Jamming Econo

The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner, is in a class of its own; it is a history of economic thought from medieval times through Keynes and Schumpeter and it includes all the greats-- Adam Smith , Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill and the Utopians (which is a great name for a band) David Ricardo, Thorstein Veblen, Karl Marx and crew-- and Heilbroner has done all the reading, so for each man, he presents you with an overview, a few entertaining and telling anecdotes, some pithy quotations, and a logical summary of their theory and how accurate it was . . . and his conclusion is that all these men were prescient and discovered something new about the economic workings of their own world and were able to predict into the near future, but as times and technology changed, their theories fell by the wayside (David Ricardo and globalization) and Heilbroner wonders if it will ever be possible to make such predictions again, as he sees the world now as a combination of economics and politics that is well near impossible to unravel.

Some People LIKE to Drive

Daniel H. Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us certainly explains this blog and Gheorghe and Greasetruck; it summarizes the counter-intuitive evidence that we are not motivated by greater extrinsic rewards (these kinds of rewards are addictive, counter-productive, and are essentially a dead end) but instead we are driven by the intrinsic value of what we are doing . . . and he cites numerous examples of how people will work harder on something they choose over something they are paid to do . . . it's easy enough to see this through the passion people have for their hobbies-- runners don't consider running "work," people do crossword puzzles for fun, and I don't consider writing this blog a job (it took me a year to realize the pun on "sentence of dave") so then the book tackles the tougher problem of how to make work and school more like an avocation than a vocation: Steve Martin, in Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner says, "It's fine when your hobbies get in the way of work, but when they get in the way of each other, that's a problem."

5/8/10

Once in a while I get focused and read an entire book in one day, but it's got to be an easy read with a nice font and some pictures, and Nancy G. Heller's slender book Why a Painting is Like a Pizza: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Modern Art fit the bill-- it sheds some light on Mondrian and those ridiculous white canvasses and weird installations and Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living) and though I don't buy everything she says, it's a nice tour through post-modernism: one urinal out of a possible fish.

If It's So Stupid, Then Why Did I Have A Nightmare?

Paranormal Activity is very Blair Witch and I will say this: it is scary-- it even made me a have a nightmare, but as a movie it's kind of repetitive and the characters are even more illogical than most archetypal horror movie characters (typical thought process: Hey! I heard something growling upstairs . . . let's go check it out! without any sort of weapon . . . while holding this camera) and the movie ends predictably and rather lamely (unlike the The Blair Witch Project, which has one of the best endings in cinema history) so if you're in the mood to sit tensely, it's fine, but it's not going to leave you with much to think about: four Ouija boards out of five (I used Ouija Boards because I wanted to see if I could spell "Ouija" correctly and I did!)

5/6/10

Someone brought in a bunch of cheesecake on Friday, and I didn't want to each a bunch of cheesecake and Stacy didn't want to eat a bunch of cheesecake . . . so Stacy gave me twenty dollars to hold, and if she ate any cheesecake, then I wouldn't return it, and I gave her twenty dollars and the deal was the same, but then we thought we'd better involve an unbiased third party . . . so we gave the money to Liz to hold in escrow, and it worked like a charm-- neither of us caved-- and it appears to be a brilliant strategy for eating healthy . . . unless, of course, you do break down and eat a slice of cheesecake, because then you're not going to pay twenty dollars for one slice, so to cut your losses you'll probably go berserk and eat five slices of cheesecake so that they only cost you four dollars per slice.

I Cave to Peer Pressure

I could never imagine that people would be so rabid about something as mundane as sinus irrigation, but when I was suffering some sinus problems last week, I had a wide variety of people-- teachers, students, old, young, male female-- recommend the Neti Pot, which is a little magical lamp that you fill with water mixed with a packet of salt and other magical stuff, and then you insert the bulb of the lamp into your nostril, lean over the sink, and pour . . . and like magic, water pours out your other nostril, after circulating through your brain and cleaning out your synapses-- and it worked, it actually worked!

The #1 Benefit to Growing Old

One of the few nice things about growing old is that my feet don't smell as bad as they did when I was a kid . . . but maybe that's because my sense of smell is deteriorating.

5/3/10

A good day skim-boarding at the beach for young and old on Saturday: Alex had his first real success, he's now strong enough to chuck the board and brave enough to jump on it with both feet-- he was "in the zone" for over an hour until the tide got to low-- and my recently rehabilitated knee (the knee cap popped out of the groove while playing soccer) held up as well, and a high school kid with a much cooler skim-board than me and a wet-suit gave me some pointers and told me I needed a much larger board (he did not add "because you are fat" . . . he was very polite).

The Netflix Team Tackles A Difficult Project

I'm slightly embarrassed that this was the movie that I had the "Netflix team" working their damnedest on so that I could receive it in a timely manner . . . perhaps if it was an obscure Jean-Luc Godard film I wouldn't feel so bad . . . but I am trying to develop an appreciation of our neighbors to the North, so I need access to the great works of Canadian culture:

"Dear David,

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day was not available from your local shipping center; fortunately, it was available from a shipping center in another part of the country; it's on its way and should arrive within 3 to 5 days; you'll notice we also sent the next available DVD from your Queue to enjoy while Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day makes its way to you--

The Netflix Team."

5/1/10

Somalian extremist dilemma: do the pros of banning the bra outweigh the cons of banning music?

Ask Mom . . . Cinema Edition

I recently saw two relatively difficult kids' movies: Oceans, which is a visual treat (especially the blanket octopus and the night- time feeding scenes) but contains no real story or theme . . . and my kids have obviously taken after their father in the theater-- they feel everyone around them is entitled to their thoughts (that is definitely a lobster, definitely . . . that fish is poisonous, I know it is . . . that's a great white shark . . . that's a black tip shark . . . that's a hammerhead shark . . . that's a lantern fish . . . etc.) and we also saw Where the Wild Things Are, which is quite symbolic and way over my head, but I did recognize that the movie had something to do with emotions (and the monsters' faces are especially expressive) and if you need more explanation, you can ask my wife, who actually got everything . . . but Alex, Ian and I were a little lost.

4/28/10

Whether you blog about it or not, history (and stupidity) repeats itself; last night I lay awake wondering if I was itchy because I had come in contact with poison ivy, but then I remembered something I had recently written, something I had written just three months ago, something concise and informative: "Note to self-- penicillin gives me a rash"-- apparently, though I wrote this note to my self, I didn't actually take note of it, and now I've got blotches on my arms and legs (I was going to deal with the itching and keep taking the penicillin just to avoid making phone calls to the dentist and pharmacy, but my wife said that was ridiculous and so I'm picking up an alternative on my way home.)

4/27/10

Apparently, the evolutionary trait "do whatever the fuck you want even if it's asinine and dangerous" is more useful to a young boy's survival than the trait "respond when your name is called."

4/26/10

The boys and I spent Rutgers Day on College Avenue instead of going over to Ag Field Day, and I highly recommend this if you hate crowds and like shade-- we packed so many free events into four and a half hours that both kids fell asleep in the jogging stroller on the walk home: the highlight was a stage fighting demonstration conducted by some energetic and "angry" Mason Gross students, but they didn't do it on a stage, they did it on the lawn outside of the GSE, so though there was no "objective correlative" to the scene, it looked more realistic because of the setting-- it was ostensibly a clown fight, but then some stooges in the crowd dressed in civilian clothes-- a guy and his girlfriend, which made it even better-- started brawling as well, and a guy died from a knife wound six inches away from Alex, and during the whole fight Alex and Ian kept saying, "Now they're really fighting . . . I think this is real now . . . this isn't fake anymore . . . those clowns are fake, but those two, that is real, TOTALLY real."

4/25/10

Sunday 5:51 AM: Ian yells, "I need you to wipe my butt!"

4/24/10

I don't think I actually need to define this, your imagination will serve you better, but here is a new word . . . perhaps you can try to work it into conversation this week: entertaintment.

4/23/10

We shouldn't have found this so amazing, and the fact that we did is a clear illustration of how technology has fragmented our culture: my friend Stacey and I both thought it was the coolest thing when we realized that we both watched the Tyson documentary on the same night at the same time . . . remember when this was always the case?

4/22/10

Alex, who just turned six, is onto us: at dinner the other night he slanted his eyes and gave my wife his most skeptical look and said, "How did the tooth fairy know to bring me money last night, there was no tooth under my pillow because I dropped it down the water fountain at school and the only person I told was you . . . unless the tooth fairy is you!" and then he planned a stake-out with Ian to verify that the tooth-fairy exists . . . the death of Santa is next.

I Can See This (Sort Of)

One of my students bravely revealed that when she was young, she thought that the disc-shaped jellyfish that often wash up on the Jersey Shore were breast implants.

The Styrofoam Glider and the Miracle Punt

The next installment in a series of daring arboreal adventures: you might remember last year when I pulled a a giant limb down with a football tied to a rope (I included the photo if you've forgotten) and now, once again, I have conquered another neighborhood tree-- this time (ironically just after we watched a Peanuts episode about the Wright Brothers, in which, as usual, Charlie Brown has a mishap with a kite) we were flying a giant Styrofoam glider and after Alex and Ian took a few turns, I wanted to show them how far I could throw it, so I wound up and winged it, just as the wind gusted, and it shot straight up and into the limbs of a tall sweet gum tree, sixty feet up (we were launching from a hill) but I brought the soccer ball to the park and, after twenty tries or so, I punted it loose . . . but then it got stuck in the same tree in nearly the same spot the next day, but miraculously, the next morning, it fell to the ground, unharmed, and though we finally broke it yesterday, we certainly got our seven dollars worth.