Once you start chainsawing, it's hard to stop chainsawing (and I wish I still had my van-- it's taking multiple trips with the Sportage to illegally dump all these branches in the park dumpsters).
Mistook!
Yesterday afternoon (or yesternight, as Shakespeare would have it) we went to the Grant Avenue Block Party and I played some cornhole and drank some beers and then it got too dark to play cornhole and I was getting kind of tired so I walked over to my wife, who was in a circle of women under the canopy, embroiled in a conversation, to check and see if I should grab another beer or if she was ready to go and I slid my arm around her, familiarly-- or perhaps even a step past familiarly, as this was my wife-- and then the two of us realized that this was NOT my wife, this was my wife's doppelganger . . . or certainly her doppelganger in this particular instance, in this particular lighting-- and while I was very embarrassed to have sidled up to this lady-- who I do know in passing from soccer and other town stuff-- and put my arm around her, in my defense, she was wearing the same white tank top as my wife; she has the same toned, tan, and freckled left arm as my wife; she was wearing similar glasses to my wife; she has blonde hair like my wife; she was gesticulating in an animated fashion, as my wife is wont to do; and from the angle I approached, she really looked like my wife . . . enough so that I went and found my wife and positioned her in the same spot, next to this woman, so that I could convince myself (and the other people who saw this awkward encounter) that it was a logical mistake and we all agreed that the resemblance was uncanny (and if you enjoy this theme, this recent incident complements this absurd moment of mistaken identity at the gym, from over a decade ago, quite nicely).
Longlegs
Maikia Monroe does a bang-up job playing Lee Harker, the "half psychic" FBI agent, in the horror film Longlegs and while the movie didn't make perfect sense to me, I don't think it was supposed to make perfect sense-- the cinematography is unsettling; the 70s vibe is grainy and the color scheme is dark sepia mahogany; Nicholas Cage is a freakshow as the titular character; and Lee Harker lives in a very spooky wood cabin/house in the Pacific Northwest . . . so scary enough, and sufficiently creepy and moody to keep Cat, Ian, Ian's girlfriend, and me entranced and moderately freaked out throughout.
Despite Our Best Efforts . . .
On Thursday the guidance department "pushed in" to my three senior English classes for half the block to counsel the students on how to apply to college and I recognize that this is a fairly intense and stressful presentation for the students; guidance covers applications, recommendations, college essays, self-reported grading, and all kinds of other clerical tasks that are required when you apply to college, so when I teach the second half of the block, I always try to lighten the mood . . . I play a bit of the This American Life episode "The Old College Try", the part when Rick Clark, the director of admissions from Georgia Tech describes some insane parent emails and how awful most college essay are . . . and during this segment, Clark reviews an email from the parents of a second grader who are already seeking suggestions on how to get their future electrical engineer-- who would prefer a southern culture instead off MIT-- into Georgie Tech . . . and these insane parents claim that their son "will be an Eagle scout by then," which is quite a prediction, considering the dedication and time that it takes to earn all those badges . . . so I asked my students if their parents had any success influencing them in some pursuit, any pursuit-- a sport, musical instrument, pastime, hobby, TV show, movie . . . anything . . . and in three classes there was a surprising, a shocking, lack of influence from parents-- most kids would concede zero influence in their pursuits, but there were a few who admitted some limited influence: one kid enjoyed Dumb and Dumber, which his dad made him watch; another played the drums for a bit and then quit; a senior boy got his love of '90s grunge rock from his mom; and a few kids admitted that they tried to play a sport that their parents liked, but almost all of them quit; and there was actually one kid who was persuaded to continue Scouts during COVID and he's closing in on Eagle Scout status . . . but these few were the exceptions that proved the rule; in all my years teaching, I had never asked this question in class and I found the answers profoundly disturbing-- I may need to do a larger study-- because it seems, despite all our efforts, parents have remarkably little influence on their children (and it actually made me feel quite lucky that my kids played tennis and soccer all the way through high school and both still enjoy basketball . . . I wish they kept up with music and read more literature, but I also got to enjoy quite a few good movies and high-quality TV shows with them and they both still enjoy watching a decent movie . . . and I guess that's all you can ask for, it's better than zero influence, which seems to be the default in this very small, very anecdotal study).
In the Ear? Again?
On Sunday evening, after the Giant's pathetic loss to the Commanders, my wife and I watched an episode of Fringe-- on DVD -- and then we wanted to watch an episode of English Teacher-- which I had saved on YouTubeTV . . . and switching from our DVD player to the Firestick requires some button pressing and digital navigation and when I was halfway done with this task, perusing the array of choices on the YoutubeTV home screen, I remembered that my brother had sent me a text earlier that mentioned another Trump assassination attempt and I saw an image related to that event on our TV so I mentioned my brother's text to my wife and clicked on the image with Trump and we started watching a news brief about the assassination attempt . . . and after a few moments of watching this: Trump at a rally, dodging gunfire, raising his fist in triumph, his face blood-streaked face and his ear blood-soaked, my wife said:
"He got shot in the ear again?"
and I was like: "I guess so . . . I guess if you're aiming for his head there's a good chance you'll hit an ear"
and then my wife said, "Wait, he got shot in the ear and one person behind him got killed again? that's a crazy coincidence"
and I was like: "I don't think anyone behind him is dead, there's no commotion behind him"
and my wife said, "It feels like we're going back in time . . . wait, the time on this isn't right, it's not 9:45!"
and then I realized that I had clicked on an old news report of the previous Trump assassination attempt-- and I had never seen the footage so it was all new to me-- and then my wife took the remote control from me and said I was no longer authorized to use it.
That's Not Where That Belongs
When I looked out my bathroom window yesterday afternoon and saw a piece of furniture on my roof, a wooden stool, I instantly knew this was due to the fact that we have a nineteen-year-old man-child living in our house-- our youngest son Ian-- and so I texted him to find out exactly why this wooden stool was perched on our roof and he said wasps were coming into his room and he was looking for the nest . . . but I wonder if he was taking our "no smoking of any kind or any substance in the house" rule rather literally-- although he insists that is not the case (but would you trust a nineteen-year-old-man-child?)
Dave Silences the Angry Mob!
At the start of Monday's department meeting, I had a moment of conversational triumph that made me quite happy-- it doesn't rival this anecdote, but it's still one of the rare times when I said the right thing at the right time-- all the English teachers were assembling in Stacey's room for the meeting and it was HOT in there and she didn't have any windows open nor did she have her AC on (which I understand, the thing sounds like a jet engine) so I climbed up on the radiator and started opening windows-- which is awkward and dangerous but it's the only way to get the upper windows open-- and while I was clambering around up there, I was also complaining loudly-- and everyone else was complaining about me, complaining that I was complaining too much, that I was causing a ruckus, that I was going to kill myself or knock over a bunch of Stacey's school stuff that was stacked on the radiator . . . and then Krystina walked into the room, waving her hands around her flushed face, complaining about how hot it was and nobody yelled at her-- they empathized with her and treated her kindly (this is typical behavior in my department, the other day when I played some King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard for Stacey and Cunningham while we were driving to Wawa, they yelled at me the whole ride for "inflicting" this awful music on their ears but when I told them that Matt liked King Gizzard-- Matt is a very nice and intelligent middle-aged lawyer/finance guy who went to Princeton and is now taking up teaching-- they were like: "oh, it's probably music for smart people and we didn't get it") and then, after seeing how hot and bothered Kyrstina was, I had an epiphany, which I loudly delivered from my lofty perch to the room full of teachers and my boss, "Let's remember what our new principal said on the first day of school: Maslow before Bloom!" and everyone was shamed into silence because they remembered this moment from the opening meeting and it's true: you can't focus and learn anything when you're sweating, sticky and uncomfortable, Maslow's hierarchy of needs comes before Bloom's taxonomy of intellectual thought.
Dig This
Spotify's infinite algorithmic bounty (which is as overwhelming as it is generous) recently introduced me to the psychedelic pop/rock of White Fence, but the album I'm obsessed with-- Hair-- is one layer deeper-- as it is a collaboration between White Fence and another musician I was not familiar with: Ty Segall . . . anyway, Hair is a garage psychedelia masterpiece, rapidly moving from jangly pop to overdriven fuzz to deconstructed punk, often without transition-- and the vibe is simultaneously counterculture relic and indie rock experiment, a real treat.
Meet the New Me . . . Same as the Old Me
The new episode of We Defy Augury: Meet the New Me (Same as the Old Me) is (loosely) inspired by Halle Butler's comic and satirical novel The New Me, wherein a millennial temp office worker tackles adulting . . . special guests include The Who, Moira and David, Larry and Susie, Norm, and Radiohead.
And on the Seventh Day, Dave Did NOT Get a Solid Nap
And on the Seventh Day, the Lord completed his work and rested, but not Dave . . . on the Seventh Day, Dave got up early and finished an episode of his podcast, then Dave rollerbladed around the park, then Dave helped set up for part two of the Town Wide Garage Sale, then Dave took the dog to the vet and learned she would definitely need surgery for bladder stones, then Dave ran over to Home Depot and bought a new wheelbarrow-- which is a whole production because they have them locked up in the front of the store-- and some topsoil, which Dave cleverly put into the wheelbarrow he had just purchased, but with his lack of omniscience, Dave did not realize that the wheel did not have air in it and the weight of the topsoil made the wheel collapse and made the barrow very hard to push to the register, then Dave drove home and unloaded the car and pumpeth the wheel and spreadeth the topsoil and planteth the clover, then Dave helped pack up the leftover garage sale stuff, and then Dave's wife reminded him that he needeth to replace the showerhead in the bathroom and before Dave knows it, he's going to be back at work tomorrow . . . Monday, which is generally NOT regarded as a day of rest (especially because we have a meeting).
He Said "Less"
These pictures from a Fall Break 1991 road trip surfaced on a text thread the other day and they reminded me of a world that no longer exists: Jason, Cliff, Whitney and I made our way north from William and Mary, visiting folks in Richmond, Baltimore, and Hoboken-- and this was before cell phones, when you could lost, like actually lose the group (as Jason did in Baltimore) and after spending a night at my house in North Brunswick, drinking in the basement and playing pinball, we decided to venture to the Big Apple-- and my memories of all this are a little hazy, but we were David Letterman fans and so we went to the NBC building at Rockefeller Center, walked in unobstructed, wandered about until we found the Letterman Show offices, and then asked his secretary if we could meet "Dave", because we were big fans-- but she informed us that it was Friday and he wasn't taping and then this incredibly nice lady from the pre-9/11 era-- instead of having us arrested or getting som security guards to toss us out on our ears-- instead she offered us tickets to the Phil Donahue Show, which was about to tape and we took her up on her generous offer and the next thing we knew we were being ushered into Donahue's Studio for an episode about a high school football player that got caught drinking beer at a picnic and was suspended for the entire season-- I had lost my voice from consuming so much alcohol the nights before and so I couldn't speak my mind but my buddy Whitney commented on the situation and then my college roommate Jason "reiterated" what a few other people said and concluded his moment with Phil with the remark "during high school lacrosse season, I drank less" and Phil Donahue waited a beat and then quipped, "he said 'less'" and the crowd laughed and laughed . . . and when the episode concluded and they were trying to usher us all to the elevator and back downstairs, we stole away from the group and went exploring and soon enough, serendipitously enough, we stumbled on Letterman's studio-- empty because he wasn't filming-- and Cliff and Whitney snapped a couple of incriminating pictures of us on the Letterman set . . . evidence of time not-so-long-ago when the world, even NBC Studios in NYC, was less locked-down, less secure, less surveilled, and far more spontaneous and fun.
Please Don't Sit So Close to Me
A well-deserved Happy Hour for the gang today at B2 Bistro-- I was proud that I survived the First Long Week, which included Back to School Night and Friday AM Basketball-- but, as usual, I was the first to arrive at the bar (because I RUN out of my class to my car when that final bell rings, to beat the traffic, even if I'm in mid-conversation with a student) and when I arrived one side of the bar was completely empty so I sat near the corner overlooking the lake, thinking the late arrivals would fill in around the bend of the bar but then an older couple came in and I watched them walk all way down my side of the bar, past all the empty seats, and the little oldish lady said to her husband, with a fantastic Jersey accent, "I want to be able to see the wataa" and then she wedged herself into the seat right next to me, like with her elbow touching mine-- and at first I thought I might stick it out, for principle's sake-- just fucking sit there next to her-- show her who was boss-- how dare she bully a lone man with a beer doing the crossword like this?-- but that sentiment lasted two minutes and then I acknowledged defeat and moved over a seat . . . I have NEVER had someone sit so close to me when there were other available seats but these two seemed like regulars, so perhaps I was in her seat.
Let's Go to School Twice Today!
I would like to write a more inspirational and positive sentence than this one, but I can't use up any of my inspiration and positivity because I've got to head back to my school for Back To School Night, so I can spread more inspiration and positivity to the parents of the students that I've already positively inspired this morning and afternoon (but mainly I'm going to tell the parents and guardians to discourage their respective children from using AI to write their essays so that I don't have to direct a negative and uninspired phone call in their direction).
Chores on a Workday?
My plan was to do some chores after work-- vacuum, clean a bathroom, call Vanguard and open a retirement account-- but now I am stalling by writing this sentence, which is a stupid endeavor because absolutely nothing of any import happened at school today, so Ihave zero content . . . just business as usual with the seniors: lessons about narrative tone and structure, then they got to watch a couple videos (of me, telling stories-- I have archival footage from the pandemic that I love to use-- then I can write stuff on the board or grade an essay while the video version of me is doing the lesson) and then we took a walk in the sun and I got them organized into groups and then they presented on tone-- easy lessons, easy-going seniors . . . I also entered a few grades into the new sophomore Common Assessment columns and screwed them up because they weren't in the right order, but I re-entered the grades and everything was fine, just an uneventful day but even though it was uneventful and even though I showed two videos of myself instead of actually telling a couple stories live, I'm still tired and I'd really like to take a nap now instead of doing chores.
And Dave Has Come to the End of the Line (Full Circle)
A sophomore girl stayed after class for a moment today and asked me if I remembered a student named "Sandy Michael" and I said that the name rang a bell but I recall the face and she said, "That's my mom, you taught her in Creative Writing" and then bells started chiming, confetti fell from the ceiling, and the cheerleading team cartwheeled into my classroom, presented me with a trophy and told me, in song, that I could retire ASAP . . . and then my brief reverie ended and the daughter of the student that I taught in the late 1990s told me her mom would catch up with me later in the week, at Back-to-School-Night.
The Piano Man Will Be Right Back . . .
Today at school I did not apply something I learned over the summer and I heard something new from my last-period class:
1) over the summer I learned that watermelon is a diuretic (and quite a healthy diuretic at that . . . eating watermelon helps flush ammonia out of the kidneys and also helps prevent stone formation) but I forgot that fact today and ate many many watermelon chunks during snack time (and also drank copious amounts of coffee) and then I had to pee the rest of the day . . . eating a diuretic is fine in the summer when you can pee whenever you want, but once you start teaching 84-minute classes back-to-back it's to not consume double diuretics;
2) my last period class decided that I looked like a younger version of Billy Joel, even though I played them a song on my guitar . . . and Billy Joel is a new one, I've gotten Bruce Willis and Walter White-- but when I googled him, I could see the resemblance . . . basically, if you're a white guy and you hit a certain age, shave your head, and have a graying goatee-- then kids find you interchangeable with anyone else of that mien.
Meta-magical Mystery Tour-de-force
The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz-- the fourth Hawthorne mystery-- is both a well-plotted conventional whodunnit and a fictional non-fiction meta-story on the nature of art criticism; Anthony Horowitz the actual writer-- the real person-- actually wrote an apparently fairly cheesy psychological drama called Mindgame-- which was poorly reviewed-- but then Horowitz wrote a Hawthorne mystery story where the fictional version of himself is accused of killing a theater critic who writes an especially scathing review of the fictitious version fo Mindgame . . . and detective-work, false accusations, red herrings, and lots of chaos ensues, in which it is hard to sort our reality from meta-fiction (even in the Acknowledgments!) but while the critics were quite harsh when reviewing Mindgame, they have been quite kind to Horowitz for these Hawthorne mysteries, which are both alternately clever and satirical in the vein of Knives Out . . . I'm definitely going to read the fifth one.
No News is Better News Than This Kind of News
Sorry to pause the general hilarity that normally rules supreme around here, but the grim theme of this past week has been "learning that old friends who you haven't kept in touch with have passed away"-- last week I learned that original Doll's Place upstairs room member Johan died and today I found out that my fraternity brother and Tetris master Pip has also shuffled off this cheesesteak-filled coil . . . both these guys were my age, so I guess that's going to become par for the course in the coming years (and a few weeks ago, I found out a guy I graduated with from NBTHS and that I used to hang out with in Highland Park, a guy that played in all the North Brunswick and New Brunswick bands died: Nadeem . . . so hopefully that's the magic-- curse?-- of three and that's enough of this for a while).
Magic? How About Unremarkable
The nice lady who makes the end-of-the-day school announcements on the intercom keeps encouraging us to have a "magical afternoon"-- but that's an awful lot of pressure . . . if I could use teleportation to transport the pile of branches from my front yard into the park dumpster and have a homunculus call the vet and cancel an appointment and employ Thing (that disembodied hand on the Addams Family) to fill out some 403B forms, I certainly would, but let's face it: I have a minimal understanding of magic (I can do one card trick) and I'm just trying to survive without mishap, so I'm going to shoot for a semi-productive afternoon (with a short nap).
If We're Going to Learn One Thing, It's That Soup Sucks
First day of school: I went over some rules, described some courses, tossed around some metaphors, killed some wasps, and connected with some kids about much soup sucks.
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