I realized today why I've been so fried and exhausted at the end of every school day this year-- and it's not the new schedule of 84 minute periods-- the problem is the sensory deprivation: I can't wear my glasses with a mask (they fog up) so I can't really see the students (and it's hard to discern who is who when they are all wearing masks) and I can't really tell who is talking-- every class wide discussion begins as a ventriloquism act because you can't see anyone's mouth moving . . . and even once you figure out where the sound is coming from, you might not be able to parse the words . . . teenagers are often mumblers . . . AND they might not have clearly heard what I said, so that adds to this muffled game of telephone . . . I told them to find a "term" and they were looking for the "tone" and so I had to remember to really enunciate the ending letters of words (and today was hat day, further obscuring any visual recognition-- when you wear a hat AND a mask, there's no much identifiable face showing) but my only solace is that perhaps I'm developing super-sensory powers because of this intense obfuscated sensory training.
Dave Uses an Umbrella?
Yesterday afternoon my wife and I took the train from New Brunswick to Princeton Junction and then we ran like hell to catch "the Dinky," a two-car train that travels back and forth from Princeton Junction to downtown Princeton-- and, anticlimactically, after we ran like hell to catch the tiny train, it sat there for another ten minutes-- but then it dumped us right where we needed to be-- a two-minute walk from the Dinky Bar & Kitchen . . . we were meeting our friends Mel and Ed there-- and it's an awesome spot, they converted old train station into a bar/restaurant with excellent tap beer and specialty cocktails and a delicious assortment of small, shareable plates-- highly recommended-- and because we took the train, we got to Princeton a bit faster than usual and we avoided driving in the storm (and we could drink copious amounts of alcohol) but the real reason I am writing this sentence is to explain how I have reflected and changed my opinion about something: instead of wearing a hat and a rainjacket-- it was too damned hot for that-- I brought and used an umbrella . . . and this is a big deal for me because nomrally I'm an umbrellist . . . I hate walking near people using umbrellas (they can poke you) and they are annoying to deal with once you get to where you are going, but I am starting to see when they could be useful-- and once we got to the restaurant, I folded it up and put it in the little umbrella stand, like some kind of Victorian lady, and I wasn't wet and I wasn't sweating and I didn't have to deal with a hat, so it was a decent experience so I might add this to my repertoire of annoying accouterments for the weather (like the scarf).
We Are the Walking Dead
Our soccer team has so many injuries-- bad knee, hip flexor, concussion, broken collarbone, pulled quad, etc-- that my younger son Ian got to start today . . . and he was playing well but ten minutes into the game he got elbowed in the face, right under his eye-- pretty much a knock-out punch, and while we bandaged up his face and he went back in, it wasn't for long . . . soon enough he was sitting on the bench with all the other injured folks, including my older son (pulled quad) . . . what a mess (although we did win our first GMC tournament game).
Ice Cream Epiphany
As I was driving to work this morning, I realized the main reason the Median Voter Theorem doesn't work is because voting (like getting an ice cream cone) isn't required-- you can decide not to participate at all-- especially if the ice cream is shitty and the vendors serve flavors that only particular segments of people enjoy . . . so maybe, in order to avoid this kind of absurd brinksmanship and game theory, we need to act like Australia and Belgium, and compel everyone to vote.
Dave Tries to Act Like a Normal Person
Someone at work (who will remain nameless) said they were enjoying the Netflix show "Clickbait" and I watched an episode with my wife and we found it to be a mildly entertaining digital-kidnapping-thriller (and it stars Adrian Grenier! who I hadn't seen since Entourage) and we slowly continued to watch-- though it's often slow and repetitive-- and because I had a theory about who about the perpetrator of the crime, I avoided looking at reviews or talking about the show-- which is VERY out of character for me . . . I normally only watch things that are vetted by both my friends and smart reviewers . . . I don't want to waste my time-- but I decided to act like a normal person and just watch the show and-- SPOLIER-- the ending is absolutely dumbass, so stupid and cheap and I can't describe it without profane ad hominems for the writers that would impugn my good name-- but it seems like the original writers got swallowed up in an earthquake and they hired a bunch of drunk people who had not read or seen the earlier episodes-- and so they introduce a couple of new characters in the fading minutes of the penultimate episode-- a middle-aged childless secretary and her chubby old model-train building husband-- and THEY DID IT . . . she catfished Nick Brewer and then her husband killed him . . . and then they kidnap Nick's kid and the chubby old model-train guy might kill the child . . . holy shit, what a cheap and stupid ending . . . and if I would have just read the reviews I would have saved all this time and rage.
Godot Actually Shows Up
Elvis Cole is a wise-cracking sleuth who has a way with the ladies and while generally speaking The Monkey's Raincoat is a typical hardboiled detective mystery, there is an odd "Waiting for Godot" type feeling about Joe Pike . . . except that he actually shows up.
Mini Coke Joke
Last Friday, Kristyna went into the mini-fridge in the office to grab her Diet Coke and she started cursing-- her 12 oz. Diet Coke was missing, but there was a 7.5 oz. mini Diet Coke in its place . . . and while we couldn't solve the mystery of the shrinking soda, I am hoping this was a clever practical joke-- and I would like to replicate this and miniaturize someone else's food-- replace a full sized Hershey Bar with a Hershey Miniature, etcetera (and Kristyna did blame me for the mini-Coke at first, until I convinced her otherwise, because of this incident).
The Week in Some Sort of Review
Looking back, this was quite a week:
1) started on Sunday with an outdoor wedding-- hot but fun;
2) Catherine and I both took off Monday-- she had to get oral surgery and I had to do all the stuff that didn't get done all weekend . . . lamest combined day off ever;
3) Tuesday we had a home game against Timothy Christian-- they weren't very good and we won 5-0 but Alex couldn't attend because he had his court date for his car accident-- the driving with an expired provisional license was waived but he got two-points for reckless driving;
4) Wednesday we had a home game against an excellent South Plainfield team-- Alex played the entire game (aside from when his calf cramped) and we got spanked 4-0; Ian got to play a bit of garbage time and received a pass from Alex streaked down the sideline and megged a defender and then rolled in a perfect pass to the far post (which got skied over the goal) but he should have shot and scored-- then there would have been a brother to brother goal and assist;
5) Thursday we had a day off-- I was supposed to play tennis but my shoulder hurt so Ian subbed in for me (and lost to a guy I've occasionally beaten-- so by the transitive property, I beat Ian . . . which doesn't happen much these days)
6) Friday was an away game at Metuchen-- tons of traffic-- it took 50 minutes to drive the five miles and the bus was hot-- and once again we gave up a goal in the first couple of minutes-- Alex had to play the entire game again because we were missing another defender; our team is really really banged up and we can't seem to score-- we lost this one 3-0 . . . and the goalie saved Alex's butt because after our center back got beaten, Alex lunged in and tripped a kid in the box but our goalie completely layed out and saved the PK . . . and then Alex got a ride home with Catherine because he was going to see his girlfriend's play-- what?-- and there was some miscommunication because I didn't check my phone-- we were supposed to switch cars?-- I had no clue and then once the bus finally got back from Metuchen the football game had started and I found out my van--parked in the school lot-- was parked in by two buses and a marching band and I had to weave through that mess -- and it was dark but I had on sunglasses and I didn't want Ian-- who has his permit-- to try to navigate the tight quarters (I almost hit a saxophone) but once we all got home (Catherine had to go to a wake) we watched the season finale of Ted Lasso and remembered that win or lose, it's a privelege to get to play and coach and watch (and one of the referees at the game has stage four throat cancer-- he's on death's door yet he ran the lines but couldn't talk at all . . . pretty wild, he's spending his final days on the planet reffing high school soccer matches-- I guess there are worse ways to go)
7) today I got to reteach my college essay unit to my son because they don't do it in school-- and then we edited his essay (which was in the present tense, needed a better opening, was too long, required a bit of humor, etc . . . it felt just like school!)
Someday I Will Be Smart(er)
Yesterday I needed the vinegar/oil salad dressing for my salad and I had a choice between two corner cabinets in my kitchen, one way on the left and one way on the right-- and one of the cabinets contains all out spices and baking supplies and such (on a lazy susan) and the other contains all out pots and pans (on a lazy susan) and despite living in this kitchen for a decade, I chose the wrong cabinet (I chose left and the dressing was in the right cabinet).
Soccer IQ
If you coach soccer, play soccer, or a interested in soccer tactics (but you don't want to lose your mind looking at inscrutable charts and diagrams in a book like this) then I highly recommend Dan Blank's Soccer IQ . . . it's chock full of pithy coaching tidbits (including lots of stuff that you probably already intuitively know but did not know how to explain to players) and simple diagrams and concepts and tactical philosophy boiled down to practical application-- I'm sure I'll read both volumes several times and I've already recognized that our team often plays "the impossible pass" and tried to explain how to remedy this.
Mallory's Oracle
Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connor is a crime novel released in 1994 (to excellent reviews) and the portrayal of New York City and its weird and wonderful and damaged denizens is very different than the more sanitized Big Apple of today-- the titular hero (or anti-hero) has been orphaned twice-- she was a child of the street . . . "damaged" and she "grew up with distorted mirrors" so though Sgt. Kathleen Mallory is beautiful and smart and a computer whiz, but she doesn't realize her looks and talent-- and when the man who adopted her-- another detective-- is murdered by what appears to be a serial killer, she's on the case (though she's not supposed to be) and she journeys through a world of insider trading, SEC investigations, seances, spiritual scam artists, clever and greedy old ladies, magic tricks, Gramercy Park chess prodigies and spacy geniuses-- the writing is sharp, the plot is really complicated, there's one compelling character study after another and there's lots of great dialogue, like this:
“Why did Markowitz tell all this to you and not me?”
“Oh, you know how parents are. They start to get independent of their children. Then they think they know it all, never need advice, never call the kids anymore. Like it would break an arm to pick up a phone. And you kids, you give them the best years of your lives, the cute years. This is how they pay you back, they take all the horrors of life and keep them from you.”
and if you have the Libby app you can get the book pronto on your Kindle!
Some Recent Stuff
Here's what's been going on:
2) Friday night after the game, I drove down to the beach for a quick vacation with some high school buddies (and one college buddy) and there were six guys and thirteen guitars in the beach house . . . thanks Neal!
3) I rode my friend John's "one-wheeler" and did not die . . . though I felt like I might at first, but it did get easier-- you've really got to relax and it does feel a bit like snowboarding;
4) Sunday, we went to a wedding in Mercer County Park and it was awesome-- if a bit hot: taco truck, pizza truck, cornhole and Frisbeer;
5) I crushed at corn hole at the beach on Saturday, and Whit and I also did some serious Wabobo tossing in a rip current-- an old guy came out and warned us that we were getting close to the abyss and would be sucked out into the surf-- and the waves grew more and more epic as the day wore on, until we could not go into the water . . . also, Mose got sunburned . . . though I warned him.
Hang On
Someday this week will end and I will go to the beach and meet up with some old friends (and avoid having to help my wife with HP Garage Sale Day . . . a double victory).
Dave Loves Him Some Dave
Post-pandemic-mask-wearing teacher Dave really appreciates past Dave, who recorded various stories and anecdotes during the virtual instruction days-- because present Dave (who wears a mask while he teaches) can cue up videos of past-Dave, telling stories with his face out . . . and-- as you can see in this example-- it's always a surprise to find out what past-Dave talked about during the video (and I know some people don't like hearing their own voice or seeing themselves on video, but I don't have this problem-- in fact, I love watching and listening to myself!)
Long Day (But Lots of Drama)
Long day: extended homeroom, activity fair, away game, bus ride to Spotswood . . . but it turned out to be worth it-- though we were down five starters (Alex had to play the entire game at center back) we came back from a one-goal deficit to be Spotswood 2-1-- our little man Michael Volpert scored a chip shot goal with four minutes remaining after Matt Lu won a ball, made a number of great moves and it played it to him near the outside edge of the box . . . a great victory with no normal varsity substitutes available-- but it's only Tuesday.
The Burden of the Ring
I was covering a class this morning-- an 84-minute class-- and I was bored and checking my phone and at 8:30 AM I got a notification from my Ring Doorbell cam that there was some motion on my front porch, so I activated the live view and I saw a sketchy guy, holding a can of something (which I assumed to be alcoholic) and he was sort of stumbling around, pushing against our new porch railings and posts, careening from one railing to the other and I was like WHAT THE FUCK? . . . there's a random guy fucking around on our porch and I'm watching this-- and then Lola started barking and I activated the intercom and said, "Can I help you?" and then he wandered off and I was really annoyed-- because we had two bikes stolen a few months ago (the reason why we installed the Ring Doorbell) and so I told lots of people about this sketchy guy-- including my neighbors, when I got home from soccer practice, but when I came in and told my wife the news, she said, "Are you sure you didn't see John the handyman? He was over this morning to install some lattice," and then it all made sense-- he was going to do our porch railings, but we hired a friend to do that job-- so he was testing out the other guy's handiwork-- going from one railing to the next, checking the sturdiness of the corner posts-- but if you don't have context, then that looks like a drunk guy, reeling around, using the railings for support-- and maybe he was drinking Diet Coke?-- so I went back across the street and told our neighbors the truth of the matter and I canceled the whole "keep an eye on our front porch" dictum and we all had a good laugh (but I still decided to pay the three bucks a month to have the Ring record all activity because I was really annoyed that I couldn't rewatch the video and reassess my inference).
Dave! with the hangover . . .
I definitely overserved myself yesterday while watching the Rutgers game in New Brunswick (and post-game at Clydz) but despite the brain fog I crushed the mini (23 seconds) and won at tennis and made chili . . . Miraculous!
Things are Confusing and Complicated
I listen to Sam Harris and find him smart and logical . . . and I also listen to (some) Joe Rogan podcasts, and he seems to have a pretty low bar when it comes to vetting his guests-- and in a recent Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris discusses why he won't invite Bret Weinstein on to talk about covid vaccines and ivermectin-- because Weinstein touted ivermectin on Rogan's podcast-- Vox has a nice article explaining the "dubious" rise of the drug as a miracle treatment . . . and apparently the drug is probably NOT a miracle treatment, but it may have some modest effects . . . and while I'm taking everything Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying say on the podcast with a grain of salt, they are against masks in school-- because kids are mainly going to be fine-- and I would love it if we all the had the choice to take off our masks in school-- though that might not be the best course of action, but I do agree with them heartily about the fact that we should NOT be married to our ideas, not equate science with political teams, and that people on the left should not describe the unvaccinated as impure or disease-ridden-- first of all because some of these people have natural immunity from already having the virus and second of all because that is a really dangerous path to go down and I don't think there's any way back.
Not My Fault (For Once)
Yesterday, we attempted to play an off day JV game (so that we could take a couple of younger varsity players-- we're low on numbers) but ten minutes into the game we got slammed by torrential rain-- so we hightailed it to the bus and drove back to Highland Park (from Middlesex of all places-- we were lucky not to get caught in the floodwaters) and the kids wanted to get dropped off in the Middle School lot because there is some shelter there from the rain-- so I directed the bus driver there, even though my car was parked on the other side of the school, on the street near the front of the building-- so I walked through the rain, carrying the ball bag and my giant coaching bag-- the thunder and lightning exploding around me, and when I got to Fifth Avenue, I couldn't find my van-- I wandered up and down the road, at first wondering if I forgot where i parked and then wondering if the car had been stolen-- but who would steal my disgusting and disgraceful van?-- and then I saw a blue Mazda and wondered if my wife had switched cars, but it wasn't our Mazda-- and by that time I was so wet that my phone wouldn't work-- so I couldn't call Alex or my wife-- and it just kept downpouring, so I got under a tree and managed to dry my phone off enough to call and I found out that Alex had taken the car home when he got caught in the rain at varsity practice-- in order to save his laptop-- and my wife had told him to do this but no one told ME that he took the car-- Alex thought Catherine communicated this to me and my wife thought that Alex had told me . . . so I was really wet and really pissed off when Alex came to get me . . . but it was only water, so I got over it-- and Alex then took the van to some sort of junior prom event, so there was more getting in and out of the car in the rain-- and I slept from 6-7 PM and then from 8 PM to 5 AM-- I was wet and tired, and then when I got in the van this morning to go to work, I soaked my pants-- the seat was sopping wet-- but I didn't feel like changing my pants-- I just threw a towel on the seat-- and first period my pants were very noticeably wet, which my class enjoyed-- but I put a small fan behind me, and that worked and now my pants are dry and my underwear is only a little moist.
Dave Debuts "Creepy White Van" to an Audience of One (Human)
If you're like me (or Linda from Bob's Burgers) you might occasionally sing original songs about whatever the hell is going on right in front of you-- and while Linda will do this right in front of people, I think I only do this when I'm alone-- or when I think I'm alone-- for example: this morning when I was walking the dog in the park in the 6:00 AM darkness and I saw a van-- a white van-- roll out of the park, it got me wondering . . . so while I let Lola loose to run around and sniff the trees in the large grassy patch near the playground, where she generally does her business, and I started singing:
Creepy white van, creepy white van
who is the driver? always a man
creepy white van
and then Lola, who was fifty yards away from me, near a park bench facing the river, starting barking-- barking at a man sitting on the bench, a man I had not noticed-- or I wouldn't have been singing an original song about a van-- this man who was either sleeping one off or resting after an early morning walk or ready clandestine tryst with a lover . . . but whatever he was doing, he probably didn't expect to get regaled with an original tune and then reprimanded by a territorial bitch.
When Canadians Like Maple Syrup
The Hidden Brain episode "Group Think" explains why Canadians like honey and maple syrup equally . . . UNLESS they are reminded they are Canadian (perhaps by watching this commercial) and it also explains why I didn't become a Bruce Springsteen fan until I left New Jersey and went to college in Virginia; it wasn't until then that I was reminded (by mayo on Italian style hoagies) that I was part of a group: central Jersey dirtbags.
Tooziest Toozday
Tuesday is obviously the worst day of the week-- it has none of the earnest go-getter initiative of Monday, none of the hump-day inspiration of Wednesday, none of the thirsty pub-night charm of Thursday, none of the happy-hour/weekend anticipation of Friday . . . and it ain't the weekend-- and this was a very Tuesday Tuesday . . . our new block schedule features 84 minute periods, which is a hell of a long time in the normal world, but even more so in a mask, and I got assigned another period of cafeteria duty-- for a sum total of 84 minutes of cafeteria-duty . . . because, as I found out after I wrote a bunch of irate, all-lowercase, unedited and unvetted emails to administration with lovely vocabulary like "shafted" and "sucks," that if you're off period 3 or period 7, then you're going to end up in the cafeteria for extended amounts of time, because with the block schedule they don't have many teachers off at the same time . . . so I made the best of it and ignored the children and graded as much Rutgers expos stuff as I could, which makes for a brutal Tuesday . . . but it can only get better from here (I'm also tired because we had an epic night game against our rival Metuchen yesterday . . . it went into overtime and ended in a 2-2 tie . . . their goalie laid out and made an incredible PK save with two minutes left, but it was still a good result and Alex played well . . . but wow, today felt like I really had a job, which I guess I do).
L'esprit d'escalier, Sixteen Years Later
Last night at a birthday party, while we were discussing life, death, birth etcetera, my friend Alec and I figured out what to say when you are present at the birth of your child and the doctor asks if you'd like to cut the umbilical cord-- because Alec didn't really want to cut the umbilical cord but he felt obligated to do so-- his wife had just pushed a baby out of her vagina and it was the least he could do-- so he reluctantly cut the cord . . . but now we know better, we know how to handle this situation (although we are way way late-- Alec has a daughter in college and another in high school) and here's how it's done:
Alec designs theaters for a living, so when the doctor asked him "would you like to cut the umbilical cord? he should have replied, "Would you like to design the acoustical space for musical venue?" and this works for pretty much any profession (except doctor or nurse) so if you're an accountant and the doctor asks if you want to snip this long blood-filled tube attached to your wife and child, you could say "would you like to review these financial statements for compliance issues?" and I could say "would you like to grade and comment on these expository essays?" and while it's too late for us-- we can't go strolling back into the maternity unit of the hospital and try this out-- it's a jerk-store situation-- but we can pass along the comment so perhaps someone younger might implement it when they are handed those scissors and feel out of their depth but don't know how to express this feeling.
Ramble On, Jack, Ramble On
If you're looking for some sensitive and thoughtful fiction, you're probably not going to like Lee Child's first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor . . . an ex-military policeman with rambling on his mind wanders into a sleepy Georgia town that turns out to be the center of the world's largest counterfeiting operation, and also the place where his brother was murdered (along with lots of other folks) and so the wandering on his mind turns quickly to vengeance-- and by the time Jack Reacher is through with everyone who has wronged him, his only choice is to ramble on and avoid the investigation . . . because he did not operate within the boundaries of the law or any normal ethics-- and I'm guessing wherever he wanders will turn up more trouble.
Rough Afternoon
My son Alex had a rough afternoon on the pitch today-- it was hot and we were playing a very tough South River team on their insane grass field-- it's part baseball field, part soccer field, with lots of bumps and ramps and hillocks-- and we're used to playing on turf and this team just cut us apart-- and our big center back (who knocked Alex out of the previous game with a head-to-head collision, knocked himself out of this game by planting his nose into the back of someone's head while going up for a header-- it was a bloody mess) and our 3-5-2 formation couldn't handle the skill and speed and wily moves of this mainly Portuguese team-- they knew how to play the proper weight passing into the space on the grass; they knew how to trap bouncing and lofted balls; they knew the simple feints that would work in order to get a defender tied up in the mud; and they knew how to run two players, one after the other, through the ball when it wildly bounced off the random patches of dirt and crabgrass-- but it's better to play a game like this and learn something than not play at all, and luckily, South River is group 2 and we are group one, so we won't run into them in the States.
Hygiene Theater Part II
This picture of my high school's "terminal" hallway says it all about "hygiene theater"-- today at cafeteria duty, teachers were told to make sure the students were seated with a one-seat buffer-- so every other seat, despite the fact that there are 500-700 kids in the cafeteria (before some disperse to the auditorium) waiting in line, eating, drinking, and living their lives-- and then some teachers were told to instruct kids to put their masks back on when they were done eating . . . the kids were not particularly cooperative about these mandates . . . with good reasons, as this picture demonstrates-- so we might as well take the masks off and take our chances, so then we can hear each other and recognize faces . . . Governor Murphy, give up on the masks in school-- they can't be helping all that much, and-- as a teacher with glasses and not the best ears-- the maks mandate isn't going to help in making up for educational losses in record time.
Acting! In the Hygiene Theater . . .
School is absurd right now-- we wear masks in class, but then we go to the cafeteria and 500-plus kids eat together without masks (and I supervise a section and I snack and eat and drink and wander around and chat with kids, so I'm not wearing a mask) and then we go back to small classes and put a mask on-- and the kids are supposed to have assigned seats (and sign in with a QR code) so they can contact trace if there's a case-- even though the cafeteria (and the auditorium, which is where the sophomores eat) has to be FULL of COVID-- because it's airborne!-- and my wife is in the same boat, with kids eating together . . . but she's not allowed to use a fan . . . anyway, either we're all going to get covid or were going to really bolster our immune systems . . . we shall see.
Looking for the Silver Lining in Chronology
My older son Alex-- a senior in high school-- had a good day on Friday; he learned he was starting at left-back in the soccer game on Saturday-- his first start in a real varsity game (and this is great for him because the team is excellent and mainly composed of super-skilled technical club players and Alex only plays soccer during soccer season-- but he's been playing well, he wins balls in the air, has some speed, a good left foot, and he just surpassed the six-foot mark, so he's pretty big-- so he was very excited to be out there for a home game against rival Spotswood) and then he drove to the movies with his friends and saw Shang Chi and then when he got home, he saw his SAT scores and he was very happy-- he improved 150 points and did especially well in math (and he wants to be an engineer) and then Saturday out on the turf the varsity coach said he was excited at how well Alex had been playing which is always nice, because as the JV coach, it's hard to tout your own kids too much-- it's a conflict of interest-- so I just agreed and told him he had been working hard and was really fit-- and Alex was a JV superstar last season, playing every minute of every game without injury and holding the team together so we could have some fun against generally tough opponents (we are in a conference with schools twice our size because we're competent at soccer) and Alex started the game playing excellent, winning balls on the ground and in the air, stepping to balls, and making some great distribution-- we're only playing three in the back so they can't screw up-- and then he called a head ball and went up for it and the center back, his buddy Luke, who is at least 6 foot three, maybe more, came flying out of nowhere and they clonked heads and Alex had to come off-- he might have a mild concussion or he might have just taken a hard short above his eye-- but he was annoyed that he got hurt in his first varsity start but I told him that it's a long, long season and he'd be back out there and to look on the bright side-- at least he didn't have to study for the SATs with a headache-- it was a great thing that the SATs were a couple weeks BEFORE he got his bell rung.
The Myth of the Starving Artist
According to North Korean defector Yeonmi Park, there's no such thing as a starving artist-- if you're foraging for grasshoppers and wild plants for sustenance in an absurdist dystopian dictatorship, then you've got no energy or brainpower left to consume or create art-- which is just how Kim Jong-un wants it; Park tells her story on the Joe Rogan podcast, and it is by turns horrific and enlightening-- I'm not sure what we can do about the state of affairs in North Korea because they possess nuclear weapons, but Park describes the place as worse than a Nazi death camp . . . this is an amazing episode, but perhaps there are inconsistencies in Park's story . . . although I'm not sure if that matters; she is also highly critical of "Woke" culture and you can understand why-- when you've seen the terror and racism and horrors of North Korea, it must seem that Americans are quibbling about minor affairs.
Trump, Shakespeare, Assassination, Viral Media, Abe Lincoln, Wife-Beating, Etc
James Shapiro's book Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future is far more fun and compelling than the title; Shapiro, a noted Shakespeare scholar, looks at how American Shakespeare productions in eight different periods of American history reflect the politics and predilections of the times . . . so you've got:
1) Othello in 1835 and themes of miscegenation;
2) the cross-dressing genius of Charlotte Cushman, who apparently played Romeo far better than any man could;
3) class warfare, populist riots, elitism, and Macbeth in 1840s Manhattan;
4) Abe Lincoln's meditations on Hamlet . . . apparently he liked Claudius' confession soliloquy (my offense is rank, it smells to Heaven) better than "to be or not to be"
5) The Tempest and immigration in 1916;
6) feminism, the role of the woman and all that in 1948, with The Taming of the Shrew and Kiss Me Kate . . . the way Shrew was staged often indicated how the director felt about the growing amount of women in the workforce and the role of women in general;
7) adultery and same-sex love in Shakespeare in Love and 12th Night in 1998 . . . apparently major revisions were made to the theatrical version of Shakespeare in Love to make it appropriate for a general movie-going audience-- in the original script, Shakespeare took much longer to realize Viola was a woman and thought he had fallen in love with a man and was confused about his sexuality-- that was the main conflict, but that got stripped down for the 1998 audience, which was just starting to embrace homosexuality;
8) and the wild left/right culture wars of the Trump era, embodied by a version of Julius Caesar wherein a Trump-like figure is assassinated, sparking a firestorm of typical right-wing outrage and internet virality;
and at the heart of this is the fact that America loves Shakespeare even more than England-- and it often evokes our darkest sins in a way that we can handle and discuss: incest, suicide, adultery, racism, sexism, class warfare, democracy, tyranny, etc and it would be a shame if the same thing happened in America that happened in England in 1642-- the theaters were shut down because of civil war between parliament and the crown, ending in the beheading of Charles I . . . hopefully the right won't abandon Shakespeare as elitist melodrama and the left won't abandon him because he was a white male (though the term didn't exist yet) and we'll be able to use him to air our debates and grievances and politics in an artistic and public forum.
Ironic and Idiotic Advice and Action Juxtaposition
Teenage boys are often the worst about basic common sense and safety-- for example, they leave the burners on in the kitchen and go elsewhere in the house, often forgetting that they are cooking something-- so when I asked Ian to hold the ladder while I was cleaning out the front gutter (to avoid further flooding) and he said, "I'll just do it myself" I told him that climbing up on a long ladder is a "two-man job" and so we went outside and took turns cleaning out the gutter and holding the ladder and we tested out the clean gutter with the hose and everything seemed satisfactory-- a job well-done, without mishap-- so Ian went inside to take a nap and I got curious about the gutter above the back porch, and-- ignoring my own advice-- I carried the ladder to the backyard and up onto the deck, propped it against a corner high up on the house, climbed up, cleaned out the gutter, and then decided I could climb up a bit more and get on the roof and grab a few sticks, and that's when one end of the top of the ladder dislodged itself from the corner and started free-floating and I felt like the whole thing was going to topple and I was going to break my neck; I managed to grab the roof and right myself and climb down without injury, but I was scared shitless and angry with myself for not following my own advice.
The Dress: Revisited By a Morning Person
According to this article in Slate, morning people (larks) had a much better chance of seeing that black and blue dress that took the internet by storm as white and gold-- and I am a morning person and I see the dress as white and gold-- and this is probably because I'm exposed to much more natural light each day and less incandescent light (because I'm sleeping) and so I assume the dress is in a shadow (or something like that . . . read the article).
Be Like Jenson (Not Novak)
I'm a compact guy, so no more following around-- I'm going to hit a compact two-handed backhand . . . and I might even chip it with some backspin occasionally, like that Jenson Brooksby fellow (but what I'm certainly not going to do is try to emulate Novak Djokovich . . . that guy is Gumby).
The Return of the Greased Watermelon!
This morning my shoulder felt awful, my legs were sore, and I was still a little slick from the vaseline . . . which are all good things as this means that the Rutgers pool was open this season and we were able to have an end-of-the-season-greased-watermelon-rugby match; this one was the most epic ever-- we decided to end it at 2-2 and call it a tie (though both points the other team scored were cheesy-- one wide of the cone and both in shallow water, the watermelon tossed by a standing person-- our goals were much more beautiful) and here a couple of pics of the youngsters and oldsters who participated (mt younger son was away but my older son Alex was in there, and his buddy Luke, both defenders don't he soccer team).
Hurricane Ida Jersey Flood Pics
Here are some pics of the Hurrican Ida floodwaters in Highland Park and New Brunswick . . . pretty wild-- for two days, our house was riverside:
Route 18 in New Brunswick, closed and submerged
Donaldson Park basketball court-- kayakers can dunk!
Mark WG kayaking in sewage water
the Hyatt in New Brunswick
Cedar Lane sinkhole
more sinkhole
Donaldson the morning after
Rob was down there too . . .
the tent that prevented some water from completely submerging our basement
New Brunswick and floodwater reflections
Route 27 bridge
Donaldson park-- drone shot
Donaldson Park tennis courts, drone shot.
What Does the Fox Scream?
I thought that when our coffee maker broke, that was the perfect ending for this summer-- but it wasn't-- the perfect ending was a monster rain event that flooded our basement (and everyone else's basement in the vicinity) so I spent my last night of summer dragging furniture up the basement stairs; shop-vacuuming water from the basement floor; setting up a sump pump in the basement shower; building a tarp and whiteboard tent around a leaky basement window in a monsoon, and admiring the fact that my shed stayed bone dry because of the expert flooring and drainage system I constructed; some irony here-- earlier in the day, the kids and I did a massive deep clean of the house to surprise my wife when she arrived home from her first day of school-- we cleaned bathrooms and sorted shelves and vacuumed stairs and carpets and spun the kitchen table so the carpet wouldn't pop up . . . and the kids were cooperative and hard-working and my wife was duly impressed but it all came to naught, because the house got really dirty again because of the flood-- I'll provide pictures and more tomorrow, but now I've got to go to a birthday event-- but late last night, when the park was flooded and the eamimals had to roam the streets, I saw a couple fox strolling down our street and they started SCREAMING . . . apparently this is what they do-- and then I got up and went to work, while my wife and kids cleaned up from the flood-- my wife's school was canceled and my kids haven't started yet-- and now the park is still flooded and all the roads are closed, an epic way to start the school year.
A Perfectly Apropos Ending for This Summer (but a bit on the nose)
On my final day of summer (but my wife is reporting to work today) the coffee maker broke, which is the perfect end to this summer of lost and dying things.
Penultimate Day of Summer!
I've got to report to work on Thursday, and this is what I've done so far on my penultimate day of summer:
1) went to the dog park at 6:45 AM;
2) took a bus to Clark and assistant-coached a varsity scrimmage-- my son Alex started at left-back and played quite well
3) took a nap;
4) played tennis against a guy who is very similar to me in skill and blew a 4-1 lead and ending up losing in a tiebreaker when we were at 6-6
5) enjoyed a few beers and watched a totally entertaining and disgusting horror movie with Catherin and Ian, Slither.
New(ish) Car!
We picked up our 2018 Mazda CX-5 today from Open Road Honda, we were looking for a CR-V or a RAV4 but we got a great deal (after a lot of broody negotiating . . . fueled by long, hot soccer practices) because it was the end of the month and the Honda dealership was going to sell this car to a Mazda dealership so they could certify it (and it's kind of a weird blue color that doesn't look great online but is perfectly fine in person) and I'm proud to say this is the first car we've ever owned that isn't the base trim model!
Kids, Seinfeld, and Curb
My son and his friend Gary have a hypothesis: if you connect something in class to Seinfeld, your teacher will love you-- and it's generally been true for the two of them throughout high school; they also both love Curb Your Enthusiasm and they've been brainstorming possible Covid episodes-- Larry commenting on someone's below the nose mask-wearing; Larry avoiding someone who sneezed; Larry having to forego contact tracing because he's covering for one of Jeff's adulterous escapades; Larry getting kicked out by Susie for not wearing a mask . . . or perhaps for wearing a mask; Larry staring someone down who he thinks is lying about being vaccinated, etc.
Two Decent Movies You Probably Haven't Seen . . .
If you're sick of committing to another TV show (or get in trouble if you watch the "family" show when all members of the family are not present, e.g. Ted Lasso) here are a couple of highly-rated movies buried on Amazon Prime and Netflix:
1) Blow the Man Down . . . a taut, slightly ironic thriller reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' classic Fargo, but set Downeast in Maine, this one has some superb acting, predominantly by a cast of women that covers every age bracket;
No One Ever Told Me This Shit
Our washing machine stopped spinning last week and we couldn't figure out why, but a jovial Hispanic appliance wizard solved the problem in 10 minutes-- for $150 . . . so that's $900 an hour, no wonder he was so sanguine-- after calling our machine "a piece of junk," he used a screwdriver to pry open the front panel and my wife and I actually screamed "ahhhgh!" in unison-- and we meant: holy shit! this is where all the socks went!-- so apparently if you wash socks and underwear in a mixed load with a lot of water, they float to the top and spill out over the tub and impede the motor-- to her embarrassment and chagrin, Catherine's thong was wrapped around the tub and a drive belt-- so once we removed all the socks and underwear, the washer could spin again-- and easy fix-- and the jovial appliance wizard told us something I never heard: we should wash socks and underwear separately, with very little water-- how did I make it 51 years without learning that?
75% Doesn't Cut It
Three out of four times I use the sink, I remember that we have no sink-head on the hose-- our head clogged and died a week ago and we are waiting for a new one from Grohe-- so you have to be VERY careful with the amount of water pressure you use and you have to hold the hose while you rinse dishes . . . if you forget this, you will suffer from some weird property of hydrodynamics; the sink hose turns into a fire hose and shoots a strong stream of water directly at your stomach and crotch, utterly soaking you and the kitchen floor and cabinet-- and while I have often remembered to grip the hose and use the water carefully, there are enough times when I forget (like two minutes ago or last night) and I absolutely soak myself, to my family's delight.
Summer of Dying Things
Our Honda CR-V, our dishwasher, our sink head, our front porch railings, two of our bikes, and now the spin cycle on our washing machine . . . all these things have died this summer (but our buddy Joe rebuilt the front porch, with vinyl railings, so it will last; I replaced our dishwasher and I'm working on the sink hose and sink head; Catherine got a new bike and I'm waiting out the shortage but we've yet to buy a car or get the washer to work . . . this stuff needs to be in order when school starts!)
What Happens to Those Final Girls After the Movie Ends?
The new Grady Hendrix horror novel, The Final Girl Support Group, is both more surreal and meta than his previous novels but also more profound and serious-- the conceit of this fictional world is that the events depicted in the classic slasher flicks of the '80s and '90s actually happened-- Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc-- and then the stories were bought by film studios and made into movie franchises-- but the actual girls who survived these horrific events exist long after the slasher genre's popularity-- and these "final girls" have to deal with the trauma of their own lives, and the trauma of seeing their stories used as a disposable art form with (mostly) disposable women being murdered by monstrous men . . . and the book is also a thriller, with plot twists and wild violence and an unreliable narrator and interesting characters, but it's also a take on the objectification of women and the veneration of violence . . . nine axe-splintered doors out of ten.
All Kinds of Emotions, All Kinds of Screens
Last night our family went and saw Hasan Minhaj at the new NBPAC theater in New Brunswick-- he did ninety minutes of stand-up and storytelling, accompanied by some pertinent images and video on the big screen-- while the show was very funny, it was also sincere and confessional-- he described how obsessed he became with going after autocrats (after this incident when he criticized Saudi Arabia after the Khashoggi killing) because of the social media notoriety and how this eventually endangered his family and made him change his ways (somewhat) and there were also a lot of inside jokes directed at the almost entirely Indian audience-- he knew his crowd-- and then we went home and watched an especially emotional episode of Friday Night Lights . . . Riggins quits drinking and has a great game, Smash blows it with the recruiter, Saracen asks Coach's daughter out on a date, and Jason Street wheels himself out on the field at Homecoming . . . so we saw it all last night, in a variety of mediums.
Youth
This week at soccer we alternated three-hour practices with two-hour practices and despite this massive caloric expenditure, my younger son Ian gained seven pounds and grew an inch-- he's now the same height as me (or, as my wife claims, a shade taller-- so now I'm the third tallest person in our family of four).
Pool Tip
If you don't want to get water in your eyes when you're swimming laps, get some open water goggles-- they work much better than regular swim goggles.
Eat This Food!
Crumbly chorizo, delicious al pastor pork, tender carne asada, loaded sopes, thick fluffy gorditas, superb chicken mole, and a variety of tasty tamales . . . if you're anywhere near Highland Park, try the new authentic Mexican place, La Casita!
Sea Isle in a Weekend
Saturday morning, my older son Alex and I drove down to Sea Isle City to try to pack in a mini-vacation before high school soccer went into full swing (Ian couldn't come because he had too many jobs to do and Catherine is down there now) and the plan was to crash with our friends Saturday and Sunday night and then get up at 5:45 AM and drive back home for the timed mile at 9 AM-- these were ambitious plans that made me a bit nervous, but we managed it; we got in two days of beach and alcoholic beverages and skimboarding and skateboarding and boogie-boarding and cornhole and spikeball and impromptu musical jamming and the Tike Bar and LouDogs and Mike's Dog, etcetera and then got up early Monday and made it home for an epic 3-hour practice-- Alex survived the mile, he ran a 6:11 and the goal is to be under 6:15 and Ian-- who never runs unless he's playing a sport, ran an inspired 6:03 . . . but he did not do Sea Isle in a weekend, which may have helped his time (and Alex was out late for the first time with Dom and Nick, who are now college kids, so the times they are a'changing).
People Have Always Been Idiots . . .
Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Medieval World is a massive and comprehensive chronological overview of recorded history "from the conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade" and my main takeaways, amidst the many names, empires, governances and betrayals-- enough to put Game of Thrones to shame-- is that people were just as absurd back then as they are today: Theodosius tried to keep the Roman Empire united in 380 but all folks were concerned about was the Arian vs. the Nicene take on the divinity of Christ-- it rivalled Monty Python-- the bishop Gregory of Nyssa complained in a sermon that if you asked for some change from a "cloak salesman" they just want to bend your ear about whether the Father is greater and the son is subject to him, etc, etc, so even then people were concerned with ridiculous political and religious abstractions instead of the matter at hand . . . and I also learned that in the larger Roman cities, chariot racing was like stock car racing-- you rooted for a team, not an individual driver-- and the sponsors of that team, which were broken into symbolic colors: red, white, blue and green-- and these boosters-- like soccer hooligans-- hated each other with great zeal, which led to riots and great violence-- 3000 blues wre killed in a 501 AD riot in Constantinople over some chariot race results . . . and this was not uncommon.
Dave Heroically Drives 7.4 Miles (Round Trip)
I had to borrow my neighbor's car today to make it on time for my bloodwork appointment at LabCorp this morning-- another requirement of my turning-50-physical-- and not only do I get dizzy when I think about giving blood, but I was also fasting-- so I'm proud to say I did not crash, dent or otherwise damage the loaner.
Heat Related Memory Loss Miracle!
Folks reported they were on my face yesterday when I left the workshop, but I searched the car and the house and everywhere else high and low and my new Zenni specs were nowhere to be found-- until I checked the pocket of the sports bag and there they were! but why there? Why . . .
Middle School Kids Don't Need Nice Things
I actually did some work today-- the college writing team met up at the middle school, zoomed with our Rutgers liaison, and then planned out the year-- but my main concern was not pedagogical, my main concern was that the middle school has INCREDIBLE air-conditioning, it was so cold in there we had to take a walk outside . . . and this is absurd-- why do skinny little middle-school kids doing earth science need such excellent climate control while the larger high school kids doing AP Physics have to endure the heat (and the heat is coming, yuck).
My Sternum Hurts (But Our Dished Are Clean)
Yesterday, I removed a dead dishwasher and installed a new one-- and it works!-- but my sternum hurts (the same thing that happened to me when I surfed a bunch in Costa Rica) from lying on my stomach fiddling with plumbing and drainage hoses and hot water spigots . . . anyway, we're trying to get back to the same amount of possessions we had before bad luck and the pandemic supply chain screwed us over . . . but used car prices are still through the roof and there is still a bike shortage, so while we're back to saving water and doing less dishwashing related labor, we're still not back to normal transportation-wise.
More Bang for Your Butt?
I got my fifty-year-old physical this week and the doctor was really pushing the colonoscopy-- I asked him about pooping in a box but he said that's not as reliable and you have to do it every year-- while a colonoscopy is good for ten years and because of the prep, it is a "complete reset for your colon"-- yuck-- and then he drew some pictures that made me dizzy and said that of any procedure, the colonoscopy is "the most bang for your buck" and then-- and he was trying to be optimistic, but I found it disturbing-- he said, "we like to start them now at 45, so you get one at 45, 55, 65, 75 . . . and then you're done" . . . so four colonoscopies and then you get to die!
Ouch (Momentarily)
Just before my son and I were about to play tennis, a wasp (or a yellowjacket?) stung my ring finger-- and it really hurt-- but just for a minute and then it totally went away (and wasps don't leave their stingers behind) and I think this pain and suffering inspired me to hit some excellent forehands.
New (Old) Music
I rerecorded an old song of mine with my new DAW (Logic) and my new AI mastering software (Ozone) and the AI drummer that comes with Logic and the result is pretty good-- I wish I could find the old version to play them side-by-side, but I'm positive the end result wasn't as crisp and couldn't played as loud without distortion-- while I'm definitely down on most pop-technology, especially Facebook and Twitter, it's a great time for audio-- whether podcasts, your own music, or the stuff your friends make and immediately post (and you don't have to LOOK at audio, which is the best thing about it).
Yuck
After a lovely respite for vaccinated folks, mask-wearing is required again for all humans at the East Brunswick Library.
Sci-Fi Twofer Tuesday
I read two excellent sci-fi books recently, and they couldn't be more different in tone:
1) The Humans by Matt Haig is one of those "from-an-alien-perspective" stories that begins with ironic detachment-- wow, these humans are silly and they really can't handle technology and they're dangerous to themselves and the galaxy so we've got to deal with them-- but then, with the help of a dog, the humans start to win over the narrator and things get fun and romantic and profound and complicated . . . a compelling plot and great reminders of why humans are absurd and wonderful;
2) Moxlyland by Lauren Beukes is a cyberpunk novel of the near future set in CapeTown, South Africa . . . and the apartheid is between class, not race; the government and the media is complicit in this and very oppressive and powerful, in a revised Brave New World sort of way . . . I'll just put a few quotes up that I highlighted on my Kindle and you'll get the idea-- but warning, you don't want to read this if you're a vaccine-hesitant-conspiracy-theorist (or maybe you do . . .)
Don’t be fooled by the cosy apartment blocks lining the highway, it’s all Potemkin for the tourists.
Compared to what the corporates have done? >>10: What do you mean? >>skyward*: corrupting govts with their own agendas, politicians on their payroll, exacerbating the economic gaps. building social controls and access passes and electroshock pacifiers into the very technology we need to function day to day, so you’ve no choice but to accept the defuser in your phone or being barred from certain parts of the city because you don’t have clearance. you tell me how that compares to you hacking an adboard.
“Repeat. Do not be alarmed. The M7N1 Marburg variation is only fatal if you do NOT report to an immunity center for treatment within 48 hours. Repeat. It is NOT fatal if you present yourself promptly for vaccination treatment. Vaccination is 100% effective within three hours with minimal lasting side-effects.
Epic Stuff for Old People
I played a two hour plus tennis match today against my friend Cob-- I beat him handily in the first set, 6-1, but the second set kept going and going-- there were points that I was so winded that I didn't recover for the next three points-- and finally, when we were tied at 5-5, we decided to call it a tie and give up before we got hurt (and then, later in the day, I accompanied my wife to Home Depot!)
Back and Narcoleptic
We drove home from the beach today-- and on the way back we picked up Lola from the Barker Lounge-- and everyone was so tired from all the skimboarding, surfing, boogie-boarding, basketball, tennis, pickleball, frisbeer, cornhole, packing, unpacking, lugging of beach equipment to and fro, etc. etc. that most everyone in the house (including a very tired dog) took multiple naps (and Catherine was excited that a cashier complimented her on her tan).
The End of an Era . . .
Our favorite dive bar in Sea Isle, the Springfield, is no longer-- it's now an outdoor tiki bar-- and so our favorite cover band-- LeCompt-- now plays at The Oar House; we went over there Sunday night and while Catherine and I escaped the ten dollar cover charge because we arrived early-- we did not escape the crowds and the insanity; the place with jammed with very young people and the girls were all wearing halter-tops and no bra-- that is the look, whether your boobs support themselves or not-- and while it cleared out a bit between bands and a few older people wandered in, it was mainly a mass of young people; Cat and I snagged a spot at the bar, with my brother and Amy, but most of the cousins beat a hasty retreat when they saw the scene-- we could barely see the band from the bar-- we never realized what a great set-up the Springfield had (the band played inside the horseshoe shaped bar, elevated-- so everyone could see and it was in the round) and while Catherine did mosh her way to the front once, she said it was very gross and sweaty and she touched a lot of braless boobs (which of of wildly varying quality) and there were no dive bar drink specials-- a Bud Light was six bucks instead of two-- and for the first set, LeCompt just played the hits-- when we talked to him outside, after he overshared about his narcotic and alcohol recovery he told us he'd be playing the good stuff on Monday, outside, but that he had to play songs "for the kids" at this kind of show-- so that's it for the Springfield and the weird LeCompt shows where he would play all songs about rain (because it was raining) or all Who songs or just take requests written on napkins-- and while they sounded fine, it was more like hearing a good band in the distance-- we all decided we would not be back to see him there . . . but we'll find some other venue where the band can screw around more, but, sad to say, there was nothing like the Springfield and there may not be anything like it ever again.
Once Upon a Times
CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties is Tom O'Neill's twenty year investigation of the Manson murders and while it is a stupendous work of reporting and obsession (and O'Neill is the main character, not Manson or the sixties) the book is in the end, unsatisfying because O'Neill does such a good job of connecting the dots when he can and avoiding conspiracy theories when he can't-- but you will be certain at the end of the book that the "Helter Skelter" motivation of the murders is a gross oversimplification or perhaps a cover-up of something much more sinister; meanwhile, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's alternate history of the Manson murder timeline is as satisfying as Chaos is unsatisfying-- this is Tarantino's favorite trick, which he uses in both Django Unchained and Inglorious Bastards-- let's write history the way it should be, with the indignant rage and ultra-violence directed towards justice and new, better outcome; I recommend taking in both perspectives and remembering that we are just living in one particular timeline (and hopefully, it's not the darkest timeline).
In The Dark
When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom contains two weird novellas; in both stories, small-town life becomes even smaller-- the stories are macabre, full of plot holes, possibly allegorical, and oddly compelling-- and they will really stretch your empathy muscles and let you see from two very unique and very strange female perspectives-- a tunnel dwelling troglodyte of a mom and a lonely, dimwitted, traumatized old woman without a nose . . . and according to George R.R. Martin, this is the point of fiction: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . the man who never reads lives only one.”
OBFT XXVIII
The 28th annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip was yet again a great success, here are some things I remember:
1) Gormley and I crushed everyone at cornhole but the field was weak-- the lack of Jerry, Marston, and Old made a decided difference;
2) once Bruce and I made a plan, we took all comers at Frisbeer;
3) Bruce collected change for sixteen years in order to save money to buy a car for his kids to use-- and he did it-- but he won't let his kids use the car that he bought;
4) in a strange Tortuga's bar over/under we learned that nearly half of those present had "stolen corn" . . . from a cornfield;
5) I had a good time trying to keep up with Baldwin on his dobro style guitar . . . in the background I could hear Rob and Coby arguing politics;
6) the water was lovely and cool, the sand was hot, hot, hot;
7) we set up two canopies and had lots of beach time, despite the hot western wind, which picks up every day in the afternoon, according to Bruce (and empirical observation)
8) we mainly drank Guinness, Red Stripe, Truly, Pacifico, and peachie-weechies;
9) Ethan proffered much knowledge on environmental issues in Florida;
10) we played QB54 and Bruce didn't like it;
11) Charlie cooked up a storm of seared tuna and shrimp;
12) we were shushed at the bar at Tortuga's by some youngish bartender;
13) jokes were told, but they are not to be repeated;
14) Swaney fell down the steps to the shower, but didn't break his hip-- just suffered a few scrapes;
15) a good time was had by all, thanks again for hosting Whit, job well done!
Knee Stuff
I went to the knee doctor (Dr. Kinshasas Morton . . . who I also visited ten years ago!) but this time it was for my right knee and it seems I have "patellofemoral pain syndrome/chondromalacia patella," which isn't so bad-- it means my kneecap goes out of the groove and occasionally rubs against the bone on the outside of my knee-- so I have to do some exercises and wear a sleeve knee brace-- which has worked wonders . . . and I went to the gym today and ran an 8-minute mile on the treadmill-- which at my age is some indicator of heart health, and while I worked up a sweat doing it, it wasn't all that bad and my knee held up without any pain, so while I might not have the bee's knees, I at least have ant knees or some slightly lesser insect's knees.
What Are the Chances? Fuhgetaboutit . . .
I wish I was holed up in a taverna in Italy today-- how often does a nation have finalists in Wimbledon and the Euro Cup . . . on the same day?
Somebody Had to Write It
Though it's weird, trippy, and evocative-- with Vietnam flashbacks and spooky black magic in equal measure-- Herman Raucher's novel Maynard's House mainly explores this conceit:
what if Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, but his house was haunted by evil succubi and witchery?
Poker, I Don't Even Know Her . . .
My son Alex and I both read Maria Konnikova's The Biggest Bluff-- and it inspired us to play some poker-- her story is compelling and inspirational, as she goes from not knowing how many cards are in the deck to competing on the world circuit (in a year's time) but be warned-- she's very very smart and has a world class coach (Eric Seidel) and so while her lessons are universal-- the subtitle of the book is "How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win"-- and she also has some specific tips about playing poker-- her main metaphor is to be a good poker player you've got to simultaneously be a detective and a storyteller-- BUT if you really want to know what it takes to succeed on the poker tour you've got to get real and read Phil Gordon's Little Gold Book : Advanced Lessons for Mastering Poker 2. 0 and this will lend a dose of reality to your dreams of becoming a pro-- range vs. range, combinatorics, variance, bankrolls, pot odds, PioSOLVER and HUDS, Game Theory Optimal, etcetera . . . poker competition is fierce and the fish are scarce now-- which makes Konnikova's story all the more impressive.
An Epic Hike and an Epic Ride to End an Epic Trip . . . But It Had to be the Shoes
It rained some on Sunday, but we were able to take a nice hike with the dog along the old narrow-gauge railroad tracks in Sullivan . . .
and then our last full day down east was a beauty-- 46 degrees in the early morning, slowly rising to a high of 71-- so we got up early and headed back to Acadia for one last epic and precarious hike-- the Dorr Mountain Ladder Trail . . . I highly recommend this hike but get there early, as the roadside parking fills up by ten AM; the hike was made even more precarious because of the heavy rain the night before-- we were essentially hiking up a waterfall of stone stairs-- so you really had to watch your step, but it was worth it, for the views and the interesting terrain . . .
the trail was built from 1913 to 1916 and it's a feat of mountainside engineering-- it may be one of the best hikes in the world, in terms of bang for your buck, views, instant gratification, and lack of tedium;
every turn is something new and interesting;
and you get up really high in a fast fashion
and there are blueberries at the top of Dorr Mountain
coming down wasn't quite as treacherous, but there were still some slippery sections
but it was obviously worth it-- this hike is far less crowded and far more shaded than the Beehive and offers even better vistas;
after the hike, we went to the quaint and uncrowded town of Ellsworth and had delicious burritos at 86 This . . . definitely quieter and cheaper than Bar Harbor, and then we headed back to the place for some final round of cornhole, some final soaks in the hot tub, and the big pack up so that we could get started at 6 AM on Tuesday morning . . . and everyone did a fantastic job packing up and we actually got driving at 6:16 AM on Tuesday morning-- so we'd be home in time to watch Italy play Spain, but best-laid plans, an hour-and-a-half down the road, Catherine yelled "the shoe bags!" and we all realized that we had left all our footwear hanging behind the door of the place-- and it was a LOT of footwear: running shoes and tennis shoes and hiking boots and sandals-- a few hundred dollars worth of shoes-- just enough that we had to turn around and drive back, perhaps adding three hours to our 8-hour drive . . . so we drove back, Lola got out, confused, and peed, and we got the shoes and piled back in-- but we didn't realize that now we would be headed into the teeth of Connecticut and NYC traffic AND a monster thunderstorm . . . so after several Joe Rogan podcasts (and an interesting story about Chippendale's called Welcome to Your Fantasy) we arrived home at 7:45 PM . . . over thirteen hours in the car-- Lola was a hero-- she never threw up or whined, and Catherine did a great job driving through the storm on our way to the George Washington bridge-- there was lots of flying garbage!-- and it was an epic end to an epic trip . . . perhaps one of our last true fmaily only vacations, as the kids are getting older and now have to start summer employment and all that-- and as a final treat, Italy beat Spain in PKs . . . and I never learned the score so I was able to watch the game and pretend we made it home at the right time.
The Auctioneer: A Good Book for Independence Day
The Auctioneer was a brief bestseller in1975 and then promptly forgotten-- perhaps because the youngish author, Joan Samson, soon after died of cancer-- but it's been reissued (with a Grady Hendrix intro) and it's more appropriate than ever; it's about Harlowe-- a small town in New Hampshire experiencing change-- there was a back-to-the - movement in the 60s and 70s that brought new people and culture to rural America, city slickers . . . and the city slicker in this novel is a menacing, Trump-like auctioneer who becomes very close with the chief of police . . . and then bad things start to happen, very bad things; it's allegorical like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and the prose is spare like later Cormac McCarthy books; it's the opposite of Jack Ketchum's Off Season-- which is about not messing with the locals-- in this book, the locals are messed with and messed with, not unlike what's happened in current rural America-- and there's eventually going to be some sort of falling out and it might be liberating but it also might be ugly.
Baby Seals Conquer Dave Jones' Locker
We got up early this morning-- and it was COLD-- and we headed a few minutes up the road to Hancock Point Kayak Tours, which is an old coot named Antoine's house . . . Ant, as he is called, is a Master Sea Kayak guide and he really knows his stuff . . . but he does not fool around during the safety discussion; our family was joined by another group of four-- two moms and their respective kids-- and Ant got right down to business: he explained the sequence of steps required to enable the red DISTRESS button on his radio-- which he keeps in his pocket because in 2016 a Maine kayak guide and one of the folks on his tour drowned and died-- and so he just wanted to get the worst-case scenario out of the way . . . if he drowned and died and we were able to latch onto his hypothermic corpse, we could then grab the radio out of his front pocket and call for help . . . and then he went right into the protocol for if you make a grave error and flip the kayak and need to pull your spray skirt loose and get yourself out from under the boat . . . my family found the grim start to his talk kind of amusing but it made one of the mom's very nervous-- she asked how often this sort of stuff happened and she looked and sounded quite anxious-- and we found out this was for good reason; she was a widow-- and her son was only fourteen-- and she had a rough time during COVID as a single mom with two teenagers-- and in 2018 her cousin-- A Norfolk Academy/William and Mary guy that some of my friends knew-- drowned in a riptide trying to swim out to his daughter-- so Ant's speech probably unnerved her a bit, but it turned out that the double sea kayaks were very stable-- Catherine and I managed to steer ours fairly proficiently, and Alex and Ian were such quick paddlers that they had to continually be called back to the group; we took a trip to Bean Island and then to the rocky shoals beyondy, which were full of seals-- so everyone had a fantastic time, despite the cold weather-- and then. just when it couldn't get any more scenic, we saw a couple baby seals on the rocks and needless to say, they were very very cute . . . cute enough to erase any memories of the rather dark safety speech that began the journey.
The Other Side of Acadia
The Schoodic Peninsula side of Acadia National Park reminds me of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon: equally scenic but more desolate and exponentially less crowded-- we took an excellent green and mossy hike to the top of Schoodic Mountain and explored some of the cliffs and tidepools at Schoodic Point . . . and then we had the best (and cheapest) food on the trip at Downeast Mexican . . . the place started as a food truck that fed the migrant blueberry-pickers but the food was so good that they made a year-round endeavor out of it; both the Schoodic Peninsula and the Mexican joint are highly recommended if you ever make your way to Bar Harbor.
blueberries!
Dave = Winner
Another hot day in Maine, so we didn't do any epic hikes-- instead, we explored the peninsulas and beaches in Hancock and Sorrento-- and ate lobster rolls from a roadside shack-- and then headed back to our place to play some games . . . and I took the triple crown: winning at Scrabble, a five-dollar Texas Hold'em tourney, and finally beating my son Ian in a game of cornhole-- he's been killing me lately (since he adopted the method).
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