NYC: Yin, Yang, and a Lot of Grime
We went to the city today and it was a study in contrasts: after a brief brisk walk from our tree-lined, bosky town, we boarded a grimy Jersey transit train-- a classic slow-boat-to-China affair with the brown seats and the faux wood paneled decor-- then we walked through an incredibly loud construction zone and climbed up onto the High Line, which is absolute oasis from the pandemonium below-- and they can't build enough high end surreal apartments alongside it (we liked the Zaha Hadid, but you'll need to pony up 5 to 50 million per condo) and then we plunged into the frantic food frenzy at Chelsea Market and had tacos and crepes and there was the usual lack of seating but a few blocks later, we found plenty of seats and views and comfort at the Whitney, although the art ranged from beautiful to scary and everything in between, lots of abstract stuff and a floor devoted to Vietnam protest art and a special exhibit by Jimmy Durham which featured Native American themes amidst absurdist expressionism (and a particularly satisfying endless video installation featuring people bringing Jimmy mundane things-- food, toys, household items-- and Jimmy, who is wearing a three piece suit, then proceeds to smash the things with a big rock on his office desk and then stamp a receipt for the person who brought the object, and this goes on and on and on . . . we watched for twenty minutes and finally decided to leave, though we weren't bored, it was oddly compelling) and then we went to The Meatball Shop and the meatballs were very very good (rivaling my wife's beachhouse meatballs) and the homemade ice cream sandwiches were better, and then we took a grimy New York subway (it's a not a trip to the city if you don't ride the subway) to the 9/11 Memorial pools and the Oculus-- and the Memorial Pools are quite breathtaking, we had never seen them before and I got teary eyed reading all the names and thinking of my two fraternity brothers who perished in the attack and then we entered the cold sci-fi austerity of the Oculus, a spiked dinosaur of a building with an interior out of Bladerunner 2049 . . . so it was particularly anticlimactic when we boarded a disgusting, hot and crowded PATH train in the bowels of the beast, which dumped us out at Newark Penn, which was also crowded, and we made the usual mad dash to catch the Jersey Transit (another filthy classic train) but I did buy the tickets on an app and show the conductor my phone, so though the decor of train itself was 70's kitsch, the method of payment was kind of sleek . . . and once we finished this epic in contrast, there was only one movie to watch: The Fisher King, which juxtaposes the byzantine underworld of filth, mental illness and grotesque illusion with the stark angles of corporate Manhattan and resolves this contradiction the way only a Terry Gilliam film can.
There's Always a Tradeoff
Acupuncture alleviated my plantar fasciitis (but now my calf is really sore, which makes sense since my acupuncturist stuck a bunch of needles into it).
Good Walkers, Spoiled
There are few things I enjoy more than taking a brisk walk with my dog on a fall day; I usually listen to a podcast or some jazz (lately I've been into jazz organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, who should not be confused with jazz keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith or base-stealing left fielder Lonnie "Skates" Smith) but today's walk was short, slow, awkward, and quite lame . . . I've played pickup basketball three times in the last week and apparently that's enough times to make my plantar fasciitis flare up-- so my left heel feels like there's a spike lodged in it-- and my dog pulled a muscle in his rear leg and he can barely walk, so anyone who saw the two of us limping around the corner from my house must have thought we were not long for this earth, but now it's raining and we're resting and I have a good feeling about tomorrow (hopefully I won't wake up in the night again and nearly collapse while trying to walk to the bathroom, that tendon gets tight as a banjo drone string in the middle of the night).
More Proof That Dreams Are Meaningless
Just before I went to bed on Thursday, my son Alex showed me the piece of his saxophone which needed fixing, and then I had a very vivid dream that night in which I brought the saxophone to Sam Ash and the tech guy told me it would cost $64 dollars to fix the saxophone and then Friday morning, I actually brought the saxophone to Sam Ash, and the tech said the repair would cost anywhere from $30 to $50 because he had to solder something and then there was no mention of soldering in the dream, and then the tech talked me into getting a $70 tune-up for the instrument-- which I agreed upon because the intersection around Sam Ash is so congested that I didn't want to return to the shop for a long time . . . and this part of the transaction also did not occur in my dream, so my dream was not only mundane and lacking prophetic symbolism, but also economically inaccurate.
The Test 101: YouTube, Me Tube, We All Tube
This week on The Test, Cunningham takes us on an inspirationally aspirational (aspirational inspirational?) journey into the wild world of Youtube; be forewarned, she is a bit zealous towards the subject matter . . . Stacey and I not only drink her fanatical Kool-Aid, we fill an Olympic sized swimming pool with it and jump right in . . . so whether your skin is oily or dry, check this one out, and I promise you'll learn something (and maybe ever decide to switch careers).
The Good Life: Ages 16 to Adult
I played some pick-up basketball today at LA Fitness today and the age range in the first game had to be pushing the Guinness book for a competitive run-- there was a sixteen year old high school player cutting and slashing his way through the lane, the usual twenty-something regulars, a couple old folks (such as myself) and a sharp-shooting 73 year old . . . 73 years young and still picking and rolling, driving to his right, and putting up a crisp 18 footers with good spin-- that's a 57 year age gap (and I later saw this 73 year old phenom heading into the North Brunswick Smashburger while we were heading out . . . we both complained about our knees and lauded the smashing of the burger, and then I had a profound thought: if you can still run full court and scarf down a greasy burger when you're 73, then you've hit the longevity lottery, and it doesn't matter if you die when you're 74, as long as you go out shooting the ball and eating seasoned french fries . . . so while I'm certainly going to try to cook with higher heat this new year, I'm also going to try to keep playing sports that I'm getting worse and worse at-- soccer, tennis, and basketball-- just because the alternative-- not playing them at all-- is far worse).
Early Resolve
We should remember that the Gregorian calendar is a human construct and not get too hung up on it; in this spirit, I'm going to start my New Year's Resolution early this year: from this day forward, I promise to stop being such a coward and cook using higher heat.
13 - 0
The Athletic Director and I tried our best to find a team to beat my middle school soccer crew, but despite our best efforts they went undefeated-- today we beat our second Group IV team of the season (South Brunswick . . . they have 700 plus kids per class, Highland Park usually graduates around 100) and earlier in the season we beat New Brunswick, who never loses in Middle School . . . and to celebrate, I will not be having a beer, instead I am headed over to the turf to run 7:30 to 9 PM travel practice; my son Alex is not going because he got steamrollered by a giant kid in the game and hurt his knee, but his younger brother Ian said he is up for it-- soccer, soccer, soccer, for six hours straight-- and I guess all the practice is paying off.
Larry David = Monticello
Larry David is a national treasure and the highest authorities in the land should compel him to make "Curb Your Enthusiasm" until he dies . . . here is one of the lines from Season 9 that speaks to me in a profound way:
"yeah, the 'fuck it' philosophy-- it's a tough one-- I've tried it with orthotics . . . it didn't really work very well.”
"yeah, the 'fuck it' philosophy-- it's a tough one-- I've tried it with orthotics . . . it didn't really work very well.”
Deep Thoughts (About Getting Jacked)
When you go to the gym and lift weights, you use resistance training to stress out and damage your muscles and then, eventually, your body recognizes the inflammation and soreness and sends satellite cells to the damaged area and these special cells instruct the proteins to add myofibrils (muscle cells) to the affected area . . . and while you're stressing and straining your muscles to initiate this process, you're wandering around a dirty gym, touching equipment covered in other people's sweat, equipment that has thriving bacteria colonies on every surface, meanwhile people are coughing and panting and expectorating, and you're breathing it all in, particles of floating mucous and worse . . . so not only are your muscles getting a work-out while you are at the gym, but your immune system is doing reps as well: I'm not sure if this is a groundbreaking thought (and I'm not going to check) but perhaps people who go to the gym are not only physically stronger but they also might have tougher immune systems . . . some scientist should get on this and do a study.
Stuff You Probably Don't Need to Know
If you've never heard of Zardulu, Pizza Rat, Selfie Rat, and That Dragon, Cancer, then you're the same as me a week ago, and if you'd like to be enlightened, then listen to these two episodes of Reply All:
#50 The Cathedral
#56 Zardulu.
#50 The Cathedral
#56 Zardulu.
Metrics and Politics
I love the metric system and if that makes me a French socialist so be it . . . and if you find it fascinating that in America, the adoption of a logical, global measurement system is equivalent to treasonous thought, then you'll love the new 99% Invisible episode "Half Measures," which recounts the political machinations and manipulation that have surrounded this seemingly innocuous base 10 miracle . . . you'll hear of a poor science teacher who was demonized by a right wing radio host and her community because she wanted to "push her metric agenda" on children (she wanted the local airport to fix the Celsius display on their electronic display) and you'll finally feel vindicated when you learn that even though many Americans still cling to their antiquated units (because that's what makes America great) that anyone who actually has to measure anything fungible is using the metric system-- except for milk-- so even that gallon of gas you're burning in your SUV is actually measured in liters and then converted to gallons so you can feel patriotic; so here's some advice on how to start the metrication process: the next time you get on your digital scale, take a load off, ease up on the precision, and measure your weight in kilograms . . . you might reconsider that diet and decide to eat a croissant.
Rorschach is a Rorschach Test (or perhaps a Litmus Test)
Last year my son Ian was the star of Halloween, when he went viral as Eleven from Stranger Things, but this year props go to Alex, whose costume is literally a pop cultural Rorschach test . . . because he is dressed as Rorschach, the anti-hero from the greatest graphic novel ever written (Watchmen) and while his costume is a bit obscure, people who recognize him feel hip and in-the-know and have all kinds of good associations and perceptions, while those who don't will have their own unfounded and weird reactions to his inkblot mask . . . so maybe it's more of a litmus test for pop cultural literacy, not a Rorschach test . . . but my apologies for the imprecision, I'm writing this sentence quickly and under duress because it's Friday afternoon and my kids are going to a sleepover to binge on Stranger Things and my wife is encouraging me to mention the fact that Alex's mask changes shapes when he breathes and that she is responsible for not only this special mask but also the rest of the ensemble.
Bladerunner 2049
Last weekend felt shorter than normal because I spent the bulk of it watching Bladerunner 2049 (though my son Ian said he thought it went super fast, I actually fell asleep at one point while sitting up straight and watching intently-- my head snapped back and I nearly got whiplash-- despite this, I did really like the story, the Harrison Ford cameo, the ethical dilemmas, the sci-fi scenery and the fantastic waterlogged ending fight . . . but I'm warning you, this thing is long like Captain America:Civil War is long).
Listen to This (Both Parts)
I'd like to publicly thank my wife for a great podcast recommendation-- I listened to both The Skip Tracer Part I and The Skip Tracer Part II today, and I assure you that this is a story like no other: you'll meet the greatest bounty hunter in the universe (she's a very short Hispanic lady with a chihuahua) and accompany her on an serpentine adventure that will twist and turn through the political landscape so abruptly and adeptly you won't know where you stand at the end . . . all I know is that I would make a terrible bounty hunter.
Aiding and Abetting to Avoid Tooth Decay
I'd prefer if my kids spent this Halloween perpetrating some good old-fashioned mischief and vandalism, rather than begging for sugary sugary treats (or even binge-watching the new season of Stranger Things . . . Netflix doesn't give you diabetes).
The Test 100: The Exciting Super Test
To celebrate our 100th episode, Stacey administers a very exciting super test (on tests) and Cunningham and I learn a great deal-- although I do pull off an extremely lucky 3 out of 7 . . . I defy anyone to do better; so tune in, keep score, and if you don't learn something during this one, you can punch me in the shoulder (but not too hard).
A Good Deed Is a Good Deed, Case Closed
After a convivial dinner at Lola, a fun rock show at the Old Franklin Schoolhouse (The Roadside Graves, my favorite local band, finished the event) and a little too much imbibing of the spirits, my wife and I were walking back to Paul's car to catch a ride home and we came across a parked car with the hatchback open and my wife decided to do a good deed and close the hatch, but Paul and I thought she shouldn't touch someone else's car-- perhaps the owner had left the hatch open for a reason-- but Catherine was committed to doing a good deed so she closed it, and then, moments after she had shut the hatch, the owner of the car appeared-- thanked Cat for her concern-- and then opened the hatch so he could get the rest of the groceries.
The Main Thing About the Future is You're Not In It
If you're a fan of Shane Carruth's time-travel film Primer-- which Chuck Klosterman called the finest and most realistic time-travel movie ever made-- then you'll love reading How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu . . . it's a novel wrapped in a paradox of a conundrum, with charts and footnotes to aid and abet your confusion; at first, I pored over the diagrams and tried to understand the timeline, but soon enough I gave up (the same thing happened with Primer . . . I could look at this chart for the next twenty years, then time travel back to now and do it all over again, and I still wouldn't understand it) and I just forged ahead into the future of the story, turning pages whether I fully understood them or not, just as I'm doing with my life
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