I'd like to apologize for my sentence the other day about George R.R. Martin -- it's gauche to wish someone dead just because he wrote a boring book, and it's my fault for finishing the thing, but I will say this -- and I don't even think these are spoilers -- there are two big scenes in A Dance with Dragons that take a nearly a thousand pages of exposition to set up, and each one contains a vital character that there is no possible way in hell anyone except the nerdiest of the nerdiest is going to remember . . . the first is when Bloodbeard presents the head of Groleo to King Hizdahr . . . and you are supposed to remember that this is some sort of retaliation for Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, but mainly I was thinking: Groleo? Who the f-- is Groleo? Am I supposed to know this Groleo? I am supposed to feel a certain way about his severed head? and then in the last chapter (but before the Epilogue) Daenerys, starved and stranded in the Dothraki grasslands, but accompanied by her dragon, encounters the khalasar of Khal Jhaqo, who betrayed her old husband -- Khal Drogo -- after his death . . . but again, I was thinking: who the f-- is Khal Jhaqo? Is this an interesting coincidence? A new character? because I think the last time he was in the series was several thousand pages ago . . . but thank the Seven Gods for the internet -- but if I'm going to have to read the internet every time something happens in the series, then there is something seriously wrong with this series, and upon further reflection, I'm taking back my apology and once again wishing George R.R. Martin dead, so that I don't have to suffer through any more climactic anti-climaxes.
Dog Park Jazz Recommendations
A middle-aged rather distinguished African-American gentleman that I talk to at the dog park has been giving me some good jazz recommendations . . . and I'm trying not to be stereotypical, but he's exactly the kind of guy that you'd imagine would give good jazz recommendations, so sometimes stereotypes have a silver lining . . . anyway, I've been listening to a lot of Robert Glasper and Christian Scott lately.
Things You Don't See Every Day
While driving down South Fifth Avenue, the steep hill that descends to Donaldson Park, my son Ian and I saw three twenty-somethings rolling large logs up the street . . . there is a pile of these logs at the bottom of the street, near the public works building -- I suppose they are waiting to be chipped, but as for now they are free for the taking, but most people take them in pick-up trucks, but these kids were doing it by hand, and sweating their asses off; I assume they were going to use them for stools or burn them or something, but now that I am home, I'm a bit worried, because the skies have gone dark and a thunderstorm in approaching, and if they lose their grip, those things are going to be giant wooden juggernauts, hurtling down South Fifth, smacking into cars, pedestrians, shrubbery, and front porches . . . but I live more towards Second Avenue, so who cares.
I Hate George R.R. Martin and Hope He Dies Before He Finishes His Next Book
I just finished A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin's fifth book in his epic series A Song of Ice and Fire, and while it's not as tedious and annoying as A Feast for Crows, it is still pretty damn boring . . . overly-descriptive and hyper-detailed in a self-congratulatory style that begs for editing -- reading it was more like homework than pleasure, and there is no comparison to the first three books -- which were fast-paced, grim, realistic, surprising, and genre-breaking . . . I finished this one simply to find out what happens, and when I was mired seven hundred pages in, dealing with chapter after chapter of incomprehensible family relationships, bloody flux, and descriptions of provisions, I realized that perhaps I had read more pages of George R.R. Martin than any other author -- over 5000 pages of his prose (I've read a lot of Neal Stephenson and Elmore Leonard and Kurt Vonnegut, but probably not 5000 pages worth . . . maybe Stephen J. Gould?) and I haven't really liked the last 2000 pages of his narrative, but I'm in too deep to quit now, and so I'm hoping that Martin contracts a fatal case of the "pale mare" before he publishes another pedantic volume, and thus spares me from reading it (although I'm sure even if he dies, some hack will take his notes and finish the saga . . . and I'll probably read it just so I'm ahead of the HBO series and don't end up being humiliated in a "Red Wedding Reactions Compilation" video).
Levels of Deception and Subjectivity in Sports
You'll have to head over to Gheorghe: The Blog today to get your daily dose of Dave: I've ranked a bunch of sports on an objectivity/subjectivity continuum and then noted the correspondence between subjectivity of the sport and the amount of deception in the sport . . . this is more fun than it sounds (and I've included some compelling images as well . . . so if you have some time to kill, check it out).
A Man Compliments My Toes
I was at a party on Saturday night, and unfortunately there was a corn-hole set in the backyard, and this was unfortunate because I am VERY good at corn-hole -- so good that it's a little sad and obsessive, and while people generally compliment my skills or get fired up to beat me, I am sure that they also think that I am a little pathetic, which is true (although the fact that my wife was my partner, and also kicking corn-hole ass, might have made things a little more acceptable) but I can't help it, there's nothing I enjoy more than cutting out the small talk at a party, and instead playing a simple game and drinking beer -- so I've gotten my 10,000 hours of practice and it pays off . . . anyway, I was wearing sandals at the party and my friend Ashley said the nicest thing that anyone has ever said about my feet; he told me, "You have Roman toes" and when I asked what that meant, he said that Romans have a certain kid of toe -- and while I think my toes look perfectly normal, my wife always calls them "weird looking," but "Roman" is a much better adjective than weird, and then Ashley went on to tell me that Romans are often good at spatial activities -- thus my skill at corn-hole . . . and while I'm not sure I buy this -- I think my skill at corn-hole derives from getting bored with chit-chat, an explanatory YouTube video, many hours of practice at the Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip, and the fact that it's really only tossing a bean-bag -- I'm still quite pleased because generally, when people look at my feet, they either turn away in disgust, or say I have "hobbit-feet" because of the amount of hair on them, so "Roman toes" is a step up.
Unassigned Homework
The last thing any teacher needs during exam time is more work, but somehow the Story Contest Crew forgot this, and we had an end of the year contest -- but a Scary Story doesn't fit for the end of the year, so instead we drew six elements from various bags -- and you had to include all these elements in your three-page story . . . this was painful and hard, but I am pleased to say that I was involved in a three way tie for first and lost by one in the run-off (and I would have won outright if Stacey didn't change her vote at the last minute!) because I had an especially ridiculous draw and had to write a story from the point-of-view of a teenage girl to make it work (and some people didn't recognize that I wrote the story, which made me very happy, anyway . . . here is what I drew from the bags: CHARACTER: Buddhist; CONFLICT: restrictive parents; TONE: scandalous; OBJECT: Manic Panic Hot Hot Pink Hair Dye; SETTING: Roller Rink (circa 1985); PHRASE: Oh my God, it's full of stars . . . how would you put them together?)
Hidden Talents
My eight year old son Ian is a hula hoop wizard - he can do two at a time, spin it around his knees, and walk while hula-hooping -- and this got me very jealous and angry because I couldn't do it at all, but I went on YouTube and watched a few tutorials and now I can get it going for a while (although I can't do any tricks . . . it's hard enough for me to keep the thing rotating around my sturdy mid-section).
This Too Shall Pass
My son Ian is a member of "the piggy club," but his brother Alex is not -- despite the fact that many of his friends profess to being members of the aforementioned club . . . Alex says he finds it annoying to talk at length about piggies.
Huge Cement Shoes to Fill
Although celebrity deaths don't usually occupy my consciousness, James Gandolfini's demise is slightly different . . . because not only is he the celebrity representative of my home state (along with Frank and Bruce) but he is also one of the few celebrities that I have met in my life: seven years ago, after a Rutgers football game, Gandolfini went to McCormick's Irish Pub (with the possible intent to score some controlled substances, as he said my friend and colleague Kevin: "I hear this is the most drug infested bar in New Brunswick," but Kevin disappointed him by replying: "I guess not tonight") and then Gandolfini signed up to play pool (after he left, the bartender took the sheet down in order to preserve his autograph) and I was on the table and taking all challengers, so I got to play some pool with Tony Soprano; he was very friendly, but also very wasted . . . so wasted that his handlers had to take him home, and the main point of this rambling tribute is that I was very impressed by Gandolfini's size . . . he wasn't Hollywood fat (like Jack Black or Seth Rogen) he was actually fat . . . big and looming and corpulent, and I appreciate that kind of honesty in art.
It's Not All Books That Are As Dull as Their Readers (But Some Are!)
I started my summer reading with two rather boring tomes, or I find them boring -- which may be a shortcoming of my own brain, but at least I recognize that they are boring for contrary reasons: Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy is Wrong is by Edward Conard, a former managing director of Bain Capital -- and while it paints a rather different picture of the 2008 Financial Collapse than the documentary Inside Job or The Big Short by Michael Lewis (according to Conard, the collapse was a run on the bank, caused by a lack of faith in short term credit, not the fault of CDO's and credit default swaps -- and the government was largely to blame for this by subsidizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which allowed the creation of more and more sub-prime loans . . . his philosophy is: why would banks want to hold mortgages they thought would default, unless forced by the government to issue such loans, and he also blames "irrational exuberance" in the real-estate market . . . some people -- such as this Anonymous Banker --think Conard makes some good points, while other folks hate his guts and think the book is a "serious abuse of facts") and while I think he makes some logical points about how America is competing against 75 cents-an-hour labor overseas and needs to counter this with investment and innovation -- I mainly want to say this is one of the driest, most boring books I have ever read, and any attempt Conard makes to insert humor into the flow is forced and pathetic, and he offers no anecdotes from his time at Bain Capital, nor does he ever address the human cost of the crisis -- he's very cold and cavalier about the lost jobs, lost equity, the evictions, the short sales, and the general decay of the middle class -- so I can hardly recommend reading this thing unless you're really dying to learn more about the economic theory behind the Financial Crisis . . . on the other hand, I am six hundred pages through George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons and this book is SO full of anecdote and detail and description that the plot barely moves . . . and I can't recommend this book unless you're dying to find out more things about the pantheon of Game of Thrones characters -- as it is NOT a thrilling read.
Serenity Now?
My wife and I noticed that everyone in our house was losing their temper more than usual (aside from the dog, who retreats upstairs when people argue) and after an especially ugly weekend when we both resorted to whacking our son on the ass (on separate occasions) we decided to institute a new system, with two jars and a bunch of "animal counters," and since everyone in our house thrives on competition, we made it a contest . . . Alex and Ian versus my wife and me: if you lose your shit, then a counter goes into the jar, and I am proud to say that I haven't flipped out on my kids for over a week (nine days, to be exact) but I have noticed an inverse relationship between not-flipping-out and alcohol consumption . . . serenity now!
It's All the Same Thing (No New Tails to Tell)
It was 4:14 on Friday afternoon, and I was cutting up old deck boards so I could put them in contractor bags and toss them, when I saw a rustling in the ivy by our fence; upon closer inspection, I found that the rustling was being caused by a cub raccoon -- which was very cute and about the size of a fuzzy chipmunk -- so I called the boys and retreated to the deck, and soon enough -- as I predicted -- a mama raccoon came scurrying down the tree with the big hole in it, and then she did something I didn't expect, she whacked and bit the hell out of the baby raccoon, then walked away for a moment, and waited, but the baby didn't follow, and then she walked back over and used her mouth to pick up the cub by the scruff of his neck, and carried him back up the tree to the big hole, which is obviously their home, so that the recalcitrant cub could learn the definition of nocturnal and write it a thousand times on the inside of their hole . . . and at first my kids thought the mommy raccoon was mean, but when I pointed out that we chastise them for similar dangerous activities -- such as crossing the street without looking or wrestling at the top of the stairs -- they understood what was going on, but I don't think that just because they understand the analogy means they are going to behave with any more common sense.
I Have Achieved a New Level of Manliness
Last week, in order to expedite the demolition of my deck, I bought a "wrecking bar," and never in my life have I felt so macho about a purchase (although I didn't buy the mega-42 inch bar, I went with the medium-sized 36 inch bar . . . I didn't want to get too carried away with myself).
Meta-Anachronism (Another Question of Dave)
How does Tank -- a self-professed child of Zion -- who claims to have been born outside of the Matrix, in reality, make the comment "Hey Mikey, I think he likes it" when Neo is down-loading ju-jitsu and various other forms of karate . . . how could someone born outside of the computer fabricated reality make an allusion to a 1970's Life Cereal commercial which may or may not have even happened inside the complex computer program enslaving all humans in the film?
Question of Dave (i.e. Donald Trump)
To be truly considered a man, do you need to go bankrupt at least once in your life?
No Way You're Beating This Statistic (nor would you want to)
It's been very humid lately here in central New Jersey, and so when I try to yank my socks onto my sweaty feet, I'm ripping one sock for every four sock-putting-on attempts.
If I Were a Double Amputee . . .
If I were a double amputee, I would definitely behave exactly like the man described in Erik Larson's fantastic non-fiction account of The Chicago World's Fair of 1894 -- The Devil in the White City; the aforementioned amputee made his way around the fair on false limbs and crutches, and a visitor constantly "peppered" him with questions, and finally said: "There's one more thing I'd like to know, and I'll not trouble ye anymore . . . I'd like to know how you lost your legs," and the double amputee said he would only answer on "the strict condition that this indeed was the last question" and then he told the inquisitive man "they were bit off" and crutched away, while the annoying and curious man yelled, "Bit off? How . . .?"
You've Got to Have Dreams
Erik Larson's non-fiction book The Devil in the White City deals with two dreamers: Daniel Hudson Burnham, the architect and director of the magnificent and monolithic Chicago World's Fair of 1894, and Henry H. Holmes, the serial killer who built a "death hotel" on land in Englewood, near the World's Fair, so he could gas young women, children, and other unsuspecting folks that he pulled into his magnetic field of trust . . . and while one of these men was working for civic duty in order to better a city he loved and the other for evil and perverse motivations that perhaps even he didn't understand fully, they both had the need to build an architectural impossibility to achieve their dreams . . . and they both succeed! . . . Larson does an amazing job of smoothly presenting all the details for both events, details both glorious and heinous -- he did all the reading for you (as evidenced by the bibliography and pages and pages of copious notes) and I highly recommend this book, especially for folks who love architecture, civic politics, urban planning, and serial homicide.
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