Alex graduated yesterday-- a lovely ceremony on the front lawn of Highland Park High School-- and then he went to Project Graduation (an event at the Woodbridge Community Center from 10 PM to 4 AM) and so he was coming home when I was leaving this morning for early morning badminton-- pretty weird-- and after my stupid penultimate day of school (a random A day with nothing to do until graduation practice) I came home to a million projects-- my wife is getting the house ready for Alex's graduation party on Saturday, so I shouldn't be writing this sentence, I should be sanding or scraping or fixing the bike shed or something (plus I've got to pick Ian up from work-- he started as a tennis instructor today-- we have four drivers and two cars this summer, so that's going to be kind of nuts until we figure out the schedule).
A Great Father's Day Weekend
Saturday was the big $25 dollar a head random draw cornhole tournament at my cousin Tim's father-in-law's house in North Brunswick and while I was hoping to win two tournaments in a row, it was not to be-- I thought my partner, Manny, might have some potential but after the first round, he couldn't put a bag on the board, but the tournament turned out well anyway, especially for Father's Day weekend-- as both my kids were playing (I subsidized their fee, with the promise that they would pay me back if they won money) and they ended up placing second and third-- Ian was playing with a guy named Chad, who was a North Brunswick alum a year younger than me-- and they eventually lost to Alex's team-- Alex drew the same partner as last year (who might be Manny's brother?) and while he was a disaster last year, this year his guy figured out how to put a few on the board and Alex was on fire-- I had to square off against him and we lost a tight one, which was fine with me, because then Alex and Ian had to play in the semi-finals and they had a close match but most importantly-- the best Father's Day gift-- they were totally civil and didn't get into a fist fight-- so they both made some cash and I got $50 of the $75 I laid out for all of us to play, a win/win, and then I had a wonderful Father's Day-- the kids gave me a framed picture of the tennis team, perhaps the last time I coach both of them together (although we've been playing some pick-up basketball at the park and I still have to tell them where to go) and this is all a reminder that I'm a very lucky dad, with a beautiful loving wife and two athletic healthy kids (and a fairly well-behaved dog) and I've got to remember to enjoy that.
In the Money
Another fabulous EBHS end-of-the-year party: the Victory beer was free, the pool was warm, and Kristyn and I finally won the corn-hole tournament-- we usually make it to the finals, and then-- because we have over-served ourselves on free beer-- we collapse . . . but not this time!
Two Things I Learned Late in Life
Here are two things I learned very recently:
1) leftover wings are delicious if you reheat them on the grill;
2) when you're in the shower and you depress one nostril with your index finger and shoot snot out the other nostril, even if you aim for the drain, the snot might end up on your body so if you don't spray yourself thoroughly after you do this, you might get out of the shower with some snot on you.
It Took A While
My brother, an accomplished jazz pianist, has always sung the praises of Steely Dan, but I never got it-- until today, in the car . . . I put on "Aja" and I really dug it, so you never know when your taste will change (and unless you go back to stuff, you'll really never know if your taste changes).
Am I This Guy? I Guess So
As an adult, at some point while reading a sci-fi series, you ask yourself:
"Am I really the kind of person who reads an entire sci-fi series?"
and I'm at that point with Cibola Burn, the fourth book in the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey-- this was my favorite season of the TV show and the book fills in a lot of gaps-- a LOT of gaps . . . it's a bit interminable in spots, but there's also so much good stuff: the protomolecule built a ring gate that gives humans access to thousands of worlds across the galaxy, and this book is mainly set on New Terra, a planet that seems habitable and rich in lithium and other resources . . . but it's not habitable at all- there are conflicts between colonists/squatters and official security, there are poisonous slime worms and blindness inducing bacteria, there is ancient technology built by the protomolecule which is starting to awake, there are volcanoes and storms and technologically crippling defense systems . . . so it was a lot of fun, but also LONG, long enough that I wanted to get back to some quality non-fiction or something . . . I will say it's a better fourth book than the fourth one in the Game of Thrones series-- and I was asking myself the same question-- am I really this kind of guy?-- but I forged on and the fifth book was better (I think there are a couple more books slated to come out soon, I'm going to need a recap) and so I might continue on with this Expanse series, I love the characters and all the hard sci-fi stuff, though I think the action scenes could be pared down and so, despite the fact that I'm a grown-ass man, I might be the kind of grown-ass man that finishes an epic sci-fi series.
It's Been a Day, A Birth Day . . .
Short and Old
The more my kids have grown, the more they've gotten into basketball-- and while they're not very good, they have long arms and can kind of play now, and when we play one-on-one, their arms are so long that I can't shoot over them unless I step back to Steph Curry range, so I have to bang forward and try for hook shots, which is exhausting and ugly . . . but I'm glad they're getting into hoops again so that they can play pick-up ball in college-- it took me four years of playing on the ugliest team in intramural basketball, the Nicks (named after Nick Huth) to achieve any kind of skill in the sport-- and now it's all downhill for me.
It's Friday, I Think
The closer we get to the end of the year, the more time becomes elastic and the longer the 84 minute block schedule classes seem . . . this week felt beyond eternal, every moment a mini-infinity, so that when Friday finally ended, it seemed as if the year reset and it was a dry September afternoon in 2022.
Epic Hump Day
I Have a Dream . . .
I have a dream to make the side of my backyard like the back of my backyard . . . to make a similar leafy green wall of fargesia clumping bamboo along the fenceline so I can't see my neighbors and they can't see me-- but I suffered for my dream today, while I was transplanting a smaller bamboo plant to a cramped slot behind a plastic storage chest when I bent over to shape some soil around the roots of the plant and a pointy bamboo stalk poked me in the eye; it hurt, my hands were covered in dirt, and I needed to shower to get the remnant of the stalk out of my eye socket . . . but it will all be worth it in a couple of years (but why didn't I do this years ago?)
The End is Nigh
In class today, Hamlet-- who recently returned to Denmark from a near-death adventure with pirates-- confronted Yorick's skull today and the inevitability of decay . . . and my seniors, who returned from their near-death adventures over prom weekend, must now also face their own imminent decay-- they are graduating and growing older by the minute and will never look this way again (also, I'm writing this over the din of professional lawncare equipment-- that shit is so LOUD).
Crowded Bridge, Noisy Bridge, Deserted Bridge, Little Bridge
Yesterday's Man Hike (led by Dave Tulloch) started out reminiscent of the day my wife and I spend in New York a few months ago but the reason this is called the Man Hike is not sexist-- only men would be stupid enough to spoil a good day in NYC by walking way too far (although not as far as this one and better weather than this one) and so while we started out in known territory-- we took the train to the Oculus, carefully examined the treescape (pretty incredible irrigation system) and the survivor tree at the 9/11 Memorial (and then saw a clone of the tree that inspired Anne Frank and the church where George Costanza attempted to convert to Latvian Orthodoxy) and then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with the throngs of people-- this was the crowded bridge-- then did NOT stop in DUMBO for pictures, beer and food-- instead we zipped right back across the noisy bridge-- the Manhattan Bridge-- shouting above the roar of the train-- beautiful views, anyone who was anyone was riding around on their yacht in the East River-- and then we walked a bit (and Pete and I lost the group when we stopped for Asian pastries) and crossed back into Brookly on the Williamsburg Bridge (which was empty) and walked through Greenpoint and other Brooklyn neighborhoods and saw ALL the hipsters and young people, out and about, we stopped for some amazing pizza, and then crossed the small(ish) Pulaski Bridge into Queens-- and I had never really wandered about in Queens so that was new and then we made out way to the a park on the water near Roosevelt Island and caught a ferry all the way back down to Wall Street, had a few beers and a burger, and hitched a ride home with Doug, who took a shortcut through Staten Island . . . so we visited four of the five boroughs, walked some 35,000 steps, and only neglected the Bronx.
Geoff Dyer Gives Up on Giving Up
Geoff Dyer-- famous for Out of Sheer Rage, his anti-biography of D.H Lawrence, which becomes a mediation on procrastination-- has written another weird and wonderful and obscure and profound book, The Last Days of Roger Federer and Other Endings . . . I often struggle with some of his references, and he alludes and refers widely, from literature and jazz and French film to soccer and tennis and Beethoven and Nietzsche; but mainly this book deals with something from a Joy Williams story, when an adult tells a young girl:
"I hope you're enjoying your childhood. When you grow up, a shadow falls. Everything's sunny and then this big goddamn wing or something passes overhead."
and this book is Dyer contemplating life under this shadowy giant wing, as the end approaches-- the end of his tennis playing, the end of Roger Federer's career, the end of movies and films and books and musical pieces, the never-ending non-ending of Bob Dylan, the odd endings that happen when some people are still young-- such as Bjorn Borg and fighter pilots in WWII-- the end of stealing shampoo, the end of artistic purpose, and the end of The Tempest . . . the book ultimately asks the question "when should a creator stop creating?" and the answer is never, never stop until you stop.
Hamlet is Perfect for Seniors in June
It must be getting near the end of the year, as we finished Act IV of Hamlet today; Ophelia finally met her tragic, but beautiful, flower-strewn, mermaid-like demise . . . and after three hours of planning, procrastinating, and pontificating, you'd think that the play would be near the end-- but Shakespeare really lost his mind with this one: he figured out how to get Hamlet back to Denmark-- oddly friendly pirates!-- but he isn't quite ready to resolve things, Laertes still needs to do the whole jumping in the grave thing, Hamlet needs to do "alas poor Yorick" and "the readiness is all" and we also need the weird interlude with Osric (played by Robin Williams in the Branagh version) before we get the final violence and the endless last words . . . it's a perfect play to do at the end of the year because it seems as if it will never end and the seniors keep asking what we will do in class after Hamlet and the answer is "the rest is silence."
The Last Days of Tennis (Like This)
Keeping the Quadrupeds in Line
Deer bounding across the road are quite menacing when you're on rollerblades.
America's Gun Problem is Impossible
Derek Thompson's excellent and informative podcast Plain English details the four obstacles that impede any solution to the proliferation of guns and-- thus-- gun violence and mass shootings in America:
1) money . . . many politicians are in the pocket of the NRA and guns are big business;
2) cynical love of power . . . some politicians will do and say whatever is necessary to gain votes-- even if it's detrimental to our country;
3) the Second Amendment, fear of government overreach, the desire for freedom and liberty, and the ability to fight oppressors;
4) a genuine love of guns and a genuine gun culture-- this is the hardest one for many people to understand, but there is a whole nation of people out there that love guns-- they love the feel of the metal in their hand, they love shooting, they love talking about guns and buying guns and going places with other people with guns . . . and I think they think of guns the way other people think of cars or video games or whiskey . . . they love these things despite knowing that there are harmful consequences and externalities . . .
these are formidable obstacles and so it seems to me (and the podcast espouses this) that because there is a correlation between gun prevalence and gun violence, the only way to tackle the problem is statistically-- it has to be the same as cigarettes, which are still legal but stigmatized to the point where they aren't as prevalent as they once were . . . so little laws, little taxes, licensing requirements, background checks, etcetera . . . anything to reduce the number of guns will reduce the violence . . . but it's never going away . . . but it could get better-- cars are safer now and technology will make them less and less prone to crashing and perhaps we'll need similar technological solutions to deal with guns.
I Don't Serve on Shomer Shabbos!
Respect the Speck
Hockey is hard enough to watch on TV, but if there's a black speck on the TV-- or several black specks on a couple of TVs-- then things can get really confusing . . . sometimes you're following the puck, sometimes you're following the speck, and sometimes-- like that magical moment on The Office when the DVD logo hits the corner-- the black speck intersects with the actual puck and reality breaks down into an inception of the matrix.