Dave Survives a Normal Amount of Weekend Events

Four social events in one weekend, which is not my style, especially after. along week of school and parent/teacher conferences . . . too many social interactions and too much stimulus and not enough napping and reading time can sometimes make me cranky-- but I guess keeping busy is good right now (otherwise I might get sucked up in all the election bullshit) and so Friday night, my wife and I attended the Jimi Hendrix/Pink Floyd tribute band show at Pino's . . . the Hendrix cover band was comprised of some locals in their early twenties and they put on a great show-- but they were certainly the opening act, as the Pink Floyd show was absurdly good---- ten of the best musicians in the area squeezed onto the little stage in the back of the liquor store/bar/club, including a chick whose only job was to do the wild operatic back-up vocals during "The Great Gig in the Sky" and several keyboard players to reproduce all the sci-fi sounds and they served up several hours of all flavors of Floyd, songs from Dark Side and Animals and The Wall, and they even played some Pipers at the Gates of Dawn-- at one point a guy turned to me and said, "This shouldn't be free" but these guys do it for the love-- and hopefully the bar gives them a cut because the place was packed . . . then I played in a pickleball tournament down in Trenton (Mercer Bucks) where my partner and I got banged up-- rough draw-- but the competition was fun and the place was hopping and I never got to see young five plus players play-- the open even was wild, those guys get really low-- and there were phenomenal women players as well-- so a good experience-- and then I headed straight to my brother's house from there, for a birthday poker tournament-- and while I lost at pickleball, I got incredible cards at poker-- knocked my brother out-- we had two exciting all-in scenarios-- and ended up chopping the pot even though I was well ahead, so a nice ending to the night, and then I slept over at my brothr's house, drove home in the morning, went to the gym with my wife, then played some more pickleball, and later today we are headed to my parent's with the kids to celebrate Marc's birthday with them, before they head to Florida . . . and then I have to go to work tomorrow?

Coneheads Are Not Funny

Our dog Lola survived her bladder stone surgery and hopefully, this will solve her urinary tract issues, but she's rather despondent now because she has to wear a cone for the next ten days-- she's bumping into doors, she can't see the stairs as she walks down them, and she can't plop her head on your lap when you're watching TV . . . so she's quite annoyed but keeping her chin up-- but like me, she does not find a conehead amusing at all . . . did anyone think the coneheads were funny?

The Horror? The Horror!

 

New episode of We Defy Augury-- "The Horror? The Horror!" . . . this one contains thoughts (loosely) inspired by three Paul Tremblay horror novels: Horror Movie, The Cabin at the End of the World, and A Head Full of Ghosts . . . 

Special Guests include: Joe "the Zombie" Biden, Donald "Apocalypto" Trump, Foghat, Bernard Herrman, John Carpenter, Evil Dead, Hector Berlioz, Joey, Rachel, and Randy Meeks.

THIS Is The Person Responsible For My Child's Education?

It's the second day of parent/teacher conferences and I'm sitting here waiting for some parents to arrive and my room is hot and I'm tired from the conferences last night and teaching all day today and I'm starting to nod off, full from lunch (and a little gassy) and I can't imagine I'm going to impress any of these people-- which is fine, because then maybe they won't come for the next round (and moments after I wrote this sentence, I ripped a loud fart which echoed off my plastic wheelie chair-- just as a dad turned the corner into my room . . . I rolled my plastic wheelie chair around a bit, looking at it like it was the culprit for the fulsome sound).

It's Not Easy Seeing Brown

My nose is dry, my lips are cracked, and this long streak of unseasonably dry, hot weather has made me realize that New Mexico might be a nice place to visit, but I do not want to retire there. 

Life Is Too Short to Look Both Ways When You Cross?

Last week, while I was driving to work, I saw a dead deer on the side of the road and that deer carcass projected the message that life is short, life is transitory and fleeting and ephemeral-- you're here and then you're gone-- so you don't have time to screw around, you don't have time to dawdle-- there's no time to look both ways before you cross the street, you've got to just make your move-- that dead deer symbolized the transitory nature of life . . . but at the same time, IF that deer had looked both ways, if that deer had been a bit more cautious, delayed and looked both ways, if that deer took its time crossing Route 18, then that deer might still be roaming around-- most likely chowing on everyone's hostas-- so the deer simultaneously symbolized the transitory nature of life AND poor choices leading to tragic consequences-- the dead deer symbolized two things at once, both negating each and augmenting each other, the juxtaposition of the symbols overlaying the bloody carcass (the dead deer probably also symbolized something about technology and nature not dovetailing together very well, but life is too short to think about things like this).

More Adventures in Education (and Growing Old)

Last week, in my senior English classes, we read the last page of Joan Didion's masterpiece about the counterculture in San Francisco in the late 1960s: "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" -- I was showing them an excellent example of descriptive writing with minimal intrusion from the author-- the subtext of the scenarios are enough to get the point across-- and I learned something: the vast majority of my students know NOTHING about the counterculture movement in San Francisco in the late 1960s . . . when I got the feeling that this passage needed more context, I asked them what was going on in San Francisco back then and one kid said, "The gold rush?" and I had to explain he was a century late and reminded him of the name of the football team and all that-- and the students had never heard of The Grateful Dead and hadn't heard the term "acid" for LSD . . . it was eye-opening because back in the day, high school students knew about the Grateful Dead because it had something to do with marijuana-- but now marijuana is legal and the Grateful Dead are no longer in this generation's popular mythology-- a few kids vaguely knew the term "hippies" but they did NOT know about communes and acid parties and jam bands and orgies and the Summer of Love or any of that . . . and when I asked what band was associated with this time period, from two classes I got the same answer: The Beatles . . . and then we went over that the Beatles were from England and there was one girl (I taught this girl's mom) that was able to name three of the Beatles (she couldn't recall George Harrison) and when I asked if anyone knew the fourth Beatle, a senior boy said, confidently, "Michael Jackson" and I had to more stuff . . . and the moral of the story is that I am getting old (but I was pleased to learn that Ariana Grande has a music video that is a tribute to my favorite movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

Dave Dreams of Sophomores Past

I recently heard the phrase "row forward looking back" as a metaphorical attitude for heading into the unknown-- and that's how I feel about teaching this year: I have a sophomore class for the first time in many many years, so all my sophomore lesson plans are in manila folders, handwritten-- and while I head into a pedagogical future featuring computer-driven, AI-powered, digital learning models, I am reminded of the school days long ago when I used to teach the sophomores-- when we read novels and out of thick anthologies, took our tests on paper, and relied on human connection and the occasional VHS tape for entertainment-- and I'm trying to instill some of that in my current classroom as I pull on the oars, against the current, the prow of my dinghy headed who knows where, into some technological morass, my gaze searching over the waters I have traveled, my mind borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Useless Podcast Trivia

The largest banana port in the United States is in Wilmington, Delaware and once they arrive there, the bananas are loaded into gigantic ripening rooms, which are pumped full of the highly flammable gas ethylene, which makes the bananas ripen faster so they can be shipped out to grocery stores and restaurants?

Bring da Noize

I was glad to see the back of our old ironing board-- which hung on a hook, folded flat, on the back of our bedroom door-- because whenever my wife opened this contraption (no matter how much WD-40 I used) the hinged legs would produce a piercing "sssskkkrreeeeeek!" sound that perforated my eardrums and penetrated deep into my synapses, tearing loose and deleting core memories,  impeding fine motor functions, and generally disrupting my consciousness-- so we put it to the curb and some unlucky soul grabbed it and it will now be screeching in some other house . . . but yesterday my wife opened our brand new ironing board and it produced the same "ssskkkreeeeek" so I'm going try a tip I read on the internet and spray the legs with PAM or some other cooking spray-- or try to convince my wife that wrinkles are fine (and always shake out because of the Jersey humidity).

Typical Tuesday Butt-kicking

Tuesdays are tough-- I dragged myself out of bed for Tuesday AM basketball-- now that our school doesn't allow non-district employees to play, it's vital that I make it so we have ten-- and when I made the left onto 27, I saw flashing lights and my first thought was: who me? but, of course, it was me-- I guess I ran a red light-- I truly didn't see it, but the cop let me go, perhaps because I was in old man basketball gear and wearing a school ID; or perhaps because I apologized; or perhaps because he graduated from East Brunswick High School-- who knows?-- but I made it to school on time, shot quite well from deep, covered some very young people, and totally overdid it . . . then I quickly showered, threw on my sandals, raced to class, and graded a buttload of college essays and some sophomore timed writings while my students watch Grosse Pointe Blank . . . and I think I read too many essays in the dark because by noon I had a splitting headache, the kind where it feels like there's a spike in your head, right above your eyeball-- but the nurse gave me some Tylenol and I ate some enchiladas and then Stacey provided me with a gluttonous amount of Swedish fish, and that seemed to mollify the headache-- then I taught a couple more classes in a post-headache-haze, drove home, accompanied my son to the Post Office to mail seven packages of Lladró ceramic statues that he sold on eBay-- but we had to leave the Post Office line several times because he got a zip code wrong and he didn't write return addresses on the boxes-- lessons learned-- and then I went to acupuncture and Dana really zapped my neck and calves with a bunch of needles and now I'm sore and tired but I've still got to cook dinner and scrub off some mold that Ian noticed on the ceiling in the shower . . . typical Tuesday.

Go To Hell (Novelistically)

If you want to read a totally fucked up book about a disgraced knight trying to protect a sanctified child in the bleakest of settings-- plague-ravaged France in the 14th century-- but that's not enough fucked-uppededness for you, and you also need Book of Revelations style monsters and a war between earth and heaven (plus some historical corruption . . . the Avignon papacy scandal) then Between Two Fires, by Christopher Buehlman, is the novel for you . . . I enjoyed much of it, but parts of it were beyond my comprehension and the story did get a bit tedious towards the end-- I had to skim some until the action picked up again-- but this is an incredibly visceral, incredibly researched, and fantastically conceived literary project, and worthy of a better, more patient reader than me.

Old Friends, OLD Friends

I caught up with some old friends this weekend-- the operative word being old-- but we managed to stay up until 1 AM Friday night, regaling each other with (mainly) the same old stories and then we had an A-plus October beach day on Saturday-- the water was warm enough for swimming and the sun was strong enough to sunburn Mose's shins-- and then Neil cooked us some very fresh tuna his buddy recently caught . . . thanks for hosting Neil and a good time was had by all (and I'm taking John L. up on his Metamucil rec, we'll see what happens tomorrow morning with that but I am not taking Johnny B. up on his minor league baseball and 70s Italian comedies recs).

 

Think It Off, Think It Off

I'd like to lose ten pounds (but I don't want to alter my eating habits, alcohol consumption, or exercise routine).

The Students Take ONE of My Suggestions

This morning I had to proctor the PSAT for my sophomore honors class-- the test itself, after the usual technological and logistical shitshow-- lasted until 11 AM, and then the teachers were given two pieces of posterboard and we were supposed to persuade the kids to make two banners for homecoming . . . one of them was to be Disney-themed and the other was supposed to reflect school spirit . . . so MY suggestion for the Disney themed poster was to feature Steamboat Willie scratching, deleting, erasing, and defacing drawings of other notable Disney characters-- while reminding the audience in a caption that he was the only Disney character that existed in the public domain and the only one that could be used without permission-- I thought this would be a good lesson on staying, as Shakespeare's Fabian puts it, "on the windy side of the law" and keeping our class from being sued by the Disney legal machine-- but the kids ignored this brilliant suggestion, in the same manner, that they ignored this suggestion last year . . but they humored me and filled the blank space in our other poster with the chant, "We got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit, how 'bout you?"

The Coffee Is Coming From Inside the Cup!

One of the most satisfying moments of Tuesday morning 6:30 AM basketball-- especially after a miserable shooting performance-- is drinking the morning coffee that I forego before the game (so as not to defecate in my shorts) which I leave on my desk in my classroom and I enjoy while I teach my first-period class-- the coffee tastes good, of course, and the caffeine keeps me from getting a headache . . . but this morning my Contigo brand coffee mug was giving me problems, and I couldn't figure out why-- it was leaking from the top . . . coffee was oozing out from under the lid for no apparent reason-- and I tried taping some paper around it, but-- much to the amusement of my Creative Writing class-- this did not work (as evidenced by the photo) and so I gulped down what I could and then after a short discussion, the class convinced me to throw it out . . . normally I would bring something like this home and put it back in the cabinet and avoid that cup for a month or so, then forget what happened, or watch my wife suffer the same problem and then think: oh yeah, that cup leaks . . . but not today . . . today, in a much more accurate manner than I shot my morning threes, I tossed the leaking cup into the garbage-- good riddance!-- and next week I will bring the new mug that my wife bought me and things will be less damp.

Ce vin est splendide, formidable, merveilleux !

I must be a little bit French (because I can only cook dinner if I'm drinking wine).

Choices, choices . . . Neither Palatable

Stuck between a rock and a very boring place tomorrow: do I attend the 7 AM faculty meeting or the 2:50 PM faculty meeting?

I'm Talking 'Bout Mexican Jell-O, Jell-O o o

Who knew that Mexican jello is far superior-- more rigid, firm, and flavorful-- than American Jell-O?

Can't Get There From Here

If you're looking for podcasts about strange stuff happening in small towns (and you've already listened to S-Town and taken an audio tour of Woodstock, Alabama) then you can't do better than these two:

1) Hysterical . . .  this one investigates a spate of oddball symptoms-- tics, verbal outbursts, twitching, spasms-- that spread virally through the girls in an upstate New York high school in the town of LeRoy-- and the question is: was this mass hysteria, otherwise known as conversion disorder? or was it due to toxic chemicals or something environmental? a great one if you love The Crucible and the Salem Witch trials;

2) Cement City . . . two journalists stumble into a dying Pennsylvania town-- Donara, home to the Donara Smog Museum, which memorializes the Donora Smog of 1948, an air inversion containing fluorine that killed twenty people-- and they buy a house? a house made completely of concrete? and  they get caught up in town politics and what it's like to live in a place with no bank, no grocery store, and no school, but a whole lot of camaraderie;

and while I recognize that these podcasts are presenting a very thin sliver of what it's like to live in a place that does NOT feel like it's the center of the world, and these podcasters have cherry-picked extremely interesting narratives of truly oddball events and these small towns just happen to be the setting, it's still really interesting to inhabit places like these, places that I will probably never truly understand, because I live in a fast-paced, densely populated, and expensive region of the country, with all the amenities and conveniences and ethnic restaurants and parks and high-end grocery stores and sky-high real-estate prices and even if I were to move to an out of the way rural kind of place, I'd never be able to pass as a local . . . you can take the guy out of Jersey, but you can't take the Jersey out of the guy.