The Test 42: Literary Stuff

This week on The Test, Stacey teaches Cunningham and me a few things about her literary heroes; if you listen to this episode, I promise you will learn some anecdotes you can brandish while you drink martinis at a posh cocktail party with your hyper-educated, effete, literary friends . . . along the way, I try to make some half-baked jokes, and Cunningham decides that in order to inspire her literary muse,  she may have to live inside a computer or journey to Mars . . . play along at home, have fun, and remember: in order to seem educated, you don't have to actually read the book, you just need to know some literary stuff.

 

Oops, I Did It Again?

I've got a plethora of excuses for my actions yesterday (though my wife is accepting none of them) but apparently I got naked in a public area again, though I didn't realize it; this time, at least I was out-of-state-- at the H2Oooohh! Waterpark in the Poconos-- and my first excuse is that I hate indoor water parks: I hate the noise and the echoes of the noise, I hate being damp, I hate how hot and crowded it is, and I hate the claustrophobia . . . so I was mentally bracing myself for a rough time, and I wasn't paying attention to details-- and so after we got our bracelets and proceeded through the glass doors, my wife handed me my bathing suit and spandex, and I went into "changing mode" and found a bench surrounded by lockers, and while I did find it weird that there was a big glass window, and that the people in line could see into the area, conveniently, there were no people near this section of the window, and there weren't any people around me-- so I whipped off my shorts and boxers and quickly put on my spandex and bathing suit . . . and while it should have seemed strange to me that I was in the same area as my wife, I didn't really count her as someone who shouldn't see me naked, and there were no other females around, and the floor was nice and dry and there was no one anywhere near this bench, and-- like I said-- there were lockers, so I went into "locker room mode," but apparently I was still in a very public and visible area (so much so that my wife couldn't stop laughing for the next twenty minutes and actually took a photo of the spot where I changed) and while I don't think anyone saw me, my wife insists that a couple of teenage boys witnessed the incident, and were like "WTF!" but this can neither be confirmed nor denied, and the worst part is that I've been to this waterpark several times before and know where the men's locker room is, but my brain somehow blanked this information out . . . I don't know why I went into auto-pilot like this, but perhaps I was excited because the floor was so nice and dry in this area, and inside the actual men's changing room the floor is wet and damp everywhere . . . anyway, my story is that I changed so quickly that no one saw anything out of the ordinary, but my wife isn't buying this one bit.

Quest for Pizza . . . Old Bridge Edition

My Quest for Pizza continues . . . my friend Stacey, who is an Old Bridge local, recommended General Saloon and the pizza is pretty good: thin crust, yummy bacon, but a little too much cheese . . . I think if we requested light on the cheese this pizza would have been excellent, and it was quite good despite the cheesiness . . . the place itself has a pleasant and comfortable pub-like vibe-- you can bring the kids for lunch and it looks like a fun place to see a band at night; after a hike with the dog at John A. Philips Preserve, I tried another highly recommended Old Bridge pizza spot: Krispy Pizza . . . and I love the name-- there's nothing more American than spelling shit wrong-- and the pizza is good as well, thin crust . . . my plain slice was a tad greasy, but still very tasty; the chicken on the buffalo chicken slice was awesome, crumbly and tender, and the sauce was fairly spicy . . . but Shanahan's Bakery is still my favorite place to grab a slice in the vicinity . . . who will oust them?

Incentives and The Prize

I'd like to know what economic lessons Tim Harford would find behind Mark Zuckerberg, Cory Booker, and Chris Christie's attempt to transform the Newark school system; Zuckerberg donated 100 million dollars, Cory Booker-- a passionate proponent of charter schools-- raised sums to match this money, and Chris Christie saw this as an opportunity to attack the unions; Dale Russakoff explains all this and more in her book The Prize: Who's In Charge of America's Schools? and the morals of the story are complex, ugly, ambiguous, messy, and occasionally inspirational:

1) there is no magic bullet to fix education in an impoverished city;

2) top down directives, even if they use excellent jargon, don't change broken infrastructure;

3) you can't move kids around willy-nilly in a city like Newark to fill charter schools-- because the kids left behind have no where to learn, and the kids who get moved may have issues with with where they are moved-- gang turf, lack of busing, etcetera;

4) if you don't consult the community before implementing giant initiatives that involve their kids, they will feel angry and oppressed, especially if these directives are ordered by a white superintendent in a primarily black city;

5) you can be a rock-star or a mayor, but you can't be a rock-star mayor;

6) it's difficult to measure what parents and administrators find important in education, so the bureaucracy tends to find important what is easy to measure-- which is usually test scores-- and this can bite you in the ass;

7) consultants know how to bill hours and make a shitload of money from a situation like this (and it seems Zuckerberg has learned this lesson and is trying a different approach in the San Francisco bay area);

8) kids in a city like Newark need all kinds of additional support besides teaching, many of them have experienced horrible tragedy and violence, and they need counseling and psychological support as much as they need reading and math review;

9) Newark's billion dollar education budget is the "prize" sought after by politicians, unions, government and citizens . . . and there is going to be greed and corruption surrounding this much money;

10) there are superb teachers and students in the current system, and smart parents shepherd their kids through, but it's difficult to get rid of poor teachers because of union rules;

11) politicians and philanthropists will eventually lose interest and move on with their lives, but the parents and the kids and the community remains-- so change has to come from the bottom-up, and it needs to come from people that are going to stay in the community-- Booker went on to a senate position, Christie had to deal with Bridgegate and his presidential campaign, and Zuckerberg moved on to a new project-- meanwhile, the two hundred million dollar donation was a drop in the bucket, and got eaten up by consultants, contract negotiations with the union, and some charter schools-- but the main infrastructure in Newark is still ancient and crumbling, teachers still go to work in that environment, and students attempt to learn there . . . and the work needs to be done one student and one teacher and one classroom and one school building at a time, which is far more boring than radical, transformational top-down change;

12) if you want to understand some of the complexities of educational reform, read this book.

Life isn't Fair (but Sometimes It Is Logical)

Tim Harford's The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World is another gem, especially if you're a fan of Freakonomics style logic; he examines how incentives often do the reverse of what is intended-- the existence of nicotine patches encourage teens to smoke, too many women in big cities discourage marriage, mild preferences create neighborhoods that would suggest virulent racism, it's more beneficial to research the kind of coffee maker or car you're going to buy than the next presidential candidate, your boss is probably an overpaid dope who doesn't know how hard you work (and that makes perfect sense) and the best way to solve overpopulation might be to move to the city and have six kids . . . I don't have the time or energy to explain the logic behind all these conclusions, but the book is smart and worth a read, though I must warn you, it starts in a rather salaciously concupiscent manner (reminiscent of Superfreakonomics).

This Is Difficult to Articulate

I feel like on some level, in some space in my brain, I am very, very smart . . . but I just can't remember things, or think of examples when I need them, or put things into words very well . . . does everyone else feel like this too?

The Test 41: Zombies (and Zombeavers)

This week on The Test, Stacey collaborates with special guest Liz collaborates on a phenomenal and comprehensive zombie quiz-- Dave and Cunningham struggle (despite Cunningham's rather ambitious prediction that she will receive an A+) but learn that they know more about zombies than they thought; this is a great test for both newbs and aficionados, and, not only that, Stacey gets her comeuppance from the Voice of God (probably because of her frequent use of profanity) so give this one a shot and see how you fare.

I Can't Get the Slime into the Tube

I was very excited to use the bottle of Slime Tube Sealant that I purchased, as Slime Tube Sealant prevents and repairs flat tires, seals instantly and uses non-toxic fibro-seal technology, which is exactly what I needed to fix the slow leak in the back tire of my mountain bike, but, despite repeated efforts with various tools (including a pair of needle-nosed pliers and the top of the Slime Tube Sealant bottle, which claims to be a device for exactly this purpose) I couldn't get past instruction #2, even with help from a Youtube video-- and if you can't remove the valve core from the Schrader air valve, then you can't get the Slime Tube Sealant into the tire tube . . . so it's back to the bike shop for me-- I'm sure they've got a tool for this sort of thing, and I'm sure I'll feel like an idiot when I explain that I couldn't remove the Schrader valve core from my bike's back tire (even with the included tool) and that I couldn't motivate myself to remove the back tire of my bike and prize the tire off the rim and switch the tube myself, because I'm lazy and get no satisfaction from working with my hands because I'm an effete useless bastard who just wants to ride his bike but doesn't wanted to do any of the maintenance associated with riding said bike.

They Skipped This One in Driver's Ed

Obviously drunk-driving and texting-while-driving are bad news, but neither of these is as dangerous as driving with a large hairy black spider on your leg (and the worst thing about this incident is that in my attempt to kill this spider, I endangered my own life and the well-being of everyone in the vicinity of my car, but I didn't actually squash it-- I was travelling forty-five miles an hour--,and it scurried under the floor mat, whereabouts unknown, lurking, waiting for another chance to clamber up my leg and cause more mayhem on the highway).

Reverse Allusion

The weather has warmed up, and this has inspired me to continue my project of grabbing large rocks from the river during low tide, putting them in my backpack, and then carrying them up the hill to my backyard, where I use the stones for decorative mulch and ivy barriers . . . my friend Stacey calls this maneuver The Reverse Shawshank.

'tis the Season to Be Cranky

It is once again time for my semi-annual Daylight Saving Time Rant, but this year I'm happy to report that I've found one kindred soul who empathizes with my pain and suffering-- my friend Ann; her husband takes the same stance as my wife about Daylight Saving Time: it's only and hour, stop complaining . . . but Ann is of my mind, she feels the same anger at this pointless top-down bureaucratic time shift, and suffers the same anxiety and discomfort from the lost hour, which won't be found for six months-- and by then, I'll have adjusted, and it will screw me up all over again, and I don't know why we can't move the time 30 minutes ahead and leave it forever, or do a Daylight Saving Month and move the clocks two minutes a day, so no one is inconvenienced (we have computers) and while everyone agreed it would be bad news if Ann and I were married, as the dynamic combination of our indignance, suffering, criticizing, complaining, and general disgust would create a whirling black hole of negativity that would suck up everyone within twenty miles of the nexus, I think that it is good that we provide some yin in the yang of our respective marriages . . . nothing is more boring than two positive, practical, efficient, and focused yangs . . . so this Daylight Saving Time, let's celebrate the darkness, the yin, and those people who are willing to speak and complain and criticize and whine about this antiquated, absurd, and ultimately pointless practice.

Musical Theater as Punishment

My son Ian got in some serious trouble Friday night and his consequence for his various infractions is a two week grounding; for the first night of his punishment, I forced him to attend the school play: a musical version of Little Women . . .  I didn't really want to go (because I hate musical theater) but I had several students in the show and the added incentive that I could torture my son was enough motivation for me to spend my Saturday night with a bunch of teenagers and their parents in a high school auditorium-- and though we both didn't care much for the plot-- girl stuff-- Ian and I did both concede that the actors were really talented . . . and the next time Ian screws up I'm taking him to the opera.

The Test 40: More Theme Songs

This week on The Test, Cunningham administers another TV (and a movie!) Theme Song Quiz; Stacey and I do better than the first time around (but that's not saying much) and I am chastised by the Voice of God for making stuff up; as a bonus, in order to educate young Cunningham, Stacey sings the theme song from an ancient TV sitcom (and I join in).

 

Pleasant Rhyming Surprise

I was walking the dog Friday afternoon and a middle school girl nearly ran into me-- she was looking down intently at an object in her hands-- and I assumed she was staring at her cell-phone, and my brain started on its normal path-- cursing technology and its death grip on the youth-- but then I noticed she wasn't looking into a tiny screen, she was thoughtfully perusing a perfectly formed pine cone, and this made me very happy.

Something to Teach Your Kids: Money Talks and Bullshit Walks

While my parental proclamation declaring that my children may only watch approved and highly rated documentaries on school nights has predictably fallen by the wayside, I was able to resurrect a bastardized version of the decree on Wednesday night; instead of allowing my kids to continue their obsessive viewing of Family Guy on Netflix, I forced them to watch Spinal Tap . . . and while they didn't laugh as hard as I did, they admitted that they enjoyed the film, especially when Derek Smalls gets stuck inside the pod and when Nigel Tufnel reunites the band for a reunion tour in Japan . . . the next movie I'm forcing my kids to watch: The Breakfast Club.

Pizza Ambitions

The Freakonomics episode "The Cheeseburger Diet" has inspired me to eat pizza from a wider variety of establishments, and while I'm not as ambitious as Emily O'Mara, i.e. I haven't created a rubric to judge the pizza I eat, I do have a couple of recommendations: oddly, Shanahan's Bakery (in Milltown) makes fantastic pizza-- thin and delicious crust, sweet sauce, and just the right amount of cheese . . . and they also have lots of specialty slices; Brothers Pizza (in East Brunswick) was highly recommended by the locals, and I really liked their square cut "Grandma Style"-- which reminded me of Rhode Island pizza (no cheese) but I didn't really care for the mushroom slice-- canned mushrooms, doughy crust, and too much cheese . . . and while both of these places can certainly compete with my two mainstays, Mancini's-- which is in East Brunswick-- and Attilio's in Edison, I've yet to find pizza as good as the thin crust pie at Pete and Elda's in Neptune.

Expatriates

I remember when we first went to live and teach overseas, an older international teacher told me, "Don't expect anyone back at home to care or understand what it's like to leave the United States and live in a foreign place . . . when you go home for the summer, they're just going to tell you how many rolls of toilet paper they bought at Costco," and while I found this to be a bit of an exaggeration (while my family wasn't particularly curious about our life in Syria, my friends and colleagues were generally interested in my stories, anecdotes, and analysis . ..  or maybe they just pretended) and while I thought I had forgotten much of day-to-day life overseas was like, Janice Y. K. Lee's novel The Expatriates brought it all back for me; it's the story of three expatriate women in Hong Kong, and while it's definitely chick-lit and examines the inner lives of these women in detail-- and makes some statements about the inner lives of women in general-- it is also a story of the fishbowl world of the expatriate community and how that world operates . . . there is the sentiment while you are there, far from home, that the people you are with are (and will be) the most significant people in your life-- and Lee takes a sardonic look at that struggle to fit into this new community, how difficult that is for adults, but there is also the realization that "no one back home cares . . . there's an initial shallow interest in what life is like abroad, but most Americans aren't actually interested at all," and not only did the novel detail and articulate that theme, which is near and dear to me, but there's also Mercy Cho-- the Korean-American Columbia graduate who is so ironically American that she sees the "meta" in everything, despite the tragedy that surrounds her, she remains detached; you don't have to have been an expatriate to enjoy this rather intense (but also humorous) novel, but it certainly helps.

The Arbitrary Nature of Basketball Design

99% Invisible is a fairly nerdy podcast which focuses on design, but "The Yin and Yang of Basketball" is a refreshing change from the norm; it features a short history of basketball, and how James Naismith's arbitrary decision to place the basket ten feet off the ground privileged tall folks, which inevitably led the game down a ploddingly boring path, where big men banged around near the paint in order to get as close to the rim as possible, but as interest waned (in the 1970s) the ABA introduced the three-point shot, which spread the game out and led to the current state of affairs: Stephen Curry has broken his own three-point record with twenty-percent of the season left to play, if he continues on this pace he'll outstrip his old total by an incredible amount . . . most sporting records are never broken by more than ten percent (and usually much less) but this indicates a sea change in professional basketball-- for more on this, check out "Stephen Curry is the Revolution" at FiveThirtyEight.

Happy Birthday?

On the morning of my birthday, my mother texted me this:

Hi Dave, Happy 46th birthday . . . have a good day . . . I can't believe in four years, you will be 50, I will be 75, hopefully, and Alex will be driving on his permit . . .

and I feel like the tone of this text is a breach of birthday etiquette, as not only is there a reference to my mother's mortality-- and she's perfectly healthy-- but the text also thrusts me four years closer to my own hypothetical demise, for no apparent reason-- and four years is a long time: longer than my wife and I spent in Syria, the same amount of time it takes most people to get a degree, and so I wanted to text back (but didn't) a message in this vein: "That's true, and in fifty-four years, the bulk of the East Coast will be underwater and we'll both certainly be dead."

The Test 39: Chronological Fun for the Whole Family

Once upon a time, I had a great idea for a Trivial Pursuit style family board game-- you would receive three thematically connected things, and you would have to put them in chronological order (for example: The Great Wall of China, The Taj Mahal, The Mesa Verde Anasazi Cliff Dwellings) and while I gave up on this concept as fun for the whole family, it did make for a pretty good test . . . so check out this week's episode, see if you can compete with Stacey and our two special guests (MJ and Terry) and try not to get involved in our rift with Billy Joel.