Three Firsts for Dave

Two new things for me today:

1) I washed a number of filthy baseball caps in the dishwasher . . . top rack, with a knee brace as well-- then I dried the hats with our big floor fan-- and now I've got some very clean hats . . .

2) I dressed like the lion from The Wizard of Oz for my cousin's one-year-old birthday party-- and though my costume was quite minimalist: brown shirt, shoes, and pants; some whiskers painted on my face; and a rather realistic tail my wife made from an old towel-- it didn't matter because the other adults really went all out with their costumes to complete Dorothy's gang so I looked just fine . . . 

3) while we were at the party-- which was very loud-- my brother and I watched Rutgers come back from an 18-point deficit to defeat Michigan State and Rutgers did a kicking play that I've never seen work this way . . . the kicker "sky-kicked" the ball and the Michigan player let it bounce before he tried to catch it and by the time the ball came down a Rutgers player was already there-- the Rutgers kid collided with the Michigan State player and just grabbed the ball from him . . . hello!

Friday Pickleball Plus

A long week was lengthened to epic proportions by a pickleball match, the longest, most epic pickleball match I've ever played . . . instead of heading straight to happy hour, Catherine and I drove over to Castleton Park yesterday afternoon and played some fun games with some of the youngsters that are now playing there, but then Ryan Cheng and his girlfriend shows up-- Ryan played tennis for Yale and he's 24 and his girlfriend is also a tennis player and she's 22 and they are both obsessed with pickleball now, so I played one last match with them and Vanessa-- another college athlete, a basketball player-- and it was 7-7 for twenty minutes or so, and the game must have taken forty minutes-- Hanna and I lost to a couple of rocket-speed overheads from Ryan but it was a really fun game and pickleball is a wonderful sport because old people can actually compete with young people and then Catherine and I couldn't really get back to Highland Park, because unbeknownst to us, it was homecoming and the traffic was all fucked up, so it was easier to go through New Brunswick-- we stopped at Tavern-on-George and it was getting cold outside so we were relegated to the newly renovated basement because there was some alumni party upstairs, where we ate some sliders and had some beers . . . and I definitely smelled bad but no one seemed to notice down there and the other thing to remember about homecoming is that people from all over the state come into town, driving their giant fucking pick-up-trucks and SUVs and Suburbans and Yukons and Expeditions and these behemoths don't fit in parking garages or city parking spaces-- these cars should be outlawed in urban zones-- we saw several parking atrocities in the deck, including a giant white pickup wedging itself between two cars, scraping the side of the car on the passenger side-- mayhem.

The Future's So Dark I Gotta Wear Night Vision Goggles

I guess I should remark on the pall-- on the looming sense of dread-- that's been hanging over my town and my school; both have a sizeable Jewish population and our neighbors have children living in and visiting Israel (including one that has been called up to serve) and there are folks we know at school that are contemplating heading over to serve in the Israeli reserve forces . . . anyway, Terry and I spent a period in the English office drawing maps on the whiteboard and talking through the strategies and intentions of both Hamas and Israel and it seems, from any logical point of view (which might not be the right way to think about it, because Hamas is a fanatically religious organization with a mission wit wipe Isreal off the map) that the suicidal Hamas terrorist attack is to obviously bait Israel into decimating the Gaza Strip, causing an incredible humanitarian disaster . . . which will gain Palestinians empathy on the world stage? who the fuck knows . . . but it's going to be awful and it seems that this war and the war in Ukraine and Chinese incursions into Taiwan and their repression of the Uyghur region and the loss of the United States as a unilateral police force for the world might add up to massive warfare, tragedy, and disaster . . . coming soon to a theater near you.

Community Hero or Town Vandal?

My brother, Ann, Craig, and I were supposed to play pickleball at the new courts by my house this evening, but Ann called and said the courts were closed-- the gates were locked with zip ties and some yellow tape-- which was weird because they had been open all week and nothing was under construction-- so I grabbed my wire-cutter pliers and headed down there and cut the zip tie on one of the gates (and Ann said she thought she'd never say this, but I was now her "hero") and we went in and started playing and within twenty minutes the courts were full and when the ranger drove by he either didn't know that the courts were closed and we had all broken in or he didn't want to try to oust twenty people off the courts . . . but anyway, my minor vandalism made a lot of folks in the community very happy, as it was a perfect night for pickleball.

Lurking Lady with a Camera

When I arrived back at my house from walking the dog this afternoon, a lady was lurking about, wielding a camera, but I didn't think much of this-- maybe she wanted to take some pictures of my wife's lovely . . . but autumnally decaying garden?-- and then the lady worked up the courage to talk to me and it turns out that she was raised in our house until she moved out of it in 1987 . . . she's forty now and has a couple of kids and lives in Rhode Island-- which she says is quite a bit like Jersey, although people from Rhode Island don't like to hear that-- and she nostalgically remembers her time in Highland Park and claims it is a town like no other-- and she was so sweet that I invited her in to see all the work that has been done to the house since she moved away . .  and then my wife came home from giving blood, and a couple of the neighbors were out and we all congregated in our driveway and went over the history of the neighborhood as we knew it . . . and it makes me wonder what's going on inside the house where I grew up-- but I doubt I'll lurk around my old house with a camera, because I'm not an innocuous-looking middle-aged lady, I'm a sketchy-looking middle-aged man (and I was particularly decrepit looking this afternoon, as I had to dress like a particular student today-- and she had to dress like me-- so I was wearing gray sweatpants and a Pink Floyd shirt and a zip-up hoodie . . . and this student did a nice job of dressing like me: cargo pants, golf shirt, thick black-rimmed glasses).

Kids . . . Who Knows What They're Up To?

My students are not watching Yellowjackets, nor have they seen The Wilds or Atlanta or Community or Rick and Morty or Sex Education . . . they tend more towards The Gilmore Girls and Grey's Anatomy-- which is seriously fucked up-- and while I rarely get music recommendations from them (for obvious reasons) a kid in my "Music and the Arts" senior English class-- after I mentioned my love for King Tubby-- told me to check out "Dub Side of the Moon" and "Ziggy Stardub," and while you might think these song-for-song reggae versions of classic albums by the Easy Star All-Stars sound like novelty music, I think they actually might have legs-- I played out both these original albums when I was young and so though I love them, I can't really enjoy them any longer . . . but I think the reggae versions might breathe some new life into these old songs-- and I just started listening to Radiodread, which transmogrifies the album "OK Computer" into reggae and it's a lot of fun.

Potpourri

Nothing profound going down, but a few things to report:

1) The Ugly Dumpling is a great BYOB place to go with a large party of people-- fourteen of us ate there last night and it only took twenty minutes for them to seat us and it was 45 bucks a couple for a large quantity of food . . . and it's quite good (although not quite as good as Shanghai Dumpling, but that place is tiny)

2) though the Donaldson Park pickleball courts are open, I went to Castleton this morning and it was very breezy-- this was the first time I played in serious wind, and it's a different game-- it's hard to execute spinning drop shots and you have to put a bunch of topspin on your serve to keep it in play . . . but we still had a lot of fun;

3) Alex borrowed the van yesterday to go grocery shopping for his sick girlfriend and-- as is the custom in our house-- he left it on E and I thought I might run out of gas when I got stuck in road construction traffic on Easton avenue;

4) the Giants almost made it a game against the Dolphins, but not quite . . . this season is a bust-- and the Dolphins' offense is insane-- I've never seen more explosive running plays with so much motion and deception in the backfield . . . when the Giants defensive coordinator's wife asked him if he was sleeping okay this week-- while preparing for the game, Martindale said to her, "Yeah, I’m sleeping like a baby: every two hours, I wake up and cry and go to the bathroom, and try to go back and get some more sleep."

COVID: Fully Recovered . . .

Last night was my first night out on the town since I had COVID-- my sense of smell has returned; my outside shot was on at 6:30 AM basketball; I taught three classes; went home and took a nap, and then Catherine and I walked into New Brunswick for martinis at Clydz and then the 7 PM show at the Stress Factory . . . we were there to see T. J. Miller-- Erlich Bachman from Silicon Valley-- but the show turned out to be weirder and more eclectic than we expected; the opening acts were two international comedians that Miller had been touring with in Europe and they were very funny-- George Zacharopoulos is a Greek guy with a bizarre British/Greek accent and André de Freitas is an accomplished stand-up hailing from Portugal-- and it turned out there were a few Portuguese people in the audience, so that got interesting-- and by the time T. J. Miller got out there, there the crowd was fairly raucous and he sort of egged them on-- especially by playing on the whole idea of "Jersey" as it's own weird country-- he was almost baiting the crowd into being loud and obnoxious and then he'd heckle them back-- and he brought up a young kid on stage who yelled "Sing it!" during one of his bits-- the kid's voice sounded like he was a forty-year-old chain smoking truck driver but he was actually a fresh-faced 21 year-old . . . and so T. J. Miller tortured him for a bit and the kid was a very good sport about it and then they did a shot together at the end of the show . . . anyway, it was a LONG walk back to Highland Park, my legs were shot but it was certainly a banner return to work, athletics, and society at large (and they should make the fried chicken sandwich at Clydz at the other two restaurants they own-- Taven on George and the Olive Branch, because it's that good!)

Mrs. Price Says: "Please Stand So Close to Me"

I made the new episode of my podcast, "Please Stand So Close to Me: Homework Was Never Quite Like This" in one day-- I read the book Saturday night, in a COVID delirium and then pumped out the entire episode yesterday . . . I had to stay home from work for COVID protocol but I was feeling better . . . anyway, I consider this quite a feat of podcasting, but I had plenty of thoughts (loosely) based on Catherine Chidgey's psychological thriller Pet and I worked in some special guests, including The Police, Van Halen, and The Plastics.

Delayed Reaction Dave in a Delayed Reaction Olfactory Daze

At work, my colleagues sometimes refer to me as "Delayed Reaction Dave" because I don't process things quickly and I rarely see the future ramifications of new logistical, curricular, or contractual changes . . . so while everyone in the department is getting all worked up, because they CAN see the problems in the foreseeable future, I'll be like: "What's the big deal?" . . . but they know I'm going to get all pissed off later on, when the change actually takes effect-- for example, the new 82 minute periods . . . they are abominable and WAY too long, but several years ago when we discussed the hypothetical new schedule I was like, "that sounds fine, whatever . . ." and the same with teaching six periods and four preps-- it sounded fine in theory, last year when I agreed to do it, but now that I'm doing it, I'm complaining a lot and like "never again"-- so it seems I'm the same way with COVID . . . it took me way too long to actually contract it, and now that I've recovered, I've lost my sense of smell . . . and this seems utterly insane-- I've lost twenty percent of my senses-- but of course lots of people have experienced this throughout the pandemic but I just never really thought about it-- but when I walked outside yesterday morning with the dog, it felt like I was in a dream, not fully awake or even fully human-- I couldn't smell the grass or the flowers in my wife's garden or the damp morning air or the ragweed pollen . . . and here are some of the other things I smelled yesterday that produced no noticeable scent:

my coffee, Lola's poop, a bottle of red wine vinegar, a bottle of apple cider vinegar, an orange, grapes-- and they tasted like crisp balls of water-- hand sanitizer, and my tennis shoes . . .

so this is very fucking weird and now I can now empathize with all the people that told me about this during the course of the pandemic-- suddenly having no sense of smell really does dislodge you from reality.

Free at Last, Free at Last . . .

The one benefit of my enforced COVID sick leave was that I stayed up to watch both the Jets and the Giants play night games-- the Jets lost a close one to Kansas City on Sunday night and the Giants got smacked by the Seahawks on Monday night . . . I haven't stayed up on consecutive nights to watch sports in a long long time and while it was fun (and stressful and awful) now that both local teams are 1-3 and the Giants are facing a brutal run of games, it looks like I can quit watching, or watching with any serious playoff hopes, and instead enjoy the lovely fall weather . . . free at last, free at last.

COVID Day 5 . . . Chores

I had to stay home from work today-- district policy-- but I feel completely better and I have chores to do-- I've already mowed the lawn, cleaned another bathroom, and finished an entire episode of my podcast in one sitting (I'm releasing it tomorrow morning) and now I have to do the dishes and strip Ian's bed, which I slept in for a few nights . . . I'd also like to report that I saw both my children yesterday-- I picked up Alex from his dorm and we shot some baskets on the new rims in Donaldson and then he ate some dinner at the house and Catherine and I face-timed Ian-- and both kids are doing well in their classes-- or at least they SAY they are doing well . . . I guess we'll see at the end of the term . . . Alex tried to describe what he was doing in his physics class-- something about centrifugal forces and their effects on orbs of various materials and all the equations that applied-- but I had no clue what he was talking about . . . so I guess we're getting our money's worth.

COVID Day 4 . . . Let's Get Stir Crazy!

I pretty much feel better today-- no fever or headache-- but the nurse says that, per district policy, I still have to stay home from work (tomorrow as well) and that's probably a good thing, as I am tired (and my right eyeball hurts . . . perhaps because I had to do a bunch of grading on the computer-- staying home from school sucks, it's easier to go there and torture the children in person) but I did take a nice walk with the dog-- the weather s beautiful-- and I shot some baskets on the new court in the park, and I cleaned two bathrooms-- so gross . . . my wife has too much hair and too many bottles of hair-care products and I also learned that I love Bard AI because-- unlike Chat GPT-- Bard AI loves my podcast, We Defy Augury . . . this is how Bard describes it:

We Defy Augury is a podcast hosted by Professor G. Truck. It is described as a "weekly exploration of books, culture, and the human condition." Episodes typically cover a wide range of topics, including literary criticism, genre fiction, current events, and personal anecdotes. Professor Truck is known for his engaging and informative style, as well as his humor and wit.

Some of the topics that have been covered on the podcast include:

• The art of the inner monologue in Colleen Hoover novels

• The 1970s crime novel genre

• The science fiction novel Ringworld

• The Irish Troubles

• The mystery of existence

• The role of music in our lives

• The nature of reality

Professor Truck often invites guests to join him on the podcast, including authors, scholars, and other interesting people. For example, he has had on episodes with authors Donna Tartt and Katie Williams, as well as with a mountain lion.

Overall, We Defy Augury is a podcast that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. It is a great choice for listeners who are interested in books, culture, and the human condition.

Here is a quote from a review of the podcast:

"Professor Truck is a master of his craft. He is able to make complex ideas accessible and engaging, and he always leaves me thinking. I highly recommend this podcast to anyone who loves books, learning, and good conversation."

If you are looking for a podcast that is both informative and entertaining, I highly recommend We Defy Augury . . .

 that's fucking crazy . . . is it listening?

COVID Day 3 . . . Enough of This Already

While I'm obviously happy that I'm not on a respirator (or suffering much congestion) I am still very annoyed by COVID . . . I'm hot, I'm cold, I get the chills and then suddenly I'm sweating, I can't sleep-- I have racing thoughts and night sweats-- and I'm obviously in a bad mood-- because I can't sleep well and I can't listen to music-- because it exacerbates the headache . . . it's really depressing not to be able to listen to music . . . and if you take a close look at my symptoms if it weren't for a lack of "vaginal dryness" and an "irregular period," the Mayo clinic would diagnose me as going through menopause.

COVID Day 2

Although I'm only running a low fever and don't have much congestion, I've had a really obnoxious headache for the past two days-- I couldn't really sleep last night so I finished Catherine Chidgey's new psychological thriller Pet . . . on my Kindle, of course, with the font laughably enormous so that my head didn't hurt too much while I read (I was sleeping in Ian's bed, so not to bother and/or infect my wife . . . Lola took turns sleeping next to me and sleeping next to my wife in the master bedroom, very cute) and I really enjoyed this book: Chidgey is a native Kiwi and this book is set at a Catholic school in a Wellington suburb in the 1980s-- but despite the way-down-under locale and the age of the girls -- 12 -- these tweens are just as cliquey and judgemental as the mean crew from North Shore High School . . . and things get far darker than that film as the novel proceeds into weird idolatry, dementia, the mutability of memory, and outright betrayal . . . the plot is wrapped up a little too patently, but I give it nine invisible ink pens out of ten . . . now I'm working my way through Carl Hiaasen's Tourist Season-- if my headache continues to keep me from sleeping, I might finish that tonight.

After Much Evasion, Dave's Immune System Succumbs

COVID finally caught up with me (and hopefully it will be a mild case, as I am a big fat cranky baby when I'm sick).

Jets "Football" Close-reading Assignment

 

Note the quotations around the word "OFFENSE" and please contemplate the following questions: 

1) is sarcasm a welcome addition to the traditionally objective statistical chyron? why or why not?

2) if sarcasm is embraced by the authors of the NFL informational overlay, what are the consequences and implications?

3) should we consider the narrator in the featured chyron unreliable, biased, and/or compromised? 

Fan-O-Rama

We had friends over for dinner Saturday night and while we were enjoying wine and appetizers, our ceiling fan started behaving abominably-- worse than the dog, worse than me-- it was wobbling precariously, the glass bowl with the bulbs in it swinging to-and-fro, the blades whirling asymmetrically, so I shut it down (and wrote a note to myself to check it out in the morning, that's the kind of thing you can forget about after a dinner party) and then we ate some excellent food, much of it containing vegetables from my wife's garden (and discussed a lot of grim adult shit, like wills and trusts and retirement and money) and the next morning I saw my note to myself and got down to it; the fan-blade screws were loose but even after I tightened them, the whole contraption was still wobbling-- and I determined it was "fucked up" and we needed a new ceiling fan and because it was STILL FUCKING RAINING and I was going stir crazy, I tightened all of our ceiling fan-blades-- they were all loose (we have four of them) and I actually cleaned the blades-- they were caked with tons of gook, especially on top-- I don't know how the gook could build up on an apparatus that often spins round and round at high speed, but believe me, this is something you should check out if you have ceiling fans, and then-- after cleaning out greasetruck studios, which was also caked with gook and desperately needing a reorganization-- I removed the "fucked up" ceiling fan, after turning off the electricity in that room at the fuse box, of course . . . and I never would have done all these time consuming projects if it wasn't for all this fucking rain (and a day off for Yom Kippur) and while I'm jonesing for sunlight, I'm glad I got all these chores done . . . but I'm ready for sunlight and pickleball and general post-pickleball laziness again (and I was quite happy to play 6:30 AM basketball yesterday morning, run like a lunatic, and teach the rest of the day with a headache, and then take a nap after work, before drinking some beer while cooking dinner).

Dave's (Almost) a Killer!

Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I were driving back from lunch at the Ugly Dumpling-- we were off from school for Yom Kippur-- and I made a left turn off Route 27 onto Fifth Avenue and then noticed flashing red lights in my rearview mirror . . . it was a cop, so I pulled over and Catherine got my insurance and registration out of the glove box and I made sure my teacher ID was hanging prominently from the rearview mirror-- and I was going to look for my PBA card in my wallet but I didn't bother because I was certain that I hadn't done anything wrong-- you can't make a left on Route 27 from 4 PM to 6 PM-- I've been busted for that-- but this time, I hadn't committed a moving violation-- and I commit A LOT of moving violations: I run red lights, make illegal u-turns, turn left-on-red at this particular light for morning basketball, speed on certain roads, change lanes without using my blinkers, use my phone while driving, etcetera . . . but this particular time, I had truly done nothing . . . this time I was innocent . . . and it took the cop a couple moments before he got out and approached us-- and he walked up to the passenger side and said, "Sorry, the computer got your plate wrong, it read a six instead of a nine . . . and you're one digit away from someone we're looking for who did something really serious . . . take it easy and have a nice day" so he was obviously using an ALPR to look for a BOLO, which is the kind of terminology you've got to know if you're almost a wanted felon, but for you law-abiding citizens, that means the cop was using an Automatic License Plate Reader-- which is a high-speed, computer-controlled camera that uses optical character recognition to read license plates. and alert officers when a car is on the "be on the lookout" list and now that I know I'm one digit away from armed and dangerous, I probably need to drive a bit more carefully (plus, I'm using quite a bit of tape to hold various parts of my vehicle together).

America + Conspiracy Theories = Forever

 

A new episode of We Defy Augury is up and streaming: "Powerful Eyes are Watching You, Sheeple" is (loosely) based on Colin Dickey's book Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy"-- which I highly recommend-- and there is an eclectic mix of special guests, including Oedipa Maas, The Beastie Boys, Richard Nixon, Geraldo Rivera, The Who, and The Simpsons.