I was walking home with the dog, annoyed that when I got back I would have to rake up all the wet leaves on my lawn and bag them-- in my book, the only thing worse than handling and bagging mounds of damp leaves is a pus-filled canker sore under the tongue-- but when I arrived, our lawn guy-- who only comes every two or three weeks, was blowing all the wet leaves off our lawn with an industrial strength leaf blower and he then vacuumed them all up and took them away . . . a well-timed serendipitous autumn miracle if I've ever seen one (and the opposite of the autumn disaster my brother and his friend conducted when they were in high school, they snuck out late at night and took all the leaves people had bagged-- and this was in North Brunswick, where the lawns are much bigger than Highland Park-- and they dumped the leaves back on people's lawns . . . and I'm hoping that none of those people read this blog and seek vengeance on my brother and his friend for this mischievous re-leafing).

The Test 23: Princess Cunningham

In this week's episode of The Test, Princess Cunningham quizzes Stacey and I on all things Disney; I do poorly-- which is to be expected, considering how I feel about that place-- but (spoiler alert) I do confuse two things that our older listeners might find entertaining . . . this film and this place; give it a listen, play along, and see if you can find your inner princess.

The Truth About About Cats & Dogs & Fish & Birds & Pigs

Although people love to pontificate about the differences between cats and dogs, in a gastronomical sense they are the same: we don't eat their kin in front of them . . . you  can consume tilapia in the same room as a fish tank, or chomp on chicken wings while you chat with your pet macaw, but -- in America, at least-- it is uncouth to eat dog or cat, especially when they are in the vicinity . . . I do think there is an outlier in the mix: I am sure those eccentric folks who own potbellied pigs will occasionally munch on a BLT without concern for their mini-hog's opinion on the matter (and cannibals are another category entirely . . . those that dine on the "long pig" are the kings of meta-eating).

Tennis for Men?

I always though a two-handed backhand was for kids and women, but apparently most men are hitting it now as well . . . and while I have a sweet one-handed slice backhand and a decent topspin backhand stroke as well, I'm not to old to adopt something new-- and my son Ian has an excellent two-hander so it might be fun to emulate him and hoist him with his own petard; the next time we hit the court, I'm going to put on my cutest white skirt and give the two-hander a shot.

This Might Be Farewell

In case I don't make it through the next couple of days, I'd like to thank all my readers for their encouragement and support . . . I know you all agree that I am an advanced wordsmith of the highest caliber, but I still don't think I have the lexical dexterity to explain how irritating, annoying and painful the canker sore under my tongue is . . . and while I've tried some of the remedies you have suggested, they don't seem to be working; in fact, I'm sure the sore is growing larger and larger each minute, festering and suppurating vast amount of pus, and in the coming days, I'm sure it will consume the rest of my tongue, then my mouth, then my face, and then my entire body-- I'll be one gigantic frothing sore, and thus unable to write any sentences . . . but it was fun while it lasted.

Who Needs Chelsea?

While I was certainly impressed by the breadth of hip restaurants in Chelsea, if you don't feel like schlepping all the way to the city, you can head to Easton, Avenue, New Brunswick and go to the City Cafe & Bar: it's totally hip inside, weird tables and couches and a nifty curved, tiled bar . . . and it's oddly affordable ($4 dollar pint of Guinness, $10 dollars for a big octopus salad, $2 for all their fancy sliders) and they have this delicious drink called Sangria Cerveza . . . this is certainly an excellent addition to the really good restaurants that have opened recently, also check out Desta Ethiopian Cuisine and 418 Burgers in Highland Park.

More Wild News From Dave's Closet!

Not only did all my white socks disintegrate on the same day, but both my belts -- black and brown-- fell apart within a week . . . so I went belt shopping, but instead of buying two belts, I bought a reversible belt, and saved the price of one belt . . . yes!

The Test 22: Stacey's Songs (Have Still Got It Going On)

This episode of The Test is another musical clip quiz by Stacey: listen to the song snippets, identify the artists, and then see if you can figure out the overarching theme . . . at the start of the show, I gloat about how I defeated Cunningham on the first song quiz, but I receive my just deserts on this one and fail miserably (and I really should have gotten it).

Is Winter Coming?

Weirdly warm weather continued in New Jersey on Saturday, and to celebrate we played many outdoor sports-- aside from soccer . . . we've had just about enough of that-- so we hit tennis balls and played basketball and I rode the Ripstik along with the kids, and they rode their penny-board (and then the boys and their friend began playing basketball while riding skateboards and Ripstiks, which looked fairly dangerous, but there were no major disasters) and then they took the mini-pool table that they bought on garage sale day and put it out on the porch and played that . . . and while I'm not pleased with the environmental impact of global warming, nor do I like scorching summertime weather, I must admit that this is pretty nice, especially considering we haven't had to turn the heat on, nor have we gotten annoyed with the children . . . as they're far less annoying when they're outside the house.

Reality Break

On Thursday my wife and I ditched the kids and the dog and all soccer-related events and essentially took a break from reality-- we went to the city to see Sleep No More, which was the most surreal event of our trip (I don't want to go into too much other than to say you should see it . . . it is the ideal "play" for me because you don't sit down, you wander through a five story set, ostensibly the Mckittrick Hotel, but actually a labyrinthine warehouse, chasing actors and actresses who are involved in something akin to a wordless 1920's noir version of Macbeth . . . it's bizarre, scary, and totally immersive . . . one of the best moments is when we wandered through the wrong door from the lounge, before we had donned our masks, and a group of white-masked audience members, as if on cue, all turned and stared at us-- perhaps they thought we were actors, because the only maskless people in the actual performance are the actors in the play, but we were quickly ushered back into the lounge, where we had a weird alcoholic drink and then were properly attired and thrown into the performance . . . it's three hours long and we certainly slept well afterwards) and before the show we wandered the High Line and the surrounding neighborhoods, Chelsea and the Meatpacking District . . . it's the best place in the city to walk around, full of hip restaurants and bars, coffee shops, art galleries, warehouses converted to foodmarkets, swanky apartment high-rises . . . we ate at a tapas place called Tia Pol -- delicious blistered shishito peppers, patatas bravas, fried chickpeas, etcetera-- and drank a beer in a jar (two dollar deposit) while we wandered the Chelsea Market and had beers and snacks at Cooper's Craft & Kitchen, a hipster craft brew bar with great pork belly and chili oil sliders . . . and if you want to enjoy all the free art galleries, go sooner rather than later, as this area can't last exactly as it is, the spaces are too valuable and the art galleries don't make enough money to afford the rent . . . we saw a wild display of Max Ernst sculptures . . . he's one of my favorite painters and while his paintings are probably very very expensive, you can grab one of his sculptures for the two or three hundred grand, we also really liked the thin line and watercolor pieces by Jen Ray . . . lots of rock chicks, amazon warrior women, piles of meat, and detailed detritus . . . then we continued the surreal reality break yesterday, though this time we took the dogs and the kids along . . . we went to the beach . . . and it was hot . . . in November (twenty years from now, when the average temperature in New Jersey in November is 84 degrees Fahrenheit, this post will be regarded as cute).

Instrumental Paradox

Why is jazz music so good and jazz singing so unbearable?

At a Loss to Avoid a Gain

If anyone knows how to avoid eating Halloween candy-- which now resides in giant bowls in my kitchen and is a very attractive nuisance-- without tossing it in the trash, since it does belong to my children (though I'm the one consuming the bulk of it) then please let me know.

Allegorical Cacti

At work on Monday I was called down to the office-- and teachers feel the same way as students when they are put in this position, as usually it indicates that something has gone wrong-- but I was pleasantly surprised when a secretary handed me a medium-sized cactus in a decorative box and told me I could be on my way . . . and in a cognitive flash I realized the symbolic significance of this desert succulent, but I read the accompanying card to be sure, and my wife confirmed my suspicions; Monday was our "Meetiversary," the day we met twenty-three years ago, and while that's not something I ever remember to honor, occasionally my wife does and she chose to celebrate it with the first gift I ever gave her . . . it was her birthday and I presented her with a lovely little cactus, a thorny thing which I thought was quite nifty (but what did twenty-three year old Dave know about women?) and Catherine was so annoyed by the lameness of my gift that she threw it at me.

Paper Clips, Trombones, Safety Pins, Coat Hangers and Bicycles

My son Ian forgot his trombone at school, but he did drag home the innards of an old desktop tower style computer because he thought his brother would think it was cool, but his brother did not think it was cool and neither did I . . . what I do think is cool, however, is that the French word for paperclip is "trombone" because paper clips really do look like little trombones, and if you like thinking in this manner, then you'll really like Avram Davidson's 1958 sci-fi short story "Or All the Seas With Oysters" . . . safety pins are the larval form of coat-hangers, which eventually grow and transform into fully grown bicycles.

Dave Learns Three Things (and Connects Two of Them)

I learned two valuable things while listening to Dan Carlin's newest episode of Common Sense: The Show That Should Not Be . . .

1) the correct way to pronounce the word "realpolitik" . . . ree-al politeek;

2) the idea that we need to divide the office of president into two parts: a prime minister and a chancellor . . . the prime minister can be a balding, wonky bean counter and the chancellor can be the good looking guy with a full head of hair straight out of Central Casting . . . and it's very difficult to find both these types inhabiting the same person, and because there's only one office and you need to win the election in the media, we elect the latter type of person and then expect him to be both things;

and now for the serendipitous connection which I mentioned in the title . . . while I was listening to the 99% Invisible episode "The Atmospherians" I learned that when you say the phrase "straight out of Central Casting" you are referencing an actual place in Burbank, California with a massive database of people, categorized by how they look, in order to provide films with authentic looking extras . . . but, of course, using extras that fit a stereotype can perpetuate that stereotype . . . so ask yourself this: when you are casting your vote for President next November, would you vote for a short balding guy who looks like George Costanza?

The Test 21: Poker Face Off

This episode of The Test, which focuses on gambling and probability, might have simply been a straightforward display of Stacey and her brother Brian's expertise on this topic, but --lucky for us-- Cunningham saves the day when she wiggles her way through some calculations . . . listen for her operatic multiplication.

Seriously? Halloween on a Saturday? Combined With Daylight Saving Time? Who Let This Happen?

I never galvanized the adults in my community to form PAH! (Parents Against Halloween!) and now we're all paying for it, stuck at home on a perfect fall Saturday, beholden to the masses of grotesquely costumed children, serving them candy and treats-- like they don't get enough of those?-- while our own children rake in bags of processed sugar, which I don't have the fortitude to resist, so I'll spend the next month in the throes of diabetic shock, and if I do leave the house today, I'll have to drive very very carefully to avoid all the little trick-or-treating buggers--who will be all hopped up on sugar-- when they inevitably dart out in front of my car and the dog will be barking away all afternoon, because he thinks our home is being invaded by masked gremlins . . . and no one has officially told me when custom dictates that you should man the door when Halloween falls on a Saturday (in the same vein as how no one has officially told me why we participate in Daylight Saving Time) so maybe I'll just leave an empty bowl on my front porch with a post-it attached that says "Please Take One Item."

Men and Women are a Little Different

The head of my department recently progressed from looking a little pregnant to looking very pregnant, and she's getting the usual curious glances and awkward comments-- especially from older gentlemen, who won't mention the actual baby living inside her and instead ask vague questions about how she is feeling . . . but this is to be expected, as carrying a baby is so incredibly foreign to men, it's completely out of our ken . . . while men and women are certainly more similar than different in how they perceive and experience the world, there are certain things that will never translate, such as the complete failure of a woman's ability to comfort a man after he's just been hit in the testicles by a sharply hit softball.

It's That Most Wonderful Time of the Year . . . Again

Like the sands of the hourglass, so are the Sentences by Dave . . . and if you visit here daily, then you know to expect run-ons, awkwardness, miracles, questionable punctuation, and an annual rant on Daylight Saving Time . . . so, without further fanfare, here it is: my middle school soccer game was rained out yesterday and rescheduled for the coming Monday, and normally this wouldn't be a problem, but because some bureaucrat in some windowless office decided that Daylight Saving Time should by November 1st this year, one of my players is going to get kicked in the face with a ball . . . because he can't see it . . . because it's going to get unnaturally dark at ten after five on Monday . . . because this aforementioned bureaucrat in his windowless office doesn't care about the children, who need light after school, so that they can play and not get hit by cars or soccer balls.

Obama Almost Makes Dave Happy! But Ultimately Disappoints Him . . .

President Obama recently spoke out against the amount of "unnecessary" standardized testing in public schools, and proposed a cap on the amount of testing per school year; I certainly agree with him and I'm glad he's taking this stance, but I was disappointed that he did not use the term "positive manifold" to bolster his argument . . . I hope you learned your lesson, Mr. President: the next time you're going to say something about education, check in with Sentence of Dave first.

Dave Remarks on the World Series!

Let's go . . . meh.

Only In America

My friend Connell brought a special guest to the pub Thursday night-- a geo-political science professor on sabbatical from Israel for a year-- he's here on some sort of "visiting scholar" program and he's an interesting and friendly guy . . . it was especially fun for me to talk with him, because he's very interested in Syrian politics and his family is originally for Aleppo and lived there for many many generations before his parents left and went to Israel . . . and he's never been to Syria because the border is closed with Israel so he was very interested in all my traveling tales through the country and my take on Syrian politics-- it made me feel very worldly . . . I was a veritable font of information, but I wish I was as knowledgeably about American politics (or something financially useful, like fantasy football) but the most interesting thing about our conversation was how he perceived Highland Park-- he was surprised how rigidly orthodox and rule-abiding the Jewish folk in our town are, especially about the Sabbath . . . he said that's rarely the case in Israel and he was shocked that American Jews are so much more observant than Israeli Jews, but I guess if you're Jewish and live in Israel than that's enough to feel like you're part of the culture, but in America you've got to do a bit more (or a bit less, if it's the Sabbath).

The Test 20: Stars, Caves . . . Whatever

This is my favorite episode of our podcast so far-- it's a festive mix of knowledge, judgment, ignorance, humor, tantrums, epistemology, and cave-hating; check it out, play along, and see how you do.

The End is Nigh

Yesterday morning, I tried on two different jackets and BOTH of the zippers were broken . . . but my wife tells me there is some seamstress lady in town that will replace them for ten dollars a zipper . . . but then how long until those zippers break?

I Quit, Franzen . . . and I Quit Franzen

Dear Jonathan Franzen,

Regarding your new big book, Purity . . . not only was I NOT fooled by your clever ruse, but I'm also NOT fooled by your attempt to be Tom Wolfe and capture the zeitgeist of our times . . . your mash-up of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden is lesser than each of them, your guilt-ridden and secretive characters are more wooden than cryptic, and your description of a Bolivian jungle is unrealistic and dull-- and this is the only setting in your globe-trotting tour-de-force that I found remotely interesting . . . and so while I'm sorry I read 300 pages of this "bloated and immensely disagreeable" story and I wish the reviewers could have been a little more succinct in how much the book sucks ass, I'll chalk it up as a lesson learned (though I should have learned after your last one) and I'll never read one of your books again . . . but on the bright side, at least I checked it out of the library, unlike my friend and colleague Kevin, who actually spent his hard-earned money on it . . . you can leave an apology for him in the comments.

The Slippery Slope to Dorkville

My son Alex checked out the Monster Manual, The Player's Handbook, and The Dungeon Master's Guide from the library this weekend, and he's persuaded his brother and a number of other kids to start playing Dungeons & Dragons-- they are rolling dice and using words like "constitution" and "paladin" and-- though I thought twice about this-- I've actually abetted their nerdiness by offering some advice and ordering a complete set of polyhedral dice . . . in retrospect, playing D&D is a great way for pre-teens to pass the time before they notice girls . . . but I haven't told my children that if they play too long, then girls won't deign to notice them (not that they would care, at this point . . . but I probably should warn them that they might hypothetically care, sometime in  the far, unfathomable future . . . perhaps I will direct them to a clairvoyant seer with astounding psionic powers).

This Beer Tastes Good

Once again, I've found a beer that tastes really good (Sixpoint Sensi Harvest) and once again, I neither have the discriminating palate nor the gustatory diction to describe it properly, so once again I'll turn to Beeradvocate for some descriptive language that might do it some justice-- and while all the quotes are stolen and verbatim, the final exclamation point is my own:

1) candied grapefruit and mild pine;

2) a thin cap that leaves gentle lacing;

3) resin;

4) slightly sticky;

5) caramel maltiness;

6) super-floral and a bit peppery;

7) grassy, melon vibe . . . pithy;

8) soapy, gingery, fresh hopped up the nose;

9) dank earthy hops with an almost vegetable quality to it;

10) refreshing and quaffable!

I Don't Appreciate Your Ruse, Franzen

I found Jonathan Franzen's 2010 novel Freedom bloated and disagreeable (but I still enjoyed his hyper-realistic style) and I am feeling the same way about his new novel (Purity) but this time around Franzen tried to insulate himself from such criticism with a clever meta-ruse . . . in Purity, he includes a writer named Charles as a character, and Charles--like Franzen-- writes a "big book" . . . but his big book slaughtered by the reviewers; Michiko Kakutani reports (fictitiously) that Charles's fictitious novel is "bloated and immensely disagreeable" and this could certainly apply to the length of Franzen's new novel and the characters inside it, respectively-- despite this, I'm still plugging away at it, mainly for the realism and the scope, and because I always enjoy a clever meta-ruse, even when I recognize it as a "cunning attempt to trick me."

The Test 19: Dating Stacey

In this episode of The Test you'll find out what information you would need to impress Stacey on a hypothetical first date-- it's a hypothetical first date because she's happily married . . . so take a shot and see if you get hypothetically lucky (and if you were intimidated by the "Dating Cunningham" episodes, Stacey assures you that her quiz is "one million times easier" than Cunningham's quizzes).

Could This Be a Game Show?

I do a lesson with my Composition class on removing the "clutter" from their writing-- I like to teach the lesson just after a student uses the word "plethora" in an essay (or "myriad") and once we learn about clutter-- I use a couple of George Carlin bits to drive the idea home-- then, to completely exorcise the bombast, we write "clutter riddles"-- incredibly dense and prolix descriptions of everyday occurrences . . . and we try to guess what each passage is describing; I think this would be an excellent game show (perhaps The Test will do a trial run)-- here is an example that I wrote, and I'll put the answer in the comments:

1) when your antagonist commits an iniquitous act, you may find benevolence from a higher power, who will beckon you to enter the semi-circle and stand parallel to the diameter and then behold-- the sphere will be bequeathed to you by the hands of authority and you may launch the orb towards the halo in the firmament for one half the value, but still not no a negligible amount;

and here's my favorite one this year from the students;

2) the portal to the universe increases in magnitude and the fragile, delicate spheroid is ejected and immediately surrounded by a group of similar-minded experts who, with much frenzy and brouhaha, congregate, awaiting the high pitched frequency sound that will satisfy them. 

What the Teens are Talking About

As a high school teacher, I'm privy to the exciting social lives of teenagers . . . here's a snippet of conversation I overheard between two sophomore boys as they walked down the hall: "The PSAT is a total lie-- you know how they said that Spanish moss is a lichen . . . it's not."

TV is Bad For Kids

Don't be fooled, even if your kid is watching something educational-- like a documentary about philately-- you still have to worry, as not only is watching TV bad for your brain, but the TV itself is a health hazard: recently, there has been a rash of injuries caused by children toppling over flat screen TVs . . . I'm sure the same could happen with a bookshelf, but when a kid suffers a bump on the head from Dickens or Flaubert, it isn't as sensational and dystopian as a concussion caused by a hi-def flatscreen.

Dogs Will be Dogs

It was yesterday morning, 6 AM, dark and chilly, and I was walking the dog . . . but I was in the home stretch, nearing my driveway-- the dog's feces bagged and tossed in a dumpster-- and I was ready for a well-deserved cup of coffee, when-- with a yank so sudden my fingers didn't have time to clench-- the leash shot out of my hands and Sirius shot across the street into the darkness of the neighbor's yard, chasing a cat . . . and I was angry at myself, for not seeing the cat, and angry at my dog, for being such a cliche, for being so hackneyed and lame . . . for being the kind of dog that liked to chase cats; for being such a typical chauvinistic stereotypical canine who couldn't control himself when he saw that arched back, those glowing eyes, and that rigid tail . . . so I stomped into the house, told my wife I didn't have time for a cat-chasing dog because I had to go to work, went back outside with a treat, and-- luckily-- heard the jingling sound of his collar, and then, once we were back inside the house, I wondered if I should actually give him the treat . . . because then I would be rewarding his cat-chasing . . . but I decided cats were an attractive nuisance, and the people that own them shouldn't let them roam the town because they eat songbirds and tempt dogs . . . and dogs will be dogs and so I gave him the treat because he returned home after his little adventure (and I'm really not sure what he would actually do with a cat if he caught one . . . hopefully we'll never find out).

The Test 18: Plants and Things

This episode of The Test is probably as close to educational as we'll ever come . . . we all performed so well that we didn't even need the Voice of God to save us from our ignorance; so give it a shot and see if you can do as well as the ladies, and remember, it's not easy being green.

Garage Sale Day!

There is nothing quite like the mania to which my children and their gang of friends succumb during our town's "Garage Sale Day" . . . armed with a bit of cash and the materialism our culture has inculcated into them since birth, they scour the sales like a horde of leaf-cutter ants and proudly return with war stories and fairly useless junk-- for example, by Saturday afternoon, our household was the proud owner of TWO miniature pool tables, but then Alex decided to trade his miniature pool table (the more miniature of the two) with a friend for a cotton candy machine, but I quickly put the kibosh on that and he ended up with something fairly useful: a case full of high-quality poker chips (and there was some talk among them about designating Friday nights for "pool and gambling" and this was cute because they're all under twelve, and even cuter because they were wearing recently purchased garage sale fedoras and sunglasses).

Rock 'n' Roll Mathematics #1

There's a mathematical paradox in The Fabulous Thunderbird's song "Tuff Enuff" . . . if you work "twenty-four hours, seven days a week," then you won't actually have any time left over to "come home" and kiss your girlfriend's cheek . . . unless, of course, you have "eight days a week" to show you care (and I'm not even going to comment on the creative spelling of the title . . . or maybe I will: "Tough Enough" looks so much better).

Words for Beyond Words

I finally finished Carl Safina's book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel and it's one of the most powerful and moving things I've read in a long time-- I actually had ambitious plans to summarize numerous portions, but the book is over four hundred pages and dense with details, so you're going to have to trust me, this is a really good one; here are a few things to whet your appetite:

1) Lyell Watson's description of an old lonely matriarch elephant standing beside the ocean enjoying the ultrasound rumble of a blue whale and possibly communicating back with her own deep voice: "the blue whale was on the surface again, pointed inshore, resting, her blowhole clearly visible . . . the largest animal in the ocean and the largest living land animal were no more than a hundred yards apart, . . . commiserating over the back fence of this rocky Cape shore";

2) the cruelty of the ivory trade, both to human-slaves and to elephants . . . as late as 1882, slavers chained humans together and had them carry the heavy tusks from the Upper Congo to port-- a 1000 mile slog-- and, as protocol had it, if you got sick, you were killed (to prevent malingering) and if you grew to weak to carry your tusk and your child, then your child was killed, because, as the headman logically explained: "We cannot leave valuable ivory on the road . . . we spear the child and make her burden lighter . . . ivory first";

3) the descriptions of wolves in Yellowstone, their infinitely complex personalities and hierarchies and forays and betrayals . . . the touching moment when Wolf Twenty-one, at the tail end of his years, watched his pack hunt an elk and then headed in the opposite direction, to the top of Druid Peak-- his favorite family rendezvous point-- where he lay down in the shade of a big tree and died . . . on his own terms;

4) the tool use of various animals, including apes, chimps, elephants, insects, dolphins;

5) the self-awareness and theory of other minds that dogs, dolphins, killer whales and primates possess;

6) the variety of killer whale types-- fish eaters, whale eaters, dolphin eaters, seal eaters-- and the various strategies that different tribes of whales use to hunt;

7) the intelligence and creativity of dolphins . . . you can train dolphins to "do something new" for a treat . . . and they will synchronize this creativity with another dolphin . . . my students have trouble with that task;

8) the vast intelligence, empathy, and abstract thinking ability of killer whales . . . and the many injustices done to them in the wild and in marine parks;

9) a lot of other stuff . . . this book is groundbreaking and belongs on the same shelf with two other recent great books about nature: The Sixth Extinction and Wild Ones . . . read all three before you die!

Read This in the Voice of Stephen Wright

I finally sprung for a vanity license plate, but I don't want people to know how vain I am, so I got 58T * CA3.

Open Letter to Tyreese

It's the zombie apocalypse and you're trudging through Georgia and the anti-theft tags at Kohls aren't going to trigger any alarms and you can help yourself to the stuff in anyone's closet, so go ahead and trade your sweat-stained long-sleeved shirt for something lighter and maybe put on some shorts as well . . . it's the end of the world and you never have to do wash again (and I'm not even going to inquire if you've been changing your underwear).

Dogs and (Sleeping) Kids . . . You've Gotta Love'em

Each morning, just before I leave for work, I go upstairs and give each of my children a kiss on the forehead-- they're always sound asleep and they look so peaceful and they never even stir-- and I realized yesterday, that when I head up the stairs to do this, the dog tags along, and he gets into the beanbag chair beside Ian's bed and pretends to go back to sleep and he waits for his farewell pat on the head . . . and he doesn't have to do this, because I've already walked him and my wife is downstairs and he's totally ready for the day, but he must like this ritual as much as I do.

Keep On Chewing

Every season, The Walking Dead ramps up the gore a little more, but my wife and I are unfazed: sixty -plus episodes of zombie apocalypse have desensitized us to the point where we can eat dinner while watching the most horrific blood and guts, and even worse: we had no problem eating chicken while Gareth and the cannibals simultaneously dined on Bob's leg, while Bob was fully conscious . . . our chewing was synchronized with their chewing and it didn't bother us at all . . . and I definitely remember at the start of the show, when the zombies ate a horse, I nearly lost it and decided I could never eat while watching, but I've overcome my squeamishness and so has Catherine (during the first episode of the fifth season, a zombie killed a human by biting his face off and Catherine nonchalantly took a bite of pizza and then turned to me and said, "That's a new one.")

The Test 17: Financial Literacy (and Idiocy)

This week's episode of The Test is quick and painless (unlike last week's epic) and special guest Scott and I perform admirably on Stacey's quiz about financial awareness, plus we all collaborate on a new (and disgusting) theory of consciousness . . . and-- as a special bonus-- Stacey remembers a number association from a previous episode!

Woe For the Modern Man

In 2012, Anne-Mare Slaughter explained "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" and though she took some flak for her hypothesis-- that in order to achieve the same things as men, women need to be either superhuman, self-employed, or well-off-- I think her sincerity really resonated with women trying to be super-moms and super-employees and also have some kind of social life and maintain a house . . . but enough about women . . . if you listen to Hanna Rosin, then women are doing fine and it's the men we need to worry about, so-- in order to balance the scales-- I'll offer a lament for them, because in today's litigious circumscribed world, where anything you do might be recorded and put on the internet, and where any misstep might result in a lawsuit, men can't have it all either: you can't bring your kids to the pub on Sundays, you can't let them ride bikes without a helmet . . . in fact, you've got to keep track of your kid's whereabouts on a daily basis . . . it's very taxing and stressful, and it's difficult to relieve this stress because due to the ubiquity of digital cameras, it's tough to maintain a mistress with any degree of secrecy and it's even tougher to take a trip to the local brothel (especially for men of the cloth, video surveillance has made their vow of chastity far more literal than it used to be) and you don't want to tell an off-color joke in public, because it might be recorded for posterity, or even rant in your own home-- you might be banned from the NBA for life-- and you can't drink liquor at work, like Don Draper in Mad Men . . . or take a nap on the couch in your office (like Don Draper in Mad Men) or light fires on the beach without a permit or smoke cigars indoors or get in a fistfight at school (without being considered for a psychological evaluation) or any number of "manly" things . . . so if you want to maintain your status as a family man and keep your job, then certainly men can't have it all either . . . unless-- which Slaughter points out-- you're rich . . . then all this need not apply, and you can use a term that was probably created by a man: f#$@ you money. 

Would Gandhi Curb Stomp a Bully?

On Friday, during the morning announcements, the principal reminded us that it is National Bullying Prevention Month-- and this is certainly a good thing, as bullying is gradually going the way of the dinosaur (or at least meat-world bullying . . . cyber-bullying is another issue entirely) but then he told us National Bullying Prevention Month is sponsored by the leading national anti-bullying organization in the United States . . . STOMP Out Bullying . . . and my homeroom class and I found this name to be a bit oxymoronic, harkening back to the old days, when the only way to defeat a bully was to punch him in the face . . . so either we're not getting the irony (but I doubt a national anti-bullying organization would have an ironic name) or STOMP is an acronym for something a bit less violent . . . but I can't find anything about an acronym in their mission statement, so I'm guessing the tone is intentional and sincere and I'm wondering why they don't go all the way and add the word "CURB" to the front end.

Sitcoms and Everything Else: Now and Then

The difference between watching a sitcom in the 1980's and watching a sitcom in 2015 is this: back then, you were never quite sure what you were going to get . . . you'd be settling in for WKRP in Cincinnati, hoping for some humorous hijinks with Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap (and some dueling cleavage between Bailey and Jennifer) and suddenly you're thrust into a "very special episode" about people being trampled at a Who concert . . . but today, because of the fragmentation of media, everything is much more genre-based and tone specific . . . there's very little straying from a show's particular formula-- I'm not sure if this is a good thing . . . the fact that we can control the tone of everything we consume, whether it be music, TV, or political commentary-- while we get what we want, there are less surprises: imagine a "very special episode" of 30 Rock, where one of Tracy Jordan's children gets seduced and creepily molested by "the bicycle man."

Pathetic Fallacy

According to weather.com, the Northeast is in "the cone of uncertainty" as far as Hurricane Joaquin is concerned . . . but really, aren't we all living in our own personal "cone of uncertainty," though we sometimes forget this is the case?

The Ultimate Wish: Combine These

I wish I were European, so I could wear a Speedo to my pool without irony . . . and not for the comfort (no chafing!) or the speed I'd gain while swimming my laps, but just because I can't imagine what my brain would feel like if I didn't mind walking around in one of those things (I also wish I could dance without feeling self-conscious and spastic).

Hooray for Child Labor!

The boys and I were in a rush to get to a barbeque on Saturday (mainly because we were held up at the Rutgers/Kansas game, which was intolerably slow, due to a preponderance of penalties and TV timeouts) and we had to procure both beer and Klondike bars (which they do not sell at the same store in New Jersey) but then -- miracle of miracles-- I had an idea: I dropped the boys off at Stop and Shop, and they went in and bought the ice cream, while I drove across the street to the beer store and bought beer, and then I whipped around and-- perfect timing-- picked them up in front of the grocery store . . . this made me very happy, and I will exploiting them like this more in the future.

She's Back and Less Fun Than Ever . . .

Our most popular episode of The Test is "Dating Cunningham"-- in it she reveals the secret topics and knowledge that will make an excellent first impression on her-- but the second date is not as fun and breezy as the first, in fact, things get quite heavy (and not very hot) although Stacey and I attempt to crack as many jokes as we can in between answering the deep and weighty questions that she poses . . . not for the faint of heart, but worth it in the end, especially if you want to continue this "virtual courtship" with her; good luck, play at home, and see how you score (pun intended).

Dave Has a Revelation!

For the past ten years, I have used the same system to hang my clothes in my rather small closet in the corner of our bedroom-- I pile the clothes on the bed, grab a hanger from the closet, put my shirt or pair of pants on the hanger, shove some stuff aside in the closet, hang the item on the appropriate rack and then grab another hanger and repeat until I am angry, bored, and frustrated . . . but yesterday, I had a revelation to end all revelations . . . a eureka moment that has been fermenting in my brain for ten years and finally burst forth, as Athena sprang from the forehead of Zeus, fully formed and ready for action; I counted the number of pants and shirts that needed to be hung in my closet and took the corresponding number of hangers at the start of the process and then I put all the pants on hangers, made sure the hanger-hooks were all facing in the same directions, shoved some clothes to the side, and hung all the pants at the same time and then I repeated the process for my shirts . . . and I'm sharing this revelation with you free-of-charge so you can improve your clothes-hanging process (and if you already knew to do this, and didn't tell me, then you are now my sworn enemy for life).

Small Town Life and Trampolines

I was walking the dog last week and I saw two guys rolling a giant trampoline down my street-- and this was something I had never seen before, so I didn't have anything particularly witty to say to them, but it seemed like such a good opportunity to say something . . . because when you see some people rolling a trampoline down your street, you should have some base level of curiosity, or you're not really a human, and so I took a shot and came up with "good thing that thing is round!" and while I'll admit that this comment is not my best work, it was good enough to break the ice, and then-- miracle of small-town miracles-- it turned out that I knew one of the guys rolling the trampoline, he was a fellow over-30 basketball player who I had covered many times and a fellow dad and an all around good guy and we chatted for a moment about the logistics of the trampoline transportation, they were moving the big bouncer from my neighbor's backyard to his down the street . . . and I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, but I will say that I love living in a small town where these sort of things happen and the next time someone is rolling a trampoline down my street I'm going to say something much funnier, like: "Don't let any kids use that thing if their parents are lawyers!"

Sitcoms of Dave

I know we're a bit behind the times in my family (my Shakespeare students were astounded that I didn't know that Anne Hathaway is also a famous modern actress, and not solely Shakespeare's wife) but we finally finished watching Parks and Rec and we're quite broken up that it's over-- there hasn't been a sitcom gang that endearing since Cheers (maybe the the study group from Community) but I am pleased that my son Alex has decided on this year's Halloween costume, and it's as meta as it gets; he's going to wear a fake mustache and a purple suit jacket and carry around his saxophone and do his best to impersonate Ron Swanson's alter ego Duke Silver.

The People Are All the Same?

I am rewatching Cheers on Netflix . . . I started with the pilot and I've made it to episode ten, "Endless Slumper"; the one when Sammy loans out his good luck charm, a bottle cap that keeps him from hitting the bottle, and consequently has a streak of bad luck; it's an especially moving episode with a dramatic conclusion-- it appears that Sam is going to start drinking again, but instead he simply produces a new good luck charm, and I vividly remember watching this episode  33 years ago (when I was twelve) and it was equally moving back then, but I had such a different view of the show: I thought Sam was the best, Norm and Coach were hysterical, Carla both scared me and grossed me out, I thought Cliff was a total nerd (the irony!) and I was annoyed by Diane's pretentiousness . . . but now I realize that Diane is both the funniest person in the bar and the funniest person on the show, Norm is a sad clown, Cliff actually knows quite a bit, Sam is incredibly cheesy . . . the only one I understood was Carla . . . she really is scary and gross.

It's Delicious . . . Enough Said

Stone Delicious IPA lives up to its name-- it's tasty, but not overwhelmingly hoppy, and at 7.7 percent alcohol, it packs quite a punch; the words that come to mind when I drink this beer are:

1) crisp;

2) beer-like;

3) good;

and now for the words that did not come to my mind when I drank this beer-- and I have culled these words from the reviews on Beeradvocate-- so these words really and truly came to someone's mind when they drank this beer:

1) herbaceous;

2) sweet lemon grassy;

3) bready;

4) sweet lemon candy;

5) piney;

6) resinous;

7) not abrasive;

8) fluffy sponge;

9) pungent;

10) orange rind;

11) burlap;

12) burlap?

13) grapefruit pith;

14) black pepper;

15) mellow booze;

16) dirty brass;

17) blurry;

18) parching and numbing;

19) yeast cake;

20) lemon zest;

21) tropicalness;

22) tropicalness?

23) minty touch;

24) antique white head;

25) bold drippings;

26) frothy ice-cream;

27) funky yeast;

28) funky hoppy note;

29) very floral;

30) faint jasmine;

and the contrast between these lists leads me to wonder if my palate exists on the same plane as these poetic, aesthetic and rather prolix folks who write the reviews on Beeradvocate . . . I do appreciate a good beer and I am voluble guy with a prodigious vocabulary, but I am loathe to admit it: very few adjectives come to mind when I drink a beer-- I don't know if this is a skill I can foster, or an attribute I don't possess-- but the next time I have a beer in a relaxing setting . . . after a long day of teaching and coaching, I like to drink a glass of beer while I spray water on my wife's garden, and this might be the perfect venue to find some new and creative flavors and capture them with precision . . . but I have a feeling I'm still going to come up with words like "cold" and "refreshing" and "unlike the bitterness of red wine."

If You're Going to Be Impressed, It Should Be By Captain Dacres

I am still plowing through Walter R. Borneman's 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, and while I'm not digesting all the names and dates, I do get the big picture: warfare was a different thing two hundred years ago, a gentleman's pursuit; after an epic sea-battle between the USS Constitution and the British HMS Guerriere, Captain Hull boarded the ruined British ship and said, "Captain Hull presents his compliments, sir, and wishes to know if you have struck your flag?" and Dacres said yes, he would like to surrender, but he no longer had any masts upon which to strike the flag, and Hull then refused to take Dacres sword because he fought so valiantly-- and later in the day, when the British ship was searched and the crew and prisoners transferred, Hull found ten impressed American soldiers aboard, which was "a graphic example of one of the war's causes" but . . . and I find this a really nice gesture: Dacres "graciously permitted the Americans to go belowdecks rather than to fight against their countrymen."

Slow Carb Diet Nearly Gets Me Fired

I've lost a few pounds in the past month, mainly due to to a "slow carb" diet-- instead of rice and tortillas and bread, I've been eating more lentils and beans-- and so last Thursday on Back-to-School-Night, I was feeling slim, so slim-- in fact-- that when I walked down the stairs to my room, I realized that my pants were falling down, and I didn't have a belt . . . I tried to write a few things on the whiteboard, but there were already some parents in the room and I didn't want to moon them, so I grabbed a ball of yarn off the filing cabinet (there was some kind of life skills class in my room last year) and made an awkward getaway to the English Office; I was going to try to make a yarn belt but my friend Allie showed me a neat trick, instead of making an entire belt, she simply looped some yarn around two adjacent belt loops and then cinched the loop, effectively making my pant's waist size a few inches smaller . . . and this trick saved the day, I was able to entertain the parents in the appropriate manner (with my pants on).

Methinks We Know Our Shakespeare

On this new episode of The Test, special (but recurring) guest Alec challenges us with a Shakespeare quiz that even our British friends deem impossible, but it's right in our wheelhouse, and so --with some liberal scoring-- Stacey, Cunningham, and I knock it out of the park . . . take a shot and see what you know Bard of Avon (and listen for a special romantic connection between Dave and Alec worthy of Romeo and Juliet).

Breaking News from Dave's Sock Drawer!

Yesterday, I noticed that all my white athletic socks were torn through at the heel . . . is this a weird coincidence or an insidious plot of planned obsolescence?

You Can't Forget What You Don't Remember

The de facto motto for 9/11 this year was "Never Forget" and while I don't think we are yet in jeopardy of nationwide amnesia over that day of cataclysmic violence against innocents, it is going to happen-- this year is the first time my high school students, who are seniors, don't remember the event (they were three years old at the time) and eventually 9/11 will just be a page in a history book; all this did inspire me to remember something that I may have never forgotten (because I never learned about it) and so I ran out to the library and checked out Walter R. Borneman's book 1812: The War That Forged a Nation . . . which is heralded as the best popular account of the War of 1812; so far the book has put me to sleep in multiple places in my house (sometimes several times in a row . . . I wake up, read another page, and then fall back to sleep) but at least I've gotten the gist of the origin of the war: the British were impressing U.S. Seamen into their Royal Navy, they were impeding our trade with France -- because of the Napoleonic Wars, they fired on an American frigate because they wanted to board the ship and search for deserters, and they were inciting Native Americans on our borders . . . not that inciting the Native Americans was always a surefire alliance, as they certainly realized that the British were just as greedy and dangerous as the Americans . . . the only detail I remember so far from the book is that the British took control of an American outpost on Mackinac Island, Fort Michilimackinac, and on a warm June morning in 1763, the Chippewa gathered to play a game of lacrosse; the British soldiers came out to watch the contest and when the leather ball "inadvertently" flew through the open gates of the fort, the Chippewa followed the play . . . and on the way in, the squaws handed them weapons that had been hidden in their blankets, and the Chippewa proceeded to slaughter nearly every British soldier in the fort . . . a trick play that would have made Pop Warner proud (especially since he pioneered many of his trick plays while coaching the Carlisle Indians, an undersized Native American team that represented the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and compiled an astounding winning percentage and competed with the likes of Harvard).

Mrs. X Finds X

My wife (otherwise known as Mrs. X) didn't fare particularly well on this recent Test about numbers, but that didn't stop her from doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations Sunday morning, from which she concluded that I ate seven pieces of "grandma style" pizza Saturday night . . . and I'm not debating her arithmetic, but I would like to say, for the record, that "grandma style" pieces of pizza are square and a bit smaller than a regular slice of pie, and they have significantly less cheese on them . . . not that I'm advocating seven slices per serving, but I will say this: if someone pointed a gun at my head-- even a water gun-- I could have forced down an eighth.

Time For a Life Change

After reading Carl Safina's description of elephant behavior in Ambolesi Park in Kenya-- the concerned mothers, the lost children, the playful loose-limbed clowning, the heroic matriarchs and the self-centered egoists, the mourning of the dead, the memory and associations with a loved elephant's remains, the medical maneuvers (removing darts and spears from a fellow elephant) with a dextrous trunk, the "discussions" about when to leave a place, and the variety of sounds and greetings in general that the elephants use to communicate, and the overall empathy and emotion these creatures show for one another (and occasionally to humans) I have made a major life decision: no more poaching . . . I am quitting cold turkey, and I hope people around the world read his book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel and do likewise; I know it will be tough to quit, and I'll probably gain some weight, and I'll certainly miss the thrill of bringing down something the size of a dinosaur and the money I earned selling contraband ivory-- $1500 dollars a pound for that stuff-- but that's it, I'm done, I quit, no more poaching for me . . . plus this whole "fake tusk" sting operation has made me paranoid . . . anyway, if I can quit poaching cold turkey, then maybe you can too . . . give it a try and see how it feels, and I realize some of you are poaching simply to put food on the table, while I use the money to buy ocelot pants and crocodile skin boots, so perhaps it's wrong of me to inflict my morality on you, but that's a whole other can of worms for another day.

The Test 14: Number of the Dave

I thought this episode of The Test would be fun and easy-- an innocuous number association quiz-- but the ladies though differently . . . including the mystery Mrs. X . . . what the ladies lacked in number sense, they made up for with attitude: there was banging, yelling, slapping and vitriol; Stacey claimed she wanted to light herself on fire; Mrs. X did some wacky math about football, and Cunningham finally remembered something significant and ended what I claimed was "the greatest moment in podcasting history" . . . check it out, play at home, and see if you fare better than the ladies (or agree with them that this test is impossible).

Monday Mornings, You are a Giant Crayfish

If you're feeling extraordinary, proud and special, because you're a human and have such an advanced consciousness, read Carl Safina's new book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel . . .  it will take you down a peg or two: you'll learn that when crayfish were shocked repeatedly, they hid-- and had elevated levels of serotonin-- the same hormone that stressed-out humans possess, and chlordiazepoxide relieved their symptoms . . . a commonly used drug to treat people who are suffering from anxiety; the lowly nematode worm, which only possesses 302 nerve cells, behaves the same way as a human when it has an elevated level of nematocin: it seeks out sex; S.W. Emmons-- a worm scientist-- explains that "just as today's roads and highways may have once been ancient trails, biological systems can retain essential features derived from their origins . . . it is a mistake to consider  small invertebrates as primitive."

Diamond in the Instructions

I was channelling Ron Swanson the other night, drinking a scotch on the rocks while assembling a pub table and set of stools for the new and improved Greasetruck Studios, when I ran across this phrase in the instructions for cleaning the table-top . . . sometimes you find poetry in the least likely places: "treat surface with care, surface is resistant to scratches but is not scratch resistant."

It's Raining Metaphors!

New Jersey recently had a long period of extremely hot and dry weather-- no rain for weeks-- and then massive downpours for a couple of days . . . and I'd just like to let The Powers That Be know that this isn't really healthy, extended teetotalling followed by an insane binge, it's much better to have a couple drinks a night (or some rain frequently, but in moderation) rather than abstain for so long and then go on a lunatic bender.

Edgar Allan Poe on Steroids

Kevin P. Keating's novel The Captive Condition is described on the inside cover as the story of "an idyllic Midwestern college town that turns out to be a panorama of depravity and a nexus of horror" and I suppose that's accurate, although Normandy Falls hasn't been idyllic for a long time-- it's the victim of typical Midwestern post-industrial decay, but instead of the reality of opiate addiction, the town has fallen prey to other substances . . . the Gonk's homebrewed "Red Death" and chef Xavier's psychedelic jazar juice-- comprised of many things, but mainly an African carrot and formaldehyde . . . if this sounds absurd, it is . . . the book is a flurry of haunting images and elevated prose, done in the style of Poe and Lovecraft-- almost satirically-- and the nexus of evil is the maintenance section of the local university, presided over by the Gonk, but there's also murders, evil twin children, adulterous professors, ancient experiments gone wrong, possession, automatic writing, outside art, and a one-eyed lost soul of narrator trying to escape the clutches of the town and everything in it; this all leads up to a wild and whirling conclusion; if you're looking for something weird and grotesque, this is the book for you.

Irony Defined

I was telling a crowd of teachers in the English Office this story about how my younger son locked my older son out of the house-- and it was a very hot day-- and my younger son then proceeded to taunt my older son from the comfort of the air-conditioned house-- and my older son got so infuriated that he started violently banging the giant sliding glass door on our porch, and while my younger son got in more trouble for being the instigator, Alex was still in some trouble for totally losing his mind and nearly hospitalizing himself (and possibly doing serious damage to the house) and so I tried to convey this lesson to him: just because it's hot and you're angry, it's no reason to completely lose your temper and go insane . . . because that's exactly what your younger brother wants to happen, and when I got to the moral, everyone in the English Office started laughing, and they weren't laughing with me, they were laughing at me . . . and after a few moments, I realized why . . . I had been losing my temper and going insane all week because of the heat, banging on things and complaining, cursing our building and our administration and global warming, etcetera etcetera . . . and to present this hypocrisy to a crowd of English teachers, in such a perfect juxtaposition, me counseling my son to behave in the exact opposite manner of my own behavior, was such an exemplar of irony that I almost wish I had planned it . . . but I didn't, and the best part of the moment may have been when I realized just what a fool I was (and am and will continue to be).

Moonrise Kingdom > The Life Aquatic

I thought I would hate this movie . . . but I loved it, and I thought it would be cheesy, but it's actually clever and zany and visually engaging, and-- like Madmen-- some of the allure is purely aesthetic, the props and the colors and the two-dimensional nature of the sets, and I know all this sounds ridiculous and absurd and vague and unsubstantiated, but if you watch the movie, you'll know what I mean-- it's a whimsical story and whimsical (almost fey) universe but Harvey Keitel and Ed Norton and Bill Murray and Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton are not whimsical actors, which makes the movie understated and funny instead of mawkish and nostalgic . . . give it a shot, it's a lot better than The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

The Test 13: Stacey's Songs (Have Got It Goin' On)

This is my favorite episode of The Test so far . . . Stacey devised a musical clip quiz, and to pass, you must identify the songs and artists, and then connect them to an overarching theme; I get the answer and Cunningham doesn't-- she requires an extra clue-- and I revel in this; not only that, there's a new outro montage, and-- as a bonus-- I steal Cunningham's youth; play at home and see if you can get the answer faster than me (probably pretty easy if you know your music) and let me know how you did . . . especially if you fail.

Attention NBC: Free Sitcom Idea!

This sitcom idea is inspired by a comment written by Clarence about my rave review of our new Shark NV500 Rotator vacuum . . . he speculated that 1990 Dave would be dismayed, disappointed and disgusted by the domesticity of 2015 Dave, and he's right, of course: 1990 Dave was a rude, insolent, slightly deranged illogical slob who spurned all responsibility and civility . . . and this is the premise for an amazing sitcom: 1990 Dave travels through a time warp into the future and he has nowhere to stay and no viable skills, so 2015 Dave has to take him in . . . it's a messy, funny, and ultimately endearing show, because 2015 Dave can't kill 1990 Dave-- and 2015 Dave's wife and kids have to put up with 1990 Dave and prevent 1990 Dave from harming himself, because he's destined to eventually stumble into another time warp and return to his own timeline in the past, where he will meet his wife and fulfill his destiny to become a fairly responsible, occasionally awkward, sort of civilized parent and citizen (who occasionally volunteers to vacuum the house . . . and to add another layer to the show, 2015 Dave's wife is strangely attracted to 1990 Dave, though he annoys the shit out of her with his puerile behavior, but she just can't help herself because he is a much better looking version of Dave than 2015 Dave).

Some Kids Need a Visual Aid

I've decided I'm really going to crack down on cell-phone use in my classes this year, and so I read the kids the riot act on the first day of class: I explained that phones are a distraction and an attractive nuisance that the teenage psyche cannot handle-- and I cited the fact that schools that ban phones see an increase in test scores-- and this seems to have had some impact, but I think to really hammer the point home, I need a visual aid, so I'm going to get a little aquarium and fill it with water (and maybe some colored gravel and a piece of coral) and then throw some old cell-phones in there and tell my students that if I confiscate your phone, that's where I put it . . . and, if I get really motivated, I'm going to set up a stooge with an old phone and pretend to confiscate the phone from him or her, and then toss it into the tank . . . if I forget to do this, someone please remind me.

The Test Episode 12: Acting!

Episode 12 of The Test has it all-- except Cunningham, who couldn't make it; some of the highlights include:

1) not one, but two special guests . . . my friend Alec (a performance space designer) and his wife Heather (who runs the business end of Alec's company) join us for a test on film and theater;

2) everyone sings;

3) God beeps himself;

4) I go a little nuts on the musical interlude . . . but rest assured, it does finally end; play along at home, keep score, and realize that we made this one fun and easy only so that we can lure other people onto the show (presidential hopefuls, keep us in mind . . . you could show off your knowledge and visit beautiful New Brunswick, New Jersey, where you might have the privilege of getting assaulted by a group of Rutgers football players).

Warning: Very Mundane Stuff

My wife bought a new vacuum, and it works exponentially better than our old vacuum; in fact, when we saw what the new vacuum sucked into the canister from our rugs, we wondered if our old vacuum was sucking up anything . . . our new vacuum is a Shark NV500 Rotator and it's so awesome and sleek that I actually volunteered to vacuum the upstairs carpets, just so I could use it.

Ronald Reagan Needed Barry Goldwater . . . and American Politics Needs Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump

I was having trouble finishing Before the Storm, Rick Perlstein's book about the 1964 Lyndon Johnson/Barry Goldwater election, but Donald Trump renewed my interest; like Goldwater, Trump is a political outsider, and like Goldwater, he is galvanizing an angry conservative minority that feels that no other politician is speaking for them . . . and like Goldwater, if Trump gets nominated, I'm pretty sure he is unelectable and will lose in a landslide . . . but Perlstein-- who is a liberal-- understands the significance of the loss; Goldwater paved the way for Ronald Reagan, and Goldwater paved the way for an organized and radical conservative movement in America . . . to read about a more tactical politician, check out the second book in his historical trilogy (Nixonland) but if you want something that explains what is going on right now in America, read Before the Storm, which is subtitled Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus . . .  if you want to read something shorter on the same theme, there's a good article in The Week and I also highly recommend Dan Carlin's podcast, Common Sense . . . his analysis of the first televised GOP debate, "Trumping the Playbook" explains the influence an outsider can have on typical political rhetoric and why we should appreciate and enjoy the waves these folks create, whether or not we are for their policies . . . so I'd like to give a big thanks to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, for shaking things up and making it real.

Kids Trick You Into Thinking They Are Civilized

After a productive morning of podcasting, Stacey, Cunningham, my wife, Alex, Ian and I went out for Mexican food-- and Stacey treated the boys to a ride to the restaurant in her new Jeep (with the top down) and the ladies were very impressed with our boys' behavior at the restaurant . . . and when Alex and Ian were finished with lunch, they asked if they could walk home, which they occasionally do instead of sitting and waiting for the check-- it's four or five blocks, so if Cat and I have driven, we usually arrive at home around the same time-- and after the kids left, Stacey said, "they're just like regular people!" and we agreed and we were very happy with our children . . . BUT . . . and this is the update for Stacey and Cunningham-- they are NOT like real people, even though they occasionally fool us into thinking they are . . . when we arrived home, we heard screaming and a loud banging noise coming from the backyard, and quickly surmised that it was Alex, banging on the giant glass sliding door-- I raced around the side of the house and told him to stop and he explained that Ian had locked him out of the house (and chained the front door) and then taunted him from the comfort of the air-conditioning and Alex totally lost his mind and came close to shattering a very very expensive window and probably hospitalizing himself . . . moments later, Ian's friend showed up and Ian had the awkward task of sending him home, since he was in so much trouble, and then we sent Alex over to Ian's friend's house to explain what happened, and Ian had to stay home, miserable and alone, and face the consequences of his actions.

There Are Good Dogs and There are Bad Dogs

The Hand That Feeds You opens with a scene so grisly and disturbing that the rest of the book hangs under its shadow . . . and the fact that dogs might be responsible-- and good dogs at that-- makes it even worse . . . but this is one of those psychological thrillers where nothing is at it seems, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for one last fast summer read; even the author-- A.J. Rich-- is a facade for something more complicated . . . I learned the story in this New York Times review: the name is a pseudonym, and the book was collaboratively written by acclaimed short-story writer Amy Hempel and her friend, novelist Jill Ciment . . . that's the "A" and the "J" in the pseudonym, and the name "Rich" is in honor of their friend Katherine Russell Rich, who had an idea for a thriller based on what happened with a man she had been dating who proposed to her . . . she grew suspicious of him, paid someone to hack his e-mail, and she found out that he had several other lives-- he was living with another woman, and seeing several others on the side . . . so she broke up with him and started a novel with a similarly deceptive sociopath as the main character, but never got past the first chapter, she died of breast cancer soon after . . . so Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment took the ball and ran with it, and the result is a crisp, taut, disturbing story that may or may not be something dog lovers would enjoy, but the lesson is this, which the band Camper van Beethoven pointed out many years ago: there are good guys and there are bad guys/ and there are crooks and criminals/ and there are doctors and there are lawyers/ and there are folks like you and me . . . and the same goes for dogs.

This Test Sort of Goes To 11

On the 11th Episode of The Test, Stacey does NOT quiz us on our knowledge of This is Spinal Tap . . . instead, she focuses on current events, which are not my area of expertise (at one point in the show, I can't think of anything recent and bring up a related event that happened 112 years ago) but Cunningham and I survive . . . and even get a few right; follow this link and you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes . . . play along, score yourself, and get ready for the next episode where we have not one but TWO guests.

No Need to Worry, I Have Them All

If you're wondering where your extension cords went, apparently they attained autonomy and migrated into my junk room, where they've been hiding out behind the cabinets and in the storage bins (I found 23 unused extension cords in there . . . 23!)

One Summer, Two Stephen King Books

It's been a long time since I read two Stephen King books in one summer-- maybe thirty years-- but Finders Keepers is even better than Joyland . . . it's a compelling thriller, and at the heart of it resides a Salinger-esque writer who is King's antithesis: a well-reviewed artist scared to damage his legacy, scrawling away but afraid to publish . . . things do slow down a bit in the middle of the book, but press on, the ending will make you sweat: eight Moleskine notebooks out of ten.

Giant Apes, White Whales, Cheeky Monkeys, and a Can of Worms

It took two nights for my family and I to make it through Peter Jackson's epic 2005 remake of King Kong and-- despite the three hour running time-- everyone loved it . . . my kids loved the action, my wife loved the romance (especially the ice-sliding scene) and I loved how much the film reminded me of my favorite novel: Moby Dick . . . like Moby Dick, the story is too long, more of an adventure than a narrative, and both Kong and The White Whale are inscrutable violent natural forces-- a yin and yang of black and white, ocean and jungle . . . these creatures have nothing to do with idealistic environmentalism . . . let's save the dolphins and the panda bears . . . Kong and The Leviathan are far too frightening and primitive for that kind of sentiment, but at the heart of both animals is something deeply emotional and intelligent-- they are not monsters-- and because of this, they are both doomed . . . they go down fighting (and though Moby Dick breaks the Pequod in half and drags Ahab to his death, he is full of harpoons, wounded and hunted by man . . . he doesn't die at the end of the novel, but we all know what happened to the rest of his kin) and both King Kong and Moby Dick are stories of love and obsession . . . Carl Denham (Jack Black) has the same monomania for film and spectacle as Ahab does for the White Whale . . . both these creatures would be fine if left alone, but humans open the can of worms (or the barrel of monkeys, lots of metaphors here) and monkeys must meddle, it is in our nature, and then when we stare into the eye of the Other and call it monstrous, we have to wonder: who is the real monster?