While I don't like the fact that it got THIS hot this quickly, the unseasonably warm weather is great for airing out smelly things, whether furry or footwear.
Let's Never Do the Time Warp Again
I was very happy yesterday, after the Knicks threw up another airball in a messy game against the Lakers, when the announcer blamed Daylight Saving Time for the poor, rhythmless play by both teams.
Time for a Nap
Great weekend: a lot of old friends; a lot of rugby on the telly; a lot of Guinness consumed; a fair amount of Z played; and a fabulous Hoboken get-together.
Meet Us at the Shepherd and the Knucklehead?
Yesterday, after riding a slow local and very full train to Newark Penn, and then a crowded PATH train to Jersey City, I then walked over an hour to a bar with an absurd name in north Hoboken, The Shepherd and the Knucklehead, and despite the crowds on the way, the bar was empty aside from a bunch of knuckleheads watching rugby, and I believe a good time was had by all and we finished a keg of Guiness.
Epic Fury?
I'm not sure why we're calling this coordinated attack on Iran "Epic Fury"-- I thought Iran was epically furious with us-- not the other way around: we don't usually chant "Death to Iran," but the Iranians have certainly embraced the slogan "Death to America."
Trying to Illuminate Things
Today was dark, both weather-wise and literacy-wise . . . it was one of those days in class when you're fairly sure that nobody has read what they were supposed to read, or if they did read it, they didn't comprehend it-- and so you have to retreat and start from square one (also, I learned today that high school do not know about the Abu Ghraib prison travesty . . . so I explained it to them, because that knowledge might be relevant again: the dire costs and consequences of attempting a regime change in the Middle East and then determining how to treat various detainees).
I Did Not Know There Would Be Costumes
Dave: The Master
I am the master at cooking blackened salmon in a cast-iron pan: I coat the filets with melted butter and then I sprinkle a mixture of blackening spices and brown sugar onto the buttered fish (and the sugar and spices stick because of the butter) and then I cook the salmon, skin side down, in a blackening pan until the temperature is about 100°F, and then I place the salmon, still in the blackening pan, under the broiler for about three minutes, until the brown sugar/blackening mixture caramelizes with the butter . . . it's so good even my son Ian eats it, and he doesn't really like fish-- and our dog also loves when I cook this meal, because she loves to eat the charred skin.
The Good Doctor and I Celebrate Yet Another (Rhyming) Birthday
Dr. Seuss and his cat-- they knew some good tricks--
They made a big mess for rainy-day kicks.
Thing One and Thing Two ran wild-- yikes!
Like my two boys when they were young tykes.
Then the Cat in the Hat-- he cleaned up the mess--
with his high-tech machine, with panache and finesse.
But now Seuss is dead, and my kids are old.
They are tall and mature; they cannot be controlled.
Time is a force that we just cannot fix . . .
Seuss is long gone, and I'm fifty-six.
Lesson Learned
Last night, I drank four good beers, and we ate a bunch of delicious fried fish (black cod) and fried coconut shrimp at Wu's Fish House in the wild and chaotic H-Mart Plaza in Edison, and today my stomach is pretty sketchy, and I have a Cross Club Pickleball Match at 2 PM . . . but at least-- if the unspeakable happens-- we are all wearing black shorts.
Resilience
After gently digging it out, my bamboo—which was buried underneath two feet of snow-- has sprung back to life.
Look Before You Drink
You should look before you leap, and you should also look before you drink out of a cup in the bathroom in the middle of the night-- which I did not do last night (because I was being considerate and didn't want to wake my sleeping wife . . . but she was NOT considerate, and so I ended up drinking from a cup containing her floss pick . . . yuck).
Seniors . . . The End Is Nigh
A student that I know quite well was taking forever on a quiz, and so I said to him, jokingly, "Okay, Nico, finish it up . . . take your D like a man," and while I meant "D" as in a poor grade, he interpreted it another, much filthier way-- which I immediately realized and said, "or C-, you know what I meant," but it was still pretty funny (almost as funny as moments before, when Nico's friend Frankie shoved two apple slices into his ears, and instead of chastising him, I said, "What are you listening to, Apples in Stereo?" but of course, no one appreciated that joke because they had never heard of The Apples in Stereo-- and you just can't explain that kind of thing) and these are my seniors in February . . . what's going to happen in June?
Dave: Still Learning Stuff?
My students did presentations today about works of art that tackle "the establishment" or a particular system-- racism, colonialism, authoritarianism, capitalism, ageism, sexism, etcetera-- and so from one group I learned that Lababus are the quintessential symbol of rampant consumerism-- they are a collectible "ugly-cute" doll that you buy in a mystery blind box, and there are various rare and secret designs, fueling overconsumption wiht a sociopathic social media marketing campaign . . . and if you don't want to spring for an actual Labubu, then you can buy an ersatz version, a "Lafufu."
Pretty Good Day (Post Blizzard)
Most excellent snow day: did all the shoveling yesterday, and the roads were clear this morning, so I played pickleball and then met my wife and son Alex for lunch-- and tomorrow is already Wednesday!
Spring Break!
Judging by the table on my deck, we got more snow during this storm than we did during the last storm (the top photo is the last storm; the bottom is this one) but shoveling out of this one is more pleasant because it's not as frigid as it was during the last storm-- and we have another day off tomorrow, so I'm trying to enjoy myself . . . since we didn't budget any snow days, this is ostensibly our spring break . . . and I'd be able to enjoy myself more if my wife had told me she was going to the beer store on Sunday-- she bought herself some Asbury Park Blonde, but she did not buy me any Asbury Park Stout (we only drink beer that represents our physical characteristics, thus I can't have any of her Blonde and she does not drink my Stout).
AI . . . So Intelligent But So Artificial
I spent nearly two hours this morning uploading images and prompting various AI models in an attempt to make a podcast logo-- I can't show you the logo yet because then I'd have to kill you, the podcast is still in the secret development phase-- but I was astounded by how powerful and also totally noncompliant and incompetent AI image-generation is-- I might have been able to do the task faster on my own (but probably not as well) but the inability of the AI to make things bigger or centered or parallel is wild-- the AI can come up with some pretty fantastic ideas but tweaking them is very very difficult . . . in fact, I might show a real artist what the AI came up with and let them have at it.
Three Things Dave Can't Avoid, So He'll Kill Two Birds With One Stone (But Not Three Birds)
Three things I can't avoid: death, taxes, and this impending snowstorm-- so I guess I'll do my taxes on Monday (because we're not going to have school) but I hope there's not so much snow that I die!
I Can't Explain What I'm Doing, But I Know I'm the Best
If there's one thing I know how to do better than my wife-- and perhaps everyone else in the world-- it's loading the dishwasher —there's an art to it . . . all the dirty plates, bowls, containers, and cutlery need to get maximum exposure to the streaming jets of water.
Finally, a Country Song to Which I Can Relate
My friend posted this in the English teacher group chat, and it worked-- I listened to it at the gym while on the rowing machine, and once the song was over, I immediately left the gym, went home, and poured myself cold one.
Five! That's Three, Sir.
We only have a three-day school week because of Presidents' Day and Lunar New Year, but because of the elasticity and relativity of time, this day feels 66.6 percent longer than a typical school day.
Almost on the Button
My wife-- who loves to distort idioms into new phrases that often make better sense than the original-- read the weather forecast and noticed that high winds were predicted, and so she remarked "button down the hatches," and I said "it's batten, not button . . . batten down the hatches," and then we had to check exactly what a batten is:
a batten is a long, flat strip of wood or metal, used to secure something in place . . . such as the hatch on a sailboat.
(Don't) Send Help
The best part about Send Help-- a gory, over-the-top Sam Raimi survival thriller-- is that frumpy, nerdy Linda from accounting, played by Rachel McAdams, slowly becomes Regina George-- or an unhinged, even more deranged version of that character . . . and I should point out, before I incur her wrath, that it's actually Linda from Strategy and Planning.
Buggin' Out with Bugonia
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons give riveting performances in the wacky Yorgos Lanthimos film Bugonia-- you won't be able to turn away; they are both eminently watchable-- but beware: the ending is insane, and while it might be a delusion or a dream, there are no clues to separate the surreal finale from reality . . . enjoy!
Schrödinger's Swordfish
Today, in preparation for a Valentine's Day dinner with my wife, I went to Archar Seafood in Somerset and bought some very expensive swordfish (the last time we got swordfish from there, it was exceptional) and placed it on the back driver-side seat and drove home, and then when I pulled into the driveway, I grabbed my gym bag and went into the house-- and I should point out that it was warm today, a balmy 46 degrees-- and then, when I was in the kitchen-- miracle of all miracles-- I remembered that I left the fish in the car, that I put it onto the back seat, and so I went out and retrieved it, no harm, no foul . . . but I came very close to turning that pricey swordfish steak into a warm, bacteria-laden, rotten mess, which would have ruined both dinner and the smell of my (relatively) odor-free car . . . but who knows how the mind works-- it's truly a black box, sometimes remembering things at the right time, sometimes minutes later, sometimes the next morning, and sometimes not at all.
A Gift More Meta Than the Matrix
Since I teach high school, I rarely get gifts from students-- occasionally, because of my last name, a kid gives me some sort of pelican totem (which I find pretty weird-- I've had students named "Bella" but I've had no desire to give them a bell . . . although this drawing of me AS a pelican is sick) and if I do get a gift, it's usually a Dunkin' Donuts gift card-- but a kid surprised me today with one of the best (and weirdest) gift I've ever received: an ink stamp-- made by VistaPrint-- which, when pressed, emblazons-- in black ink-- "David Approved" AND a picture of me as Cypher from the Matrix . . . he stumbled upon this picture of me as Cypher on this blog, and he found it highly amusing and thus made this stamp-- so now if something is REALLY REALLY good, but only then, I'll give it this bizarre stamp of approval.
But How Do You Run a Hotel?
My wife and I finished the first season of The Night Manager-- and while the show certainly delivers John le Carré-style espionage, corruption, and intrigue, it is also a bit of a bait-and-switch: Jonathan Pine spends a surprisingly short amount of time as a hotel night manager, and we learn very little of the inner workings of room booking, room service, room rotation, the effects of working the night shift, how to deal with unruly guests, noise complaints, soused folks at the bar, etcetera-- because it doesn't take long before Pine switches from late-night hotelier to undercover spy, infiltrating the inner circle of a ruthless arms dealer . . . so if you're looking for a show that actually teaches you how to run a hotel, my loyal fans have suggested Fawlty Towers and Schitt's Creek.
The Mailman Bringeth the Shame
I had a generally lovely day off today . . . until this afternoon: I went and got an X-ray on my knee (including the extra-special "sunrise" view) so that I can get approved for the gel shots, and-- miraculously-- I was in and out of the radiology place in fifteen minutes; so then I went to the gym; then I picked up my son Alex in New Brunswick and we got some lunch-- he's an absurd figure because he burned himself with kitchen oil on his left hand: his hand is all bandaged up with gauze, so it's gigantic, a lollipop and he can't really wear a jacket because he can't get his hand through the sleeve and he also can't put the hand down because his fingers hurt, so he just holds it up at an angle while he's talking to you, which is disconcerting until you get used to it-- but he was still able to eat sushi with his right hand (though he's lefty) but no chopsticks-- and then I took a long nap and woke up refreshed and did some work on my top secret audio project and then I took my dog for a walk on the snowfields at the park, and you can actually walk now because the snow has softened up-- so a wonderful day-- UNTIL I opened our PSE&G bill and was properly chastised: we spent $64 more on electricity than the average household in our area and we've spent $1,119 more on electricity this year than the most energy-efficient household in our area-- so obviously, all our computer use and space heaters and Ian's massive stereo and computer and the bathroom electric baseboard heater are eating up a lot of current-- but mainly I want to punch those energy-efficient fuckers for making me feel guilty.
It's All Relative?
It's a balmy 36 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I suppose I'll take my dog for a walk on the ice fields in the park.
If Only My Right Knee Felt as Mediocre as My Left Knee
Another visit to Dr. Navia (and yet another cute young intern) for my right knee, which has been hurting pretty much whenever I'm not moving, so now I am headed for an X-ray on Wednesday, and then as soon as our insurance sees the X-ray and approves them, some hyaluronic acid gel shots that will hopefully lubricate this fucked up, worn out, overused leg hinge that I rely on for important and essential activities, e.g. basketball, soccer, snowboarding, and pickleball.
The Best Place to Be a Regular
We braved the cold with our old friends Mel, Ed, Rob, and Julie in Princeton yesterday: after lunch, we explored the recently opened Princeton University Art Museum-- Princeton University has always had an incredible art collection, but it was crammed into a smaller building-- but now everything is on display in an enormous 146,000-square-foot modernist building with 32 galleries stocked with incredibly art and history, Monet's "Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge" and a Manet and a Pisarro and a Van Gogh and a Rodin and an unfinished studio version of Jaques-Louis David's "The Death of Socrates" and several detailed Roman mosaics from Antioch, Turkey and much ancient ceramics and sculpture . . . and it's free! you just wander in! and then we went over to the newly renovated Triumph Brewery, which has the nicest lounge and the best jazz around (and the beer is great too) and we also noticed that Princeton did a much better job with snow removal and street and sidewalk shoveling than New Brunswick (and especially the no man's land between Highland Park and New Brunswick . . . Princeton, that's where the money is . . . and the endowment money . . . 36 billion dollars of it).
Not the Best Place to Be a Regular
My son Alex, who lives with his girlfriend in a studio apartment in New Brunswick, burned his hands with cooking oil while cleaning up last night, so my wife drove him and Ava to the ER-- once again-- Alex forgot his wallet, but because he is a "regular" there, they had all his information-- and while the burns aren't too bad, and they wrapped both his hands in gauze and told him he should be better in a day or two, there were some weird happenings . . . the ER doctor used the cream that Alex brought with him from his last cooking burn, which seems odd: sort of like a BYOB restaurant, this was BYOM hospital? and then, once Alex had been treated, my wife had to drive the two of them fifteen minutes to the 24-hour Walgreens in East Brunswick to get medicine because the pharmacy in the hospital was closed? this makes no sense-- what if you didn't have a car?-- and shouldn't you be able to get the medicine you need at the hospital in the city and not have to drive out to the suburbs? our health care system is byzantine.
Dave is Put on the Spot and Answers the Ultimate Question (with a Question)
I was reviewing the structure of a synthesis body paragraph in my College Writing class, and I told them they really needed to explain the connection between the different texts, between the different sources they are using to support their argument-- because kids like to just say "similarly" and leave it at that-- and so I reminded them to look at the sample paragraph that I wrote and how it took me 25-plus words to get from one text to the next:
"The Citadel, a self-designated military academy once known for violent hazing traditions, followed a similar historical pattern, adopting a system that seems absurd from the outside but resists mitigation"
and one of my most diligent students, who loves to pepper me with questions, asked, "Well, which words should I use?" and this struck me as a funny thing to ask, because that's essentially the ultimate question not only in English class but also in life-- I said to her, "Use the best words to say what you need to say . . . think of it this way: maybe you're going to ask a special someone on a date for Valentine's Day . . . which words should you use to ask them out? . . . I don't know the answer to that; every situation is different-- you just have to try some words and see if they work!"
Although . . . There Are a Lot of Days Off in December
February . . . the best month if you get paid bimonthly, because it has fewer days, and therefore, you get paid more per hour!
Over the (Metaphorical) Hump
Today was our last midterm, and tomorrow begins the third quarter, so though it seems we are in the dead of winter and there is no end to school in sight, if you think of the school year as a work week we are "over the hump" -- and I do indeed thinko f the school year as a work week-- so therefore we are trudging through the snow towards Spring Break, which represents Thursday night (and when I was hiking around th epark yesterday witht he dog, literally trudging through the snow, I realized that what I needed were a pair of snow shoes).
Definitely NOT the Bee's Knees
My right knee hurts-- pretty much all the time-- so either the cortisone shot has worn off, or the cold weather has made my synovial fluid less viscous and thus less able to lubricate my knee joint . . . but whatever the reason, my knee has been hurting, and it does hurt and I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt in the future-- whether I'm exercising or not exercising, sedentary or walking, on naproxen or off naproxen-- and especially when I'm driving-- so I think I have to suck it up and get the gel shots.
Dave Gets It Done in the (Relatively) Balmy Weather
I didn't have to proctor any midterms today-- which is a wonderful day to take off from school because you don't have to leave any plans-- and I am proud to say that I've had a fairly productive day, here are the things I've ALREADY accomplished . . . and it's only 3:30 PM:
1) I went to TWO, count them, TWO grocery stores— SuperFresh for cheap produce and ShopRite for everything else, including some weird shit that my wife requested: protein pancake mix? coconut water coffee creamer?
2) I got some audio recorded for my top secret audio project;
3) I took Lola, who was going stir crazy, for a hike in the Ecological Preserve-- I now realize the key is to drive her to wherever we want to walk; she can't walk on the salt-covered roads-- the salt, or whatever chemical is used to melt the ice-- lowers the temperature of water below freezing and then it gets into her paws, even if they are waxed, and makes them hurt (plus I heard from a couple people that when your dog licks this stuff off their paws, it can give them the liquid squirting shits)
4) I shoveled off our back porch and liberated our grill from a snowbank;
5) I went to FedEx and shipped my son's broken laptop somewhere for reapirs;
6) I took a nap;
7) I made lunch instead of going out for food because . . .
8) I've started Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece, Stalingrad, and I was trying to read the paperback, but the font is too small, so instead of getting a massage today or going out to lunch, I treated myself and bought the Kindle version of the book so I can enlarge the font . . . this is a good book to read in the cold weather, but not the paperback version (which is all the library had).
Crokinole!
Last night, I introduced the Canadian game "crokinole" to some friends, and while much fun was had by all, there was also some complaints of finger soreness and lack of flicking power, which kind of boggled my mind-- but I guess I've been training my pointer finger for over a month and now it's got crokinole strength . . . which I'm taking for granted.
The Dog Days of Winter
My dog Lola is growing bored-- this cold snap has prevented her from walking the trails, paths, and sidewalks, and she hasn't visited the dog park in over a week . . . and on the one hand, she's catching her frisbee again and playing tug-of-war, activities which she abandoned in her middle age, so it's fun to resume them, but on the other hand, she's obsessed with eating the frozen rabbit feces in our backyard (which are, oddly, identical in shape, size, and color to dog treats) so I'm really looking forward to when it gets into the thrities next week and we can go for a hike again without her paws freezing (even Musher's Secret wax doesn't work when it's near zero!).
Miraculous Coincidental Serendipity Does NOT Save Dave Ten Dollars
So it turns out that I DO have the powers of precognitive vocifery and psionic verbal manifestation because when Brady, Strachan, and I were out walking the other day, and we had to dodge a couple of snowplows, and I said: "We'd better be careful we don't get Jeremy Rennered" and then we got back to the school and I noticed that my ID was gone and I said: "I'll bet it got Jeremy Rennered" and it turns out that a college student found my ID on the side of the road while he was sledding and, looking at the state of it, the ID certainly got Jeremy Rennered . . . and, both because it looks to be irreparable and because I already called in the lost ID, I still had to go to the Board Office and pay ten dollars and pick up my new one.
Old Man, New Shit . . .
Not only did I lose my ID and scan-in card yesterday, which caused me difficulty getting in and out of the building and making photocopies (although it shouldn't have caused me so much difficulty making photocopies-- apparently I could have typed my school ID number into the copier, and it would have released and printed my files but I didn't learn this until I had walked back-and-forth from my classroom to the copy room several times) but I also dealt with a new disciplinary issue-- which is saying something because I thought I had dealt with it all-- but I have a student with long dreadlocks, which he likes to hang like a curtain in front of his face and eyes, Cousin It's style—and then sleep in class-- and after months of repeatedly waking him up, I finally got annoyed enough to write him up-- because he slept through a lockdown drill—and then we got into a debate about whether he was allowed to cover his eyes with his hair-- his perspective was "it's my hair," and my perspective was: I need to see your eyes to see if you're sleeping or not and that's why we have a no-hat rule and sometimes you have to deal with hair, such as in shop class you need to tie it back-- and though he complied yesterday and moved his hair out of his face but I have a feeling this is going to be contentious . . . we shall see.
Dave's School ID Does a Jeremy Renner
On "A" days, I usually walk outside during my off period with a couple of other English teachers, and though it was cold today, we decided to brave the elements and get some steps in-- we walked out the back gate and into the neighborhood and hiked through the icy and slushy suburban streets, avoiding several snowplows (we discussed Jeremy Renner's snowplow mishap while doing this) and then, once we made it back into the warmth of the school, I noticed that I lost my school ID and swipe card . . . it must have slipped off my body while we were walking, and I did NOT retrace my steps and try to find it (it probably met a similar fate to Jeremy Renner) so my reward for getting some fresh air is going to be a trip to the Board Office and a ten dollar fee.
Thanks! For Blowing People Up and Perpetuating the Human Race, So We Have More People to Blow Up!
I'm nearly finished with Patrick Ryan's small-town Ohio saga, Buckeye-- and the book features both harrowing tales from WWII and harrowing tales of pregnancy and child-rearing . . . so perhaps we should say "thank you for your service" to both soldiers and moms.
Hey Trump, We're Throwing the Red Flag
A sad and ironic state of affairs: when there is a questionable play during a professional football game, the NFL has a comprehensive Instant Replay Policy, with extensive protocols in place for various scenarios-- and this includes a replay Command Center in New York, with rules experts at the ready-- the goal being to be objective and make the correct call; but when ICE agents shot citizens in Minneapolis (e.g. Renee Good and Alex Pretti) and there was plenty of controversial footage damning the agents involved, the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge the possibility that the film needs review and instead prefers to create a subjective version of reality . . . football fans wouldn't stand for this kind of irrational behavior from a referee but when an FBI supervisor tried to investigate Renee Good's execution, she ended up resigning-- apparently, that film will never go to the Booth for review.
A Cold Day in Jersey is a Temperate Day in Minnesota
It's freezing cold here, and we got slammed with snow all day, but after three shoveling sessions, we have removed most of it-- the only problem is that now (because New Jersey sucks) it's sleeting or something and it's supposed to continue for hours, and it's 14 degrees-- so we're not going back to school for a couple days . . . but it's all relative: I'm drinking hot coffee, there's chili in the crockpot, we haven't lost power yet (fingers crossed) and there's football on TV, so it could be worse . . . I could be in Minneapolis, protesting in the freezing cold, because our government has become a dystopian shitshow.
Crokinole , Primetime
My wife and I were watching the wonderful Australian show Colin from Accounts, and Gordon and Gene were having some incomprehensible, awkward conversation that we couldn't quite parse because of the Aussie accent, but then we realized that they were saying "crokinole," the fantastic Canadian game that I bought our household for Christmas-- apparently, the game is growing more popular by the minute!
Little Girl With a Big Voice
Last night's "battle of the bands' was very entertaining, but I did not realize that part of the responsibility of judging the contest was that I had to offer feedback to the bands after each song, American Idol style-- luckily, though there were three judges, I was the first to speak each time so I could grab the low hanging fruit and comment on it . . . and while all the bands were talented and fun, it wasn't really a contest, because the sophomore who was on The Voice had assembled an incredible band and she can REALLY sing, she just belted out her songs-- including Toto's "Hold the Line"-- very impressive, so much sound coming out of a little kid!
The Opera Isn't Over Until Dave Says a Bunch of Annoying Shit
I am judging a "battle of the bands" tonight at my high school, and apparently, there is a rubric to help us judge each band, but as the official English 12: Music and the Arts teacher, I feel it might be necessary to point out to whoever is running this event that musical taste is extremely subjective and depends upon how you perceive and value certain musical elements-- such as rhythm, melody, lyrics, authenticity, and timbre-- I'm all about timbre . . . but someone else might not value timbre the way I value timbre-- and then there's is how much novelty you can tolerate-- Ornette Coleman's free jazz isn't for everyone-- so in a sense it's almost impossible to judge music from a variety of genres-- you've got a better chance of making a qualified aesthetic assessment if you are only focusing on one particular genre: prog rock or hip-hop or boom-bap or UK trap . . . but I'm probably just going to keep my mouth shut and just check off the boxes.
Looming Precipative Dread
How can I concentrate on writing a sentence when an impending cataclysmic snowpocalypse is headed our way?-- especially when my wife's district budgeted ZERO snow days into the Edison school calendar (someone needs to tell her school board that the mandatory SEC warning applies for winter weather as well as stocks: past performance is not indicative of future results) and so she will most certainly lose days off her Spring Break-- and my district budgeted one measly snow day . . . I'll go out on a limb here (out on an icicle) and predict we will have three days off due to this storm . . . and it's not even February.
Headlines Fit for the Onion (If Only They Were Fictitious)
I don't know whether to laugh or cry lately when I read the Times . . . absurdity is hard to reckon with-- but I'm going to record a few actual updates and headlines for posterity:
Six Prosecutors Quit Over Push to Investigate ICE Shooting Victim's Widow
U.S. Stocks and Bonds Fall as Trump Ramps Up His Threats Over Greenland
Trump Wanted a Nobel, Now It's Greenland
and, of course, the only fitting place for our dickweed of a POTUS in Greenland . . . unemployed.
Teenagers, They're (Coco) Nuts
Last Tuesday night, just before bed-- after a long day of fitness: I played basketball in the morning and then went to PT for my hamstring in the afternoon-- I suffered something new, a hamstring cramp-- I've had calf cramps in the night, but never a hamstring cramp-- it was a painful and frightening two minutes-- and when I told my senior English this news, two bros, Frankie and Nico-- a wrestler and a weight-lifter-- insisted that I needed to drink Vita Coco coconut water because it contains lots of potassium and keeps you from cramping-- and I always like to take the advice of teenagers, more for the humor than the sagacity, so I bought a bottle and drank some today before playing pickleball and I am going to give those two students a firm talking-to because Vita Coco is disgusting in both consistency and flavor (and I love coconut) so I guess I'll have to stick to eating bananas (and this incident, as zman cleverly pointed out, is nearly a mirror image of a previous, rather awkward moment of Dave).
Picaresque Pairing
We finished a picaresque TV show last night-- The Lowdown-- which is about Lee Raybon, a rogue journalist (played in masterful Lebowski-esque fashion by Ethan Hawke) who tries to uncover the sordid truth about Tulsa . . . and I just finished a picaresque novel today-- Tim O'Brien's America Fantastica, which is also about a journalist, but a washed-up, ruined compulsive liar of a journalist, who travels through conspiratorial America, trying to make sense of nothing, O'Brien narrating the tale in the manner of Charles Portis, hurtling from one location to the next, one character to the next, in broadly derisive but always entertaining absurdist satire.
Hot and Cold
Saturday night, my son left the oven baking at 450 degrees all night-- he heated up some late-night pizza and then forgot to turn it off, so I awoke to a very warm kitchen (but luckily, the house did not burn down) and then two days ago, my wife came downstairs for breakfast, and it was freezing cold-- because my son left the sliding door open all night . . . perhaps his next mistake will make things just right.
Magical Micrographia
We Exist in an Afterthought
Today, after we watched a TED Talk about how bad architecture has ruined American cities, suburbs, and public spaces, I took my students on a "field trip" the the English Office, the cramped, claustrophobic, cluttered, and windowless space designated for the twenty English and Special Ed teachers that live upstairs in our high school to eat, socialize, plan, and rest between teaching class-- it's truly a soulless and ugly space and the fact that some paid adult with an architectural degree actually designed this space as an office for teachers is mind-boggling and very sad.
Out of My Depth
After attending morning basketball for the first time in a few weeks (the steroid shot in my knee seems ot be working) I am covering a Senior Health class today-- a number of students and teachers are out of school because the service for the student that got shot and killed is in Paterson today-- and I'm not sure if I could actyually teach this class with a straight face: there's a handout on the teacher's desk and the first words on it are "fetus" and "semen" and the kids are doing some project about contraception-- my only advice was that children are very expensive, especially if they drive a car or go to college.
Quite a Monday
Today was a long and emotionally taxing day at school—but there were emotional support dogs.
Ugly Monday Looming . . .
Not looking forward to going to school tomorrow: apparently, an East Brunswick senior was shot and killed yesterday by another teenager in Sayreville-- it's going to be a sad day, not sure how the seniors are going to react to this.
To Prepare, I Took a Long Nap
My friend is having a 60th birthday party tonight, and it starts at 8 PM . . . that's nearly past my bedtime, and I'm only 55!
Some Good TV
Some high-quality TV recommendations:
1) if you're looking for something dark and artsy (and filmed in Italy in beautifully rendered black and white) and you don't want a ton of unnecessarily loud special effects (e.g., Stranger Things), then check out Andrew Scott as Ripley;
2) if you're looking for a different kind of alien apocalypse and some phenomenal acting from Rhea Seehorn, check out Pluribus;
3) if you love The Big Lebowski, then check out Ethan Hawke playing a shambolic character loosely based on the Tulsa citizen journalist Lee Roy Chapman in The Lowdown.
GoldiDave
As I get older, I like the cold less and less-- I used to love it, but now it makes my knee ache and my body stiff-- but because it was unseasonably warm today and our school building's heating system is ancient and defective, the English Office was HOT . . . roasting hot, hot enough that we were sweating while eating lunch-- and thusly I remembered that I don't like the heat either . . . I'm only happy when the temperature is just right.
Poem of Dave
When I get old and pass away,
this is all I want them to say:
there was a guy named Dave
and he wrote a sentence every single fucking day.
Dave Mans Up in Front of the Ladies
I'm hoping that this doesn't become more frequent than an annual tradition, but I once again went to the sports medicine doctor-- Dr. Navia-- and (once again) she said that the best way to fix my knee was to stick a giant needle in it, full of some kind of steroid (cortisone? I didn't ask) and once again, she had an intern with her-- and while Dr. Navia is young, her intern appeared much younger-- childlike, a female Doogie Howser-- and, on a positive note, things were better than last winter, when my knee was full of fluid and also needed to be drained-- this time, I was more proactive-- and (once again) because it was two young ladies diagnosing me, I agreed to let them stick a large needle in my knee (I didn't want to look like a coward in front of them, but I think if it were a dude, I would have passed) and then Dr. Navia asked if it would be okay for the intern to administer the giant needle, and while my brain was saying "NO!" my mouth said, "sure," and then they talked some shop about where to stick this big needle-- I'm not sure if the intern ever did this before-- and my hands were sweating, as I gripped the examination table, and I looked at the wall instead of at the big needle-- but they numbed me up pretty good, so all I felt was a bunch of pressure-- not all that much shooting pain-- and then it was over and I limped back to the car and went home and fell asleep early and then woke up in the middle of the night, totally amped and hyper-- that's one of the side effects of getting a steroid injection-- but miraculously, today my knee feels great and I can run again and I'll be playing pickleball this Friday and basketball next week . . . so it looks like a I won't need gel shots for a couple of years, unless I really fuck it up.
Elite Summer Camp, Elite Apartment Building . . . Same Difference
Liz Moore's fantastic novel The God of the Woods is both an excellent thriller and a multi-generational family saga; it feels a bit like a Donna Tartt novel-- although not quite as expansive-- and has something in common with another book I read recently and loved: The Doorman by Chris Pavone-- in both there is the conflict and collaboration between social classes, especially the relationship between the uber-rich and the service industry class that often caters to these privileged rich folk . . . here's what Judy, a female state police investigator-- a real rarity in the 1970s—thinks about the dynamic between these two classes of people:
What will she do now, wonders Judy, if the Hewitts lose the camp? If the Van Laars cut them out entirely, as they’ll no doubt do, snapping the thin thread that has stretched for decades between the Hewitts and Peter the First? And she answers her question herself: They’ll be fine. The Hewitts—like Judy, like Louise Donnadieu, like Denny Hayes, even—don’t need to rely on anyone but themselves. It’s the Van Laars, and families like them, who have always depended on others.
anyway, The Doorman and The God of the Woods are the two best novels I've read in quite a while, chekc them out . . . I've got to head to the sports medicine doctor to get my knee checked out.
But He Deserved It . . .
Yesterday, in the YMCA locker room, an older guy next to me was whistling Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"-- the chorus AND the verse-- and I'm proud to say that I did not punch him in the face.
Do Dogs Understand Phase Transition?
Yesterday, in an attempt to get some vitamin D and dispel the cold and dark winter blues, my wife and I tried to take a hike at the Rutgers Ecological Preserve-- but the trail was coated in a layer of ice covered by a dusting of snow: it was way too slippery to traverse hills and navigate cliffs-- and so we changed plans and drove over to the Raritan Canal Path, which runs between the river and tow road; we figured even if it was icy, at least the trail is flat-- but there is a small hill at the start of the trail, which leads down to where the first lock used to be-- now it's a stone dam-- and the hill was a sheet of ice, so I let Lola off her leash so she wouldn't pull me over and further destroy my bad knee and she hurtled down the hill and onto the thin ice covering the canal and promptly fell through the ice-- but luckily she managed to get her front paws on the stone of the dam and I quickly skated and slid my way down the hill and pulled her out of the freezing water before she fell all the way in . . . though it all happened very quickly, it was a hairy couple of moments where we thought she might plunge under the ice, never to be seen again-- but she was lucky and hopefully learned her lesson about thin ice (though I did keep her on the leash for the rest of the walk).
Capitalism Undone . . . by Mutants
To kick off 2026, I finished yet another Clifford D. Simak classic sci-fi novel, Ring Around the Sun, and this one is full of big ideas: pristine parallel earths; mutant humans--who may or may not know they are mutants; telepathy with alien races; corporeal temporal stasis; consciousness transfers-- it's too much for one book (from 1952!) but it is mainly a story of scarcity and abundance and how to break our capitalist, materialist consumer society with "forever" products engineered by mutant humans and imported from various parallel earths, to break the supply-and-demand system and allow humans to progress to something transcendent-- but at what cost, at what cost?
There's More to Life Than Table Tennis, Right?
My wife and I rang in the New Year with a trip to the Rutgers Cinema to see Marty Supreme, which was a highly entertaining way to start 2026-- the film is packed with fast-paced dialogue, chaotic action scenes, and plenty of scams and hustles, plus a concatenation of Safdie-style bad decisions . . . and as a bonus, the table tennis feels authentic (although not as authentic as this clip of the actual Marty Reisman defeating Victor Barna in 1949) and though most of the movie is a wild and messy ride, the story has a lovely resolution and moral: there's more to life than table tennis.
2025 Book List
1) The Birdwatcher by William Shaw
2) Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
3) IQ by Joe Ide
4) Save Our Souls: The True Story of A Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder by Matthew Pearl
5) The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
6) Never Tell by Lisa Gardner
7) The Loom of Time: Between Anarchy and Empire, from the Mediterranean to China by Robert Kaplan
8) The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
9) The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
10) Dry Bones (Longmire #11) by Craig Johnson
11) The Getaway by Jim Thompson
12) Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
13) Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
14) A Hell of a Woman by Jim Thompson
15) Mastodonia by Clifford D. Simak
16) Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
17) Lexicon by Max Barry
18) Pure Innocent Fun by Ira Madison III
19) Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman
20) The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties by Paul Collier
21) Hang On, St. Christopher by Adrian McKinty
22) Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough
23) The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
24) The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
25) Gringos by Charles Portis
26) Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
27) Red Chameleon by Stuart M. Kaminsky
28) A Taste for Death by PD James
29) The Trespasser by Tana French
30) Broken Harbor by Tana French
31) King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
32) Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz
33) The Secret Place by Tana French
34) The Likeness by Tana French
35) Hot Money by Dick Francis
36) The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces by Seth Harp
37) A True History of the United States by Daniel A. Sjursen
38) Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
39) Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
40) Harold by Stephen Wright
41) The Hunter by Tana French
42) Facing East From Indian Country
43) One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
44) Time and Again by Clifford Simak
45) The Time Traders by Andre Norton
46) Starter Villain by John Scalzi
47) The Doorman by Chris Pavone
And a few mammoth non-fiction books that I've been reading all year on my Kindle, which I hope to finish in 2026. . .
Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900-1914 by Philip Blom
The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New by Peter Watson
Forgotten Continent: A History of New Latin America by Michael Reid
Back From Philly with the Goods
We are back from Philly, with to-go sandwiches from Reading Terminal (including roasted pork with sharp provolone, peppers, and greens from DiNic's-- my favorite sandwich in Philly) and while I couldn't walk as much as normal while we were there because my knee probably needs THIS again-- yuck-- we still made it out last night-- we went to Double Knot for happy hour drinks, sushi, bao buns, and dumplings-- there was a line to get in at 4 PM and then we stopped at McGillin's Olde (VERY OLD!) Ale House for a couple of O'Hara's, but now I have my knee raised up on pillows, hoping that will stop the swelling, and I will be taking it easy for the rest of winter break.
Crullers, Calder, and Cheesesteaks
Typical day in Philly: donuts from the Amish bakery at Reading Terminal Market, a visit to the new Calder Sculpture Garden and Museum, a cheesesteak at Shay's, and then we retreated to Stacey's apartment so I could rest my stupid swollen knee; last night, we enjoyed dumplings at Emei and beer at Love City Brewing, where we watched the Eagles eke out a victory over the Bills . . . there's nothing like a Philly bar during an Eagles game (even if you're secretly rooting for Buffalo to take it into overtime).
The Stupor Bowl?
I thought of an apt name for today's Giants vs. Raiders game-- both teams sport a 2-13 record-- and so I came up with "Stupor Bowl" but apparently that name is spoken for, and The Stupor Bowl is "an infamous, annual underground bicycle messenger race in Minneapolis, held the day before the NFL's Super Bowl, known for its drinking checkpoints and scavenger hunt format, combining speed with endurance and liver training" and it is real, very real.
The Weather is Winning . . .
The cold weather, my swollen knee, the crusty snow, and the lack of sunlight-- these have put me into hibernation mode-- and even coffee is losing its ability to knock me out of it.
Best For Last . . .
I am assuming Chris Pavone's The Doorman will be the last book I finish in 2025, and it was my favorite-- a thriller with plenty of social, racial, and class commentary; the novel's center is a working-class doorman (Chicky) with working-class problems, and his interactions with the very, very rich residents of the fancy Upper East Side apartment where he works-- and they have very, very rich problems-- and all the problems collide into a wonderfully stressful mess: this book feels like a tightly plotted modern version of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, with some Richard Price NYC tone thrown in for good measure-- definitely worth reading.
Crokinole Christmas!
My wife and I had a lovely Christmas Eve with the boys and Ian's girlfriend Kyla-- my wife made chicken cordon bleu and some fantastic mac and cheese-- and the evening was made even more lovely by my impulse Christmas purchase of a crokinole board-- I broke it out on Christmas Eve, and I don't know how we've lived our lives without this classic Canadian game of masterful flicking and dexterity-- while the board is a bit large, I'm even thinking of bringing it to my mom's house for Christmas Day-- while there were certainly many other fabulous gifts given and recieved today, crokinole might actually be one for the ages.
Like Old Times . . . But Older
Yesterday, Ian and I picked up Alex in New Brunswick, we ate some cheesesteaks, and then we all went to the YMCA and played some three-on-three hoops-- my two sons and I against some youngsters (one of whom was very tall and could dunk with ease)— and even though Ian was out of practice and cramping and I am old, Alex was able to pour in a bunch of three-pointers and mid-range jumpers and we beat the seventeen-year-old several games in a row (after I bested my children in a game of 21, due to some excellent free throw shooting) but today does not seem like old times for me . . . it just seems like I am old because my knee hurts (although the boys went back to the Y and played more basketball, but I had to lift weights and ride the bike . . . boo for old age).
The Truth Doesn't Always Sound Good
I made a musical trivia quiz today for my Music and the Arts class and part of the quiz was about which artists were popular in each decade, and I learned that the artists that sold the most albums in the 1990s were not the artists I thought were popular at the time (aside from Nirvana) because I thought everyone was listening to Pearl Jam and The Pixies and Soundgarden and 2Pac and Biggie and the Wu Tang Clan and Rage Against the Machine and Weezer and Radiohead and Beck and Jane's Addiction and Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and the Beastie Boys and the Chili Peppers and Smashing Pumpkins but I was in my twenties and demographically skewed . . . here's the actual top ten selling artists of the 1990s:
Céline DionMariah Carey
Garth Brooks
Whitney Houston
Nirvana
Michael Jackson
Metallica
Backstreet Boys
Shania Twain
Madonna.
Trump = Don Quixote?
Donald Trump-- in one of his most deranged moves to date-- continues his quixotic battle against windmills, halting five developing wind farms off the East Coast and essentially, according to the New York Times, "gutting the industry" and vaporizing ten thousand jobs and jeopardizing billions of dollars in investments . . . Trump cites fabricated "national security concerns" as the reason for ending these green energy projects, which were supposed to power 2.5 million homes and will instead reduce the efficiency of the electrical grid and make us more reliant on traditional (and expensive) energy sources . . . what is wrong with this man, and why isn't anyone in our government standing up to him?
(Slightly) Brighter Days Ahead
Today is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and thus the darkest fucking day of the year . . . but tomorrow we will have a couple more seconds of sunlight and by January-- and this has something to do with the tilt of the earth and angles and lag time and ellipses . . . way above my pay grade-- we'll be gaining two minutes of sunlight each day . . . which will be fantastic because when it's dark like this, I want to go to bed at 7 PM.
Follow the Link For the Recs . . .
I did my usual "Seven Books for Reading" post over at Gheorghe: The Blog today . . . if you're looking for a good book, check it out.
Not Following Directions (Because They Are Insane)
Does anyone actually:
1) rinse and drain quinoa thoroughly in cold water before cooking?
2) determine doneness by the visible germ ring on the outside edge of the grain?
because these are the specific instructions on the back of TRADER JOE'S Organic Tricolor Quinoa, and while I like to follow food hygiene instructions and recommendations--
1) quinoa grains are much too tiny to rinse in a colander-- they would go through the holes!
2) quinoa grains are way too small to examine in such a precise manner;
so WTF?
Enough With the Time Wars . . .
I'm not sure how-- serendipity, I guess-- but I just finished another sci-fi book written in the 1950s that details a war being waged throughout time . . . this one, The Time Traders, by Andre Norton, is much faster-paced than Simak's Time and Again-- although it features an American rehabilitation prison/time traveller program, a hostile advanced alien race and the Russians, and everyone is at odds with one another, this is really more of a Bell Beaker-era (2000 B.C.) survival tale, with some interesting anthropological details (and a bunch of sci-fi action) and the usual cautionary lesson, that when you fuck with the past, things are going to get ugly-- but with the additional idea that there may have been great technological wonders in the past, whether alien-made or human-made, that were lost in the haze of the millenia-- modern humans have only been around for 300,000 years . . . in the millions and millions of years of life on earth, advanced technologies could have risen and decayed and left no trace (although this is highly unlikely-- they probably woudl have left some chemical fingerprint or isotopic anomaly).
Dave "Works" From Home
I decided to give working from home a try today-- I've got a cold, and I'm losing my voice, so I didn't feel up to inspiring the youth to write without "help" from AI . . . despite my illness, I did sweep, vacuum, and mop the floors and I cleaned three bathrooms, but no matter how much you clean the floor, there's still dog hair-- it's very resilient stuff.
Even With Some Help, I Don't Think Our Brains Will Ever Work This Well
Time and Again is more profound and serious than most of the Clifford Simak books I've read (Mastodonia, They Walked Like Men, The Goblin Reservation, City) and while the book has some fun sci-fi tropes-- a war throughout time, androids that can chemically reproduce vying for human rights-- it also has that 1950s transcendent evolutionary vibe that seems naive today . . . the idea that humans will eventually, possibly with the help of alien intelligence, become something mentally more, something psionic and telepathic and revolutionary . . . and maybe I'm being pessimistic and thispsychological transcendence is possible, but I'm more of the feeling that the huan race is going to be perpetually stupid until we exterminate ourselves.
Are People Actually Working at Home?
Despite the cold and the ice and the preponderance of delayed openings in the surrounding counties, Middlesex County schools did NOT have a delay this morning-- so I'd like to send a big FU out to anyone who "works from home."
Ignoring the Unspeakable
Today was an apt day to finish Omar El Akkad's book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (a title which reminds me of a book I read about the Rwanda genocide called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families) since the news is filled with unspeakable gun violence and mass shootings-- which Americans will be ignoring soon enough-- Akkad wants people to stop looking away from the horror, especially the horror in Gaza, perpetrated by what he views as the ugly business of imperialism, supported by the U.S. military industrial complex, political machinery, and media . . . here's a passage from the end that gives an idea of his tone:
One day there will be no more looking away. Looking away from climate disaster, from the last rabid takings of extractive capitalism, from the killing of the newly stateless. One day it will become impossible to accept the assurances of the same moderates who will say with great conviction: Yes the air has turned sour and yes the storms have grown beyond categorization and yes the fires and the floods have made life a wild careen from one disaster to the next and yes millions die from the heat alone and entire species are swept into extinction daily and the colonized are driven from their land and the refugees die in droves on the border of the unsated side of the planet and yes supply chains are beginning to come apart and yes soon enough it will come to our doorstep, even our doorstep n the last coded bastion of the very civilized world, when one day we turn on the tap and nothing comes out and we visit the grocery store and the shelves are empty and we must finally face the reality of it but until then, until that very last moment, it's important to understand that this really is the best way of doing things. One day it will be unacceptable in the polite liberal circles of the West, not to acknowledge all the innocent people killed in that long-ago unpleasantness.
it is rough stuff and an especially controversial topic around my area because we have both a sizeable Jewish and Muslim population, there are people on both sides of this issue, and I don't see any resolution other than more violence, suppression, terrorism, displacement, starvation, military incursions, explosions, and horror.
More War
Another dark episode of We Defy Augury . . . some thoughts (loosely) inspired by Daniel A. Sjursen's book "A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism" -- I got so bogged down in the shit in this one that I've decided to take a break and perhaps pursue a different idea for a podcast-- because I really don't want to make an episode based on the book I'm reading now, Omar El Akkad's indictment about the liberal media and governmental response to the Israel/Palestine conflict One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This . . . his point, that the logical, moral position is not halfway between the right and the left-- as they are both ignoring reality-- and the center is as morally repugnant in it's policy and more milquetoast and unfocused, especially when atrocities are being committed and a people are being displaced and destroyed . . . I'm about two-thirds of the way through and I don't see a happy ending to this story, now or in the future.
If You're Getting Up Early, You Might As Well Shoot the Ball
While I normally avoid Route 18-- it has been under construction for years-- I will sometimes gamble and take it when I'm playing early morning basketball, as there's less traffic at 6:15 AM-- but today, instead of lane closures, the entire road was closed and so I arrived at basketball late and angry and had to sit the first game-- but this did give me time to warm up, and either the extra shooting practice or my road rage inspired me and I made my first five shots, all three pointers-- so five in a row for the fifty-five year old-- which made the youngsters very excited . . . but they also started switching off and covering me very tightly . . . so I took a couple more NBA range shots, which oddly, went long, perhaps because I've been ingesting creatine and I'm super jacked-- but whatever, it's quite fun to have the hot-hand once in a while.
Trump: Making China Even Greater
I'm not sure I fully understand all the layers of irony and absurdity in the latest economic news, but Trump seems to be offering American farmers (particularly soybean farmers) a 12 billion dollar bailout because they have been adversely affected by his unilateral implementation of tariffs-- especially on China, which used to buy U.S. soybeans-- so we're using taxpayer money generated by the tariffs, which decreased exports, to bail-out the farmers-- who will have to store the soybeans or sell them at a deep discount-- creating market instability and the need for government assistance; meanwhile, China has found other suppliers and has also made its way into other markets, partially fueled by the absence of the United States in these markets because of Trump's tariffs-- so China has increased its trade surplus by over twenty percent, to the tune of a trillion dollars . . . meanwhile the United States is running its usual trade deficit (which doesn't seem to be influenced in any particular way by tariffs and has to do with other economic forces) and apparently many large businesses have been absorbing the costs of the tariffs but come January there may be cost increases to reflect this . . . this is all above my pay grade but it seems to me we should want China to be buying stuff from us-- such as soybeans-- but I also understand that globalization has its costs (thus, our populist president) but I think the genie is out of the bottle and it's too late to turn back the clock, so we want to be as involved in the global market as we can be . . . but what the fuck do I know, I'm just a dog (sometimes, for an extra treat, Dave has me write his blog).
Everyone Got Some Help
After listening to many episodes of Andrew Hickey's "History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" and reading a fair amount about the influences and origins of Shakespeare's plays, one thing is clear: art is collaboration, often with the people who came before you (even if you don't want to give them any credit).
Youth . . . It's Determined by When You Were Born
Today, one of the morning basketball players said to me: "You're a veteran teacher . . . when did you start teaching?" and I said, "1995? 1994?" and he said, "OK, that's two years before I was born-- so how has teaching changed since then?" and I gave him a rather long-winded answer, which involved living through the digital revolution, starting out with books and paper, ending with computers, on and on and on-- and by the end of my answer, I was ready to retire (but instead I went to my Music and the Arts Class and told them they needed to have more arguable points in their essays—they were being very hesitant to offer their opinions, so I told them, "look, we're not talking about abortion or politics, it's just music" and then we read Carl Wilson's essay "Celine Dion and Me" and I had all the students write some music on the board that would thoroughly embarrass them if other people heard them actively listening to this particular music-- like if they were blasting it out their car windows-- and we all had a good time . . . although several kids wrote 100 Gecs, and I love 100 Gecs—but I still wasn't offended because it's only music).
Heading Out to the Park
Singing "walking the dog, walking the dog" to the tune of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" makes taking my dog out in the frigid weather slightly more bearable.
I Live in a "High Brow" Town!
Highland Park (and my buddy Craig) recently made Fox News-- because Highland Park High School has a "Socialist Club"-- but the best thing about the utterly pointless article isn't that my town is full of radical liberals (although it IS the most liberal town in Middlesex County, yet we still have Turning Point USA Club . . . you can't prohibit a school club for political reasons) but the best part is that our town is referred to as "well-to-do" and "high brow"-- which is absurd, considering close to 40 percent of the school students are on free-and-reduced lunch and our grocery store isn't a Wegman's or a Kings or a Whole Foods or even a Trader Joe's, it's a SuperFresh (nor do we have a Wawa or a 7-11, we have a Fresh Mart) but it's still very nice of Fox News to inflate the worth of our real estate . . . thanks!
Ardnakelty: Things Behind Things Behind Things
In Tana French's thriller, The Hunter, the rural Irish mountain town of Ardnakelty reminds me of the newish Bon Iver tune "Things Behind Things Behind Things"-- and retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper is pulled farther and farther into these rings within rings (this is the second book in the series, the first is The Searcher) and you know what happens once you get pulled in, it's tough to reach escape velocity; an evocative, slow-burn about how gossip and history and small-town mores can sometimes fuel animosity, violence, and worse (and I believe I have now read the complete of ouvre of French, who many conisder our greatest living mystery writer . . . I think I am one of them).
Carbage
After lunch, I walked out to my car because I knew I had some gum there, but when I reached into my little gum pouch, I realized that the thing I felt was a used piece of gum that I had stashed there and never tossed out, not a fresh piece, which was both gross and disappointing.
Common Nothing
Years ago, I would give my students on "life quizzes"-- little fun tests on facts that most of society considered common knowledge . . . and I remember they would always struggle with the boiling point of water (in Fahrenheit) and I could understand why-- 212 is not the most memorable number-- but I recently learned that now the vast majority of high school students also do not know the freezing point of water . . . they were in the ballpark with their guesses, which usually ranged from 16-30 degrees but only about a quarter of them knew that it was exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit-- so perhaps they are quietly quitting the American system of measurements and adopting the metric system?
Very Short and Cheap Field Trip
Today in my English 12: Music and the Arts class, the kids were diligently reading and taking notes on a chapter from Susan Roger's excellent book on the formation of musical taste, This Is What It Sounds Like: What The Music You Love Says About You, when a student raised her hand and said, "Spotify Wrapped came out today . . . can we get our phones out and look at it? This is a music class!" and I thought for a moment and overcame my aversion to ever letting the children touch their cell-phones and said, "Sure" and we grabbed our phones and went outside into the freezing cold-- because Spotify is blocked on the wifi inside the building and we don't really get cell reception inside (unless you are close to a window) and we stood in the brisk winter air and shared our favorite genres (Jazz Funk for me) and our favorite artists and and our most listened to songs and all that and it was a lovely five-minute field trip (until we all got very cold and went back inside to watch the morning announcements).
Sage Advice from Ferris Bueller and Hamlet
It's twenty years to the day since my youngest brother passed away-- this time frame is shocking to me, but as Ferris Bueller reminds us: "Life goes pretty fast, if you don't slow down and look around once in a while, you could miss it"-- so here's to slowing down and enjoying the time we have, and as Hamlet reminds us (after he survives his pirate adventure and prepares to duel Laertes) sometimes we can't slow things down, they become impending and inevitable so "the readiness is all"-- we don't know what life will throw at us, or when things will happen, so all we can do is enjoy the good times and be prepared for the worst.
Right Back To It
We now enter the three-week slog before Winter Break-- and while some of us teachers might not make it until the end and will end up crying under our desks, broken and despondent, amidst piles of ungraded essays, I am determined to give it the ol' college try and try to teach through these dark days with energy and alacrity-- but today was rough, I attended the 7 A.M. early morning faculty meeting (to avoid staying after school) and then planned and graded my ass off during my prep, essentially became a game-show host second period for a spirited lyric-fill-in game, and then taught Creative Writing mock-epic tone and fairy tale tropes so they could have some fun writing a story, and then went back to grading synthesis essays during my study hall duty . . . my back hurts, my eyes hurt, my brain hurts . . . and that's only day one.
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