A weird episode about a weird book: in "Livin' La Vida Lapvona", I try to make sense of Ottessa Moshfegh's repugnant folktale Lapvona . . . and while my analysis might be lacking, I am proud of the title.
School Returns with a Vengeance
My wife and I had to teach today, despite the fact that it was a federal holiday, while Ian got to sleep in; Alex didn't get in until two AM because he's off for college break; the road was desolate on the ride to East Brunswick, and though we were all tired, the kids were in good spirits (I made them stand up and announce New Year's resolutions after I bored them with my thoughts on digital minimalism, stretching, and eating less sugary treats) but last period things got a bit hectic, as we were saying resolutions a girl slid out of her desk onto the floor and had a seizure-- luckily, I'm right next door to the nurse, so while a student cleared the area around her head I ran and got some assistance and then we cleared out while they tended to her . . . then when I got home, Alex informed me that the tankless hot water heater was totally broken so we went to the gym, worked out, and I showered there, but then when I got home, I went down and turned the thing on and really banged the circuit board with my hand a few times and now it's working again, for the time being (or not . . . just broke again . . . and Catherine just got home and she had quite a day as well, the elastic in her tights broke-- she was wearing a dress so she didn't moon anyone but she was doing a lot of shimmying) and then I tried to light our gas grill with a long wooden match, but I turned all the burners on at once before I struck the match-- God knows why-- and a fiery plume shot forth and burned all the hair off my right hand-- but my skin didn't get burned, scary and weird, but I seem to be unburnt.
Feral Hogs + Atlanta = Awesome
We just finished one of my favorite TV shows ever: Atlanta . . . my son Alex finished ahead of Ian and me, but Alex watched the last few episodes of season four again with us (while annoyingly pointing out all sorts of stuff about the background music) and though I loved the last episode-- which is loads of fun and might explain the surreal nature of the show-- I enjoyed the penultimate episode most of all; Paper Boi has some wild adventures with a tractor and my favorite villainous creature-- a feral hog!-- what more could I ask for?
Book List 2022
Here are the books I finished (possibly with some skimming) this year . . . I started plenty of others and quit them because . . . well because I wanted to . . . that's what's great about reading-- if you've got access to a library, you aren't beholden to any particular book:
1) Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson
2) Lazarus Volumes 1-6
3) Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
4) Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson
5) The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul
6) The Given Day by Dennis LeHane
7) Live by Night by Dennis LeHane
8) A Little History of the World by Ernst Gombrich
9) Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
10) Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
11) Caliban's War by James A. Corey
12) Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
13) The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman
14) Tochi Onyebuchi's Goliath
15) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
16) Abbadon's Gate by James S.A. Corey
17) The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
18) The Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
19) One-Shot Harry by Gary Philips
20) The Last Days of Roger Federer and Other Endings by Geoff Dyer
21) The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
22) Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
23) The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough
24) Harrow by Joy Williams
25) The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams
26) Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
27) The Foundling by Ann Leary
28) Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy
29) Fugitive Telemetry: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
30) Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
31) Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit by Mark Leyner
32) The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era by Gary Gerstle
33) Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta
34) Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
35) Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
36) The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
37) The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
38) City on Fire by Don Winslow
39) Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
40) what if? SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC ANSWERS to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe
41) Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Stephen Johnson
42) The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
43) The Tomorrow Game: Rival Teenagers, Their Race For a Gun, and The Community United to Save Them by Sudhir Venkatesh
44) Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
45) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
46) Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
47) Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
48) Liberation Day by George Saunders
49) Upgrade by Blake Crouch
50) Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
51) Adrift: America in 100 Charts by Scott Galloway
52) Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
53) Pines by Blake Crouch
54) The Rise and Reign of the Mammals by Steve Brusatte
55) Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
56) Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson
57) Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross
Bizarro Four
Fantastic Four: Full Circle is a psychedelic journey into a Bizarro World anti-matter negative energy universe, where some weird doppelgänger of The Thing resides (although he surfaced on our planet, full of grotesque half-creatures and somehow existed in both time frames) and though the ending may indicate that we are just figments of some other world's imagination, this is highly unlikely, because the artistic imagination of Alex Ross-- the colors, the perspectives, the layout of these pages-- must indicate that we are controlling things here in our world . . . and it is that other anti-world that is a figment of our imagination . . . or at least that is what we need to believe, that we have autonomy when we get a midnight snack.
The Essence?
At a party last night, we played a game called "The Essence"-- but instead of "the Asker" asking questions like that, we just free-lanced it . . . it was quite fun but it could probably go down a dark road if there was some animosity in the house (and I couldn't help taking it down an absurd road: if this person were an apocalypse they would be zombie . . . if this person were an organ, they'd be a spleen, etc.)
THAT Was Fun
It's weird when your kid comes home from college for Winter Break-- there is certainly an adjustment period: they are used to a totally different schedule, they are used to interacting mainly with college-aged people, and they are not used to whatever family dynamics have developed since they have been living away from home-- and perhaps that is why Alex and Ian nearly got into a battle royale the first time we tried to play some pick-up basketball at the Piscataway Y . . . Alex is used to playing a certain style of pick-up with kids at the gym over at Rutgers, Ian is a bit too competitive when he's covering his brother, and the two of them have grown quite a bit and Ian, although he's very athletic, does not have complete control over his long arms and bony elbows when he's playing basketball; anyway, they talked it out and we went back and played again today and we played four-on-four with some decent players and Alex, Ian, and I were on the same team and this made a world of difference-- we killed the other team; Alex and Ian both rebounded, Alex drove with confidence and made a lot of touch shots around the basket; Ian blocked some shots with his long arms and took advantage of a mismatch inside; I shot a bit from outside; and the fourth guy on our team was an excellent player who know how to move the ball . . . it was very fun and everyone got along smashingly and then we met Catherine for lunch at Mr. Pi's and ate some sushi-- and they are both certainly better at pick-up basketball than I was at their age (when I played basketball in the same fashion as I played rugby).
Charismatic Megafauna!
New episode of "We Defy Augury" is up . . . thoughts loosely inspired by Steve Brusatte's book The Rise and Reign of the Mammals" but plenty of tangents, asides, cameos, and even a musical monologue.
Almost Fun . . .
Alex, Ian, and I went to the gym at 10 AM to play some basketball and we got a three-on-three game going but Alex and Ian were the tallest players, so they had to split up and cover each other-- which I should have known would be a disaster-- and Ian swatted at the ball for a steal with his long arm and hit Alex in the lip, drawing blood and scratching his face-- and then the two of them were at it, and they finally got into some kind of scrap over a rebound and Alex tossed Ian to the ground (he's bigger) and Ian punched his leg and Alex decided he'd had enough and walked home . . . they sorted it all out later but they might not be able to cover each other until they reach an age of enlightenment (they are seventeen and eighteen now . . . maybe in their mid-twenties they'll mellow out?)
Gold, Frankincense, and Bluetooth Hat
Fun Christmas: I got the kids some graphic novels (that I want to read as well) and my wife got me a bluetooth ski hat with speakers embedded in the fabric so I can listen to music while walking the dog in the frigid cold (and the dog got a sweater, which she really likes) and Netflix gave us a new Knives Out mystery, Glass Onion, which was totally entertaining and a great thing to watch with the family on a lazy Christmas day . . . thanks Netflix!
Xmas Eve Miracles!
This morning, my older son Alex and I went to the Piscataway Y and played some basketball-- his game has gotten better because he's playing so much pick-up ball and Rutgers and my unconscious outside shooting picked up exactly where I left off yesterday morning . . . we were playing two-on-two and I think I shot 80% from beyond the arc-- it was ridiculous . . . and then to add to the miracles, Catherine botched another idiom in her inimitable style, when she told Alex she "didn't want to hear any comments from the popcorn gallery."
Winter Break is Here!
Winter Break has arrived: we survived ChatGPTbotgate at school, I survived early morning basketball (and lit it up from outside . . . Merry Xmas from the basketball gods), Alex survived his engineering exams, and-- hopefully-- we'll survive this bomb cyclone super freeze . . . the temperature has dropped precipitously and we're holed up at home-- the dog is bored, Catherine and I are making tacos, Alex and his buddy Gary are watching the Festivus episode of Seinfeld in the basement-- but Ian is at work at the bubble tea place-- I can't imagine many people are coming in because it's so cold and windy but he won't be home until 10 PM, I hope it's not too ugly out then-- anyway, the presents are wrapped and under the tree, there's no school tomorrow, and it's nice to be warm and inside and drinking a beer.
Almost Break
Alex is home from college and Alex, Ian, and I watched an episode of Atlanta and ate some pizza and told stories about college and high school and ChatGPT . . . and it felt very normal.
The Robots Are Here and the Writing is Uncanny
We had a Rutgers grade calibration day and we found several essays that seem to have sections written by AI, probably ChatGPT . . . and this is more difficult to prove than old-school plagiarism-- you have to guess what the student typed into the prompt to get the chatbot to spit back out the weird stuff in the essay-- but you can tell the sections that are written by a computer . . . Stacey made an astute comparison to the idea of the "uncanny valley" in digital animation.
Early Morning Date with a Dead Dog
You never know where the adventure of parenthood is going to take you . . . this morning I woke up my son Ian at 5:45 AM and we drove over to Carolyn's house-- Ian does odd jobs, outdoor work, and dog sitting for her-- and Carolyn's dogs are old, one is deaf and blind and the other had severe problems with his back legs and needed to be put down yesterday . . . poor Huckleberry . . . anyway, the vet came to her house and put the dog down last night and Carolyn needed a couple of people to carry the dog to her car this morning so she could drive the dog to the crematorium . . . so Ian and I started our day by lugging a seventy-pound carcass out of Carolyn's living room and wresting it into the back of her Subaru and then Ian went back to bed and I got ready for work . . . dogs-- they just don't live long enough.
Adrift in the Digital Doldrums
New episode of We Defy Augury is up and streaming: "Adrift in the Digital Doldrums" . . . in this one I describe how to become a digital minimalist, how to solve all of America's problems, and how NOT to clean out a lint duct; cameo appearances from Bill Maher, Tristan Harris, and Alexander Supertramp.
Meta Action is Still Action, Right?
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, starring Nicolas Cage as a gonzo-version of himself, is entertaining, fun, and meta . . . and Pedro Pascal's understated emotion is the perfect foil to Cage's wild manic swings; this is the lighter version of JCVD . . . a similar premise, but Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a very dark version of himself . . . if you're going to watch one meta-action movie where the star plays himself, I would go with the Nicolas Cage one.
Let There Be Lint
I cleaned my dryer vent duct today, using a shop-vac and a kit that contained a bunch of flexible plastic sticks that you screw together and then you put an augur lint brush on one end of the long flexible stick and you attach the other end to a drill-- you insert that thing into the duct outside your house (after removing the louvres) while you have the shop-vac attached to the hose in the basement (you've detached the hose from the back of your dryer) and when you're done you have cleaned the lint from the hose, there's a bunch of lint in the shop-vac and there's also an unlimited amount of lint all over the washroom-- I'm not sure why this happened (because I was outside spinning the augur brush) but there certainly was a lot of lint.
Peanut Butter Hustle
I was preparing to go to early morning basketball-- it was 5:30 AM-- and I had to walk the dog in the sideways rain (I've got a special jacket for this-- I'll put up a picture) and Lola will sleep as late as you let her and is often fairly reluctant to come down the stairs early in the morning, she's content to wait up on the landing until everyone wakes up-- but I had just finished a jar of peanut butter, and her favorite hobby is to lick the remaining peanut butter out of the jar and even though she was warm and in her bed in Ian's room, all I had to whisper up the stairs was "peanut butter" and she came racing down, no hesitation about bounding down a dark staircase.
At Least It Was Short
Once again, I got sucked into another ridiculous Blake Crouch sci-fi thriller: this one is the first in a trilogy and it's called Pines . . . it's pretty much Twin Peaks plus Winesburg,Ohio inserted into The Matrix.
I Need To Try Chick-fil-A
My Public Speaking students are giving informational speeches and I have learned I don't know anything: today I learned about Abby Lee Miller-- the crazy abusive dance teacher who hid assets and survived spinal cancer; I learned about the YouTube phenomenon called Sidemen Sundays; and I learned I am really bad at eating fast food . . . I've never had Popeyes or Chick-fil-A.
Croatia: All Feet on Deck
Croatia, with a population of 3.9 million, makes it to the finals of the World Cup in 2018 and the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2022 . . . very impressive . . . and they'll probably bury Luka Modric in the basement of a castle in Transylvania and then resurrect him for the 2026 World Cup.
Carrie Soto Is Wack
On my podcast We Defy Augury, I usually try to convince you to read a particular book-- or at least to enjoy my thoughts on the book-- but this episode is different: I try to convince you NOT to read a particular book, Taylor Jenkins Reid's inane tennis novel Carrie Soto Is Back . . . which, oddly, got excellent reviews and-- even more absurd-- won the GoodReads reader's choice historical fiction novel of the year . . . anyway, join me, Clubber Lang, Helen Keller and John McEnroe as we try to unravel the idiocy of this book.
Sometimes You Win When You Don't Watch
Good week of sports for me: I managed to get to school early for both badminton and basketball, made it to the gym Saturday morning and played indoor soccer Sunday morning-- so now I'm pretty much immobile and very sore-- which will be perfect, since the Giants are on at 1 PM . . . and the World Cup games were fantastic, especially Croatia/Brazil and Argentina/Netherlands and the best sporting move that I made all week was that I completely forgot to watch the Rutgers/Ohio State basketball game on Thursday night, just blanked out and forgot about it . . . which was great because it ended with this debacle and if I would have committed to watching the entire game and then saw that ending, I probably would have had an aneurysm.
World Cup Woes
It's kind of nice when your country is eliminated from the World Cup because you can watch the games in a state of curiosity, awe, and general relaxation-- not that I told my British friends this nugget of wisdom after the disaster of the England/France game this afternoon . . . nothing worse than when your team totally dominates and your most overrated player-- according to these Brits-- skies a PK into the thirtieth row and you miss a chance to play Morocco to get into the finals . . . brutal stuff (and I feel quite bad for Harry Kane, but you've got to get that on goal and then if the keeper makes the play, good for him).
It's a Miracle . . . Now Shut Up and Do Your Work
We were brainstorming topics for an informational presentation in my Public Speaking class and some boys wanted to do a speech about how "Helen Keller isn't real" and I was like "what?" and they told me they just didn't buy it-- how could someone who couldn't see or hear write books and I told them the one thing I remembered about Helen Keller-- that the teacher poured some water on her hand and spelled out "water" and they were like "what about 'the'? how did she learn the word 'the'?" and I was like, "I don't know! go do some research" and this class is split in two by the lunch period, so I brought this up in the English Office and Cunningham was like "yeah! how did she do all that? how could she learn all those words?" and I was like "you need to go sit with the stupid boys in my Public Speaking class" and Cunningham was like "how could she learn all the words?" and I said, "they put stuff in her hand and spelled it" but now I was starting to doubt myself because that sounded absurd . . . and she was like "how did she learn abstract concepts?" and I said, "you pour water over her hand and spell 'water' for a couple days, and then one day you pour hot water on her hand and spell 'betrayal'" and then I spent the rest of my lunch period researching Helen Keller and apparently her teacher spelled millions of words on her hand, and she used a braille typewriter, and she felt cheeks and mouths and lips for vibrations to learn what words sounded like and there were always doubters of her abilities but she repeatedly proved them wrong and rode a bike and flew a plane and went to college . . . and I'm not exactly sure how she did all this, but I'm pretty sure she is real-- but I'm still hard-pressed to explain how it all happened.
BADminton
I debuted my new (and fairly cheap . . . under fifty dollars) badminton racket today at 6:30 AM-- it was certainly an upgrade from the gym class equipment I've been using-- much lighter because it's made of graphite . . . but I saw no marked improvement in my game, perhaps because we couldn't get the basketball hoops up and so we had to tape out a court in the center of the gym-- which made judging things quite difficult (and while my play was, as usual, erratic and profanity laced, my arm doesn't hurt as much as it usually does after one of these sessions).
Liberation Daze
I just put up a new episode of my podcast, We Defy Augury . . . this episode, "Liberation Daze," examines the writing of George Saunders; Festivus makes a cameo appearance, as does Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything.
Too Many Sports . . .
Big Rutgers win over Indiana Friday night, then I settled in at the bar with some friends to watch the Giants, Jets, and World Cup game Sunday afternoon-- Giants should have won but tied-- nothing like watching an entire football game and it ending in a tie-- Jets fell apart on the one-yard line, and England crushed Senegal . . . in the end I don't know how to feel (although I was excited that Argentina moved on, I love that little Lionel Messi chap) but there might be too many sporting events on TV right now for me to handle.
USA? USA!
Here we go . . . should be fun, despite the anxiety and undue concern about the state of Christian Pulisic's nether regions-- there's nothing that can make a guy feel sympathy pain like another guy with a sore groin.
I Cook on Thursdays
No time to write, as I'm about to start cooking . . . yesterday was Catherine's birthday and instead of the usual present: two weeks of cooking dinner, I've decided on something more ambitious-- I'm going to cook dinner every Tuesday and Thursday until her next birthday (and maybe beyond that, we'll see how it goes) and while I won't be able to pull this off during tennis season, the rest of the time it should be fine-- the two weeks of cooking every meal was a mistake-- I would get stressed out, drink too much, run out of things I know how to make-- but this way I can stick to stuff in my wheelhouse and it won't get repetitive and she'll always know when I'm cooking-- on her meeting day and on Thursday, a good night to have a beer while you cook (unless you just had the flu) so I've got to get on with it: blackened mahi-mahi, Brussels sprouts and bacon, and roasted potatoes.
I'm Back . . . And Angrier Than Ever (About Dumb Stuff in a Chick-lit Novel)
I'm on the mend-- thanks to Tamiflu, my immune system, benzonatate, Mucinex, and acetaminophen-- but that flu was a doozy . . . I hope I'll be back to work tomorrow, although I have to teach three 82-minute periods, and Tamiflu screws with my stomach a bit . . . I'll bring some emergency underwear-- and I know I'm getting better because I got an easy read on my Kindle for $3.99 . . . Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and while I'm enjoying the cheesy father-daughter Serena-esque sports story and all the chic-lit feminist drama-- I don't think Taylor Jenkins Reid knows shit about tennis-- Carrie Soto is making her comeback at age 37 and all the players on tour hate her because she was a grinder? . . . so they are trying to find a top-quality player for her to hit with and no female players will do it so they have to get a male player who she once slept with and it ended badly-- Bowe Huntley-- who is ALSO trying to make a comeback . . . and Carrie isn't sure about this because she has such a past with this guy and while this is good for romantic drama, this makes ABSOLUTELY NO TENNIS SENSE . . . female tennis players do not require any particular professional male player to hit with-- they could use any male player of Division 1 college quality and beyond because male players are so much better than female players-- they've already done this experiment-- the Williams sisters played the 203 ranked male player and he beat them handily, back to back, while smoking cigarettes between games-- John McEnroe estimated that Serena would be ranked around 700th if she were to play on the men's circuit . . . not that any of this means anything, but the point is that Carrie could hit with any decent men's player and she would be seeing more velocity and spin than with the best woman's player-- how did this bestselling author's editor not catch this?
Sick Sucks
Sickness . . . it's so fucked up-- the Friday after Thanksgiving was turning into one of those wonderful holiday break days-- on Wednesday night, we dealt with the college son returning home and still behaving like he was in college, but we straightened that out and we had a lovely Thanksgiving at my parents-- but I didn't drink or eat all that much-- I don't like Thanksgiving food and I didn't really trust my kids to drive us home because there are a lot of drunk yahoos on the road post-Thanksgiving, plus I was saving my servings of alcohol for the USA/England World Cup Match-- Friday morning I rose early, and got my go-to-chili recipe simmering in the crockpot and then Ian and I went to the Piscataway Y and played some two-on-two hoops against some high school basketball players-- and beat them in two hard fought games-- my two point shot was on and Ian has learned to roll to the basket and his arms are so long that it hard to guard him . . . the Hispanic kid was calling me "Pops," as in-- "make sure you guard Pops outside" which was an absolute delight-- then we went home, got the house set up and thirty or so people of all ages came over for the game-- we had three devices streaming (we had to calibrate the iMac in the kitchen because it was a couple seconds ahead of the smart TV in the living room, because folks were very serious about all cheering being in unison, even though said cheering was totally apostrophic, as the players can't hear us) and the party was great-- a perfect result since we had a number of Brits over . . . and people stayed a bit late and some Scotch was consumed (thanks Adrian!) and then it was time for bed . . . and two hours later I woke up shivering and I've had a fever and a cough and a headache-- which really hurts when I cough-- and body aches and sleeplessness and all kinds of other gross symptoms-- so all my plans to go out with Terry on Tuesday to watch the USA/Iran game have come to nought-- especially since Terry came down with a wicked case of COVID yesterday-- so we'll both be watching the game on our respective couches, cheering softly . . . usa . . . usa . . .usa . . . and I'm headed to the doctor today so I can avoid this typical sequence of events and perhaps I'll get some kind fo drug or diagnosis that will get me better sooner rather than later-- this is the first time I've been really sick since February 2020, and I'm shocked it's not COVID-- but the test was negative so maybe it's RSV or the flu or just some weird virus like I had three years ago.
Costa Rica Shocks Japan
I always root for the Central and South American teams in the World Cup (and Mexico and Canada . . . proximity rooting) and so I was excited to see Costa Rica redeem the nation, after losing 7-0 to Spain, by coming up with a dramatic 1-0 win over Japan this morning . . . and I know it's got to be tough to announce an entire soccer match-- there's a lot of dead time and a lot of just knocking the ball around, but I still think that the announcer should not have called Japan "shell shocked" after Keysher Fuller's change-up chip shot goal, because of the firebombing of Tokyo and the atom bomb . . . "shocked" would have been enough-- that would be like saying, if the US team were to beat Iran, that it looks like the Iranians have been roasted by the Great Satan-- and I don't think you can say that on TV-- but soccer does bring out the hyperbole in many of us (my favorite adjective used by an announcer in this cup was a "tantalizing" pass).
This Is How Old Soccer Fans Party
Fun day today . . . got up early, worked on the podcast, got my game-time chili into the crockpot, went to the gym and played some two-on-two with my son Ian-- and he's started to really roll to the basket, we beat a couple of high school basketball players because I was making my outside shot and Ian was setting screens and rolling, despite the fact that the one kid was calling me "pops"-- then got the house all organized for the USA/England game-party and we had a bunch of people over, of all ages-- and a number of them were British, which added a great element to the event because you couldn't root like a total asshole, you had to keep in mind that the person next to you might be rooting for the opposite result-- and we were all friends-- and a nil-nil tie was actually the perfect result for this party . . . it's a nice metaphor for our country, perhaps I would be more empathetic politically if there was always a Republican sitting on the couch next to me . . . anyway, my chili was a hit-- I've never had a party where the entire crockpot was consumed, and Adrian "neutral" bottle of Glengoyne Scotch was also a crowd favorite-- all parties should start at one and end at 6 PM.
Happy Thanksgiving
I'd really like to put up this clip from the movie Pieces of April, where Tyrone (formerly Eddies) wishes his ex-girlfriend "Happy Thanksgiving"-- it's one of my favorite movie scenes ever (from a great little indie film) but I can't find the clip anywhere . . . someone get on this . . . wait, I found a pirated version, go to 59:50 and watch the scene!
A Slow Start to the World Cup . . .
Yesterday, I took a half-day and so did my friend, colleague, and fellow soccer coach Terry-- our plan was to find a raucous bar, settle in, and watch the USA vs. Wales World Cup game . . . the first two places we went-- Barca and Tavern on George-- were closed because it was Monday . . . and while I get the whole restaurants-are-closed-on-Monday thing, we're talking about the World Cup-- most countries shut down (except for bars and restaurants) when the national team is playing a cup game-- so we ate lunch at George Street Ale House and talked soccer with a salesman and watched the Netherlands beat Senegal in the waning minutes and then we went over to the Golden Rail to watch the USA game-- there was a bit of a crowd there and the new owner, an enthusiastic Asian guy, was excited about the game-- but the only reason he opened the bar was because he saw that there was an article in the local paper (and the local internet paper, if there is a such a thing) that said that the Golden Rail was a great place to watch soccer-- because the previous owner was British-- so he figured he'd better open; then for the second half, we went to Highland Park and tried Pino's because they said they would have the big projection screen going for the game-- and they did-- but there was also a group of old dudes in a circle in the front of the bar playing folk music (one at a time, taking turns . . . yikes) and there was only one other USA fan in the place, my buddy John, so we watched together and suffered through Zimmerman's unfortunate foul of Gareth Bale and the resulting PK that drew the game-- hopefully there will be more fanfare and festivities on Friday.
Southern Change Gonna Come at Last?
The past couple weeks I have immersed myself in the South, with a capital "S": my wife and I traveled to Charleston; I read a bunch of Battle Cry of Freedom-- the epic James M. McPherson Civil War history-- and I whipped through two S.A. Cosby crime novels that are set in rural Virginia . . . Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears . . . the result of all this Southern immersion is a new episode of We Defy Augury called "Southbound with S.A. Cosby" . . . there are cameo appearances from Zman and my son Alex (but they are pretty deep into the show-- you've got to have patience in the South . . . check it out and I hope you enjoy it.
Kids These Days . . .
We've had bathroom issues at East Brunswick High School-- vaping, vandalism, hooking up, etcetera-- so kids have to digitally sign into monitored bathrooms and only two students can enter at a time . . . it's a real pain-in-the-ass, pun intended, and in any given period (and we have block scheduling, so our periods are 82 minutes long, so kids are going to have to go to the bathroom) most of the bathrooms around the school are closed and locked, so the kids have to seek out an open bathroom and often wait in line to go-- some kids take advantage of this, they know they can wander the halls of the school with impunity, basically cutting class, but when they see teachers or SSO officers, they just tell them they are looking for an open bathroom; I saw a couple of these "hallway wanderers" pass each other last week, and after they slapped hands, one delinquent said something that might have passed between two septuagenarians: "bro, you're the only guy who get more steps in this building than me."
American Tailgating vs. The Americans
There's nothing like a good-old-fashioned-football tailgate-- but that doesn't mean I like everything about a good-old-fashioned-football tailgate; Rutgers played Penn State today and we have a number of kids from Highland Park that attend both schools (including my son Alex, far right in the photo) so it was fun to see the high school gang back together and the parents brought loads of good food and drink, but it was bitter cold and it was windy-- notice the flags-- and wind ruins everything . . . tennis, biking, golf, tailgating (everything except kite-flying) so while I enjoyed the cold-- especially from a food hygiene point-of-view, I had no problem eating leftovers from this tailgate hours later, because everything was kept at refrigeration temperatures-- I was happy to catch a ride home and watch the game inside my warm, windless house . . . and then when the game broke bad, I was happy to watch an episode of The Americans with my wife . . . and choosing a show about Russian spies over football probably means I'm some kind of pinko communist.
Stuff I Watched, Stuff I'm Watching
If you're looking for a different take on the horror genre, check out His House-- it's the story of a refugee couple from wartorn Sudan who seeks asylum in England and ends up in a not-so-typical-haunted-housing situation . . . these folks have some real skeletons in the closet and some real ghosts in their past; if you're looking for more traditional horror, check out Midnight Mass, a Netflix miniseries directed by Mike Flanagan-- the characters are well-drawn and Saracen from Friday Night lights has a superb role in this haunted island community; if you're looking to be stressed and depressed, watch The Americans . . . we've almost made it to the end of season four, and while the portrayal of two Soviet deep-cover spies who are "married" and have a family in Washington D.C. is compelling, gripping and candid, the show gets dark and then it gets darker . . . we can't stop watching, but it's brutal.
Voodoo Health Shit
I pride myself on being a logical person, versed in numeracy, literacy, and many topics-- but one thing I don't fuck around with is medical information . . . I don't read about medical stuff, I don't investigate it, I don't wonder at it, I don't think about it-- when I was a kid, I skipped that page in Discover about medical mysteries (was it called Vital Signs?) and while I know this is ridiculous, I just think it's bad juju to wonder about how your body works . . . if you read about heart attacks, you might have one; if you watch a medical show where someone has an aneurysm, your body might follow suit; if you research too much about your kidneys, they might stop working, and I did not read one page of Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (even though I heard it was an excellent book) and then yesterday, we were discussing strokes (because my friend's dad had a stroke) and I got a terrible headache-- and I never get headaches-- and it was like a spike had been nailed into my head above my right eye and I could barely teach and I had to cancel my dermatology appointment . . . but apparently lots of people get headaches-- some far worse than the one I experienced-- and I wasn't having a stroke and it went away when I had some acetaminophen and coffee, but I still don't want to know how this stuff works (my friend Rachel told me she has lots of little white scars on her brain from migraine headaches!)
Dave Learns Two Things (That He Already Knew . . . Sort Of)
This morning I learned that I really like Billy Cobham-- I like his drumming and his original stuff and his work with Miles Davis and his work with the Mahavishnu Orchestra . . . I just didn't know the name "Billy Cobham"-- I "liked" a bunch of his songs on Spotify without ever knowing the percussionist behind the music . . . the other thing I learned TWICE this week (and I'm sure I knew this previously) is that if you don't rake the leaves in your backyard, you are going to step in dogshit . . . because fallen leaves are often the color of dogshit and fallen leaves obscure dogshit.
Go Ahead and Glue Yourself to The Scream
I really loved the new Sam Harris podcast "Science and Civilization"; Harris chats with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about numeracy and the difficulties humans have with numerical logic . . . the section about global warming was especially enlightening-- and, as usual, I am adding my own thoughts and tangents into a summary of what was discussed; Tyson points out that people have trouble understanding the dire consequences of one-degree change in average temperature because they don't think in Gaussian (Bell) curves-- we think about one degree warmer in our house or on an average day, but the fluctuation has much greater significance at the edges of the curve-- that's where the action is at (the storms, droughts, wildfires, dust storms, erosion, heat strokes, and death) and even if most people DID understand the ramifications at the long tail of a one-degree change, the mathematics of our political cycle precludes our political system from addressing the problem because we elect people in four-year cycles-- so the time horizon is too short to run on a long term concept like climate change . . . politicians run on inflation, cultural wedge issues, gas prices, immigration . . . things that are happening NOW . . . and Sam Harris is concerned that young people are th eonly people that care about these issues, but the way young people are protesting is kind of deranged-- especially the folks gluing themselves to "priceless" works of art; Tyson explains that young people are the only ones who care about these kind fo long term problems, plus they are the people with time and energy to protest-- I agree, and quite honestly, these "pricesless" works of art are only priceless in a market economy with extreme wealth inequality-- we have plenty of digital pictures of the art and it's only paint on canvas, so who gives a fuck? . . . maybe some rich art patrons but for the rest off us, the planet, the ecosystem we live in, the current state of the oceans and rivers, clean air and water, endangered species . . . all these things are far more priceless than art; a species took millions of years to create-- so I say, go ahead and glue yourselves to famous paintings if it gets some attention to the cause of climate change-- you've got to break a few eggs to bake a cake . . . but then you've got to explain the statistics to people as well-- so good luck.
A Bit 'mo Charleston
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Some last thoughts about Charleston--
-- our tiny VRBO rental on Line Street (in the young and trendy Upper King Street neighborhood) was not for the faint of heart (or the elderly) because the bed was a floating loft at the top of a skinny spiral staircase . . . when you got out of bed, your only option was to get ONTO the staircase . . .
--Brown's Court Bakery was a block away from our place-- some of the best baked goods I've ever eaten: the pepperoni/jalapeno danish, raspberry danish, bacon and cheddar scone, and the lavender sugar donut are all worth trying;
--Brown Dog Deli in downtown Charleston is a cheap, delicious joint to grab sandwiches and a beer;
-- the Two Sisters walking tour was excellent . . . we had Mary Helen (as the two sisters split the group) and she gave us an entertaining history of the city-- it's a weird place, after the Civil War and the earthquake of 1886, Charleston was somewhat in ruins . . . and because it wasn't wealthy, the city never rebuilt all it's historic homes and buildings-- and then some motivated Southern Ladies started preserving things until the money came into town and now the place is astounding, the homes are all remodeled historically by rich part-timers, there are lush gardens and window boxes and narrow cobblestone streets and brick alleys and iconic porches and patios-- it's like a beautiful version of New Orleans (without the urine and the vomit) and I'm not sure if we've ever put in more miles walking in a city--
--despite the windy weather, everyone told us you have to go to a rooftop bar when you're in Charleston so we went to the Pour Taproom, atop the Hyatt . . . an interesting concept: they have 80 computerized taps and you serve yourself beer and pay by the ounce . . . great views from up there, you can really see the layout of the city;
-- our last meal we went to Leon's again-- great affordable Southern food and local beers and a really great vibe;
--the Led Zeppelin poster in our VRBO rental was of the same nature as all those Nirvana t-shirts that the youngsters are wearing . . . I doubt very much the rental barons of StayDuvet are huge Zep fans but the band logo has become an aesthetic signifier of something young and fun;
--Charleston is a lot fo fun but I've heard it's swampy and mosquito-ridden in the summer and if we stayed there another week, Catherine and I would both be obese . . . it's a great place to visit and it's being rapidly gentrified as we speak . . . it's a Southern version of what happened in Asbury Park-- a prim location stunted by poverty and left in ruins until the money came to gentrify, and now both towns are adult playgrounds, great for a fun weekend, but maybe not somewhere to live full time.
More Charleston
We have really covered a lot of ground over the past two days, according to my Fitbit we've walked over fifty thousand steps, and we've managed to avoid getting soaked; Wednesday night w took a very very long stroll north to Edmund's Oast brewery-- but we thought we we headed to the restaurant but Google maps sent us to the brewery and while the beer was delicious, they didn't have an extensive menu so we ordered some boiled peanuts, which I loved at Cat hated-- very very messy food-- and then walked all the way back to Leon's-- an oyster and fried chicken place in a refurbished garage . . . the food was amazing; the nest day we walked down to the water, through the colorfully painted home in the French Quarter, which has a New Orleans feel, and took the tour of the Old Exchange and Dungeon, a venerable and extremely solid old building with symmetric brick foundational arches, a hidden cache of revolutionary gunpowder and an impressive history as a slave market, a battery, a port building, and a historical society, the building was on the river but now there is four hundred feet of reclaimed land; we got soaked on our walk home, but the vociferous and loquacious black lady working the register at the convenience store told us it was all God's plan and the rain removed the bacteria; we went back to our tiny house, watched a show called Magic For Humans which is oddly addictive and we only discovered it because we are on Sissy's Netflix account, so all kinds of weird suggestions, and then we walked back downtown for a rich Southern dinner at Magnolia's and then back uptown to see a band at the Commodore, a weird dive bar with music-- quite the crowd in there, it seemed everyone actually knew how to dance, like really dance, but the band canceled and some white guy started energetically rapping, doing hip hop covers, so we watched a bit of that and then went home (it also should be noted that I yanked my belt off a closet door, it was under my jeans, and the buckle whipped over the door and clocked me in the head, giving me a nice knot on my noggin).
Charleston day one
After a slightly stressful departure, as our son Ian-- who was locking up the house and heading to my brother's place with the dog while Catherine and I celebrate thirty years since our first date with a trip to Charleston-- dropped and broke his phone while listening to music in the shower and then totally lost his phone either at school or in the house so we had no Sim card and so we had to make like Avon Barksdale in The Wire and buy a burner phone, which was way harder to set up than we thought, but we did it and so we could communicate with our air brained son who ended up getting everything done he had to get done, enabling us to leave very very early, fly to Charleston, tour Magnolia Plantation, see some slave quarters, learn about rice farming, stalk some gators, take scenic pictures of Spanish moss and ancient live oaks, pet a pig, and walk a lot of miles through reclaimed swamp and beautiful wild gardens along the Ashley River, and then we ubered to town and gave our Uber driver some advice on his other job, where he cleans pools and got to drive a really nice pool truck until the new supervisor took it from him and gave him the shitty truck, a real kick to the balls, and it still wasn't check in at our tiny house near King Street so we grabbed a beer and a catfish sandwich and some fried green tomatoes at the Rarebit and then, finally, got into our little cottage with spiral stairs and a loft bedroom; soon enough we'll head back out to check out the night life and then hunker down for the rain.
Destroying the World (Creatively)
My newest episode of We Defy Augury is an epic adventure into apocalypses of all kinds; "Apocalypse New" is inspired by Walter M. Miller's classic post-apocalyptic religious sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, but there's lots of cameos: Ziggy Stardust, Tyler Durden, Karen Thompson Walker, Rick Grimes, Sookie Stackhouse, Bill Compton . . . and even Kramer, to help with some poetry; I highly recommend the first novella in Canticle-- the Catholic Church, like a cockroach, is still hanging on six hundred years after a nuclear flame deluge-- and the monastery in honor of St. Leibowitz is trying to preserve some arcane and archaic knowledge from that old, destroyed world . . . then the book keeps going and going and going . . . you might want to listen to my podcast rather than reading the rest.
What About the Dogs? The Dogs!
Nothing is more fucked up than having to tell your dog she can't have dinner at her usual time because of a massive government conspiracy to control our clocks . . . I really thought there was some legislation to end all this springing forward and falling back bullshit, but apparently we're still doing it-- with no concern for the dogs! the poor dogs!-- and so now I've got a grouchy Pavlovian salivating dog, who can't understand why 5 PM is now 4 PM (mainly because I can't understand why 5 PM is now 4 PM . . . so there will be barely any time to get outside in the sun after school . . . why do we do this?)
Lantern Flies: The Hits Keep on Coming
Ian and I took a chainsaw to the low branches on the autumn blaze maple in our yard; I held the ladder and Ian used his long arms to reach and sever a half dozen or so limbs that were hanging over the bamboo and the Leyland cypress, in the the hopes that now the lantern flies will be more exposed on the main trunk-- the easier for trapping and killing . . . meanwhile, I taped the two maples in our front yard and while many lantern flies got stuck on the tape bands, there's still been an endless supply climbing the trunk, which I diligently massacre every time I go outside . . . so at the base of each tree there's a mass grave of splattered lantern flies-- which you'd think would serve as a warning to these stupid beasts, but they keep on coming-- but the questions is: where the fuck are they coming from? . . . or to be grammatically correct: from fuck all where do they be coming?
Conspiracy Theories in America
This episode of Plain English about conspiracy theories is both compelling and entertaining . . . I especially like the definition of a conspiracy theory-- brought to you by the guys from "Stuff They Don't Want You To Know"--
1) an event with an unsatisfactory explanation
2) lack of transparency
3) element of control-- either something controlling events or controlling information
4) a participatory aspect
and there's lots of other "fun" stuff about JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, aliens, UFOs, and the government secrecy orders and patents.
But Don't Confuse Samuel Jackson and Laurence Fishburne
A student walked into my first period class this morning sleepily murmured, "Good morning Mr. Soder" and I turned my head and said, "YOU RACIST! You think every old white bald goateed English teacher looks the same?" and he stammered a bit and apologized for calling me the wrong name and then I told him I was just kidding-- that I could totally see how he mixed up me and Mr. Soder . . . because old white bald guys with goatees do look the same (especially to sleepy teenagers).
Got to Be the Shoes
You don't choose your family, but you don't really choose your friends either-- friendships tend to form in a fairly arbitrary pattern based on your activities, location, upbringing, family, race, religion, and a host of other factors . . . in fact, when you think hard about it (which you shouldn't) you might not choose anything (aside from the kind of shoes you wear).
(Ooh) That Smell
I lent my car to my seventeen year old son Sunday night, so he could drive some friends to get Halloween costumes-- but instead they got pho and I think someone spilled some (or they were very sweaty and were rubbing their stinky feet all over my van's upholstery) because Monday morning, there was a heinous odor emanating from the interior of the car, like vomit and chlorine and footstink all mixed together-- I've been driving with the windows open since then and the smell is finally dissipating but then today at the dentist I was punished with an even worse odor/flavor-- the cement that they used to affix my bridge made me gag over and over and over . . . I'm glad I didn't puke on the hygienist because she was very nice (not that I would punish a rude hygienist by puking on her) but I hope that the rest of my week is odor free.
Whole Lotta Barking Going On
No matter how clearly I explain it, my dog does not understand Halloween.
Reality Returns
The Giants and the Jets performed more realistically today, thus proving we do not live in a simulation.
I Feel Like Pip in Daytona
This morning I went to the gym and I did some rowing and some upper-body lifting; then, on the way home, I stopped at the pickleball courts and there were people there so I figured I play a bit and then head over to the girl's soccer game-- but after I played a few games, I walked to my van and I couldn't find my keys anywhere-- so I assumed that I locked them inside the van; I called my wife, told her I needed her to come over and unlock the van, and then went back to playing pickleball . . . and it took my wife a while to get to me because she didn't have a van key and Ian did and he had slept over a friend's house and she had to track him down-- so by the time she got to me, I had played a lot more pickleball and when I was finished, my back started to hurt-- my lower back-- which never happens to me and then my wife arrived and I opened the van and my keys were NOT inside the van . . . so we searched the premises-- the courts and the path and the parking lot and the grass, and this nice Indian dude foudn them for me-- huge-- but by this time my back was really starting to hurt, and by the time I got home it was in full spasm-- I took a nap, but it didn't loosen up-- so no sports for me tomorrow (and I also doubt I'll climb the ladder with the electric chainsaw and cut down those limbs infested with lantern flies . . . I think I need to be in prime condition to do that stupid job).
Really?
If I'm in such good shape-- which I am . . . I still play soccer, badminton, basketball, tennis, and pickleball; I lift weights, I run, I swim, and I snowboard-- then why did I strain a quad muscle karate-kicking a lanternfly on my maple tree?
End of Era
Highland Park lost a 1-0 heartbreaker and was eliminated from the state tournament tonight, but I'm so proud of my son Ian-- he had a rough high school soccer career, after being an exceptional youth player . . . this was the first high school season that he didn't get injured and he fought his way into a starting position and scored some big goals and had a few exceptional assists; tonight he had to start at left back (because our left back had a doctor's appointment) and then when the left back arrived he went up and played right wing and then when our center back got hurt he played center back, and then when our center forward cramped he switched to center forward, then went back to center back and then ended the game at left wing . . . Highland Park dominated possession but we couldn't punch through the back line-- we had a number of great shots, and at one point, Ian actually headed a ball into the goal-- but it was was called back because apparently the ball glanced off the football crossbar, not the soccer crossbar -- and we had one frantic rush at the end of the game, which resulted in a corner, and with the clock winding down, Ian got to take a shot off a carom just outside the eighteen-- right footed, unfortunately, as he's a lefty-- and it floated high and just over the crossbar and then time ran out . . . but he had a great season and this team was a blast to watch and at least his career ended with a classic soccer match, an ugly 1-0 loss, where the only goal was an incomprehensible mess in the back and the goalie got out of position and Point Pleasant poked it in-- that's soccer and there's a part of me that's happy never to watch a match with one of my kids playing again-- it's too damn stressful-- and so now it's time to start practicing for tennis season.
F&%$ing Shuttlecock!
My wife claims I am "too dramatic" and "curse too much about silly things" and if there was a video record of today's early morning badminton session, she would have been correct.
Time and Tranquility
Brett McKay had Laura Vanderkam on his Art of Manliness podcast and she had some good advice about achieving tranquility with time management . . . some of these things I do and some I could improve upon:
1. have a set bedtime . . . I crush at this-- I try to stay awake until 9 PM each, but I often struggle to get past 8:45 PM;
2. move around during the workday . . . I'm lucky enough to have a job that isn't sedentary, but I also work in a walk-- perhaps even a backwards walk-- or a run or some push-ups or something during my free time in the school day;
3. have one small and one big adventure each week . . . this generally happens but not always-- I'm going to be more mindful of breaking the routine-- and my wife loves adventures (although not right now, the new COVID omicron booster absolutely crushed her);
4. three times a week makes something a habit-- not seven times a week-- so I won't get down on myself if I don't practice my guitar or work on my podcast every single day;
5. reverse the order of easier and more difficult "leisure" tasks-- this is one I'm really going to try to implement-- I'm going to read first or practice my guitar first, THEN play online chess or do the Quordle of the NYT Spelling Bee . . . because more often than not, if you do the easier, more mindless thing first, you'll never get to the task that needs more brainpower;
6. batch small tasks instead of procrastinating and spreading them out-- do a bunch in a row and then stop;
7. plan your week on Friday . . . that way when Monday rolls around you'll be ready to do the hard work and you won't have to plan ahead-- I do a good job of this with my lesson plans and such, but I could also do this for weekends and planning big and little adventures.
Work . . . Boo
We had an in-service teacher education day today, and while it was quite productive, I imagine this is what having an actual job is like: meetings, normal hours, lots of discussions with smart adults, some collaboration and turn-keying and such . . . definitely mind-numbing and soul-crushing-- I'll be glad to be back to the chaos of teenagers tomorrow.
Horse Shit
A new episode of my podcast We Defy Augury is up and streaming . . . the episode is called "All the (not so) Pretty Horses" and it focuses on a brilliant book by Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule, which is about a down-and-out horse track in West Virginia in the early 1970s; the book captures the language, the characters, the consciousness, the cons and the gritty feel of a run-down horse track . . . the podcast also features cameos from Michael Scott and Mike the glue factory guy.
Go Rutgers! From a Comfortable Distance . . .
I now believe the preferred method of going to a Rutgers football game is to bike over; attend a tailgate; eat, drink, etcetera; and then bike home after the tailgate-- without entering the game-- this was much more relaxing than our last adventure.
Hazy Friday
Although I love Mr. Pi' sushi, I am starting to have my doubts about the tap beer-- for the second time, after having two Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Things, I was rewarded the next day with a headache and some stomach issues . . . and, of course, as my punishment for drinking beer on a weeknight, I had to cover PE class today-- with the new block schedule, 82 minutes of high school kids playing "badminton" is a recipe for a headache.
Fuck Lantern Flies!
The maple tree in my backyard seems to be generating a never-ending supply of lantern flies-- every afternoon, I go out and squish dozens of them with a long-handled broom and the next day there they are again; apparently-- according to my dog-park buddy Bill-- they crawl up from the ground and go up the tree to try and lay eggs, which turn into scaly egg masses, and the lantern flies bore a hole into the tree under the egg mass, so the sap of the tree can feed the eggs and young lantern flies-- which will eventually damage the tree (plus the sugary lantern fly excretions, which land on the plants below the infested tree, attract aphids and black moldy gunk) and nothing seems to eat these critters (aside from praying mantises, and there aren't enough praying mantises to eliminate the never-ending supply of lantern flies) so if I can't figure out some way to quell these creatures, I'm going to have to cut this tree down and replace it with an evergreen (even though it's the primary shade tree in our backyard-- fuck these things!)
Fuck Capitol One!
Capitol One double charged us a week ago-- my wife paid $3823 two days early so she could sort out our budget and then Capitol One automatically took another $3823 two days later-- their auto-pay extracted that amount again, even though our balance was zero-- so that our bill was now negative three thousand and some dollars-- and when we called to rectify this, their customer service was atrocious-- NOBODY could do anything . . . apparently they can take your money but they can't give it back-- and the fucking customer service people just read and read from their script and no one could bump you up to anyone with actual power . . . we were finally promised that after an "investigation" they would return the money they stole from us-- at first they said they would return it in the form of a check, but we were like: "you fucking took the money digitally so you can return it digitally" so the rep said he would do that ASAP-- but he was a liar-- and then a week went by and we received nothing so I called again this Saturday-- and now we were in worse shape because our credit card statement no longer reflected that we were three thousand in the negative . . . but we didn't have the money-- and I must point out that we were lucky enough to have enough money to pay our Rutgers bill, as this double-charge was enough money to cripple some families financially-- and the lady couldn't even see that there was some weird payment correction pending and she also had no supervisor working she could refer us to-- so after much yelling she finally figured out that Capitol One had sent us a letter-- a letter!-- informing us that they would soon be sending us a check-- a fucking check, though they stole our money digitally-- and this is obviously because some percentage of people never get the check and never follow up, so Capitol One makes even more money by bilking people . . . so it's going to take a couple weeks (I hope) to get our money back that they stole by double billing us, though they extracted it digitally, so as soon as we get the money we'll be cancelling our account and I implore everyone to cancel their Capitol One accounts and forward this story and tell your friends and family to FUCK CAPITOL ONE because they are crooks with atrocious customer service.
Feeling Old
I covered for the special education teacher in an environmental science class today and when I walked in I assumed the skinny, masked child behind the desk was a student-- but he turned out to be the teacher, a rather diffident brand-new hire who looked no older than my younger son . . . and then one of my other students said, "I was telling my mom how you needed to use a phone cord as a belt because your pants were falling down and my mom's friend said that you taught her-- her name is Julia and her daughter is a freshman"-- so that's what's coming down the pike, children of the kids I taught in my early years . . . yikes.
Beers, Bars, and Stumps
This weekend was much mellower than last weekend, but Cat and I did manage to go out after the senior night game on Friday-- and though we were very tired, the scene at the bar at Mr. Pi's sushi place woke us up-- first we were chatted up by a very energetic lesbian couple-- Stacey and Nerissa-- and we found out that they were older than they looked (50 and 46 no kids will do that . . . and for Nerissa, black doesn't crack) and Nerissa played basketball at St. Peters back in the day and knew folks that my brother played with at North Brunswick-- Wayne Cruz and Daryl Banks and such-- and then it was more small world game, Nerissa runs the after school program at the school where my wife works, so they will run into each other again-- and there was also a book club happening and there were some younger soccer moms that we knew, and the Deatz family wandered in-- they were eating dinner on the restaurant side, and then Sleepy Dan ambled in to complete the bar scene . . . and the bartender was a trip-- she's planning all sorts of jazz and karoake and footabll specials-- and we talked to one of the chefs, a Japanese guy who was very hungover for the previous night's sake tasting; Saturday I actually went grocery shopping and succeeded in getting everything on the list and then we went to Flounder Brewing and the Bellemara distillery next door-- really the best beer and drinks around (but a little pricey) and Sunday morning Cat and I played pickleball and then I watched the Giants while she worked on curriculum for some program (and Ian worked, yardwork and he gave a tennis lesson) and we got sandwiches from Sapore Deli in Middlesex after pickleball-- this place is HIGHLY recommended-- I got a broccoli rabe, hot pepper and chicken cutlet sandwich, ridiculous amount of food for 13 bucks-- it's two meals-- and then I successfully killed and bagged a stump from a dead tree (see the trophy photo above).
Beginning of the End, Sort Of
Last night was "senior night" for the HP Boys Soccer Team-- Catherine, my mother and I went out on the field with Ian-- who gave my mother a bouquet of flowers-- while my dad looked on from the fence on his scooter (it would have been difficult for him to navigate the turf on that thing) and then Highland Park cruised to a 5-0 victory over Timothy Christian in the first round of the county tournament; little Michael Volpert was the hero, scoring all five goals; Ian gave him a nice header assist for the first goal and Ian started at left-back instead of wing so that all the seniors could start the game-- it was fun watching him play there (the same position Alex played last year) and while there are still a few regular season games left, another county game to play, and the state tournament, this is the beginning of the end of watching high school soccer with a kid on the field (although the stands were packed last night, with plenty of HP fans whose kids have graduated, so I'll probably be watching games in the future, but it won't be the same of course).
Gender Stuff
We read Jia Tolentino's "Athleisure, barre, and kale: The Tyranny of the Ideal Woman" in College Writing class-- and the descriptions of barre class, while mildly erotic, are also depicted as training that helps "you adapt to arbitrary, prolonged agony," similar to the hyper-accelerated modernly optimized feminine lifestyle-- which led to a class discussion about why most women-- even if they played sports in school-- don't participate in pick-up basketball and soccer and other joyful sporting activities and instead subject themselves to yoga-pilates on a reformer (as my friend Cunningham does) and perhaps it is because-- as evidenced in the contrast between Tolentino and our other text, "The Naked Citadel," that men haze each other while women haze themselves.
There Are Two Sides to Every Conflict About a Rubber Doorstopper
Earlier in the week, my friend and colleague Terry was sitting morosely in the English Office (as he is wont to do, we don't call him Eeyore for nothing) and he said to me:
"Liz just called me a dick, in front of our homeroom!"
I asked him why this happened and he said:
"We've got this stupid rubber doorstopper and I couldn't get it to work because you have to fold it over or something and after she showed me how to do it, I said 'I still don't like it,' just joking around and she blew up at me!"
I said that was odd and maybe she was upset about something else-- she was teaching an extra class and had a lot of different preps and maybe she was just in a bad mood-- and then for the sake of Denise, who was also in the office and hates all men, I said:
"You know, not everyone is as calm and rational as us in these kind of situations"
and then I went on my merry way
the next day, Liz said to me, "I don't want you taking Terry's side before you hear the entire story" and so I gave her a recap of what Terry said happened and then-- because she has a dramatic bent-- Liz acted out what happened-- or what she thinks happened-- and it was a bit more compelling than Terry's story . . . apparently Terry is the extra teacher in the homeroom and he doesn't contribute much to running the show-- and Liz claims he was hunched over the doorstopper, fooling with it and muttering and complaining for like five minutes-- and she showed him how it worked but he continued to complain so she told him to "fuck off" . . . and she did admit she got pretty pissed-- which can certainly happen to Liz, who generally exudes school spirit and positivity, but when she's confronted with enough masculine fatalism she can lose it-- longtime fans of this sentence may remember when Liz kicked me out of the department because I did not want to "dress like a holiday" . . . and now, coincidentally, I share homeroom with Haim, the guy who prevented me from redeeming myself in that debacle . . . anyway, something happened between Terry and Liz in homeroom and the catalyst was a rubber doorstopper . . . the rest is shrouded in a profane mystery.
The Orchard . . . You Know, Behind the Tennis Courts
Today the sophomores and juniors had to take the PSAT (interminable and the script that admin made for us was riddled with typos and errors-- it was actually difficult to read-- you had to correct spelling, verb tense, and actual wrong wordage on the fly) so we had a half day, and to escape traffic quickly I brought my bike-- right when the test ended, I ran out of the building and jumped onto it and rode over to the used book sale at the mall and bought some books . . . when I returned I saw one of my friends from the History Department walking to his car and stopped my bike and entered into a very strange conversation:
"Hey what's going on?"
"I just rode over to the used book sale at the mall, got some good cheap books . . . now I'm headed over to the orchard to bike the trails"
"The orchard? I don't live around here . . ."
"The orchard . . . behind the tennis courts? where the track team runs?"
"Cranbury Road is behind the tennis courts"
"Not exactly . . . you go over a bridge, there's a large piece of land, that used to be an orchard-- with trails-- it's high school property"
"I've never been back there"
"Behind the tennis courts? There's a bridge over a little stream?"
"I don't know man"
"How long have you worked here! Twenty years?"
"Twenty years"
"Well . . . there's an orchard-- I used to walk across it to the old Blockbuster if I needed a movie for class"
"Alright, sounds cool, maybe I'll eat my lunch back there"
"Watch out for ticks"
and then I went biking in the orchard, a place I often run, walk, and bike . . . wondering how he made it twenty years without hearing about the orchard, a large chunk of multi-use land on our high school campus . . . weird . . . I wonder what stuff I don't know about our high school.
Gross Stuff Part II
In the comments yesterday, Zman wondered if cleaning out the wood under my deck would eliminate cave crickets-- and my answer is yes, I think it will help-- they like to live under rotting wood; this afternoon I also cleaned out the bike shed, and found dozens of cave crickets in there, under a piece of spare plywood-- so I took the doors off the bike shed, cleared out the spare pieces of wood, smashed a bunch of crickets with a shovel, sprayed some insecticidal soap, and put down some bug killing powder-- both in the shed and under the deck-- so we'll see how that works, but I'm still annoyed by some out of reach lantern flies in my maple tree-- maybe I'll try to get to them today, I think I can hit them from the deck with either long distance wasp spray or some Neem oil from our pump sprayer . . . I'm kind of ready for the first frost, which should decimate all these pests.
Gross Stuff, Indigenous, Exotic, and Otherwise
I cleaned out all the wood under our deck today-- there were pieces of old fencing and rotting chunks of timber from past projects and all kinds of other crap that was under there before we put lattice up-- including a deflated basketball full of water and one hard seltzer can that must have been tossed in there by one of the kid-- and this stuff was a haven for cave crickets so hopefully this will cut the population down; I also killed bunches of lantern flies on our maple trees-- gross-- and then we watched The Dark Crystal:Age of Resistance, which is an awesome show and highly recommended, but also quite gory and gross.
Too Many Things
I usually don't do too many events in a short span of time because I start to lose my mind, but this weekend was an exception:
--Thursday night I chaperoned the East Brunswick Homecoming Dance . . . 1200 kids! fascinating anthropological experience to see so many children dressed up, many dancing, others trying simply to walk without falling in high heels;
--Friday I went to a Highland Park soccer game (until half-time) and then Dom's tailgate and then a Rutgers football game;
--Saturday I went to the gym, then bought a tree, then attended the Highland Park soccer game, then planted the tree, then biked over to the Boyd Park Food Truck Festival (and had a jerk chicken sandwich) then attended a party at Sleepy Dan's house;
--Sunday I played pick-up soccer, then watched the Giants beat Green Bay, then went over to the Rutgers women's soccer game, picked up Alex at his dorm, and then went to my parents for dinner . . . so six sporting events and five social events . . . and now I have to work all week?
Sports Potpourri
Catherine and I inhaled a lot of sports in the past two days-- with a mixed bag of results-- yesterday we stopped at the HP soccer game, just in time, to see Ian score a wild back-heel flick volley goal off a long shot . . . and this was an easy 6-0 win so we left at half-time to go to the Rutgers/Nebraska game-- we parked at the edge of town and decided to walk over (we had subs and drinks and we were meeting our friend Dom at the Greek Church lot to tailgate) but someone told us the entrance to the park was flooded, so we hightailed it through the train trestle tunnel (which has no walking path) and then walked on the muddy rutted path parallel to River Road-- and Catherine wiped out in the mud and banged up her knee (before even consuming any alcohol!) and then we realized that the walk along River Road to the church lot was not only miserable and muddy but also really long (3 miles?) and we were walking next to all the game day traffic-- but we made it to the tailgate, cleaned up Catherine's knee, had some food and drinks (Cat made our drinks in ziplock bags, so we could dispose of everything once we were done drinking!) and then walked back to the stadium and met my buddy Haim and his wife (who gave us the tickets) and watched an absolutely awful football game-- a million penalties and TV timeouts, just slow as fuck-- but Rutgers was in it so we stayed until the end, only to see them throw an interception on their last drive, down by one point-- blech-- and then because we stayed so late, the traffic was insane, so we walked back to the car . . . after a nearly four hour game (and I was only wearing a t-shirt because it was so hot walking over, but then it got really cold-- I've been to two Rutgers games this season and that might be it for me, football is fun to watch on TV, when you can do other stuff, but it's pretty drawn out in person (although it was fun to talk to all the Nebraska folk at the game . . . I only know one thing about Nebraska-- that the Ashfall Fossil Beds are one of the greatest paleontological sites in the world, just astounding-- so I brought them up and the guy sitting next to us said he lived an hour south of them, so I had something to chat about-- then this morning I went over to see HP play Timothy Christian and this was a wild and exciting game, which HP finally won 4-3 . . . and Ian scored a great goal, he received a through ball, took a couple dribbles, and then finished nice and early-- before the defense converged on him, and shot a rocket past the big keeper from the eighteen-- he should have scored a couple other but the keeper made a great fingertip save on one headed to the upper corner and he was about to finish a follow and got clobbered (no foul) so Ian is having quite a season-- he scored the game winner the other day against Wardlaw-Hartridge-- and most importantly, he's playing a lot of minutes and his speed and defensive hustle look really good, and-- knock on wood, because he's only 130 pounds-- he hasn't gotten hurt.
Huberman: Nice Guy, Smart Guy, But He Ruins Everything!
Andrew Huberman has a doctorate in neuroscience and is a professor at Stanford, and his podcast, Huberman Lab, is comprehensive, exhaustively researched, intelligent, and enlightening . . . but the last two episodes I listened to have been pretty brutal-- in a very nice, non-judgmental way;
1) the main takeaway in the two hour long episode "What Alcohol Does To Your Body, Brain & Health" is that more than FIVE servings of alcohol a week is really bad for your brain, mood, sleep, liver, longevity and telomeres . . . there's so much more in there but that's what I remember-- and for a guy who enjoys beer, it's a tough constraint to follow;
2) the big takeaways from "The Effects of Cannabis (Marijuana) on the Brain & Body" are:
-- people under the age of twenty-five should NOT use cannabis because of well documented decrease and thinning in gray matter-- that's the good stuff stuff in your brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex -- and an increase in future incidence of schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, psychosis, depression, and anxiety;
--pregnant women should never use cannabis;
--while there are some pros for people over 25 who use cannabis-- reduced anxiety, pain relief, increased focus and creativity-- if you use cannabis more than twice a week, then you lose these benefits, build a tolerance, reverse the anxiety reduction, screw up some receptors in your brain, and increase likelihood of mental illness down the line;
--smoking cannabis, or any drug, has a whole host of other negative health benefits that aren't even associated with the drug . . . and the same goes for vaping;
so while cannabis might be "better" than drinking alcohol, Huberman doesn't think this makes a particular good case for chronic use of the drug-- because that comes with its own costs.
Playing the Tomorrow Game
I recently finished Sudhir Venkatesh's new book The Tomorrow Game: Rival Teenagers, Their Race for a Gun, and a Community United to Save Them-- and, like his other stuff, this is required reading; you may know Venkatesh from the first Freakonomics book-- he details the crack cocaine economy in South Chicago from a close and personal perspective (and he turns this sociological adventure into an entire book . . . Gang Leader for a Day) and his new book is equal to the detailed, anecdotal, and economic reporting of his first-- but this is a tighter story and perhaps more relatable to anyone who has or works with teenage children-- it's a typical high school story of bullying, honor, friendship, and money-- but with the added shadow that is always looming South Chicago: gangs, drugs, and guns . . . and all the revelations about these elements of the inner city will surprise you; my latest episode of We Defy Augury is devoted to thoughts about this book . . . and Cobra Kai . . . check it out (and give it a good rating an Apple music if you have time, that makes a big difference . . . thanks!)
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