Farewell Four Letter Friends . . .

In December my audio streaming service, Rdio, bit the dust . . . according to the company's design lead, Wilson Miner, the service was made for "snobby album purists," and I guess that's why it didn't thrive (the company filed for bankruptcy and Pandora bought what was left) and I guess that's also why I loved it and was willing to pay $4.99 a month for it-- I read Miner's quip in an article by Kevin Nguyen called "Burying Rdio, the Music App for Annoying Men" . . . and several days ago, while I was still in the process of mourning Rdio, I received a text message from PTel, my cheap mobile phone provider, and it's curtains for them as well . . . and this makes me quite sad, because they always provided Platinum level telecommunications (aside from the lack of service in Manchester, Vermont and the fact that I had to hold my phone out the window in my classroom in order to send a text message) and while this is serious stuff-- I've lost two pillars of my digital universe in less than a month's time-- I'll take solace in the fact that Netflix still works, and I'll encourage you to use Netflix to watch the funniest single episode of a sitcom ever made, "Charlie Work," which is the fourth episode of the tenth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . . . and you may be thinking: How can Dave claim he knows the funniest episode of any sitcom ever . . . how can I trust his opinion, when he can't even pick a good cell-phone company or a good music streaming service? and while I admit this is reasonable logic, I will humbly ask you to watch "Charlie Work," which has an insanely high rating on IMDB, and then if you can provide a single episode of a sitcom that you believe is funnier, and I will pit them head to head, and using my patented situation comedy arbitration method, I will determine an unbiased victor.

Giant Reptile Wades Through Snowy Wasteland

Friday night, my wife was driving down Route 1 and she did double take when she read the big electronic variable message sign . . . she was already nervous about Winter Storm Jonas, and this sounded even worse . . . the message on the sign read: LIZARD WARNING.

Dave Defeats His Wife in a Battle of Logic!

It's a rare occurrence, but I always relish when my wife screws up-- in fact, it's the topic of the very first Sentence of Dave-- and so it was with great pleasure, when my wife came down the stairs and into the kitchen yesterday morning, that I asked her-- facetiously-- if she had heard the weather report the night before, you know . . . the weather report about Winter Storm Jonas, the mighty blizzard that had dominated the news for the latter half of the week . . . and though she knew I was up to something, she admitted to having knowledge of the storm, and this admission buried her, because my next question was: "then why did you leave two six packs of beer on our back porch?" and at first she tried to maneuver her way out of it-- she said she didn't think that they would have been buried and she pointed out that I occasionally put beer in the snow, but she finally confessed that it was an absurd move, and that if I hadn't seen the bottle caps, just above the blanket of snow (and wondered if some fruity beer fairy had come in the night and left a six pack Illusive Traveler Grapefruit Shandy and a six pack of Leinenkugel Berry Weiss as some sort of blizzard survival kit) then the beer would have been buried in a snow drift until spring, the bottles shattered, and-- more importantly-- my wife would have been beerless for the duration of the blizzard.

The Test . . . Snow Day Edition

There's nothing better on a snowy day, just after you've shoveled out the mouth of your driveway (and then the plow comes by again and undoes all your hard work) than sitting back with a cup of hot chocolate and listening to the newest episode of The Test . . . and this one is hot off the press, with real time blizzard allusions from The Voice of God . . . check it out, play along at home, and see if you can beat me (you'll definitely beat Cunningham on this one).
 

Some Advice For Dog Owners During the Winter Months

Open the poop bag when you are in the house, before you venture out in the the cold with your dog, because it's very difficult to pry open one of those little bags when your fingers are numb (and I would have said pre-open the bag before you walk the dog, except that George Carlin would roll over in his grave if I used the prefix "pre" in that manner).

Toothbrushes Part I

When we were young and wild, my wife and I shared a toothbrush-- and this went on for over a decade; now that we're mature, we have our separate brushes (which made my students very happy . . . they were quite disgusted by the fact that we shared one brush for that many years) but I'm loath to admit that I'm not sure which brush is mine, so I use whichever one I grab first (there are four brushes in the cup, two purple and two blue) and so I'm going to check with my wife and see if she thinks that a particular brush is "hers" and report back to you . . . we might still be sharing a toothbrush afterall.

Dave Uses Evidence and Jazz Hands to Argue His Point

Back in November, I took some flak in the comments for calling jazz vocalization "unbearable," and so I'd like to present Exhibit A, Tom Lellis singing "For Better Days Ahead," a song I heard on WBGO on my way to work; I'd also like to point out that these days I primarily listen to jazz, more than any other genre, so this isn't some off-the-cuff generalization . . . jazz singing almost always ruins the music; if you can sincerely listen to "For Better Days" and tell me that you enjoy the singing-- that it makes the song better-- then you can smack me across the face with your jazz hands . . . it's the same deal with classical music-- which I love-- versus opera, which annoys me (the song also features a flute solo, which is invariably the kiss of death).

Making Us Sleepy

The Netflix documentary Making a Murderer is sometimes compelling, sometimes boring, sometimes biased and sometimes soporific . . . my wife and I took turns snoozing during the course of the ten episodes, and while I will go out on a limb and say that Len Kachinsky is the worst lawyer ever (in Jeff Albertson's voice) and it seems that the series has exposed some corruption and malpractice and misrepresentation in the two cases, and that Brendan Dassey's constitutional rights were violated, there is still no theory as to who else could have committed the crime-- there's no way the entire thing was a police frame-up and it doesn't seem likely that some super-genius criminal killed Theresa Holbach and then set up Stephen Avery . . . and this Slate article points out some interesting facts that the documentary left out and suggests that the perspective of the filmmakers might be very biased . . . so while the case and the surrounding procedures do point to some systemic failures of the American justice system, I'm just not sure how outraged to be over this one particular case, where I think the police and prosecution (and even Len Kachinsky) knew they had guilty parties and just wanted to make sure they were convicted, and crossed some ethical lines in order to do this.

Epic Adventures in Parenting

A banner week: two epic journeys, one for each child;

1) after a packed Sunday of sporting events-- I played indoor soccer and coached my younger son's basketball team, and my older son attended basketball practice (where they installed a new offense) and then played in a basketball game, where he took several hard charges and an elbow to the windpipe, and then he went directly from the basketball game to a futsal game at Piscataway High School, and we arrived as the game started, and in he went . . . so by the end of the game, he was exhausted, and I was wiped too-- indoor soccer kills my knees-- and just after we left the building, we realized that he forgot his water bottle, so we went back in, looked for it, and couldn't find it, then we exited the building a different way, realized we didn't know where we were, and couldn't get back in, so we circumnavigated the building, in the dark and the wind, both of us barely able to walk and close to tears, with no clue as to where the car was (and Piscataway High School is huge) and when we finally found the car, there was a water bottle in the front seat, and I checked the backpack and the other water bottle was inside-- so he must have given it to me right after the game and I forgot, so the mishap was entirely my fault;

2) I got home after a faculty meeting and my younger son should have been home already, but he wasn't, so I went to Ben's house, but he wasn't there (and Ben didn't know where he was) and I went to Micah's house and he wasn't there (and Micah hadn't seen him) and while the logical part of my brain knew he was fine, the creative section was designing open wells for him to fall in and white vans to abduct him-- and by this time he was "missing" for a good forty-five minutes, so I walked over to the school to see if they had any information, and the secretary in the main office said I should check the library, because they were having a "Game Day" and I remembered that he had a form about this, but that kids got selected by a lottery system, and I never heard anything about it, but when I went to the library, Ian was there, playing checkers with his buddy and I was very relieved, and on the way out I told the secretary I found him, and I must have looked pretty distraught because she asked me if I wanted to sit down for a moment and have a piece of candy (which was very sweet of her, but I had to refuse because the dog was tied up just outside the door . . . he accompanied me on this absurd journey) .

The Test 32: Stretchy Horses and Twisty Mustaches (Salvador Dali)

There's no need for The Voice of God this week on The Test, because Cunningham provides everything you wanted to know about Salvador Dali (but were afraid to ask) and while Stacey and I do a serviceable job answering the questions (and making jokes) there is also a bonus conflict where I call Stacey a "menace to audio" and Cunningham jumps right on the bandwagon . . . give it a shot, keep score, and see if you can beat the pros (after 32 episodes, I think we have the right to call ourselves professional test-takers).

Freaks and Geeks: One Season Is Enough

I'm not sure if you can spoil a show that's sixteen years old, but if you've never seen Freaks and Geeks, you need to watch it immediately-- before you read this sentence, because there are spoilers ahead-- and if you've never watched because you don't want to get so emotionally attached to a show that's only one season long, I can understand that, but it's worth watching for the music alone and if you're afraid it will end with you wanting more, you couldn't be more wrong-- in fact, it's probably better off that the show got cancelled, because the last several episodes are (serendipitously or not) cumulatively one of the best endings to any show ever made (maybe because they didn't know the show was to be cancelled, so there were no expectations) and each character gets the ending they deserve:

1) Ken overcomes his inhibitions about his once hermaphroditic girlfriend;

2) Nick uses his rhythmic abilities and gawkiness to conquer the disco dance floor . . . although he can't defeat a disco-magician;

3) Neal comes to terms with his dad's philandering and his brother and mother's acceptance of this;

4) Bill comes to terms with his mom dating Coach Fredericks;

5) Sam realizes that dating Cindy is far less wonderful than he imagined, and breaks it off;

6) Daniel (played brilliantly by James Franco) plays Advanced D&D with the geeks, turning the high school social on its head;

7) Lindsey ditches the summer academy in Ann Arbor in order to follow the dead in a VW bus with her freak friend Kim . . .

and there is no coming back from this . . . it's like the final two episodes of The Shield (except funny and poignant instead of disturbing and tortured).

Hey Waldo, You Should Have Read Your Humboldt

Ralph Waldo Emerson espoused the transcendental notions that "nature always wears the colors of the spirit" and "there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend," but I think we all know that the opposite is more often true-- if it's a beautiful sunny day at the shore, low humidity and a crisp breeze, then you can't help enjoying the weather, even if a half dozen of your dearest friends were just eaten by a school of rampant hammerhead sharks . . . and we know in the bleak winter months that some of us get the blues (scientifically known as seasonal affective disorder) and drink and eat way too much, and while Emerson got the cause and effect wrong, it appears that his predecessor, Alexander Humboldt, got it right; Andrea Wulf, in her fantastic book The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World, explains that "Humboldt showed how nature could have an influence on people's imagination . . . what we might take for granted today-- that there is a correlation between the external world and our mood -- was a revelation to Humboldt's readers."

Weird Al's Next Project?

God knows why, but my son has chosen the "diorama" option for a school project, and while I hate dioramas-- and question their pedagogical necessity-- I would really like it if Weird Al did a parody of "Panorama" by The Cars, and made the lyrics all about having to do a school project . . . the song writes itself, really . . . I just want to be in your diooooramaaa.

Chronological Dyslexia

I have two reasons for this brief moment of chronological dyslexia:

1) I never use chapstick;

2) it was early in the morning;

and I would also like to point out that I immediately realized that I should have asked the question first, and then committed the action based on the answer to the question, but I didn't do it like that . . . instead, I did it like this: I picked up a generic plastic and pink tube off the desk in the kitchen, removed the top, applied some of the waxy substance to my lips, and then asked my wife: "This is chapstick, right, not a glue stick?"

Dave Wins (Inadvertently Funny) Comment of the Year!

My friend and colleague Stacey was so amused by this comment thread in response to this sentence that she printed it out and taped it to the whiteboard in the office . . . I missed the word "downtown" in my friend's comment, making the implications of my rejoinder rather perverse.

Dave Confesses to a Crime of Passion

Yesterday after school, I stopped at Wawa for coffee, and-- while I was waiting in line-- I was tempted by the big cookies on display by the register; once I decided I was going to get a big cookie, I decided I was going to get the biggest cookie, and while I was comparing them-- handling all the cookies, trying to find the absolute biggest cookie with the most chocolate chips, one of the big cookies slipped out of the cellophane and fell onto the floor . . . so I kicked it under the low ledge of the counter, grabbed the second biggest cookie from the rack, paid, and made a clean getaway . . . and if I do ever get brought to the bar for this crime, I will blame poor packaging (and not the true culprit: gluttony).

One For the Ladies . . . or Should I Say, Thirteen for the Ladies and One for the Boys

My wife has thirteen different bottles of hair care and body wash and skin cleansing products in the shower, while the boys only have one all-purpose bottle of Dial Kids No Tears Body and Hair Wash . . . and I think this is an egregious imbalance of power in this region of the house and it needs to be rectified soon or the region is going to erupt in about of asymmetrical warfare.

The Test 31: Colors (It's Not Easy Being Green)

This week on The Test, I administer a quiz specifically tailored to our special guest-- her name is Gabby Green and so the questions revolve around colors; Stacey is not particularly impressed by this very literal connection, but-- despite this-- a good time is had by all (there's even an extemporaneous test within the test, thanks to some quick thinking by Stacey) and, at the end, God saves the integrity of the show with a well placed BEEP.

The Wit of the Parking Lot?

One of the best things about Manchester, Vermont is the Equinox Preserve, a beautiful piece of land with a number of well marked hiking trails criss-crossing Equinox Mountain and circumnavigating Equinox Pond; I took the dog there one afternoon after a morning of snowboarding-- Cat and the kids didn't want to go, and I was looking forward to a serene walk on a snowy trail, Sirius leading the way; there were quite a few cars parked along the road approaching the trailhead (it was New Year's Day, so I guess everyone had the same idea) but I saw that there were three spots open in the dirt parking lot at the end of the road, and so I pulled in and as I was pulling into the middle spot (which was the deepest parking spot-- the spots were delineated by piles of snow, clearly marked where the plow had pushed the pile, and I wanted the van to be as unobtrusive as possible in the lot) I heard a loud BEEP . . . unbeknownst to me, there was a car right behind me-- which was shocking enough (I think I was in my own world, out in the woods, without wife or kids to distract me) and then when I got out of the car, the woman in the car that BEEPED at me starting giving me shit about where I parked, but she was a Vermonter, so instead of cursing me out, Jersey style, she kept starting and stopping sentences, which was even more annoying: "I don't like the way you parked your . . . it's hard to get in there . . . there's not room for other . . . you should have . . ." and I was so taken aback by this that instead of telling her that I had parked in the deepest spot because my van was big, or simply telling here to fuck off, instead I just stared at her like she had three heads-- I often get awkward when I'm in a brand-new situation, and that's how I felt-- but now I realize that she was simple annoyed that SHE had to pull in between two cars, she wanted me to park all the way over, so that she would have an easier time parking and getting out of her BMW SUV; I got the dog out of my car and was starting to walk towards the trail as she parked her car, and then she got out and continued giving me shit in her mealy-mouthed manner, and I finally was able to process this brand-new situation, and I said, "There's three spots, you can see by the plow marks," and then I backed up behind the cars and made a point to melodramatically eyeball my parking job and I said, "I nailed it, I'm right in the middle, I couldn't have done a better job" and as I walked out of the lot to the trail, some other people who had witnessed the scene smiled at me, a smile that said That lady was NUTS and I nodded knowingly at them, and as I walked through the woods, I thought what I really should have done was pace off my parking job on each side, to show here that I was right exactly in the middle, but it was hard enough for me to think of anything to say at all, it was such an odd scene, and it polluted the serenity of my hike (but I felt righteously vindicated when I got back to the lot, and there were cars parked comfortably on either side of my van, illustrating that I had indeed "nailed it" and parked right in the center of the three spots).

Serial Season Two vs. Dave's Brain!

Last year, I taught Serial Season 1 to my high school seniors-- I couched the podcast within a process analysis unit, and the kids really enjoyed it; Serial Season 2 is a bit harder to get a grip on, but I like it even better than Season 1, perhaps because it reminds me of all the things I learned when I lived in Syria, and-- despite the difficulties, I am teaching to my seniors and (with the threat of constant quizzing) they are doing a fantastic job with a dense and difficult story . . . this time I've embedded the podcast in a compare/contrast unit, because that seems to be the main structural trope that ties the story together . . . here are some of the topics that the podcast invites you to compare and contrast:

1) the liberal interpretation of Bergdahl's story vs. the conservative perspective . . . Katy Waldman (on  the Slate's Serial Spoiler) calls the tone of the podcast "radical empathy" while many of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers consider him a deserter and a traitor;

2) Bergdahl and Jason Bourne;

3) Bergdahl and a "golden chicken";

4) Bergdahl and a "ready made loaf";

5) Bergdahl and and a "free-floating astronaut" with no tether;

6) the American Army and a "lumbering machine" and an AT-AT;

7) the Taliban as a mouse running beneath the machine's legs;

8) Pakistan as "home base," the mousehole in the wall in Tom & Jerry;

9) the rumors about Bergdahl vs. the reality of his captivity;

10) The Haqqani Network and the Sopranos;

11) Bergdahl's imprisonment and treatment vs. the imprisonment and treatment of Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib;

12) the feelings about infidels of moderate Muslims vs. radical Muslims;

13) the code of conduct required for POW videos vs. actual military expectations for POW videos;

14) the sovereign state of Pakistan and the tribal area of North Waziristan;

15) the captivity of Bergdahl and the captivity of David Rohde . . . Rohde was kidnapped and held for three months by the Haqqani network in the same area as Bergdahl at nearly the same time, he is a civilian journalist and not a soldier, and he wasn't blindfolded and isolated as much as Bergdahl, but his story is still very helpful in understanding what happened to Bergdahl;

16) the entire story and the children's book Zoom;

and these are the issues that I think will surface in the future-- I'm speculating, of course, but that's necessary when you're teaching a piece that's not finished yet . . . it's like teaching a book that hasn't been finished, it's exhilarating and exhausting, but also really fun; I can teach Hamlet and Henry IV in my sleep because I know what happens, while doing this is really keeping me on my toes, and this is where I imagine the story is going:

17) there will be comparisons drawn Bergdahl's endurance in captivity and the hero's journey . . . the fact that Mark Boal was interested in interviewing him for a movie and the fact that he is the longest held captive since the Vietnam War and the fact that they are viewing him with such empathy in the podcast leads me to believe it will head in this direction;

18) good leaders vs. toxic leaders . . . if Bergdahl is going to be portrayed as heroic, Serial is going to have to provide a reasonable story of why he deserted his post, and I think they are saving that portion of the narrative and I also think that it is going to open a whole crazy can of worms about the military and it's purpose;

19) the motivation behind Bergdahl's decision and the Pixar film Inside Out . . . which I have promised to show to my students if they survive the podcast;

20) the reaction you should have when you think about how long Bergdahl spent in captivity and the following clip from Grosse Pointe Blank (and while I realize that it doesn't connect exactly in a mathematical sense, the tone is perfect).