Mallory's Oracle

Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connor is a crime novel released in 1994 (to excellent reviews) and the portrayal of New York City and its weird and wonderful and damaged denizens is very different than the more sanitized Big Apple of today-- the titular hero (or anti-hero) has been orphaned twice-- she was a child of the street . . . "damaged" and she "grew up with distorted mirrors" so though Sgt. Kathleen Mallory is beautiful and smart and a computer whiz, but she doesn't realize her looks and talent-- and when the man who adopted her-- another detective-- is murdered by what appears to be a serial killer, she's on the case (though she's not supposed to be) and she journeys through a world of insider trading, SEC investigations, seances, spiritual scam artists, clever and greedy old ladies, magic tricks, Gramercy Park chess prodigies and spacy geniuses-- the writing is sharp, the plot is really complicated, there's one compelling character study after another and there's lots of great dialogue, like this:

“Why did Markowitz tell all this to you and not me?” 

“Oh, you know how parents are. They start to get independent of their children. Then they think they know it all, never need advice, never call the kids anymore. Like it would break an arm to pick up a phone. And you kids, you give them the best years of your lives, the cute years. This is how they pay you back, they take all the horrors of life and keep them from you.”

and if you have the Libby app you can get the book pronto on your Kindle!

Some Recent Stuff

Here's what's been going on:

1) Friday afternoon, South Rive stomped us 5-1 . . . they have a lot of fast Brazilian kids on their team . . . and, according to their coaches, there's been an influx of Brazilian folks moving into town and many-- but not all!-- of the Brazilian kids moving into town are good at soccer;

2) Friday night after the game, I drove down to the beach for a quick vacation with some high school buddies (and one college buddy) and there were six guys and thirteen guitars in the beach house . . . thanks Neal!

3) I rode my friend John's "one-wheeler" and did not die . . . though I felt like I might at first, but it did get easier-- you've really got to relax and it does feel a bit like snowboarding;

4) Sunday, we went to a wedding in Mercer County Park and it was awesome-- if a bit hot: taco truck, pizza truck, cornhole and Frisbeer;

5) I crushed at corn hole at the beach on Saturday, and Whit and I also did some serious Wabobo tossing in a rip current-- an old guy came out and warned us that we were getting close to the abyss and would be sucked out into the surf-- and the waves grew more and more epic as the day wore on, until we could not go into the water . . . also, Mose got sunburned . . . though I warned him.

Hang On

Someday this week will end and I will go to the beach and meet up with some old friends (and avoid having to help my wife with HP Garage Sale Day . . . a double victory).

Dave Loves Him Some Dave

Post-pandemic-mask-wearing teacher Dave really appreciates past Dave, who recorded various stories and anecdotes during the virtual instruction days-- because present Dave (who wears a mask while he teaches) can cue up videos of past-Dave, telling stories with his face out . . . and-- as you can see in this example-- it's always a surprise to find out what past-Dave talked about during the video (and I know some people don't like hearing their own voice or seeing themselves on video, but I don't have this problem-- in fact, I love watching and listening to myself!)

Long Day (But Lots of Drama)

Long day: extended homeroom, activity fair, away game, bus ride to Spotswood . . . but it turned out to be worth it-- though we were down five starters (Alex had to play the entire game at center back) we came back from a one-goal deficit to be Spotswood 2-1-- our little man Michael Volpert scored a chip shot goal with four minutes remaining after Matt Lu won a ball, made a number of great moves and it played it to him near the outside edge of the box . . . a great victory with no normal varsity substitutes available-- but it's only Tuesday.

The Burden of the Ring

I was covering a class this morning-- an 84-minute class-- and I was bored and checking my phone and at 8:30 AM I got a notification from my Ring Doorbell cam that there was some motion on my front porch, so I activated the live view and I saw a sketchy guy, holding a can of something (which I assumed to be alcoholic) and he was sort of stumbling around, pushing against our new porch railings and posts, careening from one railing to the other and I was like WHAT THE FUCK? . . . there's a random guy fucking around on our porch and I'm watching this-- and then Lola started barking and I activated the intercom and said, "Can I help you?" and then he wandered off and I was really annoyed-- because we had two bikes stolen a few months ago (the reason why we installed the Ring Doorbell) and so I told lots of people about this sketchy guy-- including my neighbors, when I got home from soccer practice, but when I came in and told my wife the news, she said, "Are you sure you didn't see John the handyman? He was over this morning to install some lattice," and then it all made sense-- he was going to do our porch railings, but we hired a friend to do that job-- so he was testing out the other guy's handiwork-- going from one railing to the next, checking the sturdiness of the corner posts-- but if you don't have context, then that looks like a drunk guy, reeling around, using the railings for support-- and maybe he was drinking Diet Coke?-- so I went back across the street and told our neighbors the truth of the matter and I canceled the whole "keep an eye on our front porch" dictum and we all had a good laugh (but I still decided to pay the three bucks a month to have the Ring record all activity because I was really annoyed that I couldn't rewatch the video and reassess my inference).

Dave! with the hangover . . .

I definitely overserved myself yesterday while watching the Rutgers game in New Brunswick (and post-game at Clydz) but despite the brain fog I crushed the mini (23 seconds) and won at tennis and made chili . . . Miraculous!

Things are Confusing and Complicated

I listen to Sam Harris and find him smart and logical . . . and I also listen to (some) Joe Rogan podcasts, and he seems to have a pretty low bar when it comes to vetting his guests-- and in a recent Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris discusses why he won't invite Bret Weinstein on to talk about covid vaccines and ivermectin-- because Weinstein touted ivermectin on Rogan's podcast-- Vox has a nice article explaining the "dubious" rise of the drug as a miracle treatment . . . and apparently the drug is probably NOT a miracle treatment, but it may have some modest effects . . . and while I'm taking everything Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying say on the podcast with a grain of salt, they are against masks in school-- because kids are mainly going to be fine-- and I would love it if we all the had the choice to take off our masks in school-- though that might not be the best course of action, but I do agree with them heartily about the fact that we should NOT be married to our ideas, not equate science with political teams, and that people on the left should not describe the unvaccinated as impure or disease-ridden-- first of all because some of these people have natural immunity from already having the virus and second of all because that is a really dangerous path to go down and I don't think there's any way back.

Not My Fault (For Once)

Yesterday, we attempted to play an off day JV game (so that we could take a couple of younger varsity players-- we're low on numbers) but ten minutes into the game we got slammed by torrential rain-- so we hightailed it to the bus and drove back to Highland Park (from Middlesex of all places-- we were lucky not to get caught in the floodwaters) and the kids wanted to get dropped off in the Middle School lot because there is some shelter there from the rain-- so I directed the bus driver there, even though my car was parked on the other side of the school, on the street near the front of the building-- so I walked through the rain, carrying the ball bag and my giant coaching bag-- the thunder and lightning exploding around me, and when I got to Fifth Avenue, I couldn't find my van-- I wandered up and down the road, at first wondering if I forgot where i parked and then wondering if the car had been stolen-- but who would steal my disgusting and disgraceful van?-- and then I saw a blue Mazda and wondered if my wife had switched cars, but it wasn't our Mazda-- and by that time I was so wet that my phone wouldn't work-- so I couldn't call Alex or my wife-- and it just kept downpouring, so I got under a tree and managed to dry my phone off enough to call and I found out that Alex had taken the car home when he got caught in the rain at varsity practice-- in order to save his laptop-- and my wife had told him to do this but no one told ME that he took the car-- Alex thought Catherine communicated this to me and my wife thought that Alex had told me  . . . so I was really wet and really pissed off when Alex came to get me . . . but it was only water, so I got over it-- and Alex then took the van to some sort of junior prom event, so there was more getting in and out of the car in the rain-- and I slept from 6-7 PM and then from 8 PM to 5 AM-- I was wet and tired, and then when I got in the van this morning to go to work, I soaked my pants-- the seat was sopping wet-- but I didn't feel like changing my pants-- I just threw a towel on the seat-- and first period my pants were very noticeably wet, which my class enjoyed-- but I put a small fan behind me, and that worked and now my pants are dry and my underwear is only a little moist.

Dave Debuts "Creepy White Van" to an Audience of One (Human)

If you're like me (or Linda from Bob's Burgers) you might occasionally sing original songs about whatever the hell is going on right in front of you-- and while Linda will do this right in front of people, I think I only do this when I'm alone-- or when I think I'm alone-- for example: this morning when I was walking the dog in the park in the 6:00 AM darkness and I saw a van-- a white van-- roll out of the park, it got me wondering . . . so while I let Lola loose to run around and sniff the trees in the large grassy patch near the playground, where she generally does her business, and I started singing:

Creepy white van, creepy white van

who is the driver? always a man

creepy white van

and then Lola, who was fifty yards away from me, near a park bench facing the river, starting barking-- barking at a man sitting on the bench, a man I had not noticed-- or I wouldn't have been singing an original song about a van-- this man who was either sleeping one off or resting after an early morning walk or ready clandestine tryst with a lover . . . but whatever he was doing, he probably didn't expect to get regaled with an original tune and then reprimanded by a territorial bitch.

When Canadians Like Maple Syrup

The Hidden Brain episode "Group Think" explains why Canadians like honey and maple syrup equally . . . UNLESS they are reminded they are Canadian (perhaps by watching this commercial) and it also explains why I didn't become a Bruce Springsteen fan until I left New Jersey and went to college in Virginia; it wasn't until then that I was reminded (by mayo on Italian style hoagies) that I was part of a group: central Jersey dirtbags.

Tooziest Toozday

Tuesday is obviously the worst day of the week-- it has none of the earnest go-getter initiative of Monday, none of the hump-day inspiration of Wednesday, none of the thirsty pub-night charm of Thursday, none of the happy-hour/weekend anticipation of Friday . . . and it ain't the weekend-- and this was a very Tuesday Tuesday . . . our new block schedule features 84 minute periods, which is a hell of a long time in the normal world, but even more so in a mask, and I got assigned another period of cafeteria duty-- for a sum total of 84 minutes of cafeteria-duty . . . because, as I found out after I wrote a bunch of irate, all-lowercase, unedited and unvetted emails to administration with lovely vocabulary like "shafted" and "sucks," that if you're off period 3 or period 7, then you're going to end up in the cafeteria for extended amounts of time, because with the block schedule they don't have many teachers off at the same time . . . so I made the best of it and ignored the children and graded as much Rutgers expos stuff as I could, which makes for a brutal Tuesday . . . but it can only get better from here (I'm also tired because we had an epic night game against our rival Metuchen yesterday . . . it went into overtime and ended in a 2-2 tie . . . their goalie laid out and made an incredible PK save with two minutes left, but it was still a good result and Alex played well . . . but wow, today felt like I really had a job, which I guess I do).

L'esprit d'escalier, Sixteen Years Later

Last night at a birthday party, while we were discussing life, death, birth etcetera, my friend Alec and I figured out what to say when you are present at the birth of your child and the doctor asks if you'd like to cut the umbilical cord-- because Alec didn't really want to cut the umbilical cord but he felt obligated to do so-- his wife had just pushed a baby out of her vagina and it was the least he could do-- so he reluctantly cut the cord . . . but now we know better, we know how to handle this situation (although we are way way late-- Alec has a daughter in college and another in high school) and here's how it's done: 

Alec designs theaters for a living, so when the doctor asked him "would you like to cut the umbilical cord? he should have replied, "Would you like to design the acoustical space for musical venue?" and this works for pretty much any profession (except doctor or nurse) so if you're an accountant and the doctor asks if you want to snip this long blood-filled tube attached to your wife and child, you could say "would you like to review these financial statements for compliance issues?" and I could say "would you like to grade and comment on these expository essays?" and while it's too late for us-- we can't go strolling back into the maternity unit of the hospital and try this out-- it's a jerk-store situation-- but we can pass along the comment so perhaps someone younger might implement it when they are handed those scissors and feel out of their depth but don't know how to express this feeling.

Ramble On, Jack, Ramble On

If you're looking for some sensitive and thoughtful fiction, you're probably not going to like Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor . . . an ex-military policeman with rambling on his mind wanders into a sleepy Georgia town that turns out to be the center of the world's largest counterfeiting operation, and also the place where his brother was murdered (along with lots of other folks) and so the wandering on his mind turns quickly to vengeance-- and by the time Jack Reacher is through with everyone who has wronged him, his only choice is to ramble on and avoid the investigation . . . because he did not operate within the boundaries of the law or any normal ethics-- and I'm guessing wherever he wanders will turn up more trouble.

Rough Afternoon

My son Alex had a rough afternoon on the pitch today-- it was hot and we were playing a very tough South River team on their insane grass field-- it's part baseball field, part soccer field, with lots of bumps and ramps and hillocks-- and we're used to playing on turf and this team just cut us apart-- and our big center back (who knocked Alex out of the previous game with a head-to-head collision, knocked himself out of this game by planting his nose into the back of someone's head while going up for a header-- it was a bloody mess) and our 3-5-2 formation couldn't handle the skill and speed and wily moves of this mainly Portuguese team-- they knew how to play the proper weight passing into the space on the grass; they knew how to trap bouncing and lofted balls; they knew the simple feints that would work in order to get a defender tied up in the mud; and they knew how to run two players, one after the other, through the ball when it wildly bounced off the random patches of dirt and crabgrass-- but it's better to play a game like this and learn something than not play at all, and luckily, South River is group 2 and we are group one, so we won't run into them in the States.

Hygiene Theater Part II

This picture of my high school's "terminal" hallway says it all about "hygiene theater"-- today at cafeteria duty, teachers were told to make sure the students were seated with a one-seat buffer-- so every other seat, despite the fact that there are 500-700 kids in the cafeteria (before some disperse to the auditorium) waiting in line, eating, drinking, and living their lives-- and then some teachers were told to instruct kids to put their masks back on when they were done eating . . . the kids were not particularly cooperative about these mandates . . . with good reasons, as this picture demonstrates-- so we might as well take the masks off and take our chances, so then we can hear each other and recognize faces . . . Governor Murphy, give up on the masks in school-- they can't be helping all that much, and-- as a teacher with glasses and not the best ears-- the maks mandate isn't going to help in making up for educational losses in record time.

 

Acting! In the Hygiene Theater . . .

School is absurd right now-- we wear masks in class, but then we go to the cafeteria and 500-plus kids eat together without masks (and I supervise a section and I snack and eat and drink and wander around and chat with kids, so I'm not wearing a mask) and then we go back to small classes and put a mask on-- and the kids are supposed to have assigned seats (and sign in with a QR code) so they can contact trace if there's a case-- even though the cafeteria (and the auditorium, which is where the sophomores eat) has to be FULL of COVID-- because it's airborne!-- and my wife is in the same boat, with kids eating together . . . but she's not allowed to use a fan . . . anyway, either we're all going to get covid or were going to really bolster our immune systems . . . we shall see.

Looking for the Silver Lining in Chronology

My older son Alex-- a senior in high school-- had a good day on Friday; he learned he was starting at left-back in the soccer game on Saturday-- his first start in a real varsity game (and this is great for him because the team is excellent and mainly composed of super-skilled technical club players and Alex only plays soccer during soccer season-- but he's been playing well, he wins balls in the air, has some speed, a good left foot, and he just surpassed the six-foot mark, so he's pretty big-- so he was very excited to be out there for a home game against rival Spotswood) and then he drove to the movies with his friends and saw Shang Chi and then when he got home, he saw his SAT scores and he was very happy-- he improved 150 points and did especially well in math (and he wants to be an engineer) and then Saturday out on the turf the varsity coach said he was excited at how well Alex had been playing which is always nice, because as the JV coach, it's hard to tout your own kids too much-- it's a conflict of interest-- so I just agreed and told him he had been working hard and was really fit-- and Alex was a JV superstar last season, playing every minute of every game without injury and holding the team together so we could have some fun against generally tough opponents (we are in a conference with schools twice our size because we're competent at soccer) and Alex started the game playing excellent, winning balls on the ground and in the air, stepping to balls, and making some great distribution-- we're only playing three in the back so they can't screw up-- and then he called a head ball and went up for it and the center back, his buddy Luke, who is at least 6 foot three, maybe more, came flying out of nowhere and they clonked heads and Alex had to come off-- he might have a mild concussion or he might have just taken a hard short above his eye-- but he was annoyed that he got hurt in his first varsity start but I told him that it's a long, long season and he'd be back out there and to look on the bright side-- at least he didn't have to study for the SATs with a headache-- it was a great thing that the SATs were a couple weeks BEFORE he got his bell rung.

The Myth of the Starving Artist

According to North Korean defector Yeonmi Park, there's no such thing as a starving artist-- if you're foraging for grasshoppers and wild plants for sustenance in an absurdist dystopian dictatorship, then you've got no energy or brainpower left to consume or create art-- which is just how Kim Jong-un wants it; Park tells her story on the Joe Rogan podcast, and it is by turns horrific and enlightening-- I'm not sure what we can do about the state of affairs in North Korea because they possess nuclear weapons, but Park describes the place as worse than a Nazi death camp . . . this is an amazing episode, but perhaps there are inconsistencies in Park's story . . . although I'm not sure if that matters; she is also highly critical of "Woke" culture and you can understand why-- when you've seen the terror and racism and horrors of North Korea, it must seem that Americans are quibbling about minor affairs.

Trump, Shakespeare, Assassination, Viral Media, Abe Lincoln, Wife-Beating, Etc

James Shapiro's book Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future is far more fun and compelling than the title; Shapiro, a noted Shakespeare scholar, looks at how American Shakespeare productions in eight different periods of American history reflect the politics and predilections of the times . . . so you've got:

1) Othello in 1835 and themes of miscegenation;

2) the cross-dressing genius of Charlotte Cushman, who apparently played Romeo far better than any man could;

3) class warfare, populist riots, elitism, and Macbeth in 1840s Manhattan;

4) Abe Lincoln's meditations on Hamlet . . . apparently he liked Claudius' confession soliloquy (my offense is rank, it smells to Heaven) better than "to be or not to be"

5) The Tempest and immigration in 1916;

6) feminism, the role of the woman and all that in 1948, with The Taming of the Shrew and Kiss Me Kate . . . the way Shrew  was staged often indicated how the director felt about the growing amount of women in the workforce and the role of women in general;

7) adultery and same-sex love in Shakespeare in Love and 12th Night in 1998 . . . apparently major revisions were made to the theatrical version of Shakespeare in Love to make it appropriate for a general movie-going audience-- in the original script, Shakespeare took much longer to realize Viola was a woman and thought he had fallen in love with a man and was confused about his sexuality-- that was the main conflict, but that got stripped down for the 1998 audience, which was just starting to embrace homosexuality;

8) and the wild left/right culture wars of the Trump era, embodied by a version of Julius Caesar wherein a Trump-like figure is assassinated, sparking a firestorm of typical right-wing outrage and internet virality;

and at the heart of this is the fact that America loves Shakespeare even more than England-- and it often evokes our darkest sins in a way that we can handle and discuss: incest, suicide, adultery, racism, sexism, class warfare, democracy, tyranny, etc and it would be a shame if the same thing happened in America that happened in England in 1642-- the theaters were shut down because of civil war between parliament and the crown, ending in the beheading of Charles I . . . hopefully the right won't abandon Shakespeare as elitist melodrama and the left won't abandon him because he was a white male (though the term didn't exist yet) and we'll be able to use him to air our debates and grievances and politics in an artistic and public forum.