Zunis and Hippies and Navahos . . . and Murder

If I learned one thing from reading Tony Hillerman's mystery novel Dance Hall of the Dead-- and I learned a lot of things, about archaeology and Zuni and Navaho beliefs and Folsom Man and fluted arrowheads and the various jurisdictions in New Mexico-- but the one takeaway is this: don't mess with the Zuni kachina Shalako mask ritual or Shuwalitsi might get you.

Nice Job Seth . . . Now Just Keep Doing It Until You Are Old

If you haven't seen Seth Rogen's show The Studio yet, watch it-- it's fucking great-- and episode six, "The Pediatric Oncologist," achieves Curb Your Enthusiasm-level awkward humor-- looks like Larry David is passing the baton to Seth Rogen (and since Curb ran-- intermittently-- from 1999 to 2024, Rogen should aspire to make The Studio for the next 25 years).

No Ass Tattoos . . .

Unfortunately, my wife and I did not read yesterday's comments so we celebrated our 25th Anniversary in a fairly traditional manner-- we caught the train to Newark, took the PATH to Jersey City, walked along the Hudson and took in the views of the city, and then sat outside and ate at Battelo-- which was delicious (prosciutto wrapped zeppoles!) while we watched the yachts, ferries, and sailboats navigate the river . . . then we walked our way through Jersey City-- which is a vey different place than it was thirty years ago-- gentrification!-- got back on the PATH and, of course, missed our connecting train in Newark Penn Station-- which is a disorganized shitshow and has NOT gentrified one bit-- you'd think they'd sync the PATH and the Jersey Transit train, but even though we sprinted up and down several staircases to get to the track, we still missed it by a minute, so then we had to wait in the very very hot waiting area-- not even a trickle of A/C-- because there were no benches up near the actual track (and everything smelled like urine) and so while Cat and I are big proponents of public transportation, I can see why everyone in America is driving everywhere-- our train system is a shitshow-- so thirty minutes later, we caught the next train to New Brunswick, and we ended up sitting in a very old train car with very little A/C) but I did get to hear a delightful, Lebowski-esque conversation between two old Jewish ladies sitting behind us:

Do you swim on Shabbos?

Yes, I swim on Shabbos.

Got to Catch the Train!

 No time for a complete sentence, the wife and I are off to Jersey City to celebrate our

Dumb But True

While America's "A Horse With No Name" is one of the sillier songs to survive the early 70s, I must concur, now that the weather has shifted here-- and this is something I always forget-- that "the heat was hot."

Twenty-Five Years for Dave and Cat!

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of our wild wedding (I ended up taking a forced swim in the Lawrence Brook, thanks to my fraternity brothers and high school buddies) and an incredible journey with my beloved wife-- we traveled the world, educated the masses, raised a couple of children, refurbished a kitchen, fought a stubborn racoon in the attic, and we maintained our good looks and our even better sense of humor . . . I can't wait to see what the future brings!

The Me Detonate a Bomb Generation

If you've forgotten-- or are not familiar-- with the spate of terroristic bombings that beset the United States in the early 1970s and instead you think of the 70s as an age of disco, drugs, and glam rock, then you are suffering from a case of misinformation or rose-tinted nostalgia and need to read the Bryan Burrough book Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence . . . I don't remember any of this, but apparently I was born into a political maelstrom of protest against racism and the Vietnam War.

See You in 25 Years?

A good run for the New York Knickerbockers, including a solid 4-2 victory over the reigning champs, the Celtics, but the Pacers' pace proved to be too much for them-- so there's always next year (or, judging by the last time the Knicks went deep into the play-offs, there's always 2050 . . . and I might still be alive then!)

Embrace the Absurdity

I played indoor pickleball this morning at an open play and ended up paired with a fairly skilled but very surly man named Sergei-- we were winning games, but he was far more concerned with telling me all kinds of things about where I should be and what shots I should and shouldn't take-- I think he forgot we were planning giant ping-pong with a wiffleball.

Should Have Known Better

Last night I met my friends and my son Alex at Tavern on George to watch the Knicks defeat the Pacers-- which was very fun-- but I had committed to 6:30 AM basketball, so I dragged myself out of bed and played hoops this morning, which was not so fun (until I made the last two shots to win the final game-- and that's all you remember anyway) and the lesson is: I will not combine alcohol and early morning athletics again any time soon, as that is a young man's game.

I've Got a Perfect Puzzle For You

Until I listened to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History episode "Nooks and Crannies"—which is about the legality surrounding trade secrets, particularly the recipe for Thomas's English Muffins—I never contemplated a serious moral dilemma from my youth: were the original Oompa-Loompas slave labor? . . . in the first edition of the book, the one I read, Roald Dahl described the Oompa-Loompas as a tribe of African Pygmy people whom Willy Wonka shipped to England to work forever in his factory--protecting his valuable trade secrets, which were previously being stolen by corporate spies-- and the Oompa-Loompas worked in exchange for cocoa beans . . . so this set-up sounds super sketchy . . . Wonka claims that the Oompa-Loompa's country of origin was a horrible place and the Oompa-Loompas were vulnerable to predators such as the Snozzwangers and Wangdoodles and so they are better off working in his factory but at the very least this sounds colonialist and certainly Wonka is breaking numerous labor laws and the worst case scenario is that the Oompa-Loompas have been taken against their will and detained indefinitely, without passport, currency, or any way to return home and have no choice but to work for cocoa beans.

Pure Innocent Fun

Ira Madison's collection of pop culture essays, Pure Innocent Fun, is the elder millennial Black gay man's dishier version of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs-- a book that Madison says inspired him-- and while Klosterman is around my age and evrything he writes about resonates with me, Ira Madison-- who is 39-- came of age in a slightly different pop culture environment and I was not familiar with all pop culture touchstones-- according to Madison, Gen Xers watched Beavis and Butthead while Madison connected with Daria . . . we do both love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but for Madison, Buffy is a bad-ass bitch who is also in a secret club-- which he related to as a closeted gay Black man at a very white and preppy high school in Milwaukee . . . Madison is also a fan of soap operas-- which I never watched-- and the film Soapdish, which I remember loving but I haven't seen it in a long time . . . and he has inspired me to watch the movie Bring It On, which he claims "might seem to be a frivolous cheerleading movie" but it is "one of the only good films about cultural appropriation that’s ever been made and most certainly one of the best films about race in America"-- I hope this is true because I love a good sports movie . . . we shall see.

Something Happened

When I was young, you specified the thing you were listening to, watching, or reading: I'm reading the new Stephen King book; I'm listening to the new God Lives Underwater album; I'm watching Melrose Place . . . but now I people often mention the platform they are using instead of the specific content: I'm watching Netflix/YouTube/TikTok, I'm listening to Spotify, I'm going to sit down and read my Kindle-- I'm sure Marshall McLuhan would have a field day with this trend-- the delivery method and the algorithm are more important than the content; we don't own content any more-- we just breeze though it, separate from everyone else and because of media fragmentation, no one is watching/reading/listening to the same thing . . . and I find this is a little sad and scary.

"very rough trail through boulder field"

 

Catherine and I took a hike in the John Witherspoon Woods this morning-- a patch of land we'd never visited -- and we entered from the north, off Stuart Road, which was a bit hairy-- there's no real parking lot and you have to scramble and climb through a boulder field and past Devil's Cave, before you hit discernable trails-- and while it's quite beautiful inside the woods . . . there's a lovely stream and an old lake--they restored the stone dams from the 1800s-- it's also a bit of a maze-- I had to use the compass app on my phone to avoid a Blair Witch situation-- and there's also quite a bit of poison ivy-- but we eventually made it back to the car and went to the The Tiger's Tale in Montgomery for beers and sandwiches-- an excellent little pub, if you're in the vicinity.

Go Knicks

My two cents: Sunday sporting event should be on earlier than 8 PM.

Dave Gives it the Ol' Viticulture Try

Over two decades ago, Calvin Trillin explained that in a blind taste test, most people can't tell the difference between red and white wine, and this is true for me-- I am certainly no super-taster, nor do I have a particularly sensitive nose (except when it comes to my wife's deer repellent spray-- that shit makes me gag) so I really tried to channel this knowledge last night and drink a glass of Bread and Butter chardonnay (which I purchased by accident at Costco, it was lurking in a case of pinot noir) but I could not do it-- and so maybe visual clues do produce flavors, and a deep dark red color makes my brain taste one thing and light golden urine-like color makes my brain taste another. 

At Least It Wasn't a Heart Attack . . . Ack ack

Apparently, pianoman Billy Joel has canceled all his upcoming concerts because of "normal pressure hydrocephalus," which I believe (though I am not a doctor) may have been caused by the shrill and annoying synthesizer sound in his song "Pressure"-- and due to the symptoms of the disease: general sensory malfunctions and confusion-- Joel obviously doesn't want to get up on stage and perform . . . because he might forget the words and sound like Leslie Knope in this fantastic video-- let's all hope for a speedy recovery (but I'm certainly fine if he puts "We Didn't Start the Fire" on the shelf-- too many lyrics to perform with hydrocephalic pressure and it's also a really irritating song).

Dave Does NOT Use This Concept and Suffers For It

A couple of days ago in the comments my friend Rob coined the term "psychic hedge"-- but this might not be the best name for this concept (which is to bet AGAINST the team you are rooting for so that you win either way . . . if your team wins, you are excited and happy but if your team loses, then at least you gain some cash-- so either outcome, you win something) but apparently when you google the term "psychic hedge" you get results for two unrelated topics:

1) hedge witches? and magical hedge barriers?

2) using your psychic abilities to enhance your gambling acumen

so perhaps we should call this practice of betting against the team you are rooting for a "psychological hedge" or an "emotional hedge" and then the next step is to determine exactly how much money you need to bet in order to offset your rooting interests-- this is a relative proposition, of course, and depends on how rich you are and how ardent of a fan you are . . . or you could just go the Seinfeld route and bet $182 against your team and then see how you feel if you gain this amount . . . although I'm not sure there's any amount of money that could offset the Knicks epic collapse last night-- they blew a 14 point lead with three minutes left and lost in overtime . . . I definitely put in more than $182 of emotions and fanaticism, and I was not smart enough to place a very large psychological hedge bet to counterbalance my disappointment.

Good Ideas . . . What the Fuck?

 

My new episode of We Defy Augury philosophical, literary, and musical meditation on creativity and good ideas; the working title is "The Serendipitous Miracle of Creativity: Part 1" and my thoughts are (loosely) inspired by Jonah Lehrer's article "Groupthink," Plutarch's "The Ship of Theseus Dilemma," and Steven Johnson's book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation . . . the topic got too long and unwieldy for one episode, so hopefully I will finish part two sometime soon.

Just Turning on a Giants Game is a Gamble

After listening to Michael Lewis talk about fandom and sports gambling-- he was on Armchair Expert and he's doing a season of his own podcast on this topic-- I am convinced that the irrationality of sports fanaticism and the way the sports gambling companies have preyed on this irrationality, which mainly resides in the hearts and brains of young men, and how these sports gambling behemoths have leveraged these emotions in an unethical manner to make boatloads of cash, designing sites and promotions to incentivize the stupidest bets and literally banning anyone who shows skill, rationality, and competence-- and, like the old time tobacco manufacturers, figuring out how to hook them when they're young-- I now believe that just watching a game and rooting for your team is enough of an emotional gamble-- there's no reason to put any money on the line because you're already emotionally invested on an outcome you can't control and probably won't go the way you want, so why lose money too?