I really loved the new Sam Harris podcast "Science and Civilization"; Harris chats with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about numeracy and the difficulties humans have with numerical logic . . . the section about global warming was especially enlightening-- and, as usual, I am adding my own thoughts and tangents into a summary of what was discussed; Tyson points out that people have trouble understanding the dire consequences of one-degree change in average temperature because they don't think in Gaussian (Bell) curves-- we think about one degree warmer in our house or on an average day, but the fluctuation has much greater significance at the edges of the curve-- that's where the action is at (the storms, droughts, wildfires, dust storms, erosion, heat strokes, and death) and even if most people DID understand the ramifications at the long tail of a one-degree change, the mathematics of our political cycle precludes our political system from addressing the problem because we elect people in four-year cycles-- so the time horizon is too short to run on a long term concept like climate change . . . politicians run on inflation, cultural wedge issues, gas prices, immigration . . . things that are happening NOW . . . and Sam Harris is concerned that young people are th eonly people that care about these issues, but the way young people are protesting is kind of deranged-- especially the folks gluing themselves to "priceless" works of art; Tyson explains that young people are the only ones who care about these kind fo long term problems, plus they are the people with time and energy to protest-- I agree, and quite honestly, these "pricesless" works of art are only priceless in a market economy with extreme wealth inequality-- we have plenty of digital pictures of the art and it's only paint on canvas, so who gives a fuck? . . . maybe some rich art patrons but for the rest off us, the planet, the ecosystem we live in, the current state of the oceans and rivers, clean air and water, endangered species . . . all these things are far more priceless than art; a species took millions of years to create-- so I say, go ahead and glue yourselves to famous paintings if it gets some attention to the cause of climate change-- you've got to break a few eggs to bake a cake . . . but then you've got to explain the statistics to people as well-- so good luck.
A Bit 'mo Charleston
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Some last thoughts about Charleston--
-- our tiny VRBO rental on Line Street (in the young and trendy Upper King Street neighborhood) was not for the faint of heart (or the elderly) because the bed was a floating loft at the top of a skinny spiral staircase . . . when you got out of bed, your only option was to get ONTO the staircase . . .
--Brown's Court Bakery was a block away from our place-- some of the best baked goods I've ever eaten: the pepperoni/jalapeno danish, raspberry danish, bacon and cheddar scone, and the lavender sugar donut are all worth trying;
--Brown Dog Deli in downtown Charleston is a cheap, delicious joint to grab sandwiches and a beer;
-- the Two Sisters walking tour was excellent . . . we had Mary Helen (as the two sisters split the group) and she gave us an entertaining history of the city-- it's a weird place, after the Civil War and the earthquake of 1886, Charleston was somewhat in ruins . . . and because it wasn't wealthy, the city never rebuilt all it's historic homes and buildings-- and then some motivated Southern Ladies started preserving things until the money came into town and now the place is astounding, the homes are all remodeled historically by rich part-timers, there are lush gardens and window boxes and narrow cobblestone streets and brick alleys and iconic porches and patios-- it's like a beautiful version of New Orleans (without the urine and the vomit) and I'm not sure if we've ever put in more miles walking in a city--
--despite the windy weather, everyone told us you have to go to a rooftop bar when you're in Charleston so we went to the Pour Taproom, atop the Hyatt . . . an interesting concept: they have 80 computerized taps and you serve yourself beer and pay by the ounce . . . great views from up there, you can really see the layout of the city;
-- our last meal we went to Leon's again-- great affordable Southern food and local beers and a really great vibe;
--the Led Zeppelin poster in our VRBO rental was of the same nature as all those Nirvana t-shirts that the youngsters are wearing . . . I doubt very much the rental barons of StayDuvet are huge Zep fans but the band logo has become an aesthetic signifier of something young and fun;
--Charleston is a lot fo fun but I've heard it's swampy and mosquito-ridden in the summer and if we stayed there another week, Catherine and I would both be obese . . . it's a great place to visit and it's being rapidly gentrified as we speak . . . it's a Southern version of what happened in Asbury Park-- a prim location stunted by poverty and left in ruins until the money came to gentrify, and now both towns are adult playgrounds, great for a fun weekend, but maybe not somewhere to live full time.
More Charleston
We have really covered a lot of ground over the past two days, according to my Fitbit we've walked over fifty thousand steps, and we've managed to avoid getting soaked; Wednesday night w took a very very long stroll north to Edmund's Oast brewery-- but we thought we we headed to the restaurant but Google maps sent us to the brewery and while the beer was delicious, they didn't have an extensive menu so we ordered some boiled peanuts, which I loved at Cat hated-- very very messy food-- and then walked all the way back to Leon's-- an oyster and fried chicken place in a refurbished garage . . . the food was amazing; the nest day we walked down to the water, through the colorfully painted home in the French Quarter, which has a New Orleans feel, and took the tour of the Old Exchange and Dungeon, a venerable and extremely solid old building with symmetric brick foundational arches, a hidden cache of revolutionary gunpowder and an impressive history as a slave market, a battery, a port building, and a historical society, the building was on the river but now there is four hundred feet of reclaimed land; we got soaked on our walk home, but the vociferous and loquacious black lady working the register at the convenience store told us it was all God's plan and the rain removed the bacteria; we went back to our tiny house, watched a show called Magic For Humans which is oddly addictive and we only discovered it because we are on Sissy's Netflix account, so all kinds of weird suggestions, and then we walked back downtown for a rich Southern dinner at Magnolia's and then back uptown to see a band at the Commodore, a weird dive bar with music-- quite the crowd in there, it seemed everyone actually knew how to dance, like really dance, but the band canceled and some white guy started energetically rapping, doing hip hop covers, so we watched a bit of that and then went home (it also should be noted that I yanked my belt off a closet door, it was under my jeans, and the buckle whipped over the door and clocked me in the head, giving me a nice knot on my noggin).
Charleston day one
After a slightly stressful departure, as our son Ian-- who was locking up the house and heading to my brother's place with the dog while Catherine and I celebrate thirty years since our first date with a trip to Charleston-- dropped and broke his phone while listening to music in the shower and then totally lost his phone either at school or in the house so we had no Sim card and so we had to make like Avon Barksdale in The Wire and buy a burner phone, which was way harder to set up than we thought, but we did it and so we could communicate with our air brained son who ended up getting everything done he had to get done, enabling us to leave very very early, fly to Charleston, tour Magnolia Plantation, see some slave quarters, learn about rice farming, stalk some gators, take scenic pictures of Spanish moss and ancient live oaks, pet a pig, and walk a lot of miles through reclaimed swamp and beautiful wild gardens along the Ashley River, and then we ubered to town and gave our Uber driver some advice on his other job, where he cleans pools and got to drive a really nice pool truck until the new supervisor took it from him and gave him the shitty truck, a real kick to the balls, and it still wasn't check in at our tiny house near King Street so we grabbed a beer and a catfish sandwich and some fried green tomatoes at the Rarebit and then, finally, got into our little cottage with spiral stairs and a loft bedroom; soon enough we'll head back out to check out the night life and then hunker down for the rain.
Destroying the World (Creatively)
My newest episode of We Defy Augury is an epic adventure into apocalypses of all kinds; "Apocalypse New" is inspired by Walter M. Miller's classic post-apocalyptic religious sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, but there's lots of cameos: Ziggy Stardust, Tyler Durden, Karen Thompson Walker, Rick Grimes, Sookie Stackhouse, Bill Compton . . . and even Kramer, to help with some poetry; I highly recommend the first novella in Canticle-- the Catholic Church, like a cockroach, is still hanging on six hundred years after a nuclear flame deluge-- and the monastery in honor of St. Leibowitz is trying to preserve some arcane and archaic knowledge from that old, destroyed world . . . then the book keeps going and going and going . . . you might want to listen to my podcast rather than reading the rest.
What About the Dogs? The Dogs!
Nothing is more fucked up than having to tell your dog she can't have dinner at her usual time because of a massive government conspiracy to control our clocks . . . I really thought there was some legislation to end all this springing forward and falling back bullshit, but apparently we're still doing it-- with no concern for the dogs! the poor dogs!-- and so now I've got a grouchy Pavlovian salivating dog, who can't understand why 5 PM is now 4 PM (mainly because I can't understand why 5 PM is now 4 PM . . . so there will be barely any time to get outside in the sun after school . . . why do we do this?)
Lantern Flies: The Hits Keep on Coming
Ian and I took a chainsaw to the low branches on the autumn blaze maple in our yard; I held the ladder and Ian used his long arms to reach and sever a half dozen or so limbs that were hanging over the bamboo and the Leyland cypress, in the the hopes that now the lantern flies will be more exposed on the main trunk-- the easier for trapping and killing . . . meanwhile, I taped the two maples in our front yard and while many lantern flies got stuck on the tape bands, there's still been an endless supply climbing the trunk, which I diligently massacre every time I go outside . . . so at the base of each tree there's a mass grave of splattered lantern flies-- which you'd think would serve as a warning to these stupid beasts, but they keep on coming-- but the questions is: where the fuck are they coming from? . . . or to be grammatically correct: from fuck all where do they be coming?
Conspiracy Theories in America
This episode of Plain English about conspiracy theories is both compelling and entertaining . . . I especially like the definition of a conspiracy theory-- brought to you by the guys from "Stuff They Don't Want You To Know"--
1) an event with an unsatisfactory explanation
2) lack of transparency
3) element of control-- either something controlling events or controlling information
4) a participatory aspect
and there's lots of other "fun" stuff about JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, aliens, UFOs, and the government secrecy orders and patents.
But Don't Confuse Samuel Jackson and Laurence Fishburne
A student walked into my first period class this morning sleepily murmured, "Good morning Mr. Soder" and I turned my head and said, "YOU RACIST! You think every old white bald goateed English teacher looks the same?" and he stammered a bit and apologized for calling me the wrong name and then I told him I was just kidding-- that I could totally see how he mixed up me and Mr. Soder . . . because old white bald guys with goatees do look the same (especially to sleepy teenagers).
Got to Be the Shoes
You don't choose your family, but you don't really choose your friends either-- friendships tend to form in a fairly arbitrary pattern based on your activities, location, upbringing, family, race, religion, and a host of other factors . . . in fact, when you think hard about it (which you shouldn't) you might not choose anything (aside from the kind of shoes you wear).
(Ooh) That Smell
I lent my car to my seventeen year old son Sunday night, so he could drive some friends to get Halloween costumes-- but instead they got pho and I think someone spilled some (or they were very sweaty and were rubbing their stinky feet all over my van's upholstery) because Monday morning, there was a heinous odor emanating from the interior of the car, like vomit and chlorine and footstink all mixed together-- I've been driving with the windows open since then and the smell is finally dissipating but then today at the dentist I was punished with an even worse odor/flavor-- the cement that they used to affix my bridge made me gag over and over and over . . . I'm glad I didn't puke on the hygienist because she was very nice (not that I would punish a rude hygienist by puking on her) but I hope that the rest of my week is odor free.
Whole Lotta Barking Going On
No matter how clearly I explain it, my dog does not understand Halloween.
Reality Returns
The Giants and the Jets performed more realistically today, thus proving we do not live in a simulation.
I Feel Like Pip in Daytona
This morning I went to the gym and I did some rowing and some upper-body lifting; then, on the way home, I stopped at the pickleball courts and there were people there so I figured I play a bit and then head over to the girl's soccer game-- but after I played a few games, I walked to my van and I couldn't find my keys anywhere-- so I assumed that I locked them inside the van; I called my wife, told her I needed her to come over and unlock the van, and then went back to playing pickleball . . . and it took my wife a while to get to me because she didn't have a van key and Ian did and he had slept over a friend's house and she had to track him down-- so by the time she got to me, I had played a lot more pickleball and when I was finished, my back started to hurt-- my lower back-- which never happens to me and then my wife arrived and I opened the van and my keys were NOT inside the van . . . so we searched the premises-- the courts and the path and the parking lot and the grass, and this nice Indian dude foudn them for me-- huge-- but by this time my back was really starting to hurt, and by the time I got home it was in full spasm-- I took a nap, but it didn't loosen up-- so no sports for me tomorrow (and I also doubt I'll climb the ladder with the electric chainsaw and cut down those limbs infested with lantern flies . . . I think I need to be in prime condition to do that stupid job).
Really?
If I'm in such good shape-- which I am . . . I still play soccer, badminton, basketball, tennis, and pickleball; I lift weights, I run, I swim, and I snowboard-- then why did I strain a quad muscle karate-kicking a lanternfly on my maple tree?
End of Era
Highland Park lost a 1-0 heartbreaker and was eliminated from the state tournament tonight, but I'm so proud of my son Ian-- he had a rough high school soccer career, after being an exceptional youth player . . . this was the first high school season that he didn't get injured and he fought his way into a starting position and scored some big goals and had a few exceptional assists; tonight he had to start at left back (because our left back had a doctor's appointment) and then when the left back arrived he went up and played right wing and then when our center back got hurt he played center back, and then when our center forward cramped he switched to center forward, then went back to center back and then ended the game at left wing . . . Highland Park dominated possession but we couldn't punch through the back line-- we had a number of great shots, and at one point, Ian actually headed a ball into the goal-- but it was was called back because apparently the ball glanced off the football crossbar, not the soccer crossbar -- and we had one frantic rush at the end of the game, which resulted in a corner, and with the clock winding down, Ian got to take a shot off a carom just outside the eighteen-- right footed, unfortunately, as he's a lefty-- and it floated high and just over the crossbar and then time ran out . . . but he had a great season and this team was a blast to watch and at least his career ended with a classic soccer match, an ugly 1-0 loss, where the only goal was an incomprehensible mess in the back and the goalie got out of position and Point Pleasant poked it in-- that's soccer and there's a part of me that's happy never to watch a match with one of my kids playing again-- it's too damn stressful-- and so now it's time to start practicing for tennis season.
F&%$ing Shuttlecock!
My wife claims I am "too dramatic" and "curse too much about silly things" and if there was a video record of today's early morning badminton session, she would have been correct.
Time and Tranquility
Brett McKay had Laura Vanderkam on his Art of Manliness podcast and she had some good advice about achieving tranquility with time management . . . some of these things I do and some I could improve upon:
1. have a set bedtime . . . I crush at this-- I try to stay awake until 9 PM each, but I often struggle to get past 8:45 PM;
2. move around during the workday . . . I'm lucky enough to have a job that isn't sedentary, but I also work in a walk-- perhaps even a backwards walk-- or a run or some push-ups or something during my free time in the school day;
3. have one small and one big adventure each week . . . this generally happens but not always-- I'm going to be more mindful of breaking the routine-- and my wife loves adventures (although not right now, the new COVID omicron booster absolutely crushed her);
4. three times a week makes something a habit-- not seven times a week-- so I won't get down on myself if I don't practice my guitar or work on my podcast every single day;
5. reverse the order of easier and more difficult "leisure" tasks-- this is one I'm really going to try to implement-- I'm going to read first or practice my guitar first, THEN play online chess or do the Quordle of the NYT Spelling Bee . . . because more often than not, if you do the easier, more mindless thing first, you'll never get to the task that needs more brainpower;
6. batch small tasks instead of procrastinating and spreading them out-- do a bunch in a row and then stop;
7. plan your week on Friday . . . that way when Monday rolls around you'll be ready to do the hard work and you won't have to plan ahead-- I do a good job of this with my lesson plans and such, but I could also do this for weekends and planning big and little adventures.
Work . . . Boo
We had an in-service teacher education day today, and while it was quite productive, I imagine this is what having an actual job is like: meetings, normal hours, lots of discussions with smart adults, some collaboration and turn-keying and such . . . definitely mind-numbing and soul-crushing-- I'll be glad to be back to the chaos of teenagers tomorrow.
Horse Shit
A new episode of my podcast We Defy Augury is up and streaming . . . the episode is called "All the (not so) Pretty Horses" and it focuses on a brilliant book by Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule, which is about a down-and-out horse track in West Virginia in the early 1970s; the book captures the language, the characters, the consciousness, the cons and the gritty feel of a run-down horse track . . . the podcast also features cameos from Michael Scott and Mike the glue factory guy.
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