Bonus: I Write Something Serious . . . Blechh.

I spent yesterday venting my anger towards our Governor by writing this editorial about charter schools-- I'm sending it to our congressmen and the Home News, but I suppose it's just as easy to post it on the internet and see who stumbles on it; tomorrow I will return to my usual stupidity (and there is a petition to sign with the letter, if you want to get involved).

My Public Service For The Month

From time to time, I like to ask my students general knowledge questions, both to get an idea of what they know and to make them more "culturally literate," and so last week I asked them to estimate the population of the United States and while a few students were fairly accurate (and some had heard the census results on the news) the range of guesses was rather astounding; it went from 600,00 to 300 billion, and there was even a teacher who guessed way over the top (9 billion) . . . and so in a self-less and truly philanthropic effort to promote number sense-- an effort that should warrant some sort of award or at least coupons for free meals in the Prytaneum-- I have filched the graphics from Greg Mankiw's Blog-- he's an economics professor at Harvard-- and they illustrate, in terms of 100$ bills, what a million dollars, a billion dollars and a trillion dollars (note the little dude on the left to get the scale) look like; you can read his whole post on this here.

The Professor and the Madman Lives Up to Its Subtitle

The subtitle of Simon Winchester's book The Professor and the Madman is "A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary," and it comes through brilliantly on all accounts; there is a mysterious murder in the "louche and notoriously crime-ridden" London neighborhood of Lambeth Marsh; there is a detailed account of American military surgeon Dr. Minor, who-- despite his paranoid fantasies of Irishmen and pygmies living beneath his floorboards, depraved folk waiting until dark to come out and commit lewd and indecent acts on him-- manages to be the most significant contributor to the OED; and, as any book that is about making the OED should, it has some really hard vocabulary words, here are a few that I had to look up: louche, tocsin, breveted, and (warning! spoiler!) autopeotomy.

Test Your Chronological Acumen

This YouTube clip (thanks Adam) contains fairly ancient Super 8mm footage of the high school where I work . . . and the question is this: using only hairstyles, cars, and clothing . . . what year was it shot?

Roger Ebert Screws Up (And I Catch Him!)

My wife and I watched another art documentary (and this one, though very well done, isn't as gripping as Exit Through The Gift Shop . . . Catherine feel asleep for a portion) but The Art of the Steal certainly documents a complex story in a fairly comprehensive-- albeit one-sided-- way; Albert C. Barnes amassed an incredible collection of post-impressionistic art (valued at 25 billion) and created a trust and and what seemed to be an iron-clad will with the purpose of keeping these paintings in the art school he created in Merion, Pa-- outside the hands of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the art establishment that he despised-- and the film documents the political machinations that will finally lead to the art being moved to a new building in downtown Philadelphia . . . from the perspective of the Barnes Foundation it is a sad story, but here is a alternate view to the one the documentary presents . . . and though the film is pretty complex, I was able to make it through the entire thing, unlike Roger Ebert, who either fell asleep or didn't finish watching: he claims in his review that the paintings are now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, although they are never going to end up there . . . and as of this moment they are still in Merion and you can make an appointment and visit them so while I usually think Ebert is right on about movies, he botched this one (but I'll give him a break since he's certainly had his troubles for the last four years and it's impressive that he's still churning out the reviews).

True Grit

Though I wanted to see True Grit, the plan was to see The Fighter: I think the ladies wanted to watch Mark Wahlberg with his shirt off, but The Fighter was sold out, so we had to settle for True Grit, and Jeff Bridges did not take his shirt off, which was probably a good thing, because he appeared to be pasty and fat under his dirty long-johns, but he was an excellent Rooster Cogburn and Hailee Steinfeld played his vengeful fourteen year old sidekick Mattie Ross pitch perfectly and Matt Damon (who also did not take his shirt off, but did pull back his vest to reveal his Texas Ranger badge) was surprisingly droll as LaBouef and Barry Pepper (who reverse eponymously played Lucky Ned Pepper) and the rest of the bad guys looked as snaggle-toothed and depraved as they should have; the movie is faithful to plot, language, drama, and dry humor of the Portis novel and the images of the aged Mattie Ross are unforgettable . . . ten corn dodgers out of ten (my only complaint is that Mattie never said, "Men will live like billy goats if they are let alone," which is my favorite line from the book).

Super Sad True Love Story Is Not A Love Story

Gary Shteyngart's new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, presents itself as such, but, like the great film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it is actually not a love story at all, it is science fiction (if you use my definition) and though the romance between Lenny Abramov (another Russian Jew, but nearly as cool as Misha Vainberg) and Eunice Park fuels the plot, it also fuels Shteyngart's satirical view of the near future; Lenny is embarrassed that he is nearly forty and growing old, that he still likes books and has trouble with the credit rankings and "F*ckability" scores that everyone is receiving on their "äppäräti,"that he occasionally enjoys alcohol and carbs, and that he can't live up to his boss Joshie's dream of eternal youth, while Eunice-- the youngster-- has trouble "verballing" with Lennie and her parents and her sister, can't imagine a place for herself in a rapidly failing America, can't decipher an actual text-- she majored in Images at school and is effectively textually illiterate, though she can read to mine data-- and loves to shop at "AssLuxury," though she doesn't wear translucent "Onionskin" jeans . . . I give it eight credit poles out of ten.

Beans, Beans, They're Good For Your Heart . . .

Catherine made some delicious yellow lentils with sauteed onions and butter in the crock-pot a few days ago, and I took the remainder to work with me yesterday, but because of my lack of Tupperawareness, I packed far more than a single portion into my container, and I also had a sandwich (baked chicken and hummus, which is delicious, but hummus is also made from a legume . . . this will be significant later) so I decided to eat the lentils during my snack-time (around 9:15 AM) and I held up the medium sized Tupperware container-- which was filled to the brim with lentils-- and said to the new teacher, "There's no way I can eat this many lentils this early," but every spoonful was so smooth and buttery and delicious, and so fifteen minutes later the lentils were gone; I felt as if I had swallowed a medium sized tortoise, shell and all, but I had to go teach Henry IV, and I guess I didn't realize that lentils are in the bean family and have the same digestive effect, and it probably didn't help that later in the day I threw the chicken and hummus sandwich on top of this mound of beans, but luckily it wasn't bitterly cold outside and I was able to open my classroom windows, so no students suffered the consequences of my gluttony and I have learned a valuable lesson.

I Finally Impress My Son

This blog is usually about my social failures, awkward moments, and general nerdiness but-- although I know it's not as entertaining-- I would like to write about a moment of triumph, so please bear with me; we took our children to the H20 Waterpark in the Poconos over the break and one of the attractions is the Komodo Dragon, which is defined as "an indoor Flowrider for Riding Waves"; it's a plastic hill with water jetting across its surface and you can boogie board or surf on it while the people in line watch you wipe-out . . . the surfing is especially non-intuitive and difficult and of all the people we watched, no one was able to remain on the board (except the employee running the thing) and after my son Alex rode on the boogie board, I tried my hand at the surfboard and I was able to remain on it for quite a while-- perhaps because of years of skim boarding and snow boarding, although everything worked opposite as far as turning and balance-- and my generally grouchy six year old son, who is rarely moved by anything his parents know or do, said, "I was impressed Dad, you were the only one who didn't fall."

Do Me A Favor

I wouldn't mind if two particular possessions of mine were stolen: 1) my snowboard . . . which I got at a Burton factory sale for fifty dollars eight years ago; the board features now defunct strap-less bindings and I hate them because I never know if I'm completely locked in and sometimes I find out that I'm not locked in while I am hurtling headlong down an icy mountain 2) my 1993 Jeep Cherokee Sport, which features no A/C, no cup-holder, self-hiding seat belt buckles, a driver side door that does not open when the temperature drops below freezing, a ripe smell, several colonies of spiders, no driver side sun visor, a burned out differential which creates a lack of Quadra-Trac four wheel drive, and a foam ceiling that is peeling away in strips.

Here's Something Fun To Do If You Live In The Northeast

Go onto the Great Wolf Lodge Reservations page and check the price per night for the Lodge in the Poconos (489 dollars a night) and then check the same days for the Lodge in Traverse City (189 dollars a night) and then tell your kids that you are moving the family to Michigan.

Imagine This Sentence In The Voice of Steven Wright

I enjoyed Prefontaine, but it's been fourteen years . . . when are they going to make Fontaine?

Unresolutions for 2011

I am proud to say that I successfully complied with my 2010 Resolution--  not once did I create an ersatz Yogi Berra quotation in 2010 . . . so I have kicked that habit; for 2011, I am going to pay homage to the great Geoff Dyer (who wrote the ultimate un-book, Out of Sheer Rage, which is ostensibly a biography of D.H. Lawrence, but actually a treatise on procrastination and motivation; he never actually writes the biography-- although it is found in the BIO section of the library) and instead of resolving to do things this year, I am resolving to not do things, and Geoff Dyer put this better than me in this passage-- you should read the whole thing-- but if you're lazy, he essentially boils it down to this aphorism: Not being interested in the theatre provides me with more happiness than all the things I am interested in put together . . . and so here is my list of things that I resolve to remain "not interested in" for the year of 2011:

1) The theater (expensive, time-consuming, and it's for old people);

2) Golf (ditto);

3) The NHL;

4) Reality TV (even Jersey Shore);

5) The phrases "It is what it is," and "You know what I mean";

6) Tron nostalgia;

7) Going to PTO meetings (thanks Catherine!);

8) Baking;

9) Organizing the crawl space (thanks Catherine!);

10) Oprah's Book Club.

These Might Be The Best Sentences of 2010

 After seven minutes of half-assed deliberation, I am awarding The Best Sentences of 2010 to this sentence, this sentence, and this sentence . . . hope you enjoy them the second time around.

Some Advice For Giants Fans

It is the job of the athlete to forget what the fan will always remember . . . so maybe the Giants can forget the last two games and beat the Redskins next week and-- with help from Chicago and New Orleans-- make the play-offs, where the season begins anew . . . but as a fan, it's going to be tough to forget the past two seasons of Giants' football (a 41-9 elimination loss to the Panthers last year and this year's collapse against the Eagles and 45-17 loss to the Packers with everything on the line) and so my advice is this: to enjoy the rest of the season, invoke the spirit of John Starks, who never let the past rattle him, even after five awful shots, he chucked the rock at the hoop again-- with no memory of what came before; root like an athlete, not like a fan and perhaps the Giants will gain new life in the play-offs.

Whitney's Favorite Awkward Moment of Dave

Today we'll take a trip down memory lane and visit another Awkward Moment of Dave; this is Whitney's favorite and it took place in college . . . Whitney and I needed to volunteer for six hours of psychology testing in order to get credit for a Psych 102 class and it was coming down to the deadline so we signed up for what was available: an experiment for people who claimed to be "date anxious"; we convinced the professor that we were indeed "date anxious," which was probably true since neither of us really did much "dating," and as part of the experiment we actually went on "dates" with other "date anxious" folks and then filled out surveys about the experience; for our first "date" we picked up some underclassmen in Squirrel's little dirty car and our plan was to take them to the movies to see Harlem Nights-- which seemed to be an easy way to ensure that we wouldn't have to talk to the girls, which was important because we were both quite hungover from some serious partying the night before-- and it was extremely cold and the ground was covered with snow and ice, so we were all bundled up, Whitney driving, me sitting shotgun, the girls huddled in the back-- wondering about the two terse strangers that they were now at the mercy of-- and I must point out that sometime in the late night partying the night before, I had consumed a 7-11 microwave burrito, which I had doused with 7-11 chili and 7-11 jalapenos and 7-11 cheese, and I was having some stomach troubles and so I found it necessary to open my window and let some fresh air into the car, some very very cold fresh air, but also very very important fresh air, if this date was to continue without incident, but the girls in back took the brunt of the cold wind and yelled at me to shut the window, and Whitney turned and asked me what the hell I was doing and all I could think to say was: "Just wanted to check how cold it is out there."

The Tivo Parallax Effect (Do Jets Fans Love Braveheart?)

A few weeks ago I decided to join some Jets fans to watch the Jets/New England Monday night game, and you probably know how that turned out (it's interesting to listen to Jets fans while they watch a game, they have prodigious memories for past failure . . . someone actually made a reference to Richard Todd, and there is a fatalistic sense of futility which you don't find in Giants fans, because the Giants have managed to get to the big show often enough that their fans know it is always a possibility) and it was the first time I ever watched a game on Tivo delay-- I think it was fifteen minutes behind real time because of late arrivals to the party-- and some guys were checking their phones to find out the score in real time while I was trying to enjoy the delayed reality of Tivo Time and then a guy walked in late in the first quarter and made an ominous comment, like Cassandra might, and I urged my friend to fast-forward to real time, because-- unlike Slavoj Zizek-- I couldn't handle the parallax effect that the different perspectives were creating in my brain . . . but in the end it didn't matter because the game went horribly awry for the Jets and we ended up watching some Braveheart, which is a movie I've never seen (and it looked kind of cheesy but everyone urged me to see it . . . maybe Jets fans really like Braveheart).

Thierry Guetta Is Like Marla Olmstead (Except Not As Cute)

If you have kids or you're interested in modern art, then you should watch the documentary My Kid Could Paint That -- it's about a precocious four-year-old abstract painter named Marla Olmstead; the film investigates what defines art as much as the mystery of whether Marla painted her paintings or not-- but now there is a new documentary on the same theme and it is even better . . . it's called Exit Through the Gift Shop and it is ostensibly about documenting street art-- the obsessive Frenchman Thierry Guetta devotes his life to filming these ambitious and talented vandals on their midnight missions to make odd, skillful, often beautiful and essentially disposable art, but like all great documentaries (Capturing the Friedmans, Street Fight, Mr. Death, etc.) the film takes an unpredictable turn . . . Thierry Guetta transforms into "Mr. Brainwash" and the theme moves from the aesthetic to the absurd . . . I won't spoil it, but things might not be exactly what they seem . . . I'm giving it ten spray cans out of ten and I think Banksy-- the faceless and heralded street artist who directed-- will win an Oscar.

A Christmas Version of the Nipple

You may remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine sends out a Christmas card with a picture of herself (taken by Kramer) that inadvertently exposes her nipple, and now our life imitates Larry David's art: Catherine had some trouble getting jubilant shots of our kids for this year's Christmas card, so instead she sent out a more realistic card with our boys engaged in their typical mischief, but she did get one joyous shot in front of the tree, but when Shutterfly  sent us the finished cards, we noticed that in that in the one photo full of holiday cheer, Alex is exposing a runny booger . . . it's tough to see on the computer, but like the nipple, it's pretty obvious when you look at the card.

Feliz Say What?

So I'm playing a game of darts at the Park Pub with my friend Mose on the Eve of Xmas Eve and the jukebox plays the song "Feliz Navidad," but it's not the typical Julio Feliciano version, and when the singer sings the eponymous opening I distinctly hear him say "Feliz s*ck my c*ck," which totally throws off my throw and I turn to Mose and he's laughing and I say: "Did you just hear that?" and Mose confirms that he heard the same festive invitation to fellatio that I heard, but upon further investigation it might have been some weird acoustical anomaly-- that when this particular song is played on the jukebox and you're standing near the dart-board at the Park Pub and certain shows are on the television and the bar is packed to a certain density, then that's what you hear . . . or maybe it was an Eve of Xmas Eve Miracle . . . either way, I'm certainly glad Mose was there to corroborate the incident, because when we went and sat down with the rest of the group at the bar and asked them if they heard what we heard, they looked at us like we were crazy.