This morning during first-period senior English class, I made the font on my projected whiteboard announcement extremely small, so small that the kids couldn't read it, and then I started talking very obtusely about writing while drawing some cryptic and vague symbols on the whiteboard, and then I went behind the projection screen and drew something but neglected to pull the screen up to show the students what I drew and then I talked in circles a bit more, pausing at one point to slowly drink my coffee-- and once the students reached the required state of befuddlement, I enlarged the projection so they could see that we were working on the openings of our personal narratives and our goal was to write a strong, specific, compelling, and suspenseful opening-- unlike the piece of performance art that I had just perfectly executed-- and they actually got the joke, which was nice-- oftentimes kids just don't get my brilliance-- and then we looked at iconic openings of books and songs and successful introductions to actual college essays and then they wrote their own and while I was talking to one student, who was writing about a person ahe knew in middle school who embodied the color red, I made the mistake of asking her what color she thought I embodied and she stared at me for a beat and and said, "When I look at you, I see orange" and I said, "Orange? Ugh . . . I hate the color orange! I don't want to be orange!" and she said, "Well, then maybe yellow" and I was like: "Yellow! That's just as bad, I hate yellow too . . . can't I be green or black or blue?" and she said, "Black isn't a color and no that's not you" and then I realized what the fuck was going on, I realized that we were reenacting, by accident, but perhaps subconsciously and definitely serendipitously, so perfectly serendipitously, the "Mr. Pink" scene from Reservoir Dogs and so I showed them the scene and we all agreed that you really can't choose your own color because everyone will want to be Mr. Black.
The subtext of this episode of The Daily: How the Cost of Housing Became So Crushing is this: your children are never moving out . . . you might even think you're an empty nester-- because your kids have flown away to college-- but once they graduate, they're probably going to squeeze back into the nest because housing costs are so exorbitant and there's not enough low-cost housing (and they're not cute little fledglings anymore, they're gawky full-sized birds).
Yesterday afternoon (or yesternight, as Shakespeare would have it) we went to the Grant Avenue Block Party and I played some cornhole and drank some beers and then it got too dark to play cornhole and I was getting kind of tired so I walked over to my wife, who was in a circle of women under the canopy, embroiled in a conversation, to check and see if I should grab another beer or if she was ready to go and I slid my arm around her, familiarly-- or perhaps even a step past familiarly, as this was my wife-- and then the two of us realized that this was NOT my wife, this was my wife's doppelganger . . . or certainly her doppelganger in this particular instance, in this particular lighting-- and while I was very embarrassed to have sidled up to this lady-- who I do know in passing from soccer and other town stuff-- and put my arm around her, in my defense, she was wearing the same white tank top as my wife; she has the same toned, tan, and freckled left arm as my wife; she was wearing similar glasses to my wife; she has blonde hair like my wife; she was gesticulating in an animated fashion, as my wife is wont to do; and from the angle I approached, she really looked like my wife . . . enough so that I went and found my wife and positioned her in the same spot, next to this woman, so that I could convince myself (and the other people who saw this awkward encounter) that it was a logical mistake and we all agreed that the resemblance was uncanny (and if you enjoy this theme, this recent incident complements this absurd moment of mistaken identity at the gym, from over a decade ago, quite nicely).
Maikia Monroe does a bang-up job playing Lee Harker, the "half psychic" FBI agent, in the horror film Longlegs and while the movie didn't make perfect sense to me, I don't think it was supposed to make perfect sense-- the cinematography is unsettling; the 70s vibe is grainy and the color scheme is dark sepia mahogany; Nicholas Cage is a freakshow as the titular character; and Lee Harker lives in a very spooky wood cabin/house in the Pacific Northwest . . . so scary enough, and sufficiently creepy and moody to keep Cat, Ian, Ian's girlfriend, and me entranced and moderately freaked out throughout.
On Thursday the guidance department "pushed in" to my three senior English classes for half the block to counsel the students on how to apply to college and I recognize that this is a fairly intense and stressful presentation for the students; guidance covers applications, recommendations, college essays, self-reported grading, and all kinds of other clerical tasks that are required when you apply to college, so when I teach the second half of the block, I always try to lighten the mood . . . I play a bit of the This American Life episode "The Old College Try", the part when Rick Clark, the director of admissions from Georgia Tech describes some insane parent emails and how awful most college essay are . . . and during this segment, Clark reviews an email from the parents of a second grader who are already seeking suggestions on how to get their future electrical engineer-- who would prefer a southern culture instead off MIT-- into Georgie Tech . . . and these insane parents claim that their son "will be an Eagle scout by then," which is quite a prediction, considering the dedication and time that it takes to earn all those badges . . . so I asked my students if their parents had any success influencing them in some pursuit, any pursuit-- a sport, musical instrument, pastime, hobby, TV show, movie . . . anything . . . and in three classes there was a surprising, a shocking, lack of influence from parents-- most kids would concede zero influence in their pursuits, but there were a few who admitted some limited influence: one kid enjoyed Dumb and Dumber, which his dad made him watch; another played the drums for a bit and then quit; a senior boy got his love of '90s grunge rock from his mom; and a few kids admitted that they tried to play a sport that their parents liked, but almost all of them quit; and there was actually one kid who was persuaded to continue Scouts during COVID and he's closing in on Eagle Scout status . . . but these few were the exceptions that proved the rule; in all my years teaching, I had never asked this question in class and I found the answers profoundly disturbing-- I may need to do a larger study-- because it seems, despite all our efforts, parents have remarkably little influence on their children (and it actually made me feel quite lucky that my kids played tennis and soccer all the way through high school and both still enjoy basketball . . . I wish they kept up with music and read more literature, but I also got to enjoy quite a few good movies and high-quality TV shows with them and they both still enjoy watching a decent movie . . . and I guess that's all you can ask for, it's better than zero influence, which seems to be the default in this very small, very anecdotal study).
At the start of Monday's department meeting, I had a moment of conversational triumph that made me quite happy-- it doesn't rival this anecdote, but it's still one of the rare times when I said the right thing at the right time-- all the English teachers were assembling in Stacey's room for the meeting and it was HOT in there and she didn't have any windows open nor did she have her AC on (which I understand, the thing sounds like a jet engine) so I climbed up on the radiator and started opening windows-- which is awkward and dangerous but it's the only way to get the upper windows open-- and while I was clambering around up there, I was also complaining loudly-- and everyone else was complaining about me, complaining that I was complaining too much, that I was causing a ruckus, that I was going to kill myself or knock over a bunch of Stacey's school stuff that was stacked on the radiator . . . and then Krystina walked into the room, waving her hands around her flushed face, complaining about how hot it was and nobody yelled at her-- they empathized with her and treated her kindly (this is typical behavior in my department, the other day when I played some King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard for Stacey and Cunningham while we were driving to Wawa, they yelled at me the whole ride for "inflicting" this awful music on their ears but when I told them that Matt liked King Gizzard-- Matt is a very nice and intelligent middle-aged lawyer/finance guy who went to Princeton and is now taking up teaching-- they were like: "oh, it's probably music for smart people and we didn't get it") and then, after seeing how hot and bothered Kyrstina was, I had an epiphany, which I loudly delivered from my lofty perch to the room full of teachers and my boss, "Let's remember what our new principal said on the first day of school: Maslow before Bloom!" and everyone was shamed into silence because they remembered this moment from the opening meeting and it's true: you can't focus and learn anything when you're sweating, sticky and uncomfortable, Maslow's hierarchy of needs comes before Bloom's taxonomy of intellectual thought.
The new episode of We Defy Augury: Meet the New Me (Same as the Old Me) is (loosely) inspired by Halle Butler's comic and satirical novel The New Me, wherein a millennial temp office worker tackles adulting . . . special guests include The Who, Moira and David, Larry and Susie, Norm, and Radiohead.
And on the Seventh Day, the Lord completed his work and rested, but not Dave . . . on the Seventh Day, Dave got up early and finished an episode of his podcast, then Dave rollerbladed around the park, then Dave helped set up for part two of the Town Wide Garage Sale, then Dave took the dog to the vet and learned she would definitely need surgery for bladder stones, then Dave ran over to Home Depot and bought a new wheelbarrow-- which is a whole production because they have them locked up in the front of the store-- and some topsoil, which Dave cleverly put into the wheelbarrow he had just purchased, but with his lack of omniscience, Dave did not realize that the wheel did not have air in it and the weight of the topsoil made the wheel collapse and made the barrow very hard to push to the register, then Dave drove home and unloaded the car and pumpeth the wheel and spreadeth the topsoil and planteth the clover, then Dave helped pack up the leftover garage sale stuff, and then Dave's wife reminded him that he needeth to replace the showerhead in the bathroom and before Dave knows it, he's going to be back at work tomorrow . . . Monday, which is generally NOT regarded as a day of rest (especially because we have a meeting).
These pictures from a Fall Break 1991 road trip surfaced on a text thread the other day and they reminded me of a world that no longer exists: Jason, Cliff, Whitney and I made our way north from William and Mary, visiting folks in Richmond, Baltimore, and Hoboken-- and this was before cell phones, when you could lost, like actually lose the group (as Jason did in Baltimore) and after spending a night at my house in North Brunswick, drinking in the basement and playing pinball, we decided to venture to the Big Apple-- and my memories of all this are a little hazy, but we were David Letterman fans and so we went to the NBC building at Rockefeller Center, walked in unobstructed, wandered about until we found the Letterman Show offices, and then asked his secretary if we could meet "Dave", because we were big fans-- but she informed us that it was Friday and he wasn't taping and then this incredibly nice lady from the pre-9/11 era-- instead of having us arrested or getting som security guards to toss us out on our ears-- instead she offered us tickets to the Phil Donahue Show, which was about to tape and we took her up on her generous offer and the next thing we knew we were being ushered into Donahue's Studio for an episode about a high school football player that got caught drinking beer at a picnic and was suspended for the entire season-- I had lost my voice from consuming so much alcohol the nights before and so I couldn't speak my mind but my buddy Whitney commented on the situation and then my college roommate Jason "reiterated" what a few other people said and concluded his moment with Phil with the remark "during high school lacrosse season, I drank less" and Phil Donahue waited a beat and then quipped, "he said 'less'" and the crowd laughed and laughed . . . and when the episode concluded and they were trying to usher us all to the elevator and back downstairs, we stole away from the group and went exploring and soon enough, serendipitously enough, we stumbled on Letterman's studio-- empty because he wasn't filming-- and Cliff and Whitney snapped a couple of incriminating pictures of us on the Letterman set . . . evidence of time not-so-long-ago when the world, even NBC Studios in NYC, was less locked-down, less secure, less surveilled, and far more spontaneous and fun.
A well-deserved Happy Hour for the gang today at B2 Bistro-- I was proud that I survived the First Long Week, which included Back to School Night and Friday AM Basketball-- but, as usual, I was the first to arrive at the bar (because I RUN out of my class to my car when that final bell rings, to beat the traffic, even if I'm in mid-conversation with a student) and when I arrived one side of the bar was completely empty so I sat near the corner overlooking the lake, thinking the late arrivals would fill in around the bend of the bar but then an older couple came in and I watched them walk all way down my side of the bar, past all the empty seats, and the little oldish lady said to her husband, with a fantastic Jersey accent, "I want to be able to see the wataa" and then she wedged herself into the seat right next to me, like with her elbow touching mine-- and at first I thought I might stick it out, for principle's sake-- just fucking sit there next to her-- show her who was boss-- how dare she bully a lone man with a beer doing the crossword like this?-- but that sentiment lasted two minutes and then I acknowledged defeat and moved over a seat . . . I have NEVER had someone sit so close to me when there were other available seats but these two seemed like regulars, so perhaps I was in her seat.
The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz-- the fourth Hawthorne mystery-- is both a well-plotted conventional whodunnit and a fictional non-fiction meta-story on the nature of art criticism; Anthony Horowitz the actual writer-- the real person-- actually wrote an apparently fairly cheesy psychological drama called Mindgame-- which was poorly reviewed-- but then Horowitz wrote a Hawthorne mystery story where the fictional version of himself is accused of killing a theater critic who writes an especially scathing review of the fictitious version fo Mindgame . . . and detective-work, false accusations, red herrings, and lots of chaos ensues, in which it is hard to sort our reality from meta-fiction (even in the Acknowledgments!) but while the critics were quite harsh when reviewing Mindgame, they have been quite kind to Horowitz for these Hawthorne mysteries, which are both alternately clever and satirical in the vein of Knives Out . . . I'm definitely going to read the fifth one.
First day of school: I went over some rules, described some courses, tossed around some metaphors, killed some wasps, and connected with some kids about much soup sucks.
At the beginning of the school year, because educating the youth is such an ambitious, abstract, indeterminate, and unpredictable journey, everyone is always throwing metaphors and similes around-- myself included; here are a few that have come into play over the last two days of in-service meetings (and a few that I will be using tomorrow, on the first day of school with students)
1) our new principal used a bunch of metaphors, including:
--we want to keep the ceiling high for the students but sometimes we have to raise the floor to help certain kids out
-- the world consists of the ratio 10-80-10 . . . 10 percent are leaders, 80 percent can be swayed, and 10 percent are bad seeds . . . you just need to get the leaders to sway the 80 percent and you won't have to worry about the ten percent that complains about everything . . . I think I'm in the 80 percent
--be a coffee bean-- when the water is boiling, don't be a hard-boiled egg or a carrot? get transformed into a magical energetic liquid . . . I certainly drink enough of it
-- Maslow before Bloom
2) during the AI presentation from another administrator, things got very metaphorical; we saw a traffic light graphic for the amount of AI we might allow on an assignment-- red is none, yellow means let the kids use AI for ideas, green means use AI and cite it, and then there was also a blue light on the graphic? these meetings were long and I can't remember what the blue light indicated but I'm guessing that's where we give up that's and allow our AI overlords to program our minds?
-- also during the AI presentation there was a mustard metaphor? the presenter had a lot of mustard in his fridge and he used AI to help him brainstorm ways to use the mustard? a jet pack was also mentioned-- maybe AI helps you fly like a jet pack? . . . I was spacing out . . .
3) my wife, who teaches elementary school, learned to "keep it simple, build it together, throw Playdoh on the ceiling"
4) our head SSO officer talked about possible school shooter "carnage"-- not a metaphor!-- but then he said if the shooter got into the room you'd need to "open a can of whoop ass," which is not only a metaphor, but a euphemism, to say the least
5) tomorrow, I will use a few metaphors as well, mainly to discourage cell-phone usage and AI usage
--I'll make the case that school is the gym for your brain . . . and so you shouldn't have a robot lift weights for you, or ride an electric scooter instead of an actual bike because we're trying to get some mental exercise
--if you're working in a group, then it's more like a team sport than a business transaction . . . same idea as the previous metaphor, we still play soccer and basketball with limited technological use-- there's a difference between wearing nice cleats and having a flying drone play the game for you
-- I liken cell phones to smoking in class-- no smoking!-- it's unhealthy for you and there's also a proven second-hand cell-phone effect . . . when you're playing with your phone, it certainly distracts you but it also distracts the people around you
--I also compare class to a movie-- no phones in the movie theater!-- albeit class is a rather slow and boring movie with no A-list actors, a script that needs revision, unprepared actors that don't know their lines, terrible special effects (aside from the giant wasps that invade class every so often) and a very boring set . . . but whatever, it's a little bit like a movie . . . perhaps . . .
6) I will leave you with a motto that I recently invented that just might make sense:
"we don't teach kids content, we teach kids to be content".
Although my randomly assigned partner Kit and I did not win yesterday's Fords Park 8 AM pickleball tournament (we advanced to the playoffs and immediately lost to a couple of youngsters) I still think I deserve some kind of MVP Award because I got home from the tournament at 10:20 AM and was able to shower and get dressed and make the 10:50 AM train to Penn Station-- the last day of free train transport-- where we met our friends Dom and Michelle and their millennial-aged cousin, a museum curator at the Museum of Natural History (particularly, the hall of mammals) and then we walked the High Line, wandered through Hudson Yards and Chelsea Market, climbed up for the view from Little Island, and visited two fun bars: The Brass Monkey and Crown Alley, and enjoyed good company and good weather-- and I'm quite proud of this for two reasons:
1) I'm not good at making quick turnarounds from one activity to the other . . . I like some transition time (and some nap time)
2) I managed to enjoy the last day of summer instead of fretting about school-- and there's really no reason to fret about the first day of school meetings (aside from this long lecture about lock-downs and school shooters, which is pretty grim-- the SSO Officer has said the word "carnage" several times) because it's mainly boring and tedious and it's better to be tired and spaced-out, rather than rested and focused (but wow does my butt hurt from sitting on this cafeteria table disc seat).
An epic last day of summer, which I will recount on district time tomorrow when I write a detailed synopsis instead of paying attention to the first-day-of-school in-service meeting.
My wife and I lucked out the other night at the Waxahatchee show at the Beacon Theater-- our seats were in the second row of the balcony and some very short people sat in front of us, making our seats essentially in the front row of the balcony-- but this is such a roll of the dice . . . if a couple of power forwards sat in front of us, we would have spent the night listening instead of watching-- which is why when you purchase a ticket for a show in a theater with designated seating, you should be required to report your height and the ticket pricing algorithm should reflect this . . . tickets for seats behind very tall people should be a bit cheaper and vice-versa-- and perhaps very short people should get a front row discount because they provide better views for everyone (and boost the self-esteem of people of average height).
My wife and I went into "town" yesterday, which is how Tom Buchanan refers to New York City in The Great Gatsby, and both the hot and humid pathetic fallacy in Gatsby and The Lovin' Spoonful certainly came to mind-- though the weather yesterday was even worse than both works of art imagined-- we certainly got dirty and gritty, walking from the train station to our hotel to store our backpack (The Gallivant . . . the first room we were assigned was already occupied-- luckily the guests were out of the room and not in flagrante delicto when we stormed in; the second room had a broken floor unit AC and was broiling, but the third room had a window AC and was quite chilly-- third time was a charm) and then we continued walking around, through throngs of people, clouds of humidity, and wafting billows of strange odors-- we went to lunch at Bonsaii Tapas and Wine Bar-- delicious-- and then we trekked up to the Museum of Arts and Design and enjoyed their exhibits and AC and then we went and checked in at The Gallivant-- a long process involving three elevator trips-- and then we showered off the grit and grime, read for a few minutes, and then headed back out-- we needed to get to the Beacon Theater, which was uptown, Central Park West, and it was still steamy outside, so after getting caffeinated at Tiny Dancer coffee-- which was located underground, in a little warren of shops near the subway station (including See No Evil Pizza, which is rumored to be fantastic) and then we walked a bit and stopped at a bar, Tanner Smith's on 55th Street-- but it was loud as fuck, so we had a beer and then walked on, and we ended up at Ella Social, another tapas bar-- and we just caught the tail end of Happy Hour-- they took away the Happy Hour menus just after we sat down, so we lucked out and were able to get an order in, and then we sat there for a while and ordered various delicious tapas and then we went to the show: the opening band, Woods, had a great sound-- psychedelic alt country?-- but the singer couldn't quite pull off what he was going for (Jeff Mangum? Mark Coyne?) so it was more enjoyable when they got deep into instrumental and then Katie Crutchfield and her band Waxahatchee took the stage-- and Katie Crutchfield really took over the show: she has the best voice I've ever heard in person . . . I felt like I was seeing Alabama's version of Celine Dion or something-- and my wife and I could really see, because we were in the second row in the balcony and the three people in front of us were SO SHORT -- score!-- they were like five foot nothing, so we had an unobstrcuted view-- more on this tomorrow-- anyway, Crutchfield played almost every song from her new album, Tiger's Blood, which is fantastic and a couple of songs from St. Cloud, but none of her older straight ahead rock stuff or the indie stuff that sounds like Liz Phair-- she's really doing the alt-country thing full tilt-- a great show and her voice is awe-inspiring (and I think her bass player also does some amazing backing vocals as well) and then when we got out of the Beacon, at 11:30 PM, it was still very fucking hot-- unlike the Lovin' Spoonful song-- and we started walking back to the hotel and I suggested an Uber but my wife said it wouldn't take that long-- which was NOT true . . . it took so long that I had to stop for a slice of pizza-- but we finally made it back to The Gallivant-- over 12 miles of walking in the hot hot city-- even though were trying to keep things concentrated-- but the Big Apple is a very big fucking apple-- and then we got a nice breakfast and caught the train back to New Brunswick-- which was free! as was the train to the city . . . all Jersey Transit trains are free this week, for some reason, so they are quite packed . . . but now we're home again and the house is in one piece and the Appliance Doctor just fixed our stove door and the weather has improved and become seasonable and calm, but I must say, there's nothing like the overstimulus of Manhattan, especially on a hot day when everyone is out on the streets instead of in their apartments.
The hinge on our oven door has been broken for quite a while now-- how long? . . . I'm not really sure-- but it's been getting worse . . . a few months ago, Ian knew how to jiggle it back into place and I knew how to force it into place but in the last few weeks, the situation has become more dire and more specialized-- it seems I'm the only one who can the door to close if you open it too much, and I do this by inserting a butterknife or scissors in between the two parts of the hinge, from the inside out and then twist and pry and lift the door up very quickly-- this is difficult enough when the oven is NOT in use, but when the door is very very hot and there's 425-degree heat billowing from the open oven this task becomes downright dangerous-- so once I suffered a minor burn I decided it was time to call Steve, the Aplliance Doctor . . . he has a doctorate in appliances!-- and Steve came over and took a look and said we were going to need a new hinge and then he asked me a pointed question, an appliance doctor type question . . . "how long has it been like this?" and I hemmed and hawed for a moment and then said "Quite a while"and he was properly appalled and told me some nightmare stories of people who had used broken appliances until they were beyond repair, when they could have just called an appliance doctor and gotten them fixed up before things got atrocious-- it was like he asked "How long have you had this softball shaped goiter protruding from your neck?" or some other medical question where you know you should say "ten minutes and I immediately called you" but instead you have to try to explain why you let this thing go-- why you let this goiter grow and fester even though you knew it was getting worse and wasn't going to get better-- but hopefully we called him in the nick of time and he'll be able to replace the hinge and in the future, if an appliance is acting weird, I'm going to immediately call the appliance doctor (and I'm going to go to the dermatologist again too).
A new episode of We Defy Augury in which I explore thoughts (loosely) inspired by Halle Butler's novel Banal Nightmare and I also ask the controversial and incredibly significant question: "How do YOU pronounce 'banal'?"
Special Guests: Ween, OK Go, Morrissey, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Suzanne Vega, Bill Bryson, and The Kids in the Hall.
Normally, I always try to walk into New Brunswick because parking is such a pain-in-the-ass, but yesterday I had to drive because I was dropping my son's broken bike at Kim's and then meeting him and my brother for cheesesteaks at Heavyweights (highly recommended) and so before I left, I sagaciously-- super-sagaciously, I thought-- dug through our change jar and found a bunch of quarters . . . because I have a new (to me) car and so there is no recess full of parking meter change in this car yet-- and I must say, I was really proud of my foresight-- so I chose the appropriate recess and dumped my quarters in, ready for some city parking, and then I picked my son up, we dropped the bike at Kim's, and then we found some parking just off Easton Avenue, on Somerset Street, and when I went to feed the meter, I noticed the quarter slot was blocked off-- WTF?-- and after som investigation, I found this was true for all the meters in the vicinity and my son said, "I guess you've got to use a credit card now . . . but I'll take those quarters for laundry" and while I was pretty shocked at this development, the card did work fine but when I told my wife about this change to no change, she thought that only accepting a credit card was "classist," as some people don't have credit cards, but I figured in this day and age, if you are driving a car, then you probably have a credit card . . . or I guess you could pay cash in one of the parking decks (but I hate those things, they're claustrophobic nightmares).
I am a sucker for British mystery novels and a sucker for meta-fictional humor and in The Sentence of Death, Anthony Horowitz once again provides both-- it's the usual set-up, there's a murder-- a high-profile divorce lawyer is bludgeoned/sliced to death with a wine bottle and the police hire the rather unlikeable, rather shady, but incredibly brilliant ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne as a consultant to the case-- and the meta-fictional version of the actual author Anthony Horowitz tags along to document the case . . . Horowitz is pulled from on location of a shoot of the TV show Foyle's War-- a show that the real Horowitz actually created and wrote-- and now meta-Horowtiz is involved in a "real" mystery and a "real" murder . . . and while folks tolerate Hawthorne (barely) they are really annoyed that there's a writer shadowing Hawthorne, taking notes on all that is said-- so you get wonderful scenes, with layers of meta-fictional irony (amidst a complex mystery with loads of clues, characters, and red herrings) like this one, when possible suspect Akira Anno-- a celebrated poet and writer-- realizes that Horowitz is writing a book about this investigation, she says:
"He's putting me in his book? I don't want to be in his fucking book! I want a lawyer in this room. If he puts me in his book, I'll fucking sue him . . . this is a fucking outrage! I don't give him permission. Do you hear me? If he writes about me, I'll kill him!"
and for a moment, I was like: Oh shit, Horowitz put her in the book-- I wonder if she sued? and then, of course, I was like: but this is ALL made up . . . or mostly made up, not the Foyle's War stuff-- that's real-- and some of the other Horowitz stuff . . . but the Hawthorne stuff, that's all made up . . . good stuff Horowitz (and meta-Horowitz).
You're going to feel one way or the other about Halle Butler's novel Banal Nightmare . . . the millennials that wander about this Midwestern college town are insufferable, trapped, and repetitive in a surreal No Exit sort of existential ennui-- but there is deep dark satirical humor amidst the emo-anguish and there is a beautiful cutting precision to Butler's language-- so if you like the following sentence, you'll like the book:
"There should be an Aesop's fable where a little ant jumps back and forth eternally between two spinning plates to teach us about the pitfalls of getting stuck in two conflicting and endlessly circular trains of thought, thought Moddie, but the only Aesop fable with ants, as far as she knew, was about how you deserved to die if you enjoyed your summer vacation."
Friday afternoon Terry was nice enough to host a small get-together of English teachers-- his wife and kids went to visit the grandparents in Florida so he had the house to himself-- and he specified that this was a"no children" party, which may have offended a few people, but it's really much nicer to lounge in a pool when there are no children-- and we're teachers, we're going to see kids soon enough (and I can barely tolerate adults) and Terry has a beautiful in-ground pool, complete with a rock waterfall water feature spilling into the deep end . . . and I guess it was a serendipitous set of circumstances that led to this incident; I was doing a few laps, some underwater, when Terry was telling a particular story about his rambunctious seven-year-old son Caleb, but anyway, when I surfaced all I heard was "You can dive off the rock waterfall!" and so I got out of the pool a little drunk, thinking to myself "Awesome! I can dive off the rock waterfall!" and I walked over and dove off the rock waterfall and my hands sort of grazed the incline from the deep end to the shallow end, but I recognized that might happen and made sure I did a shallow dive, but then when I emerged from underwater everyone was yelling at me-- they were saying the opposite of what I heard: "Terry just said NOT to dive off the rock waterfall!" and I was like "what?" but I guess I was underwater for most of Terry's story and then when I popped up all I heard was the end of a statement that probably went something like this: "my crazy seven-year-old dives off the waterfall and it's only six feet deep so it's totally dangerous, but he won't listen to me, he's going to break his neck . . . I mean, maybe if you move to the side it's a little safer to dive off those rocks next to the waterfall, but it's still not safe, it's too shallow but if you're as crazy as my son Caleb and you want to badly injure yourself then"-- and here's where I must have surfaced-- "you can go ahead and dive off the waterfall" so I think the moral here is that if you put a bunch of qualifiers in front of a statement, understand that if someone is underwater for the first half of your sentence, they could really fuck themselves up.
Though my wife and I were feeling beaten and beleaguered by our used car shopping expeditions, we got on the road again this morning, hoping to seal a deal . . . we headed back to the Raceway Kia in Freehold, the first dealership we visited on our tour of New Jersey, and where we thought we had a decent deal pending on a red 2020 Kia Sportage Ex which was in good shape and had new tires-- we didn't love the initial salesman that we interacted with, he was a bit abrasive and pushy, but the manager seemed was a cool guy and got us near where we wanted to be-- $21,500 out-the-door . . . and my pickleball buddy Tony, a used car purchaser and salesman said this was a very good price, which we had confirmed by checking out 2020 Kia Sportages all around the Garden State-- many of which did not run orr smelled like cat pee-- but when we checked on this particular car in the morning, the price had mysteriously gone up by two grand, so we expected the worst-- although the dealership did have an S model from 2021 which we thought might also fit our needs, but that only had 25k miles on it and it was a year newer so we didn't know if that would be in our price ballpark-- anyway, when we got there, our initial salesman hadn't gotten into work yet-- he was late, and the manager Ufuoma took care of us for a bit and told us to give this guy some shit for being late-- then when he did get in, he told us the red Sportage was sold and gone, but we could take a look at the other car-- but my wife's Spidey-Sense alerted her to some possible subterfuge-- this dude didn't check his computer he just cavalierly said the car was no longer available-- and so while he was going to get the other car, we checked online and then gave a quick call to the other side of the road, Raceway Nissan and apparently the red Sportage was NOT sold, it was still available-- and we told Ufuama the manager this and he was pretty pissed off at his late abrasive sales guy and there was some conflict when he got back and my wife said that she really hadn't liked this guy from the get-go and he said, "I'm right here! You're talking about me in front of me" but that's how it goes in these used car dealerships, they're set up for drama-- so then we were handed over to another young man, who was the first guy into work and the first guy that greeted us, and he turned out to be an East Brunswick graduate-- the school I teach at-- so we hit it off, but once we got down to nuts-and-bolts it turned out that the general manager would NOT approve the $21,500 on the red 2020 model, Ufuoma's price was TOO aggressive and so we thought we were back to square one, but we said how about the 2021 S model, which still had everything we needed-- but no keyless entry and no powered rear hatch-- which we did NOT care about, we just wanted roof racks-- and then the CLIPBOARD came into play-- I had been taking copious notes on a clipboard and although they could have all been bullshit, they were not, and Ufuoma took a look at the clipboard and what the Honda place in Old Bridge offered us on a 2020 S . . . $21, 342 and he said, "If I can do close to that, what do you think?" so we drove the 2021 S and it drove well and was immaculately kept and had a clean CarFax and we did all the wacky bullshit and at some point we all hugged it out-- Ufuoma is a very amicable and very jacked dude . . . in fact, so was the East Brunswick grad sales guy-- he showed us some videos of him working out with some ripped Instagram influencers-- and I should say that there were some pretty clear gender roles in the used car world-- the salesmen are bros and the service guys are dudes and the money and clerical people are nice ladies-- absurd-- and I should also say that we spent WAY too much time in these places, including nearly five hours to finalize all this and we all learned way too much about everyone and everything in this dealership, but we ended up getting a deal that made us all happy, we paid $21,750 out-the-door for a gray 2021 Kia Sportage S with 25k miles on it, but it was not fun and it was not easy and there was more hugging than I'm normally comfortable with, but I like the way the car drives, I like the dashboard, and the color and type of car is definitely an under-the-radar type model, so I'll have no problem sneaking out of work early, without being identified, which is the main reason to own your own car.
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Completed another tedious but financially signficant adult task today-- and this fits right into the adult tasks I've been grappling with this summer: shopping for a used car, replacing fucked up windows, treating a dog with bladder stones, and trying to find a through-the-wall AC unit that fits the hole in our bedroom wall-- anyway, I serendipitously read something in The Week about skyrocketing home insurance rates and this motivated me to check out Liberty Mutual rate-- which is paid along with our mortgage and property taxes and so not a bill we evaluate or keep track of-- and the fucking dirtbags at Liberty Mutual had increased our rate by several thousand dollars in the past two years-- up to $3800 for our smallish home . . . totally insane, when the average rate for home insurance in New Jersey is $1200 . . . so I switched to Triple A-- which took twenty minutes of clicking--and this brought our rate down by nearly $2500 -- Liberty Mutual, those fucking bastards, are sending us a pro-rated check for most of the money that they would have extracted if I hadn't read that article and gotten curious . . . so my advice is to check your home insurance rate, weird things are afoot in that industry (mainly due to climate change and thus more frequent chaotic, disastrous weather events, which is costing them a shitload of money).
Armed with some decent pricing information from Phase One, Cat and I take a ride to the Sansone AutoMall in Woodbridge to take a look at a particular car from a particular year (I won't reveal what car and what year until the car shopping is complete-- I don't want one of you numbskulls swooping in and buying it) and this time I didn't forget my clipboard . . . although Cat forgot the checkbook and we had to turn around and get it-- and although there weren't as many bizarre fees tacked on, this encounter didn't go all that well . . .
--let me go get the car
twenty minutes later
-- we had to jump it, we're going to have to replace the battery . . . a light was left on
--this car smells like cat pee
--someone also left the window cracked and water got it
Cat feels the front passenger side floor
--it's all wet
--we'll detail it again, of course . . .
test drive, and the car drives fine, despite the pee smell . . . then back to the office
-- ok this car has been in one accident, it needs a new battery, it smells, and it's got more miles on it then the other car we looked at . . . we got them down to around $21,500 . . . so you'd really have to make a much lower offer to offset all this negative stuff . . .
--ok let me see what I can do . . .
the salesman leaves for a few minutes and comes back with a $22k out-the-door offer . . . what?
but there was no more bullshit and we parted amicably-- I think he knew with the water and the smell and the clipboard that this wasn't going to happen unless he knocked five grand off the price . . . so now we enter Phase Three.
I am certain that many many inebriated people, in many pubs across the land, during some sparkling, tangential, bibulously stoned conversation that haphazardly sketched out some compelling (at the time) IDEA, were wont to cry out "Write it down! . . . we need to write this down!" and while many of these propositions should NOT be written down-- for reasons of political correctness, job security, and just a general lack of quality, last night might be an exception-- on pub night, Alec and I always end up spitballing what we think are genius comedy sketch routines, but then we never write them down-- and it's probably better that way-- case in point, I am not writing down two of our discussions: The Polish Triathlete and Tourette Tits, for obvious reasons, but I will do my best to save one scintillating dialogue for posterity, the exception that might prove the rule, anyway last night we were discussing the constitutional right to get a little drunk or stoned, put some headphones on (I just got som earbuds that actually fit my ears) and walk to the bar listening to the music you choose-- nothing is more American-- but then we wondered how this might go down in colonial times, when they were actually writing the constitution but did NOT possess headphones and we hashed out exactly how the skit would go . . . so I am offering it up to SNL or whoever wants to film it;
INT. MODERN SUBURBAN BEDROOM. NIGHT
A teenage kid is listening to loud rock music.
Unseen Parent: Lower that!
The kid turns off the music, pulls open a drawer, opens a little box (you put your weed in there) and grabs a one-hitter and puts it in his pocket. He then puts on his headphones and exits his room.
Kid: I'm going for a walk.
Mom: Okay great. Take out the garbage.
Kid: Fine.
EXT. SUBURBAN STREET. NIGHT
The kid walks down the street, bopping to his music, and meets up with a few friends.
One of his friends says something about the new girl down the way and what a great rack she has.
Teen: WHAT? WHO?
Friend: Your music is too loud! You're talking really loud.
He removes his headphones and they proceed to smoke some pot.
BLACK SCREEN.
SUPER: 250 Years Ago
INT. COLONIAL TEEN BEDROOM. DUSK
A colonial teenage kid (wearing a mohawk wig?) is listening to a three-piece BAND in his room. Drummer, mandolin, fife. They are playing raucously.
Unseen Parent: Tell your band to play softer! Mezzo piano!
The teenage kid waves at the band to stop playing. He gets up, opens a drawer, grabs a flask, and motions to the band.
Kid: Come on.
The kid walks into a colonial family room.
Kid: I'm going for a walk.
Mom: Great. Make sure the sheep are in the pen.
Kid: Fine.
EXT. COLONIAL FARM ROAD. DUSK
The teenage kid walks down the road. His band follows behind, playing some fast-paced music. He meets up with a couple of other teens. They drink from the flask. They chat about the new girl that moved in down the road and her slender ankles. The band gets too close. They can't hear each other.
Other Teen: What?
The main teen motions the band to back up, so they can hear each other.
The teens walk down the road, the band following. The teens bop to the music.
INT. MODERN SUBURBAN DINING ROOM
The teen and his parents are eating dinner.
Mom: And even though I had the receipt, they sent me to wait in a DIFFERENT line . . . it took forever. That's the last time I'm going to that Target.
Dad: Customer service is a lost art.
The teen rolls his eyes at this boring conversation and puts on his headphones.
Dad: No headphones at the table!
BLACK SCREEN.
SUPER: 250 Years Ago
INT. COLONIAL DINING ROOM
The teen and his parents are eating dinner. The three-piece band is in the corner, silent.
Mom: And then he shears Margaret's sheep . . . even though I had clearly gotten into the barn before her!
Dad: I wonder if he had lust in his heart for Margaret. She does have slender ankles.
The teen rolls his eyes and motions to his band. They launch into some raucous music.
Dad: Shut those guys off!
The teen motions to his band to stop.
Then we imagined one final scene, which I don't feel like writing out-- where the suburban parents are watching TV and the music is too loud and they ask the kid to turn it down but he can't hear them and then it cuts to the colonial parents watching a couple of actors perform in their living room-- a parallel for TV-- and the teen's band is playing too loudly for them to hear the actors and they all yell for him to turn it down and that's that.
Damp and dank and dreary today, so instead of coming up with something new, I'll post an excerpt written by my buddy Whitney, from a news report of what was going on in our lives thirty years ago, in 1994:
File Under: things you don't need explained to you. 30 years is quite a long time. Like, really long. A generation-plus for humans. The lifetime of a koi. And yet, it was just yesterday in my brain.
