Dramaturgy How To, Ready Break!
The film Ladybird is sweet and touching and funny and true (and apparently quite emotional if you're a woman and you were mean to your mom when you were a teenager) but the thing I'll take away from the film is this scene, which is exactly how I will teach blocking in Shakespeare class for the rest of my career.
It's Already 6 PM? Yikes! How Did That Happen? What Are We Going to Do About Dinner?
Most educated people are dimly aware that time is relative-- clocks run slower when gravity is stronger and movement, confounded by the speed of light, makes time go faster as objects diminish in size-- but these ideas are generally categorized as impractical abstractions, necessary to our understanding of the medium-sized Newtonian physical world which we inhabit; however, James Holt brings up a more mundane example in his essay "Time-- the Grand Illusion?" (which is included in the entertaining and excellent essay collection When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought) when he points out that research indicates that people in their twenties, when asked to estimate three minutes of time, are quite accurate, but people in their sixties, when asked to do the same task, miss the the mark by an average of forty seconds-- their internal clocks are running relatively slower in comparison to the young folks-- and so three minutes and forty seconds feels like three minutes of clock time . . . the older you get, the more prevalent this phenomenon is, which is why really old people drive so slowly-- anything over 22 MPH and they're in a subjective Indy 500-- and it's why when you are young, a summer can feel like eternity . . . Holt makes the (rather depressing) claim that by the age of eight, "one has subjectively lived two-thirds of one's life" and so that whole "I'm 48 years young" euphemism is complete bullshit . . . I'm 48 years old and that's incredibly old, in the scope of my subjective life, and even though it is summer, time is hurtling by for me, while my kids are experiencing each day in a more accurate sense-- they are 13 and 14-- and in a much less epic sense than when they were 6 and 7 . . . but, of course, there is no accurate sense-- everyone's time is relative to their age and metabolism and internal clock, so Einstein's theories aren't so far out and abstract, after all.
My Modules Think, Therefore My Modules Are (Some Sort of Non-reductionist Emergent System)
Michael S, Gazzaniga is one of our most celebrated neuroscientists and his new book certainly demonstrates this; The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind tackles the hardest problem in the universe: where are all these thoughts coming from? do they exist? are they a product of my neurons or are my neurons influenced by my thoughts? is there a spook in the machine? is there a machine at all? and on and on and on . . . Gazzaniga first gives a quick history of the evolution of thought on consciousness, from Descartes to William James to Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, and then gets you up to date with the modular, non-dualist, non-reductionist ideas that are floating around now . . . his ideas about modularity remind me of the seminal AI book Society of the Mind by Marvin Minsky-- this is a book you should read-- and his use of brain-damaged patients as case studies to explain the pervasive modularity of consciousness remind me of one of the best books I have ever read-- Phantoms of the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran-- but Gazzaniga tackles bigger fish than these books, he works through protocols all the way down to quantum physics, and notes that the brain is not a machine, the human brain is something that allowed us to build machines, and then we made a metaphor between machines (and computers) and brains, but they are not all that similar-- the machine is built, while the brain evolved, many modules in concert, and the brain builds itself, with RNA and DNA and phylogenetic and ontogenetic processes -- with operations all the way down to the quantum level, immeasurable without subjectivity (because what tool could you use to measure atomic particles, except a measurement device made of atomic particles, which influences the very particles it is trying to measure) and so there is a metaphysical inspirational epiphany at the end of the book . . . we don't have to worry about strong AI because computers are in no way like our brains, in the same way that inert matter is nothing like life, because life evolved at the atomic level-- binary ones and zeroes will never approximate this-- and consciousness is an emergent property of an immensely complex modular system, symbols bubbling up and influencing other symbols, and this is reflected on so many physical levels that it boggles our capacity to think . . . luckily, Gazzaniga writes clearly enough about these topics and he intersperses entertaining moments throughout, my favorite is a cameo from Neil Young, who perfectly describes the unique subjectivity of personal consciousness and the desire to recapture personal experience; Young says, "I still try to be that way but, you know, I am not twenty-one or twenty-two . . . I am not sure that I could re-create that feeling, it has to do with how old I was, what was happening in the world, what I had just done, what I wanted to do next, who I was living with, who my friends were, what the weather was."
That Dog Thinks It's a Car!
Our new dog is learning to run alongside me while I bike (she's attached to the bike by a bungie cord) and while she trots along at a pretty good clip, I think the dog I saw today from my car window would be an even better biking partner: this dog had no back legs and instead of them, she had a cart with two wheels which the rear portion of her body rested upon . . . so if she were attached to the bike, she could just pull up her front legs and basically become a sidecar.
The Test 110: Abracadabra (This Test Will Reach Out and Grab Ya)
The Test is back and better than ever (or maybe exactly the same as ever) and for the start of this new season, I take one for the team, throw away all artistic sensibility, and administer a quiz on something the ladies love-- something silly, absurd and cheesy . . . that's right, we're talking magic; I'll admit that in the end, I enjoyed learning a bit about this subject, and while I don't believe in magic (like Cuningham) nor do I care all that much that people can learn to do tricks (which inspires Stacey) I do enjoy giving the ladies some "bonus lectures" on what magic is all about, so give this one a listen before it disappears.
Imagine How Tired I Would Be If I Actually Played
I'm too exhausted from the Germany/Sweden game to write anything decent.
Dave Gets It (Slowly But Surely)
When I first got my Father's Day T-Shirt, I was confused-- Tantalum? Cobalt? What?-- but then I noticed that the abbreviations-- "Ta" and "Co"-- spelled out the word "TaCo," and I love tacos, so that made perfect sense . . . and then the day after Father's Day, I held up my Father's Day T-Shirt and said, "This reminds me of the credits on Breaking Bad," and my wife and kids looked at me like "Duh" and I said, "And I love Breaking Bad . . . this is a great t-shirt!"
Once More unto the Breach, Teach
Thinking It vs. Communicating It
I'd like to thank my dedicated readers for pointing out yesterday's gaffe; I thought the word "tone" to myself while writing yesterday's sentence, but I didn't actually type the word "tone" and instead wrote this objectless phrase: "the anthemic and triumphant of a Bruce Springsteen song," and while there's no excuse for not proofreading, I think I actually re-read this sentence and imagined that the word was there . . . I also have this trouble when I speak to my wife-- I think a bunch of thoughts and I think that I said some of the thoughts as a preface to my actual spoken statement, but really I uttered some cryptic, out-of-context gibberish.
Same County/Parallel Universe
The setting of Drown, Juno Diaz's collection of short stories about Dominican immigrants making their way in America in the 1980's and 90's, is the same county I grew up in and now live-- Middlesex County, New Jersey; there are references to Old Bridge, Sayreville, Perth Amboy, New Brunswick, South River, Spotswood, etc. -- but I was able to experience the grittiness of 80's New Jersey from a position of stability, while the world Diaz writes about is one of lost jobs, fractured relationships, transitory and multiple families, and the constant pull of the Island, of the Dominican Republic homeland . . . it's a side of New Jersey worth exploring, but be forewarned, the book doesn't have the anthemic and triumphant tone of a Bruce Springsteen song.
Better Luck Next Year? Not If It's a Quadrennial Event
If you want to thoroughly wallow in the fact that the U.S. didn't qualify for this World Cup, spend your time in between games listening to American Fiasco-- Roger Bennett (of Men in Blazers fame) narrates the compelling story of the rise and fall of the U.S. Men's National team from 1994 to 1998 in a 10 part podcast.
Dads of the World Rejoice
Three world cup games and Father's Day are a good combination (I think there's a some local golf tournament going on as well).
Activities > Socializing
Yesterday I did 6 AM basketball and then played in a corn-hole tournament at our end of year party, and today is a block party on the street over from us and we are wheeling up our ping-pong table and bringing corn-hole . . . socializing is so much better when there are competitive activities.
Time . . . Best Not to Think About It
Despite all the physics and quantum science, the final message of Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time is that our perception of time and its passage is a "great collective delirium of ours" which has worked reasonably well to get us to this point, but is in no way indicative of what time is and how it actually works . . . and that is fine; near the end of the book he calls upon the Indian epic the Mahabharata to illustrate this: the oldest and wisest god, Yudhistira, explains the greatest mystery of the universe: "Every day countless people die, and yet those who remain live as if they were immortals" . . . so you can mull that over while I head to our staff party to drink beer, play some cornhole, and splash around in a pool.
Breaking News: Dave is 6' 1"
It's weird . . .the older and grouchier I get, the more the students like me-- and while I'm honored and flattered for the recogntion (especially since The Test has swept the "Favorite teacher" superlative this year) what I really love about this photo is that I look taller than Stacey, who is definitely six feet tall . . . so I am now billing myself as 6'1" (6"9" with the afro).
Mom Always Figures It Out (Except for the Stolen Bike)
Yesterday was my son Alex's class trip to Dorney Park and my wife suggested that he not bring his cell-phone because he would surely lose and/or damage it and when Alex and Ian were walking out the door together, she saw he had complied with this-- the phone was on his desk, charging . . . and the two boys left, together-- which was odd-- and then Ian ran back inside and up the stairs and told her she was right and that it was too hot for pants and he changed into shorts and then he went into Alex's room for a moment and she asked him where his bookbag was and he said, "Alex is holding it for me," which was odd-- they normally bicker over civilized favors such as waiting for each other or helping each other in any way-- and then Ian was gone, before Catherine could process what had happened (she was getting ready for school as well) but then it struck her-- Alex had paid Ian to go back into the house and smuggle his cell phone out-- and when she went into Alex's room, sure enough, the phone was gone . . . so later in the day she texted Alex this message, "To whoever stole Alex's phone, please return it" and then on the ride to the soccer game, Ian confirmed that he had smuggled the phone out of the house for his brother and he asked my wife if they had made a deal, did Alex still have to hold up his end, even though they got caught, and she said, "Of course he does, you got the phone for him" and Ian revealed that Alex had promised to pay him a dollar if he got the phone and then we got home from the game and Alex was a sunburned mess because he had taken his shirt off, and my wife hadn't sunblocked his chest, and he said that they needed their phones so they could check in with their chaperones-- why he didn't communicate this to my wife and instead hatched a furtive and deceitful plan to liberate his phone is beyond me . . . but the moral here is we should always be wary when the boys are behaving cooperatively.
I Knew There Was Something Weird About My Left Shoe
Stepping in dog poop no fun unless you don't notice until you've walked all the way across the house.
Wheels in Your Mind Keep on Turning
Friday, Ian rode his bike from school to the Friday Farm Market, locked his bike to a tree, bought two servings of pad thai at the pad thai stand (he wanted a second serving for dinner) and then he met his friend Ben and then went to some wall and played some kind of wall ball and then he walked home with Ben and his giant styrofoam container of pad thai and he totally forgot about his bike, still chained to a tree near Main Street, and this morning, when he remembered about his bike and went to retrieve it, it was gone-- stolen-- but the lock was still there, wrapped around the tree, locked, and he swears that he did actually lock his bike to the tree and that he did actually scramble the combination . . . but there's something weird about the story-- perhaps someone picked the lock?-- but then why would they reattach the lock to the tree?-- and I think we're going to have to chalk this up to the fallibility of human memory . . . that's the theme of the newest Revisionist History podcast, "Free Brian Williams," a fascinating story about how easily human memories get distorted-- and while I must warn you that Malcolm Gladwell is at his most annoying in this episode, I will also admit that it's a fascinating and compelling story and I'm glad I finished listening to it right before I heard my son Ian's story, because it made me a bit more empathetic to his tale of woe (also, we're in the market for a used bike).
We Put the Man in Manhattan
Here are a few shots of the intrepid crew that circumnavigated Manhattan on Saturday, it was a long haul and backtracking was anathema . . . so when a macadam bike path in Inwood Park turned into a weedy foot trail and then finally petered out, there was no way we were turning back-- we had to get south to Fort Washington Park-- right under the George Washington Bridge (pic below) and there was a hole in the fence that led to the train tracks, so we ducked under and walked the tracks, hobo style, until we could finally duck back into the forest . . . we made it down without having to evade a train and we didn't run into any local police, but next time I suppose we won't try to stick so close to the shore of the Hudson River.
anDave Gets His Steps in (For the Week)
I just got home from a 20+ mile hike from the top of Manhattan (207th St) down the western side of the island to Battery Park . . . epic and scenic and my feet hurt.
Eyebrows Off Fleek
One of my student's Twitter account went viral this week with this quick clip of a girl taking off her fake-eyelashes at prom (to her date's surprise) and the video became so popular so quickly that NBC phone-interviewed her about how it feels to ride the fifteen-minute wave of exponential internet popularity . . . while this couldn't have happened to a nicer girl, I would like to point out that I teach this student in Shakespeare class, and that Shakespeare's complex, character-driven five act masterpieces of comedy, history and tragedy-- which may be the ultimate expression of human emotion and motivation in dramatic form-- are probably a better indicator of the artistic capabilities of humankind than a 4 second clip shot on a cell-phone at prom on a whim . . . but you can't argue with the internet.
Dave Keeps the Barbarians at Bay
This morning I pulled into the high school parking lot, got out of the car and went around to the passenger side, opened the door and grabbed my lunch cooler, and then noticed that I did a terrible job parking the van-- not only was I too far over on the right side of the spot, my wheels on the painted line, but I also hadn't pulled all the way in, so my rear bumper was sticking way out into the lot . . . normally, I look at a parking job like this and think to myself Wow, I'm awful at parking and then blithely head into the building, but I'm proud to say today was different-- I got back into my car and revised my parking-- and this time I did it right-- and if that's not the height of civilization, I don't know what is.
No Time Like the Present
I got my seniors amped up for graduation today by reading them an excerpt from Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time-- a book connects perfectly to both Hamlet and their own lives, as it points out that though we want the universe to be comprised of things on an orderly timeline, it is actually composed of relativistic occurrences and events, in constant fluctuation and change . . . a war is not a thing, it's a long sequence of events; a cloud is not a thing, it's a bunch of condensation in the air; even things are not things, they are only semi-permanent perturbations of quantum forces, and-- of course-- a person is not a thing, though we are under the illusion that we are a character, an entity, a static personality but we are actually a sequences of events and circumstances with some distorted memories that connect us to the past events that were experienced by a few of our molecules (but not most of them, as they are constantly regenerating) and so while Hamlet starts the play with the ultimate ambition: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite that I was ever born to set it right" he ends the play realizing that "we defy augury" and that there is no sorting out time and the universe, because-- as Rovelli explains-- the time is always out of joint-- time is different in every location and just a construct designed to give us some idea of the constant flux and change in the universe . . . Hamlet know this by the end of the play when he says "If it be now, tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all" and that is the attitude the seniors must adopt, high school is over, all is change, flexibility is paramount, and "the readiness is all."
Can You Write Off Gummy Stuff?
It's bad enough that Ian purchased and ate Gummy Lifesavers (he has braces and was explicitly told never to eat anything gummy) but the sillier part of his dental transgression is that he left the receipt for the gummies in his book-bag, so that my wife could discover it (when I asked him why he kept the receipt he claimed he didn't want to be a litterbug).
Why Doesn't Catherine Care When I'm Limping?
I thought I broke our new dog Lola because I walked her too long the other morning-- she developed a bit of a limp-- but then we noticed the limp came and went without good reason, and she allowed me to touch every part of her right leg and there was nothing tender or injured . . . and then when she was playing with our friend's dog Sniffer, the limp disappeared, and today she was leaping with all four feet in the air onto a squeaky toy and "killing it . . . and then I learned that apparently dogs are smart enough to "fake limp" when they are nervous and want attention and sympathy and once they settle in and gain confidence, they stop.
Two New Rules (for Dave)
My wife is growing her hair long because she says she needs to do it before she turns fifty . . . according to her, women over fifty usually don't wear their hair long (I didn't know this was a rule, but now that I think about it, it seems to hold true) and the boys and I were playing HORSE in my cousin's driveway this afternoon at a christening and I took an easy shot and my son Alex said if you take a shot so easy that everyone makes it, then the original shooter gets a letter-- I've never heard of this rule either, but it strikes me as an excellent addition, because HORSE can get rather slow and boring, and this speeds things up a bit (unless people take shots so difficult that no one can make them, including the shooter . . . but that's entertaining in it's own right).
How Much Would You Pay NOT to Live in 1989?
I highly recommend The Indicator, a very short podcast that tells compelling economic stories, and this recent episode (Internet a la Carte) about a white paper (Using Massive Online Choice Experiments to Measure Changes in Well-being) that attempts to measure how people value free services on the internet is typical of the show-- it's a fascinating premise: asking people how much they would pay yearly not use a particular internet service and using this data to value the services-- but it also seems that the numbers are somehow skewed; Cardiff Garcia and Stacey Vanek Smith discuss this for a moment, but then the rest of the thinking is up to you . . . there is definitely something weird about the median values and how much time people spend on each service . . . it seems as if social media is undervalued, especially since the companies that provide these services are worth so much money, but perhaps social media is just a guilty pleasure and could easily be replaced by disco dancing, roller-blading, duck-pin bowling, gin, or latch-hook . . . anyway, these are the numbers-- they are strange but interesting, especially since if you paid for all of these services, you'd be out quite a bit of cash:
1) All Search Engines $17, 500
2) All Email $8,5 00
3) All Maps $3, 500
4) All Video $1,100
5) All E-Commerce $850
6) All Social Media $322.
1) All Search Engines $17, 500
2) All Email $8,5 00
3) All Maps $3, 500
4) All Video $1,100
5) All E-Commerce $850
6) All Social Media $322.
Dog Daze
We are settling in to the reality of having a puppy in the house . . . she raced outside this morning to do her business and I went to pick it up with a plastic bag but when I grabbed the poop, despite wearing a bag on my hand, it felt a bit more moist and visceral than I remembered . . . and then I realized the bag had a hole in it and I had reached through the hole and grabbed the poop with my bare hand . . . yuck . . . then Catherine came home at lunch to more poop on the rug and some chewing of our kitchen stool . .. but Lola has already learned to sit and come and she's walking on the leash fairly well, so she's moving along (and I got up at 5 AM this morning to walk her and train her and then got a late start to work and totally forgot that I promised to drive a colleague who lives in my town and has a car in the shop; I was so focused on puppy training that I didn't remember that I was supposed to pick him up until I pulled into the school lot-- I called him to apologize and he told me he grabbed an Uber . . . but I did remember to drive him home, so I did him exactly 50% of the promised favor: which is still failing).
Frittering Away the Moments That Make Up the Dull Day (While Waiting For the Damn Game to Come On)
I think it's a crying shame that we folks on the East Coast have to stay up so late to watch the NBA play-offs . . . the league is losing out on loads of potential fans (because they never see the end of any of the games . . . or at least my kids don't, they can't function on a school day with that kind of sleep deprivation) and the league hasn't scheduled a single day game for the entire finals, they should at least put the potential (and probably improbable) game seven in Super Bowl like time slot.
Lola Learns to Stroll Around the Neighborhood
New Dog!
We adopted a dog today from the APAWS Shelter in West Windsor; Lola is part Rhodesian Ridgeback, part who knows what, and entirely sweet and cute-- she's a bit overwhelmed to be out of the shelter but hopefully she'll settle in quickly . . . and it's nice to have a dog in the house again.
Dave Put His Magic (Loogie) Touch on the Lyrics
My buddy and fellow English teacher Bob (the leader sing and bassist extraordinaire of the Faculty Follies band) wrote the first few stanzas of "EB Cafeteria," to the tune of "Hotel California" and I added a couple of mundane verses at the end, but then I had a brilliant idea and found the seed of a narrative within the subtext of the song-- I was worried Bob wouldn't be into me taking his masterpiece down this road, but as usual, he was willing and ready to sing anything, no matter how gross and absurd (and at the end of the song, I got to improvise a guitar solo-- which was a little scary in front of such a huge crowd, but everything ended right in time-- lyrics below, you'll be able to tell which verses I am responsible for.)
EB Cafeteria
Down a walkway in D-hall
Fluorescent light in my hair
Warm smell of fajitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead, in the distance, the doors, opened wide
Make sure you have a late pass, if you want to get inside
Better get through the doorway
Before the second bell
Wait in line for some fixins
To fill your Taco bowl shell
Lunch lady grabs a ladle, And she scoops you some lunch
Wait, it’s 10:38, so I guess it's more like a brunch
Welcome to the EB cafeteria
Such an open space, you can stuff your face
Plenty to eat at the EB cafeteria
A potluck surprise, would you like some fries?
TVs near the ceiling, a juice box on ice
We are all just prisoners here of our cellular device
Clean the crumbs off your table and get ready for the feast
you’re just about to take a bite,
when your friend decides to sneeze!
Your lunch is covered with mucous and a stray nose hair.
You’ve got nothing else to eat, it just isn’t fair.
You could glom a few french fries, Beg for m&m's
Or you could make the best of it,
And wipe away the phlegm.
Welcome to the EB cafeteria
Such an open space, for an acquired taste
Hella big eats at the EB cafeteria
A potluck surprise, would you like some fries?
Dave Loves It When a Plan Comes Together
For the Faculty Follies, the house band usually does all new song parodies, but I demanded we resuscitate one song: "PSAT" (which is done to the tune of "YMCA") because I wanted one moment to happen-- so Bob added some new lyrics, and I explained to our new band member Young Allie exactly what I needed from her . . . Bob would sing the lyrics, "PSAT/ it's fun to guess on the PSAT/ you can narrow the choices to one in three/ then choose a letter . . ." and then I wanted Allie to step to the microphone and complete the line with the phrase "May I suggest C!" and she nailed it, with perfect timing and enunciation, which made me incredibly happy (you can see this moment for yourself, if you go 40 seconds in but I need to find some better quality video, so you can see just how ecstatic I am that my plan came together).
Dave Makes a Split Second Decision (on Stage)
Last night, I got as close to being a rock star as I ever will-- I played guitar in the Faculty Follies House Band in front of nearly a thousand screaming fans-- and at the start of "Detention" (played to the tune of Charlie Puth's "Attention") I exhibited a rare moment of aplomb and competence . . . I had twisted too many knobs on my amplifier and turned on too many effect pedals and the sound coming out of my speaker was an infinite sequence of echoes, but instead of forging ahead, I stopped playing, calmly clicked off my delay pedal with my foot, and then started again, with a much better sound . . . this is the only song that Bob and I didn't write-- the director of the event, Liz, penned this one and the lyrics are great so I've included them below.
Detention (To “Attention” by Charlie Puth)
You’ve been wanderin’, wanderin’, wanderin’, wanderin’
strolling through the halls . . .
strolling through the halls . . .
And you knew you’d be, knew you’d be, knew you’d be late to class
Now your teacher’s mad, teacher’s mad, teacher’s mad, teacher’s mad -
he’s writing you up
he’s writing you up
So you take the slip, tear it, and you throw it in the trash.
I know you’ve been in trouble, often before
Like that one time when you cut study hall
And now they’re all up on you, They’ve called your mom
But you act like you just don’t care at all...
You must want detention or maybe ISS?
Maybe you just hate the thought of reading Beowulf
You must want detention, because you’re here again
Don’t you come to this office enough?
You’ve been on your phone on your phone on your phone
checking on your streaks
checking on your streaks
When your teacher told you to put it in your bag
You blew her off blew her off blew her off
until she said she’d write you up
until she said she’d write you up
Then you threw a fit, made a scene and called her an old hag
I know Snapchat’s important And Instagram
But can’t you wait until it’s passing time?
Cause now they’re all up on you, calling your dad
Telling him that you just crossed the line.
You must want detention Or maybe ISS?
Maybe you just hate the thought of doing one more proof
You must want detention Cause you’re here again
So what the heck should we do with you?
You must want detention Or maybe ISS?
Maybe you just hate the thought of doing one more proof
You must want detention Cause you’re here again
So what the heck should we do with you?
Imitation: The Sincerest Form of Something
Today was "Dress Like a Teacher Day" at East Brunswick High School, and two lovely young ladies abandoned all fashion sense and dressed like me-- slacks with 2% spandex, a golf shirt, funky sandals, and thick framed black glasses (and one lady went so far as to carry an identical coffee cup, a copy of Hamlet, and she painted on a mascara goatee) but though the costumes were cute and we took some funny photos together, the scary part was that the two of them could also emulate all my mannerisms, body language, and tone of voice-- they went upstairs and regaled the other English teachers with stories of Syria, my incorrigible son Ian, and students with no sense of personal space-- and did it with my particular manner and eloquence (or lack thereof).
Contrasting Food Stuff Juxtaposition
The directions on the Colavita rigatoni are too ambiguous: "cook to desired tenderness," while the sign on the bathroom at Tacoria Mexican Kitchen in New Brunswick is way too specific: "El Bano; Where Tacos Go to Rest."
Dave Makes a Radical Change and the Consensus is: Genius!
Last Friday I made a radical kitchen move that took twelve years to discover: I moved all of our mismatched tupperware-type plastic containers and lids from the lazy-susan corner cabinet (where they caused me undue stress and frustration because I had to bend over and spin the lazy-susan in order to find what I was looking for and I could never tell which tops matched which containers, a visual problem that no amount of practice could improve) to the big, deep, and easily accessible pots and pans drawer by the stove, and I put the pots and lids and colanders on the lazy-susan, where they are easy to see and grab and even my wife and children agreed that this radical change was brilliant, because now you get a comfortable, birds-eye view of the plastic containers, so you can size up the lids and match them to the proper container . . . and I will sadly concede that I might not have an idea this good for the rest of my days.
A Story With No Moral (But Plenty of Splattering)
Alex punched Ian in the back when he came up the stairs because Ian was being annoying about how much money he had made doing gardening work for my wife, so I explained to Alex that it was a free country and Ian could say what he liked about how much money he made, and Alex could answer him back or be the bigger person and choose to ignore him, but he couldn't hit him; then I got in the shower and heard some screaming but decided I would let them figure it out-- there's nothing more ridiculous than a wet, angry dad in a towel trying to discipline his children-- and when I finally got downstairs to hear the story, I noticed there was red crap all over the cabinet and ceiling and this was because Ian was cutting some strawberries and Alex wanted some but Ian told him to wait until he was done cutting them-- he wasn't keen to give him any because Alex had recently punched him in the back-- and so Alex put Ian in a headlock but then remembered that he wasn't supposed to get physical with his younger brother, so to express his rage in a nonviolent matter, he threw some strawberries at the cabinet and they splattered onto the ceiling-- but, though he admitted this was very stupid, he pointed out that it was better than hitting his brother, which was probably true (and while I was annoyed with him for a moment, once I heard my wife yelling at him for throwing strawberries instead of punching his brother, I had to laugh . . . and though we tried to make him clean up the mess, he wasn't tall enough to reach the splatter . . . so maybe it would be easier for everyone if instead of sublimating, Alex just went back to punching Ian).
Comedy = Women to the Rescue/ Tragedy = Just Men
If you're dismayed by the state of the state, I highly recommend you read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, a conservative classic from 1987 that open-minded liberals and conservatives will enjoy because of the tone, it's quaintly intellectual (and quite crotchety and moralistic) by today's inanely polarized realpolitik standards of political discourse; Bloom is not afraid to actually say something and then back it up logically . . . and even his dated attack on the raw power of rock music will ring true to those old enough to remember when rock music meant something; I'll do a full review once I finish, but I was struck by his analysis of sex roles and Shakespeare-- Bloom pragmatically discusses the costs of feminism, of making both sexes the same, of stripping them of their mysticism and their courtship contrasts-- we know the benefits of feminism, of course: more brains in the economy and higher education; more empowered women; women that don't have to depend on men; women that can pursue a career as ambitiously as they can motherhood and childbirth; women that can participate fully in politics-- not just behind the scenes-- but Bloom also describes what it lost when we blend these worlds and these sex roles, and he uses Shakespeare to help; he explains that the difference between a Shakespearean comedy and a Shakespearean tragedy is that in the comedies, when the men are inadequate at restoring a civilized and peaceful order to things, the women dress as men, leave their feminine world, sort things, and then return to their feminine roles-- but with a sense of delicious irony in that these roles are simply there to make civilization operate and sometimes they need to be broken by clever women that can play the part of men better than men can (Portia from The Merchant of Venice is the perfect example) but once the sexes are mixed together and uniform, whether as soldiers or lawyers or pilots or statesmen, then there is no civilized feminine world to come to the rescue (Hillary Clinton is the perfect example-- she needed some savvy woman to edit her "basket of deplorables" speech) and this is incredibly evident in Hamlet . . . if Ophelia was a bit zanier and clever, instead of depressed and broken, she might have disguised herself as a man, befriended Hamlet and Horatio, exacted a less violent revenge on her meddling dad, and mopped the rottenness right out of Castle Elsinore . . . but woe is me (and her) as that was not to be . . . and now that I've expressed myself fully, I'll get back to cleaning the sink.
Yelling After a Quiet Place
Another rainy day, and my wife and I had no desire to endure the crass humor of Deadpool 2, so instead we took the kids to see A Quiet Place; I certainly recommend the movie for family viewing: it will keep you on the edge of your seat and it's also artfully done (although there are a few plot holes that gape as wide as the aliens viscous yawning earholes) but my family's favorite part of the movie was that I missed the fact that one of the characters is deaf-- I thought the Abbot gang learned sign language during the course of this quiet apocalypse and missed the fact that not only is the character in the movie deaf, but Millicent Simmonds, the actress, is deaf in real life as well; so there was a whole lot of yelling at me after the film ended, when they realized I missed this very important plot point. . . I attribute this to the fact that due to the silent nature of this story, the audience is required to be unusually quiet for the duration, and I like to talk during movies: ask lots of questions, make clever jokes, inquire about motive and plot, and generally interact with the folks around me . . . this keeps me from spacing out and missing significant stuff (although I did whisper to my son Ian a few times about the nail in the staircase, which someone really needed to pound flat) but the fact that I missed this apparently most evident piece of the puzzle gave my family so much pleasure that I'm glad it happened (though I really need to watch the movie again now that know this).
Thanks, CIA!
Jazz is the abstract expressionist version of music (and, improbably, the CIA helped promote this primarily theoretical art form which mainly grooves and meditates on the shapes and intervals and sequences of raw sound and rhythm, rather than the more traditional narrative arc framed by verses and choruses).
Testing 1,2,3 . . . 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11
We did our Faculty Follies soundcheck today and then, while we were up on stage and everything was miked up through the PA and the soundboard, we were able to run through our six song set several times, and I learned that anytime you see and hear a live band in an auditorium or large hall and it goes off without a hitch, there was a lot of preparation to get that to happen.
Giving a F*ck About Not Giving a F*ck
Mark Manson's breezy, philosophical and surprisingly profound millennial self-help guide The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life might be less surprising if you're a cynical Generation X'er like me: life is pain, so don't try to avoid it-- just focus and prioritize on problems you can solve or at least take a crack at . . . avoid distractions, lower the bar, figure out what you truly value and stop comparing yourself to everyone else on social media, stop obsessing about all the things and instead give a fuck about a few things that you truly deem important and forget the rest . . . I've built a happy life on these precepts-- I give a fuck about spending time with my wife and kids and playing guitar/recording music/podcasts and reading books and writing this blog and coaching soccer and doing as many sports as I can with my kids and colleagues and trying to get together with friends to drink beer-- and though these things often stress me out and beat up my body and mind, I know that I value social interaction and physical and mental exercise more than I do money and expensive items and political power and this will always be the case: Manson has just learned this-- he recognizes that after a peripatetic tour of the world that included 55 different countries, that visiting a few countries opens your mind and changes your perspective, but the 51st and 52nd country don't add much to the experience . . . and sometimes lack of choice and commitment is the best choice of all, because certain things can only be experienced when you live in the same place for five years or ten years; anyway, the book is full of crude language and entertaining anecdotes, and it's such a quick read that you won't even realizing you're examining your values and your philosophy of life until you've turned the last page (and it might be a sneaky way to get your children to read something deep-- I just gave it to my son Alex and he read 25 pages and came downstairs all excited about how much he likes it-- especially the story of Charles Bukowski).
Lyrics We Wrote
Today, I was obsessed with finding some song parody lyrics from the last Faculty Follies house band performance three years previous ("It's Fun to Guess on the P.S.A.T.) but I searched all my different Google drives and looked at Word files in various locations, hard and cloud-like, but I had no luck . . . and then a co-worker thought back three years ago, remembered that out boss introduced me to Evernote, and I checked there and found the file: digital mystery solved (but I worry how many platforms I will go through and how much digital detritus will collect int he next ten years . . . and then there's the passwords, all those ever-shifting passwords).
Playception!
So everyone with even a modicum of education knows that there is a play-within-a-play at the center of Shakespeare's Hamlet-- The Murder of Gonzago-- and some might remember that Hamlet has asked the players to insert into this play-within-a-play a "speech of some dozen or sixteen lines" which Hamlet has written, with the express intention to emulate his father's murder so as to spook his Uncle Claudius . . . so Hamlet has inserted a smaller play into the play-within-the-play, so essentially a play-within-the-play-within-the-play and tomorrow, when we discuss this scene in class, I've written a sixteen line play about this play-within-the-play-within-the-play, which I will premier while we are discussing Hamlet's inserted lines, and thus my piece will be a play-within-the-play-within-the-play-within-the-play . . . I told the kids that some people like this sort of meta-drama (myself included) and everyone else can go watch Macbeth.
Warning: Pedantry Ahead
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing (especially when it resides in my head) so I'm warning you ahead of time: I just learned that when you say a process has a "steep learning curve" you actually mean that the process is easy to learn-- because as you move along the x-axis of time, you zoom up the steep y-axis of learning proficiency, and before you know it, you can make brownies . . . if you want to say that something is difficult to learn, you say it has a "long and shallow learning curve," thus as you move along the x-axis of time, you barely go up at all on the y-axis of learning-- ten years later, you're middling fair at the oboe-- so I'm begging you, please don't say the phrase "steep learning curve" anywhere within my earshot, because my inner pedant is lying in wait, ready to pounce and explain this silliness, and, as much as I'd like to, I don't think I can control the impulse (although I've been doing great with the whole "lie" and "lay" fiasco, I heard several people screw it up royally on Friday and didn't say a word . . . but this "learning curve" thing is too rich to pass up).
Brotherly Love/Fatherly Rage
I guest-coached my older son Alex's travel soccer game today and they were short-handed (short-footed?) and so my younger son Ian had to guest-play on the team to give them 11 players; we were in North Plainfield, playing a scrappy Hispanic team and there was only one ref instead of the usual three, and this ref pretty much took a laissez faire approach to calling the game (except offsides, he called a goal back on a play that was clearly not offsides) and the other team took advantage of this-- they elbowed, grabbed, tossed, and two-handed pushed our players often (frequently after the play was over) and when our sweeper was grabbed by the shoulder and chucked and then the ref called a penalty kick on our team, I ran out onto the field to complain and he immediately red-carded me and sent me packing . . . I then had to get phone updates and watch the game from afar and it just got worse and worse, one of our players got elbowed so hard it bruised his ribs, and the opposing coach screamed at him to get up and insisted he was faking the injury and delaying the game-- at this point, our team was ahead 2 - 1 but the other team had 18 players and our 11 were exhausted and banged up, and the attack was pretty much relentless, corner kick after corner kick, cross after cross, and then my younger son Ian got two-handed shoved to the ground by an opposing player, and his older brother Alex ran to his rescue and punched the kid in the stomach, and a general melee erupted, the opposing coach ran onto the field and may have pushed one of our folks (a high school senior that was running the lines, a sibling to our sweeper) and, luckily, the ref actually listened to my younger son when he explained what happened and give the kid who pushed him down a yellow card . . . and moments later, the ref blew the long whistle to signal the end of the game, an epic and epically ugly win for the Eagles, with no subs and a lot of insanity (and I will say that after the game, the North Plainfield parents that I talked to were quite nice and quick to forgive me for getting a red card-- and apparently they apologized to our parents for some of the rough play on the part of their players-- and they certainly understood just how high emotions run during a soccer game, but I'm going to really try to calm down and take some deep breaths-- God only knows if I'll even be able to coach my own team tomorrow, or if I'll be suspended or something).
Good (Enough) Friday
In the end, this will be the day that it all happened ( if we're talking about 6 AM basketball, 7:30 AM folder review with the Rutgers guy, the teaching of Hamlet . . . including some phenomenal acting by yours truly, a summative review with my boss, book club, an Uber ride into New Brunswick for more socializing, and a brisk walk back to Highland Park . . . I will be the first to admit that this is far too much of everything for one Friday and I'm glad to be back in the confines of my safe American home).
The First Rule of Book Club
I finished the classic Ursula Le Guin science-fiction novel The Lathe of Heaven earlier this week but I can't discuss my thoughts about it until Book Club tomorrow afternoon . . . because the first (and only) rule of Book Club is that you don't talk about the Book Club Book until Book Club.
Easily Distracted = Easily Amused
I had trouble writing my sentence today because of all the ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong.
Not My Purview
Sunday morning, I got on my bike and rode across town to the 5K Volunteer Meeting; received my Volunteer t-shirt and little cardboard STOP sign and yellow police tape; was informed that I was in no way deputized as a sheriff or officer of the law and if there was any trouble at my intersection to call the police and that I should NOT attempt to actually stop and arrest any bull-headed drivers who made their way onto the course and then I made my way to 7th and Park to put up my police tape and man my post; I was stationed at a secluded intersection about three quarters of the way through the course and I only had to blockade one street with police tape as the other side of the street bordered on a stream; then I sipped my coffee and chatted with the family across the way, who were out with the kids waiting for the runners and in a few minutes they came through, sporadically at first, and then en masse and I cheered on the folks I knew (including my wife!) and had no trouble with traffic . . . until things started petering out and a woman with a thick accent (Russian?) wanted to know when she could pull her car out of her driveway because she had to get to an appointment and I told her to ask the police over at the next intersection and she said she had asked them and they said that she couldn't leave until all the people in the race came through-- she would know because there was a police vehicle bringing up the rear . . . and I told the woman that if she came my way, I could lift the police tape and she could shoot up 7th but she was going to get stopped at the other end, on Abbot, because the runners were looping around and I could see why she was getting annoyed because we were getting down to the end and people were walking and pushing strollers, one guy was wearing a dinosaur suit, and there seemed to be no end to it and so she said to me, "These people are not running . . . can you tell them to go faster? To start running?" and I informed her that I didn't think I had the authority to enforce any kind of pace on the runners and her answer to that was, "This running . . . I don't even understand it" and then she got in her car, pulled out of her driveway and came my way, against the grain of the race; the police at 8th and Park yelled at me to stop her, so I waved my little cardboard STOP sign at her but she drove right by me and made it two blocks, to the 5th and Park intersection and the police pulled her over there and gave her the business and she had to wait there until the bitter end . . . I'm glad no one was injured but I'm also glad that I saw some action and had a chance to use my signage, though it was to no avail.
The Grand Budapest Florida Hotel Project
The Florida Project is streaming for free on Amazon Prime right now and it's a sad and magical movie, a trashy, rundown, one-step-away-from-homeless version of The Grand Budapest Hotel . . . a six year old girl (Moonee) and her urchin-like friends have weird, slightly dangerous, and almost completely unmonitored adventures in the impoverished shadow of the Magic Kingdom, while Moonee's very young mom-- a tattooed recently unemployed exotic dancer-- tries to make ends meet; Willem Dafoe plays the hotel manager of the Magic Castle, a cheap hotel that mainly serves as way-station for folks that can't afford better housing, and his job is impossible-- especially when actual tourists show up and want to stay at the place; the movie's rhythm is the beat of a child's brain on summer vacation: every day is epic, every day is a chance to meet new people and do new things, then routines are established, and all of this is oblivious to the adult world, which is proceeding at a different, harsher pace . . . I loved it: ten ice cream cones out of ten.
Hey Man, Stop Blowin' Up My White Font Spot
I was covering a physics class last week and a nerdy kid offered me some valuable information on how to cheat the word count on an assignment (and word count is one of the stipulations of the college writing class I teach, their synthesis essays have to be at least 1500 words) and his method is brilliant:
1) you check the word count on the assignment and you're a bit short but you've got nothing else to say;
2) so you type a random sentence-- which contains no spelling mistakes-- then copy/paste this sentence enough times that you've met the word count requirement for the assignment;
3) then shrink these random copied sentences a bit so they don't take up much space and they are difficult to find;
4) then select these extra random sentences and change the font color to white . . . so the teacher can't see them but your word count now meets the requirements (and the other students were NOT happy that this kid told me about this method, so obviously kids have been doing this).
1) you check the word count on the assignment and you're a bit short but you've got nothing else to say;
2) so you type a random sentence-- which contains no spelling mistakes-- then copy/paste this sentence enough times that you've met the word count requirement for the assignment;
3) then shrink these random copied sentences a bit so they don't take up much space and they are difficult to find;
4) then select these extra random sentences and change the font color to white . . . so the teacher can't see them but your word count now meets the requirements (and the other students were NOT happy that this kid told me about this method, so obviously kids have been doing this).
Dave Comes in First Place for First World Problems
My outdoor ping-pong table is arriving for pick-up at Sears tomorrow . . . one day after our Cuatro de Mayo Happy Hour (I guess we'll have to make do with corn-hole).
Catherine Goes Rogue
I arrived home from work today at 3 PM and noticed that my wife's car was parked in front of the house; at first I imagined the worst (my father underwent heart surgery yesterday-- successfully-- but I figured something might have gone horribly wrong) but I didn't walk in to bad news . . . I walked in to no news at all, and no sign of my wife; then I figured she got sick and took a half day, so I went upstairs to see if she was sleeping-- but no Catherine-- so then I figured the car was broken, but I went outside and the CRV turned over . . . so I called her school to ask if she was there and the secretary said she was in her classroom teaching . . . and that she had walked to school (a little over two miles) in order to get some exercise, a possibility I hadn't considered because of the unseasonable heat (and she walked home as well: impressive, but I told her to leave a note the next time it's 92 degrees she decides to go walkabout).
Dave Turns Catherine Into Dave
My wife called me yesterday on her way home from work to point out that she was filling up the gas tank in the CRV-- the tank was getting low (though the light was not on yet) and we were switching cars today and she wanted to "get credit" for doing the right thing and leaving me a car with a full tank of gas . . . now Catherine has always been a stoic sort of person who does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, she's never needed her ego stroked to behave morally, but I think I've changed her for the better and made her more like me; I pointed this out to her and told her I had already filled up the van and did not call her for credit-- I just did it because it's the right thing to do-- and she told me that she really hates filling the car up with gas so it was a special favor and thus deserving of "credit" and I agreed, of course-- we should all get credit for our good deeds . . . otherwise, why do them?-- but I also reminded her how annoyed she gets when I demand credit and applause for doing mundane tasks, such as the dishes (I don't like to get my hands moist) or cooking dinner (monitoring more than two burners stresses me out) or weeding the yard (bending over is annoying) or any of the other mundane tasks I complete . . . so this psychological egoism is a good sign, as I often feel that Catherine is directing my moral compass towards a more righteous angle, but perhaps my amoral magnetism is disrupting her poles.
Will Dave Use SoD as a Reference?
We are starting to prepare for our Cuatro de Mayo happy hour on Friday and I'm going to infuse some tequila with hot peppers; I have referred to the notes from last year, but the question is: will I use the advice in the sentence and the comments?
Dave Avoids Being an Awkward Racist
Fourth period today, I was far afield, covering an honors physics class in J Hall; the class was full of 11th graders and I teach mainly seniors, but I recognized a couple of younger siblings-- and then one younger sibling recognized me: a tall African-American kid said that I taught his older brother Callan and we talked about him for a moment and then I got the students working on their assignment (something to do with the speed of sound and the speed of light and car antennas) and I noticed that the other African-American kid in the class not only looked like the tall kid that said I taught his brother, but he also looked like the older brother Callan . . . but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to fall into the stereotypical "they all look alike" trope . . . so I kept my mouth shut about the resemblance, but then towards the end of the period I realized that I hadn't taken attendance yet, so I read the roster aloud and checked off who was present and it turned out the that the two African-American kids in the class were identical twins . . . so not only did they look like the older black kid that I taught, but they looked exactly like each other.
Dave Does the Math
We celebrated my grandmother's 96th birthday today (we celebrated a bit early-- her actual birthday is Tuesday but she's looking good so I think she's going to make it) and she's now twice my age (I'm 48) and I won't be double my older son's age for twenty years (he's 14) and I won't double my younger son's age for 22 years (he'll be 13 in a month) and my friend Brady (who's 47) and just had a daughter won't double her age for 47 years!
Early Goals Ease a Hangover . . .
I was a little foggy this morning because Catherine and I attended a raucous dance party last night, so I was especially happy when my travel soccer team took an early 4 - 0 lead in our game . . . Ian scored two quick goals, perhaps because he has extra energy due to his grounding (caused by poor academics . . . he's got no phone, he's not allowed to hang out with friends this weekend, and he's supposed to mulch the garden-- Catherine sent him out to do so on Thursday after school, but when she went to check on his progress, she found him taking a nap in the sun . . . as long as he keeps scoring early goals and making my life as a coach less stressful, I'm fine with him catching zzz's wherever he can).
Scott Pruitt, You Are My Nemesis
If there's one thing that you can be certain of around here, it's that I despise Scott Pruitt and the new episode of Embedded has not helped matters . . . it's a deep dive into Pruitt's personality, politics and policy tactics and now his fervent passion for rolling back environmental rules and regulations, his desire to bring back coal, and his apparent disdain for science and the mission of the EPA make perfect sense: he's a brainwashed Bible-thumping religious fundamentalist who doubts the science behind climate change and doesn't think evolution is a true thing . . . now it's perfectly legal in America to believe the Bible is literally the word of God (and it's also perfectly legal to believe the Koran is the word of God) but I do not think anyone who think these things should head up a scientific agency designed to protect the air, water, and forests of nations from externalities created by business and the government; this is an agency for the people and he's taking it back, in the name of God, he's carving out space for religion in the public square, and he's going to set things straight again and let the earth be under the dominion of man, to be reaped and raped and domineered-- just like the Bible suggests; he worries about how the radical left worships the earth and the environment, instead of an angry anthropomorphic God, and is another Republican loon racing us towards the brink of environmental disaster; so this guy is anathema, my absolute nemesis . . . weird and joyless and and fighting for the same thing that radical Islam wants-- a government reflective of an ancient book-- it’s ironic (though Pruitt seems too literal to understand irony) and he’s far more dangerous and awful than Trump himself-- because Pruitt has beliefs and principles, while (hopefully) Trump is just a showman and doesn't actually believe anything . . . so maybe he'll fire Pruitt soon enough, when all the corruption shakes out (although I could care less about that stuff-- he should be fired for dismantling an agency that is based on science) and beyond the religious stuff, which will put things into context, the podcast also details a few of the cases that Pruitt pursued: as attorney general in Oklahoma, he managed to stop a classic environmental externality case right in its tracks . . . the Illinois River and water basin in Oklahoma was getting polluted by chickenshit running downstream from Arkansas, and Pruitt did his best to delay and then essentially negate the case that Oklahoma had against Arkansas . . . the case is still pending, eight years later and (ironically . . . but again, Pruitt would be too stupid to appreciate this) Pruitt is now on the other side of the case and could force Arkansas to comply and push the case along, but that ain't gonna happen . . . anyway, the guy famous for suing the EPA and not protecting his state from polluted waterways is now the guy in charge of the EPA . . . there's plenty more to this and I suggest you do some research and then send a letter to your Congressman about this Sunday-school-teacher gone rogue (there's a nice bit in the podcast where Cory Booker takes him on) and I'm going to try to forget about all this shit, because I just ordered an outdoor ping-pong table for our backyard and I'm very excited (and while I know consumption is a problem and making this durable ping-pong table used up many valuable resources, I also think it will keep me and the kids at home in the yard for many days and nights, so we'll drive less and consume less fossil fuels).
Trump and Ryan: Two Peas in a Pod?
Lots of farm stuff going on now in Congress-- The Indicator covers the labor drought . . . this is probably my favorite thing that Trump has (inadvertently) done; his tough stance on immigration and work visas has made it so American farms can't find workers (though they've raised wages) and so some American farmers are moving their farms to Mexico because it's easier to find labor there-- this affects local American economies negatively, of course, because we're not selling fertilizer and chemicals and tractors locally, but perhaps this farmland will remain as open space, perhaps we won't use as much water, perhaps Mexico will benefit from the jobs, and perhaps we'll be more inexplicably tied in a global economy, which will help destroy borders, nations, loyalty to flags, xenophobia, and lots of other awful things that our on the rise . . . so The Donald doesn't know what he's doing, but maybe he's undermining the very thing he stands for, which makes me happy; the folks on The Weeds are not very happy about the new work requirements attached to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program . . . food stamps) because it's going to arbitrarily kick a bunch of people off the program-- but this seems to be Paul Ryan's dream, to deny poor people benefits (even if it costs more in bureaucracy execute his policy than the actual dispersal of said benefits) and the bill does nothing to change the ridiculous nature of farm subsidies . . . and that's the real nutritional problem in our country, poor people have access to plenty of calories (and are actually more likely to be obese than starving, but healthy food is expensive and mainly unsubsidized) -- if you want an overview of that situation, read this article, but for those of you who want the Cliffnotes, here is Marion Nestle:
"If you were to create a MyPlate meal that matched where the government historically aimed its subsidies, you’d get a lecture from your doctor. More than three-quarters of your plate would be taken up by a massive corn fritter (80 percent of benefits go to corn, grains and soy oil). You’d have a Dixie cup of milk (dairy gets 3 percent), a hamburger the size of a half dollar (livestock: 2 percent), two peas (fruits and vegetables: 0.45 percent) and an after-dinner cigarette (tobacco: 2 percent). Oh, and a really big linen napkin (cotton: 13 percent) to dab your lips."
"If you were to create a MyPlate meal that matched where the government historically aimed its subsidies, you’d get a lecture from your doctor. More than three-quarters of your plate would be taken up by a massive corn fritter (80 percent of benefits go to corn, grains and soy oil). You’d have a Dixie cup of milk (dairy gets 3 percent), a hamburger the size of a half dollar (livestock: 2 percent), two peas (fruits and vegetables: 0.45 percent) and an after-dinner cigarette (tobacco: 2 percent). Oh, and a really big linen napkin (cotton: 13 percent) to dab your lips."
Lost and Foundering
Take a look at the picture above and see if you can find the bag of Kirkland brand ground coffee . . . and now imagine that you are me: I took a look at that tableau on Saturday morning, could not find the coffee, proceeded to search the house high and low for a bag of caffeinated coffee-- the pantry, the downstairs shelves, the lazy susan in the lower cupboard, etc.-- and then surmised that we had no more coffee (and I wasn't going to wake my wife up to ask if we did) and so I angrily went to the grocery store to buy some . . . when my wife woke up and she heard my tale of woe, she immediately pointed to the blue bag of Kirkland brand ground coffee, and this threw my brain into a cognitive fit, until I rationalized and realized that I was standing to the right of the coffeemaker when I looked at the counter and rashly decided we were out of coffee, so the big bag of ground coffee was behind the coffeemaker . . . and it's impossible to see something if it's behind something else, or so I convinced myself; after I drank my coffee, I went to Home Depot and bought a tree, three bags of topsoil and a canister of deer repellent granules, and it was really windy, which made it difficult to push my orange flatbed cart through the parking lot, because the tree kept falling over, but I finally made it to the car, loaded the tree in the back on top of the bags of soil and then drove away, only to have my path blocked by a large white canister, rolling along across the pavement, blown by the strong wind-- so I got out of the car to move this random obstruction and it turned out to be the deer repellent I had purchased-- I had not noticed it had fallen off my cart-- the wind was obviously the culprit-- and I had apparently forgotten all about my purchase in the three minutes between the check-out line and the loading of the car . . . so I considered myself lucky, because the canister was for my wife, and if I came home with it unaccounted for-- when I had obviously purchased it (it was on the receipt) after the whole coffee fiasco, she might have wondered about my ability to live a fruitful and independent life without her support.
I Feel Fine . . .
I had a salad for lunch today, but it was more exciting than usual because while I was ingesting aforementioned greens, my colleagues informed me that the romaine lettuce was most likely infected with E. coli.
Laura Roslin and Walter White: Separated at Birth?
We just finished watching Breaking Bad as a family and then we hyper-jumped right into Battlestar Galactica . . . these are two of my favorite shows and it's really fun to rewatch them with the kids, especially because they notice things that I missed (and the first time Catherine and I watched these shows, we were sleep deprived and logy because of these very same kids) and while I will claim responsibility for the juxtapostion of these two platinum era masterpieces, Ian is the one who first noticed that Walter White and Laura Roslin are two sides of the same coin, and I'd like to add my two cents as to why:
1) at the outset of each story, both characters are diagnosed with cancer;
2) they are both involved in education and both seem to have greater aspirations;
3) they are both thrown into positions of power far beyond their purview and they both adapt and become calculating and effective leaders;
4) the looming threat of imminent death from cancer makes them assume a different kind of logic when assessing problems-- because they know how to take themselves out of the picture;
5) both shows hinge on a yin-and-yang duality-- the Walter White/Jesse Pinkman rollercoaster relationship and the Laura Roslin/ Commander Adama philosophical and tactical discussions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)