A Serendipitous Postmodern Encounter in My Kitchen

A magical meta-moment occurred on Friday in my kitchen; we were hosting an eclectic crowd: my good buddy Whitney and some other W&M folks, a representative from North Brunswick (Mose!) and the Highland Park regulars-- and my friend Ann, a Sentence of Dave lurker, finally got to meet the prolifically profound Sentence of Dave commenter known as Zman and she professed her profound admiration for his wit, erudition, and verve . . . and then went on to vilify all manner of Dave, my writing style, my choice of topics, my digressions, and my general character; Ann's hypothesis in a nutshell is that the only artistry present on this blog is Zman's commentary . . . she contended that there is an odd symbiotic relationship between us, and if I were to expand on this metaphorically, then I would be the flatulent tick infested rhino and Zman would be my cleaning symbiote, the elegantly marked red-tailed oxpecker, feeding off my bloated body . . . anyway, though it was at my expense, I still took great joy at this serendipitous postmodern encounter between lurker and commenter, because I had contributed doubly to its occurrence, with my prolix prose and the crowd in my kitchen.

The Test 74: These Are People That Died

This week on The Test, the premise is relatively simple: I describe a death and you identify the person that died in this manner . . . but Cunningham and Stacey still figure out a way to steer the show off the rails and into the void; join us for spoonerisms, Marlon Brando impersonations, exploding Stacey, the reason Cunningham wants to kill off multiple endangered species and much much more.

Alex and Ian: The Usual Suspects

Once a week, I've been forcing my kids to watch an oldish movie that I unilaterally select and while they always initially complain, ultimately they end up loving it: we did Pan's Labyrinth (awesome but creepy and violent) and Little Miss Sunshine (funny and mildly inappropriate in a sweet way) and The Usual Suspects (which Alex loved, especially the twist at the end . . . but I still suspect, as I did the first time I saw it, that it's not a particularly good movie, that there's no way to unravel the mystery or the plot, and that it's a something of a one trick pony) and we've got Juno  on tap for tonight, but I'm worried that we're not going to watch it because the boys are involved in some kind of bizarre epic battle that's going to result in both of them being sent to their respective rooms without dinner; Ian put away a pair of pajamas in the pajama drawer, which is in Alex's room and he left a pant-leg hanging out of the drawer and Alex told him to fix it because the hanging pant-leg was bothering him and Ian refused to put the pant leg all the way into the drawer, just to piss Alex off, and Alex sprayed water from the lizard-tank spray bottle onto Ian's bed and unless they can resolve this, they're not going to learn about teen pregnancy.

Litmus Test For Trump: Black Lungs or Clear Water

The Obama administration scrambled to finish the Stream Protection Act, a set of rules that detail how to enforce environmental protection laws already on the books-- the rules are 1200 pages long and fifteen years in the making (for more detail on the story, listen to the new Planet Money) and so now the question is whether Trump will utilize the rarely used Congressional Review Act to repeal the rules; the last time this was used, President Bush repealed Clinton's Workplace Injury rules and the backlash was fairly ugly . . . so keep an eye on this, as it will be a real litmus test as to just what kind of asshole Trump is going to be . . . and remember, there are two kinds of assholes: people who divide folks into two kinds of assholes and people who don't.

Betsy DeVos Is So Dumb She Should Be in a Sci-Fi Sitcom!

Readers of this blog are probably familiar the TV show Battlestar Galactica and the story of Laura Roslin, Secretary of Education of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol: she was 43rd in line for the presidency, but when the Cylons attack, everyone ahead of her on the presidential succession chart dies and she becomes the de facto leader of a ragtag band of FTL (faster than light) spaceships adrift in a hostile galaxy . . . and it turns out-- as these things usually do-- that the Secretary of Education is smart and savvy and principled and becomes a fantastic leader; I would like to pitch the converse version of this show (which would be a sitcom, of course) where the earth is destroyed by aliens that resemble giant grizzly bears and Betsy DeVos (who is undeniably very very dumb) ends up leading a ragtag band of spaceships into a hostile universe, but she allows the ships to do whatever they would like, without regulation, and encourages people to move from ship to ship if they don't like how they are treated-- while she basks in her ignorance and the luxury of her first class accommodations-- and her blissful idiocy is punctuated by occasional alien grizzly attacks but luckily, DeVos has a shitload of guns . . . and there are wacky subplot adventures on the different ships, but DeVos is unaware of anything that's going on, happily smiling in her well-tended bubble, praying to an anthropomorphic God and hoping that he will sort things out (but God turns out to be an alien grizzly bear, and eventually, when her ship travels through a wormhole, she meets Him and He eats her and then shits her out and she returns to the fleet to preach the Truth, because she has been eaten and defecated by the Divine Grizzly, but no one believes her and this just adds to the madness).

Dialing It In (Full of Pins)

I'm too tired to write anything coherent . . . which is odd because instead of exercising this afternoon, I went to the acupuncturist . . . which means I took a nap under a lightweight foil sheet, my body stuck full of pins (and I'm going back tomorrow, so expect more of the same . . . also-- note to self: apparently, I tried acupuncture four years ago, enjoyed some success with it and then promptly forgot that it's covered under my health insurance . . . but I won't forget again, because this lady told me that she does acupuncture on her dog and he loves it-- he even fetches the box of disposable needles and brings it to her-- and if it's good enough for a dog, it's good enough for Dave).

The Dorito Effect: A Good Book You Probably Don't Want to Read

Mark  Schatzker's The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor is a quick and easy read, but while the science is presented simply and effectively, the ideas themselves are not easy to digest . . . especially for a chip lover like me; here are some of the ideas (sans science, if you want that, read the book) in a proverbial nutshell:

1) much of our food has become bland, because we breed for the highest yield, the most pest-resistance and the best supermarket appearance . . . this as true for chicken as it is for broccoli and tomatoes . . . and the stuff in the book on chicken is pretty horrific . . . the chickens we are eating are abnormal genetically altered infants that grow at such a rapid rate that if you put it in human terms a two month human infant would weight 660 pounds . . . because of this the meat lacks flavor and nutrition, the flesh is watery and doesn't contain any of the good fats that more mature meat contains;

2) chicken used to be loaded with flavor-- especially older birds-- and there were varieties of chicken-- some for frying, some for broiling, some for stew-- but now all chicken is flavorless and has to be flavored post-slaughter, marinated and rubbed and coated and spiced;

3) we desire flavor because flavor indicates nutrition, but artificial and added flavors trick our brain into thinking we are getting a variety of food when we are not;

4) our body will keep eating these junk foods because our gut is waiting for the secondary compounds-- the fiber and vitamins and minerals and antioxidants-- which signal that we've had enough . . . you can eat enough McDonalds or potato chips to make yourself sick, but you can't do this with radicchio;

5) there is hope: people are trying to breed heirloom tomatoes for higher yield; it's possible to get a real chicken if you try hard enough; and kale and arugula have become very popular . . . Schatzker's advice is to try new natural foods, even if it's just a nibble of kale or mackerel; seek flavorful real foods; eat meat from pastured animals; avoid synthetic flavor technology; organic doesn't always equal good; use herbs and spices to complement food, not to cover up the blandness; don't pop vitamins; eat dark chocolate, drink wine and craft beer; find amazing fruit and give it to your kids; and demand better tasting chicken, strawberries, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, beef, etcetera . . . if you demand flavor, it will come, and with good flavor comes micronutrients and all kinds of other good things . . . and if you take one thing away from this post, it should be this: the lemon/lime flavoring in Sprite will NOT cure scurvy.

The Test 73: Holy Days, Holidays, and Appliance Shopping

'Tis the season . . . or 'twas the season, and it's never too late to learn something about all the holidays that everyone just celebrated . . . so join us on The Test for some good times-- Stacey provides the questions, and Cunningham and I bumble our way through religious traditions, holiday customs,  and related materialism, touching on topics as diverse as Petra, sneak-pooping, and when the gods believe it's appropriate to shop for an appliance.

Acupuncture and Miracles

I tried to play soccer this morning and I was foiled again-- my left calf and my right upper glute are both knotted up, and it's affecting my hip and I'm a trainwreck . . . but enough about me and my problems, on to the miracle: so I get home from soccer, limping and angry, my body in complete rebellion, my soul descending into the darkness that is midlife for an athlete, and after hearing my lamentations, my wife tells me to make an appointment with her acupuncturist, and I'm at the end of my rope so I actually follow her advice, look up the number, and call the acupuncturist, and after a bit of chatting, she's comfortable enough with me to share a weird revelation . . . apparently when I called her, she was sending a text and a photo-- a text thanking someone for recommending a local soccer program and a photo of her little daughter playing some soccer . . . and she was sending this text/photo to my wife and she said when my call came, her hair stood on end and she wondered if the person calling her could be related to the person she was sending the text/photo . . . and I am!

The Lizard Has Landed!

We finally finished setting up our bioactive vivarium and purchased a crested gecko-- half price at Petco this week!-- which my children named Bossk (after a lizard-like Star Wars character: a male Trandoshan bounty hunter, the son of Cradossk, who was known for hunting Wookies) and Bossk seems to be adapting nicely to his tank . . . if you look closely, you can see him here perched on his cork round.

Fuck John Wooden

Beloved UCLA coach John Wooden famously said: "The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching," but what if you think no one is watching? . . . or-- more precisely-- what if you think no one is listening? because we've got to have some time off from all this good behavior-- it's not like we can maintain perfect character every waking moment-- so I was minding my own business, extricating a bike one of my children had cavalierly chucked into our bike shed, so that I could get my own bike out, and both bikes fell over . . . and my bike shed (custom built by yours truly) is under our porch, so it's a bit cramped in there and so when both bikes fell over, I let out a stream of expletives that would have made a teamster blush-- which was the only way to express my frustration with the state of the shed, the state of my aging body, the carelessness of my children, and my general annoyance with how tangled up bikes can get with one another . . . but, of course, I thought this was fine because I was sequestered away in a safe spot where I was certain no one was listening, but I forgot that my neighbor's porch happens to be rather close to the shed-- two Leyland cypress block the line of site, but they did not block or censor my profanity, and -- of course-- he happened to be on his porch and heard my puerile tirade and so he sincerely and sympathetically asked me if I was okay-- he assumed that I had been gravely injured, but I sheepishly told him I was fine, just frustrated, and if John Wooden hadn't died seven years ago, I would love to give him a serious chewing out, as I'm tired of this surveillance state Panopticon and ready to retire to the deep woods, where a man can reflect on a tangled nest of bikes in any manner he chooses.

Spoiler: It's Better to Watch the Love Grow

There have been a number of academic studies indicating that people enjoy stories more when they are provided with spoilers, and I've got some empirical evidence to support this argument: a student in my Creative Writing class (a rambunctious little senior named Haley) told me that she always checks with Reality Steve to find out who wins The Bachelor before she begins watching, and when I asked why she would want to ruin the drama she gave me an incredibly fulfilling explanation: "then you can sit back and watch the love grow."

If You Have a Brain, Don't Read This . . .

A foreboding contrast in style and logic:

1) President Obama's interview about healthcare on The Weeds: Obama is clear, knowledgeable, logical, and totally candid; he offers a challenge to Republicans-- he would love to endorse a transparent healthcare plan that does things better than the Affordable Care Act; Obama comports himself with intelligence, grace, and style and shows comprehensive understanding of the healthcare system, healthcare markets and economics, and the science of medicine . . .

versus

2) Donald Trump's muddled conspiratorial medical gobbledygook-- he's asked anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr. to head a commission on vaccine safety . . . despite the fact that all links between vaccines and autism have been debunked (Jenny McCarthy aside) but Trump also brilliantly avoids looking like a total lunatic, as he has vaccinated his children-- just on his own schedule, a slower, very "conservative" schedule . . . thus claiming his own bizarre, unfounded (but appealing to a certain sort of maverick renegade Trump supporter) middle ground . . .

and these two polemically opposed rhetorical methods illustrate the same lesson as Marshall Curry's excellent political documentary Street Fight . . . disenfranchised folks don't want statistics and numbers and policy debate, they want a compelling narrative that explains why forces beyond their control have conspired against them, and a roguish hero, with the same imperfections they possess, who is willing to fight the forces of academic logic and intellectual elitism, using any means necessary . .  . though he's a Democrat, Sharpe James would be a welcome addition to Trumpland!

Dave Might Be a Wordist!

In the newest Hidden Brain podcast, linguist John McWhorter argues that it is the nature of language to change, and it is the nature of old people to argue that the changes are indicative of degradation and decay . . . but living languages always change-- words, context, diction, usage, style-- there's no stopping the changes because the changes are inevitable, and while it might irk and irritate older people, or people educated a certain way, McWhorter believes that once a critical mass of people are using a certain word or phrase or context, you can't claim that that usage is "wrong," and he thinks that the last vestiges of socially approved prejudice are for language usage-- in civilized society, you can't stereotype people for race, gender, religion, or sexuality-- but you can still make broad judgements based on language usage . . . and he's convinced me; I've always told my students that "language is a river," yet I paradoxically correct people when they use "lay" when they mean "lie" . . . and I used to correct people when they said "nauseous" when they meant "nauseated" . . . I gave up the latter because I recognized that a critical mass had shifted the usage, and I'm going to quit the "lie" and "lay" business as well . . . because I don't want to be a wordist (or an anti-dentite!)

The Internet Is NOT For Porn, It's For Building a Vivarium

Although the broadway puppet comedy Avenue Q proclaims that "The Internet is For Porn," the lyrics are very wrong-- the internet isn't for porn, it's for nerds, and so when Saturday's unexpected winter storm aborted our plan to go lizard shopping, and I started browsing around on the internet, I ended up learning how to build a self-cleaning bioactive small lizard vivarium-- and so now Ian's Xmas lizard has morphed into a much more fascinating project: we ordered lots of weird stuff on Amazon, such as Hydroballs (lightweight expanded clay terrarium substrate) and substrate mesh and New Zealand moss and a magnetic shelf feeding bowl and a UVB bulb and several other layers of substrate and a thermometer and a cork round and I researched the proper plants to put in the vivarium and we're going to eventually add springtails and isopods, which will eat the lizard feces . . . so what I initially thought was going to be a little jail cell for a lizard is now going to be a deluxe crib . . . and all because of those folks willing to nerd it up on the internet . . . check out the above video for some terrarium porn!

The Test 72: Happy Apocalyptic New Year!

This week on The Test, hunker down with the gang and get ready for the inevitable . . . the end of days are near, but this eschatological primer (provided by Cunningham, in the true spirit of the theme, without any technology) will prepare you for what's coming . . . and there is no doubt that we've got our bases covered: Stacey brings the guns, Cunningham purveys the spiritual nonsense, and I provide the useless information.

Ronald Reagan = Ronald McDonald

If you're looking for more reasons to hate Ronald Reagan and Ronald McDonald, here they are: in the late 70s, the Federal Trade Commission put out a report that ran over 6,000 pages, with undeniable testimony from experts that children could not understand the difference between content and advertising and thus warranted special protection in this regard-- many countries banned advertising to children entirely (Norway and Quebec) and in most other countries severely restricted it . . . but not the United States:

"When Reagan appointed Mark S. Fowler as commissioner of the FCC on May 18, 1981, children's television would change dramatically . . . Fowler championed market forces as the determinant of broadcasting content, and thus oversaw the abolition of every advertising regulation that had served as a guide for broadcasters . . . in Fowler's estimation, the question of whether children had the ability to discriminate between the ads and the entertainment was a moot point; the free market, and not organizations such as ACT would decide the matter . . ."

and after the US deregulated, Ronald McDonald and his evil minions took over the airwaves-- it became impossible to discern between the show and the commercial (He-Man, G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Transformers, etc) which led to some fairly awful animated art, as the show was beholden to the tie-in merchandise . . . and the rest of the advertising to kids was for sugary cereals, candy, and fast food . . . with plenty of pester power . . . you've got to catch 'em all . . . and then Ronald Reagan was given a second chance to save the children at the end of his presidency, in 1988 . . . a second chance to differentiate himself from a crazy burger-pushing clown, but he declined; a new bill to limit advertising to children sailed through the Senate and passed in the House 328-78, and was even approved by the National Association of Broadcasters, but Reagan vetoed it-- he actually "pocket vetoed" it-- claiming the bill was unconstitutional and violated freedom of speech, and that businesses could purvey whatever wares to children they wanted, in any shape or form, on our public airwaves, despite the fact that it was fairly despicable in practice (and also a contributor to childhood obesity) and because we live in America, if there's not a law, then it's a free-for-all (unlike some of the countries that regulate themselves in this department, such as Great Britain) and so Reagan cemented his legacy as another Ronald who is willing to sacrifice our children to the Greater Gods of Corporate America.

Lizard Music

We are headed to NJ Exotic Pets in Lodi tomorrow, to buy a lizard . . . but we aren't sure what kind; Ian keeps calling the store and asking if they have certain obscure lizards in stock, and while I'm a little nervous about our actual visit to the pet store-- I don't know much about lizard pricing and care-- but I truly enjoy his phone calls to the store and could listen to them all day long . . . they go something like this:

"Hello . . . I was wondering if you have any forest armadillo lizards in stock?

No?

Are you getting some soon?

No?

Okay . . .

(pause for some internet research)

Hello . . . I was wondering if you have any fire skinks in stock?

No?

Are you getting some soon?

No?

Okay."

Let Sleeping Birds Lie

This morning, while I was walking the dog in the 6 AM winter darkness, I nearly stepped on a bird; it was sleeping soundly, hidden in a leaf pile on the edge of the sidewalk, warm and comatose, dreaming of moist soil and wriggling worms, until I disturbed it . . . and then it fluttered off, scattering leaves and scaring the shit out of me.

And You Thought 2016 Was Wild?

Bill Bryson's book One Summer: America, 1927 uses a few months to paint a portrait of an America rolling precipitously into strange, new places, even faster than the America of today: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig invented the home run derby, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed, Al Capone reigned, eugenics and involuntary sterilization were all the rage, Hollywood pumped out 800 feature length movies a year . . . and filmed it's first big "talkie," the Jazz Singer, Dempsey fought Tunney, The Federal Reserve cut interest rates which precipitated the stock market crash, Italians were regarded as a dangerous ethnic group, Gutzon Borglum began Mount Rushmore, Calvin Coolidge did nothing, the Mississippi flooded monumentally, Herbert Hoover supervised flood management, a lunatic blew up a school in Michigan and killed forty-four children, Henry Ford stopped production on the Model T Ford and began planning Fordlandia, a doomed model city and rubber plantation in Brazil, Shipwreck Kelly sat on a flagpole in Newark for 12 days, and Charles Lindbergh was adored by zillions, a consequence of his daring solo flight across the Atlantic (this is before his child was kidnapped, before he associated himself with the Nazis, and before it was discovered that he had several secret families).

2016 Book List

Here's what I read in 2016 (and despite reading nearly a book a week, I feel dumber than ever) and if you head over to Gheorghe: The Blog, you can see my eleven favorites . . . and if you're really feeling crazy and literary, you can check out my previous lists, but if you're going to read one book on this list, I would suggest Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather . . . I've read it twice, and I'll bet I'll read it again someday . . . anyway, here they are-- it's a little scary for me when I peruse this list, because I can't remember all that much about some of the titles, but I guess that's what happens when you read too much;

1) Trunk Music (Michael Connelly)

2) Hide & Seek (Ian Rankin)

3) Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis Robert D. Putnam

4) One Plus One Jojo Moyes

5) Andrea Wulf The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World

6) Death Comes to the Archbishop (Willa Cather)

7) The Milagro Beanfield War (John Nichols)

8) Agent to the Stars (John Scalzi)

9) The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run-- or Ruin-- an Economy (Tim Harford)

10) Tim Harford The Undercover Economist

11) The Expatriates (Janice Y. K. Lee)

12) Tim Harford The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World

13) Dale Russakoff  The Prize: Who's In Charge of America's Schools?

14) Charlie Jane Anders All the Birds in the Sky

15) Mohamed A. El-Erian  The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse

16) Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (Evelyn Waugh)

17) The Power of Habit:Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

18) Angels Flight (Michael Connelly)

19) Robert J. Gordon  The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War

20) Tony Hillerman A Thief of Time

21) Peter Frankopan Silk Roads: A New History of the World

22) Tony Hillerman Hunting Badger

23) Tony Hillerman Listening Woman

24) Tony Hillerman The Wailing Wind

25) The Lost World of the Old Ones:Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest David Roberts

26) Roadside Picnic (The Strugatsky Brothers)

27) Chuck Klosterman But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past

28) White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer

29) The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will Shape our future by Kevin Kelly

30) Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

31) Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) Jerome K. Jerome

32) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

33) Truly Madly Guilty Liane Moriarty

34) Seinfeldia by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

35) Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil

36) Ghosts by Reina Telgemeier

37) The Walking Dead 23-26

38) The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark For the Ivy Leagues by Jeff Hobbs

39) The Nix by Nathan Hill

40) Bill Bryson The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain

41) Tim Wu The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads

42) Colson Whitehead The Underground Railroad

43) Nicholson Baker Substitute

44) The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts

45) Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance.

Back to Jersey . . . Blech

We had a phenomenal family vacation in Westminster, Vermont:

1) the storm that beat us back and made us postpone snowboarding became a cloud with a silver lining, as the crowds at Bromley emptied out on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and there was plenty of powder . . . if you stayed on the right side of the trail, where the wind piled the snow, it was almost like being out west-- my kids had a blast, after six years of snowboarding, it was the first time they ever got to experience decent conditions-- and they are getting brave, going into the woods, trying out jumps, and getting quite comfortable on the mountain;

2) I kicked ass at the board games-- we were in what was essentially a one-room cabin (with two bedrooms) so we had a lot of together time and played many rounds of Carcassonne-- and I won them all!-- and I also won at Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, games which I do not usually win . . . and that's the real purpose of this blog, to note these great victories, so I can refer to them many years hence when my kids try to revise history;

2.5) I learned that my snowboarding boots are a size and a half too big and that's why my heels were lifting and I felt out of control on my board the past two seasons . . . when I told the Bromley boot tech that I bought my boots in Jersey at my local ski shop, he said, "Would you buy a surfboard in the mountains?"

3) I brought back lots of great beer . . . local brews like Switchback and Conehead and Rock Art and Goodwater, and some Sixpoint Global Warmer, which I can never seem to find in Jersey, even though it's from Brooklyn;

4) we ate several times at the Moon Dog Cafe in Chester, and my wife and I wondered why we don't have any places like this around here;

5) there was loads of snow, and my kids and I built a fantastically dangerous sled run through the woods-- I rode the orange plastic toboggan down it and got airborne-- and it was just nice to hike around the property, which was hilly and heavily wooded;

6) my wife enjoyed watching the fireworks from our bedroom window, a farm across the way shot them off and they looked quite spectacular through the trees and arcing over the snow fields;

7) the cabin had Netflix, and aside from Saving Private Ryan, all we watched was episode after episode of 30 Rock . . . I love that show, and my kids love it too;

and then we hit Massachusetts, and the snow was gone, and then it started to rain, and when we finally pulled onto our road, I looked down into Donaldson Park and there was a huge flock of geese, in the mud, shitting everywhere . . . and unless it snows soon, that's going to be the scenery for the next two months-- mud, goose shit, and damp, cloudy weather.

Set the Bar Low

It's hard to set the bar lower than my resolutions for the last couple of years, but I think I've done it: this year (so that my pants don't fall down, a struggle I've been having recently) I resolve to wear a belt when I wear blue jeans.

All's Well That Ends Well When the Well Delivers Running Water

An excellent end to 2016: a great day of snowboarding/skiing at Bromley Mountain . . . or a great day of East Coast snowboarding/skiing-- some decent snow on the ground, only a couple of icy patches, no lift lines, fairly warm (20s) and no major crashes; Ian did have one moment when he thought he was going to barf (he didn't) probably due to the combination of being overdressed in the steamy lodge and too much hot chocolate, but he recovered and did another run, where he zipped into the woods and then inadvertently did a jump back onto the trail . . . I'll be happy when my kids are old enough to navigate the mountain on their own, so I don't have to watch them; we then had a fantastic lunch at The New American Grill in Londonderry-- highly recommended-- and I had another laudable Vermont beer: Zero Gravity Cone Head IPA . . . and then the kids had enough energy to do some runs on the superfast and super scary sled run we built on a trail in the woods below the cabin, now that we've ridden it numerous times, the trail is slick and extraordinarily dangerous, especially when riding the orange plastic toboggan . . . I took some video, and I'll post it eventually-- the sled run has a cartoonishly Calvin and Hobbes quality to it-- there's jumps and bumps and logs to dodge and a sapling tree we bent out of the way that might turn catapult at any moment-- so I'm glad everyone is inside now, safe and sound and I'm sure we'll be asleep long before midnight, so we can do it again tomorrow . . . and I've come up with an extremely practical (and achievable) resolution, which I'll post sometime tomorrow.

Running Water Kicks Ass

Robert Gordon's book The Rise and Fall of American Growth asserts that some economic advances are unrepeatable-- technological innovations such refrigeration, air-conditioning, television, air travel, and motor vehicles are probably never going to be surpassed-- and thus, the era of massive economic growth is coming to an end; running water and indoor plumbing are in this exalted category, and though we survived a day without running water, flushing the toilet with melted snow, we were very happy when the well started pumping again this morning-- we were able to shower, brush our teeth, go to the bathroom conveniently, and do the dishes . . . and this also freed us up to do other leisure activities (just as all those major advances created massive economic opportunities) and we built a wild and fast sled run through the woods-- Catherine set a new landspeed record-- and played Settlers of Catan (I won, but more significantly, Ian bult a wall across the island, blocking all our advances and Alex called him Donald Trump and then Ian tried to engineer an absurd trade with me so he could bolster his wall and Alex said, "He's making you pay for it, Dad! You're Mexico!") and then Cat and I dug the car out-- we got over a foot of snow-- and we drove down 91 and ate lunch at the Whetstone Station in Brattleboro (I finally tried some Hill Farmstead beer: Edward  and I pronounced it very very good, also had Legitimacy IPA, almost as excellent . . . wish I could find cans of this stuff in the stores here) and we wandered around town until we found a couple of new sleds for the boys (the old ones were fairly shredded) and some very good coffee and some houseplants for my home improvement project . . . you'll have to see it on Pinterest, and we plan on getting up early tomorrow to go snowboarding-- I was quite impressed by the job the plows and sanders did on the roads, even the dirt ones, so we should be able to make it west through the mountains to Bromley . . . and all this vacation stuff was made possible by running water . . . aside from the dog's vacation dream: he found a frozen dead mouse on the porch and ate it.

Snow Snow Everywhere . . . And You Can Drink It If You Have To

On the map, Westminster, Vermont looks fairly close to Bromley Mountain (Google Maps and my GPS say 22 miles) but we learned today that this is on dirt roads, which are passable if the weather is good . . . but once it started to snow folks along the way warned us that we'd better have a shovel and blankets if we wanted to get home later in the afternoon-- so we moved our lift tickets to Saturday and Sunday, stocked up on food and beer, and beat a hasty retreat back to the cabin at Windsor, and the snow has been falling all day and doesn't show any sign of letting up . . . we'll probably be snowed in tomorrow and, as an added wrinkle, the pipes appear to have frozen (or there's been a water main break) because we've got no running water . . . and we've got no cell-service, so we can't call a plumber or the town municipal office, but there's plenty of snow to melt if need be (for the kids) and I have beer and we showered last night, so I think we'll be okay (although I guess if anyone has to defecate, they're going to have to do it outside in the snow).

A Meditation on Vacation Juxtaposition

Our first day of vacation in the woods of Vermont was an odd mix of country living and science-fiction:

1) I supervised a wood delivery (the truck driver was very pleasant, but when he dumped the wood, he missed the tarp . . . the driveway was fairly icy);

2) our dog tried to eat a chicken;

3) Ian set up his Anki OVERDRIVE track in the main and only room of the cabin, under the only table, so he could race Alex . . . the track is wide and magnetic, and you use a cell-phone or Ipad to steer the cars and deploy digital weapons and force fields and such, which then affect the actual physical cars zipping around the track;

4) Alex played with his BB-8 app controlled droid robot-- he taught it some voice commands and made it navigate an obstacle course;

5) the kids built a snow fort and did some sledding, and incorporated their battery-powered Nerf machine gun into both activities;

6) we drove to Brattleboro and walked out on the frozen river to get a closer look at the ice fishing shacks, while I bored the children with a description of the ice industry in the 1900's;

7) we tasted delicious cheeses at the Grafton Village Cheese Shop and then hiked the retreat trails behind the farm, climbing the mountain overlooking the river and then passing the Ice Pond and the Harris Hill Ski Jump . . . I had never seen an Olympic-style ski jump up close-- it's much steeper, bigger, and monumental than I thought;

8) we ate at the Whetstone Restaurant and Brewery . . . and it may be my favorite place in the world: a great view of the Connecticut River from the bar and nearly every table, wide selection of delicious and obscure beers-- and fairly cheap too . . . the beer they brew themselves is only $4.95 a glass-- the food is awesome, and they kept giving us free stuff: the beer I ordered was kicked, so the waitress brought me a taste of the Off the Rails Imperial Double Black IPA, which sounds insane but it was delicious . . . so I ordered it, and then she brought me another tasting pour, which someone didn't want, and then she brought me another full glass of the beer, because the bartender had poured too many . . . by the time we left I was feeling quite good . . . and she also gave the kids free cookies, and to continue sci-fi/country-living theme, the beer menus were on little tablet devices so you could scroll through the many types and descriptions, while everything else about the place said Vermont-style microbrewery;

9) once we returned to the cabin--  in the spirit of a family vacation in the woods-- we started a fire and sat down to play a board game . . . we decided to play a new one (for us) that we got for Xmas: Carcassonne . . . but it's fairly complicated and while we don't have cell-service, we do have wi-fi, and so we watched a couple YouTube videos which explained the rules of the game and then we were able to play (I won!) without the usual bumbling (it took us six or seven times to learn Settlers of Catan);

10) the cabin doesn't have a DVD player but it does have a big TV and Netflix, so we finished the evening with a 30 Rock marathon, our new favorite family indulgence . . . how could you live out in the woods without Russian mobs, invisible motorcycles and sex pooping?

Country Living Lesson #1

After a violent bout of freezing rain last night, we are enjoying some unseasonably warm Vermont weather today; Catherine and I took the dog on a hike down the dirt road, and we met the neighbors . . . and Sirius met the neighbor's dog-- and everyone was friendly and social and having a good time, until Sirius attempted to eat the neighbor's chickens, which I found embarrassing at first, until the neighbor-lady told us that her dog had actually eaten one of her mother's chickens . . . so now I know that my dog, if given the chance, will eat a chicken, and if he's in the vicinity of a chicken coop, he needs to be monitored carefully to avoid this pastoral faux pas (this information is going to come in handy when I buy a farm).

Bonus Sentence: You Can Never Pack Too Much

Despite some freezing rain and wacky conflicts between the GPS, Google Maps, and MapQuest, we made it to our Vermont AirBnB rental cabin in the woods without incident . . . and I suppose I shouldn't have questioned all the packing . . . I didn't think my kids needed to bring the semi-automatic Nerf machine-gun they won in a steal-a-gift on New Year's Eve, nor did I think they needed to bring the Star Wars themed bobble-head dolls, but they set up a nifty shooting gallery from the top bunk bed-- the idea is to knock down as many bobble-heads as you can with one clip of Nerf ammo, and they haven't bickered with each other in over an hour-- a world record-- so the moral is: if you've got a minivan, you might as well fill it up.

Doing the Snow Dance

Perfunctory sentence . . . we are in the midst of packing everything we own into the minivan so that we can transport it to a tiny cabin in the woods of Vermont.

QuikCheck: Where the Learnin' Never Stops (Even on Xmas!)

After unwrapping our Xmas booty, my wife sent me on a last-minute-Xmas-errand; she needed eggs and a can of whipped cream so she could make a chocolate cream pie . . . the eggs were easy enough to find, but the local convenience (which possesses the oddest of names: B-B-Big Food Mart Inc) did not have any whipped cream, so my wife told me to try QuikCheck, but I searched the store and couldn't find any whipped cream and despite the long queue, I asked the young lady at the register if they had any whipped cream and she told me they did not because there was a whipped cream shortage, and this piqued my curiosity, and so-- despite the line-up of people that did not seem all that interested in the reasons for the dearth of ready-whipped canister cream-- I asked her why that was so, and she gave me quite a story: apparently one of the Airgas nitrous oxide tankers (in Florida) exploded, killing an employee and causing havoc at the Airgas facility, and the government is investigating why this happened and there are only two other nitrous oxide facilities in the country and they are having trouble meeting the demand for nitrous oxide, and medical uses take precedence over whipped cream (which makes sense) and I was quite stunned by this news and thanked her, and then I went home and did some fact-checking (because you can't trust everything you learn from the cashiers at QuikCheck) and her story checks out, Dan Tillema, of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, is still investigating the explosion, and he implores you to think of the plant operator that died (Jesse Graham Folmar, 32 years of age) instead of lamenting over your lack of ready-whipped cream (and then, an Xmas miracle . . . Catherine found an unopened can of whipped cream in the back of the refrigerator . . . I suggested we sell it on Ebay).

School is Weird and Crazy

Nicholson Baker, the post-modernist who wrote an entire novel (The Mezzanine) about an escalator ride, has produced his weirdest piece of writing yet: a 719 page piece of non-fiction called Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids . . . the premise is simple, Baker signs up as an on-call substitute and he provides his services for twenty-eight days, subbing at every grade level in several schools near his home in Maine, and he writes down everything that happens while he is in school, and nothing makes for weirder writing than reality . . . I read four-hundred pages-- enough to get the gist-- and then skipped to the end, and while Baker's findings are close to my heart-- especially since we've just been through the winter solstice, and sunlight is scarce, high school kids are groggy, and my school day begins before the sun is fully up-- which I think is nuts (and so does everyone else who has thought about this, including the CDC) but it's definitely not a priority; Baker agrees, he considers the school day insanely long and tedious and without empathy or logic . . . no one in their right mind who wanted people to actually learn would march them from one activity to the next, manically and without transition; he admires the kids who are just trying to make it though, the kids who aren't all that academic and don't really care about the work, but need to jump through the same hoops as the kids that do care . . . and he notes that the vast differences between the successful, smart and motivated kids and the kids who are not thriving -- he is always impressed by the studious children, and finds empathy for those captive kids simply surviving the day without going completely insane . . . he is frightened by the use of technology and the pervasive assessment, quizzing, and panopticon-like educational platforms, but also sees the value of cell phones and Ipads and laptops as an easy escape for the disaffected, and a way for kids to make the day passably interesting . . . he realizes what teachers know: that it's more about bus schedules and child care than setting up an ideal learning environment and schedule-- that anything else is just not feasible with the current set up-- and he is amazed by teachers that keep it together and do a good job under these constraints, and he is mildly indignant about teachers who do not sympathize with the plight of the students and by the end he professes his love for the "whole broken, beautiful, wasteful, totally crazy educational system" that he spent a short time being a part of . . . and though I often have similar sentiments about the problems with American education, in the end, I love it too, but if you're not familiar with it, browsing through this book will remind you how odd a school day is for the captive audience that participates.

Overkill

Watching a cooking show after dinner is like watching pornography after sex.

The Test 71: One for the Ladies (Kitchen Stuff)

Apparently America is not ready for a female president yet, and so the women will have to head back to the kitchen for the next four years-- but this won't pose a problem for Stacey and Cunningham, as they ace this culinary quiz and appear to be overly qualified to cook and serve their male overlords in perpetuity (in fact, they are so knowledgeable on this episode of The Test, that they actually prove the fallibility of God and the internet . . . but feminists shouldn't get too excited, as Stacey still gets all sweaty doing math).

On a Highway to Hell or High Water

If you 're looking for a neo-noir thriller with moral ambiguity, compelling characters, and a slow burn, a movie in the vein of all those '80's and '90's classics: Blood Simple, Red Rock West, Fargo, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Shallow Grave,  Natural Born Killers, The Boondock Saints, and A Simple Plan, then you'll love Hell of High Water . . . Jeff Bridges has so much fun playing the archetypal old law officer on the brink of retirement and while there's a bit much on the Robin Hood financial thematics, that may be warranted, all things considered in bumfuck East Texas -- the economy has left many of these folks behind, and their way of life as well -- but everybody gets a last shot (literally) when the Howard Brothers start robbing Texas Midlands Branch Banks to raise a stake for the future . . . Marcus (Jeff Bridges) gets his last chance at adventure and all the law abiding Texas citizens get a chance to use those guns they're toting on some real villains . . . this movie is the exact opposite of Rogue One: quiet and slow in the right parts, with an ominous soundtrack, and enough action to make it exciting, but it's really the dialogue, between the two outlaw brothers and between Marcus and his Native American/Mexican sidekick Alberto that make it something more than the typical: five buried cars out of five.

Crimetown!

If you're looking for something to listen to in the vein of Serial, check out Crimetown . . . the first season investigates organized crime and corruption in Providence, and the show is going to move city to city, investigating how the criminal underworld operates in each location; my favorite episode is Chapter 2: The Wiseguys, because Jerry Tillinghouse, who was once an enforcer for the Patriarca family (and allegedly killed the bookie Mousie Rotondo) is also a D&D aficionado; Tillinghouse lovingly describes his role-playing character-- Hunter-- who is "psychologically" linked to a companion tiger, so that Hunter can send the tiger on scouting missions into dangerous terrain and (up to a mile) he can see through the tiger's eyes . . . as a bonus, Tillinghouse also lovingly describes nearly beating a man to death in jail with a twenty-five-pound weight; I love the show, but my only caveat is it's a little heavy on the theme music, the audio montages, and the sound effects . . . these are all entertaining elements, but they can sometimes make me lose focus on important plot and character details.

O To Be A Young Punk

I'm always trying to think of age-appropriate monikers for my ill-fated, slow-moving music projects (Almighty Yojo, Greasetruck, The Density, Mister Truck, King Daveman, etc.) but if I were young and forming an edgy punk-rock band, then I'll tell you the name I'd jump on . . . and since I'm not young and I'm not forming an edgy punk band, I've decided to cede this name to whichever gang of young punks claims it first . . . and here it is: President Don and the Pussygrabbers.

Dave Spoils Rogue One (No Spoilers)

We took the kids to see Rogue One, the new Star Wars movie, and while I wouldn't recommend it-- it is loud, frenetic, and exhausting-- I will admit that it's a serviceable storming-the-beach-style war movie, with lots of aerial cover, ground tactics, and important missions . . . and because it's detached from the actual Star Wars trilogy, anyone and everyone can die; my biggest problem with the film (besides lack of interesting characters, cheesy dialogue, and far too many scenes) is that you've got an advanced space-faring culture that's invented and perfected faster-than-light travel, but they have yet to stumble on the USB thumbdrive . . . a major part of the plot is stealing the schematics for the Death Star, which are stored on a bulky DVD ROM cartridge, that has no online access, so you have to pull it out with a manually controlled arcade-style grab-the-prize gadget . . . I know I shouldn't try to make sense of things like this during such a silly film, but it's so long that you've got time to ruminate . . . and why are all the fighter ships manned-- wouldn't you have some drones flying missions as well?

The Lorax and The Grinch Wish You Happy Holidays

Personalize your own photo collage

I finally convinced my wife to send a digital card instead of contributing to the environmental-materialist-consumer-disaster-that-is-XXXmas (the XXX is for the pornographic nature of online shopping, which I succumb to as much as anyone) and she did a fantastic job . . . now I just need to convince her that we should eschew wrapping paper, and instead do the old close-your-eyes-hold-the-gift-behind-your-back-style method of giving presents.

Good News and a Lot of Bad News

Amidst all the awful information Callum Roberts imparts about the state of our oceans in his book The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea, there is some good news:

"Great tits in cities sing shorter, faster songs at a higher pitch than those in the countryside,"

and while this doesn't override the problems discussed in the latter half of the book, which I will list in a moment, I'm always pleased when I hear about singing tits in the city, especially if they are great tits, especially a mated pair . . . but a pair of great tits, singing or not, isn't enough to undo what mankind has wrought: the undersea noise pollution that interrupts aquatic communication; the invasive species making their way across the globe; the sheets of sea lettuce, fertilized by pig-farm run-off, that that piled in sheets on the surface of the water and trapped poisonous gasses created by the very run-off that fertilized the sea lettuce; the rampant destruction of wetland and mangrove forest-- the coastline's safety system-- in order to create aquaculture pens and ponds; the hundreds of thousands of tons of krill and other small fish made into fishmeal to feed the aquaculture fish, thus eliminating food for the wild stock; the threat of genetically mutated fish breeding with wild fish; the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria within the densely populated fish pens; the bays and river mouths that lack circulation because of warming currents, and so contain incredible amounts of toxins, heavy metals, and effluvium; the dredgers that destroy habitats and churn the polluted sediment back into the water; the loss of habitat and groundwater and storm protection because of the destruction of mangrove, salt marsh and wetlands; the utter devastation wrought by fishermen catching predatory fish high on the food chain-- the reported collateral damage of catching 211 mahi-mahi on a long line in Costa Rica is beyond abysmal (here is the death toll: 468 olive ridley turtles, 20 green turtles, 408 stingrays, 47 devil rays, 413 silky sharks, 24 thresher sharks, 13 smooth hammerhead sharks, 6 crocodile sharks, 4 whitetip sharks, 68 Pacific sailfish, 34 striped marlin32 yellowfin tuna, 22 blue marlin, 11 wahoo, 8 swordfish, and 4 ocean sunfish . . . and I though line-caught was something positive) and the difficulty of convincing politicians to mandate sustainable fishing practices-- despite scientifically proven paradox that if the fishermen fish a bit less, then there will soon be more fish . . . but though there are some bright spots, and a number of organizations and nations are getting wise as we approach the brink, we're going to need to change our ways sooner rather than later, or we're going to lose some of our greatest megafauna-- which would be tragic-- and destroy an incredible source of food . . . and delicious food at that, and we're going to destroy the wildest, most alien and possibly most resilient place on the planet.

Giving the Gift of Omelas

I've been pretty good this year about controlling my Xmas Ranting . . . maybe it's because my children have moved beyond The Age of Getting Loads of Plastic Toys to less overt consumption, but I've still had a couple of Grinch-like moments: in Philosophy class, we read the classic Ursula Leguin utilitarian-parable-turned-nightmare "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" . . . if you haven't read it, then you must-- and after sharing some fairly typical Dave-like opinions on the evils of wrapping paper and the vacuous environmental disaster of mindless gift giving, I told my class that I had a brilliant idea: the only gift I would give my children for Christmas would be a gift-wrapped copy of the story (on recycled paper) and they told me I was an awful person, and I told them as much as I wished I could do that, my wife wouldn't allow it, and then I even offered them a different, more hopeful view on the story . . . an inspirational and fascinating TED Talk by Leslie T. Chang about how Chinese factory workers aren't oppressed slaves of the first world, and actually choose working in cities over awful rural conditions, and how these workers-- many of them women-- have far more autonomy and choice and upward mobility than Leguin's boy-thing in the closet . . . I recommend you consume both the story and the TED Talk, and then make your own decision as to how much you should rant about the holiday season.

Hillbilly Paradoxes

J. D. Vance's bestseller Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is an excellent primer for liberal city folks who want to learn about the culture that voted Donald Trump into office: if you go by Vance's assertions, then these white mainly Scotch-Irish generally non-college educated majority-minority "hillbilly" folks are a bundle of paradoxes:

1) they are often fiercely loyal and protective of family, especially to outsiders, but within the family there is much violence, divorce, infighting, and abuse;

2) they are vocal about the value of hard work and express a desire for jobs, but often awful about actually working-- because of factors such as frequent absences, addiction, lack of motivation, self-entitlement, refusal to pursue training and education, teenage pregnancy, and general feeling of victimization;

3) they are vocal about religion, Jesus, and church, but often awful about actually attending church-- especially in Appalachia and rural Ohio; in southwestern Ohio, church attendance is the same as in "ultra-liberal San Francisco," but folks there are afraid to admit they don't go to church, so reported church attendance is high, but actual attendance is low;

4) for those that do attend church, according to MIT economist John Gruber, people are happier, make more money, liver longer, have better health in general, drop out of high school less frequently, commit fewer crimes, and all sorts of other good stuff . . . and this appears to be "causal . . . church seems to promote good habits" but while these hillbillies-- in Kentucky or transplanted elsewhere-- are "deeply religious but without any attachment to a real church community," and thus, not receiving any of the benefits of that people  who regularly attend church enjoy;

5) though liberals see them as people that could use social safety-net programs and benefits, within the community the hard-working folks see the people who take these benefits (and often game the system) as scoundrels, who are "laughin' at our society! we're gettin' laughed at for workin' everday!" and this results in the weird situation that Thomas Frank has so often written about, that the people who need the government assistance most often vote against their best interests, but it's because they often can't stomach the people in their society that need and use these programs;

6) they lionize the American military and are jingoistically patriotic, but they are disgusted with the results in Iraq and Afghanistan;

7) despite their patriotism, they don't embrace the ideas that could vault them out of their social class-- they don't trust the mainstream media, think the deck is stacked against them, and believe that if you attend a superior college and develop critical thinking skills, then you're "too big for your britches" and "uppity," and even Vance still suffers from this cognitive dissonance . . . he made it out, but still often feels regret at the culture he lost, and finds himself an alien in the oddly nice, well-adjusted, healthy, well-educated liberal elite circles that he now frequents . . . these people don't understand that the kind of folks that join the military (as he did) are far more various than the liberal stereotypes and they don't understand the kind of folks that might take a circular saw to someone's leg because of a familial insult (as his uncle once did) and they don't understand these very very tough people that need to get even tougher (and a bit more flexible) because government policy isn't going to be enough to help them . . . they're going to have to be tough enough to shed some of their old-fashioned ways and tough enough to trust the institutions and the the liberal culture they find soft and unappealing and tough enough to love their kinfolk a bit less and the future a bit more.

The Test 70: Random Drug Test!

We've made seventy episodes of The Test, and Stacey decided it was about time to administer  a random drug test . . . Cunningham and I pass with flying colors, but it's a long strange trip: keep score, see how you fare, and try to avoid having your face eaten under a bridge.

Mold Spores Make Dave Smarter!

Not only did I survive yesterday's inhalation of dangerous stinky mold spores, but I think they may have made me smarter . . . so see if you can follow me here, as I intend on explaining and connecting all the issues of the day in one sentence; in a previous post I discussed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's theory on the difference between liberals and conservatives, and why liberals have such a hard time stomaching conservative values and understanding conservative perspective; first he breaks down social/political concerns into five categories:

1) fairness/reciprocity;

2) harm/care;

3) purity/sanctity;

4) in-group/loyalty;

5) authority/respect;

and then he explains the results of his experiments: he has found that liberals care about number one and number two, while conservatives have a "five channel" moral system . . . and I find this to be true about myself-- if you take an issue like gay marriage, then I don't think it's fair to ban gay people from marrying, and why would I care anyway?-- it helps them and gay marriage doesn't harm me-- but conservatives will often have far more complex views about the sanctity and tradition of marriage-- which I could care less about-- or loyalty to their church or religion, or respect for authority figures who disdain gay marriage . . . again which is all stuff I would never even consider-- so take a typical liberal view and you'll see that conservatives have a lot more to worry about-- I just don't give a shit about things that conservatives care deeply about, and often find them silly, which makes me lack empathy for conservatives-- and it's a problem and I see no clear solution to it, even though I understand what I don't understand about conservatives-- but here is something I figured out: I think this five channel morality explains the reason conservatives fall for fake news and conspiracy theories far more than liberals-- which absolutely infuriates everyone on the left: this debate about what is real-- the fact that in America, people ask if you "believe" in global warming, like it's a religion-- and for some background, I recommend you listen to the new Planet Money: Finding the Fake-News King, because the fake-news king is actually quite smart (and a liberal) and was creating incredible fake-news stories first as a joke and then as a very lucrative profession, and he found that he couldn't make any money with liberal fake-news, it only worked on conservatives-- people on the left would quickly fact check the news and the fake-story would fizzle, but I don't think anyone has definitively explained why this is so-- until now! thanks mold spores!-- so here it is: conservatives are more likely to fall for fake-news because the stories trigger more of those five channels-- conservatives are more loyal, and thus more likely to trust something passed along to them from a friend or trusted source, conservatives are more likely to respect the authority of the internet and not go to Snopes or start fact-checking away, and conservatives find their views to be more pure and sanctioned, so they are more likely to buy more of the same . . . while liberals-- while callous and unsympathetic to many conservative views-- are also less likely to respect a source, or think of themselves as part of a big pure group that believes a certain thing . . . it's not that liberals never fall for fake news, but they often recognize that they are just "rooting for the clothes" and don't wholeheartedly believe in anything, so the fact that the right could push an email scandal into the media for the entirety of the election-- and that conservatives could focus on this issue for that long-- while a plethora of real issues like climate change and the fact that Trump is an anti-vaxxer who said NAFTA is terrible were pushed to the side . . . don't get me started-- anyway, that's why conservatives think liberals are nice people with bad ideas, and liberals think conservatives are horrible people with insane opinions, and that's why fake and silly news stories had such a profound effect on this election, and things aren't going to get better any time soon . . . because while I now understand this better, it's not helping me any, I still think it's crazy to care deeply about channels three through five, and I still think anyone who is getting their news from random Facebook feeds and passing it along is an idiot without any critical thinking skills . . . so maybe I need to sniff another batch of mold so I can figure out the next step.

It's Been Fun

I've had a good run here on earth but I'm fairly certain that my time is coming to a close: I got motivated this morning and decided to finally clean out the refrigerator in the basement that broke months ago-- many many months ago, because back in July I said that this fridge broke "several months ago" . . . that's one of the saving graces of this stupid blog, I can actually get a decent timeframe on the significant events in my life-- anyway, I opened the freezer door and was whacked in the face by a horrendous moldy stink, and I felt the mold spores burrow straight into my brain . . . I got some bleach spray and wore a shirt over my mouth and nose for the rest of the clean-up, but I'm certain that the fungus is gestating in my skull, and I'm afraid to look on the internet for the consequences of breathing in fermented refrigerator mold, but I'm sure it's fatal, and I'm sure there's going to be a period of insanity before I die so blue monkey carrot chocolate burp sound licks the claws.

New Brunswick: Taco Trucks on Every Corner!

While I realize this is The Marco Gutierrez Nightmare, the town across the Raritan River from me--New Brunswick-- now has a thriving Hispanic population, and with that scene come the tacos and burritos and enchiladas and posole and mole Oaxaqueno and empanadas and chorizo . . . I could go on and on, but I'm already salivating; anyway, here are two recommended options, one upscale and one incredibly cheap:

1) for the best tamales in town-- and they only cost a buck and a quarter-- head to Punto Y Coma; it's on French Street right in the heart of Little Mexico, and you'll have to dust off your Spanish to order, but it's worth it . . . great tacos al pastor, too, in homemade corn tortillas;

2) for something fancier, if you're looking for a real night out, then head to Esquina Latina . . . this place has more of a weirdly lit dance-club lounge feel, but the sangria is amazing and the food is really good too . . . especially the empanadas, just don't pronounce them "empanyadas," or you'll sound like a rube (as I did).

Doors Open and Doors Close

Richard Linklater's film Everybody Wants Some!! is the story of a college baseball player learning to navigate around a new campus, a new town and-- most importantly-- a new group of dudes; while there is a main character (Jake, a freshman pitcher) the story is less about him and more of an allegory, it's the early '80's, it's Texas, it's a group of college athletes, and class has not yet begun-- so they're not learning anything academic, but they are learning how to get around (as Russell Ziskey says in Stripes, "We're not homosexuals, but we're willing to learn") and all doors are open for these young men: they visit a local bar, a disco, a honky-tonk, a punk show, they host a baseball party-- which is very fratty-- and then, the climax, they really stretch themselves socially and go to a drama party . . . they change superficially for each event by literally changing their clothes-- and Linklater captures the fashion melting pot disaster that was the early '80's, and they also change mentally, and learn to understand the hierarchy of competitive dudes and thrive in it-- as they move through the layers of the campus and the town, the scenes are superfast and various, just as you might remember the first weeks of college, old school college, before honors programs and tiger moms and high school AP classes and incredible tuition costs, back when college was a time to experiment not only with learning, but with your personality . . . you could be anyone you wanted, and move through a frenzy of settings, barely connected by any through plot; the movie almost has a detached documentary feel, there is a time stamp in the corner counting down to when class begins . . . though I wasn't heavily emotionally invested in the characters or the plot, I loved the movie, and I highly recommend going on this optimistic cinematic adventure . . . but if you're in a more dour mood, and want think about doors closing, because of age, situation, and personality-- and you want to laugh like hell about all this existential misery-- then watch Season 5 of Louie . . . Louie also navigates a complex and variegated world, but it's a darker universe than the bright Texas sun in Everybody Wants Some!!-- Louie gets beat up by a trashy girl, spends some painful and enlightening times with a hack comic in Oklahoma, visits a chanting cult by accident, awkwardly attends a school potluck, tries (unsuccessfully) to NOT interact with his driver while he's on the road, bores the hell out of his psychoanalyst, has an intimate encounter with a pregnant surrogate, spends an awful evening with a childhood friend who is now an incompetent and depressed cop, takes an old time picture with some nice ladies, and travels through all the odd, weird, and often inscrutable layers of New York and beyond, and he's barely able to comprehend any of it, he can't seem to fit in or get comfortable, he can't find a bathroom, disappoints himself, his daughters, and his lover, and then takes this misery and processes it into stand-up comedy . . . now that I've sat down and written this reflection in contrast, I'm a bit sad and nostalgic: I miss the opportunity and flexibility that youth and college offers-- or once offered, those days might be gone . . . they are certainly gone for me, and they might be gone for everyone except the ultra-rich-- and I can see my future and it's not bright: the world will get more and more confusing, more and more closed off to me, as I grow older and my neurons stiffen and my ability to tolerate new situations gets worse and worse . . . I don't even know how to write myself out of this corner.

Stop the Country, I Want To Get Off!

In more news that sounds fake but isn't, Betsy DeVos-- the billionaire freelance Christian educational reformer who Trump has chosen for Secretary of Education-- has revealed that she would like to "help advance God's Kingdom" in the pedagogical realm . . . she's not content just donating money to Christian schools, instead she wants to "be in that Shephelah, and to confront the culture," which basically means she wants to fight the good fight against the Philistines-- of which I am one-- and she acknowledges that "the church-- which ought to be in our view more central to the life of the community-- has been displaced by the public school as the center for activity, the center for what goes on in the community" but she hopes with charter schools and tax credits and vouchers that the church can get more and more central and involved in the education of the youth . . . and I know she's not speaking to me, or my area of the country-- but still . . . HOLY SHIT . . . this is a wonderful, wild, weird admission of actual political/religious purpose-- in a way it's lovely because it's so clear and so crazy, an incredibly brazen violation of the separation of church and state, the admission of a deep-held desire for the government to fund religious affiliation-- Christian religious affiliation-- and a bizarre plan to unravel the most accessible democratic institution in American life-- the public school-- which is now a place where parents of any class, status, religion, and/or belief can have an immediate effect . . . a place where local people can run for school board or serve on the PTA or volunteer or coach or simply attend functions and have influence-- and so I love to see her ardent longing laid bare, her yen to turn this special place into a segregated religious institution . . . to place the secular setting where arts and music and sports and various clubs of all stripes and denominations happen under a religious purview, and more importantly, to taint the place where our critical thinking is taught with the tincture of Christian ideology-- hello Creationism!-- and I just love that she says it out loud, for everyone to hear . . . it's a great reminder of how ideologically different people are in this great country of ours; for a loosely connected reason why this is a weird and wild turn of events, listen to Sam Harris talk to Shady Hamid about his new book: Islamic Exceptionalism . . . Hamid explains that one of the major differences between the Islamic nations that often export terror and Western nations that do not, is that Islam is completely intertwined with politics, and there is no separation of church and state, nor is there even the idea that it's possible to separate religion and politics in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia . . . but there's no way that the Senate in the United States of America will approve her, right?

Te Cacharon!

Ian failed a Spanish quiz last week, so my wife has been on his case, to ensure that he's ready for the test this week-- last night Ian was sitting at the dining room table, doing an online quiz on the laptop, reciting Spanish words aloud, when my wife-- who was in the kitchen-- said to him, "What are you doing?" and Ian said, "Doing the quiz" and my wife said, "Look in the window" and Ian turned and looked and he realized that my wife could see the reflection of the laptop screen in the dining room window, and he also realized that his clever ruse of mumbling random Spanish words while he played Slither.io (an online Centipede-like video game) had failed him . . . te cacharon!

Do NOT Read This Book

I'm in too deep to stop, but it would be hard for me to recommend Callum Roberts' book The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea-- it's just too depressing-- though he tries to keep the tone as hopeful as possible, the weight of the evidence is overwhelming: our oceans, the life within them, and the complex food-chains and filters of our planet are in dire jeopardy, unless we collectively start doing things very differently; here are some awful things I've learned so far:

1) the ocean is absorbing much of the carbon dioxide emitted when we burn fossil fuels, and this is causing a usurious problem that has been overlooked until recently: ocean acidification . . . to an extent that hasn't been seen in 300 million years-- at the end of the Permian, when there was a mass extinction; many corals, marine plants, and shelled animals need "dissolved carbonate minerals" and the lower pH makes it harder for these animals to "crystallize carbonate" out of a solution;

2) a cool fact, a pint of seawater contains two billion viruses, and they are helping to slow the rate at which the ocean is acidifying, but no one knows at what level of pH those tiny organisms won't be able to function-- or if they function too well, then there is an increase in global warming, because they recycle the the nutrients in sunlit waters-- keeping carbon in the cycle, instead of letting it sink into the deep sea;

3) nutrients, fertilizer and run-offs are causing toxic algal blooms at a much greater intensity and rate, red tides and other toxic phytoplankton which, when ingested, can cause hallucinations, nightmares, nerve-damage, cancer, birth defects, and tumors (especially in sea turtles) and the increase of big storms with high-winds has exacerbated airborne instances of sickness and contact, the "storms churn the sea into a spray which can be inhaled," resulting in rashes and lung inflammation . . . but what's bad for us is good for one creature-- the "triple combination of nutrient enrichment, low oxygen, and overfishing" is wonderful for jellyfish, so if you're taking a trip to the beach, make sure you bring meat tenderizer;

4) persistent organic pollutants (POPs for short) are building up in water and ice and animal fat all over the world, chemicals like DDT and PCBs are especially deleterious-- the toxic load carried by male dolphins in Sarasota Bay makes their flesh equivalent to biohazard . . . females have lower amounts of toxins because they pass much of the bad stuff to their offspring through pregnancy and breast feeding . . . and these toxins are making their way up the food chain, into large animals like whales and humans, and there are thousands of new chemicals wending their way through the waters and polar ice and food chains and we don't even know the consequences, so get used to the acronyms, there will be more to come;

5) if the chemicals don't get you, the heavy metals will-- the most toxic is mercury, and the main culprit for mercury pollution are coal-fired power plants . . . Asian plants produce over half of the world's mercury pollution, and it seems they are "hell-bent on building more" such plants . . . and if Trump has his way with deregulation, maybe we'll see more coal burning in America as well . . . anyway, my son loves sushi, but he really shouldn't be eating it, as tuna often exceeds safe levels of mercury . . . but the FDA also recommends that children and pregnant women don't eat swordfish, king mackerel, tilefish, and shark . . .

and I'm not even halfway done with the book, so sorry, but there will be more bad news to come.

The Test 69: Livin' La Vida Cunningham

This week on The Test, Cunningham forces Stacey and I to get in touch with our inner-Latina: check it out, keep score, and see if you're a supermalo estudiante de espanol.

Trump Saves Jobs and the American Economy!

Sorry . . . everyone else is writing fake news clickbait, so I've decided to join them-- I'm also sorry that Trump did not save the American economy when he strong-armed Carrier air-conditioning into staying in Indiana with a stick and a carrot-- respectively: he threatened them with tariffs on products they import into the U.S. and provided them with a 7 million dollar state-subsidized tax break . . . this, of course, is taking America one step closer to the isolationist insanity of North Korea-- not that I think there will be too much more of this, I'm hoping Trump did it purely so he could tweet-brag something, and that this is not as an economic policy . . . anyway, for those of you who are confused at how saving 800 jobs is not such a good thing, first of all, understand this is a drop in the bucket-- we've lost five million manufacturing jobs in America since the year 2000-- and if you want to know the effects of enacting high tariffs and forcing companies to stay in the country, listen to this excellent episode of Planet Money: Tires, Taxes, and the Grizz . . . or read my summary of it, anyway, all this means is that Indiana is subsidizing these jobs, and the threats to enact tariffs on parts and labor in Mexico is going to upset the complex supply chains between the U.S. and Mexico, and so Carrier air-conditioners will get more expensive and Americans will foot that bill-- the same way we foot the bill for Chinese tire tariffs . . . it's always cheaper to just pay off or retrain the 800 workers who lost their jobs and let the globalized market work its magic, but that's not fun to tweet about . . . in future fake news (that just might get real) avocadoes: $45 each!

Spacehog: Things Get Eponymous

A notable Topic of Interlocution at the Park Pub last night-- we attempted to determine the best eponymous song . . . in other words, the best song with the same title as the band that played it; here are some of the contenders:

1) "Bad Company" by Bad Company;

2) "This is Radio Clash" by The Clash;

3) "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath;

4) "They Might Be Giants" by They Might Be Giants;

5) "Minor Threat" by Minor Threat;

and there was only one song that was not considered; this song was brought to the attention of the panel by Roman, but despite the fact that it was Roman's name day, "Spacehog" by Spacehog was pronounced not only downright awful, but also very silly.

Let Them Eat Squid

I am in the middle of reading a rather depressing book called The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea, and so far, the theme is that the oceans are depleted-- humans have always pulled an incredible bounty from the sea and that has declined precipitously of late . . . and because we always reset the baseline, we can't even imagine how many fish were in the sea before our own time, unless we take an empirically scientific approach, as Loren McClenachan did with the shifting baseline of fish in the Florida Keys . . . this is not a fun study to read (nor is it amusing to look at the photos . . . but that's the story) and things are only getting worse . . . because of over-fishing of sardines and other filter feeders, and the resultant unchecked algal blooms and sulfuric up-swellings, and the warming of the top layer of the ocean-- a product of global warming-- which causes greater sequestration of oceanic layers and less mixing of the oxygen-deprived middle layer of water and the much warmer nutrient-rich upper layers, the ocean is a much less hospitable for large delicious finned fish and they are becoming more and more rare . . . but while big fish (and aquatic mammals) are on the decline, one of the few big animals that can survive in this ugly environment is the seven-foot, rather-intelligent, rather-vicious Humboldt squid, and this fearsome creature is edible, and so we may not be able to enjoy tuna and mahi-mahi and Chilean sea bass and cod, but we may still have some ersatz seafood on our table, nonetheless: slabs of chewy calamari . . . unless, of course, we make some serious regulatory changes in how much carbon we pump into the atmosphere and how much we harvest from the oceans-- but certainly America, in voting for Donald Trump, has expressed a disinterest in any of this (or perhaps even a malevolent skepticism that any of this science actually exists and holds water) and so when the price of fish skyrockets and there is nothing left to haul in except ten-tentacled suction beasts, we must assume that the powers that be will simply say: "Let them eat squid."

No Such Yuck

A bird shit on my driver-side car door handle last night, but instead of wiping it off, I gingerly opened the door-- gripping the handle with two fingers, thus avoiding the poop-- and I figured that the rain would wash it away by morning, but no such luck . . . apparently bird shit is water-resistant (and I still haven't wiped it off . . . today the rain is supposed to be torrential, so I'm hoping for the best).

This Underground Railroad is Actually Underground

I was pleasantly surprised (and pleasantly horrified) by Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad . . . I assumed that because of all the critical praise the book received (and because of the content) that reading it would be like eating fiber, good for you but no fun, but I was very wrong; Whitehead starts with the childhood conceit that the underground railroad is actually an underground railroad, and in the spirit of the magical realists, he makes you buy his fantasy . . . and in between the dream-like underground journeys on the train, the main character Cora-- a runaway slave-- who suffered abominably on the plantation and witnessed things even worse than she endured, finds herself in a fragmented variegated mainly hostile country; each stop on her journey is insidiously evil in it's own unique way; there are scenes reminiscent of the Tuskegee experiment, Anne Frank's captivity, Flannery O'Connor's Gothic South, and the stereotypical Southern plantation . . . and the common thread that unites this ugly patchwork of loosely connected territories of racism and abuse, is the slave-hunter Ridgeway and his odd companion/slave Homer, an educated and erudite miniature lackey on a bizarre epic journey far from his African-American roots, making his way in the only way that he can, betraying his people in order to thrive and survive; the book certainly evokes the state of our country today: fragmented, unsympathetic and divisive, and the theme is ominous-- perhaps only a civil war and the consequent reconstruction can mend the rips and tears in the fabric of our nation . . . but despite this heaviness, the novel is a damned good read . . . horrific, hallucinatory, compelling, and epic by turns, and just when you think you can't take it any longer, when you've entered the broken mind of the slave and see no escape from the shackles and chains, then the plot takes off and you're on the train, underground, excited to poke your head above ground in some new place, with some new tone and tenor, possibly better than what came before.

This Sentence Is Not About A Bench

Early Sunday morning at the dog park, behind the bench, in the shadow of the bench, there was a white bench-shaped outline of rime-frost on the dark soil . . . the sun had melted the frost everywhere else, except within the shadow of the bench; forty-six years on this planet, and this was the most beautiful (and first) bench-shaped rime-frost outline I had ever seen.

The Test 68: The Key Piece

This is the episode of The Test we recorded the day after the election-- we decided we wanted to capture some audio as close to the incident as possible-- and you can certainly hear the depression and shock in our voices, but despite this ugly subtext, there's a good test buried amidst the maudlin political ramblings; dig in, give it a shot, and see if you can identify the key piece.