You're Getting Warmer

Some farcical conversation with my son Alex about what the Ark of the Covenant contains in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark: Alex: It wasn't God in there. Who's the guy who lives under the ground?  The evil guy? Dad: Satan?  Alex: No . . . Dad: Beelzebub? Alex: No . . . Dad: Mephistopheles? Alex: No . . . Dad: The Lord of the Flies? Alex: No . . . Dad: Lucifer? Alex: No . . . Dad: Hades? Alex: No . . . Dad: Pluto? Alex: Yeah . . . him. Maybe it was him in that box.

A Good Way To Spend All Hallow's Eve

After several hours of trick-or-treating in the cold with my kids, I retired to my bed to read Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's graphic novel Locke and Key, and I can think of no better way to conclude a spooky holiday than this: the story is gripping, the art is mesmerizing, and Sam will inhabit your dreams . . . I wish I could have read it to my kids, but it's way too disturbing and violent: nine abandoned wells out of ten.

Serendipitous Student Connection #1 (Moth/ Snow/ Wife)

Sometimes a student says something so incisive that it completely changes the direction of a class discussion, and even the tone of an entire lesson; for instance, this week I taught Virginia Woolf's posthumously published suicide-note of an essay, "The Death of the Moth," and when we read the description of the moth's futile fluttering from one corner of the window to the next-- because it was trapped between the pane and the screen-- I asked the class who had done this before: shut a bug inside a window between the glass and the screen, and several kids raised their hands and admitted to this cowardly act, and we agreed that sometimes it is quicker, easier, and more convenient to isolate and ignore the problem of the bug instead of taking initiative and actually swatting, squishing, or removing it . . . but then one girl looked me squarely in the eye and said, "Why don't you just kill the bug? Why leave it in the window for later?" and I told her that is exactly what my wife would say in this instance, and that there were two kinds of people-- those that kill the bug immediately, and those who shut it in the window so it can suffer a slow death and be dealt with later . . . and then I told the class what happened on the weekend . . . we had an unusual October snowstorm and my wife instructed me to shovel the snow and then she got all dressed up in a tight dress and sexy boots and headed off to a baby shower and I took the kids sledding and when I got home, I was tired and wanted to watch the Giants game, and the sun was out, so instead of shoveling the driveway and the porch, I decided to let the sun melt the snow-- the same way you might let the sun dehydrate and fry the bug trapped in the window pane-- but the sun failed me, failed me miserably, and my lovely wife arrived home in her sexy boots to the same amount of snow that was there when she left and instead of reminding me to shovel it, she went ahead and shoveled the driveway and porch in her tight dress and sexy boots, and I think she did this so she could shovel even more guilt on me when she found me half-asleep on the couch, watching the football game .  . because she's the kind of person who kills the bug-- she doesn't leave it trapped in the window for later-- but the real question here is: Why do women get all decked out for a baby shower?

Non-stalgia

If you haven't seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in a while, you've probably forgotten just how annoying Kate Capshaw is-- she can't hold a candle to Karen Allen-- and she's even more annoying than that little punk Short Round.

I Uncover the Roots of My Ennui (And Use Other Annoying Words)

I know how obnoxious it is to complain, and I also know how obnoxious it is to use the word ennui (it's almost as obnoxious as using the word jejune, but not quite as obnoxious as using the word myriad . . . and then, of course, there is the word plethora . . . don't even get me started on that one) but last week in the English office, I had an epiphany (also a very annoying word) and realized why the fall is such a difficult time for me at work . . . it is because I can still remember the idylls of summer . . . the free time, the leisurely reading, the travel, the lack of a schedule, the swimming, the ocean . . . I'll stop before I cry . . . but once winter settles in, the memories of summer fade and I embrace the bleakness because I can't recall any other way to live.

Halloweenies

Just when I thought my kids were smart-- as they both received glowing academic reviews from their teachers at parent/teacher conferences-- I witnessed empirical evidence to the contrary . . . my wife and I took the kids pumpkin picking (in the snow!) and if you could have seen the distended, wobbly, asymmetrical pumpkins that my sons tried to persuade us to purchase, then you would certainly have doubted their intellectual capacity as well . . . in the end we had to convince them to abandon their stunted, misshapen choices and revise their pumpkin picking criteria . . . but, once we got the pumpkins home, they had more success as jack-o-lantern consultants, advising me how to carve each jack-o-lantern face, and-- you be the judge-- I think I did some kick-ass carving this year (I also added a bonus photo of the two incompetent pumpkin pickers, doing manual labor as punishment for their poor judgement).

One Movie: Three Ratings

I loved watching Steve Coogan's new road movie, The Trip, but it's tough for me to recommend it to anyone other than Steve Coogan fans; the conceit of this faux-documentary is that Coogan invites his not-so-close friend Steve Brydon-- a Welsh impressionist and actor-- on a journalism assignment in which they will review high-end dining in northern England, but Brydon is an ersatz replacement for Coogan's girlfriend, as they are having a "hiatus," and while much of the film is Coogan and Brydon improvising comedy and impressions, there is also dark undercurrent about age, success, sacrifice, and the value of family in the film . . . but much of it is self-referential Coogan nonsense (Ah-Haaaaaa!) which will only appeal to the Cooganophile . . . and so for Coogan fans I give this movie nine octaves out of ten; for Michael Caine fans I give it seven scallops out of ten; and for non-Cooganites, I give it five little men in a box out of a possible ten little men in a box.

Music Cures The Existential Blues

As I sit here grading papers and listening to Grant Green, I realize that my Jeep's broken car stereo-- which has not worked for several months now-- may be having severe implications on my mood . . . every morning, on my drive to work, I am alone with my shitty thoughts, my raspy voice, my tuneless whistling, and my lame drumming on the steering wheel-- which is no way to start the day-- but then, of course, this is how people spent most of their time before the technological revolution: listening to the sounds around them, or perhaps grunting and banging to break the silence, but usually alone with their shitty thoughts . . .  so it's no wonder Hobbes described the life of man as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" . . . he needed an iPod.

What Balls May Come?

Some miracles bite you in the ass-- such as Moses parting the Red Sea or the Bills starting the season at 4 and 2 -- but others require a moment of reflection in order to appreciate their glory . . . and the  miracle I am about to describe falls into the latter category (although some people, even upon reflection, did not appreciate the miraculous nature of the following events, leading them-- for my benefit-- to post a definition of the word "miracle" on the office cork-board); Sunday, at my weekly pick-up soccer game, my friend Mario returned a soccer ball that I had left behind several weeks ago-- a ball that I figured was as good as gone (I'm not very vigilant about keeping tabs on soccer balls, as I have so many floating around in my car) and then on Wednesday of the very same week-- at my weekly pick-up basketball game-- my friend Gene (who I hadn't seen since the summer) said, "Hey, I have the basketball you forgot in trunk of my car, the one you left in the summer" and I was pleased and surprised, pleased because I refused to buy a new basketball-- which makes no sense, since I didn't think I'd ever see the one I lost again . . . it was more as a punishment for being so stupid that I felt I should go without a ball-- and surprised that he'd kept the ball that long, and that he remembered to put it in his trunk for the game, just in case he saw me . . . and then it took me a day to realize the miraculous magnitude of the conjunction of these two events: that two balls-- both of which I had given up for lost-- were returned to me in the span of four days . . . certainly a minor miracle if there ever was one-- and now I am excited to see what other balls will be returned to me in the near future . . . because things like this usually happen in threes (although with balls, it might be more appropriate if they happened in twos).

Remembering Louie

Morning darkness, loads of essays, plantar fasciitis, weariness from coaching soccer, and general ennui with the constant routine were getting me down, until I remembered what Louie Zamperini had to endure . . . and how he had to endure it without Wikipedia Click-Olympics, Tetris, or Netflix . . . and now I feel better.

The Case of The Returned Kite

A reverse-mystery story for your reading pleasure: two Saturdays ago, which was as blustery a day as they come, my kids and I went down to the park with a gigantic jet-plane kite-- a kite created to familiarize children with profanity, as building it required a fair amount of swearing and flying it was extraordinarily intense and required a steady stream of expletives; this kite didn't just rise into the sky and stay there-- this kite liked to swoop and dive, and it came with a special "Tri-Wheel" string spool which stripped off string faster than a fishing reel (and resulted in me getting an extremely painful friction burn on my finger) but we finally got it airborne and it did look really cool as it swooped and dove and Alex actually got some control of it, but he had to keep running back and pulling, then running back, then pulling, until finally he was so far away and the kite was over the patch of woods at the edge of the park and then the kite did the inevitable, it swooped in to a tree, and I will be the first to admit that I wasn't so sad that it got stuck because it was a dangerous kite that required far too much skill and effort to fly, but still, I did my best to get it out of the tree (my wife was angrier that we lost it, but she wasn't there for the entire time and didn't know the dangers inherent in this particular kite) but the string snapped, and so I left the scene-- rather pleased that the devil-kite was at the top of a very tall tree and we went over to a friend's house for drinks before a dinner outing, but then we had to stop back at home to get jackets and the kite was sitting on our front porch and we live near the park and it's a small town, but still, it was pretty odd that someone knew where to return the kite . . . and it was also a bit ironic, since I was happy that this particular kite was lost in a tree because it was a danger to my family, but it turns out my lovely neighbor saw us walking home from the park with a spool of string and no kite, so when the wind blew it out of the tree she knew just where to return it, and so I am sorry to say that we will have to fly it again.

Dave Gives His Permission For You To Proceed

There is absolutely nothing wrong with screwing off the shaker top of a canister of rainbow jimmies and chugging a mouthful (or two).

Click-Olympics

Stacy introduced the English department to an engaging new game Friday afternoon; here's how it works: 1) everyone needs their own computer with internet access 2) everyone needs to agree on a starting point on Wikipedia-- such as "Beethoven" or "Goldie Hawn" or "lobster" or any of the other 3,772, 967 articles on the site-- and everyone playing needs to get that particular agreed upon Wikipedia page up on their screen 3) everyone needs to agree on a goal, the Wikipedia article that will end that round-- for our example we'll go from "Beethoven" to "bacon" 4) everyone should start the round at the same time, and then you may click on any hyper-link on Wikipedia in order to link your way from the "Beethoven" page to the "bacon" page . . . you may also use the "back" arrow on your browser, but that's it . . . the game is oddly compelling because you have to speculate several clicks in advance-- and once you head down a wrong path it's easy to get lost-- but it's surprising how quickly and elegantly you can get places; for instance, if you start on "Beethoven," you can click on "infectious hepatitis"-- which possibly caused Beethoven's death-- and from there you can access "The Center for Disease Control and Prevention" page and then "food borne pathogens" and then "cooking" and the "cooking" entry contains a picture and a link of some tasty looking "bacon wrapped corn" and if you've beaten everyone else to the page then voila, you have won a round of what I like to call "Wikipedia Click-Olympics."

Bossypants

Tina Fey's book Bossypants is exactly like an episode of 30 Rock . . . fast-paced, full of clever jokes, and  over before you know it . . . the only downside to this formula is that it's tough to recall much from either an episode of 30 Rock (except Alec Baldwin's advice: "Never go with a hippie to a second location") or Fey's memoir (all I remember is that photo shoots are fun, her dad is a bad-ass, and once female comics get old, everyone considers them "batshit crazy") and though she's not quite as articulate as David Sedaris or as neurotically absurd as Woody Allen, she's certainly playing in that ballpark and there's nothing saccharine or forced about her humor . . . and I will also point out that in all my trips to the library-- and I'm not going to lie: I go to the library a lot-- this is the only time a librarian at the check-out desk commented about a book I was checking out (she told me the book is really great and Tina Fey is so smart and clever and recommended the audio book because Tina Fey reads it herself): nine scars out of ten.

If A Tree Falls, Marshall Curry Will Get the Shot . . . And Interview Everyone Who Saw It Fall

Once again, Marshall Curry has documented a fantastic story, covering all the angles in an even-handed and comprehensive manner in under ninety minutes . . . his first documentary, Street Fight, is a masterpiece of editing, and his new one-- If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front--is equally as compelling; it tells the tale of a group of eco-terrorists in Oregon that target the forestry industry with a campaign of arson, and how Daniel McGowan-- who was once a member of the group, but since moved on-- is haunted by his radical past . . . and Curry gets access to members of ELF, other radicals, forestry workers, informants, prosecutors, the sheriff, law enforcement agents, and McGowan and his family . . . so the film is full of ambiguity, contradictory logical positions, and documentary gold . . . and Curry, wisely, never shows his hand but instead lets the viewer decide what to make of the ethics of the case: ten old growth redwoods out of a possible ten (and could that be Bansky standing on the redwood stump in the picture?)

I Am A Hero (Sort Of)

My neighbor called me the other day because her baby daughter had an engorged deer tick stuck to her head, and she wanted my help in removing it . . . and so I briskly walked to her house, ready to offer my aid; after some sizing up of the tick we decided that she should hold Natalya's head still, and I should try to pluck the little black tick from amidst her wispy blonde locks with a pair of tweezers . . . but babies move their heads a lot, and they don't appreciate someone holding their head still, so the odds of tick removal did not look good, but I decided to take a shot at it anyway, and-- on my first attempt-- with a deft and skillful pinch, I snagged the tick and removed nary a hair from baby Natalya's head . . . and the fact that the "tick" actually turned out to be a tick-shaped piece of dried food should have no bearing on the assessment of my heroism.

Film Buff

 My wife and I were walking up the stairs, to put the kids to bed, when we heard a civilized discussion emanating from the bathroom-- and this stopped us in our tracks because we've never heard our kids having a civilized discussion anywhere, let alone the bathroom (which is usually a place of mayhem, chaos, and poorly aimed urine); Alex asked Ian "which character in the movie he liked the best" and Ian said he liked the eleven year old with glasses and Alex informed him that he was "the main character" and then Alex said he liked "the old guy who kept giving the kids clues" and Ian politely asked Alex why he liked him . . . and Catherine and I exchanged a tacit glance, both of us impressed by our cultured and refined children . . . and  then the two of them walked out of the bathroom and Ian was still wearing jeans and a t-shirt but Alex was butt-naked, and when we saw him, my wife and I laughed at the incongruity of the dialogue and the nudity and Alex also realized how funny the tableau looked and so he started running around-- bare-assed-- shrieking and yelling like a savage, and Ian (though still fully clothed) followed suit.

I Corrupt My Six Year Old Son

My son Ian wants in on the Taco Count-- and though I realize this is no way to encourage healthy eating habits, I can't proscribe him from the fun without being a total hypocrite-- and so I am keeping track of his taco consumption (which is impressive, he's now eating four tacos at a sitting-- two hard shell and two soft shell-- the same amount that my wife eats) but I am going to prorate his Count for both his weight (which is 1/4 of mine) and the time (three months instead of twelve) and so for each taco that he eats in the next three months, I will multiply it by four to compensate for his small size and then multiply again by four so that it is equivalent to a year of taco eating . . . so each taco he eats will count as sixteen 2011 Tacos . . . and he's already eaten eight tacos in October . . . so that's 128 pro-rated tacos for his annual count.

Retraction (Yogi Berra is NOT Dead)

Yesterday, in a cascade of self-referential meta-madness, I explained that it is very difficult to consciously create an adage in the style of Yogi Berra, and then I quoted a colleague who-- in a heated description-- inadvertently coined such a phrase (If you saw her, you'd know what she looks like!) but then--accidentally-- I penned my own Yogi Berraism, when I said that "Yogi Berra would be smiling in his grave" if he heard Katie's wonderful maxim . . . because not only is Yogi Berra is not dead (he's 86) but skulls are always smiling, so the metaphor doesn't really make sense . . . and I am hoping that this post doesn't kill Berra, because I've had a history of killing celebrities with my attention (the first song I ever sang in front of a class was "Delia's Gone" by Johnny Cash, and he died the next day-- which made my students extraordinarily happy-- and in college, I started reading Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene, and he was dead within hours, so I've definitely got some kind of voodoo magic . . . or a more logical explanation is that I am a prodigal consumer of arts and literature, and so over the course of my life it would be more odd if no one died that I was perusing at the the time).

Katie vs. Yogi

I have praised the laconic anti-wit of Yogi Berra, and I even tried to invent my own Yogi Berra-esque adage-- and I learned that it's not the kind of thing you can consciously create-- but once in a while someone says something so perfectly true and paradoxical, that you know Yogi is smiling in his grave . . . and so when my colleague Katie attempted to describe an extremely inappropriately dressed high school girl, she got so worked up about the sleaziness of the student's outfit that she passionately told us: "If you saw her, you'd know what she looks like!"