Great non-fiction writers can make any topic interesting and Steven Johnson is one of the great ones, he's done it over and over with various topics-- innovations and ideas, cholera, the history of air, organized complexity, decision-making, video games and TV, etcetera-- and in his new book, he astounded me by taking a topic that I always thought was kind played out and juvenile: pirates-- but Johnson's take on pirates is different . . . he puts them in global context, but I should warn you, Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt is not a book that focuses on swashbuckling and sword-fighting-- although that stuff comes up-- instead it portrays pirates (specifically Henry Every) as a bundle of contradictions: democratic rapists; multi-cultural xenophobes; contract abiding torturers; free-spirited slave traders . . . it's a lot to take in, but Johnson does it in a fast breezy style and the history of the Mughal Dynasty and the East India Company goes down fairly easy.
Could Be an Educational Experiment
I had an Indian curry and a shitload of lentils for lunch and I'm drinking coffee and now I'm wolfing down rice and beans for dinner, then heading over to Back to School Night . . . the parents could be in for a treat!
Epic Week But No Complaints
A long week . . . five days of teaching six classes and four preps, plus Back to School Night (and no more videos, we're doing it in person) but it's been a good week: Rutgers football won, Giants football "won" . . . but just barely, Ian went up 190 points on the SAT, Ian played really well in the tragic soccer loss against Middlesex . . . another ridiculous call-- this time a phantom PK and the Middlesex kid, who had been diving all game, kicked the ball while he was on the ground and HE got the call in his favor and then our goalie got knocked out of the way and another goal was scored and then another Middlesex kid took a dive and out player got his second yellow, so I'm glad I'm not coaching but Ian scraped the rust off from a summer of only tennis and actually looked fit and aggressive and his touch was excellent, and we had a delicious flank steak for dinner-- and you never know with flank steak, sometimes it can be tough, and I've got another episode of We Defy Augury out . . . we'll see if I can keep it up after this long week (and Garage Sale Day on Saturday . . . if I get the next episode out, I'm a podcasting hero).
Saul > Sentence
New content is canceled today-- Catherine, Ian, and I watching the penultimate episode of Better Call Saul . . . all the timelines are coming together and things are mainly black and white (and bleak).
The Key To Teaching High Schhol
Dave's Still Got It (Aside from a Thick Head of Hair and Speed)
This weekend, I took a break from racquet sports (I played pickle-ball, badminton, and tennis last week) and met up with my pick-up soccer group for our first session on the brand new turf-- I haven't played since doing indoor soccer last winter because I didn't want to sprain my ankle on the shitty rock hard grass at the park but now that the turf is done, I'll attend-- and for any of you wondering, I've still got it-- the touch and the vision and creativity, the ability to play passes with either foot, the one-touch and the give-and-go, the fake pass and the step-over . . . all that jazz-- all that's missing is speed and agility and quickness and my knees.
Apology Note to My Biceps (and the rest of my muscles)
I'm sorry I went to the gym this morning and lifted weights when I knew that we had to remove a couch from our living room-- never again (hopefully we won't ever have to buy a couch again, and I won't have to worry about this-- the stupid couch wouldn't fit through the front door so we had to carry it out through the sliding door, onto the deck, down the stairs, and from the backyard to the front-- when am I old enough to hire people to do this kind of work?)
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (by Dave)
Some of you may be familiar with how I live my life (Dave-style) and one of the cute and quirky things about my particular style of living is that instead of throwing stuff I don't want into the trash, sometimes I just toss it onto the common table in the English Office . . . so when Sara Murphy (affectionately known as Smurphy and one of my favorite people in the universe) came into my class, holding a stack of paper and said, "You forgot your photo-copies on the table, here they are," I felt really bad-- but I had to tell her (mainly because I knew the class would enjoy the information) that I didn't need those photo-copies and they were actually trash that I had inconsiderately tossed onto the common table and that though she had tried to do a good deed, she had instead exposed me as the total jackass that I am . . . but at least I have this blog in which to reflect upon these moments and maybe I won't do this again for a couple of weeks.
The First Thing I Do in the Morning
Before you can wake up and smell the coffee, someone has to make the coffee.
Note to Self: Wear a Belt!
Once every school year I either forget my belt or decide my pants fit perfectly and I don't need a belt-- but I always forget that once I start moving around and sweating-- and yesterday was particularly humid and sweaty-- that my pants loosen up and start falling down . . . so I had to improvise and use a type-A phone cord as a belt, which worked pretty well (but not as well as an actual belt, which I will ALWAYS wear now-- until I forget).
This One Goes to 11
Another Labor Day, Another Greased Watermelon Water-polo Rugby Match
Yesterday was the end of the season picnic at the Rutgers pool and the end of the season picnic culminates with the greased-watermelon-rugby-water-polo match in the deep end of the pool . . . and it was the usual melee-- no goggles allowed, so everyone's eyes were burning, a few of us (including me) got kicked in the head, lots of dunkings and near drownings, a lack of ability to sweat because your skin gets covered in vaseline, and so much treading water that by the end, it was difficult to pull yourself out of the pool-- but I also noticed something with the dynamic-- the game was seven on seven this year-- kind of small-- and the only people playing are the crew that is my age (around fifty) and our children (and some of our children's friends) and the rest of the eligible pool members-- all the twenty and thirty and forty year olds-- pull up chairs and watch the match . . . we got exactly one new player, a 44 year old named John who was a water polo player-- and he told me after the match "I didn't realize it would be so intense! and I thought I would swim circles around everyone but there are some really good swimmers," which is true because one family is all swimmers and their kids can grab the watermelon and submerge to the bottom of the pool and swim with it, which is pretty much an indefensible play . . . anyway, this gladiatorial event may die (sink and drown) with our generation (and I think this year's match caused me to pass a very small kidney stone, I won't go into further detail on that front).
Graduation Wine
Action-packed Saturday: I took a long bike ride on the tow road (and with the cross country coach, who I ran into on his bike in Johnson Park) and then I drove to Clark with Ian and we bought a used bike because he keeps growing and then I installed some basement window well covers-- I should have done that a long time ago-- and Catherine bought a new coach and chair and then we went to Flounder Brewing for a beer and now we're getting dinner ready and drinking the bottle of wine that the kids and I got many years ago, which was specifically for once Alex graduated and went to college-- and it actually tastes quite good.
Back to School
Total brain fog-- today was some kind of epic Professional Development Day at school (and even though what all the teachers want to do is get set up, figure out lesson plans, talk to people that are teaching the same classes as them, and get ready for the kids . . . but we need to be inspired) so we had two hours of music and dancing and edu-tainer Dr. Adolf Brown, what happened to be at William and Mary at around the same time I was there (but he was obviously making something of himself, attending class and then many levels of graduate school, while I played darts and ping-pong) and though he was a great speaker, his message could have been conveyed in twenty minutes-- basically that the kids are bringing baggage to school and so are the teachers, and we've got to empty our own backpacks and see that the kids are carrying cumbersome weight in their backpacks-- and there was some prop comedy with a mirror and some toilet paper jokes (even though good teachers never have stomach issues-- you get on a schedule and never stary from it . . . one of the reasons I wake up early) and then we had ANOTHER 90 minute meeting after the two hour meeting and then we rounded it out with a department meeting . . . meanwhile, Catherine was moving Alex into his dorm room on Rutgers-Livingston Campus (which is only a mile or two away from our house, so I can certainly do some Rodney Dangerfield back-to-school action) and so I got to check out the finished product once I got out of school, and then we stopped by the high school to see Ian play in the soccer scrimmage (but he had to call for a sub, he's got a pulled stomach muscle-- I told him to rest it) and anyway, I'm definitely feeling old, overwhelmed at school, a kid going to college, another a high school senior . . . but once the students come, everything will sort itself out.
Mafia Redux
If you're looking for a well-written organized crime tale in a different setting than usual (Providence! Like Crimetown!) then check out Don Winslow's new one. City on Fire . . . it's got all the mob tropes-- I'm cataloging them now for my next episode of We Defy Augury . . . but if you're looking for something a little different, try the Italian mobster film Gomorra . . . it's cycles between the quotidian and extreme violence: the ins and outs of illegal toxic waste disposal and trying to make it as a mobbed up tailor and the assassinations and terror that occurred in Italy during the Scampia Feud . . . there's not the romance and drama and fun of Goodfellas and The Godfather, just daily life in the criminal underworld.
Willie Nelson Strikes Again!
My favorite joke of all time-- the Willie Nelson joke-- appeared in one of Adrian McKinty's crime novels, leading to a visit from McKinty himself at SoD . . . now the joke has reared it's ugly (but adorably stoned) head in the new Sedaris memoir, Happy-Go-Lucky . . . which means that Sedaris has to come visit my blog as well.
Double Digits!
I'm proud to announce that I've released TEN episodes of my podcast "We Defy Augury" . . . and I hope I have enough material for many more, as I enjoy making them (although my favorite part-- the weird voice that happens when I explain the purpose of the podcast and the joys of reading and autonomous thinking, over the inspirational music-- is my wife's LEAST favorite part of the show).
Nothing Says Jersey like a Microbrewery in an Industrial Park
Yesterday my wife and I went to the Jersey Cyclone Brewing Company-- which, like Cypress Brewery is located in a weird industrial park-- but unlike Cypress, Cylcone Brewery has a spacious tasting room with tables, booths, and a large bar- the beer is decent, but nothing to write home about . . . as far as local breweries go, I still like Flounder Brewery the best (both for it's excellent and various beers and the pastoral setting).
Some Deets
Yesterday's sentence was vague, Yoda-esque, and boring-- so here's a bit more detail: yesterday, Ian and I took off for Hamilton, New Jersey at 6:50 AM so he could take the SAT at Trenton Catholic because there were no seats available for the test near us; I dropped him off at 7:35 AM and they admitted him into the testing facility; I then when and played pickleball with my brother at Veteran's Park-- which was only a few miles away-- and this was elite pickleball competition, in fact, they wanted me to "try-out" to play with them, but my brother vouched for me-- and then my brother and I beat nearly everyone there so there were no longer concerns about my skill level-- then I went to my brother's place and Amy made me a sandwich and gave me some watermelon- and then I headed over to the school to pick Ian up, and I parked in the lot, got out of the car, and wandered and stretched . . . and I put my tennis shoes and socks on the hood so they could dry out and not stink up the car . . . and there was no sign of the test ending, though it was supposed to be a 3 hour test with one fifteen minute break-- but now we were going on noon and they were supposed to start at eight AM so it should have been over but it went on and on . . . I reparked the car on the road in a shady spot, I got really annoyed with all the people sitting in their cars, idling, making me breathe all kinds of fumes while I wandered around, but they sat on their phones in the AC, burning fossil fuels, and the kids didn't get out until nearly 1 PM and Ian was starving, so we stopped at Wendy's and he got some ridiculous chicken sandwich with fried pickles and honey habanero and bacon and then I went over Stacey's house for Ed's birthday, ate BBQ, played cornhole and lawn darts-- lawn darts made for a very long and boring game to 7-- and I just think the SAT is not equitable, normal, or useful-- there should be some hour long test that every kid takes in school and that should be enough.