Midnight in Paris: Romantically Modern

Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris did the impossible-- it actually made me want to visit Paris-- he films the old architecture of the city so beautifully, in yellow saturated tones, that it would probably be impossible to find this Paris as a tourist . . . there is no urban sprawl or traffic or arrogant French people, but the theme of the film is paradoxical, as the moral of the story is that you should be happy in your own place and time, yet his portrayal of Paris in the 1920's is so romantic and magical . . . every scene is full of artistic celebrities-- Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, Toklas, Picasso, Dali, Eliot-- and they are all friendly and they speak as if they themselves are their own works of art (Dali asks the time traveling Owen Wilson-- an ersatz Woody Allen-- if he likes "the shape of the rhinoceros") and though the moral is an apt one, as we all think some past reality is more creative and golden than our own, the problem with the movie is that Woody Allen's version of the '20's in Paris really does seem more exciting and wonderful than the present . . . maybe he needed to include some of T.S. Eliot's anti-Semitism or a bit more of the intractably ugly and inaccessible art of the time, or the feeling that this was a "Lost Generation" . . . or maybe someone should have simply died of strep throat . . . and one last thought on the reason that Owen Wilson finally decides to embrace his present: are all the tour guides and shop-keepers in Paris really that hot?

One Tiny Step For Dave . . . and Zero Significance for Mankind.

I'm seriously thinking about thinking seriously about purchasing a mini-van . . . no that's not true: I am thinking seriously about seriously thinking about the purchase of a mini-van (but not in the near future-- I was going to try to buy a van before Spring Break, but since we're only headed to the Catskills, I've figured out a way to stall the purchase-- we're going to drive both the Subaru and the Jeep to the cabin so we can bring everything and the kitchen sink . . . I've been shopping for a new car for over five years, and so I don't want to rush the process at the end . . . and now I'm far more excited about buying a new bike, anyway . . . especially since I could buy thirty new bikes for the price of one used Toyota mini-van).

Let's Take A Moment and Think Logically

So now that all the uproar over Daylight Saving Time is over, let pitch my plan to you-- and I will admit that when I first explained this plan to my students and colleagues, they laughed at me-- but now I know how to approach the matter in the proper manner, so please bear with me . . . I will begin by asking a few simple questions:

1) is this the age of computers?

and (of course) the answer is "yes"

2) what is 2 times 30?

and (of course) the answer is 60

3) were the children tired the Monday morning after Daylight Savings Time?

and (of course) the answer is "yes"-- so when I propose this I want you to think about the children, all the tired, bleary eyed children . . . the children who don't get enough sleep because they want to watch the Super Bowl, the children who have to stay up late on a Monday night to watch the NCAA Championship, these aggrieved children . . . and so here is my plan, my plan for these children: instead of "springing ahead" an hour all at once, we "spring ahead" two minutes a day for a month . . . computers take care of the time-shift, and if you miss a few days on clocks that need to be set manually, there's no real problem . . . and so you can make a difference in the life of a child, for the low cost of two minutes a day, a mere two minutes a day and you can save a child, just two minutes a day . . . think about it.

A Good Walk Spoiled (By My Dog's Anus)

My son Alex asked me if I could bring our dog Sirius when I picked him up from school on Tuesday, and of course I obliged him, as nothing is better for an eight year old boy than to be greeted by his loyal companion after a long day at school, and then we decided to hike over to "the secret path" and the sun was shining and the weather was warm and the day seemed idyllic-- a father, a son, and the family dog out for a walk on a beautiful day-- and once we got into the woods, Sirius crouched in order to defecate, which pleased me because it meant I could bury the poop under sticks and leaves and instead of having to scoop it up in a bag, but after pushing out a few clumps, Sirius couldn't seem to bring his business to an end . . . an oblong chunk of poop wouldn't dislodge itself from beneath his stumpy tail, and Alex and I decided that we needed to help him-- so Alex held him still and I scraped at the offending piece with a stick, but no luck, this was one stubborn piece of poop . . . and Sirius was doing his best as well, occasionally crouching and shaking, but this didn't work either, so Alex pulled up his little tail and I went at the poop with some leaves, but that didn't work either, and at this point we certainly had poop on our hands and there were little specks of it on his coat, and then I spied a crumpled napkin on the forest floor and grabbed that (without thinking: for what was this napkin used before it was tossed on the ground?) but the napkin didn't dislodge the poop either, and so Alex and I gave up and decided we would take him to the dog park and let him run around, as we were certain the poop would come loose then, but after a couple laps around the dog park, the poop was still there, and so I decided to take matters into my own hands-- literally-- I took one of the bags from the gratis poop-bag dispenser and put my hand inside it, to use it like a glove, and then I got right up in there . . . and as I felt the consistency of the thing protruding from my dogs anus, I had an epiphany: two days before Sirius tore up a mitten and ate some of the stuffing inside it, stuffing that was long and stringy and white, and about an inch of this stuffing was sticking out of my dog's butt-hole-- covered in fecal matter-- and that's why it wasn't going any where, because the rest of the strand was inside my dog's colon, and I realized that it was my job, as the master of the dog, to pull out the remainder of the stuffing, which I did, and it came out rather easily, as it was lubricated by fecal matter: a six inch piece of stuffing, and-- as I'm sure you've guessed-- it was no longer white.

Don't Beat Yourself Up . . . Blame It On Daylight Saving Time

Note to self: coupons don't work unless you take them out of your pocket and actually hand them to the cashier (and, of course, I made this mistake on Monday, the day after we all "sprung ahead," and so I am suing Daylight Saving Time for my financial loss . . . as there is some evidence that the hour time shift is to blame for just about everything iniquitous in the universe).

An Unworthy Cause

I know there are worthier causes to devote my time to-- people around the world are starving and oppressed; the ice caps are melting; the rain forest is disappearing; and we haven't cured all the diseases that ail us-- but those things are too abstract for me to ponder . . . I prefer to protest things that affect me more directly, such as the ridiculous nuisance that we call Daylight Saving Time, which I consider further confirmation that we have no control over our modern lives . . . just as I'm getting a grip on my morning schedule (with the help of a chart made by my wife and the fact that there is finally some sunlight at 6:30 AM) I am thrust back into darkness, and for no logical reason-- simply because of a government dictum-- and so I am suggesting that we "take back our hour" and so, for the next Daylight Saving Time, in protest, I am advising you to NOT abide by the change-- show up at work at the correct time, don't set your clocks, don't lose an hour's sleep . . . TAKE BACK YOUR HOUR! TAKE BACK YOUR HOUR! . . . it's catchy to chant and it's a protest that probably won't involve tear gas, rubber bullets, or being hosed down by the authorities.

I am an Idiot, My Wife is a Saint

Friday, as I was pulling into the school parking lot, I felt my cell phone buzz and I instantly remembered what I had neglected to do . . . and then my phone started ringing and I realized that I wasn't going to escape this transgression with a mere text . . . my wife was going to talk to me about this, and so I accepted my guilt, accepted the call, and braced myself for the oncoming tirade . . . "What is wrong with you?" she began and I immediately started apologizing, because there was no excuse-- for the third time in two weeks, I had driven the wrong car to work-- we were trying to take my Jeep to the shop to get the brake lights fixed, but every time she made an appointment (and you need an appointment because our mechanic is so good) I forgot to drive the Subaru to work and instead took the very car that my wife needed to drop off at the garage . . . forcing her to call our mechanic and report to him that her husband was a complete idiot and she would need to reschedule . . . so this time she wasn't going to do that, and so she devised a plan whereby I would drive the car to her school and we would swap cars and I would be able to do this because I had a half day of classes and my parent conference schedule was light in the afternoon-- but there was only one problem, which I explained to her: "The only problem is that I'm supposed to go to lunch with Terry . . . if I drive all the way over there then he won't have anyone to go out to lunch with," and right after I explained the "problem" I realized that it wasn't really a "problem," and more just my concern with eating, but it was too late and so I braced myself once again for a deserved angry rejoinder: "I think it's more important that you get the brake lights fixed on the car that you drive both your children around in, rather than get a slice of pizza with Terry!" and I couldn't agree more and told my wife that I would meet her, and then went into the school and while I was summarizing this book in the English office, and explaining how I was in a System 1 mood, because my wife made me a chart for what I had to accomplish in the mornings (the kids have a chart and I have a chart, and my wife is on the chart, but I don't actually think she needs the chart) and I was very happy that I completed my Friday morning duty (walk the dog) and so I blithely walked out the door and hopped into my car, not thinking that I wasn't supposed to drive my car, and went straight to work . . . and while I was summarizing System 1 and System 2 to a colleague, my phone rang again and my wife told me that she was driving to my school right then, to swap the cars, so that I wouldn't have to drive all over during my lunch, and while I was extraordinarily happy that I was going to be able to have lunch with Terry, I also realized that it might be my last meal on earth and immediately decided that I would send my wife some flowers or perhaps place them in her car at work . . . but then I couldn't even get credit for that, as while I was recounting this story to my first period class, I felt another text arrive on my phone and it was from my wife and it said, "You better send me flowers" and the text also included her school address and the name and phone number of our local flower place, so not only did I know she was serious, but also that she thought I was an incapable idiot . . . but I managed to successfully send the flowers and I have smoothed things over . . . for now.

If You're Going Shopping, It's Best To be Angry

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman shares a wealth of evidence that our intuition works better when we are in a good mood-- we are more creative but also more gullible . . . and he calls this System 1, but if you're going to do something analytic, and you have to consider several positions or the pros and cons of something, then this is called System 2, and to activate System 2, it is better if you are sad or vigilant or suspicious (or perhaps all three, although you might not be much fun to be around) and Kahneman summarizes this by explaining that "a happy mood loosens the control of System 2 over performance: when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors," and this explains a lot to me; as now I can see why I was in such an ugly mood when I was doing all the shopping around for a new mortgage-- playing one broker off another, crunching numbers, comparing points versus rates, etc.-- and why I'm in such a good mood when I play soccer, which is all intuition, creativity, and spontaneous reaction.

Milestone (From An Outside Perspective)

The other day I went skiing with my two sons, who are six and eight, and it was the first time I took them without the help of my wife, and it was the first time that they didn't take a lesson or even warm-up on the bunny slope; instead, the three of us got on the quad lift, went to the top of the mountain, and all made our way down without incident-- and we did this over and over for four and half hours with only brief breaks for snacks-- and for all intents and purposes the day was a success . . . to an outsider on the mountain it must have appeared as an idyllic boy's day out (aside from one crash getting off the lift, Ian cut me off) and while I do think this was a banner day, I should still warn you people with younger kids who can't wait until they are old enough to keep up with you on the slopes that behind the scenes there is still a lot of grunt work . . . I was on my stomach in the lodge, underneath the table buckling ski boots because their little fingers weren't strong enough, and they still forgot to put on their hat and gloves and they couldn't carry their gear all the way across the parking yet and I had to pull them up hills because they don't give little kids ski poles, and dragging two kids while snowboarding is exhausting, so-- by the end of the day-- I was even more worn out than they were, but I had to drive home while they slept . . . some day it's going to be the other way around.

Ill-Suited Adjective

The marketing department at Herr's needs to have a stern word with the advertising genius who decided to add the adjective Creamy-- written in florid script-- in front of their "Dill Pickle" flavored chips; there are literal problems, of course, as pickles can be "zesty" or "crunchy," but they should never be the consistency of cream . . . and I'd love to analyze the connotations of the phrase "creamy dill pickle," but this is a family friendly blog, so I'll leave the symbolic interpretations to your collectively perverse imaginations . . . the only possible explanation for this filthy and unappetizing moniker is that Herr's is trying to acquire market dominance in the pregnant demographic.

A Bad Choice Followed By A Good Choice

I made a bad when choice when I ate the entire bag of All Natural Kettle Style Sweet Potato Chips in a fit of gluttony after work on Tuesday, not thinking that might my wife might have wanted some of these chips, but when my wife was chastising me for eating all the aforementioned chips, I made a good choice and did not complain to her about my stomachache (which was caused by eating all the chips) because I knew she would not have had any sympathy for me, and in fact, might have gotten even angrier when she realized that, though I was full, I kept eating the chips just because they were there.

Dead Letter Etiquette

What is the requisite length of time you should keep a card? . . . birthday, Christmas, or otherwise . . . and does it matter who gave you the card? does it matter that you're not going to read it again? does it matter if it has a picture of someone's family on it? . . . I believe that this story makes a case for keeping personal correspondence for a great length of time and for destroying it immediately . . . but I feel like I stash holiday cards in a basket for what I consider to be some arbitrarily polite length of time, and then I finally toss them, because some part of me feels like it would be rude to just read them, look at the picture, and then immediately chuck them in the trash . . . stupid card industry causing me more grief.

More Stuff High School Kids Wouldn't Like

Every three years the teachers at my school put on a "Faculty Follies," and though I participated my first year teaching (I played the harmonica and begged for money in a faculty room skit) this made me realize that the theater isn't for me-- I get too nervous and I don't enjoy being on stage-- but last faculty follies I did submit a brilliant idea for a comedy sketch, knowing full well it would be rejected . . . here is the sequence of events:

1) I begin by juggling three balls (I can juggle)
2) I do several basic juggling tricks-- under the leg, over the shoulder, etc.
3) my two beautiful assistants walk out on stage, one wheeling a unicycle and the other with three long-handled axes,
4) I take the axes and heft one of them, testing the weight,
5) I motion for my beautiful assistant to wheel over the unicycle
6) I lean two of the axes against the unicycle and hold the other by the handle
7) the tension builds as I prepare to mount the unicycle
8) instead I smash the unicycle to bits with the axe, take a deep bow, and walk off the stage

and I submitted the form with this description, but never heard back from the organizers, so this year, though I have another brilliant sketch idea, I'm not even going to submit the form: this was a collaborative effort inspired by my colleague Rachel, who was having a very hard time peeling an orange, and it goes like this:

1) Rachel, dressed in black, sits at a table and struggles to peel an orange . . .
2) meanwhile, the PA is blasting Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries . . .
3) Rachel finally peels the orange and then tosses the fruit over her shoulder,
4) she takes a large bite of the peel, makes a disgusted face, and walks off the stage,
5) the orange remains on stage for several skits,
6) Rachel reappears, having trouble peeling a banana . . .
7) she finally succeeds and this time eats the fruit,
8) she tosses the banana peel near the orange and exits,
9)  several minutes later, Eric comes on stage
10) instead of slipping on the banana peel, he slips on the orange,
11) Rachel and Eric bow . . .

this would be a magnificent piece of theater, but I am afraid the humor might be lost on the students.

Sometimes You Need to State the Obvious

I went to a Wizards game Saturday night and Gheorghe Muresan made an appearance in our suite: he is tall, very tall.

If You Like Pina Coladas and Making Love to Yourself

In my creative class, we listened to Allen Ginsberg read a poem called "Personals Ad," and many of the students had never heard of a "personal ad," as they are of the Match.com generation, and this led to me summarizing the plot of "Escape," by Rupert Holmes-- you might refer to this as "The Pina Colada Song" and you know the story: a guy who is "tired of his lady" reads a personal ad in the newspaper that describes his perfect match-- a woman who loves "Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain"-- and so he organizes a rendezvous with this lady at a "bar called O'Malley's" where they can plan their escape; so I set all this up and lead them to the dramatic moment in the song and then I asked them: "Guess who he finds in the bar?" and a student who was either only half listening or only had "half a brain" yelled out "Himself"-- an answer which made us laugh, but also an answer that does make sense in a weird way-- and this led to us creating a revision of the song, where instead of reuniting with his lady, the narrator of the song instead meets a cloned version of himself-- perhaps a mad scientist stole his DNA when he was an infant-- and this is what the narrator yearned for all his life: to date himself . . . and then his lady eventually runs into him, and he is hooking up with a cloned version of himself and he is very happy about it, and she is completely disgusted with his vanity and rather bizarre and incestuous behavior . . . Rupert Holmes hasn't had a hit in a while, so perhaps he can record this version.

High School Kids Don't Care About This

Daniel Kahneman's new book Thinking, Fast and Slow, describes and contrasts two "systems" in our brains-- fast thinking and intuitive System 1 and deliberate, tedious, and often lazy System 2-- and he describes his comprehensive research and experimentation observing how System 1 (though brilliant at detecting emotions, recognizing objects, and jumping to fairly accurate conclusions) often screws up our System 2 thinking . . . and I found this example at the start of "Chapter 10: The Law of Small Numbers" both fascinating and indicative: Kahneman explains that the lowest incidence of kidney cancer in the United States is found in counties that are "mostly rural, sparsely populated, and located in traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West" and then he asks you what you make of this information . . . perhaps you speculate that people are exposed to less pollution in these places or lead healthier lifestyles or do more physical work . . . but then he reveals something paradoxical: the highest incidence of kidney cancer in the United States is found in "mostly rural, sparsely populated, traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West" and he asks you to make sense of this conflicting data . . . and perhaps your mind can resolve this-- maybe it has to do with poverty, or tobacco use, or access to poor medical care-- and so both these populations exist in the same regions, but the fact of the matter is that there is no causal reason why this is so-- the reason is purely statistical, and the important part of the statement is "sparsely populated"-- when you have smaller numbers there is a greater chance for statistical anomaly . . . I have a better chance of picking two students at random that both have blue eyes then I do having an entire class of thirty that all have blue eyes-- the two person sample is too small to indicate anything-- and so the only reason that the highest and lowest incidence of cancer occurs in the same type of county, demographically, is that these counties tend to have less people than other regions; this logical fallacy is common, the Gates Foundation determined that smaller schools are often more successful and invested substantial funds in creating small schools, sometimes even breaking large schools into smaller units, but what they neglected to realize is that small schools are often the most successful and they are also often the least successful . . . because their smaller populations are more likely to vary statistically; I found this idea compelling enough to explain to several of my classes, and I made a discovery of my own: high school kids DO NOT find this interesting at all . . . they don't want to guess why the incidence of kidney cancer is low, they don't want to guess why it is high, they don't want to speculate on the nature of the paradox, and they are certainly not excited to find out that there is NO causal reason for it.

A Number of Universal Significance

Today is the day,

I turn forty-two--

the meaning of life

but according to who?

and if you know,

I'm willing to bet

that you have read

all the books in the set--

you know that the dolphins

had such simple wishes,

they just wanted to say

thanks for the fishes.

Glad I'm a Dad

Dads talk about what they did with their kids, while moms talk about what they neglected to do.

Teacher of the Year

Sometimes being a great teacher is about what you DON'T do . . . the other morning I was using my guitar to illustrate how form often overpowers content . . . I played my creative writing students "Delia's Gone" by Johnny Cash, which is upbeat and kind of fun, though it is about murder, adultery, and revenge, and I also played "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks-- another song that is catchy and cute, despite the fact that it is about poisoning an abusive husband, wrapping him in a tarp, and tossing him into a lake-- and then I was about to launch into "Last Kiss," a sixties song about a fatal car crash with a catchy chorus that was famously covered by Pearl Jam . . . I have fond memories of all the high school girls on the Spotswood soccer team joyously singing this tragic song on a bus ride home, smiling and laughing as they hollered the description of the car accident that kills the narrator's girlfriend, but not before he is able to give her one "last kiss" as she fades into the hereafter . . . but then I remembered that one of my students recently lost her boyfriend in a car crash, and-- miraculously-- I remembered this before I played the song . . . and so I actually averted an awkward moment instead of producing one, and for this amazing decision, I think I should win Teacher of the Year.

Exercise Your Right To Plagiarize . . . or Plagiarize Your Right To Exercise?

I often see people doing interesting exercises at the gym-- sometimes with weights, sometimes on the mats, sometimes with unusual equipment, such as medicine balls or rope attachments, and sometimes with the machines and contraptions that I never use-- and whenever I see someone doing an exercise that I've never done before, I have the urge to immediately attempt it, before I forget all about it and go back to my normal routine, but I feel weird about stealing someone's "move" right in front of them, so I always wait until they are out of sight before I copy what they were doing . . . should I feel weird about this?-- about stealing an exercise?-- I probably shouldn't because it's not actually "stealing," as you can't copyright an exercise move . . . or can you?