Emo Can Be Funny

A student told me this joke last week: 

"How many emo kids does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Who cares, let them cry in the dark,"

and I laughed, but I'm still not sure what exactly defines "emo," and if you ask, you get answers like this Wikipedia article: i.e. rambling, imprecise, and always mentioning the band Dashboard Confessional and the sub-genre "screamo" . . . but I suppose this is excellent for jokes, because if you can't define "emo," then it is fair game to make fun of it and use it as the butt of a joke because no one will claim to be offended by the term-- but if anyone has a concise definition, please share.

My Son Alex Explains His Consciousness

My six year old son Alex called me "Mave" the other day-- Mave is a girl in his class that also played on our soccer team-- and then explained his error in a Joycean monologue: "I have all these names smooshed together up there . . . kids in my class and kids at school and kids from soccer all up front, and you and mom in the back, and whichever one is next just spills out."

Graphs, Maps, and Trees! Oh My!

Franco Moretti's book Graphs, Maps, and Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History takes a novel approach to literary criticism: instead of analyzing individual novels, he looks at genres as a whole and uses charts and graphs like these to illustrate his points . . . one of his more interesting charts show the development of clues in detective fiction and how this trait was revolutionary and evolutionary in its birth, growth, competition, and survival, but what interests me is another evolutionary metaphor he uses; he mentions Richard Dawkins' idea that "there are many ways of being alive, but many more ways of being dead" and Moretti shows this with detective fiction and those authors that couldn't figure out how to create and place "decodable" clues in their stories-- these stories became "extinct," and this brings me to my worries about this blog: there are more ways for a blog to die than there are for a blog to flourish, but perhaps if I pursue what Moretti calls the "third voice," that voice that is "intermediate and almost neutral in tone between character and narrator: the composed, slightly resigned voice of the well-socialized individual," then perhaps, against the better judgment of the Narrator, who often wonders what comprises the actual aim of his writing, but wishes to remain artistically and intellectually active, and wishes to fend off early-onset Alzheimer's, boredom, ennui and malaise, and so continues this semi-literary foray in the backwaters of the internet, come hell or high water, critical commentary, and even-- worst of all-- total silence, then perhaps the Narrator will be able to forge ahead into unknown realms, one sentence at a time.

Diane Ravitch Speaks About Education

This Diane Ravitch lecture is rather long and dry (like Diane Ravitch's excellent and comprehensive book, The Life and Death of the Great American School System, which I summarize here) but she summarily refutes the claims of Governor Christie's favorite documentary, Waiting for Superman, and she exposes some of the myths behind data based teacher evaluations, charter schools, No Child Left Behind, unions, market-driven school reform, and tenure . . . I highly recommend the book, but if you don't care enough about our nation's educational system to read an entire book-- which I completely understand, because it's almost Black Friday and you probably need to start reading the circulars-- then you can use this clip (she starts speaking ten minutes in) as a guide, albeit an ersatz one.

I Act In The Same Manner As My Six Year Old Son

I recently reported how my fanged son (he lost his two front teeth) gets distracted any time he sees a reflective surface because he is fascinated with his own image, and now I must inform you that I am equally narcissistic: mysteriously, we found Webcams in our classrooms last week, and once the neighboring teacher showed me how to use mine, I became obsessed with it: I used it to check my nose for boogers during class (always a concern of educators) and I used it to create "infinity" by pointing it at the monitor and then placed parts of my fingers and face in the infinite regression of screens and then, once the kids left, I took out my guitar, strapped it on, and pointed the camera in such a way that I could see my hands and my face, and then played for while mesmerized by how my hands moved on the guitar's neck and how my facial expressions corresponded to what I was playing.

Gran Torino: This Is How The Engine Runs

The characters in Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino are unrealistic caricatures-- Walt's grand-kids are overly obnoxious, his children are calloused and cold, the gangsters are insensibly cruel, and his neighbors are extraordinarily foreign-- and while I questioned the realism at times during the movie, I now realize the exaggerated characterization is intentional: these people make you just as angry as Walt, which is the purpose of the film, because then you start to feel like Clint Eastwood and want to be tough like Clint Eastwood, because there's no other way to be in a world that is so hard and mean . . . and the movie moves like clockwork, or more like a train-wreck, there's no stopping or pausing, but upon reflection, when it's over, and you hear Clint Eastwood's voice singing the final song, and you remember that Clint Eastwood is 81 years old and has been acting, directing, composing, and producing film for more years than most of us have been alive, and you start to wonder: is Clint Eastwood really that tough? . . . can he really use tools? . . . can he actually fix a sink? . . . can he stare down gangsters a quarter his age? . . . and you realize that though the answer is probably "no" to all of these, it doesn't matter because he looks the part (especially on Blu-ray!) and so I give this film nine push lawn-mowers out of a possible ten.

I See The Future and It Is Yellow

Ian had a couple of night-time peeing accidents just before our trip to Washington D.C.-- he is a very sound sleeper-- and we were worried that after a long day of sight-seeing, he would be unable to wake up to urinate and thus cause major grief with the hotel staff, so we convinced him to wear a pull-up diaper at night . . . I told him that even some adults need to wear diapers and this logic worked like a charm . . . in fact he repeated this to Alex several times, "Even some grown-ups wear diapers!" and he put his diaper on without resistance or shame . . . and this worries me: fifteen years in the future he'll be the one suggesting to his friends that they have a "Depends Party."

Sometimes It Is Good To Vent Your Anger

I skimmed this insane article and it seems that Play Doh really is non-toxic and edible (although there is a petroleum based lubricant in it . . . it could also serve as a laxative) and so I am wondering why  Hasbro makes the Play Doh container more difficult to open than a bottle of Percocet; I have strong guitar playing fingers and the colorful plastic tops still cut a deep ravine into my calloused fingers . . . so how are my children ever supposed to be ever to take initiative and become sculptors if they can't open the containers? . . . and while I am on this theme: why did Didier Boursin write a book for children titled Origami Paper Airplanes which-- if you would like to comprehend the instructions and actually complete one of the airplanes-- requires that you have a PhD in geometry and an extensive technical vocabulary (including the understanding of such terms as "mountain fold" and "water-bomb base" and "pleat fold") when he knew it was going to be placed in a elementary school library? . . . I think it might be easier to let my kids play with matches.

Another Awkward Moment in A Long Line of Them

As a teacher, you hope that you are forewarned certain things about your students, or else incidents like this and this are going to happen; one of the things that requires a warning is if your student has a twin . . . but I was not warned, and so when I saw one of my particularly clever students on the stairway, and was excited that she had coincidentally used the word "anthropomorphize" in her essay-- because this was a word that came up in class that day and she was the only student who knew what it meant-- I yelled this non sequitur to her: "Anthropomorphize! You used it in your essay! That's funny!" but I did not realize that this was NOT my student, but her twin (because, as smart as my student is, she did not warn me she has a twin, so I blame her for this awkward moment) and so her twin gave me a weird look of non-recognition-- a look that said, "Why are you yelling sesquipedalian words at me, creeper?" and then she gave me the cold shoulder and continued up the stairs . . . but we sorted it out later in the day and now I am on my guard for doppelgangers.

I Apologize to Educators Everywhere . . . But Honestly, What Do You Expect From A Greasetruck Song?

Apparently, biology teachers are showing my animated video "Amoeba Love" in class, thinking it's a cute way to illustrate binary fission, but-- unfortunately for them-- they get a "priceless" surprise at "00:27" . . . and though I know it's not people at my school showing this (Thank God) because we can't stream YouTube videos, I would still like to apologize to all the other educators who were surprised by the direction the song goes (warning! completely inoffensive cartoon depiction of genitalia!) but you have to understand the kind of mental place I was in when I animated this song: it was a snow day and both my children were napping and I had only two hours to record a song and animate the corresponding video and, to my chagrin, in the days previous I had come to the frank realization that I was not going to be a great animator, despite learning to use some pirated animation software, because I can't draw, and so I decided that the only subject I could animate was an amoeba . . . and now things have come to their logical end, my amoeba video has asexually reproduced its digital footprint on the internet and returned to visit me in a place I never expected: my profession . . . and in the end, I think any discomfort I have caused to our nation's biology teachers is probably outweighed by the joy I have given to countless students (and judging by the comments, this has happened more than once, and in more than one classroom . . . for more on this, visit Gheorghe: The Blog).

Bonus: Daryl Bem Owes My Fraternity A Citation!

If you are interested in scientific studies on clairvoyance and a stunning revelation on the true origins of the "genius" Daryl Bem's supposedly seminal paranormal experimentation, head over to my post at Gheorghe: The Blog.

We Convince Ourselves That We Are Improving

My adult league soccer team remained undefeated after a hard fought 1-1 tie on last Monday night, and we convinced ourselves that we were improving with every game, but we all know that this is a bald-faced lie and that any improvement in play pales in comparison to the looming unstoppable juggernaut of our collective ages . . . old age is advancing upon us like a glacier that may occasionally recede a foot or two, but then inexorably slides forward, cold and massive, destroying all in its path, tearing up trees, moving mountains, carving holes into the earth, pushing a moraine of boulders, dead trees and stone and grinding the green and youth from our bones; the team felt the glacier Wednesday night, when we finally lost our first game to a younger and faster team (but I was in Washington D.C., so there is a certain satisfaction, despite the loss, that I wasn't there and therefore, was not to blame . . . or, in another sense, was to blame since perhaps we needed me there to win . . . either way, I am still undefeated, even if the team is not).

It's Hard To Get Angry When I Would Do The Same Thing

My six year old son Alex recently lost his two front teeth and while this has caused him no problems at meal-time (he can still eat an apple) we have run into an unexpected distraction; unlike Count Dracula, our fanged child can see his reflection, and it amuses him so much that if he catches a glimpse of himself in anything reflective-- tinted glass on the Metro, the window across from him at the dinner table, a store mirror, the side of a polished car-- then he starts laughing demonically and making various vampirical faces until we drag him away.

Arcimboldo is the Winner!

During our whirlwind four day tour of Washington DC, our kids walked us into the ground: we visited the Baltimore Aquarium, The Lincoln Memorial, The Air-Space Museum, The Museum of the American Indian (best cafeteria on The Mall!), The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Smithsonian Castle, The Museum of Natural History, The National Geographic Museum, The National Zoo and the Washington National Cathedral, but our favorite thing might have been a serendipitously discovered exhibit of "surrealist" Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo's major works in the National Gallery; he was the official portraitist of Maximilian II, despite the fact that his portraits are totally bizarre amalgamations of objects piled together as visual puns . . . they are completely arresting, and our family favorite, Water, is both a Renaissance bestiary of fish and sea life, as well as a surreal collection of puns weirder than any Dali painting.

Comment Away . . . You Might Become Slightly Famous

I was poking around the software that monitors visitors that come to this blog, and I noticed that several people had googled the words "residual glee" and ended up at Sentence of Dave, but I did not remember writing those words and it turns out I didn't write those words-- my friend Eric (who is an award winning writer) wrote those words in a comment, and somehow that comment became the top search entry on Google for the phrase "residual glee," and although this only lasted for a few hours, it's still weird to think that you could write a comment on my third-rate blog and end up tops on Google-- something companies pay marketing firms loads of money to accomplish-- and now, what is even stranger (and more meta) is that Eric's post about his comment is now the top search when you type "residual glee" into Google (and, also, on an unrelated note: I think Residual Glee would make a good name for an indie band).

Dueling Definitions

Kevin Kelly juxtaposes two definitions in his new book What Technology Wants; the first is Alan Kay's: "Technology is anything invented after you were born," and the second is Danny Hillis's: "Technology is something that doesn't quite work yet," and the first definition makes me think of that awesome yellow first down line that appears on the television screen during football games, and the second definition makes me think of FoxTrax, television's failed attempt to animate a glowing hockey puck.

A One Sentence Summary of the New Testament

While we were standing in front of an impressive bas-relief tableau of Christ on the Cross in the Washington National Cathedral, my five year old son Ian told me: "They killed Jesus because he was too nice."

Warning: This Post May Contain Toilet Humor

One of the original motifs of this blog is how much I cherish when my wife screws up, but this doesn't happen very often (thus the cherishing) and last week was a memorable one, so enjoy it: I was fast asleep when Catherine woke me up to tell me that Ian had left some bloody stool in the toilet and she got me out of bed to look at said stool and it did seem bloody, but red blood, which I knew wasn't internal bleeding, and after a quick internet search we determined he either had hemorrhoids or anal fissures, neither of which was life threatening, so I went back to sleep, but then Catherine woke me up again at 4:00 AM to tell me that it wasn't bloody stool at all, it was old vitamins leaking red dye-- she had cleaned the hall closet out earlier that day and had forgotten she tossed them into the toilet.

Almost Forgot To Post!

Just arrived home and this is all I have to say: I was in Chevy Chase and you weren't.

Invictus is Pretty Good . . . But It's No Ruck and Maul

Clint Eastwood's movie Invictus is just as much about rugby as it is about Nelson Mandela, and although the film doesn't try to explain the rules of the game or make a coherent narrative out of game play (which was smart . . . and if you watch highlights of the actual Springbok/All-Black Final, you'll see the film does a fantastic job of capturing the look and feel of rugby, including the "haka," New Zealand's pre-game Maori war dance) it is a sports movie first and foremost . . . about two underdogs, the inspirational Mandela, who survived a twenty seven year training camp breaking rocks on Robben Island, and the Springboks, a mainly white team (with a token black), upon who Mandela bestows the responsibility of bringing honor and reconciliation to South Africa . . . it is well filmed and well-acted but it definitely sticks to the sports genre: nearly every scene is inspirational in some way, and-- as I am a sucker for sports movies-- it had me near tears multiple times (even a scene of the team running in the early morning before the big game got me choked up . . . but show me a movie where some mom dies of cancer with her kids around her deathbed and it has no effect) but it still portrays the characters with a hagiographic sheen that will make the movie ultimately forgettable . . . unlike The Wrestler, a film that I will never forget . . . and all this rugby and film discussion reminds me of "Ruck and Maul," a rugby screen-play that Whitney and I wrote many years ago which was certainly closer in theme to The Wrestler than Invictus . . . perhaps now is the time to pull it back out and pitch it.