Megan Abbott's high school cheerleading novel Dare Me is tense, scary, and threatening; not only did I enjoy the thrilling noir plot, but I also gained valuable insight into stunting, teen anomie, and the art of betrayal (and though I know the cattiness of the rather despicable characters is ratcheted up to an unrealistic degree, it does make me happy that I have two boys and will probably never have to contend with a teenage daughter).
A Very Important Biological (and Moral) Dilemma
Should I feel sorry for my dog because he never gets to have sex-- though he frequently licks his genitals?
Awkward Dave Returns With a Vengeance and Suffers an Awkward Coincidence
Nothing upsets me more at school then when a student disrespects one of the hall aides, especially if the victim of the disrespect is an elderly lady, and so when I saw a student refuse to show the aide at the front door an ID (IDs are required to enter the building) and then walked away from her, I told her I would take care of it and I turned to follow the kid -- and as I turned, I caught him giving the aide the classic two-handed-double f-- you bird, and so I confronted the kid -- and he refused to show me his ID, and attempted to walk away -- and so I blocked his path and things got into that weird gray area where you've lost your temper with a student but you know you're probably not legally allowed to tackle him (but maybe you are?) and so you wonder how you're going to detain him (or you can simply just follow him, I once followed a kid who refused to show me his ID from the cafeteria into the gym locker room, where he attempted to hide in the corner) but luckily, before I completely blew my stack, another teacher showed up and she knew the kid's name -- and so instead of following him, I simply went to the office and wrote him up-- and all this happened before first period, I hadn't even taken my jacket off, so then I had some time to cool-off before my first class -- which is second period, as I have hall duty first period, but I still had to tell this wild tale to my Creative Writing class, but when I was halfway through, one girl said, "You better stop this story now" and I said, "Why?" and she said, "because that's her boyfriend" and pointed to a very sweet girl, who I turned to and said, "You're going out with a guy who gives the middle finger to old ladies?' and she smiled sheepishly and said, "Yeah, but I already talked to him about it, and told him he shouldn't do that."
Birthday Weekend Takes the Cake . . . A Rambling Summary of the Busiest Weekend of My Youngish Life
My wonderful wife arranged a surprise one-night getaway for my birthday last weekend (though I discovered the surprise a bit early, because we share an e-mail) and we met some old friends Friday in Greenwich Village, and my friends were nice enough to meet me in a "Dave friendly bar" -- and so Catherine and I made our way from the Hilton near Penn Station to the High Line, and then walked a bit up there . . . which is phenomenal and highly recommended, and then we hit the Chelsea Galleries-- which are directly below the High Line and which are also patently absurd -- and we saw some really bad modern art and some really scary modern art by David Altmejd, who essentially builds sculptures of horror movies, which is cool, but also begets many questions, such as: who buys this stuff? where do they put it?-- and though we found no answers, we did find some delicious pork and pineapple tacos in the Chelsea Market, and then we found Kettle of Fish, the "Dave friendly bar," which means: cheap, wood panelling, dart boards, pinball, dive-like and similar to the Park Pub . . . except this place was also full of beautiful young people, including some super-models hogging one of the dart boards, which was fun to be near at first but then got more and more annoying, but once Whitney and I got on the other board, no one was able to knock us off, a great birthday present, we won in ridiculous and dramatic fashion over opponents that were probably more skilled than us and did this for a good four hours straight, from 8 -12, until things dissolved . . . and then after more drinking and pizza, we made it back to the hotel at 2 AM, got up the next morning and took the train home for soccer practice, then got ready for my oldest son's birthday -- he was born a day before me -- and went to Medieval Times, and though I could barely keep my eyes open, it was quite fun, sort of like professional wrestling (and our knight won!) combined with bizarre dinner theater (and Whitney reminded me of the best line from The Cable Guy, which is spot on: "there were no utensils IN medieval times, hence there are no utensils AT Medieval Times") and then we hosted a sleepover for a bunch of ten year olds and then on Sunday morning, I had to wake-up my younger son and his buddy from the sleepover at 6 AM so we could get dressed to play three indoor 8 v 8 soccer games, and then after coaching that insanity, we rushed to the basketball play-off game, as I am the assistant coach on that team, and we won and advanced in the play-offs, and then I finally got to take a birthday nap.
Brilliant Tactics in 4th/5th Grade Recreational Basketball
Things got slightly heated at the recreational basketball semi-finals Monday night -- the league rule is that every player must play two quarters, and most teams have ten players, which makes things easy to keep track of, but the particular team we were playing had been shorting their weaker players minutes all season and our head coach brought this up during the game and so the opposing coach had to play everyone equally, and though this team beat us earlier in the season, we beat them handily this time -- and I was impressed with my coaching partner's strategic use of the rules to make the game fair, but the opposing coach countered with a brilliant counter-strategy: he attempted to have his worst player foul the point guard on our team constantly in the final stretch, so that this weak player would foul out, and he could replace him with a stronger player . . . which, I must admit, is a brilliant plan-- something I would never have dreamed up (I can barely remember to call time-outs).
Two Comedians Walk into a Bar
Dinner table dialogue . . .
Ian: Who had the most children?--
Alex: I don't know;
Ian: George Washington because he's the father of our country;
Mom: that's not funny;
Alex: it's political humor;
Mom: now that's funny.
Ian: Who had the most children?--
Alex: I don't know;
Ian: George Washington because he's the father of our country;
Mom: that's not funny;
Alex: it's political humor;
Mom: now that's funny.
I Fixed My Car?
Although Zman claims that adding washer fluid to the reservoir "does not constitute fixing your car," I beg to differ -- before I put that fluid into the reservoir, my car no longer shot washer fluid onto the windshield, but after I did it, it did . . . and so I fixed it (actually, I'm willing to admit my logic makes no sense, because nothing was broken . . . this was more like changing a light bulb or putting a new roll of toilet paper on the spindle, but -- more importantly-- I now know that you've got a good three weeks between when the "low washer fluid light" pops up on the dashboard and when you actually run out washer fluid . . . so if you see that thing, it's not like you're low on oil or something important, and you don't have to rush out to get washer fluid).
It's Not Poop Week, It's Hippo Week!
This sentence is more practical than most of the drivel on this blog, as I need to present this example to my students in a few weeks, when we finally wrap up Hamlet . . . so if you don't care about Shakespeare, hippos, feigned madness, and impractical subterfuge, then I give you permission to stop reading this, but for you brave souls, you might learn something fascinating if you forge ahead; once we finish Hamlet, I am going to make the students connect a theme or character or line or allusion from the play to something modern -- a book or movie scene or song or painting that directly or indirectly reflects ideas from the play, and I just stumbled on a wonderful example: after Hamlet learns from his father's ghost that his uncle is the murderer, he decides that the best course of action is to put on an "antic disposition"-- he feigns madness-- as he believes this will allow him unusual freedoms around the castle and also that Claudius won't suspect him of any subterfuge because he's essentially opted out of the political reality inside the castle . . . and while I've always considered this an absolutely ridiculous plan (but artistically very entertaining, of course) I stumbled upon a historical example of feigned madness that turned out rather well for the perpetrator, an adventurer named Fritz Duquesne, a South African Boer soldier, who lived a wild life as a spy, saboteur, storyteller, big game hunter, and heavy-handed purveyor of bullshit and espionage . . . he was also the arch-nemesis of Frederick Russell Burnham -- although they both agreed on one thing, that America should import hippopotami to simultaneously solve the problem of the turn of the century meat shortage and the invasive water hyacinth (and I learned about all this in Jon Mooallem's fantastic article about the attempt to introduce hippo ranching to the Louisiana bayous) but, of course, we never imported hippos, and years later, Duquesne became rather unhinged, and was involved in several terroristic bombings, counter-espionage, and fraud; while he was held in city jail in New York in 1919, he lost his mind, and then the use of the lower half of his body, but the authorities were skeptical, so they stuck pins into his legs and under his toe nails, and Duquesne "never once wriggled or winced" so they transported him to Bellevue, where he sat in a wheelchair in front of a barred window and watched the birds . . . but he wasn't actually paralyzed and somehow withstood the pin torture without revealing his ruse, and day after day he sawed at the bars with two hacksaw blades he had acquired, and finally made a daring and nimble escape, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, hopping a ferry to Hoboken, and then disappearing into New Jersey . . . and he wasn't caught until 1941, when he was discovered to be at the center of the infamous Duquesne Spy Ring, and he went to jail in Kansas and served 13 years of his 18 year sentence . . . so like Hamlet, a wild and artistically satisfying life that could only end in tragedy.
Old People Are Sexy Too
If you like to think about old people having sex, or your mother having sex, or you're just a fan of the Bard of Stratford upon Avon, then you will have to head over to Gheorghe: The Blog today for your daily dose of Dave.
Hippos Trump Everything
One of the things I love about reading is that it offers total unadulterated freedom of choice -- though I may have several books out from the library, and several more sitting by my bedside, waiting to be read, if I hear about something that piques my interest, I drop everything and commit wanton literary infidelity; I read whatever I want, when I want, without worrying about any recourse or repercussions; in other words, I'll break off a relationship with a book at the drop of a hat; this is the opposite of marriage (or my marriage anyway, as I'm pretty sure I'm forbidden to date other women -- not that I'm going to ask -- and I certainly can't engage in this sort of adulterous freedom with TV shows, because if my wife and I are watching a show, and I watch one without her, it's tantamount to cheating on her . . . and that's why when I heard that Jon Mooallem wrote a seventy one page article about the wild and ingenious plan at the turn of the century to solve America's meat shortage by farming hippos in the Louisiana bayous, I truncated all my previous literary relationships-- including getting to page seven in a new translation of Brothers Karamazov-- and immediately bought the article as a Kindle single on Amazon-- hippo farming!-- and it's well worth reading; there's megafauna, scouts, spies, terrorism, politics, subterfuge, feigned lunacy and plenty of hippo jerky (if you want a quick summary, then check out this Wired article on the article).
How Not to Fix Your Car
When the little light comes on that indicates that your car is low on windshield washer fluid, not only do you have to purchase more windshield washer fluid, but you also have to open the hood of the car and pour the stuff into the washer fluid reservoir (which I haven't done yet -- my big bottle of blue washer fluid has been riding shotgun in my van for two weeks now).
It's Poop Week!
I may not rescue old ladies from burning buildings or dig wells for the indigent, but I did bag and toss at least ten piles of poop at the dog park last week (I think people get lazy about picking up the poop when there is snow on the ground, because it's hard to walk through the deep stuff, but I can't stand seeing a brown pile of poop defacing the pure white snow . . . which is mainly yellow and gray now anyway, from exhaust and dog urine).
Hero to Zero (in ten hours)
Thursday morning I woke up sore but satisfied, as the night before -- at our weekly Over-30 basketball pick-up game, I had one of the best shooting nights of my rather ugly basketball career . . . both my outside shot and my hook shot were on, which is a rare occurrence, and pretty much everything I chucked up went in; my team won five games in a row and got to stay on the court for ninety minutes straight, and so by the end of the night I was not only happy with my athletic prowess but also totally exhausted, and it was with these wonderful memories in my mind, that I went walking the dog on Thursday morning, and when I neared the dog park, I had to climb over a large pile of snow, and though I could clearly see that there was ice on the pavement below, I figured I could keep my balance when I touched down on it -- because I was a great athlete-- but I did not keep my balance-- not even close-- in fact, both my legs shot into the air (similar to this incident, except more spastic) and I landed squarely on my upper back, and then my head snapped back and hit the ice, and I saw stars and lost my wind, and made some weird yelling noises because I couldn't breathe and because it hurt so fucking much, and Sirius licked my face a couple times to make sure I was alive, and I'm hoping that this incident doesn't screw up my outside shot, but I have a feeling that it will . . . or at least I can blame this incident if my shot returns to normal next week (and there is a fairly happy ending to this story: though I felt shaky all day Thursday and my back and neck hurt, I made it out to the pub, and stayed rather late, and while this might not have been great for my liver, when I woke up Friday morning, after four hours of sleep, my back felt fine . . . and my students -- who thought I was going to be feeling it far worse the second day -- were impressed by my resilience; in fact, I may have boldly claimed to one class that I was "unbreakable" and asked a student to throw a chair at me . . . but luckily, this student did not comply with my request).
It's Been a Long Winter
Though I knew it was a bad idea, I tried to pick up and bag my dog's poop with my gloves on, because it was so cold and snowy, and -- of course -- I got poop all over my gloves . . . but, resourceful soul that I am, I used some snow to clean my gloves off . . . the very same snow which drove me to attempt to pick up and bag a pile of dog poop with heavy winter gloves on, an impossible task . . . and now my gloves appear to be clean.
Sometimes the Internet Teaches Me Valuable Things
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a swamp rabbit (and the administration could neither confirm nor deny if this rabbit was in any way related to the "killer rabbit" in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail).
Serendipity, Baby
Though I didn't plan it, I ended up simultaneously reading Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, by Alex Bellos, and Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine by George Dohrmann . . . and while there is no question that Brazil is crazy about soccer and America is crazy about basketball, the craziness exhibits itself in very different ways: Brazilians are superstitious, zealous, and obsessively festive about their national pastime (soccer fan clubs also participate in wildly gala and choreographed carnival events, where tattooed soccer hooligans organize thousands of costumed participants in synchronized marching and dancing) and creative to a fault with their gameplay, as illustrated by their incorporation of religion into the sport, their use of bizarre nicknames and their attempt at an "autoball" league in the 1970's . . . meanwhile, the story George Dohrmann tells of elite youth basketball players and their sleazy, despicable, but wildly successful coach Joe Keller paints a portrait of greed, consumption, high hopes, wild aspirations, hard work, hype, enormous success, great pressure, and epic failure . . . all in the milieu of middle school . . . the story is by turns compelling and infuriating, but the book is a must read, especially if you coach kids, and once you're finished, you can check Dohrmann's blog to see where the players from the book are now.
Dave Accomplishes His Goal
For the second time this season, I had to coach our rec basketball team alone-- normally I am the assistant coach, but the head coach couldn't make it-- and the goal I set for myself was simple: I wanted to call at least one time-out (the last game that I coached solo I forgot about the existence of time-outs-- probably because of all the years coaching soccer-- and so I did all my strategizing during in-bounds passes and free-throws) and so, though we were well ahead and I had already pointed this our to several players, I still called one time out in the first half, to point out that the other team was running a 2-3 zone, and that our ball-handler should penetrate through the middle, and then either shoot or pass it out to the sides . . . and I've decided that I've got no desire to be Bobby Knight and I will be happy when spring soccer season rolls around and I can go back to chatting with the players on my bench while we watch things happen on the soccer field that are so far away and chaotic that's there's really no reason to yell anything, as no one is going to hear you nor are they going to be able to react in time to adjust to what you say.
Like Finches, Only Wackier and With Guns
The This American Life podcast "Good Guys" is a mixed bag, but the last story (Act 4) takes a turn into strange territory -- an anonymous soldier sent producer Sarah Koenig a number of recordings he made while on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and he describes a group of men who joined the army not for love and country and patriotism, but instead to be able to experience the thrill of killing another human being . . . and while on some level this is disturbing, on another it makes me wonder if humans are just becoming more specialized, the way the finches did on the Galapagos Islands: now you can make your way in this world as a political pundit, a math nerd, an architect, a musician, a professional athlete, and as a killer . . . you can exploit your artistry, anger, rhetorical powers, mathematical skills, good looks, ruthlessness, business sense, good will towards all humans, or any number of oddball human traits to earn money and gain fame and favor, so it makes sense that the killing niche will find its experts as well, and they aren't necessarily going to be doing it for the "right" reasons . . . in fact, if they are doing it for the "wrong" reasons, then they might be better at it (but also immoral) just like these guys were really good at making money . . . and if the niche exists, just as it would in an evolutionary matrix, something is going to move into it and exploit it, and you really can't blame people or animals or weeds or finches or whatever, if they do.
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