Today was The Great Unmasking in my school, but it started slowly and gathered speed as the day went on-- in my first period class, seven of the twenty-two students did NOT wear masks; in my sophomore homeroom, only three of 23 kids were not wearing masks; in Shakespeare class it was more like fifty-fifty . . . and one senior girl who said her mom really wanted her to remain masked took a look around the room, whipped off her mask and put it in her bag, and smirked the rest of the period; and by the last period, probably 75% of my seniors were not wearing masks . . . the vast majority of the teachers were unmasked-- I think-- but other than that it was fairly tame, no children making out in the hallways or other mayhem . . . but it was really wonderful to not worry about pretending to wear a loose, useless, ill-fitting, cloth mask.
Triple Epic Ending
I finished three epics this weekend:
1) I made it to the end of Anthony Doerr's 600 page novel Cloud Cuckoo Land . . . and the five plot-lines converged . . . the Siege of Constantinople, the library bombing, the Korean war POW romance, the Aristophanes fictional fragments, and the generation starship-- but it took a minute;
2) Catherine, Ian and I finished the twelve episode Korean zombie high school tragedy All of Us Our Dead . . . and while it was a little long, at 12 episodes, the over-the-top Korean melodrama was good fun;
3) the boys and I finished The Expanse . . . it's too bad financial difficulties truncated the series-- because there are still some loose ends, such as the dog-like creatures through the Ring which can resurrect the dead . . . but I'm going to read the novels and see how that works out.
Tennis Notes Redux Deluxe (Kudos to Bud)
The winter tennis league is winding down and only the survivors are left-- a number of players have dropped for injuries, so I played Bud again today and he was on fire for a while, he was serving to both sides of the box (and sometimes off the edge) and he was hitting some killer returns if I didn't put enough pace or spin on my serve-- I was able to come back from a game behind and beat him 9-7, but he was pretty spectacular for a 62-year-old and definitely had me guessing on his serves andI was hitting some lousy returns-- I also couldn't get my cut backhand low enough until the end of the match, so he teed up and crushed a few of those, same if I returned a forehand to the middle of the court-- then he hits a flat shot either left or right, my best success was low and deep to the backhand side (and then get to the net) and real cross-court spin heavy shots and once I started serving well, that helped too.
Never Again (Hopefully)
On Monday, masks will (finally) be optional at my school -- so teaching Shakespeare will be much more joyful for me (unfortunately, the school where my kids go-- and where I coach-- they are extending the mask mandate until March 28th . . . totally absurd, but it sounds like a couple of squeaky wheels convinced the school board and superintendent to supersede the governor, as is the right of each and every town in New Jersey-- although it's odd that our board thinks they have some secret information that the rest of the state isn't privy to . . . and out school is TINY, so the fact that the giant high schools surrounding our town have lifted the mask mandate but our school hasn't is patently ridiculous-- but I decided not to write an angry email so I'm venting here).
Post-Birthday Mortem (Who Gets a Black Eye on a DECA Trip?)
I had a lovely birthday yesterday-- in the morning, my wife walked the dog and made my lunch so I could sleep in-- and the weather was good so Ian and I got to hit some tennis balls (the only wrinkle in that was the fact that it took 90 minutes of absurd chatting and phone conversation to move a hotel reservation one day forward on Expedia-- I was speaking to the guy and sorting it out, while Ian drove to the courts and then he said, "Ok now you just have to hang up and return to the chat and we can finish this" and I was like "I am nowhere near my computer or that chat-- I'm talking to you right now, so let's just finish on the phone" and apparently that was impossible- the phone was just for credit card information, so after much pain and suffering and creating a new block-chain strength password, I was able to chat with him-- but then it all fell through, and I was doing this while hitting balls with Ian-- finally he had to cancel the whole booking and a I had to rebook when I got home, very nuts) and then we had an excellent dual birthday dinner (we missed Alex's birthday on the 1st becuase he was on the DECA trip-- he returned with a black eye-- his buddy Luke elbowed him when he opened a door, and this follows suit with his school trips-- on one MUN trip he got an infected toe and on another he came home with the flu) and Alex's girlfriend Izzy was in attendance, which was fun-- and then, I got an extra-dramtic gift, at the end of a wild defensive Rutgers/Indiana game, Ron Harper Jr. knocked down a last second three for the victory, an exciting ending to my birthday (but these Wednesday birthdays are the pits . . . you have to go to work the next day!)
Another Seussian Birthday
The good doctor and I
share the same date of birth--
and for twenty-one years
we roamed planet earth--
our time intersected
we shared the same space,
we breathed the same air
we ran the same race--
but 31 years ago,
the good doctor expired
while I continued living,
he went and expired--
and I hope in good time,
we'll meet once again,
and drink us some beers
and eat us some ham.
March Birthday #1
My son Alex turned 18 today and he just found out he got into the Engineering School at Rutgers-- very exciting-- but he's not home to celebrate, he's down in Atlantic City for DECA . . . and I thought he could do some gambling down there once he turned 18, but I am wrong on that account: you need to be 21 to gamble in a casino in New Jersey (too bad he's not in Georgia or Idaho).
Birthday Prep
No new sentence today, I'm trying to write another Seussian birthday rhyme (and I need time . . . I need time).
Expanding the Expanse
If you're sad about the end of the Amazon sci-fi series The Expanse, you can do what I'm doing: go back and read the novels that inspired the show: the first one, Leviathan Wakes, is very similar to season one of the show, but it fills in a lot of holes (and there are a lot of holes out in space) and I didn't fully remember the weird and wild ending, especially exactly what happened to Detective Miller, so this clarified things-- I'll probably tackle the next one after I get through the monstrosity that is Cloud Cuckoo Land.
The Usual (Tennis) Saturday Post
I beat Barry this morning and while he ran me around quite a bit, he's decided that he's aging out of this league-- he's 66!-- but he still gets around and hits lots of weird angle shots and I worked up quite a sweat playing him . . . if I'm still moving around like that fourteen years from now, I'll consider it a life well-lived . . . as far as tennis:
1) I'm serving well-- keeping the face closed in the trophy position and really stretching upward with the left should on the toss;
2) I'm starting to hit some decent drop shots-- you have to stay very loose;
3) my indoor lobs are awful (and I hot a couple overheads right back to Barry . . . not the way to do it)
4) the key to my two-handed backhand is to turn my back to the ball and dip my right shoulder, and then make sure my left-hand goes from top to bottom to top . . . it's NOT a left-handed forehand;
5) as the match wore on, I hit a few forehands into the net . . . I've got to aim three feet over the net on all baseline shots.
What Does It Mean?
I just finished recording and mixing some music-- a song called "What Does It Mean?" . . . it's very profound, with only one joke-- but more of an excuse to play some soukous-style African guitar.
Bizarro February Day
First of all, when you Google "sentence of dave" you get my blog and three examples:
1) Dave thumped the table in frustration.2) Dave has always been a bit of a drinker.
3) Dave has a broken arm.
So . . .
Teachers at my school wore tutus today because the date is 2/22/2022 but I'm not sure what all the excitement is about . . . my sentiment is: call me in two hundred years.
Dogs and People Love Food
I would write something profound today but I ate a Carmine G sandwich from the Italian sandwich place (Fresco) in Metuchen and I'm stuffed stupid, plus the dog is looking at me like it's that time of day, which it is-- so that's what I'll be doing instead of writing something sagacious.
The Universe is a Ring
As the boys and I are finishing the TV show The Expanse-- we've got one episode to go and I think it might be the last-- I am beginning to read the novels on which the show is based-- and it's certainly fun to go back to the very beginning, with Holden and Amos and Naomi and Alex on the Rocinante (and the book fills in a lot of the plot holes, plus I miss Detective Miller and Anderson Dawes . . . we'll see how far I get, I think there are a lot of long books in the series).
Even More Tennis Notes!
I didn't do anything special this morning, aside from keeping the ball in play and hitting the ball high when I was at the baseline and low when I was approaching the net and this was enough to beat a pretty good player 12-1 . . . some of the games were close and he had some interesting shots, but he just made too many unforced errors by hitting the net; I also lobbed well today, which is huge indoors; taking an early lead is critical for me because then I can loosen up and hit the ball, my inside out forehand was pretty effective and I eventually starting actually hitting my two-handed backhand, not just blocking it back; my cut shot was rising a little high, perhaps grip or laziness, but Ketan beat Matthias (the league champ) last week, so I can't complain about the victory-- I've now beaten two weird pusher type players who both beat the league champ, so I'm wondering what's going to happen when I play him in a couple weeks, hopefully I will match up well (and my knees are feelign good from all the backwards stuff).
Pub Night Almost Occurs on Farrington Lake
An odd pub night . . . a coin flip sent us to B2 Bistro in North Brunswick, which was in my old neighborhood and used to be called Sir John's; the new place was insanely crowded (half-priced sushi night?) and while we sat down at the only remaining table in this giant establishment, we took a quick vote and got the hell out of there-- it was going to be expensive and slow . . . so Connell ordered food from Taqueria while we drove back to his place, and then Alec and Connell set up an impromptu Blanton's tasting-- apparently Alec has some rare bottle that can only be acquired overseas . . . and I liked the weakest stuff, the 80 proof Blanton's Black Edition; then we played some metal darts in Connell's basement and I stumbled home fairly early (in the rain) because I had a big teaching day today; at some later point, a large chunk from Connell's living room ceiling fell down (more details on that when I get them).
Emma Gould is Joe's Daisy (but she becomes a hooker)
Live by Night is Dennis LeHane's version of The Great Gatsby . . . bootleggers, organized crime, romance, immorality, parties, decadence, the looming underclass and more romance . . . but it's much more violent and much more fun than Fitzgerald, plus there's Tampa and Cuba; this is ostensibly a sequel to The Given Day, but it's less historical and more of a noir crime novel set in the 1920's-- I'm definitely going to read the third one in the trilogy.
Late Winter Update
I've been negligent in writing sentences for the past couple of days, perhaps because it's that time of the school year: the long haul before Spring Break . . . there's no end to the learning in sight; my students have just handed in their third Rutgers college writing essay-- so one more to go-- but I have to grade fifty of these six-page synthetic behemoths . . . not much in the way of news; we're watching Goliath and All of Us Our Dead; I'm reading Live by Night, Dennis LeHane's historical tale of rum-running in Tampa and a hysterical book of essays by Samantha Irby; I ate split pea soup for lunch twice this week because Catherine took it out of the freezer thinking it was verde sauce for enchiladas; there's still snow on the ground, which is good for pulling a sled backwards; apparently the weather is going to warm up soon and spring will be in the air . . . tennis season is right around the corner and I'm certainly nervous about coaching it at the varsity level (and coaching both my children) so things will pick up around here soon enough, hopefully in a good way-- in the meantime, my wife has told me that I've been slacking on doing the dishes, so it's time to get to it (and I have a new phone, which is weird-- it's a OnePlus 8 (Never Settle!) and the screen sort of wraps around the body and you can't insert an SD card and things seem smaller than my old phone, but I'm sure I'll get used to it . . . and if I don't, well then I deserve it, because I tossed my Redmi 9 in the washer).
As Billed . . . the Times Are Super Dark
As a teacher, you have to remember that any one of your students might be going through some shit-- they might be in "super dark times" and you might not be aware of this and you might be trying ot get them to peer-edit or read Hamlet, but they might have other things on their mind . . . Kevin Philips takes this to the extreme in his new coming-of-age thriller Super Dark Times . . . it reminds you that if your son is acting weird, the reason might be that his friend killed a kid with a sword (by accident) and they've hidden the body and are waiting for the shit to hit the fan . . . this review calls the movie the opposite of the nostalgic naïveté of Stranger Things . . . it's a mid-90s version of Stand by Me or River's Edge-- the movie is best just before the super dark times and during the super dark times, once everything explodes into mayhem it becomes more of a slasher/thriller, but it's still worth seeing, there's beautiful imagery, pre-internet cell-phone boredom, menace, some disturbing scenes, and a slow dive into the chaos that must occur (there's also a fantastic symbolic opening scene which I won't spoil here).