Spiders and Snakes Oh My

My son Ian came home from the woods yesterday sporting two garter snake bites-- one on his hand and one on his finger, both fairly impressive and bloody, the teeth marks visible on his skin-- and not only did he catch two rather angry garter snakes, but he also nabbed a beautifully colored ring-necked snake (they are mildly venomous, but harmless to humans because their fangs face backwards and they have a very calm disposition) and in this regard my son is just like me, I loved catching snakes when I was a kid and couldn't get enough of stalking them; on the other hand, I'm not particularly fond of spiders, but my boys think they are peachy keen . . . while we were on vacation in Vermont, Alex chose to sleep in the basement of the house we rented, two floors away from the rest of us, and he even did this after we watched The Shining, and in the middle of the night, he said he woke up and felt something on his face, and it was a giant spider, so he killed it, and then went back to sleep, and I was astounded at this, that he had no nightmare, that he didn't come upstairs screaming, that he just shrugged it off as business as usual when you're sleeping in a basement in a cabin in the woods in Vermont.

At Least It Was Bob (and not a Bot)

My friend Bob showed me a demonstration video for the Electro Harmonix Synth 9 Synthesizer Machine Pedal (a guitar pedal that makes your guitar sound just like a variety of 80's synths!) and, in a manner of seconds, I went from not knowing that such a piece of technology existed to absolutely needing to possess it-- which is absurd-- but at least I can take solace in the fact that it was my friend and fellow musician Bob who recommended this item to me, because he knew I would love it, and not some advertising bot that predicted my predilection because my internet provider sold my search data to some company (for more on the evils of technology and how it will most likely be a bot and not your friend Bob who controls your future, listen to the new Sam Harris podcast, in which he discusses the philosophical implications of technological platforms that essentially want to monopolize our time far more than our mental health can tolerate-- Sam Harris is close to insufferable, especially when he talks about meditation and the stupid meditation app that he is designing, but he's also very smart and his guest, Design Ethicist Tristan Harris, is brilliant on this subject).

This Game Needs a Name . . .

Alec and I collaborated on a fantastic new party game last night and we even persuaded a few people to participate . . . the rules are a bit ambiguous and we haven't come up with a name, but the gist of it is this: you name two bands or musicians, and then triangulate the average-- there are no definite right answers but there are certainly wrong ones, and when you hear a really good answer, you know it's correct . . . for instance, everyone agreed that when you triangulate Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger, you get Prince; here are a few other notable answers from last night:

Neil Young + Bob Dylan = Tom Petty

Metallica + The Indigo Girls = PJ Harvey

Jimi Hendrix + Steve Perry = Lenny Kravitz . . .

I kept trying to introduce new elements to the game-- food and actors and book titles-- to make it more complicated and surreal, but this really offended one lady, who was quite knowledgeable about music and took the game very seriously (she offered a rather longwinded logical and detailed explanation of why Neil Peart is the triangulation of Keth Moon and Phil Collins) and so all I can say is the next time you're at a party, give it a shot, at the very least it will provoke some conversation . . . and if you want to get people involved, start with Michael Jackson + Mick Jagger = Prince before you move on to triangulations like Mozart + Weezer = Camper Van Beethoven.

A Bit More Serenity Than Yesterday . . .

Last day of the ski/snowboard season was a memorable one-- Okemo kept the Jackson-Gore Peak closed all week and opened it yesterday, so while the main mountain was a treacherous obstacle course of slushy snow, dirt patches, large rocks, ice, and crevasses, Jackson-Gore had a few perfectly groomed runs with full snow cover . . . and the weather was sunny and fairly warm, the snow was soft and forgiving but not slushy, there was nobody on the mountain, and my kids didn't get into a fistfight in the lodge (although later in the day, Alex punted a soccer ball into the back of Ian's head, knocking him to the ground, where he curled into the fetal position, wailing loud enough that I heard him from the other side of the house).

Serenity Almost

The scene: early morning in the ski lodge, snowy mountains stretched across the front windows, clusters of people quietly chatting, sipping coffee and buckling boots, and I have just ascended the stairs from the bathroom, and I am walking across the wide open main room, which is pleasantly uncrowded-- it's the end of the season-- and I notice, at the far side, near our table . . . no at our table . . . two small people fighting, some fists are thrown, a headlock is poorly executed (because both small people are wearing helmets) and I increase the speed of my previously languid stride because these are my children, and some random old guy is about to break them up, but I get there first, stop the brawl-- Ian is crying because he smashed his nose on Alex's helmet-- and they can't really explain the origin of the fight, Alex said something and Ian whacked him on the head and Alex lost his temper . . . and so I give up on that course of action and I make them look at the scene, look at the room and the mountains and the quiet people and the general serenity, and try to convince them how absolutely absurd they looked fighting in this scenario . . . and they agree with this sentiment, that they are spoiled awful human beings with no appreciation for the finer things in life and no clue how good they have it, and that there are children in Syria, refugees, who are starving and without medical care, who would give anything to be in a situation as wonderful and beautiful as this, and then we proceed out to the lift, laden with the guilt of living in a first world country and not fully appreciating it, and enjoy the spring conditions.

The Test 83: Going Viral

This week on The Test, Cunningham proudly presents "the dumbest thing she's ever made," and while she doesn't know what the answers are, or even what she's looking for, Stacey and I have no problem meeting her half way . . . so see if you know what's up with the youngsters, and what it takes to earn yourself a plaque and go viral.

Family + Isolation = Here's Johnny!

Catherine keeps interrupting me while I write this sentence, but I'm trying to keep my cool . . . I'm trying to avoid bashing her brains in with an ax (all work and no play makes Dave a dull boy) and I'm going to crack open a beer soon (all work and no play makes Dave a dull boy) because it rained today and so we holed up at the house and watched The Shining (streamable on Netflix) and I realized the true moral of the film is Don't go on the wagon while you're isolated on a mountain with your family . . . Jack could have used a little actual alcohol (not ghost whiskey) to soothe his nerves and then maybe he wouldn't have lost his mind . . . anyway, Catherine and I are staying flexible and mentally resilient, despite the wild swings in the weather-- yesterday we hiked all the way around Lowell Lake, the trail went from balmy to treacherous depending on the sun exposure, one moment we were walking on soft pine needles in the warm sun, the next we were being frozen by the spray of a snow-fueled stream while navigating ice fields; I was a little nervous that I might pull a muscle, but the kids loved it-- they said all the obstacles kept them more occupied and "confuzzled," so they didn't have time to bicker . . . the dog also loved the mixed terrain, and Catherine and I survived without injury; today we had to beat a hasty retreat from the mountain because of the rain and fog, but after we finished The Shining, we came up out of the basement to see the sun again, so I stopped sharpening my ax and we went outside and played some snow football.

Interesting Coleopteran Information

Love Me Do! The Beatles Progress is regarded by many credible sources as the best book about the Beatles and while I'm not the one to dispute this-- this is the only book about The Beatles I've read-- I think this is a great book on its own merits, an in-the-moment meditation on fame, mania, art, and celebrity-- The Beatles stuff is just icing on the cake; anyway, Michael Braun accompanies the Liverpudlians for several weeks of a world tour in 1963, just as Beatlemania is taking hold of the world-- and The Beatles present a telling contrast to Elvis and Cliff Richard, two of the big stars at the time-- both crooners who were very male and rather sexual . .  Frank Sinatra is another artist mentioned frequently; meanwhile, no one over twenty could understand what was going on with The Beatles, teenagers, mainly girls, flocked to anywhere that a Beatle might turn up, and Braun was there to document it all . . . this is a quick read and I recommend you go along for the magical mystery tour and read the book, but if not, here is a quick and messy look at the things I highlighted on my Kindle:

there are plenty of quips and quotes, and many of them reveal the archetypal character traits that become more concrete later in their careers;

Ringo Starr, 23 years old . . . "I don't care about politics . . . just people";

George Harrison, 21 years old, says: "I wouldn't do anything I didn't want to, would I?" and then explains his ambition is to design a guitar;

Paul McCartney, 22, would like "to be successful" and wants "money to do nothing with, money to have in case you wanted to do something";

John Lennon, 23, explains: "The more people you meet, the more you realize it's all a class thing";

then some trouble with visas when they came to America for the first time, but they were eventually  granted an H2 visa, a step above the H3 trainee visa, but below H1, which was reserved for "persons of distinguished merit and ability";

there are, of course, moments that seem prescient now . . . such as, in New York, before the Ed Sullivan appearance, Cynthia Lennon wanted to go out shopping but was afraid to venture out into the city alone, and she noted "the fans here seem a bit wackier than in England";

Braun actually delves into the intellectuals and their attempt to understand Beatlemania, instead of dismissing it . . . he describes how the critics spoke of pandiatonic versus diatonic, unresolved leading tones, false modal frames, and dominant seventh of the mixolydian . . . but the appeal was more than musical . . .

well known television psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers offered her two cents as well, explaining that teen revolt is perfectly normal and unavoidable in a country which allows "social change, individualism, and free choice of lifestyle" and parents may fight back against this rebellion but it's because they have blocked out how difficult and traumatic it is to be a teenager in such a world, adults "honestly cannot believe that we ourselves were ever that unreasonable, sloppy and goonish . . . and so from generation to generation, the war wages on . . . the Beatles are a marvelous symbol to adolescents of their rebellion against adult society"

and Dr Renee Fox, sociologist, discussed their dual roles as male and female, adult and child, and how appealing this was, and how-- because they can barely be heard above the shrieks of the audience, they almost play the role of mimes . . . a play within a play . . .

and I'll end with one last bit of interesting coleopteran information . . . George Harrison made the mistake of telling fans that he liked to eat "jelly babies," a British gummy candy that takes the form of a plump infant, and so fans constantly pelted the band with these sweets, sometimes leaving them in the bag . . . Ringo Starr said getting hit with bag after bag of jelly babies felt like enduring "hailstones"

and the while the band's high jinks are tame and clownish by today's standards, Michael Braun can tell there's something big and bold in this popular rebellion, and The Beatles had the wit, talent, looks, and ability to ride the wave all the way to shore.

Spring Break Vermont: Hot as Daytona, But No Wet T-Shirt Contest

Some highlights from this bizarrely warm snowboarding trip:

1) fun this morning at Okemo, but got extremely slushy and thus exhausting . . . it's supposed to be even warmer tomorrow, so that might be it for the mountain;

2) the nearby Buttermilk Falls are all roaring from the snowmelt, and I came to a revelation while the boys and I were trying to hit a piece of blue Styrofoam spinning in the whirlpool at the base of one of the larger falls-- we were chucking rocks like mad, but not connecting-- and then I realized the most accurate method was "cornhole style" and tossed one like that which nearly hit, but Ian mimicked me and hit the foam with his very first cornhole type toss;

3) Catherine and I went snowshoeing into the woods (I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and still sweating) and we found the creature that Sirius treed the day before-- it was a porcupine and it now lay dead at the base of a hollowed out tree . . . we're not sure how it died, or if it was this particular porcupine that was alive the day before, or perhaps a relative . . . but there's no way Sirius attacked this thing, because it was all full of sharp quills . . . perhaps the winter hibernation was just too much for it;

4) the people that own this house have similar taste to us in high quality board games-- Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, Bananagrams, Ticket to Ride, etc. . . . in fact, they already owned almost all of the games we brought (except for Exploding Kittens, which is a silly card game that is totally inappropriate, with lots of butt and genitals jokes and, of course, exploding kittens . . . my kids found it on their shelf and loved it) and we tried one of their other games, Seven Wonders, and it had way too many pieces for Ian and I, but Catherine and Alex think it's the bees knees, so even among board game snobs, there are major disagreements as to what constitutes excellence.

Spring Break Vermont!

Weird winter wonderland up here in Southern Vermont: we are staying at our favorite rental property, it lies in a pocket of deep snow between Weston and Andover and though at the bottom of the mountain there are only slushy piles of the white stuff, at the top of the hill-- where the house is-- the snow is several feet deep; we've built a long and dangerous luge run that ends in a pit I dug . . . and if you pop over the far wall of the pit then you run into a rock wall (not recommended) and we went over to Okemo Mountain today for some snowboarding, and while the bottom runs were slushy, up at the top the snow was perfect . . . tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer than today, so I'm not sure what's going to happen, but we'll probably be acting like we're out west, skiing in t-shirts and slathering on the sunblock (I might even toss my bra into that tree full of lingerie).

What the High School Kids Think Is Funny

A student told me this joke, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker:

How did the turtle cross the freeway?

Hint: take the "f" out of free and take the "f" out of way . . . punchline in the comments.

Spoilers, Ancient and Modern

If you haven't listened to S-Town yet, you should . . . and if you haven't read (or watched) Hamlet yet, then you probably never will and it would be silly for me to recommend it (sort of like recommending that you check out the Bible) but I'd like to point out some interesting parallels between the podcast and Shakespeare's most famous tragedy:

1) both contain themes of suicide, Hamlet contemplates suicide but chickens out-- though he can barely stand the "slings and arrows" life has sent his direction-- and John B. actually makes good on his promise to remove himself from the picture because he's just so "tired" of dealing with all the shit;

2) bother John B. and Hamlet see themselves in an "unweeded garden" of corruption and betrayal;

3) Brian Reed, the narrator and reporter in S- Town,plays the same role as Horatio-- he goes on a trip to investigate a death and ends up as an involved bystander in a world that is both intellectual and depraved;

4) Hamlet and John B. both believe that "frailty thy name is woman";

5) in both works, there is family intrigue and alliances, oblivious to the machinations of the outside world, and in the end, Fortinbras and the Burt family  operate in the same manner, swooping in to take over the land;

6) there is the distinct possibility that both protagonists are insane, and rereading or relistening makes this more and more apparent;

7) there are plays within plays in both works-- the back room in the tattoo shop, the needle play, the dramas within dramas of John B.'s relationships;

8) there is the theme of time and time dilation . . . no one can figure out how time passes in Hamlet, the span may be much longer than we think, and the same with S- Town-- John is involved with his horological studies, but it's impossible to trace when his mercury induced insanity began, when he went from trying to improve the town with his friend the clerk to feeling betrayed by everything, and if Brian Green ever knew him in a time of sanity;

9) both pieces contain plenty of dark humor amidst the tragedy;

10) both protagonists are most certainly geniuses;

11) both John B. and Hamlet have weird relationships with their respective mothers, and odd stances towards sex;

12) I really like the podcast and the play.

Memories . . . Light the Corners of My Mind?

Dan Chaon's new thriller Ill Will will make you question everything you think you know about your past, and while elements of the novel are predictable, Chaon's experiments with structure are enough to discomfit any normal narrative experience . . . whatever that means . . . and if you're gullible enough, you'll fall for everything, and if you're not impressionable, then you'll certainly be horrified, so however you enter this story, you're bound to be disturbed.

I Am Valuable

Although I'm certainly not the head chef in our kitchen, there are certain things at which I excel during dinner preparation:: I am a good chopper of vegetables, and (of course) I am good drinker of wine and beer, I select the best of the best when it comes to cooking music (although I sometimes get a bit lost in the selecting process) and I recently discovered another culinary skill that I possess . . . I am phenomenal at reading a recipe aloud, enunciating the measurements, so that my wife can execute the instructions without consulting the computer-- and this skill dovetails perfectly with the drinking and the musical selection, so it's a win-win-win!

Jimmy Gluestick Fingers

Our family just watched the 1990 Tim Burton classic Edward Scissorhands, and while we enjoyed the visuals: the brightly colored antiseptic suburbs, the dark contrast of the castle, the extent of the whimsical topiaries, the odd menace of Anthony Michael Hall, and the steampunk chic of Edward himself, we had some problems with the logic of the story: Mister Scissorhands occasionally eats, but he doesn't seem to actually require sustenance to survive, and he never goes to the bathroom--  he's obviously never removed his leather skinsuit (one of the problems of having scissors for hands) and he seems to be immortal-- as indicated by the ancient Winona Ryder at the end of the film-- but it's never explained what his energy source is . . . my kids thought maybe he generated power with the constant clicking of his scissorhands; we also speculated on possible sequels . . . Jimmy Gluestick Fingers, Johnny Tape Hands, Martha Marker Nails, Philip Fork Phalanges, etcetera.

To Distribute or Not to Distribute

My two favorite wonky podcasts have recently done episodes on healthcare (The Weeds, Common Sense) and the takeaway is this:

1) Americans pay a ton of money for healthcare and we don't get very good results-- we may be the greatest country in the world for lakes, but we are not even in the ballpark when it comes to health outcomes-- not only do we pay more, but we get less, and-- most significantly-- for a developed country, we die rather young;

2) we have taken the worst aspects of free markets and government subsidized healthcare and combined them, and at every step of the way, players are trying to squeeze profits from the system-- and without the government to negotiate prices, the patient is screwed;

3) Republicans care more about giving a tax break to rich people than actually reforming the system;

4) we may be subsidizing medical innovations for the rest of the world with our high drug costs . . . or that's what people who work in the industry would like you to believe;

and Dave's theory is this:

it all comes down to what William Gibson said: "the future is here-- it's just not evenly distributed," and how America decides to apply this sentiment to the population, as there's plenty of incredible medical advances, knowledge, drugs, and treatments and if we distributed these to the majority of Americans, we'd have a much healthier country . . . or you could take the Paul Ryan route and try to make the distribution as lumpy and uneven as possible, which might save money, or might allow for some advances for certain people, but wouldn't give everyone access to the future that is already here . . . and it seems that the disagreement over Gibson's idea breaks down along party lines; I know I'd rather have everyone getting access to all we have available now, even if that meant there wouldn't be as many innovations in the future, especially if you could decouple health care from employment and allow people to move around the country and switch careers without fear of losing benefits, as that would really spur the economy (as would a healthier populace) and maybe convince a few folks that coal mining is the only way to make a living (despite the particulate matter and mercury poisoning, which are quite costly, from both an environmental and healthcare perspective) but there are plenty of people-- rich people, conservative people, lobbyists, people in the medical business-- that would like to see things continue as they are, or even get less evenly distributed and make the industry more about economics and free markets . . . but the important thing to remember is that good health is a temporary state, no matter how well you feel, the reaper's scythe will cut you down to size soon enough . . . cheers!

The Test 82: Fill in the Trump

The bigliest, most beautiful, classiest Test ever, inspired by this Car Seat Headrest song . . . a great great test, I'm certain you're going to love it.

The Problem is You, Dave

More often than I'd like, I jack my phone into a charging cord that is not plugged into any sort of electrical outlet, and then at some unspecified later time, I get really annoyed and think my battery doesn't hold a charge.

No Spoilers (No Shit)

I finished S-Town this afternoon, and I won't spoil anything-- other than the fact that my previous prediction (Bitcoin!) was idiotic . . . you couldn't invent the ending to the story of John B. McLemore (and neither could I).

Spoiler? Only If Dave is as Smart as John B. McLemore

I am just starting episode five of S-Town, the fantastic new podcast from the producers of This American Life and Serial, and I have a bold out-of-the-box prediction (especially considering the Flannery O'Connoresque Southern Gothic tone of the story) and I promise my speculative conjecture won't spoil a thing if you haven't started listening, but I'm making my guess and it's Bitcoin.

Why Do We Walk So Far For Ice Cream?

The Median Voter Theorem-- an idea based on Harold Hoteling's theory of spatial competition, which Anthony Downs linked to the U.S. two party political system-- makes perfect logical sense; both ice cream trucks (or political parties) should move toward the middle of the block to capture the median voter (while still being the closest and most appetizing option for the extreme voters as well) and thus the two parties should move closer and closer together (while still remaining discernible) but for various reasons that Tyler Cowen outlines in his new book, reasons such as lobbyists, stasis, financiers, entrenched budgets, complacent participation in democracy and elections, the lack of meaning behind most policy, entrenched budgets and discretionary spending, and a bunch of other shit, this rational model doesn't apply any longer . . . and this is really really strange and means that the polarized political world that we now live in is much weirder than you might imagine . . . so watch the video, and then come up with your own theory on why we're completely insane and willing to walk a really long way for ice cream, and if you really want to be depressed (and intrigued) by stasis and stagnation, and the possibility of an apocalyptic reset that will not only drain the swamp, weed the garden, and possibly set fire to the wicked, read Tyler Cowen's fantastic, precise and intelligent book The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream, and if you're looking for something more metaphorical, literary, and Southern Gothic, then check out the podcast S-Town . . . but be careful about digesting them in combination, as you'll be in for an ugly ride.

Dave Returns! With the Usual Drivel . . .

My wife and I escaped from the children this weekend and enjoyed some unscheduled time in the City of Brotherly Love . . . and while we certainly experienced some love, it was mainly of the segregated and gentrified sort-- 13th Street near McGillin's pub is no longer gritty and urban, it's now a wonderful upscale strip of restaurants, bars, and coffee shops catering to young hipsters . . . here's a quick and dirty rundown of some of the stuff we did and saw:

1) after hiking over to the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, which is a bit of a haul from center city but definitely worth a stop, we wandered into a Trump Rally, which was fairly small (apparently it got bigger and wilder as the day went on) and while it was pretty tame, it did have the usual jingoistic chanting, an African-American representing Black Lives Matter with a megaphone in an argument with a bearded Trump supporter, and some people off to the side with a fantastic sign condemning everyone; the sign read:

LUKEWARM CHRISTIANS LIKE TRUMP 

WILL BURN IN HELL WITH ALL LIBERALS

REPENT AND OBEY JESUS 

which is a statement I've got to admire in its candid comprehensiveness and straightforward sentiment;

2) we saw the horror movie Get Out, which is funny, scary, and satirizes race relations in America-- I highly recommend the film, it's totally entertaining . . . and soon after, when we were walking through a slightly sketchy area that harbored some prostitutes and homeless folks, a rather tipsy African-American woman yelled, "White people stink!" at my wife and me, and I told her she should go see Get Out, which would certainly confirm her hypothesis;

3) we ate at some excellent places: Lolita, Pub and Kitchen, Sampan, Dan Dan, and Misconduct Tavern.

Questions of Dave Part IV

Did the lobbyists who perpetuate our flawed and byzantine healthcare system conspire with the lobbyists who block tax reform?-- because they both have an interest in preserving systems that squeeze the maximum profit out of every step of the equation-- and why do these folks hate the American people so fucking much?

Questions of Dave Part III

Now that music is essentially free (Spotify, YouTube, etc.) and streamable, will creditors grant amnesty to those who are still delinquent on their BMG Music Service and Columbia House Cassette of the Month club bills, because they fell prey to the negative option payment mechanism?

Questions of Dave Part II

At what rate must you consume a 48 ounce plastic jug of garden fresh Costco salsa in order to finish it before it goes sour?

Questions of Dave Part I

Cat and I are leaving the kids with my parents and heading to the City of Brotherly Love for the weekend, so I'll provide you some questions to ponder while I'm off the reservation:

1) how many hours of vintage Van Halen concert footage must I force my children to watch before they can truly appreciate the preteen portrayal of Van Halen in the "Hot For Teacher" video?

Dave's Brain = Random Band Name Generator

From the man who provided this phenomenal (but inappropriate) band name, gratis, here's another . . . it's a bit more intellectual, perfect for some math-rockers looking for a moniker:

The Algorithms of Delphi. 

Dave Has No Need For Telepathy

It turns out that my new mind-reading machine is fairly useless-- I thought it might be interesting to read Donald Trump's mind, but his thoughts are identical to his tweets-- and every time I used it on people in my general vicinity, they were thinking the exact same thing: Dave's here! Awesome!

Telepathy of Dave

Just got my new mind-reader operating, so I pointed it at Paul Ryan's brain and found this gem: people will enjoy their own subpar healthcare more if a bunch of other people they know don't have any healthcare at all.

Dave + March = Mirror Madness

I was tired today, despite a good night's sleep and I just realized why . . . I'm exhausted from watching all that NCAA basketball-- that's right, I'm physically tired from sitting on my butt, vicariously competing-- because my mirror neurons were firing like crazy for much of Saturday and Sunday afternoon: in fact, scientifically, it's like I played 80% of those games, because that's the percentage of neurons that fire when you're watching sports (as opposed to playing sports) and I watched quite a few games (the weather was lousy on Saturday) so really I'm probably more tired than some of the kids who were playing, plus I battled plenty of monsters during Kong:Skull Island . . . so I more than earned this beer I'm drinking, and I can't wait to get another phenomenal workout next weekend.

The Test 81: Of What It Is Made

This week on The Test, Dave and Stacey learn that a lot of stuff is made of other kinds of stuff . . . and Cunningham knows what that stuff is . . . not only that, she also knows how to dispose of old soup; so play along and see if you know of what things are made (you should also notice a vast improvement in sound quality, as I learned how to use the level controls on my digital audio recorder).

King Guam

Kong: Skull Island is an entertaining mash-up of Apocalypse Now and every archetypal monster-movie trope; while it certainly has it's share of horrific deaths, it is far more fun than Logan . . . and John C. Reilly has the most fun of anyone in the film, he plays Hank Marlow-- his name is certainly a nod to the narrator of Conrad's Heart of Darkness-- a WWII pilot who crashed on the island in 1944 while engaged in a dogfight with a Japanese plane; both soldiers survive the crash, battle a bit on the sandy beach and in the jungle, and then become friends, bonding over being scared shitless by Kong; we then flash-forward nearly 30 years to 1973, and a government and military crew is sent to map Skull Island and look for resources (but an especially dour John Goodman knows there is more in the jungle) after the crew is properly hazed and scattered by an angry, territorial Kong, one group meets Marlow in the jungle, and though Marlow's friend has died, Marlow has made it through the years and preserved much of his sanity, thanks to some friendly (but creepy) natives . . . so he's a little wacky, but certainly no Kurtz-- and while he's got no idea about what's happened in the civilized world for the past three decades, he is an expert on Kong and the skull-crawlers and everything else Skull Island related (but Samuel Jackson just won't listen to him, his character has been broken by the Vietnam War and just wants to defeat something, anything, and that thing is Kong) and take my word for it, take the kids and go see it, it's a visual spectacular that puts the new Jurassic Park to shame, but more importantly, I just learned Doug Mack's travelogue The Not Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and other Far Flung Outposts of the United States that there was a situation quite similar to Hank Marlow's on the island of Guam: Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi survived 28 years in the jungle of Guam, 20 of them with two companions and the last 8 years alone (his companions starved to death) and he survived by eating "rats, frogs, snails, shrimp, coconuts, and other tropical fruit" and trapping eels; he lived in a cave with bamboo shelves and a bamboo ladder to the surface, and while he didn't have to contend with giant lizards and a godlike monstrous ape, he did make it home, marry, and live to the ripe old age of 82, which is why I pronounce him (posthumously) King Guam.

Breaking News!

Occasionally, the master becomes the student, and a good teacher will accept this turning of the tables and try to glean as much wisdom as possible from the situation; yesterday was one of those days, as a very informed pupil in my Creative Class enlightened me about several items of pop-cultural significance:

1) rapper extraordinaire Jay-Z is married to pop icon Beyonce!

2) rapper extraordinaire Kanye West is married to professional celebrity Kim Kardashian!

and if you'd like more up-to-the-moment celebrity news, tune in tomorrow, when I explain what the term "Brangelina" means (that's a joke, I know all about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but I sincerely had no idea that Jay-Z and Kanye West are both married . . . it doesn't seem to fit their lifestyles).

Missing Ari Shaffir

Last week, I nearly descended into madness, and this week, my podcasting partner Stacey flirted with her own lunatic demons; over the weekend, I received a few cryptic texts from her about some white whale of a project she was pursuing . . . she was collecting a multitude of obscure audio clips, scribbling notes (in various colors of ink) in a marble notebook, recording live audio bits on her phone, organizing aforementioned clips into some kinds of order only she could understand, and she told me she needed to record a bunch of audio before our usual podcasting session for The Test . . . so Monday night she recorded her manic notes, and then I gave her a crash course in GarageBand and left my old Macbook with her so she could try to stitch it all together together during the blizzard, and while she suffered several digital setbacks and nearly gave up (one of her texts to me, while she was deep in the process, said simply: "My life sucks") she persevered and put together a compelling, rather intense, possibly satirical, very-meta Serial-style show investigating the "disappearance" of comedian Ari Shaffir . . . so The Test proudly presents a Stacey Powers original: Missing Ari Shaffir.

DST Is Easier to Deal With When You Don't Have to Go to Work

Where It Hurts, a noir crime thriller set on Long Island-- but nowhere near the Hamptons-- is about as dark and violent as the genre gets, and Reed Farrel Coleman has a deft touch with an extensive set of characters; they materialize one after the other, each the star of a short chapter, each providing a small piece to the puzzle retired cop Gus Murphy is trying to solve, each character broken in their own special way, each piece of information similarly fragmented . . . this was a perfect blizzard read: I couldn't put it down . . . and I didn't need to.

Pun of the Century?

My friend Terry would not shut up yesterday about the imminent blizzard-- he kept abreast of the weather forecast on a minute-to-minute basis and streamed this information to the office in a constant cascade of meteorological bombast-- but moments before final dismissal, justice was served . . . I had a lexical epiphany and called him a "snow-it-all," and for a few hours, my self-esteem was riding high and I was much impressed with my wit, but after some research, I found out that "snow-it-all" is already defined at Urban Dictionary, so though I did think of the term in the moment, I can't take credit for coining up it.

The Test 80 . . . Dave Descends into Darkness

If you thought you were going to escape my semi-annual DST rant, you've got another thing coming-- and while I understand great forces are at work with this policy, forces that want us to consume more Halloween candy and more golf balls-- I'd like us for a moment to consider the feelings and emotions of our loyal four-legged friends . . . what have they done to deserve this shift? why must they be punished for a capitalist conspiracy to make us shop more, consume more, and play more golf? my dog is like a clock, he sidles down the stairs every morning at 5:50 AM to go for his morning constitutional and subsequent defecation, but this morning I had to drag him out of bed and though we took our usual route, he wasn't ready to move his bowels yet-- though he tried-- but the poor fellow was confused by this arbitrary shift in his circadian rhythm . . . so lets end DSL for the children, for the dogs, and for all the good people that have to go to work early in the morning (or just keep DSL and let kids get hit by school buses in the darkness of winter) and if you liked this glimpse inside the darkness of Dave's brain, then you'll certainly enjoy the latest episode of The Test, which details how Dave's life is spiralling out of control, widening in the gyre, how the center cannot hold, but during the journey, plenty of new shit has come to light . . . check it out: The Test 80: New $#@! Has Come to Light.

Your Opinion About Dave Is Not Your Own

Perhaps the easiest way to happily plunge into the surveillance state is to embrace the comforting notion that your mind is not your own, because if you're just along for the ride, then there's no reason to care what anyone (or anything) knows about you-- your deepest darkest most private thoughts are formed by the circumstances surrounding you, and thus there's no escaping them, nor are you responsible for them; Jonah Berger explores this wonderful new way to think and live in our modern world in his book Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Behavior . . . it's a fast, breezy read consisting of summaries of compelling studies and vivid anecdotes which complement the science-- you won't be able to put it down; Berger doesn't really get into the philosophical implications of these ideas, he simply wants you to note them and understand the cliché: everyone thinks these forces affect other people, but no one thinks that they ever fall prey to them, but as you read, you'll slowly agree that your decisions are usually made so you can fit in, stand out, or achieve some desired combination of the two-- and competition, when it's close, may spur you on, and when you're being crushed, may destroy your soul . . . I learned that I'm more working-class than upper-middle-class with my automobile selections, as most upper-middle-class drivers try to select a car that's a little different from their peers-- they want to differentiate themselves, but working class folks don't mind some unity in their selection, and my family drives the two of the most common cars on the road (a Honda CRV and a Toyota Sienna minivan) for good reason, they are extremely reliable and well-rated, and they are easy to get fixed, because there are plenty of parts and all mechanics are familiar with them . . . but with music, I'm a typical hipster douchebag: I only like the early stuff . . . before they sold out, or else I'm listening to jazz . . . and then only this album, etcetera . . . anyway, there's also plenty of the research that indicates that where you are born has a major influence on your thoughts, decisions, and how much money you earn, and so there's no better program to help the poor than Moving to Opportunity, because it's not the money, it's the invisible social forces surrounding children that make them successful . . . anyway, I'm going to take this to heart, and stop getting all freaked out by Benjamen Walker's Surveillance State mini-series and just do whatever.

Some Smart Sci-Fi

Two recommendations for sci-fi lovers:

1) if you're overly worried about the surveillance state we live in . . . or if you're not worried at all about the surveillance state we live in, then take some time off from the screens and read Normal, the new Warren Ellis novel: it's short (148 pages) and fast-paced and vivid, a locked-room mystery set in a high-end asylum/refuge for depressed futurists broken by the digital age . . . and there are lots of bugs;

2) if you're overly worried about alien invasion . . . or not worried at all about alien invasion, then watch Arrival, where Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) truly get lost in translation; screenwriter Eric Heisserer takes a page out of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five: his heptapods see time all at once, like the Tralfamadorians, but this story doesn't have the surreal breezy irony of Vonnegut . . . it's paradoxical, cerebral and byzantine-- and done very realistically-- it's definitely not a thriller, and rather sad, but I loved it and so did my eleven year old son.

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Actors

The Supreme Court unanimously decided that an unloaded gun is still considered a "dangerous weapon" and possession of such during a theft means the crime is an armed robbery, but the possession of a toy gun is more ambiguous and I'd like to propose an amendment to the law: for a toy gun to be considered a dangerous weapon, the person who wields the gun needs to be an accomplished actor . . . if the criminal's acting ability is poor, then he should not be charged with armed robbery . . . but if Clint Eastwood waves a toy gun around, he should be considered armed and dangerous.

Poop and Food: Always Funny

We have a bizarre half-day extended-period schedule this week due to parent/teacher conferences (otherwise known as an insane waste of precious instructional time) and so I had to eat a snack during my Philosophy class to avoid being hangry; I took out my food while my students were watching the super-philosophical (and highly recommended) Erroll Morris documentary Fast Cheap and Out of Control . . . and just as I was about to pop a miniature cucumber smeared with Laughing Cow cheese into my mouth, Ray Mendez-- the naked mole rat specialist-- started graphically describing naked-mole rat bathroom habits, and every time I tried to take a bite, he said something disgusting and absurd-- and I was at my desk right next to the giant projection of the film while I was trying to eat my snack amidst this cascade of scatological imagery, and the students found it very funny; here is the transcript of what he says, and I should note that he says it with good-humored passion and fervor, he really loves these creatures:

They roll in their own feces: it's a way of making everybody smell the same. So it could be the subtle differences in the aroma that you carry around is enough to set you off against an enemy.

They don't urinate on each other. They urinate in the midden pile where all the feces are placed, and the individuals go there and roll in them. You'll see them kicking and rolling and shoving around in it and then turning around and going back into the nest system. They very rarely just go to the bathroom, turn around and leave.

When the young are weaned, they will literally beg for fecal matter so that they can eat it.

It's different than the hard pellets that you see the adults depositing when they're going to the bathroom; this stuff is much more undigested material.

Interesting concept to say: "Well, now I'm going to go to the bathroom, but I'm only going to expel partially digested food, so that some of the whole bacteria and protozoa that is in the fecal material, can be passed on as food."

[There's] a lot more Zen bowel movement going on than what you would normally imagine an animal having.

More Troubles with Detective Sean Duffy

Though Sean Duffy is as cool as they come (especially his eclectic musical taste) he isn't is as particular as James Bond about his alcohol: in fact he'll ingest most anything -- single malt scotch, pints of bitter, glasses of the black stuff, Vodka gimlets, enormous quantities of wine, cans of Bass . . . whatever, and he's not afraid to chase it with narcotics . . . stolen pharma grade cocaine, weed, codeine, or anything else that he runs across . . . sometimes this is to assuage physical pain, he often takes a beating, whether it's donning riot gear in Belfast, trying to keep some order as the lone Catholic in a Protestant housing project on Coronation Road in the town of Carrickfergus, discussing delicate matters with various Loyalist Protestant paramilitary groups in perpetual battle with the IRA, or getting officially roughed up by some American spooks for poking his nose where it doesn't belong . . . and sometimes he's drowning his troubles in drink and drugs to handle the mental anguish of being a "Fenian" peeler in the midst of the Troubles; in Adrian McKinty's new novel, Gun Street Girl, despite all this baggage the MI5 recognizes Duffy's talent and while his contact, Kate, remarks that "your house stinks of marijuana and Scotch, and there's what appears to be cocaine on the lapel of your dressing gown" she still wishes to enlist him in the British secret service, but then things get complicated . . . oddly, the wildest things in this novel are based on real events: a mysterious missile theft, MI5 agents lurking about Ireland in the 80's, a notable heroin overdose at Oxford, a Chinook helicopter crash, and connections to the Iran/Contra scandal . . . if you haven't read any of the McKinty's books, start with The Cold Cold Ground and make your way from there.

Would You Like Us to Assign Someone to Butter Your Muffin? Or Will You Go Shave Your Back Hair?

A corn muffin is just an excuse to eat some butter.

Birthday Cards! Not To Be Confused With Christmas Pants . . .

My wife and kids gave me several lovely cards for my birthday, but they paled in comparison to the cards I drew on Saturday night at Stacey's house: it didn't matter how cavalierly I bet, or if it was the flop, the turn, or the river . . . it was all birthday cards for me.

The Test 79: Time After Time (Travel)

This week's episode of The Test has got it all: Knight Rider, Quantum Leap, a Spanish lesson, and plenty of time travel . . . Stacey pithily summarizes the plot and you have to guess the time travel book or movie she's describing; treat yo' future self and give it a listen!

Little Miss Sunshine - Jokes = Logan

I will give credit where credit is due: New Yorker film reviewer Anthony Lane came up with the Logan/Little Miss Sunshine parallel-- although the connections are pretty obvious: Logan is a dysfunctional family road trip movie, complete with a grouchy dad, an irritable old man facing his imminent demise-- who even poses as Logan's grandfather-- and a mute kid who eventually finds a voice; when I asked Alex and Ian after the film if it reminded them of a comedy we had seen, they immediately made the connection . . . anyway, the important thing is that Logan is a dysfunctional family road trip movie without the jokes-- it's about decaying bodies in a decaying country, the difficulties and responsibilities of elder care, Alzheimer's and aging, death and decomposition, the awkwardness of meeting your young clone in female form and other hysterically entertaining topics; it is very dark and very grisly, and while I loved a couple of scenes-- especially Professor Xavier's seizure at the hotel and a mournful touch at the very end-- I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when I can just drop the kids off at the movies and they can go live inside the darkness of the Marvel Universe on their own for a few hours, while I read a book outside in the sunshine.

Drama: Dave Style

It's always been a real struggle for me to memorize anything verbatim, and so when I watch any dramatic performance, I'm always impressed that actors can memorize so many lines-- and I learned something this week from one of my drama students that further inspired my appreciation for the mnemonic ability of the thespian; we were acting out the scene in Twelfth Night when Toby reads aloud Andrew's absurd challenge to Caesario and I remarked how it must be a nice break for the actor to get to read something, instead of having to rely on his memory, and this aforementioned drama student told me that actors have memorize the lines in a letter and the paper is blank (in fact, he said that during one performance where there was a reading of a letter, the other kids wrote filthy jokes on the prop piece of paper to screw with the actors) and this shocked me-- I figured this was a nice opportunity to not memorize something, but actors don't think this way, and so I told the class about the play I am going to write, it will require no memorization at all and consist entirely of reading things-- perhaps it will start with the protagonist getting a text on his phone and reading it to his friend, who will then read a text from his phone, and this will remind someone else of a favorite passage in a novel, which he will pick up and read, and then the mail will arrive and there will be a letter from the main character's ex-wife's lawyer, with some legal jargon that his friend will look up on Wikipedia, and read the entry aloud-- the drama kids are appalled by this premise, but I've got some of my fellow bad-memory compatriots to agree that it is a brilliant idea, the only requirement to be in the play is that you must be an excellent reader . . . so Tom Cruise, you need not apply.

Seuss + Dave = Birthdays

Seuss was a man
who created a cat,
with a number of tricks,
and a fancy top hat--
I am the man
who created this blog,
but I don't have a cat . . .
I prefer my black dog.

The Paradox of the Socks

Our household is now in the proud possession a teenager: Alex turned thirteen today . . . it's bizarre to have a child this old-- especially since he still looks like a little kid-- and equally bizarre that I am taking him and some of his friends to a rated R movie on Friday (Logan) instead of something more tame and typical, such as The Lego Batman movie-- but though Alex has entered puberty in a numerical sense, it's my younger son Ian (who is 11) who possesses all the hormones: lately, after he's done something athletic, his feet and socks smell to high heaven, while Alex's aren't offensive at all.

Tragedy con Carne

Let us all take a moment of silence to reflect on the good things in life and their inevitable passing into the great beyond . . . specifically, let us deeply mourn the tragic demise of a pot of exceptionally delicious chili, which my wife left to cool on the stove after we supped of it last night and then was forgotten, never placed into the refrigerator and so thusly spoiled (as we all will) and had to be thrown away, with great sadness and regret, the meat and beans uneaten, laden with bacteria, and destined to decay and return to dust in the landfill . . . o woe, o woe, o greatest of all woes: a wasted pot of chili!

Desert Blues

Tinawaren-- the Taureg band that hails from a Libyan refugee camp-- has a new album (Elwan) and Kurt Vile makes a guest appearance . . . while I can't comprehend the lyrics, that just adds to the atmosphere, and the guitar work is mesmerizing, hypnotic, and rhythmic-- a dash of Zeppelin, a bit of Black Keys, and a lot of something I've never heard before.

The Test 78: Finish It!

This week on The Test, Cunningham starts it and Stacey and I finish it . . . or we try our very best; despites some bizarre asides, we're fairly successful . . . so give it a shot and see if you can finish it as well as we do.

Can My Dog Read My Mind?

My dog does not like water, and he's never happy about getting a bath-- and he has an uncanny sense of when I'm going to give him one; normally, he loves to go for a walk, and when you take the leash out and call his name, he comes rushing over and starts bouncing off the walls, but when I'm "tricking" him and pretending we're headed out for a walk, but we're really heading upstairs to the bathroom, he looks at me holding the leash and then slowly creeps into the room farthest from the stairs and lies down in a lifeless lump . . . then once I put the leash on him, he ever so slowly makes his way to the stairs-- like a dead man walking-- and he doesn't even glance at the front door, instead he grudgingly goes up the stairs and slouches into the bathroom-- and I'm not sure how he knows that it's bath time, perhaps he hears the word, or he hears me get towels out of the closet in Alex's room, but it's strange and perceptive and very funny; I need to take video next time it happens and post it up next to his typical behavior when you call him for a walk.

Fooling Around into the Future

Steven Johnson's book Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World is full of weird and wonderful facts that I will soon forget (e.g. the word checkmate is derived from the Persian terms shah and mat, which translate as king and defeat) but the tone and essential theme is something I will remember and enjoy: the future begins with how we play-- how we experiment with sound and taste and vision and games and fashion and public space-- and while there are detriments, of course, the cotton revolution and the ensuing development of the department store created the consumer fashion economy, but also drove Victorian women to kleptomania, as they were so enamoured with all the new wares on display . . . anyway, the book itself is a wonderland of the exotic and the diverse, because when there is new technology available, there is usually a Cambrian explosion (my metaphor) of diversity . . . two centuries ago, the West End of London hosted much more than conventional theatrical plays-- today you go there for content and quality of a particular format-- but in 1820 there were a plethora (that's right, El Guapo, a plethora) of formats: "there were plays and musicals, but there were also panoramas and magic-lantern ghost shows, and animated paintings populated by small robots-- and dozens of other permutations . . . the West End functioned as a grand carnival of illusion, with each attraction dependent on its own unique technology to pull of its tricks."

Recreational Athletics, Brinksmanship, and The Nuclear Option

An evening to go down in infamy: last night, I was coaching the grade 6-8 town basketball team-- both my kids play on the same team and my buddy John is the head coach, but he couldn't make it so I was in charge . . . and we were missing our two best players, and though we didn't have the personnel, I was trying my best to get the kids to run the overload offense against the 2-3 zone, but this South River team has some absolutely gigantic kids (and an awesome little point guard) so were taking a beating, and my son Ian -- a diminutive sixth grader-- was hacked while shooting by a giant 8th grader (the size difference at this age is nuts) and I gave the ref some lip because he didn't call a foul and he did not hesitate before issuing me a technical and Ian was holding his jammed fingers and crying, so I pointed this out to the referee and I guess he didn't like my tone because he gave me a double technical and said, "You're outta here!" which posed a problem, since I was the only coach-- and while I may have overreacted a little, I believe he overreacted a lot . . . but I followed the rules and watched the game from beside the bleachers-- luckily, a random dude that I play pick-up ball with happened to be there (we were both going to play over-30 pick-up after the game) so he took over, and I conveyed some substitutions through my friend John's wife; it must also be noted that the kids played like animals after I got ejected, and they mounted something of a comeback (though there was no way to beat a team with kids this enormous) and I'd also like to point out that I apologized to the ref after the game and explained that it was my son who was hacked and crying, his tiny sixth grade fingers swollen and jammed, and that in that moment I became more of a dad than a coach, and he said, "You were a little over the top" and I should have said, "So were you" but I took the high road and walked away and I'll be glad when it's soccer season because the field is larger and the referees can't hear me.

Praise, Criticize . . . Who Cares?

A fun Tversky and Kahneman finding that's easy to test on your own is the "regression to the mean" fallacy-- the super-duo of behavioral economics observed this and wrote a paper about fighter pilots, but it's also a great thesis for sporting events . . . here is the logic:

when you criticize someone after they commit a boneheaded mistake, they are likely to improve in their next attempt, but if you praise someone after a brilliant maneuver, they rarely repeat their excellence on the next try-- but this does not mean you should criticize everyone all the time . . . it's not the criticism or praise that causes the shift in performance, it's the regression to the mean . . . most of the time, people perform somewhere between excellence and boneheadedness-- especially if it's something in which they are fairly skilled, such as playing a sport or flying a plane, and so after a boneheaded error, there is a statistical likelihood to be an improvement-- a regression to the mean-- caused by math, not criticism, and after a brilliant performance, people are likely to regress back to their regular old average ways, so that it seems as if praising them actually had a deleterious effect . . . the takeaway is this: yell whatever you want at your kid's soccer match-- if you want to feel consequential, then criticize him, but if you want to have a pleasant time, then praise him-- because neither action has much consequence (especially if it's soccer, because your son or daughter probably can't hear you anyway).

The Simon and Garfunkel of Behavioral Economics

I'm probably constructing an illogical metaphor here-- perhaps Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman are more like Sonny and Cher or Sam and Dave-- but my "representativeness" heuristic immediately latched on to Simon and Garfunkel because of the lopsided nature of the duo; the odd thing about Tversky and Kahneman's symbiotic academic relationship is that both members spent some time in the spotlight . . . both members got a turn at being Paul Simon; at the start of their astoundingly fruitful collaborations, everyone doted on Tversky and no one knew Kahneman's name, and now --ironically and tragically, because of Tversky's death from cancer in 1996-- Kahneman is the famous one (I highly recommend his book Thinking Fast and Slow) and Tversky is forgotten; if you love Moneyball and The Blind Side, then at least read the first chapter of this book-- Lewis addresses the fact that Richard Thaler, another behavioral economist, had one criticism about Moneyball: it didn't address why professional baseball overvalued sluggers . . . and Thaler suggested that for the answers, all you had to do was look back to a wacky duo of Israeli psychologists and their experiments and papers . . . the first chapter of The Undoing Project tells the story of Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, and how he tries to overcome the irrationality of the human mind-- loss aversion and the influence of narratives and regret over decision making-- and while there is plenty of psychology and descriptions of experimentation in the rest of the book, it's also heavily concerned with the weird, wonderful, sometimes strained and awkward relationship between these two geniuses.

POTUS Before and After Pics: Specious at best

Everyone loves POTUS before and after pics-- look how the job aged him!-- but I think we need to look at some pictures of regular people over an eight year span before we make any assumptions . . . we need to add a control to the experiment; I couldn't find any quick examples on the internet-- everything had to do with WeightWatchers-- and I can't use pictures of myself, since I'm a bit of an anomaly (I haven't aged a day in the last eight years-- Another time Macleod!) but I'm going to put a portfolio together soon and then we can decide if being president really ages you faster than working some other job.

Dumb and White = Success?

Robert D. Putnam pointed out in his latest book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis that poor kids with very high grades and test scores are less likely to get a college degree than low-scoring rich kids-- so much for the egalitarianism of the American Dream-- and here's another damning addendum to that theme; the median white family headed by a high school drop-out has $7700 more net worth than the median black family headed by someone with some college education . . . the cause of paradoxical gap this is unknown in a specific sense, but there are certainly some factors to consider: discriminatory housing and loan policies, redlining, generational wealth, and prejudicial hiring are a few that come to mind, but the lesson is this:

you might believe that you are a free-agent, responsible for your choices and deserving of your granite countertops and big TV, but that's a simplistic view of things-- and if you're black and live in America and make the right choices, you're still probably earning less than a white high school drop-out, and if you're rich and live in America, then you have the luxury of being dumb, but if you're poor then intelligence won't necessarily lead you to a life of luxury.

The Test 77: The Big Naked Apple

Melt away those little town blues this week on The Test and see what you know about all things New York City ( if you're pressed for time, then head straight to the 16-minute mark for an important fact that Nick read).

Karma on Its Way

Just jumped a guy's car at the park . . . his cable wasn't long enough (and the clamp broke off-- he said "Haram" in response to this, which I haven't heard since I was living in Syria-- it literally means "forbidden" but everyone in Syria used it to mean "that's too bad" or "it's a pity") and so I dug my cable out from the mess in the back of the minivan-- it's extra long-- and it took a few minutes but his engine finally turned over . . . I'm assuming the universe will send a good deed my way in response (perhaps a particular travel soccer player who needs to turn in his paperwork will bring it to practice tomorrow?)

Dave Can't Control Harbingers and Omens

I had to stop interacting with Stacey at work today because I kept revealing clues as to the questions I am going to ask her tonight when we record the podcast . . . so if she does really well on the next episode, you know why.

Zen and the Art of Middlesex County

I am home, drinking a beer, and proud that I didn't lose my shit after an epically long day rambling around central Jersey: taught Shakespeare and Philosophy at East Brunswick in the AM, then left-- half-day personal-- headed back to Highland Park to walk the dog and prepare my Google Slides for a workshop presentation in Perth Amboy for a bunch of high school history and social studies teachers, helping them incorporate writing into the curriculum (I need a new laptop for podcast editing, so I'm doing some extra work) then headed back home again to Highland Park, drove over to the Middle School to pick up Ian from his Arts Program (the bus got lost and so he spent some time rambling around Middlesex County as well) and then we ate dinner and piled in the van to go to our away basketball game, and I fought through Route 18 traffic to get to South River-- blasting Run the Jewels to get the kids pumped-- but after much difficulty finding the gym (you've got to park in the big lot and then walk down a bunch of stairs) we realized that the game was NOT in South River, it was back in Highland Park, so we piled back into the van and drove to the Middle School (again) but the Middle School gym was empty . . . the game was at Bartle-- the elementary school two blocks from my house; we could have walked, and my brother was reffing (no help there, we still got slaughtered).

Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau Need to Listen to Dave

Virtuoso mandolinist  Chris Thile and experimental jazz pianist Brad Mehldau have released a spectacular sounding eponymous album-- Mehldau's piano is sparse and soulful and Thile's alternately staccato and melodic mandolin peeks through the cracks and crevices left by the piano . . . but I had to thumbs-down half the songs on Google Play Music because they are utterly ruined by jazz singing: everyone who reads Sentence of Dave knows how much I hate jazz singing, and in this case, the vocals are truly a tragic addition to the album, because the pairing of the piano and the mandolin is so perfect on its own . . . perhaps Thile and/or Mehldau will read this and release a voiceless version just for me.

Dave's Brain Has the Right Stuff!

Last week in the English Office, my friend, colleague, and age-twin Liz wondered aloud about the origin of the phrase "pushing the envelope" and I took the bait; though I could care less about word origins, I'm always willing to take an etymological moonshot (because it's so fun to be correct) and I said, "I don't think it's about regular envelopes at all . . . I think it's about the envelope of air in the atmosphere . . . I think it's from The Right Stuff," and this top-o-the-head conjecture, this specious speculation, this frothy cream of my consciousness, this absurd lexical reckoning turned out to be spot-on, and while I know that those of you with razorlike CPU memories are thinking: who cares? what is it to retrieve a memory? what's the big deal? I would like to speak for the other folks, I would like to advocate for those of us who live on the flip side of the coin, the people who can't remember words and phrases and places and names, the people who struggle to recall what they had for breakfast, the people who can't always remember exactly where they live . . . this hypothetical person, when he is asked to produce his address, at the front desk of a certain electronic store (it might have been Circuit City, but-- typically-- I can't remember) completely freezes up and not only forgets his address but also can't recite his phone number . . . this is a person, who can't even remember if he's started or ended his parentheses, this kind of person, when he remembers something from many many years ago, and remembers it in context, and produces it-- like a magician . . . like a lexical Houdini-- then this person should be lauded and congratulated and celebrated, because his neurons have demonstrated the right stuff, and there's nothing more inscrutable and black-boxy than a bunch of neurons; not only are they hard to control (and harder to corral) but when they behave properly in context, then great celebration and rejoicing should ensue.

A Humble Suggestion for the Harlem Globetrotters: Lead Basketball!

We saw the Harlem Globetrotters last night at the RAC, and they performed as-billed, putting on a spectacular circus-like performance in the guise of a basketball game, but my favorite portion of the show was more annoying than athletic-- at one point the game transmogrified from hoops to football, a passing play into the end zone (over the baseline) and the Globetrotters questioned the referee's call: "Incomplete!" and so they literally rewound the play and performed it in slow-motion, so that the ref could better see the catch-- the rewind was wonderfully annoying, every action, motion, and piece of dialogue that occurred during the play was run backwards and the slow-mo was endless, with all kinds of extra details that were obviously too fast for the naked eye (including a box of donuts that made its way through the entire play) and at times it seemed as if the Globetrotters were having more fun than the audience during this endless bit, and this reminded me of when my buddy Whitney and I would play the "lead game" in college-- once we hit a certain stage of inebriation, we found it extraordinarily funny to pretend that everything in the room was made of the densest, heaviest lead and so doing simple tasks-- escaping from under a lead blanket or taking a sip of a lead cup or getting pinned to the floor of The Weeping Radish Brewery by a lead condiment-cup full of lead horseradish-- would take an inordinate amount of time and effort-- usually so much time and effort that all our friends would abandon us-- and we'd be left alone, unable to understand why our audience didn't appreciate the brilliant slow-motion slapstick of the lead-game . . . anyway, the Globetrotters should definitely take a page from our playbook and add a lead-basketball to their routine (a perfect complement to the helium filled ball that floats to the ceiling when the rival team takes a free throw).

Arachnids and Dramaturgy

In Philosophy class last week, I introduced my new students to the idea of a heuristic-- a quick and dirty problem-solving technique that someone employs to make it through the day-- and I contrasted this with what Bertrand Russell's calls "philosophic contemplation" . . . the latter mindset obviously takes a great deal more time and mental effort, and while we were discussing this, I was searching through my desk drawer for a paper clip and I saw a spider, which I promptly killed with my stapler-- so that I didn't have to feel the crunch-- and then we went back to the problem at hand, that with limited time it is impossible to philosophically contemplate every moment and dilemma that a typical day brings, and so we use heuristics to navigate most of our decisions (what to eat for breakfast, how fast to drive, who to sit with at lunch, whether or not to copy someone's homework, etcetera) and then I revealed to them that there was no spider-- I was acting-- but that many people use a kill-creepy-crawly heuristic instead of thinking deeply about the spider and its right to live . . . most of the students were glad that I didn't actually kill a real spider and they were impressed with my acting ability (I even picked up the nonexistent miniature carcass with a tissue . . . I learned everything I know from Master Thespian Jon Lovitz . . . acting!) but then I told them the story of the groundhog that I euthanized with a shovel and they were properly appalled; anyway, if you want to learn more about heuristics and just how screwy they are, read the new Michael Lewis book The Undoing Project . . . it's the story of two Israeli psychologists-- Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky-- who uncovered fundamental truths about the flaws in economics and the human mind, and there is liberal use of the word "heuristic" . . . I'm halfway through the book, and I'm hoping for an occurrence of the word "ersatz" as well.

Dave Almost Helps an Old Lady (But She's Too Quick For Him)

The streets and sidewalks in Highland Park were very icy this morning-- I almost fell while walking the dog-- and on my way to work, as I was about to turn off Third Avenue onto Benner, I saw an oldish woman walking at a rapid clip up the street; she was wearing a yellow and orange crossing guard vest and earmuffs and I could immediately sense that there was no way she was going to stop walking to let me turn-- she was looking straight ahead, resolutely, and there was the air of great determination about her, though-- oddly-- her gait was a bit gimpy, perhaps the result of a stroke or a bad hip or the start of some degenerative disease, so though she was moving quickly, it was in a herky-jerky manner, and the street she was about to cross was covered with an inch or two of ice; I watched in horror-- knowing it was coming-- as halfway across the street she wiped out, hit the ice hard, and rolled over . . . it was a terrible fall, made more so because of her palsied stride and so I opened my window to ask her if she was okay (and so did the lady in the car opposite me, on Benner) but before we could get her attention, she was back on her feet, chugging along-- I'm not sure if she had to be somewhere in a hurry, or she was an actual crossing guard getting an early start to the day, or if she just wore the vest for visibility and safety-- but whatever the case, she took that awkward fall like a champ and deserves to be memorialized here on Sentence of Dave for her effort, unflagging focus and perseverance . . . I hope when I'm that age I can take a fall like that.

Alex and Ian Spin an Exhausting Web of Disinformation

The trick with fake news and disinformation is to mix the real story with so many lies, alternatives, and obfuscations that it becomes exhausting and possibly even counterproductive to pursue the actual truth to its end-- it becomes more efficient to deal with the dilemma at hand, in the present, and forget about judgement and justice . . . here are a couple of cases in point . . . two recent incidents with my children:

1) Alex was certainly wrestling with three of his friends in the locker room before gym class, and he may have been warned twice to get out of the locker room by the gym teacher, he may have pinned down one of his friends, beaten him, and he may have also kneed this friend in the testicles-- causing him to cry-- although Alex claims he was only warned once to leave the locker room and did not knee his friend in the testicles . . . and then Alex definitely got very upset and lost his shit because the gym teacher would not listen to his side of the story and told Alex he was writing him up and calling home and Alex definitely used some profanity, and this profanity may have been directed at the gym teacher (or, as Alex claims, the expletives may have been directed at himself because he was upset that he was going to get in trouble) and then Alex probably smacked the write-up off the teacher's clipboard-- but it was initially reported that he smacked the write-up out of the teacher's hand . . . which certainly would have been worse, but now we've come to the consensus that the clipboard was on a desk in the gym, next to the teacher, a marginally better detail (but not much better) and there were definitely calls to my wife about the incident from the gym teacher (who did not mention the clipboard smack, possibly to protect Alex) and the vice-principal (who did report about Alex smacking the disciplinary write-up) and I think Alex and his friends went to the office to tell their side of the story, that it wasn't a real fight and they were only fooling around, and that Alex wasn't the testicle-crusher . . . but the story got so complicated that it became futile to try to figure out the actual truth-- and we explained to him that no one cared about the truth . . . he was acting like a total idiot and so were his friends, and once you're in that context, you don't get to explain slight gradations in culpability because everyone involved is in trouble and we left it at that and grounded him for two weeks and made him write a letter of apology to the gym teacher for being a complete nightmare . . . and we're not sure what the consequence will be at school, but there hasn't been anything yet (besides the phone calls home) and so they may be experiencing the same disinformation exhaustion that much of the country is working through;

2) last week, Ian may have mistakenly touched the spray bottle that he uses to humidify his lizard tank with the ceramic heat emitter-- a flattened bulb that screws into a clamp lamp, gets rather hot, and sits on top of the mesh top of the tank-- when I noticed the horrible plastic burning stench, this is what Ian claimed, and then he pointed out a tiny melted spot on the bottle, but today I noticed that the lamp was not turned on, and so I turned it on, and within minutes, the same burning plastic smell began emanating from the ceramic bulb and when I investigated closely, I noticed there was a bunch of brownish gunk on the ceramic bulb, and after further interrogation, Ian admitted that he had touched the bulb to another piece of plastic-- perhaps the top to a Play-Doh box-- and this was done purposefully and in the name of experimentation, I think, and then he turned off the ceramic heat bulb because he noticed it was making an awful plastic burning stench and didn't tell us anything, and I could not remove the melted plastic from the bulb, though I tried alcohol, vinegar, and bleach, and so he's going to have to buy a new one and we gave him a lecture about starting fires, doing dangerous things in the house, and not telling us when he's damaged something vital-- he could have killed his lizard (either with plastic fumes or lack of heat) and I told him that I did many similar experiments when I was young (and was often obfuscating with my own parents . . . why is there a sock marinating in lighter fluid in the basement? why is this squirt bottle filled with kerosene? where did all these melted lead D&D figurines come from? why does it smell smoky in the basement?) and that I understood his inquisitive nature . . . but he was still going to have to pay for a new ceramic heat emitter . . .

anyway, I hope this illustrates my point-- it was exhausting trying to get to the truth, and I don't think we were successful; God only knows if our punishments fit the crimes, and while we tried our best to give each child pertinent lessons for future situations, they never seem to apply anything they "learn" from us . . . but it's not like there's a better way to go about it.

No School Trumps Trump

I was going to post a long-winded rant about the awful injustices of Trump's hastily drawn terrorist travel ban-- the Orwellian fact that he's "solving" a problem that never existed, as we're already doing "extreme vetting" of refugees; listen to the new This American Life for more information-- but I just got the call that there's no school tomorrow, so instead I'm going to drink some beer and enjoy the imminent storm (the oddest thing is that it's 60 degrees here now . . . the boys and I played some basketball at the park, but then I tried to take the dog for a stroll around the neighborhood and he balked at it . . . despite the warm weather, he could feel the storm coming).

Litmus Test of Dave

There is no more surefire way to a judge a person's character-- according to Dave-- than by inquiring about their devotion to the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . . . the more they like it, the more I like them (and while there may be an exception to this rule of thumb, I haven't encountered a black swan yet).

Hero to Zero and Back Again (Sort of)

Get ready for Dave's Self-Esteem Rollercoaster Ride in three acts:

1) last Thursday afternoon, and a cold Thursday afternoon it was, my wife called from her school to report that her car was dead-- totally dead, the vehicle remote wouldn't even lock the doors-- and she wanted me to come jump start the engine, but I told her that it sounded like the battery was kaput and advised her to call AAA-- they replace batteries-- and I said I would come over and wait in the cold for AAA to arrive and she could drive my car back to our warm and cozy home, because I'm a great guy and she had a bit of a cough and some laryngitis and she called me a "hero" and thanked me for waiting . . . and it was very cold and AAA was supposed to arrive within the hour, but that turned to 90 minutes and I was closing in on the two-hour mark, shivering heroically in the car, reading and listening to podcasts, when the AAA truck finally arrived;

2) a stout African-American woman got out of the truck, and I told her the situation-- that the car had just had some bodywork done on it, and perhaps the mechanic left the lights on or something, and I believed the battery was totally dead-- and while I was telling her this, she was looking under the hood, and she jostled one of the battery wires and it sparked and she said, "Looks like this wire is loose" and she grabbed a socket wrench, tightened the screw, everything in the car came to life, and she asked me to put on my brights-- they worked fine-- and I suddenly felt totally dumb and emasculated, if I had checked the battery connections, I would have fixed the car in ten seconds and avoided this whole scenario, and if I had actually tried to jump it, I would have noticed this . . . but the AAA lady was gone before I could even apologize-- I'm sure she sees stupidity like this all the time, and my self-esteem really took a hard hit;

3) until this morning: we had a lock-down drill first period, which is when I'm in the cafeteria, monitoring the late-in seniors-- and the janitor told us all to go into the staff lunchroom, so my students and a study hall from the other side of the cafeteria, and a number of teachers who were on duty in the vicinity all poured into the staff lunchroom and we were standing there awkwardly in the dark, shushing the students, and I asked the lady next to me if the door was locked and she said, "I think so" and I said, "I'd better check" and the door was unlocked so I spun the little locking mechanism and locked the door and moments later the door handle shook-- the security team was checking to make sure all the doors were locked . . . because that's the most important part of a lockdown, that you lock the door . . . and the lady who told me she thought the door was locked reacted as if I actually saved the entire room from a brutally violent massacre, she said,"That was awesome, you locked it right before they tried to get in! It was so close! You should play the lottery today!" and so I had to remind her that it was only a drill, and that I didn't actually save everyone from bloody death (and so I probably didn't deserve to win much in the lottery . . . maybe five dollars) and while I'm the first to admit that this was not a genuine act of heroism, it was certainly an ersatz act of heroism . . . and I also passed a second lockdown drill test, but one I'm not sure I agree with-- after they rattled the door to check the lock, then the security crew knocked-- very crafty-- and we've been told that once the door is locked, we should take a utilitarian stance and not open the door for anyone-- the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few, especially if they aren't punctual for the locking of the door . . . and so I didn't fall for this malevolent ruse, I did not open the door, but I think if it was a real lockdown, and a person in danger (or a school-shooter posing as a person in danger) knocked on the door and pleaded for me to open it, I'd probably open the door and take my chances, as it would be hard to leave someone in the lurch just outside the door . . . but that's a dilemma for another day, the important thing here is that I acted (hypothetically) heroically and depressed that little locking mechanism in the nick of time.

The Test 76: We've Got Places All Over the Place

I go rogue on this episode of The Test and cut out the ladies (just like college!) and design a quiz for my buddy Whitney, but the questions are general enough for everyone to answer and enjoy-- plus the ladies make a much needed cameo, breaking up the bromance-- so take a load off and listen and learn about a couple of genuine American adventurers, doing their best to navigate this wild and wonderful country of ours.

Dave Almost Forgets to Write A Sentence . . . Or Does He?

Yikes . . . I got so preoccupied with soccer stuff and Texas Hold'em today (I played poker with my kids in the afternoon and then all evening with grown-ups at Stacey's house) that I nearly forgot to write a sentence . . . but I got this baby in under the wire just before the stroke of midnight-- or did I?-- I might have written it Sunday morning and postdated it . . . in Trump's America you shouldn't trust anything on the internet, as truth is a relative thing . . . especially in a world where I raise a big pre-flop bet from good position, go all in on Ace/Queen suited-- the hand I've been waiting for-- and match up well against K/J unsuited, draw a queen on the flop, nothing on the turn, and then my opponent pulls a king out of his ass on the river . . . in a world where something like this happens, you've got to be skeptical of everything.

Why Does My Phone Think It's Clairvoyant?

My phone autocorrected a number today . . . I was trying to text the digits 3241 (part of an address) but my phone kept changing this number to 532411 . . . and this makes no logical sense, as this new, autocorrected number isn't the zip code of the address, nor is it the area code of phone numbers associated with this place . . . if anyone knows why my phone (older model Samsung Galaxy) thinks it can read my mind when it comes to numbers, please explain.

Bosch (and Connelly) Do It Again

No spoilers, but Bosch (and Connelly) get it done again in The Wrong Side of Goodbye . . . and they get it done twice-- the book is a mystery wrapped in an enigma: I got so wrapped up in the interior serial rapist case that I forgot about the larger private case that framed the story, so I finished with one mystery and there were still fifty compelling pages left; not only that, but I learned why Harry Bosch doesn't eat Vietnamese food . . . when he was a tunnel rat back in 'Nam he had to eat spicy noodles and such every single day, every single meal, because when you're down in the tunnels, in such close quarters with the enemy, defusing booby traps and hunting Viet Cong, then you need to smell like them or they'll suss you out . . . and you smell like the food you eat, so it was all pho for Bosch, and that was enough of it.