Magpie Murders, a meta-mystery by British author Anthony Horowitz, deconstructs the genre so cunningly that it very well might be the last whodunnit you ever need to read . . . it won't be, of course, because murder-- mystery novel murder, that is-- is just so damned fun.
Two Pickleball Firsts
This afternoon was unseasonably warm, so eight of us got together at Castleton Park for some excellent pickleball and I experienced two new things-- or new to me:
1) I wore calf-compression sleeves-- and my strained calf muscle felt wonderful, safe, secure, and warm inside the tight polyester/nylon tube and I did not re-pull the muscle;
2) when I tried to block a drive at the net, the ball hit the bottom edge of my paddle, caromed, and clipped my testicle-- and though my testicle was safe and secure and warm inside my spandex tights, it did not matter-- and I felt that queasy sickly distinctive sensation that only those people possessing testicles ever have the privilege to feel-- but it dissipated fairly quickly and then I got back to enjoying the warm and sunny February afternoon.
Mystery Solved!
My English 12: Music and the Arts class agrees with me that the Reply All episode "The Case of the Missing Hit" is one of the most satisfying narrative arcs in the history of storytelling-- right up there with The Sixth Sense and Murder on the Orient Express-- except that this story is true, not made up bullshit.
Dave's Body is Haunted by Shit From 2020
My shoulder hurts-- which hasn't been the case since 2019/2020 . . . I aggravated my shoulder trying to hit a topspin one-handed backhand in 2019 and when I finally got an MRI in early 2020, I learned that my right shoulder has some arthritis, some bone cysts, and some swelling . . . not the worst case scenario-- but these elements have gotten organized once again and are making a team effort to make my shoulder sore and swollen and so it's hard to make a right-handed lay-up or hit an overhead smash in tennis and pickleball-- and throwing a football a good distance is out of the question-- but I'm taking naproxen, like the doctor said, and it's starting to work-- and I'm also recovering from a calf strain-- and this is another injury resurfacing from 2020 . . . I hurt it playing indoor soccer and though I played indoor soccer this weekend, I could still feel it a bit, so I stopped after an hour . . . and I guess this is just how it's going to be-- the same injuries are going to resurface when I push my body too much and they will always be there, lingering in the background, and I'll also accumulate new injuries . . . and then I'll get some kind of illness or disease and croak (and hopefully, I will eloquently document it all for your reading displeasure).
The Bell Tolls for Show and Tell
I'm doing something new in Creative Writing class-- I used to begin class with "Show and Tell" . . . one or two kids would read a passage from their favorite book or they would play a little bit of a favorite song and explain why they liked it-- but many of these newfangled digital kids have trouble presenting things in a compelling fashion and because of the fragmented state of art and media, they also don't share much common culture, so there's not much statistical likelihood that what they present will resonate with the crowd-- so I ditched this routine and instead of this, we are beginning each class with a free-writing prompt; today's prompt was "describe yourself in the third person as if you were a character in a novel" and I always tackle the prompt too . . . moments after we began writing, I asked the class if they knew some synonyms for "really really good looking," which made a few students chuckle (of course, I'm sure there were a few who did not detect the irony and thought I was just a vain narcissist).
Note to (Flatulent) Self
You should not consume "egg roll in a bowl" before you play pickleball because . . . cabbage.
Why Is That Lizard Wearing a Fur Coat?
My wife assisted me in some body hair removal today, transforming my back and shoulders from a hairy pelt to lovely smooth skin and changing one of my tattoos from a proto-mammal back into a reptile.
Let There be Light (and Screws)
The sun finally came out today-- which made nearly everything better: dog-walking; dog-bathing; dog-drying; pickleball; and head-shaving . . . the only thing task that was still annoying was my wife's project: switching out all the cabinet handles in the kitchen . . . some are five inches wide, some are five and a sixteenth inches wide, some of the screws are stripped, and -- according to some guy with a very nice woodshop on YouTube-- we might be dealing with some low-quality screws.
Temperature Temperance
I did a roaming coverage today during first period-- so that various teachers could attend IEP meetings-- and I also stopped in a couple of other classrooms along my journey, to visit friends, and I noticed that, from classroom to classroom, there are fairly large temperature swings-- the first class I was in was hot enough to make me dazed . . . so I convinced this teacher to open a window so that I would not pass out-- though she said she felt cold-- which I attributed to some horrible illness and I think I actually convinced her she was coming down with something-- and I wanted to open more windows but there were guys on the roof making a shitload of noise with leafblowers, so I couldn't-- but what do you do when two people have such a different perception of the same temperature?-- there's only so much clothing you can remove or put on-- especially in the workplace-- and the other classrooms I visited were also fairly warm, so then when I got back to my classroom, enraged, I opened all the windows and made it very very cold-- cold enough that the students complained-- so I closed a couple windows, but then a teacher stopped in my room, to give a student a pass, and she said, "this room is nice and cold-- the rest of the building is so hot!" and I agreed with her and felt a great kinship with this lady . . . meanwhile, I felt great disdain for the teachers that were keeping their windows shut, not only were their rooms stifling hot, but they also smelled kind of funky . . . I guess I'm going to have to start carrying around a thermometer so I can point out to people when their perception of hot and cold is ludicrous (and I think people will really enjoy this information, just as they love it when I correct their grammar in real-time).
You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Transgression
Yesterday was the first day of the second semester, and so I met my new class of Creative Writing students and we did all the first day of school stuff-- cell phones in the cell phone holder; some first-day activities; name mnemonics on index cards . . . you know the drill-- and after I memorized all the names and recited them several times, I started collecting index cards-- and there were about five minutes left in class but I was obviously done so some kids got up to get their phones and then they started milling around by the door-- these were sophomores and I forget how sophomores behave because I mainly teach seniors-- so I was like: "stop milling around by the door and get back in the general vicinity of your desk because I don't like kids milling around near the door or anywhere near my person or my desk" and they were like: "okay, but someone escaped" and I was like: "wtf?" and I had everyone sit back down and-- lo and behold! one of the desks that was previously occupied was now empty-- one of the sophomores had slithered out the door, probably to go to lunch early-- and because I had just memorized their names I knew the name of the missing girl and I was like: "wow . . . I've been teaching for nearly thirty years and that's a new one for the first day of class . . . some first impression" and I wrote the girl up and sent an email to the girl's parents (no reply yet) and I can't wait to see what kind of second impression this girl makes when I chastise her in person tomorrow.
First Wrist Problems
I like my new Nike Xmas hoodie-- it's a magnetic blue/green color and size XL, so it fits me around my burly chest and neck . . . the only problem are the sleeves-- they're too tight for my thick wrists!
The Fork is Pitched
To commemorate the end of the 28-year reign of Pitchfork as an intellectual, snarky tastemaking mega-God, I'm listening to some of the top-rated electronica albums on the site-- today I did In Color by Jamie xx (which is good stuff to listen to at the gym) and I'm writing this sentence to the weird, jazzy beats of Amon Tobin's album Bricolage . . . I suppose the demise of Pitchfork as the ultimate purveyor of musical criticism was inevitable because the musical landscape has become so fragmented, across time, space, genre, demographics, and the globe . . . I can't remember the last time I thought the same music was good at the same time as a bunch of other people (maybe 100 gecs?) and with the advent of the earbud, you don't even know what people are listening to-- it's not like walking around a college campus in 1991 and hearing Nevermind and Ten pouring out of every dorm room-- or back in the 80s when people advertised their musical taste by carrying a boom box and blasting Van Halen or Public Enemy or AC/DC . . . now, taste is a private affair and you can listen to whatever fucking garbage you want, without the intrusion of music snobs-- it would be fun to know though, like the app Snoop, which Ruth Ware invents in her book One by One-- so you can spy on what people are listening to . . . but we'd never stand for that, just as no one wants to know what number (plus decimal point) that some pretentious music snob assigned an album . . . because what the fuck is an album?
Artificial Intelligence Invades High School English Class
In my new, very special episode of We Defy Augury . . . which is based on my experiences teaching high school English in the age of AI (with bonus thoughts-- loosely--based on three classic science-fiction novels: Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human and The Dreaming Jewels and They Walked Like Men by Clifford D. Simak) I attempt to answer this question: "Is AI Cheating Our Students Out of an Education?" and while I may not come to a definitive conclusion, somebody needs to address this issue . . .
Special Guests include: Gary Gasparov, Jimmy Kimmel, The Beach Boys, Alan Turing, The Matrix, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, ChatGPT, Bard AI, and Mark "Imprint" Zuckerberg.
Sun, Why Have Ye Abandoned Us?
The last week or so we've been living in a microcosmic version of Ray Bradbury's classic story "All Summer in a Day"-- and if I don't get some sunlight tomorrow, I'm pretty sure-- due to lack of vitamin D-- my bones will turn to rubber (and if the sun doesn't come out by Wednesday, when the second semester begins and I get a new Creative Writing class, I'm going to open class with that story-- no rules or course overview or introductions or name mnemonics . . . I'm just going to start reading about the seven years of rain).
Dave and His Wife are Both Ambulatory
Because my wife started walking again yesterday, albeit slowly, I decided to chance it and see if my strained calf would hold up playing some winter pickleball-- and despite the lousy conditions, my calf felt fine-- although I didn't try anything particularly athletic, instead I'm working on my grip and my two-handed backhand-- I'm trying to get my weight into my shots, like Sabalenka did this morning in her dominant Australian Open victory-- anyway, it was nice to do something competitive with scoring, instead of the futile monotony of working out at the gym-- and I must say, the break certainly helped my knees and shoulder, they felt great-- but BOTH my calves are feeling pretty tight, so I need to learn to rest a day or two after I play . . . I am not good at resting-- I've got to keep moving, there are hellhounds on my trail.
My Wife Stands on Her Own Two Feet
My wife got her stitches out yesterday from her Morton's neuroma foot surgery-- so she's in a medical boot-- but she's walking again, which is good news for me: I'll be relieved of many of the little menial tasks and errands that accumulate when you've got someone on crutches in the house-- can you get my water bottle? I left it downstairs-- and my book and my phone? . . . can you bring the laundry up from the basement? I'll fold it if you bring it up . . . can you grab the remote . . . and a couple of dark chocolate peanut butter cups? etcetera . . . I was happy to oblige her and she was getting quite a bit done, despite the limitations (including chair yoga and chair work-outs?) but it's nice having her walking (and driving) again-- and hopefully, she'll only have to spend a few weeks constrained to the boot.
There Are Too Many Fucking Shows
We signed up for a free Apple TV trial so we could watch Slow Horses (and because my wife is stuck at home healing from foot surgery) and last night we sampled some other Apple TV shows: Smigadoon!-- which was mildly entertaining (from my perspective) and hysterically funny (according to my wife) and two episodes of Mythic Quest-- which we both found witty and compelling-- and then I had to bail out when my wife started some Irish show called Bad Sisters . . . I know this is a first-world-problem, but the amount of shows on all the platforms is actually stressing me out-- we have text threads of recs from our TV-watching friends and while I understand this is the time of year when everyone is watching lots of TV-- it's cold and gray and the holidays are over-- and this is exponentially magnified this year because my wife can't leave the house-- plus there's the Australian Open and college basketball . . . I'm barely reading anything . . . but it appears that winter is over and my wife might get her stitches out tomorrow, so maybe instead of "dry January"-- which is a terrible month to quit drinking anyway-- but maybe instead of that silliness, we need to do "no wifi February" and release our brains from this digital capture.
The Wit of the Parking Lot (l'esprit du parking)
Stacey and I were walking around during our free period today and when we took some stuff to my car, we noticed an egregiously parked car in a spot near mine and I was like "I wish I had a piece of paper because I would leave this person a note!" and Stacey reminded me that she had picked up a bunch of Post-its from the supply room and she handed me one-- and she also had a pen-- so I decided to keep it simple and just go with some classic sarcasm and I wrote "Nice job!" on a pink Post-it and stuck it to the driver side mirror . . . but, of course, there's an element of l'esprit d'escalier to this incident-- perhaps I should have written "I can drive a car!" or "Parallel is just an axiomatic construct" or "Park Outside of the Box" or any number of clever things . . . and if I start carrying around Post-its and a pen, then there's always next time.
Three Cold Incidents
Three things happened today that were only interesting because it's winter:
1) my wife insists she heard people playing pickleball at the park this morning-- at 5:30 AM-- which is very weird but not impossible because the courts do have lights-- but it was 18 degrees!-- so those players were some real diehards . . . I did NOT hear the cold-weather pickleball players because I was downstairs and you can only hear the pickleball courts from our bedroom window, which faces the park, and only when it is very quiet and there are no leaves on the trees;
2) I was dealing with my own cold weather dilemma-- Ian came home at midnight last night and our dog Lola wanted to go outside, so he let her out and then he did not close the glass sliding door when she came back in and then Ian went to bed, so when I went downstairs in the morning it was butt-cold, freezing cold-- the thermostat read 54 degrees-- so I had to turn on the space heater to make things bearable;
3) at 4 PM-- right in the middle of writing this sentence-- Ian called and said he had just finished work and the van was dead-- he was over on the other side of town, at the chocolate factory-- so I drove over there and we tried to jump the van with the Mazda, to no avail-- we got the engine running twice but then the van quickly died-- and the battery was so dead you couldn't even shift it into neutral-- so then after a very long phone call with roadside assistance-- they really want a lot of information!-- a tow truck was dispatched towards my location, so I walked up and down the street to keep warm while I waited, and then the tow truck arrived, put the chains on, pulled the van onto the bed, and we drove to Edison Automotive and I filled out the little envelope and hopefully Mike will be able to resuscitate the van tomorrow-- and because I missed going to the gym, I walked home from the auto shop- briskly, becauss it was so cold-- and when I got home, Ian was cooking dinner (because Catherine was upstairs working) and so I had a hot meal waiting for me-- which makes sense because if things come in threes, then the cold pickleball and the cold ground floor and the cold wait for the tow truck satisfied that superstition and so the hot meal was a perfect ending to a day filled with cold incidents.
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