My Dog is Probably a Heathen

While it's impossible to truly delve into the mind of a dog, we can always speculate-- and it's been a long cold winter, so I've spent plenty of time on the couch observing my dog and I think she has what might be called a pagan mentality-- she's always doing ritualistic behaviors in the hope that they will have some effect on her world and the generally benevolent gods that control it-- I think she knows that to some arbitrary extent, her world is controlled by inscrutable deities, and so she tries to sit a certain way, or stare a certain way, or turn in circles so many times, in the hopes that this will produce food-- of course, at times, she attempts to take matters into her own paws and goes on the offensive, but we usually foil those attempts-- although she did get a cookie out of my wife's school bag the other day--and I think she knows that she exists in a polytheistic universe, with many strange gods, some human, some technological-- like the dishwasher, which always contains lickable items-- and while she knows she can't control technology, she will try different strategies and rituals depending on which humanoid gods are present, in the hopes of diving providence in the form of a treat, but all of this is so random, so uncontrollable, and because she can't speak (though she does try) she has to communicate through other symbolic actions, in the hopes that they produce good fortune.

One More Degree

My school almost had a snow day today, but instead we got a slush delay.

Hump Day Existentialism

 Today we started a new text in College Writing, a chapter from Rebecca Solnit's book Wanderlust entitled "The Aerobic Sisyphus and the Suburbanized Psyche" and so I took the kids through the myth of Sisyphus and how in Greek times, the Sisyphean task of rolling the boulder was punitive, but then how Camus adopted Sisyphus as the mascot of existentialism and the idea that "the realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning" and then I challenged the kids to come up with ideas of how our lives are absurd searches for meaning and identity because-- unlike back in the old days, when if your dad made barrels, then you were probably fated to make barrels . . . which, on the one hand is rather restrictive, but on the other hand, relieves you of a lot of doubt and anxiety-- but we are modern humans and our fate, according to Satre, is wide open and there's no higher power to guide us, so our existence precedes our essence, which he explains thusly:

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.

and then I challenged the students to come up with examples of how our lives are absurd searches for our essence-- but my examples were the best:

-- I'm going to Harvard to play football!

-- I just drove my car to the gym and I got so tired working out that I can't get any of this yard work done.

Dave's Shot is Breezin'

 

Two good things;

1) today at the gym, while I was shooting around, I made thirteen three-pointers in a row-- and all of them were solidly beyond the arc and I didn't have anyone feeding me the ball-- I was retrieving my own rebounds, tossing the ball out ahead of me, collecting, shooting, rinse, repeat-- and while this is a worthy accomplishment in any shoot-around, it's especially notable for those of you who know my blundering, unskilled basketball origin story (go Nicks!)

2) if you have the winter blues, George Benson's 1976 instrumental song Breezin' is the cure-- I certainly heard this song when I was a kid, and so when I relistened to it yesterday, I remembered the melody-- but I did not remember the miraculous groove (nor did I have the aesthetic sensibility to appreciate a miraculous groove when I was six-years-old). 

FunTimes

Two interesting (and rather frightening) things we were told at our faculty meeting today:

1) do not interfere with uniformed Federal Agents (particularly ICE agents) if they show up on school grounds (I did not need to be told this-- I make it a policy to never interfere with uniformed Federal Agents)

2) always behave as if a student might be surreptitiously recording you-- and remember they can piece together pieces of conversation to make it sound like you said something you didn't-- and a confirmed HIB (harassment, intimidation, and bullying) charge results in a loss of a pay-step . . . and HIB is not based on objective behavior but instead on the harassment, intimidation, or bullying being "perceived" by the victim.

The Hegelian Trumpalectic

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis . . . that is how 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel imagined progress happened, whether in logic, philosophy, spirituality, politics, ethics, art, etcetera . . . and it seems we are amidst an extreme version of this process, spurred by the human antithesis himself, Donald Trump-- and while I don't agree with some of his bullshit, like a blanket pardon to all the January 6th rioters-- including people like Matt Huttle, who violently abused his own child and Theodore Middendorf, who sexually abused a seven-year-old . . . a seven-year-old, dude . . . Jesus-- I don't think there's going to be much synthesis with that move and I can't understand why cops love Trump when he's releasing criminals back into the wild-- although I guess Trump is just "on brand" for cops-- but on the other hand, Trump's removal of all DEI initiatives from government agencies is certainly a valid antithesis to the reverse discrimination of "affirmative action" and the Biden administration's "woke" consideration of race, intersectionality, and microaggressions-- racial discrimination is already illegal, banned by the Civil Rights Act-- and I think the majority of people are sick of race being at the forefront of identity politics and don't want mandates that go beyond the illegality of discrimination . . . while we can't ignore the past, the goal is to become what Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther king dreamed-- a color blind society--  so while you might not like Trump's
tone, attitude, or methods, just remember, there will be an eventual synthesis of some of Trump's more obnoxious objectives and maybe, eventually, some sort of halting progress.

Unintentionally Dry January (But Not Sand Island Dry)

I was determined NOT to do "Dry January" for two very good reasons—

1)I’m already a moderate drinker 

2) January is so dark, cold, and dreary that a little alcohol helps me get through without going full Jack Torrance

but this January wasn’t fated to be a wet one for me-- two weeks ago I came down with a stomach virus, then my wife caught the flu, and just as she recovered I got a mild case of COVID, so aside from a couple of parties and our outing to see Louie C.K., I barely touched beer, wine, or spirits-- but I'm not complaining because I just read Matthew Pearl’s new book, Save Our Souls: The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder, and my January—despite its lack of alcohol and abundance of sickness—was a walk in the park compared to what the Walker family endured after their sharking boat shipwrecked on a spit of sand in the North Pacific (Midway Atoll), where they survived for eighteen months on seabirds, seabird eggs, the occasional fish, a bag of moldy rice that washed ashore, and an unlucky turtle—but no beer or tobacco; Pearl’s book is a gripping account of the shipwreck and the surrounding murder and mystery, including the presence of a nutjob named Hans, who was already living in a hut on Sand Island when the Walkers and their crew washed ashore-- and the book gets quite complicated with intrigue, it's not a tale like Swiss Family Robinson or Gilligan's Island, mainly because of the sinister first mate and his past crimes and new alliances, and honestly, after reading this, I'm astounded that anyone in the 19th century would willingly board an ocean-going vessel, given the abundant threats of shipwrecks, piracy, opium smuggling, scurvy, sharks, insurance fraud, blackbirding, and mutiny-- Pearl’s book is an astounding tale of survival, persistence, and malevolent maritime machinations and if you're looking to feel better about your landlocked piece of property, read it.

Thinking is Dead

 

I am having an existential crisis today, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that I feel kind of lousy-- I just tested positive for COVID-- and this diagnosis is amplifying the feeling that life is futile, we are all decaying flesh, and we have designed technology to replace what we once thought was unique about the human mind and spirit-- the inciting incident for this existential crisis happened this morning, when I went to school early to photocopy my Creative Writing mid-term prompt about the film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" so that the kids would have to handwrite the answer because I didn't want them looking up stuff on Google and ChatGPT but then I fed my prompt into DeepSeek, the new, free high-powered Chinese AI-- and the prompt is pretty basic, just something to get the kids writing about a really complicated and interesting film:

How does the film use unreliable narration to explore relationships, memory, and time?  What does the film ultimately say about our identity, our perspective, and the way we get along with people?

and, no surprise, DeepSeek gave an astute and organized and thorough answer to this prompt-- but an answer that sounded like AI-- parallel structure, abstract vocabulary, statements made with subtopics in groups of three-- but then I asked DeepSeek to summarize this answer in two sentences and use lots of profanity and it produced something that doesn't resemble AI at all:

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" uses its mind-fuckery of unreliable narration to show how relationships are a messy, chaotic clusterfuck of distorted memories and emotional bullshit. The film dives into the raw, fucked-up truth that love isn’t about perfect memories or clear-cut facts—it’s about the messy, irrational, and deeply human shit that keeps pulling people back together, no matter how hard they try to erase each other.

and this worries me, it means that there's no way to tell if the students are using AI-- now they can prompt it to sound much more human than previously-- and I think this means we have to rethink English/Language Arts class entirely-- it also depresses me that the skills I've spent my life developing can now be farmed out to a computer-- ideas that took my stupid brain hours of meditation and reflection can now be produced in a fraction of the time -- so I think we're going to have to have some difficult conversations about what learning and school is going to be like in the near future-- we could go the Luddite route-- the school is a gym for your brain route-- and do everything on paper and get rid of the computers . . . or we could turn kids into AI synthesizers, where they cull the best ideas from AI and develop them . . . or we could give up on teaching writing entirely and make English class more of a speaking and communicating class . . . but this stuff is evolving so quickly that it's breaking my brain-- it's also fun to ask DeepSeek "why is Jane's Addiction so fucking good?" and require it to use profanity in the answer-- I'm sure this Chinese AI broke a lot of copyright laws in its "training" but it really seems to know about everything (and how to swear realistically while telling you everything).

You Never Know What's Going to Offend Our AI Overlords

Holy shit . . . my wife and I are passing viruses between us-- the origin of which is most likely all the stupid children in our respective schools, coughing and blowing their noses and wiping snot on every surface-- and teaching is NOT a good job when you are sick, especially when it's a double mid-term day and you're going to spend five hours in a room with students and you have no voice . . . but at least I tapped into DeepSeek, the new deep-discount made in China AI that will list "five awful things about Donald Trump"-- unlike Google's Gemini, which avoids political discussion . . . but don't ask DeepSeek about what happened in 1989 at the Tiananmen Square demonstration, or you'll get stonewalled; although I did get DeepSeek to rattle off a bunch of general problems with China's one-party, undemocratic, censorship-prone, human rights violating government-- before it rescinded all the text and said, "Sorry that's beyond my current scope . . . let's talk about something else."

Heavyweight vs Lightweight (But They Are Both Kind of Orange)

The Rumble of the Federal Funding Freeze . . . in this corner, weighing in at 244 pounds, we have Donald Trump and in the opposing corner, weighing in at 1/4 pound, we have the U.S. Constitution-- and folks, this should be a chaotic, litigious, and slow-moving fight, with Trump delivering plenty of shots below the belt to our most venerated but embattled document.

It's Mainly Dark in Here, But I Can See the Light

This is the time of year when I feel like a mewling infant sliding down the birth canal, trying to emerge from the darkness of winter, slowly heading toward the light of spring-- and I will get there, but it's going to be painful (for all involved, including Mother Nature). 

Louis C.K. Kills

Last night, Louis C.K. performed at the Stress Factory and he lived up to the title of his show, which was called "Trying Out New Material"-- he had a notebook on his stool, which he glanced at between bits and he raced through so many routines it would be hard to summarize the performance-- he literally abandoned transitions and did an hour of one thing after another-- and while the content was generally incredibly inappropriate, I'll give a synopsis in broad swaths of some of the topics: 

how the sun and a vagina are similar (wonderful givers of life but don't look directly at them); what race of human he would choose to eat; a tour of the old folks "place" that houses his father; what the "worst" would be for him: being testicularly tortured and you truly don't know the information that the torturer wants; an analysis of the magazine Barely Legal and just how close reading that magazine is to pedophilia-- so close; how the worst thing a person could talk to you about is love, forgiveness, and your friend Jesus; taking AIDS test to get some good news; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; in vitro fertilization and caviar; he revamped a Carlin bit about how newscasters will do an accent on the word Latino, but only that word, and a bunch of other stuff-- it was uproarious, the guy is a masterful in every aspect of stand-up-- the voices, timing, body language, and material-- and it was awesome to see him up close and personal.

HP Sees CK

Heading out (with a large contingent of my town and other various friends) to see Louis C.K. at The Stress Factory.

Fuck the TikTok Ban, Go Whole Hog and Revise Section 230

There has been much speculation about Mark Zuckerberg's recent "pivot" towards some Trumpy changes to Meta's content moderation policy and the removal of all fact-checking on his platforms-- and the constantly fluctuating state of TikTok has also got the social media world in an uproar, but I think it's time to do something more radical in this arena and rewrite Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act sop that platforms are responsible and can be sued over what they "publish"-- as they ARE publishers with proprietary algorithms that determine what goes viral-- and it's certainly not always accurate or innocuous stuff . . . it's not until we acknowledge that everything on social media is suspect, often a conspiratorial abyss, frequently misinformation and/or propaganda, and promoted in ways to merely keep users scrolling, not to provide the highest quality content and that perhaps our society would be more civilized and social without social media in its current form.

Dave Fails at Revenge, But Succeeds at Civilized Society

Yesterday morning, I tried to exact my gentlemanly revenge for this foul deed-- when I got out of my car, I spotted the shoulder-length blonde hair of the culprit as she was walking along the front of the building towards the side door; walked briskly to the door so that I got there well ahead of her; opened the door, and waited; and then, as the culprit rounded the corner I noted that this was another nameless woman with shoulder length blond hair-- people are really bundled up because of the cold and it's hard to differentiate between thirty-somethings with should length blonde hair-- but this was definitely NOT the woman who didn't hold the door for me-- but despite not exacting my revenge, things turned out just fine: she thanked me for holding the door for her and we had a normal, civilized conversation about the weather as we walked to the office to sign in.

What's Scarier Than a Savage Pitbull? An Enormous Savage Pitbull

If you're looking for a dumb (but highly entertaining) read about a smart guy, check out Joe Ide's mystery novel IQ . . . it's about a young ghetto detective (a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Encyclopedia Brown) with a tragic past who gets involved in a case featuring rappers, entourage members, bodyguards, gangs, guns, drugs, sordid women, LA shysters, and a very large pit bull . . . the plot is a purposeful nod to Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Some Fine Day, Vengeance Will Be Mine

So yesterday I was hustling across the parking lot and into the school building-- and I was not wearing my jacket or gloves or anything because I leave that stuff in the car-- and it was cold, single digits, and I was maybe fifteen feet from the door and this teacher (I don't know her name but I'm going to find it out) was at that distance where any civilized person would hold the door, especially because we made eye contact and she could see I was moving with some determination and alacrity-- but she glanced at me and then she slithered in, she opened the door the minimum amount and squeezed through, leaving me literally in the cold-- now even if she didn't feel like holding the door, she could have given it a good shove, so it opened completely and I was close enough that I most likely would have been able to grab it before it shut-- but she didn't even do me that courtesy . . . unconscionable stuff . . . and so I have plotted my revenge (which is a dish best served cold, and it is butt-ass cold in New Jersey right now) and it will happen thusly: I will keep my eye out for this woman, and one day when I am ahead of her in the parking lot, I will walk briskly to the door-- so there is a great distance between us-- and then instead of NOT holding the door open, instead of slithering in-- which would be childish and predictable-- I will hold the door open-- I will hold the door open for an uncomfortably long time-- and while I stand there, chivalrously, waiting for her to walk all the way across the parking lot, I will make eye contact with her, and I will smile, and I will say "after you" and then let her pass through the door while I stand valiantly in the cold and then she will know that vengeance is mine and her fate is to be filled with shame and mortification.

A Very Special Episode of We Defy Augury

Despite having a stomach virus, yesterday I cranked out a very special episode of We Defy Augury . . . "A Transcendental Perspective on the L.A. Fires". . . my thoughts are (loosely) inspired by various articles on the L.A. Fires, Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Nature" and Joan Didion's essay "The Santa Anas"

Special Guests: The Bicycle Man, Conrad Bain, Nellie Bowles, David Gelles and Austyn Gaffney, Leighton Woodhouse, The Rivieras, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Delta smelt, the gang from Full House, and the gang from WKRP in Cincinnati.

Trump

A few days ago, someone wrote the word "Trump" in the snow on my wife's car (and then the next day, I found the word "Trump" written on my driver's side window, in the water condensation) and I think this might be the work of a devious teenage mind, a youngster who knows that in our liberal town that's the most maddening thing you can write on someone's car window-- my wife said she'd have preferred if the culprit wrote, "suck my dick."

Dave Keeps Overdoing It (Physically and Literarily)

I woke up feeling much better this morning-- I definitely had some kind of stomach/body-ache/low fever viral bug yesterday-- in fact, I felt so good that I went and played indoor soccer-- and my knee felt better than it has in a while, I was actually playing serviceable balls with both feet-- but then after soccer, I started feeling shitty again, and I think I'm running a low fever-- and the sci-fi novel I'm reading is not helping: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis . . . the narrative switches between a time-traveling historian who was mistakenly sent back to the year The Black Death ravaged England, instead of an earlier, plague free year-- there was some "slippage"-- and 21st-century epidemic in Oxford, caused by a dormant, ancient virus unearthed from a medieval archaeological dig-- it's a compelling book but there are a great many descriptions of buboes and fevers and bodily fluids and sickness in general, not ideal.

Dave Probably Overdid It

I completed my old man three-sport-in-one-week triathlon last night-- my friend Ann and I defended the challenge court for 90 minutes at the Picklejar, before we got tired (and the dudes we were playing hit her with several wild drives, including one to the chin) and I generally felt pretty good on my knee, but then I had trouble sleeping-- I rarely do sports at night and it was hard to get comfortable-- and though I loosened my leg up at the gym and grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (which was insanely crowded because everyone is worried about the incoming snow but I put my earphones in and listened to some Chris Joss, this French multi-instrumentalist funk musician who has an incredible catalog of instrumental funk-tronica albums . . . I can't believe I just discovered this guy because he will now be the soundtrack of the majority of my life!) but now I feel lousy and I'm running a low fever and I'm wondering if I either overdid the sports this week or if I'm getting sick.

Friday Potpourri

Today felt marginally better than yesterday-- the sun was out and it warmed up to 40 degrees-- but we were still fairly chilly when we had an unexpected and rather lengthy fire evacuation because something started burning in a cooking class-- I was about to call it a fire "drill" but it wasn't a drill, it was an actual fire-- albeit a very small one-- which interrupted an important discussion in Creative Writing where I was informing my students that The Beatles were not fro the midwest, they were from England . . . seriously . . and I today also introduced my sophomores to the idea of a "very special episode"-- a concept from the 1980s and 90s where a normally humorous TV program tackles a delicate or controversial event with the appropriate gravity . . . the one I'll never forget is the WKRP in Cincinnati episode about the Who concert where 11 people got crushed to death . . . a total bummer . . . we had a very special episode of class today about the LA fires-- and it is to be continued next class!-- perfect . . . I'm going to try to make the lesson into a very special podcast because it would take too long to describe here and I've got no time to sit and write because I'm about to finish my week-long triathlon of old man sports on a bad knee-- I played indoor soccer on Sunday, morning basketball on Tuesday, and now I'm about to go play some indoor pickleball-- if my knee holds up, I'll be very pleased.

Cold and Gray Thursday

I took a mental health day yesterday and it turned out to be quite productive-- I cleaned two bathrooms, went to the gym with Ian-- he was actually able to play a little basketball on his reconstructed ankle-- and then Ian and I fixed a broken light pull switch in a ceiling fan, a two-man job if there ever was one (he flipped fuses in the basement until the fan stopped and then it took four hands to take the fan case apart; hold it the bottom part; strip the wires; remove the old pull string switch; replace and reconnect the new pull string switch; and then reassemble it) and we rewarded ourselves with a sushi lunch and then I took a nap-- later my wife and I watched episode two of Get Millie Black-- highly recommended-- but then reality loomed its ugly head . . . when you take off a Wednesday, you have to go to work the next day-- and it's not even Friday!-- and this morning was frigid and dark and bleak and I am really struggling to see the dim light of Spring Break, which is many months away-- so I started my class today with the movie clip to symbolize how I was feeling: Bill Murray giving a "Groundhog Day" weather outlook, "You want a prediction about the weather . . . I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."

Our Team Only Had Nine Available Hands

Yesterday morning I made my triumphant return to 6:30 AM basketball, and while I was certainly limited in my movement because of my gimpy knee and unable to "help" on defense (which is my euphemism for fouling the fuck out of anyone who enters the paint in my vicinity) I was in fine shooting form (at least at the start of the session, my shot got progressively worse as my knee grew stiffer) and I drilled three long three-pointers in a row to lead our team to victory in the first game . . . and what a team it was-- I was limping around, Jeff has a strained calf-- and Frank, the old and venerated retired AD who is in his 70s and probably shouldn't be participating in the first place was coaxed into playing one game-- and I didn't notice until we began that Frank was wearing one glove, one green fluffy winter glove . . . and this is because he recently had surgery on his hand and needed to protect it-- needless to say, he did not shoot, dribble, or touch the ball-- but then he gracefully bowed out, undefeated, and we picked up Kyle, a fast, strong twenty-five-year-old athlete-- so all was good-- and then I learned that another player on the court was in his twenties and I was like: this is not fair, I think anyone in their twenties should have to be handicapped, like a jockey that's underweight, and wear a weighted vest. 

A Costco No-go

According to my neighbors Pernille and John, you never want to make the mistake that I made yesterday: you never want to go to the Edison Costco on a Monday (because the store is so crowded on Saturday and Sunday that, in a Yogi Berra-esque paradox, no one goes there on the weekend so they all go on Monday . . . also, I think some shoppers permanently reside in the store-- I surmised this by the way they amble about with their carts, like they've got absolutely nowhere to go).

Medieval Times, Good Times?

 

I just finished a new episode of We Defy Augury-- ten reasons Medieval Times were better times than you might have imagined . . . thoughts loosely inspired by Ian Mortimer's history book Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter, Christopher Buehlman's fantasy novel Between Two Fires, and Connie Willis's science fiction novel The Doomsday Book; 

Special Guests: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Janeane Garofalo, The Beastie Boys, George Carlin, Rick Moranis, MF Doom, the Monty Python Troupe, Kiefer Sutherland, 100 Gecs, Metallica, Arya and the Hound, Jimmy Walker, the Wu-Tang Clan, and medievalist professor Dorsey Armstrong.

The Knee Holds Up

I am pleased to announce that I played over an hour of indoor soccer this morning-- despite my wonky right knee-- and while I can't really drive a ball with my right foot, I was able to run, trap, and pass-- which is all you can ask for . . . but importantly, I got to see the soccer gang again-- I haven't played for a year-- and while there were a couple of new faces, it was mostly the same old guys . . . and we're just getting older.

Yet Another Reason I Hate Fucking Cars

Like most rational aesthetes, I find the Tesla Cybertruck to be a hideous and bulky eyesore, but it seems there is a way to level up the offensiveness of this sheet metal behemoth . . . and that is by adding an on-the-nose vanity license plate label which identifies what kind of car the license plate is adorning (in this instance, CYBR1) and this, of course, falls into the same category of objectionable taste as wearing a Weezer t-shirt to a Weezer concert-- you just don't do it (nor do you wear a Dungeons and Dragons t-shirt to a session of D&D, as I once pointed out to my older son) unless you write something witty, ironic, and meta . . . perhaps I could get a vanity plate for my Sportage that says "Kia Pet" or this Cybertruck owner could get a plate that reads "Pedo Boy" or "Compensating for my Tiny Penis."

 

Aspirational Actions

Instead of doing "Dry January," I am going to listen to more of Art Pepper's cool jazz and J Dilla's comprehensive catalog.

O! The Irony! The Hypocritical Unreliable Irony!

Today in Creative Class, we started our unit on first-person/unreliable narration, but I somehow got off-topic and while I was in the midst of describing the awful car accident my children and I witnessed on Tuesday and warning the students about the perils of walking, biking, and driving on Rutgers campus in New Brunswick and reminding them to really take their time going through intersections, even if the light is green-- right in the middle of diagramming all this on the whiteboard, a particular gym teacher poked her head into my classroom and she chastised me for something that happened yesterday . . . and I immediately knew how what she was about to say was going to fit the lesson-- because yesterday afternoon, when I was racing out of the school parking lot at the end of the day, I ran through the stop sign and cut her off-- and this happened several times previous because I'm a bit reckless when I'm trying to escape the school grounds-- so she censured me for my driving, I apologized profusely and I promised it would never happen again and then she left and I turned to the class and said, "You see my hypocrisy here? The unreliability in my narration? I'm warning you about being careful at intersections and meanwhile, I'm a hypocritical menace . . . we are all biased and unreliable narrators!" and then I was inclined to say "That's a wrap, you can all go home" but there was still 56 minutes left in the period, so I had to keep teaching but now I am truly going to take my time at intersections, I have learned my lesson twice in as many days.

There Are No Cheetos in Europe

You'll have to do your own research because I can't really make sense of all the available information, but on the newest episode of Derek Thompson's podcast Plain English Michael Cembalest (Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy for J.P. Morgan Asset Management) says that Europe allows 44 chemicals in its food while the U.S. allows over 700-- and he explains that's why it's not a great idea to invest in Europe-- too many regulations-- but that's why their food tastes so good . . . and if you attempt to confirm these numbers, you get all kinds of weird facts and figures-- Europe allows 300 food additives while the US allows over 3,000-- and there are readily available lists of various whiteners and fillers and dyes and preservatives and carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals the US allows as food ingredients, which Europe does not allow-- I don't really know what to make of all this information, but maybe I'll continue to invest in US companies, but seriously think about moving to Europe when I retire (if all the chemicals don't kill me first).

I Hate Fucking Cars

The boys and I were having a lovely Orthodox Christmas-- we went to the Y and played some basketball and then hit La Catrina for lunch, but on the drive home, when we got to the intersection of Hamilton Street and George Street-- where Hamilton turns into Johnson Drive-- the Zimmerli Museum was on our left-- we got a sober reminder of the ephemerality of life . . . the light was green and I was just about to enter the intersection when a medium-sized red car came FLYING down George Street (and this is a street with college dorms on it) and this red car smashed into the back of a white car that had just proceeded into the intersection-- the very car in front of us, and this spun the white car into the concrete wall in front of the Johnson and Johnson property (thank god no one was standing at this intersection waiting to cross, a spot that my son Alex walks through every day on his way to work) and the airbags went off inside the white car and I got out and (carefully) crossed the intersection to see if the people were all right and Alex and Ian called 911 but luckily there happened to be a couple cops nearby who immediately took control of the scene-- maybe they were already in pursuit of this vehicle? which would explain the high speed on this road?-- and because the white car got clipped in the rear of the car, not the driver side door, the two women in the car looked like they were in decent shape-- the passenger was fine and the driver looked stunned but she responded to my voice and the side airbag probably kept her from hitting her head-- meanwhile the red car that ran the light doing 40 or 50 mph on this 25 mph street was up ahead on the side of the road-- it hit another car and came to a halt and the the police checking that out-- and the weird thing is this wasn't a yellow light turning red situation, the red car had a solid red light-- so Alex surmised that perhaps the red car driver panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake-- something that occurs all too frequently and is often blamed on "sudden uncontrollable acceleration" but is actually caused by someone stomping on the wrong pedal . . . whatever the reason, this crash scared the shit out of the three of us and we all agreed to take it slow through every intersection, whether driving a car,  on foot, or riding a bike-- because of the existence of idiots and the half-assed manner in which our automotive based world is designed-- although honestly, this happened so fast and chaotically that it would have been difficult to avoid even if you were paying close attention nd driving defensively and all that and we were very lucky that we weren't in the intersection when this happened-- we were moments away-- and the last time I saw anything like this was over a decade ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Weird Energy on a Weird Monday/Friday

Strange things were afoot at EBHS today-- unlike most schools in the vicinity, we are off tomorrow for Orthodox Christmas (because we have a large number of Coptic Egyptian students) and so today felt like both a Monday and a Friday-- one day week!-- and to exacerbate the strangeness, we had a weird schedule because of an elective fair, which means I had to spend an inordinate amount of time with my 25-student sophomore honors class-- and while they are quite nice and academically diligent, they are also very energetic, chatty, clueless, and unlearned in the ways of mankind-- and I'm used to teaching seniors, who at least know how to pretend to be normal people-- and on top of all that, it snowed all day and so the students were flipping out about that (admin released the seniors early so they could slowly drive out of the parking lot-- for most of these kids, it's the first time they're driving in snow) but despite all this, we managed to finish Godzilla Minus One in Creative Writing class-- I cried-- and I even managed to grade a few essays through the tears-- which was the purpose of showing the film, I need to grade, but I always get sucked into the movie-- and now tonight is a mini-Saturday, so I'll enjoy the Rutgers/Wisconsin game and tomorrow is a mini-Sunday, so the plan is: head to the gym with the boys and then take them out to lunch . . . thank you Julian Calendar!

Giants vs. (Second String) Eagles

Difficult rooting conundrum today: The Giants played the Eagles and while I would like to start rooting for the Eagles, because of my South Jersey roots and Saquon Barkley, I don't think I have it in me to ever root for the Eagles over the Giants (but I do think I can muster some rooting strength for the Eagles in the playoffs since the Giants are eliminated) but then today's game because even more of a perplexing puzzle because in one sense, all Giants fans were rooting for the Giants to lose today so they could get a better draft choice-- but it was impossible to root for the Giants to lose to the Eagles, even the second string Eagles-- just because you can't turn that shit off . . . but I was still kind of psyched when Reed Blankenship grabbed Drew Lock's final toss and ended the game in the Eagles favor . . . there's always next year.

Dave Speculates on (Probably) the Dumbest Use of a Quantum Computer (It's All Probabilistic)

As far as I understand this recent quantum computing breakthrough-- which is not very far at all-- but from what I do grasp, the possible reason why the computer can do such complex computations so quickly, computations that would take a normal computer more than the life of the universe, is because the quantum computer is harnessing alternate realities and doing parallel computations in the multiverse-- so if I could get a hold of one of these computers, perhaps I could access the various sentences Alternate Daves are writing in various alternate universes and select the best of these alternate sentences and essentially subcontract my work out to the multiverse (which is quite different than relying on AI to write my sentences, which would be soulless and derivative . . . but harnessing the thinking power of infinite Alternate Daves, that's something much more on brand).

Some Things That Are Completely Different

If you're looking for some batshit crazy apocalyptic sci-fi, I highly recommend Robert Charles Wilson's novel Spin--  I won't even try to explain all the consequences of the "spin membrane" that is mysteriously placed around the earth (by a mysterious superior alien race that scientists refer to as The Hypotheticals) but the stars go out early in the book and then some very well-depicted political and psychological and scientific chaos ensues-- and the book really makes you think about time, as a concept-- the book is the first in a trilogy (but apparently the other two books are not as good, so I'm going to skip them) and if you've read or watched The Expanse series then you'll find some familiar themes-- and if you're looking for a batshit crazy surreal almost sci-fi movie, you might like I Saw the TV Glow, a mesmerizing story about two disaffected teens in the 90's who share an obsession with a strange supernatural TV show called The Pink Opaque . . . the fictional world of the show begins to bleed into the "reality" of the of Owen and Maddy's constrained suburban lives-- and Maddy's complete and utter acceptance of this alternate reality sends her on a quest to find her true identity and gender, a quest that Owen is reluctant to embark on or even comprehend-- it'sa film full of weird imagery, awkward moments, and fragmented horror.

It's Already Thursday!

While it was not fun to get up early and get dressed and make lunch and walk the dog in the dark and drive to school and make photocopies and finally start grading those synthesis essays, it was fun to see my friends and colleagues and chat about winter break-- and this was even more fun when one of my fellow English teachers reminded me that it is Thursday-- even though the day really had Monday-vibes . . . so this was more of a "soft opening" of the school and next week we'll really get down to business and learn something.

Dave Carries On Carrying On

Yesterday, on the last day of 2024, the usual themes unfolded-- I was sore from my second shingles vaccine but I went and played pickleball anyway-- wearing my knee brace of course and some KT tape on my Achilles tendon-- and I'm glad I went because even though I was a little sluggish, for one brief moment I was quick and coordinated, and I chased down a very wide ball and hit a crisp and perfect "around the pole" shot-- and then I took a much-needed nap, but still felt kind of lousy from the stupid shingles shot, but rallied enough to drink some mezcal at the neighborhood New Year's Party . . . so while I'd like to make some 2025 Resolutions here, things such as: I'm actually going to change my diet and lose weight; I'm actually going to start stretching every day and do all the recommended exercises to preserve my body and I'm going to give up alcohol during the week, at this point, realistically, these things are probably not going to happen so this year I'm just going to try to do the same shit I did in 2024, and continue to rinse and repeat until things really get Yeatsian and truly fall apart.

The Books Dave Read in 2024

1) The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon

2) More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

3) They Walked Like Men by Clifford D. Simak

4) Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

5) Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen

6) All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

7) Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells

8) Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz

9) The Charm School by Nelson DeMille

10) Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer

11) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

12) The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

13) Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs by Benjamin Herold

14) The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski

15) Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

16) The Fifties by David Halberstam

17) Outside the Gates of Eden: The Dream of America from Hiroshima to Now by
Peter Bacon Hales

18) A Year in the Life of Shakespeare:1599 by James Shapiro

19) One Good Turn (Jackson Brodie 2) by Kate Atkinson

20) Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta

21) Faithful Place by Tana French

22) Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present by Fareed Zakaria

23) The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty

24) When Where There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

25) The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

26) The Man in the Flannel Gray Suit by Sloan Wilson

27) A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz

28) Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler

29) The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

30) Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah

31) The New Me by Halle Butler

32) The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

33) Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

34) Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

35) The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

36) A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

37) Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

38) Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter by Ian Mortimer

39) Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo

40) The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew Bacevich

41) Supernova Era by Cixin Liu

42) Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

43) The Wych Elm by Tana French

44) Spin  by Robert Charles Wilson

And We're Back . . .

Saturday morning we left our children in charge of the house and the dog-- they're certainly big enough-- and headed to Philly for the weekend, but first we picked up my parents and dropped them at the Trenton Airport, then we met Mel, Ed, Julie, and Rob at the Mount Laurel Topgolf-- both stops were on the way to the City of Brotherly Love-- and though it was wet and cold, the bays are always heated and the beers are always cold at the Topgolf . . . 

then we drove to center city, parked the car, and checked into the hotel (Sonesta) and hit a bar (The Dandelion . . . very British and cozy, with great cocktails and beers) before a comedy show at Helium (we saw Gareth Reynolds-- he was excellent, very quick-witted, lots of crowd work, and some very funny stuff about technology) and dinner at Dan Dan Noodles--

Sunday morning we went to Carpenter's Hall and did a walking tour of the Old City, split a cheesteak at Shay's,

and then I threw on a green golf shirt and we went to a packed to the gills McGillin's Olde Ale House to root for the Eagles-- I am allowed to occasionally root for the Eagles in this time of famine for the Giants because I have lots of relatives in South Jersey (that were originally from Philly)  

 

and then we walked WAY south, well below South Street, to a little neighborhood that puts up a lovely light show (this is called Miracle on 13th Street . . . so I've now seen Miracle on 13th Street but I've still never seen Miracle on 34th Street)

and then we walked all the way back to center City, stopping for a couple of espresso martinis-- the White Elephant is highly recommended-- and we ate some delicious bao buns and other Asian delicacies at Sampan . . . we were seated facing the kitchen and holy shit are those guys churning out food and then we shuffled back to the hotel, 32,000 steps later, and slept very soundly--

and we finished the trip at Reading Terminal Market, of course, purchasing sausage, sharp provolone, and hot soppressata as souvenirs.

Go Eagles?

My wife and I  logged a lot of steps in South Philly today, watching the Eagles and seeing the historical sights and the 13th Steet lights and while I was rooting for Saquon to amass as many yards as possible, I might be too old a dog to defect from the Giants to the Eagles, despite all my south Jersey relatives ( but it was fun while it lasted, I cheered along with the crowd in Mcgillins and remembered what it was like to root for a good team).

Timothee Chalamet Should Stay in the Desert

I really hate the idea of a modern musical biopic-- the newest one is about Bob Dylan . . . A Complete Unknown-- because if you want to see a movie about Bob Dylan, just watch Dont Look Back and observe the man himself, not a Bob Dylan impression by someone who wasn't even born when Dylan was the voice of a generation-- I can understand a movie like Amadeus or Lisztomania because there's no film of those folks, but I refuse to see Ray and Walk the Line and Rocketman . . . it's much more fun to see a film about a fictitious band, like Spinal Tap, or a fictitious band that becomes a real band, like The Commitments, than it is to evaluate a musical impersonation for 120 minutes (and the most fun of all is when a tribute band nails all the songs, but looks nothing like the original musicians).

Knee Update (Breaking Knees)

My knee is working pretty well now that they drained the fluid, so I got to play some pick-up basketball with my son Alex yesterday at the Piscataway Y, which is always a blast-- my three-pointer was on and Alex can cut to the basket and use his right or his left, and I know I won't be able to do this forever-- pump fake an outside shot and then pass the ball to my son going to the cup, so I've got to enjoy it while I can-- and then my wife and I headed out to see Nosferatu-- which is fabulously grim and dark and very well conceived, but a bit long-- and since we purchased tickets ahead of time, we thought we were showing up late, after the coming attractions, but it seems no matter how late you show up to the movies, there are always many many trailers-- the 2:30 PM showing didn't actually start until 3 PM . . . so by the end of the movie, my knee was a bit stiff and I limped out of the theater and into the darkness-- when the film began the sun was out but once we left the theater, it was not safe, Nosferatu's shadow lay across the land.

Which Wych Elm?

The answer to the titular question is: the wych elm in the garden of Ivy house, the one keeping a sordid secret-- but it's going to take some preliminary reading to learn this, and some of it isn't going to be pretty: brain damage, brain cancer, and a lucky, privileged young man brought to his knees by events from his past-- events that had consequences that he was oblivious to then but are horribly apparent now . . . I'll say no more, aside from the fact that The Wych Elm is another masterful mystery from Irish-American author Tana French.

Christmas Day Stats? Is That a Thing?

While it was nice to watch the Knicks win on Christmas Day (and to see Mikal Bridges light it up) and my son Alex and I were also entertained by the animated "Dunk the Halls" version of the game, we got sick of all the talk of Victor Wembanyama's "Christmas Day Scoring Record"-- that's just not a viable statistical category-- too small a sample size (especially for such a large human being).

The Decline and Fall and Reclining and Icing and Draining and Rising Again of Dave's Right Knee

Yesterday, I went to the doctor's for my right knee and while it wasn't as fun as self-diagnosing and self-medicating, it was probably more informative and more therapeutic-- and it was kind of fun because the resident and the doctor who worked with me were both fairly cute young ladies, which made all the pressing on my knee and twisting and pulling of my leg slightly more tolerable than if it were a couple of dudes-- and that might be sexist, but whatever, I like to believe they were a bit more delicate and definitely more personable than the typical male doctor-- anyway, after all the prodding, they determined that it was a tight IT band and some arthritis related to patellofemoral pain syndrome, which caused some serious swelling and a lot of fluid around my knee, so Dr. Navia said that I could either take naproxen for two weeks or she could numb up my knee and stick a needle in and drain the fluid and then shoot a steroid in there to reduce the swelling-- and while this would hurt a little she promised it wouldn't be too bad-- so I opted for option two, even though I was hungry and I had been there quite a while-- so they numbed me up and started sticking needles into my knee and looking on some ultrasound monitor-- and I wisely looked at the ceiling so as not to see what they were doing, although they did a LOT of talking about what they were doing, I guess because the main doctor was teaching the resident-- so I had to overhear quite a bit of graphic detail about finding pockets of fluid, switching sutures, and how many milliliters of gunk they sucked out-- but they were pleased with all the yucky yellow bloody pus/fluid/gunk they drained and the "debris" they moved out of the way, but the doctor said my knee wasn't going to be happy with her during the night, once the anesthetic wore off-- and so while I was able to walk out of the office and even run up to Thomas Sweets to purchase a gift and Mamoun's for take out-- later in the day and last night my knee really started to throb-- but I took my naproxen, drank a few beers, etc.-- and when I woke up this morning, my knee felt much better and I have full range of motion again-- yesterday, I couldn't straighten my leg because of the swelling, so it looks like I am on the mend. 

Right Knee Stuff, Part Two

One of the many incredibly essential things I do on this blog is keep track of all my athletic ailments-- so that when I injure myself (or reinjure myself) I have some idea of when I last fucked up this particular body part and how long it took to heal and what exercises I did and all that . . . so yesterday I played some indoor pickleball and my right knee started hurting but I was playing so well that I couldn't stop-- I'm using a new technique with my two-handed backhand, instead of trying to get both hands on the short paddle handle, I'm just slapping my left hand on the back of the paddle, two or three fingers splayed on the surface, and this works wonders-- and I've also added a backhand flick, a backhand roll, a deceptive speed-up, and a decent lob to my arsenal of pickleball weapons-- and the important thing to remember is that pickleball is NOT tennis . . . I started out playing mini-tennis but now I've adapted to the peculiarities of this game (and if you want to see a really peculiar game, check out Padel . . . you can run out the door!) but one of the things I'm doing is hitting the return of serve on the run forward, so I can get to the kitchen line immediately, but I guess that's a lot fo starting and stopping and so my right knee is killing me, hopefully due to "patellofemoral pain syndrome/chondromalacia patella"-- which is what Dr. Morton diagnosed me with back in the summer of 2021, which just means that my kneecap doesn't always stay in the groove and sometimes rubs on the bone and causes arthritis and swelling-- but I'm proud to say that I'm headed to the doctor this morning to get this checked out, instead of reading WebMD for a few days and self-medicating . . . although I did make the mistake of searching "when do you need a knee replacement?" and I definitely check a few of those boxes-- but I'm going to go to the doctor and see what he has to say before I make any big decisions (also, I am NOT a doctor, so there are no decisions for me to make, aside from what stupid thing I'm going to search next on the internet).

Thus Endeth the Birthday

After three weeks of celebrating my wife's birthday, it's time to switch gears (and celebrate Christmas and New Year's) but we had a great turnout for Friday night for some drinking and dancing . . . and it turned out that a couple of the members of the band were Edison teachers, so Cat got a birthday shout out at the Kefi ballroom, and then despite my wife's state of inebriation at the end of the night (and Stacey and Ed's generous offer of a ride home) she wanted to walk back to Highland Park in the snow, because "it would be good for us" and so we made the trek home, slowly but surely, while I offered both moral and physical support (and at least she followed one piece of my advice and she wore sensible shoes, her Dock Martins, instead of heels).

 

These Photos Literally Symbolize the Seasons

 

To commemorate the end of fall and the first day of winter (which is also the shortest day of the year) I offer you two dog photos, one taken a few days ago and one taken this morning-- and while I am not a good photographer, these photos speak to the changing of the seasons despite my general photographic incompetence (but I did attempt some artful cropping!) and the thing to remember is that from here on in, each day will have a little more sunlight-- approximately one minute more-- and soon our fearless leader, Donald Trump, will be inaugurated and he will bravely eliminate Daylight Saving Time and restore this additional sunlight to its proper time and place.

You'd Think We've Have Teleportation By Now

You'd think it would be easy to connect your phone to two Bluetooth speakers at the same time, so they play the same music simultaneously-- or let me phrase that, I thought it would be easy to connect my phone to two Bluetooth speakers at the same time, but I'm not a computer engineer so I don't understand how Bluetooth is designed and the limitations of this technology . . . so I Googled this conundrum and here's the problem:

1. Bluetooth's Client-Server Model: Bluetooth operates on a client-server model where one device (your phone) acts as the client and the other (the speaker) as the server. This means your phone can only establish one active connection with a single speaker at a time.

2. Dual Audio vs. Multipoint: While some devices support "dual audio" (sharing audio with two connected devices simultaneously), this is not the same as playing the same audio on two separate speakers. Dual audio is designed for sharing audio to two different headphones, not for playing the same audio on two different speakers.

3. Bandwidth Limitations: Bluetooth's bandwidth is limited, meaning it can only handle a certain amount of data at a time. When trying to send audio to multiple speakers, the bandwidth might not be sufficient to maintain a high-quality connection to both speakers simultaneously.

4. Latency and Synchronization: Even if you could send audio to multiple speakers simultaneously, there might be a delay in the audio reaching each speaker, leading to a noticeable lag or out-of-sync audio experience.

to which I say: "BOO! Bluetooth, BOO!" which I hope will inspire our computer overlords to fix this issue (and yes I know there's an app-- I tried AmpMe but I couldn't get that to work either-- the only thing that kind of worked was having my wife join my Spotify "Jam" and then she could play the Jam on a different speaker but there was some latency-- the age of my phone may also be contributing to this situation).

Seven Things For Reading

Happy Gheorghemas! . . . you'll have to enjoy a daily dose of my brilliance over there today: Seven Things for Reading.

Some Compromise . . .

Taffy Brodesser-Akner-- author of the modern relationship farce/mystery satire Fleishman is in Trouble-- has a new novel out: Long Island Compromise, which is a compelling family saga (and a satirical look at the wealthy Jewish diaspora of Long Island) and I got a Kindle version for $1.99 on Amazon-- a steal-- in fact, the meaning of the title (which is wonderfully filthy) is worth that price alone.

Am I Special? Or Just Gross? Or Neither?

Does everyone else fling little white specks of food onto the bathroom mirror when they floss their teeth, or just me?

The Medium is the Scooter

Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan said: "the medium is the message" and I think this is particularly true in sports: in the 1930s, the golden age of radio-- baseball, horseracing, and boxing were the most popular sports in America and these were the perfect sports to describe in an audio broadcast-- they are easy enough to narrate, there are slow moments either before or during the action so there's plenty of room for anecdote and description (I grew up listening to Phil Rizzuto tell stories about his barber during Yankee broadcasts) but as televisions got bigger and gained higher and higher definition, basketball and football gained popularity-- these are games where everyone is moving around at once and you need to see the action-- and you can choose where to look-- you can check out the defensive formation, or the blocking scheme, or the guy posting up in the paint-- it's impossible to narrate it all so it lends itself to a visual medium . . . and the internet appears to lend itself to sports gambling and fantasy sports, where people don't even bother with the narrative of an individual game but instead watch clips and short videos and consume statistics-- and TV has tried to keep up with this with the NFL Red Zone and such, which is essentially football coverage on crack . . . and who knows what the next medium will be for consuming sports-- flying your own drone over an event or being in a 3-D VR stadium-- and then who knows what sport this medium will lend itself to-- perhaps croquet will make a comeback.

Looks Like I Love Donald Trump?

 

While I'm not going to start purchasing Donald Trump Commemorative Gold Coins or Donald Trump NFT Trading Cards . . . or Donald Trump Drinkware, Headware, Golf Essentials, Yard Signs, or Candles?-- but I will begrudgingly celebrate him in a bigly way if he actually manages to make good on this particular promise he made on "Truth Social" to eliminate Daylight Saving Time-- honestly, if that were the cornerstone of his campaign platform . . . or of Kamala Harris's platform, that would have been enough to garner my vote-- this is something that can actually happen and could make all of our lives more stable-- plus, while I do think the government should be inspecting our food, incentivizing clean energy, and protecting our wetlands, wildlife, and open spaces, I don't think the government should be meddling with time.

The (Derivative) Art of the Tribute Band (Name)

Last night we saw two tribute bands: Big Foot County (The Grateful Dead) and Run, Rabbit Run (Pink Floyd) at the Kefi Ballroom, the venue that was once the nightclub Perle and has now been refashioned into an excellent live music venue-- something New Brunswick desperately needed once the Court Tavern shut down-- and the sound was superb, the beer was cold, and there were free samples of Timeless marijuana products (you could suck a cloud of vape out of a weird electronic genie bottle with your very own plastic straw . . . because of the strobe lighting, this seemed like something out of Bladerunner) but more interesting than all that is the art of naming your tribute band. . . I like the direction these bands went -- a random lyric-- as opposed to "punny" names like Proxy Music, The Rolling Clones, The Faux Fighters, and Deft Leppard-- those are groaners (although there is a one-man Def Leppard cover band that goes by "Jeff Leppard"-- that's pretty boss) but, for no good reason, I'm slightly more open to all-female tribute band puns, e.g. "Hell's Belles" and "Lez Zeppelin" and "ZZ Topless" but I still think something that takes a moment of thought, like The Crystal Ship (The Doors) or The Rocket Queens (Guns N' Roses) is more hip than a pun (but, of course, tribute bands are not very hip at all-- which begs the questions: when do you give up on your dream of being a famous, unique, and creative musician and dedicate yourself to playing one band's songs? is it when every time your band plays a particular artist, everyone goes nuts and you realize that you sound like them more than you sound like yourself? that's quite an artistic identity conundrum) and I can see the more obscure method of naming your tribute band as a fun bar game-- you say a hypothetical tribute band name and everyone tries to unravel the origin . . . if I were to say "The Lobster Telephones" you'd need to figure out that this is a hypothetical Cult cover band, the name pulled from a lyric in the song "Aphrodisiac Jacket" or if I were to say "The Sandy Crustaceans" then you'd have to surmise that this is a hypothetical Pixies cover band, the name culled from "Wave of Mutilation"-- it's not a game for the faint of heart-- and I should end this rambling discussion with the silliest tribute band name of all-time: Scrantonicity . . . Kevin's Police tribute band in The Office.

The Suburban/American Scream

I never thought I'd finish this new episode of We Defy Augury . . . I was synthesizing together too many books and too many thoughts and I got completely overwhelmed, stuck in the weeds, and gave up-- but then I set the goal of recording at least five minutes of audio a day and I managed to trick myself into conquering the mountain of notes and material I had amassed-- so this is my longest episode, with plenty of tangents and clips and special guests and long-winded bombast, but it is finished, for your listening pleasure: 

"The Suburban/American Scream"

thoughts on the history and future of the American suburbs (loosely) inspired by four books:

1) Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs by Benjamin Herold

2) The Fifties by David Halberstam

3) Outside the Gates of Eden: The Dream of America from Hiroshima to Now by Peter Bacon Hales

4) The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson

Special Guests: Monty Python, Bill Cosby, Rush, Descendents, Bob and Doug McKenzie, Edward Scissorhands, Arcade Fire, Dead Milkmen, Malvina Reynolds, Helen Keller, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Bruce Springsteen, and The Who.

Canine or Cow?

It should be noted that this fearsome creature, our loyal companion Lola-- who spends most of her time guarding us-- would happily be a vegetarian: she loves broccoli, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, and pepper slices and will wait attentively while we are slicing and dicing produce for a salad until she receives a handout.

Let the Kids Have Their Memes

Yesterday in my English 12: Music and the Arts class we finished watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, a provocative film about the nature of art directed by Banksy-- an artistic agent provocateur-- and our discussion about the purpose, value, and definition of compelling art somehow led to the meme with the fiendishly grinning blue Grinch and the caption "that feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow"-- an absurdist bit of humor that makes about as much sense to me as when the students yell "pumpkin!" in class . . . and you could trace the origin of these memes and attempt to understand why Gen Z kids find them funny . . . or you could do what I did and decide to let them alone-- because memes are this generation's punk rock (or hip-hop or alternative rock or math rock or heavy metal or any of the many musical genres that my parents do not understand) and while there really hasn't been a new musical genre that only the youth listens to and understands-- in fact, most kids listen to pop music, rock music, and hip-hop, the same stuff folks my age were listening to when we were teenagers-- so the kids deserve to have their own weird universe of pop culture, that bewildered adults denigrate-- thus if you are over thirty, stop watching TikTok and trying to emulate the youth, and instead, read a fucking book.

Lord of the Flies is Lame (No Tanks)

If you think Lord of the Flies is a bit tame and you want a book where the kids really go bonkers then check out Cixin Liu's Supernova Era . . . a supernova eight light-years away unleashes a pulse of radiation that hits the Earth with delayed but deadly consequence-- leaving only children under thirteen immune to the eventual (9 months or so) chromosomal decay and death-- so as adults face imminent death, they race against time to train the kids to take over the planet-- and then the adults die and the kids act just like kids and utilize none of the wisdom passed to down to them and instead squander time and resources and engage in insane war games in a globally warmed Antarctica and then things get really batshit wild and the book addresses one of the truly unfair things about human life on planet earth-- the fact that where we are born very likely determines our destiny.

Hey Kinesiologists and Tape Experts . . . Does This Shit Really Work?

 

Ages ago, my wife bought some clearance KT Tape and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since-- but yesterday before pickle ball, I decided to give it a whirl and literally "throw some tape" on my sore Achilles tendon, which has been my Achille's heel lately (and please notice and revel in the proper use of apostrophes here . . . normally apostrophe-use is my grammatical Achille's heel but I am trying to remedy this shortcoming) and while I can't say for certain that the tape helped my tender tendon, I also don't think-- in a Hippocratic sense-- it did any harm.

Multiview! Multiview . . .

Today was an exciting day in New Jersey on the YouTube TV multiview-- you could watch the Giants AND the Jets at the same time-- and both games came down to the wire, I was toggling the volume back and forth like a madman . . . and then the Giants blew it-- their chipshot field goal attempt was blocked-- and they were eliminated from the multiview . . . and then the Jets blew it in overtime . . . but it was fun while it lasted.

We Escaped the Room, but My Wife Did Not Escape the Inevitable March of Time

My wife figured out that the best way to celebrate her birthday with larger-sized children (and their smaller-sized girlfriends) is to do an activity-- last year we went to Top Golf-- and this year we navigated a fairly tricky escape room set in a comic shop and the hostess chick said we "crushed it"-- we only needed one clue-- and she said we were fun to watch because we actually cooperated and most families bicker and fight quite a bit-- and then we went and got some thin crust pizza at Frankie Fed's, a very Jersey pizza place where the apostrophe is optional . . . and when we got to Frankie Fed's, we enacted the escape room in reverse-- we circled the restaurant twice, trying every door but not finding our way in -- first we entered the kitchen, then a backroom with a take-out counter, but we finally found the actual entry door, which was obscured by a large Christmas bow.

 

If You Don't Think Everything Sucks, You are the Victim of an Illusion

The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew Bacevich addresses the question asked by Rabbit Angstrom in John Updike's 1990 novel Rabbit at Rest: "Without the Cold War, what's the point in being an American?" and the answer may be an exercise in dark futility because the tenets that we thought were bulletproof and led to us vanquishing Communism haven't turned out to be made of Kevlar:

1) capitalism and globalization come with corruption, inequity, and environmental and social costs;

2) same with the military-industrial complex and all the "forever wars" we are fighting;

3) the rest of the world doesn't think American autonomy and freedom are the bee's knees

and so Bacevich whips through the recent presidents-- Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump-- and explains how they were all deficient to varying degrees . . . but he also points out how the first Trump term wasn't nearly as impactful and catastrophic as the pundits predicted . . . and so the book concludes with the question from the start: "What does it mean to be an American?" and we wonder if being an American has to be different than being a Canadian (or a Belgian or a Malaysian or any other country that doesn't profess to be a shining example of exceptionalism, a City on a Hill) and this may not be a question that is answered in my lifetime . .  we shall see.

Your Achilles Heel is Actually Herculean

I had to cover the track coach on Tuesday at morning basketball-- the match-ups were off because Jeff, the other old man, was out with a strained calf-- and covering this fast youngster involved a lot of backpedaling, consequently, my Achilles tendon was stiff and sore Tuesday night and Wednesday-- and I found great amusement recounting this to my English classes because there is no more literary injury than a sore Achilles heel-- but there is another layer of paradoxical irony to this situation: apparently the Achilles is the strongest tendon in the body, so if Thetis was going to leave any part of her son's body out of the River Styx, the Achilles tendon was a good choice-- and I am hoping that now that I have learned this ironic fact, my Achilles will heal more rapidly than it would have when I thought it was the weakest link in the skeletal-muscular chain.

That's a 2024 Wrap, Spotify Style

It's Spotify Wrapped Day, and nothing is more fascinating than your past self-- last year my number one artist was Waxahatchee and four of my five top songs were from the Waxahatchee album St. Cloud . . . this year, though I would not have guessed this (because I've been listening to a lot of Afropop and jazz lately) I did this obsessive absurdity one better-- my top artist was once again Waxahatchee and all five of my top songs were from Katie Crutchfield's new album, Tiger's Blood . . . I guess I wore that album out last spring (and then we went to see her in the summer) although if you asked me to name my favorite song, I would say "Lone Star Lake" and that was not on the list (which consisted of Right Back to It, 3 Sisters, Evil Spawn, Ice Cold, and Bored) which is kind of strange-- and the other artists in my top five are Ty Segall, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Ezra Collective, and The Smile . . . the first time in a while The Grateful Dead did not make my top five; in other Wrapped news, there was no genre breakdown in this year-- pretty annoying-- especially since I listened to over 39,000 minutes of music and 1,556 artists, so it would be nice to know the breakdown of all that-- perhaps they'll bring that feature back next year.

Dave is No Freddy Krueger

I was discussing "mock-epic" tone with my Creative Writing class this afternoon, which made me recall the first words my wife said to me this morning, just after she had arisen: "I had such a bad dream last night . . ." and I immediately imagined the worst-- murder, mayhem, abduction, forced entry, a high-speed chase-- but then she finished her sentence: "you were a litterbug and you wouldn't stop or listen to me."

Dave Suffers Ridicule and Derision (While Microwaving His Lunch)

When I pulled my lunch out of my cooler today in the English Office, my friend Cunningham was visibly (and audibly) appalled -- normally I eat some sort of delicious homemade meal: leftovers or a fresh salad, occasionally a sandwich-- but today all I had was a Trader Joe's Chicken Burrito Bowl . . . normally Catherine and I do some serious cooking and meal prep on Sunday (more Catherine than me, often) but this Sunday we ate a late lunch/early dinner at Bonefish Grill-- we had to use some gift certificates-- and we had a few drinks and watched the Jets squander another fourth-quarter lead and then we went home and relaxed-- on a Sunday! . . . we were still in Thanksgiving/Birthday weekend mode and so we had cupcakes for dinner and did no meal preparation for the week ahead-- so Cunningham called me "trash" and truly enjoyed disparaging my "TV dinner"-- such judgment!-- even though this bowl was quite delicious; check out the Trader Joe's description:

"seasoned chicken breast, brown rice, red quinoa, black beans, corn, bell peppers, Cheddar cheese... this is a hearty bowl . . . its Southwest style, smoky chipotle sauce marries all of those flavors and textures together and turns a bowl into a meal" 

but I guess because my wife has always set such a high standard and I always bring in great fresh lunches, there's no deviating from this path . . . anyway when I got home from school, I set out to realign the universe and I made a batch of delicious and colorful chili, which is simmering right now in the crockpot-- so chili for dinner, chili for lunch tomorrow, and God help whoever has to cover me tomorrow morning at AM basketball, because this chili contains plenty of garlic, hot peppers, and beans.

What The Substance Lacks in Substance It Makes Up in Boobs (Both Old and Newfangled)

The body-horror film The Substance is most definitely lacking in the substance category: some serious plot holes need to be filled in, especially regarding the shared consciousness between Elisabeth (Demi Moore) and her "better self"-- but stylistically and visually the movie excels and even the editing is grotesque and perversely fun-- there's lots of nudity but it's not very sexy, the female figure is deconstructed under both the male gaze and the female gaze until all those concupiscent curves become splintered and fragmented, somehow unwholesome . . . and then things get really weird . . . eight spinal taps out of ten.