In preparation for our trip to the American Southwest this summer, I am reading some of the classic literature set in that region; I started by re-reading Death Comes to the Archbishop, a nearly plotless collection of vignettes by Willa Cather, based on the lives of two French Catholic religious men-- a bishop and a priest-- who leave civilized Europe in the mid-1800's and travel to the wilds of the New Mexico Territory-- newly acquired by the United States after the Mexican-American War-- in order to establish an organized diocese amidst the corruption of the Spanish, the poverty of the Mexicans, and the traditions and mysticism of the Native Americans; I admit that's a mouthful for a synopsis, and that hardly does justice to what happens in the book, but I regard this as one of the best American novels ever written-- while I love Moby Dick, Cather's masterpiece is probably a more worthwhile read and it certainly addresses much more modern issues-- race, class, religion, mysticism, greed, politics, assimilation, and borders . . . it is an absolute refutation Crevecoeur's outdated "melting pot" metaphor . . . the book was published in 1927 and it is utterly modern, like a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, it is a collection of climactic scenes and anecdotes (think There Will Be Blood or Magnolia) without much transition-- Elmore Leonard codified this into his mantra: "try to leave out all the parts people skip"; Cather's language is as rugged and sharply defined as the terrain she writes about . . . here are some of the passages I highlighted:
1) he seemed to be wandering in some geometrical nightmare;
2) he saw a flat white outline on the grey surface-- a white square made up of white squares . . . that his guide said, was the pueblo of Acoma;
3) one could not believe the number of square miles a man is able to sweep with the eye there could be so many uniform red hills . . . he had been riding among them since early morning, and the look of the country had no more changed than if he had stood still;
4) No priest can experience repentance and forgiveness of sin unless he himself falls into sin . . . otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic;
5) their Padre spoke like a horse for the last time: "Comete tu cola, comete tu cola!" (Eat your tail, Martinez, eat your tail!) Almost at once he died in convulsion;
6) in his experience, white people, when they addressed Indians, always put on a false face;
7) he had the pleasure of seeing the Navajo horsemen riding free over their great plains again . . . the two Frenchmen went as far as the Canyon de Chelly to behold the strange cliff ruins; once more crops were growing at the bottom of the world between the towering sandstone walls;
and while most of the prose is impeccably lucid, Cather was also not afraid to use specific words that will make you consult a dictionary (partibus, calabozo, codicil, pyx, hogan, coruscation, turbid, jalousies) but these only crop up occasionally, otherwise it is a smooth read; in the end, it is a tale of friendship between two religious men, Bishop Latour and Father Vaillant, in a harsh, complicated, inspirational, and fascinating environment; Cather's treatment of the Native Americans is empathetic and vivid (and must have influenced Aldous Huxley when he wrote Brave New World) and while she moves from mundane politics and vanity to the holiest of mysteries, the story never loses its historical grounding, it is set amongst realpeople-- Kit Carson especially-- and real events-- the Colorado Gold Rush near Pike's Peak and the building of Santa Fe's Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis Assisi, which Jean-Baptiste Lamy-- the man Bishop Latour was based upon-- oversaw and initiated . . . anyway, I've gone on far too long and I haven't even scratched the surface of what lies inside this book, but I guarantee it is an America that they don't teach you about in school, Jamestown and the Pilgrims and the Boston Tea Party and all that, and I'm sure when I'm visiting these spots this summer, Cather's words will ring in my ears . . . so if you feel like you want to read a classic piece of literature, and you don't want to slog through The Brothers Karamazov, I recommend this-- it's short, episodic, perfectly written, and full of valuable insight on the origins of our national character.
The Test 34: Elitist Stuff
This week on The Test, I quiz the ladies on some "highbrow stuff" and we all perform admirably-- Stacey invents a jazz musician, Cunningham corrects me on (of all things) a sporting quotation, I try "taking some stuff from my head" and fail miserably, and we all learn many valuable pieces of information from the Voice of God . . . give it shot, keep score, and see if you know any "elitist stuff."
Advice for Husbands
You can't just own the cell-phone, you also have to charge the cell-phone and carry the cell-phone on your person (if you want your wife to be able to contact you when something comes up).
Two Kinds of Rock Bands?
I can hear Zman's voice in my head as I write this-- and so: Yes Zman, I know . . . there are two kinds of people, people who divide people into two kinds of people and people who don't-- but it's rare that any pub night discussions stay in my brain through the night until the next morning, and this one did; my friend Alec and I determined that there are two kinds of rock bands-- and I did my research and watched some concert footage to confirm this-- and here they are:
1) bands where everyone stays in the same spot on the stage-- The Grateful Dead and Yes come to mind . . . this may be due to the fact that the music they are playing is progressive and difficult (Yes) or it might be simply because everyone is so whacked out on drugs that getting near another human would totally freak them out (The Grateful Dead) or they might be introverted weirdos (Neutral Milk Hotel, Greasetruck)
2) then there are bands like Van Halen and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, where there's lots of running around and interaction and singing into the same microphone . . . and while I know this is hypocritical of me, considering I don't know where my toothbrush has been, I still find this unhygienic and a little goofy . . . what if someone in the band has a cold-- you don't need that stuff all over the microphone-- nor do I need anyone in my space while I'm playing a guitar solo . . . I think the Talking Heads are a nice middle ground between these two styles, they are fairly animated, especially David Byrnes, but don't stray too far from their spots on stage, and I guess there are also bands where one person is all over the place (Jimi Hendrix) while the rest of the crew stay in their spot . . . I certainly haven't thought this theory through completely, but perhaps Zman will give me some other categories to add to the rather restrictive dichotomy with which I began.
1) bands where everyone stays in the same spot on the stage-- The Grateful Dead and Yes come to mind . . . this may be due to the fact that the music they are playing is progressive and difficult (Yes) or it might be simply because everyone is so whacked out on drugs that getting near another human would totally freak them out (The Grateful Dead) or they might be introverted weirdos (Neutral Milk Hotel, Greasetruck)
2) then there are bands like Van Halen and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, where there's lots of running around and interaction and singing into the same microphone . . . and while I know this is hypocritical of me, considering I don't know where my toothbrush has been, I still find this unhygienic and a little goofy . . . what if someone in the band has a cold-- you don't need that stuff all over the microphone-- nor do I need anyone in my space while I'm playing a guitar solo . . . I think the Talking Heads are a nice middle ground between these two styles, they are fairly animated, especially David Byrnes, but don't stray too far from their spots on stage, and I guess there are also bands where one person is all over the place (Jimi Hendrix) while the rest of the crew stay in their spot . . . I certainly haven't thought this theory through completely, but perhaps Zman will give me some other categories to add to the rather restrictive dichotomy with which I began.
Humboldt: More Than a Big Squid
Alexander von Humboldt is largely forgotten (aside from the Humboldt Current and the Humboldt Squid) but he was the most intrepid and famous man of his age, and his influences on our perception of nature and the environment were monumental; Andrea Wulf's book The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World is everything you could ever want to know about Humboldt, and also features wonderful chapters on the folks that he influenced and inspired; every time I thought I had enough Humboldt, she described another inspired adventure, or how he met up with and influenced another notable person, and Wulf even writes wonderful mini-biographies of some of the people who were most indebted to Humboldt's writing and discoveries . . . here are a few of the many memorable things Wulf describes:
1) Humboldt was buddies with Goethe and was the inspiration for his most famous character Dr. Faustus, who made a pact with the devil in "exchange for infinite knowledge,"
2) Humboldt never married and the exact nature of his sexuality was ambiguous . . . but he certainly enjoyed the company of men, one of his most celebrated bromances was with his travelling and writing partner, Aime Bonpland . . . Wulf describes them as a "great team" because they were exact opposite: "Humboldt spread frantic activity" while Bonpland "carried an air of calmness and docility,"
3) when Humboldt and Bonpland were in South America, they had an especially fruitful time experimenting with electric eels . . . they drove horses into the water where the eels were and watched the "gruesome spectacle" and for "four hours they conducted an array of dangerous tests including holding an eel with two hands, touching an eel with one hand and a bit of metal with the other, or Humboldt touching an eel while holding Bonpland's hand (with Bonpland feeling the jolt)"
4) In Views of Nature he explained the "correlation between the external world and our mood"
5) Humboldt spend quite a bit of time with Thomas Jefferson, and inspired Jefferson to look for megafauna in North America (to show up French Naturalist Georges-Louis Buffon, who claimed that everything in the New World was feeble compared to its European version)
6) Charles Darwin was inspired by Humboldt and he "modelled his own writing on Humboldt's, fusing scientific writing with poetic description"
7) Hector Berlioz, the great romantic composer of Symphony Fantastique, loved Humboldt's book Cosmos and claimed that it was incredibly popular among musicians;
8) Edgar Allan Poe's last work, the 130 page prose poem Eureka, was "dedicated to Humboldt and was a direct response to Cosmos"
9) Humboldt advised Simon Bolivar, annoyed Napoleon, inspired Thoreau to write Walden, influenced John Muir and the entire conservation movement, and had loads of other far-reaching implications with his prodigious correspondence, his travels (to South America and Siberia in particular), his copious experiments and measurements, his many publications, and his cult of personality . . . this book is so dense with detail that I can barely keep one-tenth of it straight, but one thing will remain in my brain years and years from now, Humboldt is more than the guy who discovered a really scary predatory six foot long, one hundred pound squid (although that's a great accomplishment in itself).
It's All How You Look At Things
At first, when I realized someone had stolen my snow shovel off my front porch on Saturday afternoon, during the height of the blizzard, I was indignant, but I've chosen to change my perspective on this, and instead think of the loss of the shovel as a charitable donation to a small business, to encourage entrepreneurship . . . because it was certainly stolen by one of the roving bands of shoveling opportunists, who come into town whenever there is a big storm, in order to make some cash . . . and while I doubt these folks are of the demographic that read my blog, just in case, I'd like to address you directly, the stealer-of-my-shovel, and suggest that:
1) we could turn this donation into a micro-loan . . . now that the weather has turned warm, you could simply toss my shovel back onto my porch now that you're done with it (and if you could also return my neighbor's shovels, which were also stolen, and which you probably had a hand in, that would be fantastic) but if not . . .
2) I hope you make good use of the shovels, and we get lots of snow, so you can parlay your theft into a major windfall, and I hope someday, when you own and operate a large plowing conglomerate, you remember your humble beginnings and thank me (and I'd also like to point out that our dog did his job, and barked at you, but I was napping and Cat was in the kitchen and figured it was just one of the kids throwing a sled on the front porch, not a shovel stealer, so you'd better watch out the next time you try this, because my dog is onto you).
1) we could turn this donation into a micro-loan . . . now that the weather has turned warm, you could simply toss my shovel back onto my porch now that you're done with it (and if you could also return my neighbor's shovels, which were also stolen, and which you probably had a hand in, that would be fantastic) but if not . . .
2) I hope you make good use of the shovels, and we get lots of snow, so you can parlay your theft into a major windfall, and I hope someday, when you own and operate a large plowing conglomerate, you remember your humble beginnings and thank me (and I'd also like to point out that our dog did his job, and barked at you, but I was napping and Cat was in the kitchen and figured it was just one of the kids throwing a sled on the front porch, not a shovel stealer, so you'd better watch out the next time you try this, because my dog is onto you).
Farewell Four Letter Friends . . .
In December my audio streaming service, Rdio, bit the dust . . . according to the company's design lead, Wilson Miner, the service was made for "snobby album purists," and I guess that's why it didn't thrive (the company filed for bankruptcy and Pandora bought what was left) and I guess that's also why I loved it and was willing to pay $4.99 a month for it-- I read Miner's quip in an article by Kevin Nguyen called "Burying Rdio, the Music App for Annoying Men" . . . and several days ago, while I was still in the process of mourning Rdio, I received a text message from PTel, my cheap mobile phone provider, and it's curtains for them as well . . . and this makes me quite sad, because they always provided Platinum level telecommunications (aside from the lack of service in Manchester, Vermont and the fact that I had to hold my phone out the window in my classroom in order to send a text message) and while this is serious stuff-- I've lost two pillars of my digital universe in less than a month's time-- I'll take solace in the fact that Netflix still works, and I'll encourage you to use Netflix to watch the funniest single episode of a sitcom ever made, "Charlie Work," which is the fourth episode of the tenth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . . . and you may be thinking: How can Dave claim he knows the funniest episode of any sitcom ever . . . how can I trust his opinion, when he can't even pick a good cell-phone company or a good music streaming service? and while I admit this is reasonable logic, I will humbly ask you to watch "Charlie Work," which has an insanely high rating on IMDB, and then if you can provide a single episode of a sitcom that you believe is funnier, and I will pit them head to head, and using my patented situation comedy arbitration method, I will determine an unbiased victor.
Giant Reptile Wades Through Snowy Wasteland
Friday night, my wife was driving down Route 1 and she did double take when she read the big electronic variable message sign . . . she was already nervous about Winter Storm Jonas, and this sounded even worse . . . the message on the sign read: LIZARD WARNING.
Dave Defeats His Wife in a Battle of Logic!
It's a rare occurrence, but I always relish when my wife screws up-- in fact, it's the topic of the very first Sentence of Dave-- and so it was with great pleasure, when my wife came down the stairs and into the kitchen yesterday morning, that I asked her-- facetiously-- if she had heard the weather report the night before, you know . . . the weather report about Winter Storm Jonas, the mighty blizzard that had dominated the news for the latter half of the week . . . and though she knew I was up to something, she admitted to having knowledge of the storm, and this admission buried her, because my next question was: "then why did you leave two six packs of beer on our back porch?" and at first she tried to maneuver her way out of it-- she said she didn't think that they would have been buried and she pointed out that I occasionally put beer in the snow, but she finally confessed that it was an absurd move, and that if I hadn't seen the bottle caps, just above the blanket of snow (and wondered if some fruity beer fairy had come in the night and left a six pack Illusive Traveler Grapefruit Shandy and a six pack of Leinenkugel Berry Weiss as some sort of blizzard survival kit) then the beer would have been buried in a snow drift until spring, the bottles shattered, and-- more importantly-- my wife would have been beerless for the duration of the blizzard.
The Test . . . Snow Day Edition
There's nothing better on a snowy day, just after you've shoveled out the mouth of your driveway (and then the plow comes by again and undoes all your hard work) than sitting back with a cup of hot chocolate and listening to the newest episode of The Test . . . and this one is hot off the press, with real time blizzard allusions from The Voice of God . . . check it out, play along at home, and see if you can beat me (you'll definitely beat Cunningham on this one).
Some Advice For Dog Owners During the Winter Months
Open the poop bag when you are in the house, before you venture out in the the cold with your dog, because it's very difficult to pry open one of those little bags when your fingers are numb (and I would have said pre-open the bag before you walk the dog, except that George Carlin would roll over in his grave if I used the prefix "pre" in that manner).
Toothbrushes Part I
When we were young and wild, my wife and I shared a toothbrush-- and this went on for over a decade; now that we're mature, we have our separate brushes (which made my students very happy . . . they were quite disgusted by the fact that we shared one brush for that many years) but I'm loath to admit that I'm not sure which brush is mine, so I use whichever one I grab first (there are four brushes in the cup, two purple and two blue) and so I'm going to check with my wife and see if she thinks that a particular brush is "hers" and report back to you . . . we might still be sharing a toothbrush afterall.
Dave Uses Evidence and Jazz Hands to Argue His Point
Back in November, I took some flak in the comments for calling jazz vocalization "unbearable," and so I'd like to present Exhibit A, Tom Lellis singing "For Better Days Ahead," a song I heard on WBGO on my way to work; I'd also like to point out that these days I primarily listen to jazz, more than any other genre, so this isn't some off-the-cuff generalization . . . jazz singing almost always ruins the music; if you can sincerely listen to "For Better Days" and tell me that you enjoy the singing-- that it makes the song better-- then you can smack me across the face with your jazz hands . . . it's the same deal with classical music-- which I love-- versus opera, which annoys me (the song also features a flute solo, which is invariably the kiss of death).
Making Us Sleepy
The Netflix documentary Making a Murderer is sometimes compelling, sometimes boring, sometimes biased and sometimes soporific . . . my wife and I took turns snoozing during the course of the ten episodes, and while I will go out on a limb and say that Len Kachinsky is the worst lawyer ever (in Jeff Albertson's voice) and it seems that the series has exposed some corruption and malpractice and misrepresentation in the two cases, and that Brendan Dassey's constitutional rights were violated, there is still no theory as to who else could have committed the crime-- there's no way the entire thing was a police frame-up and it doesn't seem likely that some super-genius criminal killed Theresa Holbach and then set up Stephen Avery . . . and this Slate article points out some interesting facts that the documentary left out and suggests that the perspective of the filmmakers might be very biased . . . so while the case and the surrounding procedures do point to some systemic failures of the American justice system, I'm just not sure how outraged to be over this one particular case, where I think the police and prosecution (and even Len Kachinsky) knew they had guilty parties and just wanted to make sure they were convicted, and crossed some ethical lines in order to do this.
Epic Adventures in Parenting
A banner week: two epic journeys, one for each child;
1) after a packed Sunday of sporting events-- I played indoor soccer and coached my younger son's basketball team, and my older son attended basketball practice (where they installed a new offense) and then played in a basketball game, where he took several hard charges and an elbow to the windpipe, and then he went directly from the basketball game to a futsal game at Piscataway High School, and we arrived as the game started, and in he went . . . so by the end of the game, he was exhausted, and I was wiped too-- indoor soccer kills my knees-- and just after we left the building, we realized that he forgot his water bottle, so we went back in, looked for it, and couldn't find it, then we exited the building a different way, realized we didn't know where we were, and couldn't get back in, so we circumnavigated the building, in the dark and the wind, both of us barely able to walk and close to tears, with no clue as to where the car was (and Piscataway High School is huge) and when we finally found the car, there was a water bottle in the front seat, and I checked the backpack and the other water bottle was inside-- so he must have given it to me right after the game and I forgot, so the mishap was entirely my fault;
2) I got home after a faculty meeting and my younger son should have been home already, but he wasn't, so I went to Ben's house, but he wasn't there (and Ben didn't know where he was) and I went to Micah's house and he wasn't there (and Micah hadn't seen him) and while the logical part of my brain knew he was fine, the creative section was designing open wells for him to fall in and white vans to abduct him-- and by this time he was "missing" for a good forty-five minutes, so I walked over to the school to see if they had any information, and the secretary in the main office said I should check the library, because they were having a "Game Day" and I remembered that he had a form about this, but that kids got selected by a lottery system, and I never heard anything about it, but when I went to the library, Ian was there, playing checkers with his buddy and I was very relieved, and on the way out I told the secretary I found him, and I must have looked pretty distraught because she asked me if I wanted to sit down for a moment and have a piece of candy (which was very sweet of her, but I had to refuse because the dog was tied up just outside the door . . . he accompanied me on this absurd journey) .
1) after a packed Sunday of sporting events-- I played indoor soccer and coached my younger son's basketball team, and my older son attended basketball practice (where they installed a new offense) and then played in a basketball game, where he took several hard charges and an elbow to the windpipe, and then he went directly from the basketball game to a futsal game at Piscataway High School, and we arrived as the game started, and in he went . . . so by the end of the game, he was exhausted, and I was wiped too-- indoor soccer kills my knees-- and just after we left the building, we realized that he forgot his water bottle, so we went back in, looked for it, and couldn't find it, then we exited the building a different way, realized we didn't know where we were, and couldn't get back in, so we circumnavigated the building, in the dark and the wind, both of us barely able to walk and close to tears, with no clue as to where the car was (and Piscataway High School is huge) and when we finally found the car, there was a water bottle in the front seat, and I checked the backpack and the other water bottle was inside-- so he must have given it to me right after the game and I forgot, so the mishap was entirely my fault;
2) I got home after a faculty meeting and my younger son should have been home already, but he wasn't, so I went to Ben's house, but he wasn't there (and Ben didn't know where he was) and I went to Micah's house and he wasn't there (and Micah hadn't seen him) and while the logical part of my brain knew he was fine, the creative section was designing open wells for him to fall in and white vans to abduct him-- and by this time he was "missing" for a good forty-five minutes, so I walked over to the school to see if they had any information, and the secretary in the main office said I should check the library, because they were having a "Game Day" and I remembered that he had a form about this, but that kids got selected by a lottery system, and I never heard anything about it, but when I went to the library, Ian was there, playing checkers with his buddy and I was very relieved, and on the way out I told the secretary I found him, and I must have looked pretty distraught because she asked me if I wanted to sit down for a moment and have a piece of candy (which was very sweet of her, but I had to refuse because the dog was tied up just outside the door . . . he accompanied me on this absurd journey) .
The Test 32: Stretchy Horses and Twisty Mustaches (Salvador Dali)
There's no need for The Voice of God this week on The Test, because Cunningham provides everything you wanted to know about Salvador Dali (but were afraid to ask) and while Stacey and I do a serviceable job answering the questions (and making jokes) there is also a bonus conflict where I call Stacey a "menace to audio" and Cunningham jumps right on the bandwagon . . . give it a shot, keep score, and see if you can beat the pros (after 32 episodes, I think we have the right to call ourselves professional test-takers).
Freaks and Geeks: One Season Is Enough
I'm not sure if you can spoil a show that's sixteen years old, but if you've never seen Freaks and Geeks, you need to watch it immediately-- before you read this sentence, because there are spoilers ahead-- and if you've never watched because you don't want to get so emotionally attached to a show that's only one season long, I can understand that, but it's worth watching for the music alone and if you're afraid it will end with you wanting more, you couldn't be more wrong-- in fact, it's probably better off that the show got cancelled, because the last several episodes are (serendipitously or not) cumulatively one of the best endings to any show ever made (maybe because they didn't know the show was to be cancelled, so there were no expectations) and each character gets the ending they deserve:
1) Ken overcomes his inhibitions about his once hermaphroditic girlfriend;
2) Nick uses his rhythmic abilities and gawkiness to conquer the disco dance floor . . . although he can't defeat a disco-magician;
3) Neal comes to terms with his dad's philandering and his brother and mother's acceptance of this;
4) Bill comes to terms with his mom dating Coach Fredericks;
5) Sam realizes that dating Cindy is far less wonderful than he imagined, and breaks it off;
6) Daniel (played brilliantly by James Franco) plays Advanced D&D with the geeks, turning the high school social on its head;
7) Lindsey ditches the summer academy in Ann Arbor in order to follow the dead in a VW bus with her freak friend Kim . . .
and there is no coming back from this . . . it's like the final two episodes of The Shield (except funny and poignant instead of disturbing and tortured).
1) Ken overcomes his inhibitions about his once hermaphroditic girlfriend;
2) Nick uses his rhythmic abilities and gawkiness to conquer the disco dance floor . . . although he can't defeat a disco-magician;
3) Neal comes to terms with his dad's philandering and his brother and mother's acceptance of this;
4) Bill comes to terms with his mom dating Coach Fredericks;
5) Sam realizes that dating Cindy is far less wonderful than he imagined, and breaks it off;
6) Daniel (played brilliantly by James Franco) plays Advanced D&D with the geeks, turning the high school social on its head;
7) Lindsey ditches the summer academy in Ann Arbor in order to follow the dead in a VW bus with her freak friend Kim . . .
and there is no coming back from this . . . it's like the final two episodes of The Shield (except funny and poignant instead of disturbing and tortured).
Hey Waldo, You Should Have Read Your Humboldt
Ralph Waldo Emerson espoused the transcendental notions that "nature always wears the colors of the spirit" and "there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend," but I think we all know that the opposite is more often true-- if it's a beautiful sunny day at the shore, low humidity and a crisp breeze, then you can't help enjoying the weather, even if a half dozen of your dearest friends were just eaten by a school of rampant hammerhead sharks . . . and we know in the bleak winter months that some of us get the blues (scientifically known as seasonal affective disorder) and drink and eat way too much, and while Emerson got the cause and effect wrong, it appears that his predecessor, Alexander Humboldt, got it right; Andrea Wulf, in her fantastic book The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World, explains that "Humboldt showed how nature could have an influence on people's imagination . . . what we might take for granted today-- that there is a correlation between the external world and our mood -- was a revelation to Humboldt's readers."
Weird Al's Next Project?
God knows why, but my son has chosen the "diorama" option for a school project, and while I hate dioramas-- and question their pedagogical necessity-- I would really like it if Weird Al did a parody of "Panorama" by The Cars, and made the lyrics all about having to do a school project . . . the song writes itself, really . . . I just want to be in your diooooramaaa.
Chronological Dyslexia
I have two reasons for this brief moment of chronological dyslexia:
1) I never use chapstick;
2) it was early in the morning;
and I would also like to point out that I immediately realized that I should have asked the question first, and then committed the action based on the answer to the question, but I didn't do it like that . . . instead, I did it like this: I picked up a generic plastic and pink tube off the desk in the kitchen, removed the top, applied some of the waxy substance to my lips, and then asked my wife: "This is chapstick, right, not a glue stick?"
1) I never use chapstick;
2) it was early in the morning;
and I would also like to point out that I immediately realized that I should have asked the question first, and then committed the action based on the answer to the question, but I didn't do it like that . . . instead, I did it like this: I picked up a generic plastic and pink tube off the desk in the kitchen, removed the top, applied some of the waxy substance to my lips, and then asked my wife: "This is chapstick, right, not a glue stick?"
Dave Wins (Inadvertently Funny) Comment of the Year!
My friend and colleague Stacey was so amused by this comment thread in response to this sentence that she printed it out and taped it to the whiteboard in the office . . . I missed the word "downtown" in my friend's comment, making the implications of my rejoinder rather perverse.
Dave Confesses to a Crime of Passion
Yesterday after school, I stopped at Wawa for coffee, and-- while I was waiting in line-- I was tempted by the big cookies on display by the register; once I decided I was going to get a big cookie, I decided I was going to get the biggest cookie, and while I was comparing them-- handling all the cookies, trying to find the absolute biggest cookie with the most chocolate chips, one of the big cookies slipped out of the cellophane and fell onto the floor . . . so I kicked it under the low ledge of the counter, grabbed the second biggest cookie from the rack, paid, and made a clean getaway . . . and if I do ever get brought to the bar for this crime, I will blame poor packaging (and not the true culprit: gluttony).
One For the Ladies . . . or Should I Say, Thirteen for the Ladies and One for the Boys
My wife has thirteen different bottles of hair care and body wash and skin cleansing products in the shower, while the boys only have one all-purpose bottle of Dial Kids No Tears Body and Hair Wash . . . and I think this is an egregious imbalance of power in this region of the house and it needs to be rectified soon or the region is going to erupt in about of asymmetrical warfare.
The Test 31: Colors (It's Not Easy Being Green)
This week on The Test, I administer a quiz specifically tailored to our special guest-- her name is Gabby Green and so the questions revolve around colors; Stacey is not particularly impressed by this very literal connection, but-- despite this-- a good time is had by all (there's even an extemporaneous test within the test, thanks to some quick thinking by Stacey) and, at the end, God saves the integrity of the show with a well placed BEEP.
The Wit of the Parking Lot?
One of the best things about Manchester, Vermont is the Equinox Preserve, a beautiful piece of land with a number of well marked hiking trails criss-crossing Equinox Mountain and circumnavigating Equinox Pond; I took the dog there one afternoon after a morning of snowboarding-- Cat and the kids didn't want to go, and I was looking forward to a serene walk on a snowy trail, Sirius leading the way; there were quite a few cars parked along the road approaching the trailhead (it was New Year's Day, so I guess everyone had the same idea) but I saw that there were three spots open in the dirt parking lot at the end of the road, and so I pulled in and as I was pulling into the middle spot (which was the deepest parking spot-- the spots were delineated by piles of snow, clearly marked where the plow had pushed the pile, and I wanted the van to be as unobtrusive as possible in the lot) I heard a loud BEEP . . . unbeknownst to me, there was a car right behind me-- which was shocking enough (I think I was in my own world, out in the woods, without wife or kids to distract me) and then when I got out of the car, the woman in the car that BEEPED at me starting giving me shit about where I parked, but she was a Vermonter, so instead of cursing me out, Jersey style, she kept starting and stopping sentences, which was even more annoying: "I don't like the way you parked your . . . it's hard to get in there . . . there's not room for other . . . you should have . . ." and I was so taken aback by this that instead of telling her that I had parked in the deepest spot because my van was big, or simply telling here to fuck off, instead I just stared at her like she had three heads-- I often get awkward when I'm in a brand-new situation, and that's how I felt-- but now I realize that she was simple annoyed that SHE had to pull in between two cars, she wanted me to park all the way over, so that she would have an easier time parking and getting out of her BMW SUV; I got the dog out of my car and was starting to walk towards the trail as she parked her car, and then she got out and continued giving me shit in her mealy-mouthed manner, and I finally was able to process this brand-new situation, and I said, "There's three spots, you can see by the plow marks," and then I backed up behind the cars and made a point to melodramatically eyeball my parking job and I said, "I nailed it, I'm right in the middle, I couldn't have done a better job" and as I walked out of the lot to the trail, some other people who had witnessed the scene smiled at me, a smile that said That lady was NUTS and I nodded knowingly at them, and as I walked through the woods, I thought what I really should have done was pace off my parking job on each side, to show here that I was right exactly in the middle, but it was hard enough for me to think of anything to say at all, it was such an odd scene, and it polluted the serenity of my hike (but I felt righteously vindicated when I got back to the lot, and there were cars parked comfortably on either side of my van, illustrating that I had indeed "nailed it" and parked right in the center of the three spots).
Serial Season Two vs. Dave's Brain!
Last year, I taught Serial Season 1 to my high school seniors-- I couched the podcast within a process analysis unit, and the kids really enjoyed it; Serial Season 2 is a bit harder to get a grip on, but I like it even better than Season 1, perhaps because it reminds me of all the things I learned when I lived in Syria, and-- despite the difficulties, I am teaching to my seniors and (with the threat of constant quizzing) they are doing a fantastic job with a dense and difficult story . . . this time I've embedded the podcast in a compare/contrast unit, because that seems to be the main structural trope that ties the story together . . . here are some of the topics that the podcast invites you to compare and contrast:
1) the liberal interpretation of Bergdahl's story vs. the conservative perspective . . . Katy Waldman (on the Slate's Serial Spoiler) calls the tone of the podcast "radical empathy" while many of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers consider him a deserter and a traitor;
2) Bergdahl and Jason Bourne;
3) Bergdahl and a "golden chicken";
4) Bergdahl and a "ready made loaf";
5) Bergdahl and and a "free-floating astronaut" with no tether;
6) the American Army and a "lumbering machine" and an AT-AT;
7) the Taliban as a mouse running beneath the machine's legs;
8) Pakistan as "home base," the mousehole in the wall in Tom & Jerry;
9) the rumors about Bergdahl vs. the reality of his captivity;
10) The Haqqani Network and the Sopranos;
11) Bergdahl's imprisonment and treatment vs. the imprisonment and treatment of Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib;
12) the feelings about infidels of moderate Muslims vs. radical Muslims;
13) the code of conduct required for POW videos vs. actual military expectations for POW videos;
14) the sovereign state of Pakistan and the tribal area of North Waziristan;
15) the captivity of Bergdahl and the captivity of David Rohde . . . Rohde was kidnapped and held for three months by the Haqqani network in the same area as Bergdahl at nearly the same time, he is a civilian journalist and not a soldier, and he wasn't blindfolded and isolated as much as Bergdahl, but his story is still very helpful in understanding what happened to Bergdahl;
16) the entire story and the children's book Zoom;
and these are the issues that I think will surface in the future-- I'm speculating, of course, but that's necessary when you're teaching a piece that's not finished yet . . . it's like teaching a book that hasn't been finished, it's exhilarating and exhausting, but also really fun; I can teach Hamlet and Henry IV in my sleep because I know what happens, while doing this is really keeping me on my toes, and this is where I imagine the story is going:
17) there will be comparisons drawn Bergdahl's endurance in captivity and the hero's journey . . . the fact that Mark Boal was interested in interviewing him for a movie and the fact that he is the longest held captive since the Vietnam War and the fact that they are viewing him with such empathy in the podcast leads me to believe it will head in this direction;
18) good leaders vs. toxic leaders . . . if Bergdahl is going to be portrayed as heroic, Serial is going to have to provide a reasonable story of why he deserted his post, and I think they are saving that portion of the narrative and I also think that it is going to open a whole crazy can of worms about the military and it's purpose;
19) the motivation behind Bergdahl's decision and the Pixar film Inside Out . . . which I have promised to show to my students if they survive the podcast;
20) the reaction you should have when you think about how long Bergdahl spent in captivity and the following clip from Grosse Pointe Blank (and while I realize that it doesn't connect exactly in a mathematical sense, the tone is perfect).
1) the liberal interpretation of Bergdahl's story vs. the conservative perspective . . . Katy Waldman (on the Slate's Serial Spoiler) calls the tone of the podcast "radical empathy" while many of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers consider him a deserter and a traitor;
2) Bergdahl and Jason Bourne;
3) Bergdahl and a "golden chicken";
4) Bergdahl and a "ready made loaf";
5) Bergdahl and and a "free-floating astronaut" with no tether;
6) the American Army and a "lumbering machine" and an AT-AT;
7) the Taliban as a mouse running beneath the machine's legs;
8) Pakistan as "home base," the mousehole in the wall in Tom & Jerry;
9) the rumors about Bergdahl vs. the reality of his captivity;
10) The Haqqani Network and the Sopranos;
11) Bergdahl's imprisonment and treatment vs. the imprisonment and treatment of Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib;
12) the feelings about infidels of moderate Muslims vs. radical Muslims;
13) the code of conduct required for POW videos vs. actual military expectations for POW videos;
14) the sovereign state of Pakistan and the tribal area of North Waziristan;
15) the captivity of Bergdahl and the captivity of David Rohde . . . Rohde was kidnapped and held for three months by the Haqqani network in the same area as Bergdahl at nearly the same time, he is a civilian journalist and not a soldier, and he wasn't blindfolded and isolated as much as Bergdahl, but his story is still very helpful in understanding what happened to Bergdahl;
16) the entire story and the children's book Zoom;
and these are the issues that I think will surface in the future-- I'm speculating, of course, but that's necessary when you're teaching a piece that's not finished yet . . . it's like teaching a book that hasn't been finished, it's exhilarating and exhausting, but also really fun; I can teach Hamlet and Henry IV in my sleep because I know what happens, while doing this is really keeping me on my toes, and this is where I imagine the story is going:
17) there will be comparisons drawn Bergdahl's endurance in captivity and the hero's journey . . . the fact that Mark Boal was interested in interviewing him for a movie and the fact that he is the longest held captive since the Vietnam War and the fact that they are viewing him with such empathy in the podcast leads me to believe it will head in this direction;
18) good leaders vs. toxic leaders . . . if Bergdahl is going to be portrayed as heroic, Serial is going to have to provide a reasonable story of why he deserted his post, and I think they are saving that portion of the narrative and I also think that it is going to open a whole crazy can of worms about the military and it's purpose;
19) the motivation behind Bergdahl's decision and the Pixar film Inside Out . . . which I have promised to show to my students if they survive the podcast;
20) the reaction you should have when you think about how long Bergdahl spent in captivity and the following clip from Grosse Pointe Blank (and while I realize that it doesn't connect exactly in a mathematical sense, the tone is perfect).
Is This Gross?
In a brand spanking new recurring segment that probably won't recur any time soon, Dave asks himself:
1) is this gross?
2) how gross is it?
so let's give it a whirl with two recent scenarios:
a) three times this week, on my eight minute commute home, I got so hungry that I stopped at QuickChek and each time I bought a bag of Dill Pickle flavored potato chips;
b) during snack time in the English Office, after eating two "crunchy rice rollers," I sneezed-- and while I directed my sneeze away from the other two ladies in the room, I wasn't able to direct my sneeze into the crook of my elbow (which is now regarded as the hygienic method of sneezing) because it was a wildly violent sneeze, not caused by sickness, but instead caused by the "crunchy rice rollers" and so I sprayed mucous-coated dried rice particles all over the chair next to me (and some of the mucous coated dried rice particles certainly shot straight through the open door and into my boss's office . . . and she's very pregnant) and then-- as if to show me up-- moments later Krystina sneezed perfectly into the crook of her elbow, and even though she was eating an apple, she didn't spray anything anywhere;
so . . . after much deliberation, I have decided that neither of these actions were gross; dill pickles are delicious and crisp and salty-- they fulfill the same craving as a potato chip-- and so therefore, a dill flavored chip is perfectly acceptable (it's definitely not as gross as Greektown Gyro or New York Reuben flavored chips) and, as far as the sneeze . . . I've decided that there's nothing you can do when dried rice tickles the back of your throat-- it's not like you can hold back a sneeze, because if you do, your brain shoots out your ears and there's no way to direct that kind of violence into the crook of your elbow.
1) is this gross?
2) how gross is it?
so let's give it a whirl with two recent scenarios:
a) three times this week, on my eight minute commute home, I got so hungry that I stopped at QuickChek and each time I bought a bag of Dill Pickle flavored potato chips;
b) during snack time in the English Office, after eating two "crunchy rice rollers," I sneezed-- and while I directed my sneeze away from the other two ladies in the room, I wasn't able to direct my sneeze into the crook of my elbow (which is now regarded as the hygienic method of sneezing) because it was a wildly violent sneeze, not caused by sickness, but instead caused by the "crunchy rice rollers" and so I sprayed mucous-coated dried rice particles all over the chair next to me (and some of the mucous coated dried rice particles certainly shot straight through the open door and into my boss's office . . . and she's very pregnant) and then-- as if to show me up-- moments later Krystina sneezed perfectly into the crook of her elbow, and even though she was eating an apple, she didn't spray anything anywhere;
so . . . after much deliberation, I have decided that neither of these actions were gross; dill pickles are delicious and crisp and salty-- they fulfill the same craving as a potato chip-- and so therefore, a dill flavored chip is perfectly acceptable (it's definitely not as gross as Greektown Gyro or New York Reuben flavored chips) and, as far as the sneeze . . . I've decided that there's nothing you can do when dried rice tickles the back of your throat-- it's not like you can hold back a sneeze, because if you do, your brain shoots out your ears and there's no way to direct that kind of violence into the crook of your elbow.
The Breathtaking Beauty of America's Backroads and Byways . . .
Yesterday, as I drove through Milltown, New Jersey, I had the privilege to ride behind a monster pick-up truck with the words "Sinister Ride" written in evil calligraphy on the rear window; the truck also sported chrome dual exhaust stacks, a couple more stencilled phrases-- "The Boss" and "Mud Nugget Racing," and-- most significantly-- a huge pair of rubber testicles hanging under the trailer hitch . . . these "bumper nuts," as they are known, were realistically colored and textured (i.e wrinkly), and each nut was the size of a pineapple; as the truck rolled along, they dangled and bounced, and I must admit, they were grotesquely mesmerizing, and while I won't deign to speculate on the sort of person who would drive such a vehicle, I must admit that he's certainly got balls.
The Test 30: Stacey's Songs (Continue to Have It Going On)
This week on The Test, Stacey delivers yet another clever song quiz: identify the title and artist of each track, and then -- at the end-- try to figure out the overarching theme; I struggled a bit on this one, but our special guest Whitney fared a bit better . . . warning-- there is no Cunningham, no Billy Joel, no Bon Jovi, and no Indigo Girls in this episode . . . and if you think it's going to be easy, then you've got another thing coming.
Ring in the New Year with Chick Lit
I forgot to bring my Liane Moriarty novel Three Wishes on vacation, but my wife came to the rescue and lent me her Jojo Moyes novel One Plus One, which uses a dysfunctional family road trip (think Little Miss Sunshine) as a catalyst for the most unlikely modern romance: across the great divide of social class . . . this kind of cross-class romance has become statistically rarer and rarer in modern times, as people are tending to marry people of the same educational background and the same financial bracket; in "Equality and the End of Marrying Up," Katrin Bennhold sums it up neatly: "Doctors used to marry nurses . . . now doctors marry doctors," but if you're willing to suspend your disbelief for a few hours, One Plus One will make you root for the underdog relationship, and there are plenty of plot twists and well drawn characters and wild scenarios along the way . . . one hundred and two pairs of reading spectacles out of a possible one hundred and six.
Reality vs. Mario Kart 8
This sentence is in no way indicative of the entirety of our Vermont vacation, which mainly consisted of snowy hikes with the kids and dog, browsing the giant book store in downtown Manchester, reading books we bought from the giant book store in downtown Manchester, drinking delicious Vermont beer, board games, a sledding adventure on the Equinox golf course with some friends from Highland Park, and a general reprieve from the business as usual . . . BUT there was a twenty-four hour period of chaotic wackiness that is slightly more interesting: we brought the Wii U along for the trip and by Wednesday night I thought I had gotten good enough competing with the kids at Mario Kart 8 that I could play at the fastest speed (200cc) which I did after the kids went to bed (and I certainly had drank a few of those delicious Vermont beers and playing Mario Kart alone is a whole different beast, infinitely more epic, because instead of looking at a quarter of the screen, you're hurtling into the whole thing) and because of this late night racing, I had an awful night's sleep, my head populated with vivid dreams about the game, my tricked-out buggy caroming off guardrails and slamming into walls, then hurtling through the course as a giant bullet, before being spun in circles by a red turtle shell, and then I woke up and we went to Stratton Mountain to do some snowboarding and skiing, and it was insanely crowded and there were only a couple of runs open, because of the warm weather, and riding down the mountain was exactly like Mario Kart: the conditions were variable, the course was crowded, and you might be on ice on moment and then bouncing off a slushy pile of snow the next . . . and while I have no empirical proof, I think that our Mario Kart sessions may have prepared us for this mayhem, as my kids handled it without a mishap and I didn't have an anxiety attack, despite my claustrophobia, but I have learned my lesson, I'll never play Mario Kart after eight PM again (I had the same sort of dreams when I got obsessed with Gameboy Tetris in college . . . but that's what it takes to achieve the five fiddlers and the space shuttle launch).
If You're Reading This, Then the Bad News Probably Doesn't Apply to You . . . or Does It?
Robert D. Putnam (the Harvard social scientist of Bowling Alone fame) has a new book, titled Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis , which details how the "opportunity gap" between richer kids and poorer kids has widened to a disturbing level; he begins the book with the stories of people from his high school class in Port Clinton, Ohio in 1959 and these carefully chosen anecdotes (from a wealth of research, described in the appendix) illustrate how social class didn't have that much of an impact on the future of these graduates, and then Putnam makes his way to the present, where a much different system is in place; the book is full of studies, scissor charts, statistics, and actual stories of indicative families and their children . . . and the indications are that schools are not to blame, kids are not to blame, biased tests are not to blame, and race is not to blame . . . the problem is money, and if you're a parent who can afford to live in a good school district, and you have the time and money and perseverance enroll your kid in extra-curricular activities, and you have the time to talk to them about school and homework and their lives-- to parent like a member of the upper class-- then your child is on track to achieve great things . . . but if you're not, then the news is downright awful; here are some random things that struck me . . . but I suggest you read the whole thing, even though if you've made it this far into this sentence, then you are probably on the greener side of the opportunity gap; the book is too dense to summarize, but I think it's something about which both rich and poor people should be informed:
1) we are now very likely to marry someone of the same social class, which is a change since mid-century, and this exacerbates the widening social class gap;
2) the competitive pressure in the best schools often comes from the general atmosphere created by a select group of parents and students, and pervades the school . . . some of the best schools are actually trying to put the brakes on this ultra-competitive environment, because, as Kira says, it puts kids in "robot mode" and they can't enjoy anything, but this kind of school does breed academic and extracurricular success, and these kids go on to succeed in college . . . for a fascinating example of this, read the New York Times article about a high-performing school down the road from me (West Windsor-Plainsboro) that is trying to ease the pressure on students, because they are so stressed out, but the superintendent is meeting resistance from about half the parents, mainly from the Asian community, who want school to be intense and stressful, so that they insure that their children are on the right side of the gap;
3) involvement extracurricular activities is "strongly associated with a variety of positive outcomes during the school years and beyond" and rich kids are taking part in them and poor kids are not-- for a variety of reasons, including lack of transportation, work, sibling child care, pay-to-play programs, and general inaccessibility . . . and, interestingly, "the extracurricular activity most consistently associated with high academic achievement is sports," so the stereotype of a dumb jock is absolutely incorrect . . . in fact, the only negative about participating in sports that could be found amidst a myriad of positives was that sports "is often correlated with excessive drinking (but not drug use)"
4) there is a scary statistic about test scores and social class, while-- predictably-- high-scoring rich kids graduate from college at a high rate (74%) and low scoring poor kids graduate from college at a very low rate (3%) the frightening thing is that high-scoring poor kids are less likely to get a college degree (29%) than low-scoring rich kids (30%) which is a serious blow not only to the American Dream, but to the quality of our work force . . . we're not letting a lot of potentially smart people into the pool;
5) this opportunity gap is happening just as much within racial groups as it is on the whole, which is a clear indicator that it is social class and not prejudice and racial bias that is most culpable for these results;
6) growing up in an impoverished neighborhood doesn't just make you more likely to get mugged, or be in a gang, it actually affects your ability to trust others-- something critical to succeeding in the workplace, and in college; it inhibits your ability to make weak social connections and to acquire informal mentors, which are of great necessity; and it leads to anxiety and obesity . . . perhaps due to lack of parks, inaccessibility to sports programs, and because of noise and chaos, so because our society is so segregated now by social class, kids who grow up in a poor neighborhood are disadvantaged when they come out of the womb;
7) we could be setting up a dire situation, political scientist William Kornhauser sees this disenfranchised class as the precursor to "demagogic mass movements, such as Nazism, Fascism" because there is little political involvement from poor kids-- they don't have role models, and politics isn't discussed, the government is viewed as corrupt, byzantine, and impregnable;
8) Putnam ends with a chapter called "What Is To Be Done?" and he suggests a number of ways to shrink the gap, but they will be difficult to institute . . . he believes good teachers need to be lured to bad schools, and the only way to do this is with money, he believes the poorest people need even greater tax breaks, strong anti-poverty programs, an end to pay-to-play, and more importantly, these kids need to be able to live in wealthier areas, or at least go to school in such areas-- but this isn't completely feasible and will meet with political backlash (he really doesn't mention the politics of this situation, other than to say that the wealthy participate in politics far more than the poor, and if we really believe that this is our country and these are all "our kids," then you can't responsibly ignore the problem) and he suggests long-term solutions such as trying to restore working-class wages and instituting early childhood education and better child-care centers and more support for working parents (we're ranked among the worst countries in the world with regards to child care) but, given the political climate of our country, I don't see much attention being paid to this problem in the near future, and the consequences are awful for everyone, these kids will be a drag on the economy, an expense to our health care system, have difficulty in the working world, and have very little chance to advance in social class . . . and while some people will find solace that their own kids are not among these children, what they fail to realize is that the economy and the quality of life in our country is not a zero sum game, if these kids succeed, everyone succeeds . . . neighborhoods succeed, businesses succeed, schools succeed, the real estate market succeeds, and so while the bad news might not apply directly to your kids, and they may be on the road to success, in the end those left behind are going to be everyone's problem.
1) we are now very likely to marry someone of the same social class, which is a change since mid-century, and this exacerbates the widening social class gap;
2) the competitive pressure in the best schools often comes from the general atmosphere created by a select group of parents and students, and pervades the school . . . some of the best schools are actually trying to put the brakes on this ultra-competitive environment, because, as Kira says, it puts kids in "robot mode" and they can't enjoy anything, but this kind of school does breed academic and extracurricular success, and these kids go on to succeed in college . . . for a fascinating example of this, read the New York Times article about a high-performing school down the road from me (West Windsor-Plainsboro) that is trying to ease the pressure on students, because they are so stressed out, but the superintendent is meeting resistance from about half the parents, mainly from the Asian community, who want school to be intense and stressful, so that they insure that their children are on the right side of the gap;
3) involvement extracurricular activities is "strongly associated with a variety of positive outcomes during the school years and beyond" and rich kids are taking part in them and poor kids are not-- for a variety of reasons, including lack of transportation, work, sibling child care, pay-to-play programs, and general inaccessibility . . . and, interestingly, "the extracurricular activity most consistently associated with high academic achievement is sports," so the stereotype of a dumb jock is absolutely incorrect . . . in fact, the only negative about participating in sports that could be found amidst a myriad of positives was that sports "is often correlated with excessive drinking (but not drug use)"
4) there is a scary statistic about test scores and social class, while-- predictably-- high-scoring rich kids graduate from college at a high rate (74%) and low scoring poor kids graduate from college at a very low rate (3%) the frightening thing is that high-scoring poor kids are less likely to get a college degree (29%) than low-scoring rich kids (30%) which is a serious blow not only to the American Dream, but to the quality of our work force . . . we're not letting a lot of potentially smart people into the pool;
5) this opportunity gap is happening just as much within racial groups as it is on the whole, which is a clear indicator that it is social class and not prejudice and racial bias that is most culpable for these results;
6) growing up in an impoverished neighborhood doesn't just make you more likely to get mugged, or be in a gang, it actually affects your ability to trust others-- something critical to succeeding in the workplace, and in college; it inhibits your ability to make weak social connections and to acquire informal mentors, which are of great necessity; and it leads to anxiety and obesity . . . perhaps due to lack of parks, inaccessibility to sports programs, and because of noise and chaos, so because our society is so segregated now by social class, kids who grow up in a poor neighborhood are disadvantaged when they come out of the womb;
7) we could be setting up a dire situation, political scientist William Kornhauser sees this disenfranchised class as the precursor to "demagogic mass movements, such as Nazism, Fascism" because there is little political involvement from poor kids-- they don't have role models, and politics isn't discussed, the government is viewed as corrupt, byzantine, and impregnable;
8) Putnam ends with a chapter called "What Is To Be Done?" and he suggests a number of ways to shrink the gap, but they will be difficult to institute . . . he believes good teachers need to be lured to bad schools, and the only way to do this is with money, he believes the poorest people need even greater tax breaks, strong anti-poverty programs, an end to pay-to-play, and more importantly, these kids need to be able to live in wealthier areas, or at least go to school in such areas-- but this isn't completely feasible and will meet with political backlash (he really doesn't mention the politics of this situation, other than to say that the wealthy participate in politics far more than the poor, and if we really believe that this is our country and these are all "our kids," then you can't responsibly ignore the problem) and he suggests long-term solutions such as trying to restore working-class wages and instituting early childhood education and better child-care centers and more support for working parents (we're ranked among the worst countries in the world with regards to child care) but, given the political climate of our country, I don't see much attention being paid to this problem in the near future, and the consequences are awful for everyone, these kids will be a drag on the economy, an expense to our health care system, have difficulty in the working world, and have very little chance to advance in social class . . . and while some people will find solace that their own kids are not among these children, what they fail to realize is that the economy and the quality of life in our country is not a zero sum game, if these kids succeed, everyone succeeds . . . neighborhoods succeed, businesses succeed, schools succeed, the real estate market succeeds, and so while the bad news might not apply directly to your kids, and they may be on the road to success, in the end those left behind are going to be everyone's problem.
2016: More of the Same . . . Plus a Little More
In 2016, I resolve to continue doing more of the same-- this worked well for me in 2015-- and in addition, as a bonus, I am resolving to do two other things:
1) play more video games . . . and I've already got a head start on this resolution, as we got a Wii U for Christmas;
2) take over for Yogi Berra, because someone has to construct baffling aphorisms, and Yogi's dead, and when dead people talk, they don't say much (besides "AVENGE MY DEATH," which is way too straightforward for Yogi Berra).
1) play more video games . . . and I've already got a head start on this resolution, as we got a Wii U for Christmas;
2) take over for Yogi Berra, because someone has to construct baffling aphorisms, and Yogi's dead, and when dead people talk, they don't say much (besides "AVENGE MY DEATH," which is way too straightforward for Yogi Berra).
These Just Might Be The Best Sentences of 2015
If you didn't keep up with Sentence of Dave this year, then shame on you, but you can redeem yourself before the New Year by reading these fifteen sentences that the panel has chosen as Dave's Best of 2015:
1) The Miracle of the Latch
2) The Miracle of the Mug
3) The Miracle on Winter Solstice
4) Best List of Things to Say to Your Kids
5) Best "How To" Sentence
6) Poem of the Year
7) Best Sentence About Cake
8) Of Laziness and Raccoons
9) Weirdest Hobby
10) Euphemism of the Year
11) The Most Idiotic Epic of the Year
12) The Most Ironic Moment of the Year
13) Cutest Sentence of the Year
14) Best Sentence About Frank Sinatra and Mean Girls
15) Symbolic Gesture of the Year.
1) The Miracle of the Latch
2) The Miracle of the Mug
3) The Miracle on Winter Solstice
4) Best List of Things to Say to Your Kids
5) Best "How To" Sentence
6) Poem of the Year
7) Best Sentence About Cake
8) Of Laziness and Raccoons
9) Weirdest Hobby
10) Euphemism of the Year
11) The Most Idiotic Epic of the Year
12) The Most Ironic Moment of the Year
13) Cutest Sentence of the Year
14) Best Sentence About Frank Sinatra and Mean Girls
15) Symbolic Gesture of the Year.
Falling Down When No One is Looking
A few weeks ago we did an "evaluating technology" unit in Composition Class, and I stumbled upon a This American Life excerpt about how time travel is the most coveted future technology-- Pew Research polled 1001 Americans and nine percent want to travel through time; and I was so excited to ask this same question to my classes-- what future technology do you desire the most?-- that I got ahead of myself and tried to spin, sit down, and type at the same time, which resulted in me kicking my rolling chair out from under me as I tried to sit in it, and so I hit the floor pretty hard . . . but no one saw this happen-- everyone from the previous class had exited the room and no one was in the hallway . . . but though there were no witnesses, I ended up creating some, because I reenacted the scene for my next two periods (and also told them the story of this magnificent failure to sit in a chair and consequently reenacted that humiliating pratfall for them, so by the end of the day I was pretty sore) and then I asked them the question that caused my excitement: "What exciting new technology would you like to see happen in the near future?" and in both classes, time travel was the winner . . . and, during This American Life, when they interviewed people as to why they wanted to travel through time, most people wanted to either kill Hitler or just fix embarrassing stuff that happened to them in the past, or see dinosaurs, and while I don't think humans could ever possibly handle a technology as powerful as time travel (we can't handle the combination of cell phones and cars) I can see the allure of seeing a dinosaur, or just fixing some of the awkward moments that make up much of the content of this blog (but I wouldn't have much to write about).
Rebus and Bosch . . . A Fitting End to a Great Year of Crime Fiction
Though I didn't plan it, the last two books I read in 2015 were a Harry Bosch mystery (Trunk Music) and a John Rebus mystery (Hide & Seek) and in both novels, these rather similar detectives plunge into respective Chandler-esque labyrinths of corruption, and while they suffer some hard knocks, because they both have a code of conduct, they are able to wiggle free from their mazes, whether in L.A. or Edinburgh, and breath fresh air at the end of each story . . . once again, thanks to Joyce Carol Oates for introducing me to Michael Connelly and Ian Rankin as "masters of the genre" . . . I've only been reading about these guys for a year, but-- like the great Shakespeare characters-- I feel like I've known Harry Bosch and John Rebus all of my life.
The Bright Side of Elimination
Our first full day in Vermont was a wet one, foggy and cloudy and damp and rainy, but we braved the weather (it was fairly warm) and took a hike to Prospect Rock, and while the hike wasn't too slick, and there was a nice waterfall, when we got to the top, we certainly weren't rewarded views of the valley below, in fact, all we could see was a wall of fog, and then once we got back to the rental, it rained harder and harder-- the kind of day where you want to go to bed early, but I was determined to stay up and watch the Giants game, until I learned that they were eliminated from play-off contention (because the Redskins beat the Eagles) and so I don't have to watch them again until next season . . . happy days!
A Disembodied Voice Gives Dave Good Advice
The first night of our balmy Vermont vacation, I walked from our rental to Manchester Discount Beverage to stock up on local beer, and I immediately grabbed a six pack of the new stubby Switchback Ale bottles (normally Switchback only comes in 22 oz. bottles) and then I couldn't make up my mind on another six pack-- I kept pulling open the cooler doors and perusing all the beers they don't stock in New Jersey, and every time I opened a different door, bursts of profanity poured from behind the beer, as the two dudes stocking the shelves were chatting away, swearing profusely as they did, and-- finally-- after the fifth time I opened a cooler door, a voice from behind the beer said, "You just can't make up your mind, can you?" and I said, "No, I'm from New Jersey," to explain how baffled I was by the selection and he said, "You're all from New Jersey" which was accurate, because it was a beautiful Saturday and Manchester was packed with tourists, eating, drinking, and shopping at the outlets (there were quite a few New Yorkers roaming around as well) and then he said,"What do you like?" and by this time I had found his face through a crack between the six packs of beer, he was wearing a hat and had crooked teeth, but-- from what I could see of it-- a friendly enough face, and I told him "I've got a six pack of Switchback" and he said "Switchback is boring" which is one hundred percent accurate (it's also easy drinking and delicious) and then, after a brief interrogation, he convinced to buy some Descender IPA, which he claimed could only be purchased in Oregon and Vermont, and while I don't know about the accuracy of that statement, I will say this: it's delicious, a little bit hoppy, a little bit malty, a little bit floral, and it tastes exactly like the voice from behind the beer said it would taste (he also instructed me to twirl my Switchback in a figure eight for ten seconds before drinking it, to "rouse" the yeast and make the flavor more consistent . . . which is a great tip, because I usually just pour out the bottom of the bottle, because it's so thick with yeast).
The Test 29: Let Freedom Rev (Art History)
In this episode of The Test, I describe famous works of art and the ladies try to identify them-- but things get a bit weird along the way: Stacey shows off a rather odd work of art that she acquired in a rather bizarre way; Cunningham shows off her vast knowledge of Salvador Dali . . . sort of; I forget my middle name; and then things descend into the surreal . . . so give this one a shot, keep score, and watch out for spiders.
Bread and Circuses Defeat Dave's Grouchiness
I wish I could write something more angry and intellectual today-- one of my typical Christmas rants about materialism, environmental devastation, the frivolity of wrapping paper, etc. etc-- but I'm all wrapped up in creating an avatar for our brand new Wii U video game system . . . so, ironically, "bread and circuses" have mollified my usual holiday stance (and we haven't even played Super Smash Bros. yet) or perhaps the applicable maxim here is: if you can't beat'em, join'em . . . and I must admit, I am pretty excited, as I haven't played a video game since I completed every course on the Sega game Road Rash (and was horribly disappointed by how the game just petered out in a weird level full of police, once you were inevitably caught the ending was simply a blocky pixelated error screen).
Serial Acronyms
While season two of Serial is fantastic, and swinging for the fences as far as big journalism goes, it's also a bit more difficult than the first season; this is partly caused by acronym overload, so here's a key to ten of them:
1. DUSTWUN . . . duty status whereabouts unknown;
2. OP . . . observation post;
3. FOB . . . forward operating base;
4. TCP . . . traffic control point;
5. IED . . . improvised explosive device;
6. GI . . . gastrointestinal;
7. MRE . . . meals ready to eat;
8. MRAP . . . mine resistant, ambush protected vehicle;
9. CIA . . . Central Intelligence Agency;
10. PL . . . platoon leader;
and so while you're listening, you have to be prepared for dialogue like this: Bergdahl wanted to get from OP Mest to FOB Sharana, while causing a DUSTWUN, so that his PL would have to contact the FOB, but some of his fellow soldiers, who were already dazed from suffering GI infections because they couldn't wash their hands properly before eating the MRE, thought that he might have been a mole in the CIA, but Bergdahl was hardly that, and though he had a plan to pinpoint where Taliban had planted an IED near the TCP, so that the specialists could drive an MRAP and defuse the IED, he actually just caused a huge SNAFU.
1. DUSTWUN . . . duty status whereabouts unknown;
2. OP . . . observation post;
3. FOB . . . forward operating base;
4. TCP . . . traffic control point;
5. IED . . . improvised explosive device;
6. GI . . . gastrointestinal;
7. MRE . . . meals ready to eat;
8. MRAP . . . mine resistant, ambush protected vehicle;
9. CIA . . . Central Intelligence Agency;
10. PL . . . platoon leader;
and so while you're listening, you have to be prepared for dialogue like this: Bergdahl wanted to get from OP Mest to FOB Sharana, while causing a DUSTWUN, so that his PL would have to contact the FOB, but some of his fellow soldiers, who were already dazed from suffering GI infections because they couldn't wash their hands properly before eating the MRE, thought that he might have been a mole in the CIA, but Bergdahl was hardly that, and though he had a plan to pinpoint where Taliban had planted an IED near the TCP, so that the specialists could drive an MRAP and defuse the IED, he actually just caused a huge SNAFU.
Meta-Bosch
In Michael Connelly's novel Trunk Music, Detective Harry Bosch is in trouble with Internal Affairs (again!) and he is interrogated by a particularly righteous IAD officer, John Chastain, who tells him "I take pride in what I do because I represent the public, and if there is no one to police the police then there is no one to keep the abuse of their wide powers in check," and Harry replies to this with a hall of mirrors type question: "But let me ask you this, Chastain . . . who polices the police who police the police?"
Winter Solstice Miracle!
Let's try to remember that the lesson of this post is that Dave is a Super-Genius (not an idiot) and that The Subconscious of Dave is constantly working to make brilliant connections, however they might manifest themselves; so it was very dark yesterday morning, as we are very close to the Winter Solstice, the moment when the sun is at its most southern declination, resulting in the day with the least amount of sunlight (technically, I think it happened last night, but who cares-- dark is dark, and Monday morning was very dark) and so I was barely able to crawl out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:30 AM . . . and I turned on the light on in the bathroom, cracked the door, and got dressed in that faint sliver of light (so as not to wake my wife) and drove to school in the dark, and then began teaching first period in the dark because first period starts at 7:26; I was teaching Season 2 of Serial-- which is investigating the Bowe Bergdahl desertion and captivity case-- and we were reviewing how a good story promises you certain things, and then hopefully makes good on those promises . . . and one of the main things this season of Serial promises us is a glimpse into Bergdahl's brain, the reason why he ran away from his post into Taliban territory . . . but before I brought up Serial, I talked about the Pixar film Inside Out, which many of the students had seen-- and asked what this film promised . . . which is something very similar to Serial Season 2 . . . Inside Out is very, very ambitious-- as it promises to explain to us how the brain works and why we do certain things, from the inside out (and the film succeeds-- it made me cry . . . poor Bing Bong) and it wasn't until fourth period that I realized what a brilliant connection this was, because not only do Serial Season 2 and Inside Out promise the same thing, they promise it about the exact same kind of decision, as the little girl -- Riley Andersen-- also runs away from where she is supposed to be, and the film illustrates the development and emotional underpinnings of the exact same kind of radical, angry idea, AND HERE'S THE MIRACLE . . . when I thought of this, during first period, I was wearing my gray golf shirt INSIDE OUT . . . it was so dark when I got dressed, and I was so logy, that I put it on with the tag sticking out on the back collar, the buttons on the inside, another tag sticking off the side seam, and I didn't notice, and while no one said anything to me until the period was over-- they said they were too embarrassed to tell me during class, someone must have muttered the words "inside out," as in "our teacher is an idiot, he's wearing his shirt inside out" and that must have led to the wild firing of neurons that me think of the movie and then the astoundingly brilliant Subconscious of Dave went to work, and now I've got this awesome hook to get kids into the new season (and I wore the shirt inside-out for two periods of teaching . . . best Winter Solstice ever!)
Happy Gheorghemas! Your Gift = Seven Books
I've got a really annoying post up at Gheorghe:The Blog today in celebration of The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas . . . I have selected my seven favorite books from the thirty-three books I completed this year-- and that number seems to be par for the course . . . thirty-three books falls right in between my 2013 and 2014 totals, as I read 23 and 46 books in those years, respectively . . . I think if I really put my mind to it in 2016, and choose absolute trash to read (which isn't easy, it's hard to find really compelling trash) then I could possibly finish 50 books in one year . . . or maybe I'll just eat more tacos.
The Test 28: Common Threads?
Another weird and wonderful episode of The Test this week: Stacey administers a menacing word association quiz she calls Common Thread, and Cunningham defeats me-- but her victory is tainted, as she spirals into a morass of self-examination and self-reflective anxiety; other highlights include Stacey's number trouble, a short intervention, God invoking Cliff Clavin, a "speed round," and an ambiguous ending . . . this is a great one to play at home, see if you can do better than me, and if you're really clever, you'll defeat Cunningham as well . . . good luck!
Something to Look Forward To
In the olden days, old people aspired to be wise-- they were the keepers of history, knowledge, and sagacity-- but now, with the rapid pace of technological innovation and change, the best old people can do is keep up, and more often than not, I am certain that they feel defunct, obsolete, and alienated . . . I'm on the cusp of this in my job . . . I'm keeping up with all the new technology-- but just barely-- but I can see how in a few years I'm just going to give up on it all and say "enough is enough" and do things the way I've always done them . . . so here's to the future!
Yours For the Taking
While I generally appreciate leftover beer from a party, someone left two bottles of Traveler Jack-O Pumpkin Shandy in my refrigerator and I am never going to drink them-- in fact, I hate the flavor of pumpkin so much that I don't even think I would cook with this stuff, especially because it is also a "seasonal wheat ale brewed with lemon peel," and I can't stand lemon peel in my beer and wheat ales give me a stomachache; in some ways, I view this beer with awe and admiration, as it is a combination of everything I don't like in a beer in one bottle (maybe I should drink one, if it doesn't kill me, it will certainly make me stronger . . . this beer is literally my taste nemesis) and so I'd just like to put it out there: if anyone wants these, swing by and they're all yours, you can even use one of my chilled pint glasses to quaff them down.
Awkward Dave and the Cheesesteak
Last weekend, we took a road trip to my brother-in-law's new place just outside of Harrisburg, and I wasn't terribly excited about making the trip: the weather was beautiful and I didn't want to spend two and half hours in the car-- and we were driving up Saturday, staying the night, and then driving back Sunday-- and I am loath to admit that I was treating these five hours in the car as an ordeal and my poisonous attitude was driving my wife crazy-- and while I admit my behavior was childish and immature, it was a very long drive-- and then, to add salt to the wound-- we couldn't find a spot to get lunch; fans of Awkward Dave know that I don't operate well in social situations when I'm hungry (I don't operate well in social situations to begin with, but add hunger and things get really ugly) and by the time we finally found a cheesesteak place, waited thirty minutes for them to complete our order, and finished the drive to Eddie and Lisa's place, I was grouchy and ravenous and so when we arrived, I immediately sat down and dug into my cheesesteak, which my brother-in-law completely understood because he knows me, but then Catherine's Aunt approached me-- she was visiting as well-- and I guess she was expecting some kind of formal greeting-- a hug or a kiss or something-- and I vaguely understood this expectation because of the way she was standing there, looming over me, and I started to wipe my hands off, but they were all covered in ketchup and melted cheese, and so I made an executive decision, greeted her verbally and kept eating . . . and then a few minutes later, when I was outside,I noticed that her little dog had escaped the house-- and it was my son's fault-- so I yelled (in a panic) to my son "go tell the owner her dog is loose!" and Catherine's Aunt heard this and apparently she was already offended that I didn't give her a hug when I was eating the cheesesteak, and then was doubly offended that I called her "the owner" instead of her name . . . but things were happening rapidly and I was hungry and tired and nervous that the little dog would get run over by a car, and so things were awkward between us for the rest of the day and she brought it up later in the evening, when everyone had drank a fair bit, and wanted to "clear the air" and we had to hug and then she had the nerve to criticize my hug-- I guess it wasn't emotional enough-- but my brother-in-law reminded her that I "wasn't much of a hugger" and I don't think either of us learned anything from the incident, so in that sense it was very much like a Seinfeld episode.
This Might Be the Deal
I highly recommend Dan Carlin's podcast "Common Sense"-- he's logical and knowledgeable, has a great voice, and makes political discourse engaging and relevant; his newest episode-- The War on Bad Thoughts-- made me think very deeply about our right and our Constitution, and the recent terrorist attacks and mass shootings plaguing our nation; and I've come to these (tenuous) conclusions:
1) if we are going to have a country with the right to bear arms and freedom of religion . . . or more generally, freedom to think however you like, whether it is orthodox, radical, or beyond-- in other words, if we are going to discern between thought and action-- then we are going to have to tolerate mass shootings and other violent attacks, whether they are motivated by political rage, lunacy, or religious radicalism . . . whether they are attacks like the recent Islamic extremist massacre that occurred in San Bernardino or the Planned Parenthood shooting that happened in Colorado Springs . . . unless we are going to try to eradicate what Dan Carlin terms "bad thoughts," which seems like a horrible road to pursue, a path that will eliminate our rights to religion, free speech, and all other expression-- then we are going to have to live with the fact that this combination-- the right to have weapons and the right to have radical ideas-- whether they are political or associated with religion, or some combination of both-- is going to occasionally foster tragic incidents where people act on these thoughts and it is going to be hard to predict who will do this or when, and to make ourselves completely safe from such events would also strip our privacy, our free will and our consciousness;
2) this analogous to many things in American society-- the combination that comes to my mind is this: if we are going to have freedom to live where we want, and the freedom to operate motor vehicles, and if we are willing to design our society around these vehicles instead of around pedestrians-- road systems and subsidized fuel and infrastructure that encourages suburban and exurban living-- which is what happened in America (listen to this podcast if you want to know how it happened) then we are going to have to tolerate motor vehicle casualties as a matter of course . . . I've lost my youngest brother to this combination and a number of other friends and relatives, but there's no way around it-- we've set up a system where there's going to be a large number of automobile fatalities, but to change this wholesale you would have to literally change the brains of most Americans-- people want to go places, for work and for recreation, and they want to use their cars to get there, and to curtail this from the top down would be frightening . . . again, you'd have to strip people of the right to live where they want, work where they want, and curtail when and how people operated cars-- you'd have to rebuild the system, and in the end it wouldn't look like America;
3) to change combinations like this would be to change America, to change our Constitution, and to change our idea of freedom . . . I'm not sure if this is actually happening now, but certainly people like Donald Trump are considering it, so it is in the realm of possibility, but I don't think it's a good idea, despite the death toll-- there's a part of me that would like to ban automobiles for everyday use, rewild the suburbs, move everyone to cities and towns, build lots of bike lanes and public transportation, etc. etc. but to do this would require a fascist dictatorship . . . the end is appealing to me, but I realize the means to get there would require stripping all citizens of the choices and rights; Dan Carlin quotes Robert Oppenheimer in the recent podcast, Oppenheimer said " it is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell . . . the only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so" and while it's hard to do nothing in the face of such violence and tragedy, and there is political impetus to do something . . . anything-- and Donald Trump exemplifies this, with his idea to ban all Muslims from entering our country-- but it's difficult to admit that the proper course might be to do nothing at all (if we are going to maintain our First Amendment rights to freedom of religion) and realize that if you want a particular system, then you are going to have to tolerate certain outcomes-- tragic though they may be-- as a consequence.
1) if we are going to have a country with the right to bear arms and freedom of religion . . . or more generally, freedom to think however you like, whether it is orthodox, radical, or beyond-- in other words, if we are going to discern between thought and action-- then we are going to have to tolerate mass shootings and other violent attacks, whether they are motivated by political rage, lunacy, or religious radicalism . . . whether they are attacks like the recent Islamic extremist massacre that occurred in San Bernardino or the Planned Parenthood shooting that happened in Colorado Springs . . . unless we are going to try to eradicate what Dan Carlin terms "bad thoughts," which seems like a horrible road to pursue, a path that will eliminate our rights to religion, free speech, and all other expression-- then we are going to have to live with the fact that this combination-- the right to have weapons and the right to have radical ideas-- whether they are political or associated with religion, or some combination of both-- is going to occasionally foster tragic incidents where people act on these thoughts and it is going to be hard to predict who will do this or when, and to make ourselves completely safe from such events would also strip our privacy, our free will and our consciousness;
2) this analogous to many things in American society-- the combination that comes to my mind is this: if we are going to have freedom to live where we want, and the freedom to operate motor vehicles, and if we are willing to design our society around these vehicles instead of around pedestrians-- road systems and subsidized fuel and infrastructure that encourages suburban and exurban living-- which is what happened in America (listen to this podcast if you want to know how it happened) then we are going to have to tolerate motor vehicle casualties as a matter of course . . . I've lost my youngest brother to this combination and a number of other friends and relatives, but there's no way around it-- we've set up a system where there's going to be a large number of automobile fatalities, but to change this wholesale you would have to literally change the brains of most Americans-- people want to go places, for work and for recreation, and they want to use their cars to get there, and to curtail this from the top down would be frightening . . . again, you'd have to strip people of the right to live where they want, work where they want, and curtail when and how people operated cars-- you'd have to rebuild the system, and in the end it wouldn't look like America;
3) to change combinations like this would be to change America, to change our Constitution, and to change our idea of freedom . . . I'm not sure if this is actually happening now, but certainly people like Donald Trump are considering it, so it is in the realm of possibility, but I don't think it's a good idea, despite the death toll-- there's a part of me that would like to ban automobiles for everyday use, rewild the suburbs, move everyone to cities and towns, build lots of bike lanes and public transportation, etc. etc. but to do this would require a fascist dictatorship . . . the end is appealing to me, but I realize the means to get there would require stripping all citizens of the choices and rights; Dan Carlin quotes Robert Oppenheimer in the recent podcast, Oppenheimer said " it is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell . . . the only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so" and while it's hard to do nothing in the face of such violence and tragedy, and there is political impetus to do something . . . anything-- and Donald Trump exemplifies this, with his idea to ban all Muslims from entering our country-- but it's difficult to admit that the proper course might be to do nothing at all (if we are going to maintain our First Amendment rights to freedom of religion) and realize that if you want a particular system, then you are going to have to tolerate certain outcomes-- tragic though they may be-- as a consequence.
Bonus: Happy Gheorghemas!
While not quite as involved as Festivus, we are celebrating Gheorghemas over at Gheorghe: The Blog, so head over and enjoy "Five Podcasts for Listening" by yours truly . . . it's multiple sentences!
The Test 27: Alcohol (the cause of-- and solution to-- all of life's problems)
I'll use any chance to whip out my favorite Simpson's quotation of all time, and this episode of The Test is no exception-- while these questions are fairly easy for imbibers and rather difficult for teetotallers, there's also plenty of bonus material-- Stacey has some trouble comprehending English, Cunningham reveals something astounding and disturbing (and disgusting) and then tries to unreveal it, and I play the judgemental villain (as usual) . . . so crack a cold one, keep score, and see how you fare on this one . . . and as long as you're not a Mormon, you should do fine.
Is There Something Wrong With Us?
The Pew Research Center did a survey on "U.S. View of Technology and the Future" and one of the questions asked was what futuristic technology Americans would want to own . . . and while some of the answers are typical: 6% want a flying car or bike and 3% have a yearning for a teleportation device, the chart-topper is time travel-- despite the paradoxical, monumental, and wildly unpredictable philosophical ramifications, a whopping nine percent of Americans want to travel through time whenever they see fit-- and so when we finished a unit in my Comp classes on evaluating technology, I asked my students the same question . . . and got the same result-- the survey was anonymous and these are high school seniors, so I got a few requests for robot sex-slaves, some interest in instant food machines, very little desire for improved health, and-- just like the Pew survey-- time travel was the leader of the pack . . . which led to a discussion of why we desire technology that is inherently dangerous, and will eventually destroy us . . . there's a good This American Life segment on this theme called The Leap (they discuss the survey, interview people on why they want to travel through time-- mainly to rectify embarrassing situations and kill Hitler, and why older Americans don't want to travel through time).
Benjamen Walker's Theories About Uber
I have been listening to Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything podcast . . . it's the first podcast on a list of favorites by Roman Mars (99% Invisible) and it is weird and hip and technological; my favorites so far are Instaserfs and the similarly themed Enchanting By Numbers . . . in both we get unique perspectives on the sharing economy; a caveat: if you listen to them, you might never use Uber again.
I Hope My Kids Don't Read My Blog
I broke down and bought a Wii U for my kids for Christmas (along with Super Smash Bros) and while this is ostensibly because they are doing well in school and band and all their various endeavors, it is actually because I wanted to avoid buying Ian a hoverboard and Alex another drone-- because I know exactly what happens with drones and I have no idea what happens with hoverboards.
Dave Pleads His Case About Being Overwhelmed
I finished Brigid Schulte's book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No one Has the Time in the perfect setting: at jury duty, just after I had to plead with the judge to excuse me from a ten day straight asbestos trial-- she didn't care that I was a teacher who taught three different preps (who would teach Henry IV part I?) but I finally convinced her when I explained that I was the primary child-care person after school . . . but she didn't buy this right away, and grilled me about it-- I'm wondering if I were a woman, if she would have let me go easier; I told her the trial schedule was giving me an anxiety attack and that I was responsible for not only watching my kids after school, but getting them organized and to their various activities . . . and while I constantly fight against over scheduling, my kids have somehow become very involved in a lot of stuff-- orchestra, jazz band, basketball, soccer, piano lessons, art class, alternate art school auditions, etc. etc.-- and Ian and I have been trying to play tennis every day in the balmy weather (not that the judge would care about this) and there's a very active dog in the mix (would the judge care about this?) and while I told her I was happy to do a trial in the summer-- although it's hard to catch me then-- or a short trial, like a day or two, that there was no way I could manage ten days in a row, and she kept asking me if there was someone who could watch my kids for that time and I told her I would have to hire a sitter, and that was a red flag-- they can't make you do that, and once I told her I'd have to leave my ten year old alone quite a bit, she turned snotty and said, "Well, you shouldn't have to leave a ten year old alone" and I was like: that's what I've been talking about here! but I also didn't want to tell her that my ten year old was often alone, navigating the mean streets of our town, on his way from orchestra to art class, dragging his giant trombone-- or walking home from school and getting there before his brother . . . but now I know that child-care duty trumps jury duty and I'll write that to them when I get the next notice . . . my brother works in the courthouse and he later talked to the judge, who apparently knew who I was and told my brother I was "nervous" when i said my piece and I was like no shit I was nervous! how the hell do you schedule a ten day break from your life? and when do you need to do this in front of a judge, four lawyers, and the other fifty random people who are waiting to do the same-- staring daggers at you, especially if you get to leave the room and go back downstairs, while a white noise generator creates a sound barrier so they can't hear exactly what you said to get you excused; Schulte's book addresses this, she covers the wild and variegated history of parenting . . . from less sentimentality to more, from hired help to permissiveness to "Donna Reed" style self-sacrificing and indulgent 1950's moms to the "benign neglect of the 1960s to the denigration of marriage in the 1970s because it was an "institution of oppressive patriarchy" to the intensive mothering of today . . . and then there's the inevitable comparison to the Danes, who work less hour than us, consume less, own less material possessions, spend more family time, have better child care and family leave, have more liberated women and working moms, more dads that cook and take care of the kids, better educational systems, less of an income gap, a low unemployment rate, six weeks of paid vacation, great public transportation, and a host of other wonderful things . . . but they are a much smaller, much more homogenous country than the United States (which doesn't excuse our lack of quality childcare and downright pathetic family leave programs) and the final lesson of the book is to embrace the now and make the most of your time, to try not to allow it to become corrupted and fragmented, and I'm a big fan of this-- which is probably how I get this blog done each day and still manage to edit the podcast and make some time for recording music and playing sports . . . there was also one piece of research that made me very happy-- not only do we sleep in 90 minute cycles, but we work that way too, so it's much better to work in short bursts, which is how I do it-- not more hours, but less hours in more frenetic bursts-- and not only that, but top workers "rested more . . . they slept longer at night and they napped more in the day" and if there's one thing I'm all about, it's more sleep and more naps.
Will the Benefits of Global Warming Last through the Winter?
Usually once fall soccer season ends, that's it for outdoor sports-- aside from snowboarding and sledding-- but this year my son Ian and I have had a chance to play tennis nearly every day . . . he's hit more tennis balls in the past few weeks than he previously hit in his entire (rather short) career, and because of all this practice, Ian is really nailing both his forehand and backhand, he's hitting crosscourt and down the line shots, he can serve a bit, and he's coming to the net . . . not only that, but I've developed a brand new top-spin two handed backhand that i can hit with power and accuracy . . . so the question is: will our well-honed strokes last through the winter snow, or will they melt away with the spring thaw?
Undefeated (and a turtle) defeat The Affair
My wife and I put the nix on the first season of The Affair-- despite the good acting, the show is SLOW-- so after seven rather repetitive episodes, we mailed it back to Netflix and instead watched the documentary Undefeated (Netflix streaming) which tells the story of the Manassas Tigers-- an inner city football team with typical inner city struggles . . . single parents, jail, gangs, violence, poverty, lack of funding, and general apathy towards school-- and the volunteer coach Bill Courtney and his volunteer assistants-- white men from the rich suburbs of Memphis-- and how they build relationships with these predominantly African-American kids and eventually cobble together an excellent team that goes to the play-offs . . . it's just as cliche and inspirational and tear-inducing as Friday Night Lights and Remember the Titans and Rudy and The Blind Side, but there's a much stronger dose of reality (as there should be, as it's a documentary) and there's also an undersized lineman named Money talking about his pet tortoise, which he pulls from a large metal bucket in the yard of his tiny house; his description of the turtle is poetic and metaphorical: "just look at the texture of him . . . on the outside everybody wants to be hard and show their strength, but on the inside it's like they're all flimsy, you know, skin and bones" and that's a lesson that he not only understands, but has to literally endure . . . you'll have to watch the film to find out how, and it's certainly a universal lesson that all football players grapple with, but despite the possibility of injury, letdown, and worse, this story makes a solid case for why we should keep playing football in America.
The Test 26: The Moral of the Story (No Napping on the Job)
You can either rest on your laurels or get off your ass and listen to this week's episode of The Test . . . and you certainly can't study for this one: instead you have to think about the big picture-- the moral of the story-- in order to score points; so check it out, play at home, see how you fare, and enjoy our special guest (Whitney) and his comprehensive knowledge of The Princess Bride.
Let's Get Ready to Coddle!!!!!!!!!!
The Atlantic article "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt is an excellent and comprehensive overview of how many Americans are starting to view the world-- especially college students; the article's subtitle is "in the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don't like . . . here's why that's disastrous for education-- and mental health" but the article covers more than college campuses-- it connects social media, politics, and society as a whole to the thesis; the article is insanely long, and while I suggest you read it in its entirety, I will offer a summary here for those of you who like to be coddled:
1) social media makes it "extraordinarily easy to join crusades, express solidarity and outrage, and shun traitors" so we've entered a new age of polarization, where it's easy to "like" a point of view skip the dialogue, debate, discussion, and negotiation that comes with actually listening to someone else's perspective;
2) the youth of America have grown up in a completely politically polarized environment-- surveys from the 1970s show that Republican and Democrat antipathy was "surprisingly mild" but the negative feelings of each party toward the other have grown steadily, a process called "affective partisan polarization," which is a serious problem for a country that considers itself a democracy;
3) hypersensitive college students have created a new term called "microagression," which can apply to any phrase or action that might be construed offensive-- whether it was overt, subtextual, or accidental-- and this led to the whole "shrieking girl" incident on the Yale campus protesting the hypothetical possibility of unregulated Halloween costumes;
4) hypersensitive college students are now demanding "trigger warnings" from teachers if they are about to encounter something uncomfortable in a text, so that they are not traumatized by something shocking or unexpected . . . even though this goes against all psychological logic, as this system will keep students in a state of anxiety about these issues-- racism, terrorism, abuse, etc.-- instead of the time-tested use of "exposure therapy," which rewires your brain to be able to deal with the difficult topic;
5) emotional reasoning has become the dominant mode of discourse on college campuses, with a subjective definition of offense-- if it offends you then it is offensive-- and this has bled into workplace harassment policies, where the same language is cropping up: there is no objective definition of harassment, it is simply if the person being harassed takes umbrage, then it is harassment;
6) cognitive therapy is a technique that probably needs to be taught on college campuses; "the goal is to minimize distorted thinking and see the world more accurately" and this is done by learning the most common cognitive distortions that people fall prey to-- overgeneralizing, dichotomous thinking, blaming, emotional reasoning . . . all twelve are listed at the end of the article and I am going to use them in class during my logical fallacies unit . . . this is one of my favorite things to teach in Composition class, though I warn the students that they may get in hot water when they start pointing out these "cognitive distortions" . . . especially when a parent or teacher employs one.
3) hypersensitive college students have created a new term called "microagression," which can apply to any phrase or action that might be construed offensive-- whether it was overt, subtextual, or accidental-- and this led to the whole "shrieking girl" incident on the Yale campus protesting the hypothetical possibility of unregulated Halloween costumes;
4) hypersensitive college students are now demanding "trigger warnings" from teachers if they are about to encounter something uncomfortable in a text, so that they are not traumatized by something shocking or unexpected . . . even though this goes against all psychological logic, as this system will keep students in a state of anxiety about these issues-- racism, terrorism, abuse, etc.-- instead of the time-tested use of "exposure therapy," which rewires your brain to be able to deal with the difficult topic;
5) emotional reasoning has become the dominant mode of discourse on college campuses, with a subjective definition of offense-- if it offends you then it is offensive-- and this has bled into workplace harassment policies, where the same language is cropping up: there is no objective definition of harassment, it is simply if the person being harassed takes umbrage, then it is harassment;
6) cognitive therapy is a technique that probably needs to be taught on college campuses; "the goal is to minimize distorted thinking and see the world more accurately" and this is done by learning the most common cognitive distortions that people fall prey to-- overgeneralizing, dichotomous thinking, blaming, emotional reasoning . . . all twelve are listed at the end of the article and I am going to use them in class during my logical fallacies unit . . . this is one of my favorite things to teach in Composition class, though I warn the students that they may get in hot water when they start pointing out these "cognitive distortions" . . . especially when a parent or teacher employs one.
Just In Case You Thought You Had Things Under Control
Just in case you haven't read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" lately . . . or recently watched The Matrix, here is a friendly video reminder that human perception is limited, that what you see isn't what you get, and that our brains are barely hanging on to this thin thread we refer to as reality (this is also an opportune time to wish Einstein's Theory of Relativity a happy 100th birthday).
The Music is Coming From Inside the House!
It was Thanksgiving and we were about to leave the house for the afternoon when I heard music coming from the kitchen-- so I checked the computer but it wasn't coming from there, and then I checked the laptop and it wasn't coming from there, and then I thought it might be coming from my son's Ipod touch so I checked on the shelf but I couldn't find it, and so I went toward the stairs, and the music sounded like it might be coming from upstairs, so I went up the stairs, and I could still hear it, faintly, but my son's Ipod dock wasn't on, nor were any of the clock radios, and so I went back downstairs and Catherine had finished carrying the appetizers to the car and so I asked her if she heard music and she did but she couldn't figure out where it was coming from and I listened very closely and it sounded like it was coming from the dog's food bowl, so I bent down and I could really hear it, but I knew there was no way that the dog's food bowl was pulling in radio signals, though the music was oddly clearer when I bent over and that's when I had my "eureka!" moment-- though this epiphany was a far cry from Archimedes' realization-- as I remembered that my Ipod Nano was in my pocket, and it has the ability to play music through a tiny speaker-- something that always surprises me-- and that's what it was doing, at a low volume bordering on the subliminal (it's only capable of low volume)-- so I was essentially chasing my own tail while I was looking for the music, and wherever I went, there it was.
The Host: Something to Stream on Netflix
If you're looking for a streaming movie on Netflix that is a little edgy but still fairly appropriate for the whole family (there's some violence and some Korean profanity) then I recommend Ba Joon-ho's dysfunctional family/monster flick The Host . . . the movie is tragic, funny, and intense by turns, and you're never quite sure which direction the plot and the tone will go-- it's also beautiful, even the disgusting and absurd creature (Jabberwocky/leech/amphibian mash-up) is mesmerizing-- and pace isn't like Cloverfield . . . right from the start, there are plenty of gratuitous shots of the monster, flinging itself gibbon-like from bridge strut to bridge strut, or causing near-comical chaos in crowds along the Han River . . . this is a great way to introduce kids to reading subtitles, and also to prepare them for films that aren't quite so "American," as there's a little bit of happiness at the end, but it's mixed with tragedy and melodrama, and while some of the monster/horror conventions are followed, others are discarded or toyed with . . . if you haven't seen this one yet, check it out: Nam-joo only brings home the bronze medal, but she deserves the gold.
Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland and USA! USA! USA!
According to Brigid Schulte, in her book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time, the United States "ranks dead last on virtually every measure of family policy in the world," and it is one of only four countries without paid leave for parents-- our compatriots are Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland . . . Saudi Arabia -- where women can't drive-- has paid leave . . . Togo and Zimbabwe have 14 weeks of paid leave . . . Mongolia has paid leave . . . and Schulte traces this back to the early '70's, when women starting working and there was overwhelming political and populist support for government subsidized child care, but conservative "firebrand" Pat Buchanan implemented a campaign equating universal child care with Communist indoctrination; Buchanan-- who never had kids-- called the Comprehensive Child Development Act a "great leap into the dark" that would destroy the fabric of America, because when he was a kid he got to go outside and run around until dark and when you came home from school "you got mom's pie or cake . . . and that's the natural way to grow up" and this complete callous disregard for how people live, this utter political detachment from reality, made me very angry, and now we're stuck with an expensive, unregulated, often impossibly inconvenient child-care system (which can often be downright incompetent and dangerous) and I just really think that our country can improve in this regard-- while we're never going to have policies like Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, we can at least aim to have child-care policy as good as Haiti.
The Test 25: Phone Smarts
This week's episode of The Test is a little different . . . Stacey created descriptions of seven hypothetical smart phones-- apps and call logs and such-- and you have to identify the literary character that owns each device; Cunningam and I did quite well, but we are English teachers . . . so take a crack at it and see how you fare . . . no pressure, although I got a 6 out of 7 and I made a pretty good case for my incorrect answer . . . good luck.
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