Foggy and unseasonable warm this week, which is annoying as far as snowboarding conditions go but a great week for our hot water heater (and radiator heat) to be broken.
The Futility of Chasing the Shuttlecock
I was playing badminton yesterday morning-- singles-- and I was heading to the right but the shuttlecock came back more to the left and I unwisely lunged back in the other direction and rolled my ankle-- it hurt, but not enough to stop whacking around the shuttlecock, so I kept playing-- but that might have been ill-advised because now my ankle is swollen and sore (although I still got my steps in today-- I covered PE class and we went outside . . . it was a balmy 65 degrees . . . weird) and I guess I have implement the analogous lesson that I learned while playing competitive tennis-- even if you get the drop shot-- and with some extreme hustle, you might-- you're still going to injure yourself and not be able to hit the next shot . . . in badminton it's not the drop shot, it's the erratic weird shot that goes a strange direction-- and I'm too old to make sudden lateral directional changes.
Livin' La Vida Lapvona
A weird episode about a weird book: in "Livin' La Vida Lapvona", I try to make sense of Ottessa Moshfegh's repugnant folktale Lapvona . . . and while my analysis might be lacking, I am proud of the title.
School Returns with a Vengeance
My wife and I had to teach today, despite the fact that it was a federal holiday, while Ian got to sleep in; Alex didn't get in until two AM because he's off for college break; the road was desolate on the ride to East Brunswick, and though we were all tired, the kids were in good spirits (I made them stand up and announce New Year's resolutions after I bored them with my thoughts on digital minimalism, stretching, and eating less sugary treats) but last period things got a bit hectic, as we were saying resolutions a girl slid out of her desk onto the floor and had a seizure-- luckily, I'm right next door to the nurse, so while a student cleared the area around her head I ran and got some assistance and then we cleared out while they tended to her . . . then when I got home, Alex informed me that the tankless hot water heater was totally broken so we went to the gym, worked out, and I showered there, but then when I got home, I went down and turned the thing on and really banged the circuit board with my hand a few times and now it's working again, for the time being (or not . . . just broke again . . . and Catherine just got home and she had quite a day as well, the elastic in her tights broke-- she was wearing a dress so she didn't moon anyone but she was doing a lot of shimmying) and then I tried to light our gas grill with a long wooden match, but I turned all the burners on at once before I struck the match-- God knows why-- and a fiery plume shot forth and burned all the hair off my right hand-- but my skin didn't get burned, scary and weird, but I seem to be unburnt.
Feral Hogs + Atlanta = Awesome
We just finished one of my favorite TV shows ever: Atlanta . . . my son Alex finished ahead of Ian and me, but Alex watched the last few episodes of season four again with us (while annoyingly pointing out all sorts of stuff about the background music) and though I loved the last episode-- which is loads of fun and might explain the surreal nature of the show-- I enjoyed the penultimate episode most of all; Paper Boi has some wild adventures with a tractor and my favorite villainous creature-- a feral hog!-- what more could I ask for?
Book List 2022
Here are the books I finished (possibly with some skimming) this year . . . I started plenty of others and quit them because . . . well because I wanted to . . . that's what's great about reading-- if you've got access to a library, you aren't beholden to any particular book:
1) Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson
2) Lazarus Volumes 1-6
3) Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
4) Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson
5) The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul
6) The Given Day by Dennis LeHane
7) Live by Night by Dennis LeHane
8) A Little History of the World by Ernst Gombrich
9) Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
10) Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
11) Caliban's War by James A. Corey
12) Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
13) The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman
14) Tochi Onyebuchi's Goliath
15) We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
16) Abbadon's Gate by James S.A. Corey
17) The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
18) The Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
19) One-Shot Harry by Gary Philips
20) The Last Days of Roger Federer and Other Endings by Geoff Dyer
21) The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
22) Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
23) The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough
24) Harrow by Joy Williams
25) The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams
26) Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
27) The Foundling by Ann Leary
28) Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy
29) Fugitive Telemetry: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
30) Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
31) Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit by Mark Leyner
32) The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era by Gary Gerstle
33) Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta
34) Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
35) Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
36) The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
37) The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
38) City on Fire by Don Winslow
39) Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
40) what if? SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC ANSWERS to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe
41) Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Stephen Johnson
42) The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
43) The Tomorrow Game: Rival Teenagers, Their Race For a Gun, and The Community United to Save Them by Sudhir Venkatesh
44) Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
45) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
46) Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
47) Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
48) Liberation Day by George Saunders
49) Upgrade by Blake Crouch
50) Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
51) Adrift: America in 100 Charts by Scott Galloway
52) Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
53) Pines by Blake Crouch
54) The Rise and Reign of the Mammals by Steve Brusatte
55) Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
56) Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neil deGrasse Tyson
57) Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross
Bizarro Four
Fantastic Four: Full Circle is a psychedelic journey into a Bizarro World anti-matter negative energy universe, where some weird doppelgänger of The Thing resides (although he surfaced on our planet, full of grotesque half-creatures and somehow existed in both time frames) and though the ending may indicate that we are just figments of some other world's imagination, this is highly unlikely, because the artistic imagination of Alex Ross-- the colors, the perspectives, the layout of these pages-- must indicate that we are controlling things here in our world . . . and it is that other anti-world that is a figment of our imagination . . . or at least that is what we need to believe, that we have autonomy when we get a midnight snack.
The Essence?
At a party last night, we played a game called "The Essence"-- but instead of "the Asker" asking questions like that, we just free-lanced it . . . it was quite fun but it could probably go down a dark road if there was some animosity in the house (and I couldn't help taking it down an absurd road: if this person were an apocalypse they would be zombie . . . if this person were an organ, they'd be a spleen, etc.)
THAT Was Fun
It's weird when your kid comes home from college for Winter Break-- there is certainly an adjustment period: they are used to a totally different schedule, they are used to interacting mainly with college-aged people, and they are not used to whatever family dynamics have developed since they have been living away from home-- and perhaps that is why Alex and Ian nearly got into a battle royale the first time we tried to play some pick-up basketball at the Piscataway Y . . . Alex is used to playing a certain style of pick-up with kids at the gym over at Rutgers, Ian is a bit too competitive when he's covering his brother, and the two of them have grown quite a bit and Ian, although he's very athletic, does not have complete control over his long arms and bony elbows when he's playing basketball; anyway, they talked it out and we went back and played again today and we played four-on-four with some decent players and Alex, Ian, and I were on the same team and this made a world of difference-- we killed the other team; Alex and Ian both rebounded, Alex drove with confidence and made a lot of touch shots around the basket; Ian blocked some shots with his long arms and took advantage of a mismatch inside; I shot a bit from outside; and the fourth guy on our team was an excellent player who know how to move the ball . . . it was very fun and everyone got along smashingly and then we met Catherine for lunch at Mr. Pi's and ate some sushi-- and they are both certainly better at pick-up basketball than I was at their age (when I played basketball in the same fashion as I played rugby).
Charismatic Megafauna!
New episode of "We Defy Augury" is up . . . thoughts loosely inspired by Steve Brusatte's book The Rise and Reign of the Mammals" but plenty of tangents, asides, cameos, and even a musical monologue.
Almost Fun . . .
Alex, Ian, and I went to the gym at 10 AM to play some basketball and we got a three-on-three game going but Alex and Ian were the tallest players, so they had to split up and cover each other-- which I should have known would be a disaster-- and Ian swatted at the ball for a steal with his long arm and hit Alex in the lip, drawing blood and scratching his face-- and then the two of them were at it, and they finally got into some kind of scrap over a rebound and Alex tossed Ian to the ground (he's bigger) and Ian punched his leg and Alex decided he'd had enough and walked home . . . they sorted it all out later but they might not be able to cover each other until they reach an age of enlightenment (they are seventeen and eighteen now . . . maybe in their mid-twenties they'll mellow out?)
Gold, Frankincense, and Bluetooth Hat
Fun Christmas: I got the kids some graphic novels (that I want to read as well) and my wife got me a bluetooth ski hat with speakers embedded in the fabric so I can listen to music while walking the dog in the frigid cold (and the dog got a sweater, which she really likes) and Netflix gave us a new Knives Out mystery, Glass Onion, which was totally entertaining and a great thing to watch with the family on a lazy Christmas day . . . thanks Netflix!
Xmas Eve Miracles!
This morning, my older son Alex and I went to the Piscataway Y and played some basketball-- his game has gotten better because he's playing so much pick-up ball and Rutgers and my unconscious outside shooting picked up exactly where I left off yesterday morning . . . we were playing two-on-two and I think I shot 80% from beyond the arc-- it was ridiculous . . . and then to add to the miracles, Catherine botched another idiom in her inimitable style, when she told Alex she "didn't want to hear any comments from the popcorn gallery."
Winter Break is Here!
Winter Break has arrived: we survived ChatGPTbotgate at school, I survived early morning basketball (and lit it up from outside . . . Merry Xmas from the basketball gods), Alex survived his engineering exams, and-- hopefully-- we'll survive this bomb cyclone super freeze . . . the temperature has dropped precipitously and we're holed up at home-- the dog is bored, Catherine and I are making tacos, Alex and his buddy Gary are watching the Festivus episode of Seinfeld in the basement-- but Ian is at work at the bubble tea place-- I can't imagine many people are coming in because it's so cold and windy but he won't be home until 10 PM, I hope it's not too ugly out then-- anyway, the presents are wrapped and under the tree, there's no school tomorrow, and it's nice to be warm and inside and drinking a beer.
Almost Break
Alex is home from college and Alex, Ian, and I watched an episode of Atlanta and ate some pizza and told stories about college and high school and ChatGPT . . . and it felt very normal.
The Robots Are Here and the Writing is Uncanny
We had a Rutgers grade calibration day and we found several essays that seem to have sections written by AI, probably ChatGPT . . . and this is more difficult to prove than old-school plagiarism-- you have to guess what the student typed into the prompt to get the chatbot to spit back out the weird stuff in the essay-- but you can tell the sections that are written by a computer . . . Stacey made an astute comparison to the idea of the "uncanny valley" in digital animation.
Early Morning Date with a Dead Dog
You never know where the adventure of parenthood is going to take you . . . this morning I woke up my son Ian at 5:45 AM and we drove over to Carolyn's house-- Ian does odd jobs, outdoor work, and dog sitting for her-- and Carolyn's dogs are old, one is deaf and blind and the other had severe problems with his back legs and needed to be put down yesterday . . . poor Huckleberry . . . anyway, the vet came to her house and put the dog down last night and Carolyn needed a couple of people to carry the dog to her car this morning so she could drive the dog to the crematorium . . . so Ian and I started our day by lugging a seventy-pound carcass out of Carolyn's living room and wresting it into the back of her Subaru and then Ian went back to bed and I got ready for work . . . dogs-- they just don't live long enough.
Adrift in the Digital Doldrums
New episode of We Defy Augury is up and streaming: "Adrift in the Digital Doldrums" . . . in this one I describe how to become a digital minimalist, how to solve all of America's problems, and how NOT to clean out a lint duct; cameo appearances from Bill Maher, Tristan Harris, and Alexander Supertramp.
Meta Action is Still Action, Right?
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, starring Nicolas Cage as a gonzo-version of himself, is entertaining, fun, and meta . . . and Pedro Pascal's understated emotion is the perfect foil to Cage's wild manic swings; this is the lighter version of JCVD . . . a similar premise, but Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a very dark version of himself . . . if you're going to watch one meta-action movie where the star plays himself, I would go with the Nicolas Cage one.
Let There Be Lint
I cleaned my dryer vent duct today, using a shop-vac and a kit that contained a bunch of flexible plastic sticks that you screw together and then you put an augur lint brush on one end of the long flexible stick and you attach the other end to a drill-- you insert that thing into the duct outside your house (after removing the louvres) while you have the shop-vac attached to the hose in the basement (you've detached the hose from the back of your dryer) and when you're done you have cleaned the lint from the hose, there's a bunch of lint in the shop-vac and there's also an unlimited amount of lint all over the washroom-- I'm not sure why this happened (because I was outside spinning the augur brush) but there certainly was a lot of lint.
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