Nosara: Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your hands Upon the Wheel (if you can)

There is so much to see in Nosara, but if you are driving, it's hard to look up from the pothole strewn gravel and rock roads; the drive from Samara is an hour of bumpy winding coastal back roads and then you hit the rough stuff, but it's well worth it; I'm not sure which is better, the wildlife or the people watching-- my son Alex would say it's the surfing, and the surfing is great, especially on Playa Guiones, the giant scenic beach with endless breaks; I rented a board and rode a few waves along with my son, until my sternum got sore, then I just enjoyed the scenery: super-toned expat yoga/surfer women . . . I've never seen more perfect bodies in my life; perhaps these folks-- like Lady Gaga-- fly in to Nosara, as there is a tiny airstrip; it's quite a collection of people, we went to a outdoor charity lunch bonanza for the firemen of Nosara, because the French lady who owned Villa Mango, the bed and breakfast we stayed at, was married to a Costa Rican fireman, and so we really saw the local crowd; Costa Rican couples and entrepeneurs; expat retirees, surfers, business people; and wealthy folks just enjoying the situation (there was an especially entertaining group of four hot middle-aged women getting drunk and acting like they were in Eat Pray Love) and the Villa Mango is highly recommended: you can walk to Playa Pelada, the teak and guanacaste tree deck is beautiful, and we saw loads of monkeys from the porch and the pool; there is also a semi-tame coati who has been hanging out for a few months, you can hand feed him and he naps on the couch; the dog doesn't even bother him; while Alex and I were surfing, Catherine and Ian went kayaking up the Nosara river into the mangroves, and they saw black iguanas, Halloween crabs, lots of rare birds and Catherine even got a quick glimpse of a saltwater croc; the food was excellent, especially at El Chivo and Al Chile, where we got a close up view of a hummingbird ( Alex took a pic with his phone that rivals my owl) so despite the bad roads, a great place.

PAH!

As of now, I am still the sole member of PAH! (Parents Against Halloween!) but please take a moment and reflect: are we really going to do this again? the sugar meltdowns? the costumes? the aimless wandering around the neighborhood? the eating of all the extra candy? the diabetic comas? . . . and I'm willing to negotiate with the children . . . I'm willing to offer them firecrackers and BB guns and an go-carts, if they are willing forego this "holiday" . . . I'll even buy them a couple of candy bars-- but let's put our collective feet down -- they're only children and we can stand up to them and give All Hallow's Eve back to the witches and satanists . . . I'll even carve a jack'o'lantern . . . but I just don't want to deal with that giant bowl of processed sugar . . . I can't handle it and neither can they. I'll even give them 100 bucks!

Evil Circus!

Slouching Beast presents "Evil Circus," complete with its own live-action music video; I guarantee it's some of the most evil evil-circus music ever recorded . . . but I'm not quite as keen on the video, which might be more aptly named "How to Make a Three Minute Music Video with Thirty Seconds of Film" but despite the lack of material, I think I got the most out of my son Alex's creepy Halloween mask (and the clown's weapon is a rock-pick, in case you were wondering).

Nosara: Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your hands Upon the Wheel (if you can)

There is so much to see in Nosara, but if you are driving, it's hard to look up from the pothole strewn gravel and rock roads; the drive from Samara is an hour of bumpy winding coastal back roads and then you hit the rough stuff, but it's well worth it; I'm not sure which is better, the wildlife or the people watching-- my son Alex would say it's the surfing, and the surfing is great, especially on Playa Guiones, the giant scenic beach with endless breaks; I rented a board and rode a few waves along with my son, until my sternum got sore, then I just enjoyed the scenery: super-toned expat yoga/surfer women . . . I've never seen more perfect bodies in my life; perhaps these folks-- like Lady Gaga-- fly in to Nosara, as there is a tiny airstrip; it's quite a collection of people, we went to a outdoor charity lunch bonanza for the firemen of Nosara, because the French lady who owned Villa Mango, the bed and breakfast we stayed at, was married to a Costa Rican fireman, and so we really saw the local crowd; Costa Rican couples and entrepeneurs; expat retirees, surfers, business people; and wealthy folks just enjoying the situation (there was an especially entertaining group of four hot middle-aged women getting drunk and acting like they were in Eat Pray Love) and the Villa Mango is highly recommended: you can walk to Playa Pelada, the teak and guanacaste tree deck is beautiful, and we saw loads of monkeys from the porch and the pool; there is also a semi-tame coati who has been hanging out for a few months, you can hand feed him and he naps on the couch; the dog doesn't even bother him; while Alex and I were surfing, Catherine and Ian went kayaking up the Nosara river into the mangroves, and they saw black iguanas, Halloween crabs, lots of rare birds and Catherine even got a quick glimpse of a saltwater croc; the food was excellent, especially at El Chivo and Al Chile, where we got a close up view of a hummingbird ( Alex took a pic with his phone that rivals my owl) so despite the bad roads, a great place.

Aiding and Abetting to Avoid Tooth Decay

I'd prefer if my kids spent this Halloween perpetrating some good old-fashioned mischief and vandalism, rather than begging for sugary sugary treats (or even binge-watching the new season of Stranger Things . . . Netflix doesn't give you diabetes). 

Halloween is a Test

I have nothing creative in the tank, as I'm using all my willpower to not eat the Reeses peanut butter cups in the closet.

Sitcoms of Dave

I know we're a bit behind the times in my family (my Shakespeare students were astounded that I didn't know that Anne Hathaway is also a famous modern actress, and not solely Shakespeare's wife) but we finally finished watching Parks and Rec and we're quite broken up that it's over-- there hasn't been a sitcom gang that endearing since Cheers (maybe the the study group from Community) but I am pleased that my son Alex has decided on this year's Halloween costume, and it's as meta as it gets; he's going to wear a fake mustache and a purple suit jacket and carry around his saxophone and do his best to impersonate Ron Swanson's alter ego Duke Silver.

The Sandy Seven

The "freshman fifteen" has been debunked, but I can attest that the "Sandy Seven" is real . . . I'm wearing it around my middle -- I attribute the weight gain to the concurrence of several unavoidable events 1) I had to finish all the food in my refrigerator before it spoiled 2) living in darkness results in alcohol abuse, laziness, and over-sleeping 3) once a few people in town got power back, it caused a chain reaction of dinner invitations, and so, as a direct consequence, more gluttony and alcohol abuse 4) once we got our power back, it was reason for celebration, which, of course, involved over-indulging in every way possible 5) the post-traumatic wind-down from the stress of Hurricane Sandy involved even more drinking and bingeing on Halloween candy (and if you could pro-rate Sandy's weight gain over an entire year, you'd be talking about the Freshman 180).

Nerding It Up, Tolkien Style

My son Alex, who is in 4th grade, recently finished reading The Hobbit, and he's now deep into the first book of Lord of the Rings trilogy -- and while I must admit this is some impressive and precocious reading, the fact that he's also going to be Legolas for Halloween gives me some cause for concern . . . thank God he's athletic.

Something Spooky

Batman: The Long Halloween, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, is a dark, moody, and surreal graphic novel-- and it's got all the usual villains; the story of how Harvey Dent became Two-Face; several organized crime families; Arkham Asylum; and a serial killer named Holiday . . . who commits grisly murders on holidays . . . highly recommended if you're looking for something fun to read (and your eyes are tired from grading essays).

Winter is NOT Coming

It hasn't snowed around here since Halloween.

Whole Lotta Barking Going On

 No matter how clearly I explain it, my dog does not understand Halloween.

Alex: 1 Dad: 0

While I was in the midst of one of my typical anti-Halloween diatribes, my wife sided with the boys and reminded me that I liked trick-or-treating for candy when I was a kid, and then Alex chimed in-- rather sagaciously for a six year old-- and told me something that I often forget:  "You weren't born a grown-up, Dad."

The Test 80 . . . Dave Descends into Darkness

If you thought you were going to escape my semi-annual DST rant, you've got another thing coming-- and while I understand great forces are at work with this policy, forces that want us to consume more Halloween candy and more golf balls-- I'd like us for a moment to consider the feelings and emotions of our loyal four-legged friends . . . what have they done to deserve this shift? why must they be punished for a capitalist conspiracy to make us shop more, consume more, and play more golf? my dog is like a clock, he sidles down the stairs every morning at 5:50 AM to go for his morning constitutional and subsequent defecation, but this morning I had to drag him out of bed and though we took our usual route, he wasn't ready to move his bowels yet-- though he tried-- but the poor fellow was confused by this arbitrary shift in his circadian rhythm . . . so lets end DSL for the children, for the dogs, and for all the good people that have to go to work early in the morning (or just keep DSL and let kids get hit by school buses in the darkness of winter) and if you liked this glimpse inside the darkness of Dave's brain, then you'll certainly enjoy the latest episode of The Test, which details how Dave's life is spiralling out of control, widening in the gyre, how the center cannot hold, but during the journey, plenty of new shit has come to light . . . check it out: The Test 80: New $#@! Has Come to Light.

In Retrospect, This Will Be The Moment When We Lost Control of Them

My son Alex was eating at his usual lethargic pace-- everyone was long finished with dinner and he had barely started-- so I said to his younger brother Ian, "Let's go see if we can stream The Life of Mammals on Netflix," which I hoped would motivate Alex to finish his dinner, but instead he went into hysterics and Ian, feeling bad for his brother, whispered to him that he was going to stall the video by going to the bathroom for a really long time (Catherine overheard this plan and told me and we thought it was cute that he was actually doing something to help his older brother) but after Ian got out of the bathroom Alex still wasn't done with dinner and Ian was ready to watch the video but he couldn't find the piece of Halloween candy that he had selected so he coerced me into helping him look for it and I couldn't find it either, which was ridiculous, because he was just holding it and I said to him "You're driving me crazy! Where did you put it?" and finally he found it under a pillow on our little saddle stool-- which is a really weird place to leave your candy-- and it wasn't until later (with help from my wife) that I realized that this ruse, the candy-losing ruse, was also part of his stalling plan, but Ian was such a good actor that I didn't realize that I was actually falling for his plan . . . and the next morning when I asked him about it, he confessed that it was all a ruse (although he did not use the word ruse) and I am sure that when we look back, this will be the moment that we lost control.

Let's Get Ready to Coddle!!!!!!!!!!

The Atlantic article "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt is an excellent and comprehensive overview of how many Americans are starting to view the world-- especially college students; the article's subtitle is "in the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don't like . . . here's why that's disastrous for education-- and mental health" but the article covers more than college campuses-- it connects social media, politics, and society as a whole to the thesis; the article is insanely long, and while I suggest you read it in its entirety, I will offer a summary here for those of you who like to be coddled:

1) social media makes it "extraordinarily easy to join crusades, express solidarity and outrage, and shun traitors" so we've entered a new age of polarization, where it's easy to "like" a point-of-view skip the dialogue, debate, discussion, and negotiation that comes with actually listening to someone else's perspective;

2) the youth of America have grown up in a completely politically polarized environment-- surveys from the 1970s show that Republican and Democrat antipathy was "surprisingly mild" but the negative feelings of each party toward the other have grown steadily, a process called "affective partisan polarization," which is a serious problem for a country that considers itself a democracy;

3) hypersensitive college students have created a new term called "microagression," which can apply to any phrase or action that might be construed offensive-- whether it was overt, subtextual, or accidental-- and this led to the whole "shrieking girl" incident on the Yale campus protesting the hypothetical possibility of unregulated Halloween costumes;

4) hypersensitive college students are now demanding "trigger warnings" from teachers if they are about to encounter something uncomfortable in a text, so that they are not traumatized by something shocking or unexpected . . . even though this goes against all psychological logic, as this system will keep students in a state of anxiety about these issues-- racism, terrorism, abuse, etc.-- instead of the time-tested use of "exposure therapy," which rewires your brain to be able to deal with the difficult topic;

5) emotional reasoning has become the dominant mode of discourse on college campuses, with a subjective definition of offense-- if it offends you then it is offensive-- and this has bled into workplace harassment policies, where the same language is cropping up: there is no objective definition of harassment, it is simply if the person being harassed takes umbrage, then it is harassment;

6) cognitive therapy is a technique that probably needs to be taught on college campuses; "the goal is to minimize distorted thinking and see the world more accurately" and this is done by learning the most common cognitive distortions that people fall prey to-- overgeneralizing, dichotomous thinking, blaming, emotional reasoning . . . all twelve are listed at the end of the article and I am going to use them in class during my logical fallacies unit . . . this is one of my favorite things to teach in Composition class, though I warn the students that they may get in hot water when they start pointing out these "cognitive distortions" . . . especially when a parent or teacher employs one.