College Admissions: More Than You Need To Know . . .

Jeffrey Selingo's Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions is a great book-- well-written, compelling, and chock full of telling anecdotes and vital information; here are a few things I learned:

1) ignore the mail . . . it's random-- you are NOT being recruited by Princeton if you have 1350 on your SAT and a 3.7 GPA and happen to get sent a brochure;

2) there are hidden agendas-- more men, more English majors, more people from five states away, more people that pay;

3) elite colleges are more difficult to get acceptance now but the rest are not;

4) you need a cohesive story of why you actually want to go to a particular college . . . colleges track website visits, they pay attention to who visits and attends admission presentation, they like legacies, they know who opens emails, etc . . . colleges are trying to figure out who will go to the college-- not give an award of acceptance;

5) Early Decision serves the needs of the college "a hell of a lot more" than the needs of the student-- again, colleges are trying to lock-in people who will pay full tuition or play football or boost SAT scores or increase diversity . . . so you're probably not going to get into your reach school just because you apply ED . . . and you won't be able to shop around and negotiate;

6) Selingo breaks colleges into "buyers" and "sellers" . . . sellers are well-known schools with low admission rates and a brand name-- buyers are schools that need to purchase a class of incoming students-- and they need to offer more discounts to excellent students to lure them in . . . there are some excellent schools in both categories-- and many state schools are "buyer" schools that should be considered . . . but it's best to apply to some of each and then weigh the finances and merits of the schools;

7) rich white people take advantage of using sports to get into school more than people of color . . . while basketball and football may admit a number of black students, most of the other sports-- lacrosse, gymnastics, sailing, soccer, rowing-- have mainly white participants, often rich white kids who played elite, club versions of these sports for their entire childhood;

8) college essays could be helpful, but most are "mind-numbingly boring" and deal with several topics: overcoming an athletic injury; dealing with depression, anxiety, or sexuality; or discovering themselves on a trip . . . honest slice-of-life essays have the best chance of capturing admissions' officers severely depleted attention;

9) it's very difficult to determine the cost of a college-- the sticker price is often not indicative-- and the maze of subsidized and unsubsidized loans, financial aid, grants and scholarships is difficult to navigate, even for guidance counselors-- it sounds worse than buying a used car;

10) don't get sold on the tour . . . a tour is just a tour and it's easier to improve the quality of the tour than it is to improve the quality of an undergraduate engineering program;

11) slow down and don't get caught up in Early Decision . . . Selingo hope the COVID might turn some of this process on its ear: less reliance on test scores, college recruiting students the way they recruit athletes, students searching for what they want to do at school-- not for a particular brand name, government subsidies and encouragement so selective schools can take more middle and lower-income kids, he also hopes that some of these brand name universities enlarge their classes; the actual price of college could become more transparent and that students and parents expand the field beyond just certain selective colleges . . . there's no perfect fit and no perfect college-- you need to be very flexible in your shopping;

12) most importantly, everyone involved agrees that college admissions is a short-sighted, out-of-your-control process and you can't get too caught up in it;

13) here are some random bits of advice from the appendix:

--worry about what you do in high school, and less about standardized tests;

--use freshman year to explore your academic and extra-curricular interests;--take the hardest courses available, but also what interests you;

--keep your grades consistent and don't blow off senior year;

--don't ask for recommendations from the usual suspects;

--make your initial college list about your needs and fuss with names later on;

--visit any campus, not just schools you want to go to;

--connect with colleges;

--think about the money;

--think about each application individually, not collectively;

--be sure those who recommend you know you;

--figure out the narrative you want to tell;

--it doesn't really matter what college you go to-- people with the same grades and SATs make the same amount of money whether they go to Harvard or Penn State;

--mindsets and skills matter more than colleges and majors;

--the majors you think are a guarantee to make money aren't necessarily that. . .  the top quarter of earners who majored in English make more over their lifetime than the bottom quarter of chemical engineers . . . even history graduates who make just above the median income for that major do pretty well compared to STEM . . .

and most importantly, don't get too wound up about this because college admission is not the end-all-be-all: 

"one cannot tell by looking at a toad how far he will jump"

for more on this topic, check out This American Life: The Campus Tour Has Been Cancelled . . . the pros and cons of college admissions in a post-standardized test, pandemic universe.

Rambling Saturday Morning Thoughts and Warnings

I'm a little logy from staying up late last night but it was worth it-- Rutgers beat Clemson for their first NCAA tourney win in 38 years-- and I am wondering if all the college towns with teams in the tournament are going to experience a spike in COVID cases in a week or two . . . especially teams that win a game or two . . . I was in a crowded bar last week when Rutgers beat Indiana and I was probably lucky to not get corona, especially since cases are still really high here in Jersey-- the virus is being weirdly stubborn, despite vaccinations and I'm assuming it's college kids passing it around . . . so I decided to stay in last night and avoid the pandemic, since Catherine and I are getting our second shot tomorrow and spring break is on the horizon-- we'll see how this strategy plays out; in other rambling news, while I was returning home from my morning ramble to the dog park, a sketchy looking guy seemed to emerge from the woods on the hill that leads back to my street-- which may mean he was wandering through someone's property and not the park per se; he was a youngish white dude with longish hair-- kind of nondescript but looked a little unkempt-- and he stomped his boots on the street to get the mud off them and this spooked Lola and she started growling at him, so I turned her and continued up the hill but this guy followed us and he wanted to chat and pet Lola, but she was having none of it-- it's weird how a dog can get a sketchy vibe from someone--  and then he kind of walked beside us, asking me about Lola's breed and complimenting her paws and wrists-- weird-- and then he said he'd like to have a dog but his rental doesn't allow it . . . and then I said, "Take it easy" turned toward my house but I didn't go straight into the driveway-- I did the old walk-by-your-own-house-so-the-sketchy-guy-doesn't-know-where-you-live trick, which may have worked-- but anyway, if you live near Donaldson Park, lock your car doors and keep an eye out for this guy, he may have been wandering through backyards and he's certainly worth avoiding if you don't want to end up in an awkward conversation.

The Specter of Walt Disney Raises Awkward Dave from the Grave

In the past decade, I've tamed Awkward Dave to some degree, but he still occasionally rears his ugly, awkward head; one of these times is when adults-- grown-ass adults--  proclaim their love of Disney World; this boggles my mind and-- unfortunately for my awkwardness-- we've got a bunch of these people in our school (and there are several in the English department!) and some of them visit Disney every year-- it's like a religious pilgrimage-- and some of them visit Disney World and they don't have children . . . and while I understand taking your kids there once so they don't feel alienated and neglected-- although my wife and I refused to go and swore we would never take our kids until finally my parents actually dragged us all there and footed the entire bill . . . I had a lot of problems with the experience, but I'm an extra-high-maintenance pain-in-the-ass . . . but that's not what this sentence is about, it's about the awkward fugue-like state I enter when adults mention their love of Disney World . . . I start saying crazy, insulting, and awful things right to their faces, and these are people I work with and see every day; here are some examples of things I start spouting to perfectly nice co-workers: 

-- I rant and rave about how lame it is to share a bunch of antiseptic engineered memories with the rest of the Philistines in the park; 

-- I explain how happy I was when an alligator ate a small child at the Disney Grand Floridian Resort and Spa because it injected some reality into the fantasy;

-- I told someone they were totally fucked in the head because she was touting the merits of the Epcot food and wine festival . . . I told her for that amount of money you could go to Italy and have real food and wine!

-- I like to call out people who claim they are feminists yet worship the princess culture;

so I've decided this can't go on . . . if people want to spend their hard-earned money on Disney vacations, so be it . . . I need to be more tolerant; also, I don't think they can help it-- I wish I could claim to have noticed this myself, but it was Chantal who pointed out that all the devout Disney worshippers are practicing Catholics . . . so maybe there's some tie-in between actually practicing religion and loving Disney-- and we all know you can't control whether you have that "belief" character trait . . . I don't have a lick of it and I think it saves me a lot of trouble (in fact, I just read a great little piece in The Atlantic about how politics has replaced religion in America . . . and Disney is better than politics, I suppose).

Thick Masks and Liquid Skin: More New Shit

     

Like many people, I'm struggling to adapt to the new pandemic world order-- but I'm doing my best to learn new tricks; for example, the new mask my wife bought me was a bit thick, so I used scissors to remove the extra layer . . . but I cut myself with the scissor (which makes me wonder if my tetanus vaccine is up-to-date) and the cut was on my guitar-playing/typing/poking-things finger and it made it difficult to do those tasks but wife recommended using some "liquid skin," a weird substance that reminds me of medical crazy glue . . . and while it works, it's one more thing to remember before heading to work-- I've raced back into the house in the morning for my phone, for a mask, for my coffee, for my lunch, for my backpack, for my loop pedal . . . and now I've raced back into the house to apply some "liquid skin" . . . this added excitement is one of the benefits of returning to in-person school.

Daylight Saving Time: Catastrophe and Miracle

Yesterday, I was running late-- of course-- because we had just sprung ahead for fucking Daylight Saving Time and though I was bleary-eyed, I still noticed (possibly because it was dark) that ALL the interior lights were on in my van-- and they had certainly been on all night; luckily, the battery was okay and the car started but I couldn't get the lights to turn off, even when I was driving; my son had borrowed the car the day previous and he was the last to drive it so he had obviously done something egregious, but I didn't have time to run in the house and wake him up and ask him, so I called my wife (waking her up, as she was taking a day off) and told her to get Alex on the phone; Alex denied pressing any buttons and while all I could say was "THINK!"-- because I was driving down Route 18 with a bunch of other over-tired drivers-- but my wife actually thought for a moment and told Alex to go down to the computer and search how to shut the lights off on a 2008 Toyota Sienna; miraculously, he figured out what he had done . . . there is a weird button with three settings behind the steering wheel: OFF/DOOR/ON; this button toggles the interior lights from always off to turn-on-when-doors-are-open to always on . . . and he had somehow hit this button-- this button that no one has ever pressed in the history of driving-- and permanently turned the interior lights on (why this button exists confounds me, it is as equally unexplainable as the existence of Daylight Saving Time . . . which may be headed the way of the dinosaurs . . . which would make me very happy, almost as happy as when I put a piece of duct-tape over this idiotic button so that no teenager can ever press it again).

Note to Self (in March)

 This is what I learned yesterday: don't install a screen door on a windy day.

Game, Set, Match (Dave Beats the Drowned Man)

Yesterday was the last day of the winter men's league-- and while most of the guys are signing up for the spring session, I will be playing outside with my kids in the coming weeks, in preparation for the high school season; I finished strong, beating Barry in my last match-- though I won handily, Barry is troublesome (especially for a 65-year-old!) as he gets to everything and has a decent serve; while I started this league hustling and fit, I ended it wearing a brace on each knee, basketball shoes (more support than my tennis shoes) and tape on my two sprained toes; this winter I certainly improved my game . . . to some degree, I learned to stop chasing drop shots (for fear of injury) and stop diving at the net, I learned to serve to the backhand side, I learned to hit forehand winners and a hard cross-court two-handed backhand, I learned to hit my slice backhand deep, and-- just in the last match!-- I learned the proper ready position grip (from my wife, of all people) and this enabled me to wallop some forehand service returns . . . and if I can keep this up for fourteen more years, I will be quite happy-- I aspire to be like Barry, who went skiing last weekend in Beaver Creek and was back on the court a week later (although his neck was hurting him from the accident . . . what accident? . . . the drowning . . . you rescued someone? . . . no, I drowned this summer, I was painting my garage and it was 97 degrees and I forgot to drink water all day so I was completely dehydrated and then I dove into my pool to impress my grandkids and I never surfaced . . . my wife had to pull me out and I was blue and close to death. . . four days in the hospital . . . Barry is the bomb).

It's About Time . . .

Lydia Millet's novel A Children's Bible is a modern, environmental take on the classic-- finally!-- and while Biblical elements abound . . . a flood, a plague, a surprise birth a crucifixion, an exodus, some kind of weird rapture, an angry force from above, a bunch of wild animals living together, innocence, corruption, revelations, etc . . . there are also plenty of modern references: cell phones, Amazon Prime, MDMA, and Fendi; the adults have given up even attempting to worship creation and have instead turned hedonistically inward, while the children who have inherited the earth need to deal with all the problems . . . and one of the youngsters-- Jack-- actually reads a children's Bible and tries to connect the old narrative to the new issues that arise (my family--a bunch of Philistines-- struggled with this . . . they really hated the title of the book and thought I was actually reading a children's version of the Bible and no amount of explanation could convince them that the book IS a new bible . . . allegories aren't for everyone, this book is surreal and symbolic and reference-laden, but it's also a beautifully written dramatic page-turner . . . give it a shot).

Stopping by the Snow Bank on a Warm Afternoon

 

This snow is lovely, dark, and deep.

This Land is Your Land, This Land is Nomadland

Jessica Bruder's book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century is an eye-opener to another America, an America of a wandering people, who-- usually due to some setback-- are houseless (but not homeless) and move through our nation "like blood cells through the veins of our country" in tricked out camper-vans, small RVs, handmade trailers, and converted house-cars . . . these people-- who are mainly white . . . perhaps because it's hard to "boondock" as a person of color-- meet at desert rallies like the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous and move from one grueling temporary job to the next-- the sugar beet harvest, shelving and scanning items at the Amazon warehouse, cleaning the toilets at campgrounds, short order cook at Wall Drug . . . the work is hard and you are reliant on your tribe of van dwellers, your own resilience, Advil, and the ability of ride to endure wind and weather; the financial crash of 2008 sent many of these people on the road, but so did lack of pensions and unions and healthcare, lack of decent lower-middle class jobs and lack of a safety net to care for these folks-- and these are spirited people, many of whom are over sixty, and couldn't bear to live without freedom; Linda May has dreams greater than living in a van, she purchases some desert land in Arizona to build an Earthship homestead-- a self-sufficient, off-the-grid house; she's a grandmother of 64 and wants some place to call her own, but she struggles with how to go about it . . . these are her words:

Someone asked why do you want a homestead? To be independent, get out of the rat race, support local businesses, buy only American made. Stop buying stuff to impress people I don't like. Right now I am working in a big warehouse for an online supplier. The stuff is all crap made somewhere else in the world where they don't have child labor laws, where the workers labor fourteen to sixteen hour days without meals or bathroom breaks. There is one million square feet in this warehouse packed with stuff that won't last a month. It is all goin to a landfill. Our economy is built on the backs of slaves we keep in other countries, like China, India, Mexico, any third world country where we don't have to see them but where we can enjoy the fruits of their labor. The American Corp. is probably the biggest slave owner in the world . . . there is nothing in that warehouse of substance. It enslaved the buyers who use their credit to purchase that shit. Keeps them in jobs they hate to pay their debts. 

despite the tone of this section, there is also a pioneering spirit in the book-- there is a shared tone with the favorite pieces of literature of the Rubber Tramp crew; I was proud to say I've read ever book they mentioned as a favorite: Travels with Charley, Blue Highways, Desert Solitaire, Into the Wild, Walden, and Wild; if you don't want to read about all this, definitely watch the movie-- it's a masterful amalgam of the real stories in the book (and the real people) and some quality acting by Frances McDormand . . . and if you don't want to deal with any of this but still want to get the idea, listen to a recent episode of The Indicator wherein they explain that the Simpsons-- once representative of the lower middle class in America-- now live a lifestyle unattainable by that demographic.

Birthday Shots, Cold Showers, Long Lines and a Perfect Score.

Quite a pair of birthdays for Alex and me: on Alex's birthday had a 1:30 PM appointment at the DMV for his road test with a borrowed car (thanks Johanna!) that had an accessible parking brake-- a requirement-- but the photocopy of the insurance card wasn't enough proof for the DMV dude-- and after much searching and fumbling, and we found an old card in the glovebox-- no good-- and got a rejection form with an allowance to come back at 2:30 . . . but at this point, my wife was driving over with ANOTHER borrowed car (thanks Ann!) and Alex had also called his buddy to borrow his car but then Johanna found her current insurance card and sent a photo of that-- also no good . . . we would have needed her passwords and access to her insurance website-- so Alex got in Ann's car-- which he had never driven-- and the other DMV guy with the Irish accent barely looked at this stuff and Alex took his test and passed (and did an A plus job parallel parking . . . which he's been practicing, which has been torture) and then we went over to the main building to get his real license (he has a 60 day temporary license) and the DMV security guy laughed at us and said there were no more appointments and to come back at 5 AM and maybe you might be able to get a ticket and then wait four or five more hours to get in-- so he's got that to look forward to . . . my students have many epic stories about this-- and then yesterday, my birthday-- Catherine and I drove to the Meadowlands to receive our first Pfizer vaccine shots-- and while it took a decent amount of time, everything moved quickly and was very well run-- you DO NOT need to arrive early, you get in line ten minutes before your appointment and it takes about ninety-minutes of various lines and check-ins-- like a Disney ride about pandemics . . . and everyone is very nice-- we were impressed (and I got every fuckign word on the NYT Spelling Bee!) and then my birthday dinner was a Tastee sub I ate on the way home and then I tried to shave and there was no hot water so we had to take the tankless hot water heater apart and clean the airfilter and reset the pilot light and then I was able to take a shower and go to bed . . . but some good news along the way, my cousin Geoff had a bad case of covid and ended up in the hospital but he's out now and feeling better.

If I'm Lucky, I'll Have Another Thing in Common With Theodore Geisel (Thanks Pfizer)

I share my birthday with a cat named Seuss

a man I respect for his creative juice

his rhymes were tight, his mind was loose--

and while the good Doctor liked to imbibe

Prohibition didn't feel his vibe--

I also like the occasional shot,

but on this birthday, alcohol is a NOT--

the shot I partake will go in my arm--

a present from Pfizer that might make me feel warm,

Seuss survived a pandemic: the Spanish flu--

Soon enough I might say: I survived too!

Dog Jenga? Dog Tetris?

The mud season is here (and the rain along with it) and the dog park has quickly transformed from a winter wonderland into a swamp-- but the larger snowbanks remain-- so in my small, densely populated town, when the rain lets up and everyone takes their dog for a walk at once, there's quite a bit of strategizing and maneuvering on the streets and sidewalks-- no one wants to walk their dog head-on into another dog on a strip of sidewalk surrounded by snow; there are starts and stops, sallying forward and turning tail, heeling and pulling, hopping from the sidewalk to the street and back again and I'm not sure what this is like . . . Frogger? Jenga? Tetris? . . . I don't know-- but it's like something other than walking the dog.

Read Some Allie Brosh! No Excuses . . .

When I tell people to read some Allie Brosh-- a young lady who writes primitively illustrated memoirs that are so funny even Bill Gates laughs-- I get a lot of:

"I can't read things with pictures because I get confused and don't know when to look at the words and when to look at the pictures and I tried to read Watchmen and it was good but just too much stimulation"

and-- quite frankly-- I want to smack these people . . . I just finished her second book, Solutions and Other Problems, and it's funny and dark and weird and profound and full of Brosh's neuroses and her dogs and her existentially overly-energetic brain. . . you can read the words and/or look at the pictures or any combination of those two . . . but who doesn't like funny pictures?

The Tennis Season Wears On

Today I left for my Saturday morning tennis league looking like an athlete long past his prime-- I was wearing two knee braces: a neoprene sleeve on my left knee to keep my recently injured quadricep warm and a bulky thing with straps on my swollen right knee-- I'm not sure why it's swollen, probably a combination of tennis and hiking around with the dog in the slush (which I did repeatedly this week, despite knee pain) and I figured I wouldn't be mobile enough to beat Scott-- an accomplished regular at the club with a fast and whippy serve with a big kick, a killer down-the-line-backhand cut shot, a hard forehand, and good touch at the net . . . and though I was down three games at one point in the match, I leveled things at 8 games to 8 and then we played a tiebreaker and I beat him handily, 10 - 4 . . . this is a nice win for me, especially because I wasn't shifting my weight at the start of the math because of my knees, so I hit a bunch of unforced errors deep-- but I corrected things, backed up on his serve and hit a bunch of forehand winner to avoid having to run around like a maniac (which I did the first match, and I still lost by a game) and now I have to rest my knee for my snowboarding trip in a few days-- hopefully the swelling will go down just in time for me to aggravate it again.

More Behind the Scenes Stuff

I remembered a couple more chores that generally fall in my purview and aren't particularly lauded . . . I tend to fill the gas tanks of both our cars with fuel-- if you weren't aware, most cars need gasoline to power their internal combustion engines-- and I'm also the one who stocks the upstairs bathrooms with toilet paper (if you weren't aware, it's extraordinarily difficult to retrieve toile paper from the side-room once you've committed to a bowel movement in an upstairs bathroom . . . so it's imperative that the toilet paper is already within reach).

How to Clean a Bowl (if your wife rarely reads your blog)

I eat a bowl of Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and granola every morning-- and it's delicious-- but the down side is that it's very difficult to clean the bowl; even the dishwasher struggles to remove peanut butter and yogurt residue . . . so I've found the best, most environmentally copacetic way to remove this residue (without resorting to using a paper towel) is to let the dog lick the bowl clean . . . but my wife finds this gross-- luckily, she rarely reads this blog.

Sometimes Kids Learn Things Without My Help

 

I've taught my older son Alex many valuable things:

1) how to juggle a soccer ball;

2) how to serve a tennis ball;

3) how to throw a football

4) maybe something about writing an essay?

but I certainly didn't teach him how to run a Rocket Propulsion Club, use modeling software and 3-D printing technology, launch rockets into the stratosphere, assign teams to build the various components of these rockets, buy large amounts of rocketry and electronic equipment and get reimbursed for it, work in conjunction with the Rutgers Rocket Propulsion Club and use their facilities, and finally:

propose and win a two-thousand dollar grant (largely aided by him filming and painstakingly editing a really sharp video . . . though he doesn't wear glasses-- he just put some on so he would look smarter)

he learned this stuff all on his own, with no input or advice or help from me . . . crazy right?

How to Combat Winter Madness: A Video Tutorial

The weather just jumped the shark here in New Jersey-- the lovely blustery snowflakes transformed into large pellets of 33-degree rain-- so here a few suggestions for combatting Winter Madness:

1) Watch the "Winter Madness" 30 Rock episode . . . duh

2) watch Nomadland . . . it's streaming on Hulu and it's not as depressing as you might think; if you're feeling a little stir-crazy in your house, imagine if your house was a van . . . Frances McDormand isn't homeless, but she is houseless-- after her husband's death, she becomes untethered from all her social connections and there's only one way to go . . . down the road.

Behind the Scenes?

The other day, I was explaining to my wife all the "behind-the-scenes" kind of stuff I do around the house to keep the show up-and-running . . . and while she had a good laugh about this, I was able to provide a couple of examples of these key-grip backstage-type chores:

1) I clean up the dogshit in the yard-- which is not an easy task when we've got so much snow and ice down on the ground-- and I also cover up the pee spots with fresh snow so that the view is pristine and snowy white when my wife looks out the window;

2) I frequently take out the trash and the recycling;

3) I tighten the cabinet door hinge screws, which seem to come loose every three days;

4) I make the coffee before she comes downstairs in the morning, and I often make her some afternoon coffee as well;

5) I put on music when we are preparing dinner;

6) I do the taxes;

7) I'm sure I do a bunch of other stuff as well-- stuff that's not as prominent and eye-catching as cooking a fantastic three-course meal or doing the grocery shopping or cleaning out the refrigerator . . . but don't you worry, I'm toiling away behind the scenes so that the house runs as smoothly as a seventeenth season Cats production.

Even More Tennis Notes

Today was the first day since I injured it that my leg felt 100% . . . which was a good thing as I had to play Uday, the best player in the league-- but I wasn't at full speed because I jammed my toe on a piece of molding and ripped the nail off, so I decided that I was going to play a power game and hit winners (since I've gained some weight and lost some mobility since I pulled my quad) and I went up 2-0 on him . . . but his net play, consistency, and big first serve were eventually too much for me-- I lost 9-7, a result I'm perfectly happy with (especially because last week I played Rey-- probably the second-best player- and he slaughtered me-- I hit the ball, okay but I was slow and stiff, and he punished me for it . . . this is what made me realize I've got to start hitting winners to hang in with these club players) and Uday showed me what I need to work on:  I need to hit a deeper two-handed backhand, I need to follow the ball to the net more-- not just get to the center of the court-- and I need to go for it on my first serve more (and I need to go for it whenever a hard first serve is in my wheelhouse).

It's Time For Everyone To Leave the House

Last night at 10:30 PM I was woken from a sound sleep by my older son-- who was on a Zoom call playing Monopoly with his friends and found it necessary to yell at the top of his lungs-- so I trudged downstairs and watched Serena Williams lose to Naomi Osaka in the Australian Open . . . then this morning around 10:30 AM, while I was teaching school in the study-- because of a winter storm I was remote today-- I heard my younger son Ian screaming bloody murder . . . it sounded like a bad burn or a broken bone, and I charged up from the study and my wife ran up from the basement-- where she was teaching-- and we found Ian shrieking on the floor in the aftermath of a fistfight that began over some gummy worms and a two-for-flinching-game, and ended in punching, biting, kicking, and a knee to the groin . . . I directed every expletive in the book towards my children-- who had an actual snow day . . . something which doesn't even exist in my district any longer . . . they had no responsibilities at all-- and luckily both my wife and I had ended our class meetings, or some student would have called DYFS; now the kids are doing chores all day and buying us dinner tomorrow night; the takeaway is that we all need to go back to school and get out of each other's hair . . . I have been back for a week or so and though everything is worse in school: the internet is bad, my room was 50 degrees, the technology is wonky, it's impossible to teach kids in the room and virtual kids simultaneously, etc etc. it's still better to be out of the house; I get way less work done and but I'm much happier, sharing my misery with my colleagues, and far from my children (they went back for a day this week and Catherine actually had the house to herself for a few hours!)

Fast Times at Action Park

Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park is a tribute to a bygone era-- a time when the United States was less litigious; a time when hazing, heckling, and ethnic slurs were still regarded as good fun; a time when New Yorkers were a good deal grittier than they are now; a time of freedom and individuality; and a time when a good-hearted but slightly demented man named Gene Mulvihill could single-handedly build a shrine to action, danger, adventure, drunkenness, good times and fun on a mountain in New Jersey; the story is told by his son and despite the broken bones, open wounds, electrocutions, drownings, paralysis, comas, and death-- or perhaps because of them-- Andy Mulvihill appreciated working at Action Park and taking part in the family business; the bonding that occurred between the lifeguards at the Wave Pool-- in between pulling out twenty to thirty idiots a day-- is legendary . . . Dazed and Confused, Fast Times at Ridgemont High type stuff . . . and the chapter by chapter description of the evolution of the park-- from the Alpine Slide to the Cannonball Loop to Motor World to the Wave Pool to an authentic German Beer Hall to Surf Hill-- is the weird history of the obverse Disney World, a place closer in tone to Jurassic Park than the Magic Kingdon . . . this is a book that will make you proud to be from Jersey-- I odn't remember ever going to Action Park itself-- but I did go on an Alpine Slide in the Poconos (which was also installed by Gene Mulvihill) and rode to fast and flew off the chute . . . which can happen, when YOU are in control of the ride . . . the book also reads like a theme park version of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment . . . there was something about this mix of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans-- many of whom couldn't swim well-- that made them want to ram speedboats into each other, jump off cliffs onto other people's heads, t-bone folks with Lola racers, get drunk, throw garbage everywhere, shit on the floor, race down dangerous slides (water and land-based) and basically ignore danger and forget to assess risk; a must read if ytiou are thinking about travelling back in time to the 80's and opening a shrine to personal autonomy.

Duh

If your electric toothbrush runs out of juice, you can still use it manually (I think this goes for an electric blank as well . . . but not for an electric car).

More Dishes?

Sometimes surviving the pandemic feels like working in a restaurant . . . a diner, in particular-- open for breakfast, lunch dinner, and late-night snacks (with a menu that's WAY too expansive for the expertise of most of the cooks).

He's Fleeing the Interview . . .

I've been walking Lola exclusively in the snowy fields in the large park adjacent to my house-- because of salt-covered roads and icy sidewalks-- and I generally just let her loose so she can romp in the snow and then we make our way over to the dog park . . . this way she never has to expose her paws to the road salt (which burns her paws and allows liquid water to descend below the normal freezing point, freezing her pads) but the other day while I was tramping through the snow, watching her frolic, I heard a single "WHOOP" from the road-- the Park Ranger had observed a dog off-leash, which is forbidden, and was alerting me of my infraction from his vehicle; the last time I had an off-leash run-in with the ranger he REALLY wanted to give me a ticket (and Lola was hundreds of yards away from me-- she was chasing squirrels-- so I didn't have a leg to stand on) but, fortunately, I was walking with a nice lady and her nice dog and I think my company saved me from an expensive fine; this time, I was a couple hundred yards away from the ranger, across a a soccer field covered in a foot and a half of snow, so I decided not to look in the direction of the ranger and instead slowly wander towards the dog park . . . Lola was ahead of me and it took me a while to get her back on the leash, meanwhile the ranger was driving slowly, parallel to us, on the road-- we were going to intersect at the dog park-- so I had to decide if I was going to head in the opposite direction, into the trees, and actually flee the possible interview . . . but I waited out the ranger in the snow, he drove the loop by the dog park and headed back the way he came and that's when I darted through the gate and into the fenced confine full of canines-- and I'm pretty sure that once you are inside the dog park fence, it's some kind of sanctified ground (this might not be legally correct, but it's morally sound) and now we've got another walking alternative: Lola has her own hiking booties, so she can walk on the roads-- she took a little while to adjust to them, but then she started trotting along in them, sounding like a little horse.

Snowmark Day?

I know it's a big deal when your progeny graduate high school or go off to college or get married or get their first full-time job and while my kids haven't reached any of those milestones, today is some kind of landmark: this afternoon, my son Alex-- a sixteen-year-old high school junior-- went snowboarding with his friends, the first time he's ever gone off to the mountain without me . . . and I certainly put in a lot more work teaching him to snowboard than I did explaining to him how to woo women or helping him navigate school, so I'm very proud and happy-- and I'll also be a lot less anxious when he gets home tonight.

What Happens to a Ship Once it Reaches Its Destination?

The third book in Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series, Record of a Spaceborn Few, is slower and more philosophical than the first two in the series; the Exodans left earth, traversed the galaxy, encountered various alien races, and were admitted into the GC (Galactic Commons) and while most humans have colonized planets and assimilated into the galactic community as best they can (despite the rank smell that humans emit) there are still folks living on the generational ships that sheltered the earthlings on their long voyage-- they maintain the ships as a tribute to the journey but sometimes life seems futile to these people, as they when live onboard something that has already fulfilled its purpose-- this is a slice of life type of sci-fi novel that covers a number of characters in various circumstances aboard an Exodan ship-- it's smart and well-written but not as funny as the first two in the series.

Dave's Triumphant Return to Hybrid

I heroically returned back to the classroom today-- as I am deemed essential . . . but not quite essential enough to rate a vaccination-- but my classroom was NOT deemed essential enough to heat over our hiatus; my thermometer read 53 degrees at the start of first period (and perhaps it was colder than that . . . the thermostat on the air conditioner read 47 degrees) so the three intrepid students that decided to attend hybrid school and I sought a warmer room-- and found one, for a moment, but then another teacher-- who was covering for a teacher with a child awaiting a covid test-- claimed that room so we went on the move once again (this could end up a contact tracing nightmare!) and settled into a third room; my other two periods I had zero in-person students, so I elected to teach in the cold with my mask off; I must admit it was fun to see my friends again and although I won't be as productive a teacher in hybrid mode, I will be more relaxed (and chill) because the wifi is slow, the building is deserted, and summer is coming.

Another Winter Day in the Pandemic

Despite our superintendent's best efforts, today was another all-remote school day . . . too much snow and ice to get hybrid started; this afternoon, my son Ian was bored enough to accompany me to Costco-- and when a fifteen-year-old volunteers to go to bulk shopping (actually, I think it was his idea) then you know we are all close to madness; our first stop was the pet store, to buy some booties for Lola because her feet froze this morning (and were also burned by excessive road salt) but they didn't have her size; then we ventured into Costco, which I assumed would be barren because it was so cold out and it was the day after the SuperBowl, but the usual crowd was there, blocking the aisles and milling around-- but having a skinny and agile teenager as a shopping partner was a real benefit-- he found the dishwasher pods and the mixed nuts (unsalted) while I braved the crowd around the rotisserie chickens and searched for seltzer (they love to move shit at Costco) and then-- once we had all our stuff-- we tried the new self-check-out line . . . but we failed at self-checking-out because we had a case of wine and an employee came over and pretty much scanned all of our items-- so we were in and out quickly; then I took Lola to the park, avoiding the salty roads and we trekked through the snow to the dog park, which was full of people and dogs-- a nice surprise-- and she romped around for a bit, did her business, and now we are home-- I'll work out after I write this sentence and then we'll prepare yet another home-cooked meal and I'll pack for school and see if I end up there tomorrow (although it's supposed to snow again tonight).

Ahh . . . Denim Days

My buddy sent me this picture yesterday . . . I think it's circa 1990 but we are celebrating some romanticized version of the 70's that we cooked up at Pi Lam-- but now this photo just evokes nostalgia for getting together with a bunch of people in a poorly ventilated space (although we were sick in college all the time) especially because I got so bored this afternoon that I actually sorted out my sock drawer and searched for mates for all my single socks . . . mainly to no avail.

A Wattersonian Ending to an Epic Week . . .

I will be brief because I have exceeded my screentime limits this week and my brain is fried, but things were fairly epic this week:

1) we got a massive amount of snow;

2) my school is slated to go back to the trainwreck that is hybrid school-- the snow delayed us until Monday-- but the day of reckoning is coming and the majority of teachers are not happy about it;

3) we had the craziest faculty meeting I've ever witnessed . . . teachers are very nervous about covid and feel very betrayed about the not particularly reassuring quarantining, sick day, paid and unpaid leave policies (but our union did get some concessions)

4) the message seems to be: if you get covid, you better prove you got covid at work, or you could be in for a rough ride (or maybe you should lie)

5) I'm less worried about covid and more worried that I'm not going to be able to do as good a job in hybrid-- I've been crushing remote, I've got everything figured out and my students are really doing quite well-- but hybrid is a lot of juggling and multi-tasking and glitchy internet and fogged glasses and muffled voices;

6) the new mask rules are Draconian (15-minute break per school day . . . fifteen minutes total . . . and you can't  take your mask off even if your classroom is empty-- this defies all logic and science but seems to be coming from the state level) and I hate teaching in a mask;

7) I reeled off a couple of crazy letters, one to the union and another to the superintendent . . . I can't believe I pressed send on that one: I assigned the superintendent a podcast and gave him a link to a covid room calculator . . . things are not as dangerous as people think (unless this new variant is an ass-kicker) but I don't think I'll get fired as no one wants to become a teacher right now;

8) I erased an entire semester of student work (some of which I had to grade) trying to switch my content from one semester to the next-- we really didn't get much training on this-- and it took three days for the people from Canvas to retrieve this data . . . which they finally did after many chats and emails (and now I still have to grade the stuff!)

9) I started the new semester, in which I teach four preps . . . and I thought I had everything in order so I went out drinking in New Brunswick last night-- the walk home was pretty crazy as no one shoveled the hill after the bridge-- it's no man's land . . . but I made it up and watched Rutgers win again;

10) I woke up this morning with a bit of a headache and found that nothing was in order-- I hadn't merged my Creative Writing and Philosophy classes and they were much larger than I thought and I hadn't invited all these kids into the proper Microsoft Teams . . . it was quite a circus but everyone eventually got where they needed to be;

11) I finished grading the Rutgers essays-- in the nick of time-- grades are due Tuesday;

12) I went out hiking in the snow with Lola after school today and it erased all the stress from the rest of the week because dogs and snow are the best (almost as epic as stuffed tigers and snow).

St. Thiswhere?

I shoveled three times today, to no avail . . . it's like we're living in a snow globe-- you get rid of the stuff and it keeps coming back.

Yikes . . . But Impossible?

Description

...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 1 PM EST TUESDAY... WHAT...Heavy snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 13 to 18 inches. Winds gusting as high as 35 mph. WHERE...Portions of central, northern and northwest New Jersey and southeast Pennsylvania. WHEN...From 5 PM this afternoon to 1 PM EST Tuesday. IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult to impossible.

I present for your snowpocalyptic viewing pleasure, the current storm warning for New Jersey, while I think some big snow is headed our way, I also think the statement "travel could be very difficult to impossible" is a bit hyperbolic-- some methods of travel might be impossible-- such as commuting to Manhattan in a Mini Cooper-- but plenty of travel WILL be possible . . . if you own snowshoes or cross-country skis or a snowmobile or a dog sled (or a good pair of boots and a heavy jacket).

A Loss is a Win . . .

Although I lost my tennis match 10 games to 9 today, I was happy to survive it without mishap-- I squandered my lead on Lee but made the match competitive by hitting some forehand winners, some precise serves, and some long backhand slice shots; I did NOT hustle, I did NOT get to the net, I did NOT chase drop shots, and I did NOT reinjure my hip/quad . . . it was a little stiff and tight, but it held up (and it held up snowboarding on Wednesday . . . so I've just got to continue to take it easy and I might be able to make it through the winter without further damage).

Dave's Back! Sort of . . .

In case you've been following my "brutal, crippling quadriceps injury," you'll be glad to know (or-- if you're my opponent this Saturday-- loath to know) that I'm back in action; the combination of a massage, two acupuncture sessions, the purchase of a muscle gun, some exercise biking and stretching, and plenty of rest has given my quad new life; I went snowboarding yesterday with Alex and I played tennis today with Ian . . . I'm stiff and a little sore, but I'm still moving and that's all that matters (although I won't be getting to any drop shots this Saturday, I'm going to have to hit winners).

Dave Keeps It Real

I went snowboarding with my older son Alex today, so we had plenty of time in the car for him to describe his grand plans to become an aerospace engineer and then eventually retire into professorship-- he's the president of the Rocket Propulsion Club and an A.P. Physics kid so these are attainable goals-- but he also took the time to thank me for teaching him to snowboard and play other sports, giving him the ability to "hang out with normal people too."

Hidden Valleys of the Brain

I'm not even going to attempt to summarize Robert Kolker's meticulously reported and compassionately told story of the Galvin family, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family-- it's one of those books you have to read (like Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree) plus, it's a family with twelve children, six of which are diagnosed with schizophrenia, so there's no short version of this disquieting saga-- but I did learn a few things:

1) in 1908, Eugen Bleuler coined the term schizophrenia because the root "schizo" implied a harsh splitting of mental functions but this turned out to be a poor choice-- popular culture has confused schizophrenia with the idea of split personality, but this is a mistake: schizophrenia is "a divide between perception and reality . . . it is about walling oneself off from consciousness . . . until you are no longer accessing anything others accept as real"

2) schizophrenia is a multiplex genetic disorder-- it's caused by a number of genes and they also need to be expressed, often by environmental factors or drug use-- and it might be even less tangible, it might be "a collection of neurodevelopment disorders" and not even one single disease . . . it might be like a fever, a symptom and not a disease at all-- schizophrenia might just be a reaction that happens to consciousness when a brain is broken for any number of reasons;

3) the children in the book were born from 1945 to 1965 . . . so they span a wide variety of treatments and a wide variety of failures in treating the disease, every theory more screwed up than the last: shock therapy, institutionalization, madness as a metaphor, madness caused by over-parenting, madness caused by under-parenting, tranquilizers, induced catatonia, medicines that did as much damage as help, the return of a kinder, gentler shock therapy, possible wonder drugs that couldn't get funded (because schizophrenics don't advocate very well for themselves) and finally the realization that there is no magic bullet yet for this disease-- because it is caused by so many genes and so many factors . . . and while wilderness-based youth therapy and therapeutic boarding schools have been found to curb the disease before it fully sets in, these treatments are extraordinarily expensive and only available to the very wealthy . . . as for the rest of us, we have to cross our fingers, avoid toxic environments, and hope for the best.

Hyberbole and a Half

If your dog and your brain don't always obey your commands, you're going to thoroughly enjoy Allie Brosh's memoir/web-comic Hyperbole and a Half . . . but you don't have to go on my word alone-- Bill Gates and Marc Maron both gave the book glowing reviews-- Brosh's intentionally primitive illustrations and candid prose absolutely kill it . . . there's a moment at the start of the book when Brosh reminisces about writing a letter as a ten-year-old to her twenty-five-year-old future self-- the letter is mainly concerned with dog breeds-- but the last line is what seals the deal on just how weird and funny Brosh is (and was)

"please write back."

It's Comment Appreciation Day!

Yesterday was quite a day for me-- I don't handle changes in routine all that well, and I get very nervous when I'm involved in any kind of "special event"-- although I know other people enjoy "special events" and that once I get involved with the "special event," I tend to enjoy it as well . . . but it just doesn't seem worth the trouble to plan a special event, and there are too many things that can go wrong with a special event and people get their hopes up about the special event and then there's a chance that their hopes might be shattered; I should recognize that people are more resilient than I give them credit for, but-- in the end-- this is why I like normal events that turn out a little bit better than expected-- but despite these feelings, yesterday, for the benefit of my students, I got involved in a special event . . . and while it turned out fabulously in the end, I didn't receive much help or credit from my administration, and so once the day was through-- in true melodramatic Dave fashion-- I indignantly pounded out my story and posted it up and while folks could have taken some cheap shots at my mock-epic tone (or ignored my rant altogether) instead I got some awesome comments from my friends Zman and Rob, award winning comments worthy enough of front page status:

first, zman noticed something ironically wonderful in how I wrote my big takeaway . . .

 zman quoted me . . .

"it's all in the revision and editing . . . very few people do anything good not he first try"

Well said.

then zman reminisced with an excellent anecdote:


zman said...

Parts of this "sentence" remind me of the time I checked into the Fairfield Inn in Raleigh NC, a low-slung place near the airport. I went to my room on the third floor, set my stuff down, started to unpack, and realized that there was a swarm of ants on and around the desk. I brought all my stuff downstairs and told the guy at the desk. He said "Yeah we have ants on the third floor." I asked him why he put me on the third floor given the formic situation and he replied "Well there's no view on the second floor." I told him I would trade the view and the ants for no view and no ants, so he moved me to the second floor. There were no ants in my new room but when I flushed the toilet the bowl didn't fill up and the sink didn't have any water. I called downstairs and the guy at the desk said "Yeah there's no water on the second floor right now." I asked if he had any rooms with water and without ants and he moved me to the first floor. You would think he would've run through all this beforehand.

then I chimed in . . . and Zman graciously gave me permission to do something very weird:

Dave said...

holy shit. i was rushing my post because I had to go to acupuncture . . . i think I may make your comments into tomorrow's post-- they deserve to get front-page treatment that's an exceptional anecdote--i might-- with your permission-- set it to music.


zman said...

You have my permission to make a song out of my experience at the Fairfield Inn. Not only is it near the airport, it's between a Cracker Barrel and a Hooters.

rob said...

i will turn the dial down on my customary snark to say that this is a very cool thing that happened in daveworld and i appreciated hearing about it.

/unsnark


Dave said...

that helps with the setting . . . and thanks for turning down the snark, rob!

his snark goes to 11

thanks guys . . . and understand that these comments have been duly appreciated!

The Things You Find Important? Most People Don't Give a Fuck . . .

I was very excited for school today because-- due to a serendipitous string of coincidence-- my senior English class was expecting a visit from Academy Award-winning director Marshall Curry; Curry won the Oscar in 2020 for his short film "The Neighbor's Window"-- which is based on this amazing true podcast-- but we were having him in because my students watched Street Fight, which is the story of the 2002 Newark mayoral election . . . a charismatic and intelligent grassroots candidate named Cory Booker took on machine politician and uber-charlatan Sharpe James in a profound battle of political rhetoric; the documentary was nominated for an Oscar and it's one of my favorite movies of all time-- if you haven't seen it, check it out . . .

anyway, I've used this documentary for many years at school and it's an excellent primer to teach kids about the reality of elections and political rhetoric-- it's also nonpartisan: both Booker and James are Democrats . . . Republicans aren't really a factor in Newark, so that makes it perfect for the classroom as well . . . so this year I wanted the kids to watch it and connect it to our skepticism unit-- conspiracy theories, fake news, logical fallacies, etc.-- but school is remote, so to ensure diligent viewing, I made an epic forty question digital quiz about the documentary-- it's partly humorous but it definitely checks to see if you fell asleep during the video-- EVERYTHING is in there-- and my friend Ann went to school with Marshall Curry's wife so she has a connection to him, and she sent him my quiz and he thought it was hysterical and offered to visit the class and do a Q and A session . . . very nice of him;

I was REALLY excited for this event-- I had the kids draft questions and I sent a detailed email to the principal explaining my lessons on political rhetoric and how I connected the film to them, and I gave him examples of the assignments the kids were doing-- the kids always love the film and do great work-- and I wanted to alert him that we were getting a surprise visit from a very successful director; oddly, the only thing I got back from the principal was a forwarded email that said "Fill out the guest speaker form" . . . that's it . . . nothing else . . . no "wow!" or "cool!" or "these are really great lessons and I'm impressed that you managed to get an Oscar winner to come to virtual school" and while I shouldn't be surprised-- it's rare that anyone cares about what you care about-- the disconnect seemed pretty weird; he should have at least feigned some enthusiasm; so I filled out the guest visitor form and sent it to the vice-principal in charge of guest visitor form (and received no "nice job!" or kudos from him either) and I set up my Teams Meeting, sent the link to Marshall Curry, put his phone number in my phone-- in case of emergency, he graciously provided it-- and then met with my class a bit early and set up a Google Doc Question Queue so we wouldn't have any dead time or repeated questions . . . and then 10 AM rolled around and . . .

he couldn't get in . . . despite the fact that we had tested the link from an outside email, it wouldn't work . . . so I had to set up a Zoom Account and meeting on the fly-- I had to click on captcha boats and stop signs to get things running;

in the end, we got a meeting going and Marchall Curry and my students were fantastic; he talked a lot about how taking 200 hours of film-- captured over five months-- and eight months of editing (and learning to edit because he couldn't get a grant) made him a much better writer . . . he learned that everything is perseverance and revision and his words of advice: "you can fix something, but you can't fix nothing," will work really well in all my classes;

anyway, after the presentation, I emailed the vice-principal and told him my guest visitor couldn't get into the meeting (despite the fact that I had filled out the form) and he wrote back, "yeah, we've had some trouble with that" and while I refrained from sending a follow-up email, I was seriously wondering why he didn't tell me that BEFORE my guest visitor . . . but despite the apathy of my admin for such a cool event, everything went as well as it could and hopefully it will be something the kids remember in a very monotonous year; my big three takeaways are this:

1) it's all in the revision and editing . . . very few people do anything good on the first try;

2) choose a topic that has a narrative arc built into it-- like an election;

3) you can fix something, but you can't fix nothing.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I made a vet appointment for my dog weeks ago, and I thought I scheduled it during a "B-Day" of remote school-- because on B-Days I have a free period before lunch . . . but I didn't realize that we started back from break on a B-Day rather than the more logical A-Day so my math was thrown off . . . long story short, I had to take my College Writing class on the road today, I ran my Team meeting on my phone while I drove to the vet . . . and as I was driving, a snow squall blew in-- so I was conferencing with a girl about her thesis, discussing Anand Giridharadas's explanation of the plutocratic tendency to "Pinker" things-- to take the long view of history and claim that because the human condition is improving, individual inequalities are not important-- and how this connects to the unfettered emergence that Steven Johnson is mesmerized by (but is Johnson a thought leader or a public intellectual? who knows? I was trying not to veer off the road) and I'm happy to say that I helped the girl through a rough patch of writing, I made it through the blizzard intact, and Lola had a successful visit at the vet . . . who knew I would be able to do all these things simultaneously?

Go Ahead, Listen to Some Old School Hippie Hip Hop (in the rain?)

Hanif Abdurraqib's rambling and perceptive "love letter to a group, a sound, and an era" inspired me to listen to a number of old school hip-hop albums-- most of which I am familiar-- but a few of which I never heard; his book, which Zman recommended to me and I recommend to you, is called Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest and it astutely points out the difference between the gangsta rap of NWA and the mellower musings of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and the other Native Tongues rappers is that the members of NWA were “absolutely rooted in some idea of what would make young white people most excited and old white people most afraid”, while the Native Tongues rappers were “absolutely rooted in some idea of what would make young black people most curious and old black people most welcoming”;

Abdurraqib explains that the jazz samples of The Low End Theory was the first hip-hop that he could really play around his parents without fear of criticism; I also learned that the hip hop magazine The Source only gave their coveted five mic rating to a select group of albums:

• People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm – A Tribe Called Quest
• Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em – Eric B. & Rakim
• AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted – Ice Cube
• One for All – Brand Nubian
• De La Soul Is Dead – De La Soul
• The Low End Theory – A Tribe Called Quest
• Illmatic – Nas
• Life After Death – The Notorious B.I.G.
• Aquemini – Outkast
• The Blueprint – Jay-Z
• Stillmatic – Nas
• The Fix – Scarface
• The Naked Truth – Lil' Kim
• Trill OG – Bun B
• My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West

and while I've listened to most of these, I missed "One for All" from The Brand Nubians-- it's a clever, allusion laden rhymefest-- and I never listened to "De La Soul is Dead" much either because it's not on any streaming service-- but my son pirated that album and 3 Feet High and Rising and he somehow got them both onto my Spotify as local files, so now I can stream them . . . I also noticed that The Chronic is also available now on Spotify, so they must have cleared the samples for that one.

Dad is Extra

I might have been a wee bit melodramatic yesterday when I arrived home from my tennis match with a pulled quadricep muscle; I called the boys downstairs to break the news to them and once I had assembled them in the living room and I told them the news-- the fact that their father was injured-- indefinitely injured, perhaps even crippled-- and that they would have to pick up the slack around the house: help their mother, walk the dog, take out the garbage, play tennis with each other, get jobs, help pay the mortgage, look after the bamboo and the sapling I planted, etcetera-- once I had told them this tragic news (and the fact that I was very sad because I had disappointed the family-- I wouldn't be able to take Alex snowboarding next week, I wouldn't be able to hit tennis balls with Ian, and I had abandoned the tennis match, leaving my poor opponent without anyone to play after a measly twenty-minutes of tennis) the kids took a look at my pathetic figure on the couch and laughed at me; Alex said, "Jesus Dad, the way you called us down, I thought someone we know died from covid . . . you'll be fine, just rest it" and he was right-- I took some Advil and a nap and today it feels a bit better-- I'm still going to take two week off from tennis and I ordered a roller and a thigh wrap-- and then after some consultation with the sports medicine people at the dog park-- I purchased a "muscle gun" . . . these things are supposed to work wonders and now I know that I need to REALLY warm-up before competitive tennis-- not just some light stretching, but some vigorous stationary-biking and some short sprints . . . so I'm in a better mood today and I'm going to use this injury as a portent for changing things for the better in my life, I'm done wallowing in misery for now).

Tennis Notes . . . I Am an Idiot

I was really looking forward to my tennis match this morning with Bill-- who is a consistent grinder a few years older than me-- because while I thought I would be able to win handily, I would get a lot of practice hitting slice backhands and cross-court winners, which are shots I need to work on . . . and when I took the lead 3-0 on him he started to mix things up and he hit a beautiful drop shot and my brain said It just might be possible to get to that and then I was sprinting and while I did get to the shot, I pulled my left quad on the way there-- something went "ping" in there-- and while I tried to continue the match-- I didn't want to put Bill out-- it was starting to hurt more and more and I couldn't push off so I abandoned ship and drove home and now I'm in pain and laid up and miserable-- tennis was my favorite part of the week!-- and while I can't complain, because I'm alive during a pandemic, I have learned that I need to REALLY warm up before I play-- I did some light stretching but that's not enough, I need to ride the bike and take a jog and make sure I'm ready to roll before I start sprinting around like a madman for no good reason.

Could This Book Explain That Book?

Now that I have begun Robert Kolker's Hidden Valley Road: Inside The Mind of An American Family, I am wondering if the mysteries and enigmas of the last book I read-- Piranesi-- could be explained by schizophrenia (an affliction that 1 in 100 people will suffer from at some point during their life).

Piranesi

Susanna Clark's elegant new novel Piranesi is a major departure from her last book; Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which she published in 2004, is a massively footnoted faux-historical tome on magic during the Napoleonic Wars-- it's fantastic-- but I think her new work is something special as well; it reminds me a bit of Nabokov's Pale Fire . . . or a more abstract Eternal Sunshine . . . or Inside Out for adults . . . or none of that, it's unusual and surreal, but precisely written-- I'm not sure if I fully understand the mystery-- or if that's even possible, but I will say this, without spoiling: it's the perfect book to read in quarantine.

Sam Harris Adds Clarity . . . Lawrence Wright Adds the Anecdotes

The new Sam Harris podcast An Insurrection of Lies provides some clarity of thought about the storming of the capitol; Harris is worried about two misconceptions, one on the right and one on the left . . .

he is worried that the right is falsely equating the storming of the capitol with the riots, looting, and burning that occurred during the BLM protests-- and while Harris believes that the media did an abysmal job reporting on the chaos that occurred during those protests, that the media bent over backwards to not appear racist, and that Biden and Harris could have criticized the criminal behavior more overtly-- he still thinks you can't equate the natural eruption of mob criminality that happened in certain instances with a sloppy and disgraceful coup spurred on by a sitting President who knows he has a cult-like following of misinformed and delusional zealots and backed by a number of Republicans who fully well know that the election was not stolen but kowtow to Trump for strategic reasons . . . especially since this is an embarrassment on the world stage and perfect proof for regimes in Russia and China that democracy is bullshit;

he is worried that the left is equating the police action during the siege as more proof of white supremacy and systemic racism . . . that if this was a BLM protest, folks would have been treated differently; he brings up the point of the black cops being pursued by the white mob . . . these black cops weren't complicit in the siege, they were in an untenable situation-- fearing for their lives-- and a white woman was shot in the neck and executed by police . . . if this happened at a BLM protest, it would have been cause for further rioting; there may be a sinister conspiracy as to why the police presence was so small (or it might be the fault of the DC mayor, who didn't like the heavy-handed tactics of the National Guard at the BLM protests) but Harris is worried that the left will racialize this event instead of using as a starting point for laws instead of norms for the president-- he's hoping Biden enacts some laws to make the Presidency "psychopath proof" but of course the best way to avoid this is to NOT elect a psychopath;

his main thrust is that if you wholeheartedly believe everything you hear from either the right OR the left, your thoughts will achieve a cult-like conformity . . .

for another podcast that gets into this listen to the Joe Rogan featuring Lawrence Wright-- I enjoyed all three hours of the dialogue; Lawrence Wright knows his stuff on this topic-- he interviewed the son of Jim Jones (that's quite a story) and he wrote "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief" and "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11."

Excursions of Dave

I'm reading Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib so today I'll let Q-tip do the talking:

Beats that are hard, beats that are funky
It could get you hooked like a crackhead junkie.

Tennis Notes

I took it easy this week-- alcohol-wise and exercise-wise-- because I thought I was playing an excellent in the Saturday morning tennis league . . . last week I had an easy match where I got to practice various serves and shots (as I destroyed my opponent . . . he had no killer instinct) which was kind of a nice break because the scouting report I received on Manoj was that he tough to beat, especially if his first serve was on-- but I arrived at the club this morning and found out that Manoj pulled his groin and hurt his elbow-- so he is out for the rest of the season-- and I was playing his replacement, a guy with a Russian accent named Alex . . . this was a bit of a letdown as I was amped up to see how I would fare against Manoj-- but when I started warming up with Alex, I realized I was going to have my work cut out for me anyway-- Alex was hitting the ball hard in warm-ups-- a strong forehand and a big first serve and he wanted to take a bunch of overhead smashes, which he killed . . . then we started playing-- and while his first serve was intimidating (he even aced me once) I noticed he didn't have a great backhand, it was a spinning slice shot which skipped low, nor did he have a great second serve and he sometimes made unforced errors-- and so instead of attacking the net and trying to hit winners-- which wasn't working all that well (after some long games full of errant shots, we were tied 4 to 4) I started concentrated on something simple-- keeping my eye on the ball-- and I hit my serves to his backhand, kept the ball in play, and watched him run around his backhand and feed me hittable balls . . . with this simple strategy, I won the next seven games straight and beat him 11-4.

Dave Reads His Second AI Novel in as Many Months

I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of sci-fi writer Becky Chambers . . . I loved her novel The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet-- her future world is a topical and wry combination of Star Trek and The Hitchhiker's Guide, from a feminine perspective-- and her second book in the Wayfarers series, A Closed and Common Orbit, is something special; it's more of a spin-off than a sequel, told from several interesting points-of-view in two distinct time frames . . . and while I recently read a funny and poignant book written from the perspective of an AI, which I thoroughly enjoyed, this one is more detailed, developed, and profound about the nature of consciousness-- artificial, enhanced, cloned, and alien . . . and it's also quite clever about how these various cultures might exist together:

"Why don't different species sit together?" she asked . . . 

segregated transit cars didn't mesh with what she'd read of Port Coriol's famed egalitarianism . . .

"Different species," Blue said, "different butts."

My Son Might Be Smarter Than Me?

During this pandemic, I've seen my kids do number of things that don't seem smart at all-- for example, my sixteen year old son Alex likes to cut an avocado in half while holding it in his hand, with a giant knife, while walking around the kitchen-- and it's exhausting to be constantly suggesting things that seems commonsensical, like "why don't you put that thing on a solid, less fleshy surface, and use a cutting board?"-- so when Alex wanted to watch Primer last week, I assumed it would be a disaster-- Primer is the most realistic (and the most difficult to understand) time-travel movie ever made-- Chuck Klosterman has a great essay about the film in which he lauds it to no end but he also reminds folks that:

"Primer is hopelessly confusing and grows more and more byzantine as it unravels (I’ve watched it seven or eight times and I still don’t totally know how it works)"

so I advised my son to turn on the subtitles, but he refused-- he wanted to "do it the hard way"-- and I told him that it took me a couple viewings to get it, and some charts, and a whiteboard . . . and then we watched the movie and he understood the first time through . . . and not only that, he predicted the existence of the failsafe machine-- a plot device I did not understand until I had watched the film a half dozen times . . . he said that taking A.P. Physics helped him understand the incomprehensible jargon at the start of the movie and the rest . . . well, though this is the same kid that picked up a rotisserie chicken with cloth oven mitts (because he thought you used oven mitts to pick up things that are hot . . . I had to explain that if the item is hot, moist and greasy-- then you DON'T use oven mitts) but despite the e lapses in common sense, I think it's time for me to admit that his brain might function a lot better than mine (he is taking four AP classes this year and aims to be an aerospace engineer . . . maybe someday I'll convince him to read Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow).

To Infinity and Beyond . . .

While we were watching football, my son Ian asked me if you had to kick a field goal through the goal posts and I told him that you did not-- you could kick the ball as high as you like, because the goal posts extend upward to infinity . . . this is also true for the goal-tending cylinder in basketball: I can't think of any other infinite sporting boundaries of significance, but perhaps there are others . . . and I think I might extend this sentence to infinity . . . why not . . . ellipses are cheap . . .

Rule Number One for the Ladies: Don't Compliment Dave

Normally, folder review for the Rutgers Expos Class is at least a little bit stressful; a team of us teach the course-- which is notoriously difficult-- at my high school and if the kids pass, then they can buy the credits and avoid taking the class freshman year . . . folder review is when Rutgers makes sure that we are grading up to their rigorous standards, and while it's always done in an open and academic fashion, any time someone grades your grading, things can get contentious-- my reputation used to be that I was a bit fast and loose with my grades . . . and I often found myself debating on behalf of a student and their paper in order to maintain a higher grade-- but this year we have a new liaison and I met with her today and she obviously didn't get the memo: normally, intelligent women only admonish and counsel Dave . . . they don't shower him with compliments-- because his self-esteem is already bloated and swollen (for no good reason other than using mental health strategies similar to the one the fox used to assure himself that those grapes were sour) so I was quite surprised when the new lady said my grades were "precisely what she would have given" and she said we see "exactly eye-to-eye" and she loved the specificity of my comments and my modeling of close reading and she couldn't wait for my input at the grading calibration workshop . . . this was very fun for a few minutes-- and it was especially entertaining to rub it in Brady's face, as he used to be the grading king-- but now I'm feeling a lot of pressure-- I'm more used to being the amiable screw-up that could use some constructive direction; we'll see how this new role goes.

A Solemn Promise

If I survive this pandemic-- either through avoidance, vaccination, or catching covid and developing antibodies, then I am never washing my hands again (even after using a gas station restroom where you need to get a key connected to a wooden block by a chain).

Air Fryer = This Moment from The Simpsons

After extensive research, many unsolicited testimonials, and some serious discussion, we finally broke down and purchased an air-fryer (but we're never getting an Insta Pot . . . never!) and I must admit, it works . . . and it works fast-- just like the internet; the first thing that came to mind when I used the air-fryer was a moment from a mid-90s episode of The Simpsons and I found it . . . fast . . . enjoy.

2020: A Good Year For Reading Books

I read 54 books in 2020-- the most since I've been keeping this list-- and one of those books was The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling, a monstrous time that should count as two books-- and while there are a number of good reads on the list, if I had to pick three favorites, they would be:

Best Literary Fiction:  Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Best Non-fiction: Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein

Best Sci-fi: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

and the best detective series would be the first three Easy Rawlins books by Walter Mosley

here's the complete list, happy reading . . .

1) The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston

2) The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch

3) Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

4) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

5) This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

6) Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

7) Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino

8) A Red Death by Walter Mosley

9) White Butterfly by Walter Mosley

10) Death Without Company by Craig Johnson

11) Best Movie Year Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Rafferty

12) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

13) Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh

14) The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding

15) The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

16) A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey

17) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

18) Phil Gordon's Little Green Book by Phil Gordon 

19) Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo

20) Harrington on Hold'em Vol I by Dan Harrington

21) The Bat by Jo Nesbø

22) Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em by Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta, Matt Flynn

23) Hold'em Poker by David Sklansky

24) Harrington on Hold'em Vol II by Dan Harrington

25) To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey

26) Waiting for Straighters by Tommy Angelo

27) American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard

28) Townie by Andre Dubus III

29) Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen

30) The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

31) Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

32) Do Not Resuscitate by Nicholas Ponticello 

33) The Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez

34) The Cipher by Kathe Koja

35) Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosely

36) Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas

37) "H" is For Homicide by Sue Grafton

38) The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani

39) Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Poker Tournaments by Jonathan Little

40) Soccer Systems and Strategies by Jens Bangsbo and Birger Peitersen

41) The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide edited by Michael Craig

42) Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

43) The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

44) Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

45) The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

46) The Peripheral by William Gibson

47) Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson

48) The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey

49) A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

50) Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein

51) Deacon King Kong by James McBride

52) Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter

53) Agency by William Gibson

54) The Fifth Season by J.K. Jemisin