Studentisms

Some oldies but goodies from the Walnut days:

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Studentisms

"Nyet is fun, his teaching is fun. He has a lot of math game."

"I was a goth, but I was a happy goth."

"You're like - Negative Minus."(A failed attempt at saying everything I touch turns to lead)

"Wait, hold on - is this word spellt right?"

"Alright, who can tell me who invented the Cartesian coordinate system?"
"Was it Darwin?"

"Ugh! This homework is too hard! It's making me... um, it's making me, just, sad."
"Well, there is no happiness without sadness. So really, I'm doing you a favor. "
"What?"
"You're welcome."

"Why can't I just divide (1 - cos x) by (1 + cos x)? and just have the 1's and the cosines cancel?"
"Because that's wrong. It would be like saying 1-3 divided by 1+3 is 1. "
"It isn't?"
"Why no, no it isn't."
"Oh, I get it. Because if you could do that, then everything would be one."
"Yes. Only math stands between you and enlightenment."
Blank stare.
"I think that joke just went over your heads, bounced off the back wall and went over your heads again."
Other student: "No, I got it. I think I got it. It's like... wait. Did I get it?"

"But I don't want to stay and do homework. I want to leave early for lunch!"
"Desire is the root of all suffering."
"Oh... is that from the Bible?"

"Everybody came back from break looking all Mexican."

"Zero. No wait. Negative... zero. "

"I didn't do the homework last night. I had a late rehearsal. And I was really tired. And, um, I, um... my calculator wasn't working."
"You know what that sounds like?"
"What?"
"Your problem."
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Hmmm... perhaps I shouldn't be permitted to interact with the youth.

Just Because the Rhythm is Slow...

A good thing from today: I finally found an mp3 copy of Prince Fleaswallow's Rap from the video game Parappa the Rappa. We used to rock out to this video game at Lovett 509 at Rice with Jason and Will, the parappa master. It's basically a rhythm game; you tap buttons on the controller in rhythm with the music and your little psychedelic dog character raps. Sounds dumb, but it's transcendentally awesome- and besides the game, the song is awesome - a real slowed down, drawling reggae rap done by a pimp frog. But why describe with words when I can SHOW YOU:



So you can see why I've been scouring the web for this fantastic nostalgia-laden work of art. Sweetness! One more thing checked of ye olde to-do list.

This to some degree makes up for an otherwise lackluster day which I started by driving through snow for two hours only to once again learn that my students had not done their work. Beearg. I read them the riot act today; I believe the phrase "get your act together" was used.

Otherwise, just another slow day /night / teach /tutor chalk up today. Beck got home late and we watched last week's episode of Lost.

He walks among us, but he is not one of us.

In lieu of more meaningful but due to my tiredness probably downward sloping talk, I will leave you with another Muppet Show clip -there's going to be a lot of these in the coming days - of Beaker singing "Feelings."

S-A-TUR-DAY!!!!

Another beautiful, sunny February day in Grafton., I would post a picture, but since in our infinite technological wisdom we have not yet invented feel-o-vision, you would be robbed of the sensation of having wind tear icy flesh from your bones. I wouldn't want to give you an incomplete experience. On a related note, THANKS A LOT Sparkle and Wrigley.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this yesterday, but Frank got funding for Illinois - HUZZAH! Congrats, cuz.

I spent the morning huddled up in the study and writing this review of Moneyball. Enjoy!

I am now waiting for the Princess iF to wake up so we can go to the gym before embarking on our journey downtown to rake in cash hand over fist in a Searl Family Poker game. So while we're sitting here in the studious gloaming...

It's not the like the week ended on President's Day, but oh that it would have. Beck's been in the ER all week from 10-11 or 12 every night, so we've been living a night and day existence. Fun! And I've been slowly recovering from a cold, which has absolutely no relation to the whole not sleeping and drinking game we played this past weekend. None.

So class has been okay, though disheartening. And there have been other wacky events taking place at school, like all of my advisees floundering, students getting expelled, DC'd, leaving for depression-related reasons - all in all, not an uplifting scene. But we've dredged a little knowledge in SASI on the way through - cool activities and class and a test this week, you can check the SASI link at the right for more details.

The highlight of the week was being rescued by Ali on Thrusday - she called up b/c she knew Beck would be absent all night. So I headed over there and we hung out and reminisced on the perils of childhood - good convo. Good times! And then Ben got home and we talked about his new entrepreneurial life. Exciting times in the GrinGoatverse; if we end up leaving this frozen coil next year, I'm going to miss them a lot. As if it weren't enough to keep me company on a wintry beckless night, Ben-Ali found out about my job offer - did I mention I got observed in class on Wednesday and flat out offered a full time job for next year? Something's going right - and took me out to dinner at Cancun's or whatever that Mexican place is around the corner. That's three times in 2 weeks! I think if I am not careful, I am going to soundly test my dad's racially / culturally (potentially) insensitive theory that "Tacos make you fat." (though he is a pediatrician in SA and probably has a sizable sample for such observations). And yes, they still yell loudly "AMIGOS!" at the place in a way that is so ironic it sounds sincere. Regardless, MUCHAS GRACIAS A MI AMIGOS Ben & Ali PORQUE ELLOS SON AMIGOS VERDADEROS. That was very sweet of y'all.

Otherwise, not a lot. I've been watching a Robert Altman film called The Player in pieces this past week and I just started a very cool book called US Guys by Charlie LeDuff that I heard about on NPR's On Point. (That link has the radio show; I highly recommend it). Actually, the main reason I checked the book out from the library is because the guy just seemed so damn cool on the radio - people were calling in and asking for advice and his just sounded like a guru of the real. The book thus far is tres bien; he essentially is visiting American men in a variety of contexts and inserting himself Hunter S. Thompson style in their stories and lives. I will definitely give it the full treatment when I finish.

That's it; I think I will put up a second post here with some cool links I've seen this week.

Friday Night Lites

And that is why the Lebowski gets a 95.

The Walnut Hill Teacherati met at Vinny T's for our TAW cocktail hour last night. It was a small enclosed space, the food wasn't very good and there was a very loud band playing, among other things, Dylan covers of questionable quality. On the plus side, they were serving gallon-sized glasses of Sam Adams beer, of which I had two. I also got to introduce The Beck to the wide cast of characters that she has been hearing about, the absolute highlight of which was when Anne, a fellow math teacher, introduced Ellie by saying "She's English." Mass confusion over her country of origin and a bevy of win one for the motherland jokes ensued. In no particular order, the cast of characters for the Vinny T's portion of the evening included:

Stephanie, Julie, Matthew, Tom, Meredith, Jim, Kathy, Ben, Lindsey, Anne, Ellie, Jon, Antonio, Andy, Leslie, Rory, Jay, Diane, Teresa...

Notably no Corin or Anne. Boo-urns!

But that was the lame part of the evening, relatively speaking, so on to the... wait for it, wait for it... LANE part of the evening! We met Gina at Fairway Lanes, a craptastic candlepin bowling alley on Route 9 a whopping 50 yards from Vinny T's. And we candlepin bowled for an hour after everyone had gotten mildly buzzed at VT's. As you can imagine, our rowdy behavior was not condoned by the serious league bowlers there. We rebutted by pointing out that they were serious league candlepin bowlers.

Candlepin bowling, as you may or may not be aware, is an insanely ridiculous sport. If there is a correlation between skill and score, it escapes all empirical detection. I am lying, of course, but there is so much going against the player - the stupid ball is barely above bocce on the bowling ball spectrum, the pins are skinny as hell, plus it's usually played after drinking at Vinny T's - that scores come out randomly. Basically the only thing you can really control is not hitting the gutters, and maybe occasionally picking up one pin spares.*

*(At one point Ellie had only the 10 pin standing for a spare attempt. Another pin was lying in the gutter right next to it - you don't clear the felled pins in candlepin - so hitting the guuer on the right practically would have guaranteed knocking down the 10 pin. So we were encouraging Ellie just to roll it as hard as possible at the right gutter - and Andy chimes in, "No, don't hit the gutter, hit the pin!" Oh, hit the pin! I thought I was listening to Joe Morgan sports commentary for a second there!)

So anyways, massive amounts of fun - Antonio flamingo danced, Rory threw very softly and I basically tried to destroy everything in my path - people repeatedly said things like "the pins are not your students," etc. Jone, Kathy and Ellie turned out to be the best bowlers, but I am positive that any decent level of Clickian analysis would quickly reveal this to be bell curve action.

So a fun time was had by all - and perhaps my favorite moment was when Kathy Liu, our science dept. head (and one of my bosses) rolled a guttar ball and I calmly told her, "Don't worry, Kathy, they're not saying boo, they're saying Liuuuuuuuuuuu."

I felt like Peyton Manning.

4000 Holes in Natick, Massachussetts

Woke up this morning around 4:15 AM (which have been doing a lot lately) unable to sleep. Lay there in bed for an hour and a quarter until alarm went off and got out of bed and ate breakfast, a bowl of oatmeal (three packs Quaker instant, on sale) and a glass of milk. Read some junk online, then eventually showered, dried off and just let hair sit there. Tip-toed around the one story apartment trying to let Beck sleep, grabbed soda to jump start the day but had been a little slow in getting ready; the clock now read 6:40 - had to be at school by 7:30 to tutor. No problem; usually a 40 minute drive. Grabbed coat and eschewed hat (hair being in perfect just so composition) and made it out to warming up Honda in no time. Sat up in the seat and pulled back through the exhaust-filled driveway; 96.9 played talk radio and I faded into the morning commute...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Got stuck behind a bus en route so getting there took 55 instead of 40. D'oh. Was a tad late for tutoring, but 'twas a more or less fruitless endeavor anyways; domains and ranges and simplifying radicals = too much (especially 30 minutes before test). Ran into a couple of colleagues between tutoring and 8:00; discussed bowling tonight after the soirée at Vinny T's. Taught hour and a half class on utility; went fairly well.

Headed downstairs to grab coffee and mail; there are apples in our mailboxes for Teacher Appreciation Week, and a lot of the (funny) fellow teachers have put their apples in mine, so it looks like I am a well-kissed-up-to teacher or a victim of prank. Talked to Ben in the faculty lounge for about 10 minutes about my class. He has good ideas about focusing the scope and not just repeatedly emphasizing how confusing it all is; he's an experienced teacher and more importantly I trust his judgment. Told jokes about our students and classes; steam-blowing may be the primary function of the lounge. Can't remember if I told him about the bowling (probably did), but he has two children under three anyways (probably won't come).

Headed back upstairs and entered my attendance, checked school e-mail and wrote up today's entry for SASI class. Julie (dean) stopped by; we talked about Marc. Finished up my blog work and headed to Lindsey's science class to help students with a microscope lab (intestinal cells). Quizzed Paula and others on miscellaneous biological facts, most human. Imparted to them wisdom that key to learning biology is assuming that things make sense - even though they occasionally don't, this concept saves time and makes things easier to remember. Saw Cooper and asked him about his test yesterday; he thinks it went well. Headed out and said adios.

Walked laps around the two floors reminding everyone about tonight's candlepin bowling; gave several hard sells (we'll see). Got pulled aside by Anne to discuss Arianna's test. She (Anne) is worried. Stopped by the faculty lounge again and joked around with a group of peers.

Headed back upstairs (again); Arianna stopped by to say her test went okay, but ended up talking mainly about her trouble with English. An emotional matter, but one she has hopefully learned from.

Stopped by Meredith's office on my way out of the school; discussed a shlew of students, showed her online pictures of the dogs and a student came in and discussed his/her 320 dollar shoes, sans ironic wink.

12:30, so drove home.

Blessed are the Northeasterners, for theirs is the name Beck

Oh man oh man oh man. Got up early early to eat breakfast and dig my car out of the snow, but my landlord had (yay!) plowed our driveway and (boo!) buried my car in a small Himalayan. The temperature this morning was hovering around 11 Fahrenheit; that combined with the freezing rain that coated the snow last night rendered the whole Honda-snowpile construct something of a icicle sculpture. SO I dug at the wheels, to little or no avail. I even tried to gun it out, only to flood the air with the stench of burning rubber. Yikes.

Thank goodness for Beckness - she came out with boiling water, salt, and we shoveled and hammered and chipped at the snow and more or less power blasted the car through the drift until it came to a rest in the plowed part of the driveway. After making sure Beck's car was good to go, I headed inside to see the clock read 7:43. I had to be at school, 45 minutes away on a good, non snow-encrusted road day, by 9:30. I had yet to shower or shave.

Power shower shaving spectacle and 20 minutes later, I left the house to join the absolute freaking masses on the Mass roadways. I got to route 9, 17 minutes on a good day, at 8:35. Dios mio. And the road to Natick was a traffic-stuffed one - stop and go, and I didn't get to the Natick mall until 9:15. Egads. Basically pulled into school in the nick of time, but was literally setting bags down in the corner as class began; no bathroom or coffee or anything. Woe. But we managed to scrape out a good day - we discussed the pitfalls of ad hoc reasoning and started to examine utilitarian ethics in SASI, attended a dumb assembly, tutored some algebra II (domain and range, the bane of the graphically-challenged) and proctored a bio test. Knuckles cracked, I turned around and headed home on much less crowded and much less snowful roads. (I called Dan, Rice bud and groom's party member who is theoretically in town, but he did not answer).

So I'm back in the study saddle here after a quick wrestling match with the dogs (I won, though in their defense I outweigh them together(!) by about 140 lbs. Plus, you know, thumbs). And I'm remembering that I owe the reading public some tidbits...

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis: 67

This book's strengths lay outside of what the bulk of it covered. Michael Lewis's historical tracing of the passing game in football, most notably the "West Coast Offense," was great, and the game of personnel counter-attacks as he traced it from Lawrence Taylor to new offensive schemes to the left tackle's rise in prominence was a fantastic read. Unfortunately, those things comprised about 20 percent of the book - the vast majority was spent documenting the life of Michael Oher, a left-tackle prospect from the urban wasteland of West Memphis, and his rise to a sure-to-be prosperous prospect via the Briarcrest private school football team and his contact with a wealthy white family of Ole Miss alums. Michael's story is extremely endearing, and a lot of the things it reveals about learning styles, ability, the importance of education and the dangers of IQ tests (and the labels that come with them) were spot on and poignant. But his rags to future riches story ultimately rang hollow for me - he was TOO good, he was too much a pure victim of circumstance, just a fantastic beacon of human being who if ONLY.. GIVEN... A CHANCE... in short, Michael Lewis (whose writing and storytelling ability were enchanting) just ended up seeming severely one-sided, and given that some of his main characters were accused of impropriety by the NCAA, AND given that the family were friends of the author, i think his party line defense of them is suspect, true or not. In other words, Michael's story, for all of its past tense woes, was too happy, smooth and convenient. Even his traumatic smashing of a three year old boy was passed off as an afterthought. So an almost very good book - again, the actual football analysis outside of the Hallmark card story was great, so i am very much looking forward to reading Moneyball soon.

I also read...

Howl - Annotated Manuscripts (50th Anniversay Edition) by Allen Ginsberg: 94

Howl is most amazing to me on the front that it is actually a beat take on a theme that was echoed and echoed throughout the 20th century and one that continues to echo into the postmodern today: alienation in modernity. Metropolis and Modern Times and Brave New World, all made / published in the 1920s / 30s, all look at the mechanized now and scream at how it dehumanizes us. But while these films juxtapose modern man with his more natural (or savage) counterparts, and expose the ugly gears in the machine, Ginsberg takes the story a step further - it's achingly personal, it's vulgar (and/or obscene, depending who you ask), debasing, torturous, godawful and hellish - it's the "Beat"ific "beat" down, rendered nothing in the wake of culture-at-large's wheels.

(For your convenience, here is Howl Parts I-III, and here is the Howl's Footnote)

I found several thing awesome and inspiring specifically about the poem in this annotated form - one, you see the work as an evolving thing, and gain insight into just what a work of craftsmanship this was. Words, syllables, rhythms, moods, themes, symbols, all painstakingly placed. The structure alone is brilliant, but seeing its behind the curtain enactment brought a whole new clarity. Two, a major accomplishment of the poem is its bridging ability - the epic poem form laced with the language (and content) of modern times, forcing a constant recollection of classicism past while existing in the present. Even though the poem is entirely modern (and its style largely building upon experimentation done by Modernists like William Carlos Williams), it manages to instill the present with a bigger than here sense - a big part of the power of this poem does in fact lie in its thrusting of the profane into the exalted epic form. Three, I was amazed to learn how much of the poem is culled from stories, anecdotes, homages, allusions and plain liftings from the members and the works of the Beat generation. What seems like overwhelmingly imaginative imagery turns out in large part to be event reporting. Amazing, and it lends me to the power of the celebrity, even within the small circle of 1950s poetry - the concept of "Beat" turns out to focus upon this incestuous circle of characters - Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady, Burroughs, to name a few - and the events that dotted their lives. Which on the one hand makes me jealous as all hell and wanting such a romantic, artistic life, but on the other hand reminds me that this art required a fair amount of low-level and sub-pleasant existence (street-begging, hitchhiking, EST and insulin-induced comas, not to mention the heroin and worse) to foster its creation.

Great poem, and a great book in which to read it - I highly recommend this seminal work.

And, in further reward for having read this far, I give you: more!

But in a new post...

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Butterfinger and Oreo

Blizzard.

Got up at 5:20 this morning in anticipation of a lot of scraping and shoveling out of the driveway - but luckily at 5:55 the head of the math dept. called. SNOW DAY!

Beck and I heartily made it to the gym at about 6:30 despite the ice and got a workout in. We rule! And then I had a whole lotta nothing to do, so I taught myself a song on the guitar (Led Zep's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"), read the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg in a 50th anniversary edition that collects all of the manuscripts, traces the creation of the poem and fully annotates all of the verses. That was very cool; I will hit on that more tomorrow.

I also wrote a review of Baseball Between the Numbers for your reading pleasure. It's actually more of a summary and a way to remind myself of the answers to the various questions in the book, but the summary does a nice job of giving the Cliff's Notes version.

I *was* going to end the fun snow day by watching Lost with beck, but she has crashed into bed, so I will save that for video tomorrow. So I will cap off a day of relaxing and reading by reading in bed - wooha! Speaking of reading, I had intended to review The Blind Side here, but I will save that for tomorrow as well.

Speaking of eating, though, here's a classic clip to give you sweet dreams. Good night!

Good "PR"

I'm not going to improve upon the comment that I read about this video earlier today, so I won't even try. Here is this year's entry for the PR Award, aka the Pete Rose Award, and if you know why we're calling it that, then you know:



Not much happening in the Nyetverse today - it's Teacher Appreciation Week, which means little more than a bunch of random markered up posters plastered all over the hallways and a breakfast spread in the faculty lounge. Plus, we get to go to Vinny T's this Friday for appetizers and beer / wine, but we are NOT allowed to bring our Pippen/Jordans. The financial wranglings of educational institution continues to baffle me. On the plus side, the cooler members of the faculty are going candle-pin bowling after the brouhaha, so that will be sweet.

Last night we (iF, Grin, SWAT-Goat* and I) hit up a new Mexican place around the corner. And it was good. Greasy style Tex-mex, a little bit, and the salsa was watered downa dn the margaritas not salty enough, but aside from that, excellent. I had a gigantic plate with lots of beans, cheese and rice. Excellente.

* - Speaking of the SWAT-Goat, Beck's car was still in the shop as of this AM, so I took the train into Natick. When I took it back today, Ali was nice enough to let me borrow her Accord so I didn't have to walk home the 5 miles from the train station. Holla Girl. And for the record, the reason that "Prettiest" (for this entry only) is becoming "Specialest Weaponest Andest Tactickest" is that Ali, finding herself locked out of her apartment in the cold, kicked her door in. Destroyed the lock and everything (though the bolt is still in place). I saw the boot used; it's large and in charge. And given the great success of Ali's hit comedy "That's Ali!," we're pretty sure that she has the star-power to launch a secondary Action-Drama called "SWAT-Goat," which if nothing else will feature a Heidi-cam from-inside-the-apartment shot of Ali busting in her door as its intro. Heidi, incidentally, is her dog.

And lest I forget to mention it, Benjamin shared a story in which he won $17.45 on a one dollar bet and then promptly lost $45 later that night on a hand of poker. Reno, NV, is dangerous.

S0 a good weekend - Beck and I chilled for a lot of it, and took in a fair number of Weeds episodes, a show that is fast becoming awesome. I also finished Baseball Between the Numbers and am well on my way (40 pages left) to finishing Michael Lewis's The Blind Side. Reviews will follow.

That's it until inspiration strikes...

Women, Wallace, and Wow

The iF* and I headed down to the Nut on Friday night to watch a pair of one-act student productions, an actor-vehicle tour de force called "Women and Wallace" and a test-anxiety comedy called "This is a Test."For some reason my addled brain thought the shows started at 7, so when Beck got home from the clinic we rushed down there and grabbed Chili's, only to discover we had an hour to kill... so we drove over to Wellesley and drank a coffee at Peet's. Solid. Headed back to the Black Box Theater at The Nut, a side stage and intimate performance setting adjacent to the auditorium proper. After introducing Beck to a few miscellaneous parents (Grace's) and teachers (Madames Sand and Wilson, our French dept. extraordinaire), we sat down in the front row of the stadium seated Black Box to take in some culture. Remember that we were in the front row, because this means we were often 3 feet and never more than 15 feet away from the action. The action.

*(I am jumping on Karen's suggestion that Beck gets a reprieve from her more ferrous-based nickname and temporarily gets to join her family in the iNickname department as iFiancee. Last night we tried to think of a way she could maintain this nickname after a certain significant date, and she tried to pull something like "WiFe." Not only does this odd nickname looks like a chemical equation for a metal video-gaming system (Wii Fe), it also would have to be pronounced "WeeFay," which just makes her sound like a Borat line, like "Doo yu lyke my WeeFay? She's berry nice, berry nice." In other words, enjoy "iF" while it lasts).

My advisee Jon is playing the lead role of Wallace in WaW, the play directed by my awesome student and generally seventh level human being Danielle. I had heard that Jon was very talented, and all my jokes about ladies love cool jones yesterday aside, this guy around campus is the real LL Cool J. To say the very least, the guy owns the rumors. Jon is just amazing; this role bounces around a lot between intensity and sorrow, insecurity, weakness, reckless boldness, snide anger and comedy, and Jon nailed all aspects. Beck and I talked about the fact that some actors are very good but are obviously trying very hard; Jon is great, butter and natural as can be. I can't say enough great things about him as an actor - he was fantastic, an oddly enough, against the backdrop of an intense performance and often dark dramatic role, his top notch comedic timing stood out. I normally eschew giving people's full names here for all the obvious Sign-O-The-Times reasons, but Jon Victor - keep an eye out for this guy, he has got "It" in a big way.

So the stage is very small, minimalist set with chairs lining both sides of the room and a set of black-painted boxes in the middle that in typical minimalist fashion served multiple roles in the play - couch, coffee table, bed, park bench, etc. The play is framed by a number of pieces written and delivered in monologue by the lead Wallace. It starts with Wallace as a six year old delivering an ode to his mother and her peanut butter and banana sandwich making ability; Jon is enthralled by his mother, a small but vital role played by the otherworldly striking Britton. Wallace leaves for school on top of the world, but in a scene that made my heart plummet runaway elevator style (Britton and Danielle did an incredible job with this, the lighting, blocking and timing all conspired to deliver an emotional gut punch that set the tone for the entire show), Wallace's mother commits suicide with a kitchen knife. Wallace returns home from school that day to find his mother lying on the floor and a suicide note that reads "cremate the parasite." His life is set in motion. But during the scene change, mom does not exit stage left, but sits in the shadows on the left side of the stage. All of the women who Wallace encounters in his life, actually, do not exit the stage but sit on its side, serving as physical reminders of Wallace's path. Very cool blocking touch.

The remainder of the show consists of Wallace's attempts to deal with this traumatic jolt to his childhood and specifically with how his mother's death affects his relationships with women. And only women; Wallace is the only actualized male character in the play (though his father is referenced occasionally). The play traces these relationships - the first is a classic lunch-trading encounter a few days after his mother's suicide; the bubbly schoolgirl Victoria, played over-the-top to perfection by Sophie, has all the natural curiosity about boys and kissing and Wallace's mom's suicide that you would expect, but Wallace is a far cry from handling this. Actually, his lack of ability to handle it seems barely different from any 6 year old boy's ability to handle a member of the opposite sex; this scene was endearing in its subtle portrayal of the fact that other than some overt observations made by Wallace about his dad NOT disappearing after making him a sandwich, Wallace isn't really capable of manifesting the trauma yet, nor does he grasp what has happened. Their encounter ends in hilarious "Cooties!" fashion, and it is notably Wallace who rejects the advance.

We also see Wallace with his grandmother, a recurring character sharply played in highly stereotypical Jewish fashion by Alexa. This is another example of the height of performance that is the norm at the Nut; "stereotypically Jewish fashion" sounds like a dig, and at 99% of high school plays, it would be. But Alexa draped the role with subtle asides , touches, and snappy timing that made the role not only uproariously funny, but touching as well. She's Wallace's surrogate mother, and serves as his home base for questions and attempts to deal with his own life story; she also notably tempers Wallace's fickle temper with ease. She pops up again and again throughout the play and serves to ground the lead character, but manages to do so in a decidedly un-afterschool special fashion. She, too, was great, and her use of real-props - plates of cookies, milk glasses, etc. - brought a warmth to a mostly empty stage. She also delivered some of the more poignant lines - unlike the psych office (see below), her advice to not "blame your mother until you die" comes off as heartfelt and natural, and gives punch to the major moral theme of the show.

If the show had a weak spot, it was in the scenes between Wallace and his psychiatrist. I would not attribute this to the actress, Kathy, nor the director; the psychiatrist's part just seem odd and strangely written. She did not really *act* like a psychiatrist; Wallace is initially sent to her by his father because he is breaking glassware as a means of dealing with his emotional turmoil, and he later seeks her out to deal with some of his own confusion in relationships. But in both scenes, the psychiatrist serves as an inconsequential recipient of what barely amounts to a conversation, and is actually just more monologues that push the narrative along. My main problem with the scenes is how taken aback and rendered mute the psychiatrist is by Wallace's forceful personality, especially later int he play when she basically cowers before him. Kathy did a great job of portraying the clinical neutrality required of a psychiatrist and the real terror that the playwright wanted her to express. I just didn't find this as real as the bulk of the play was: sure, Wallace is in many ways a damaged human at these points in his life, but his place int he damaged human continuum is not something that is so extreme that a psychiatrist would be baffled by it. Unfortunately, a lot of the self-exegesis of the exact nature of Wallace's turmoil is revealed in these scenes, and they ring a little hollow. Case in point: I thought Wallace's descriptions of his breaking glassware to deal with his pain in his essay was much more powerful than the same description from his stand on the couch speech in the psychiatrist's office. The shrink's office did contain the scene where Wallace overtly confronts his mother and her death, and even tries to re-imagine his life had he stolen her knife. And this scene drilled the "accept yourself, work in the now and don't dwell on the past" aspects of the play (though it did so in a less graceful fashion than the grandmother scene mentioned above). But, I think, they could have taken place independent of the somewhat cliched psych-office visit.

And now, the part of the show that has the students abuzz: the kissing plus. Since so much of this is about Wallace's feelings about women, it is completely natural that his mother's death would slide into his early kissing and sexual experiences. And I would put a HUGE emphasis on natural - it would have been very easy for all of these scenes to have come across as awkward or unfeeling, but every one was pulled off sans anything awkward or childish; this was first rate professional work, and given the hormonal situations these teenagers are overcoming, it makes their accomplishment in this regard all the more impressive. Big kudos to the director for maximizing the power of these scenes, making them solidly emotional, frightening, heartwarming, and let's not forget, FREAKING hilarious. Wallace's interactions with the women (and his dialog, for that matter, which grew perfectly more adult as he progressed through his life) escalate in strength and desperation. His first-kiss encounter in middle school with Victoria, the same girl from the sandwich scene, turns from an awkward , do-we-really-have-to-do-this into scary eagerness in a heartbeat; he scares off his first "love." His second, an out-of-control alcohol-aided messy attempt at romancing the smart valedictorian (Sarah, played with cool dignity by Logan) of his school, goes from moving too fast to a pathetic attempt at apology; he ends the scene literally on his knees, blaming the moon for its failure to help him win her heart.

Oh, and then there's something I'll describe as "THE SCENE," and as I mentioned with the Borat film, there are some things my retina unfortunately cannot unsee. This in NO way because the scene was bad, or that it will traumatize me in anything near the same way 10 minutes of naked Borat wrestling with a fat naked man did. This is because it was a sex scene involving Grace!

A little background: Grace is an impossibly cute, sweet, lovely and soul-crushingly sincere and heartwarming sophomore from last semester's Alg. II class. She came in really struggling and disliking math, but we worked together on it a lot throughout the semester and she worked her butt off and did very well in the course. Her parents are awesome; they appreciated me and did great stuff like call the administrators to let them know what a good job I was doing, and called me for advice on what courses she should take and the like. In short, great family and great girl, definitely the type of person who makes all aspects of the job worth it. Furthermore, we serve the role of in loco parentis for all of our students, and I would definitely help anyone who needed anything, but with Grace it's not a vocational obligation - I feel wholly responsible and I owe it to her parents to ensure her well-being as much as I can. If anyone so much as laid a finger, etc., they would have a very angry Texan on their hands indeed. I get the feeling I would be the type of daughter's father who the boys would dread meeting.

So in this play, we find Wallace in his freshman dorm with Lili (played by Grace), a senior dancer who is VERY eager to deflower young Wallace (Grace's dad summed up the role as "slut." Her dad!). I can't even describe how awesome and funny this scene was; between Wallace's fumbling, Lili's intense, writhing and dancer-stretching Mrs. Robinson act, and some wickedly smart dialog, the whole scene of them talking pre-act was funny enough. That part of the scene ends when Wallace claps to turn off the lights, and everyone in the audience is applauding at the brilliance. But it's not over. Oh, no, no. With the house lights more or less out, Lili and Wallace have some quite believable simulated sex on stage, further riddled with hilarious dialog. The entire venue is pretty much exploding with laughter at this point. Laughter at the real funniness of the scene, but also, let's face it, the audience is at least fifty percent teenage, and they are watching their peers simulate sex on stage! Did I mention that Jon's mom and both of Grace's parents are in the audience? And did I mention that we are in a very small, intimate theater setting, so they are probably a whopping twenty feet from their faux-copulating offspring? Hello awkward.

So great acting could be summed up as that which makes you forget that there are actors up there. Um, in this scene, I did not forget. And I can't imagine what Grace's parents were feeling at this point (actually, Grace has been in productions like Hair before this, so this wasn't here first foray into on-stage seediness. Plus after the show, her mom delivered the BRILLIANT line, "As long as it's it's simulated, I'm okay with it."). And Grace, as Beck noted, was (um, Understandably!) nervous about this scene; you could see her carotid pulse pumping at 180 from across the room. But to everyone's credit, they pulled it off and then some - quintessentially professional, hilarious, heartfelt, and all of that, all in a context they had ever reason to crack in. So, damn - Grace was outstanding, and has all kinds of potential to be one of these brilliant comedic actresses - Gilda Radner readily comes to mind. But all of that said, I still spent the entire time dumbfounded with the willies.

Now let us never speak of this again. :)

The show ends with Lili disappointed in Wallace; she passes him off to her younger sister Nina (played well by Nina - this was a sympathetic role that could've devolved to wet-blanket girlfriend, but she carried herself well and, in the end, convincingly dropped into hate-fueled anger), with whom Wallace falls deeply and honestly in love. But with his residual pain from mother, he cannot trust her fully, so he cheats on her - and after some soul-searching, decides to tell her. She reacts violently, but ultimately comes back, leaving Wallace to reject his notion that women will always desert him.

I took a little bit of issue with this tidy ending to the play; again, not something the actors or director could have done much with, but I found it to be a little over-the-top Hallmark. The brutal truth is that there will be no curtain-closing resolution, that no matter how much one can get over it and move on, that pain will always exist. I much more appreciated the earlier-mentioned aspect, that life shapes you and you shape it. I would rather focus on this idea and less on some fantasy-based notion that everything is going to be alright.

That said, great, great show. This was a top level performance, and with all apologies to Clark theater people (my brother, really, not the ones who went on to illustrious reality show careers), this was far and away the best high school theater I've seen. Having that level of talent collected in one institution is nothing short of incredible - and let's keep in mind that these heights were achieved by a *student director.* I can't say this enough - big, big congratulations to Danielle; you pulled off something tremendous.

And not to short it - the later show, This is a Test, was excellent and very, very funny as well. It's lead, Austin, pulled off his own tour-de-force of paranoid, frenetic anxiety that was sidesplitting. My SASI student Josh played a hilarious send up of evil, pretentious teachers everywhere. SO it was great, too, but I was just blown away by WaW.

QUICK!

One, congrats to Frank on getting accepted to the PhD. program in Illinois. You rock.

Ugh, that was a bad one.

Two, boo-urns to the Subaru, who required a towing tonight but will be fixed in the morning. This destroyed our evening (though we still managed to watch last night's LOST).

Three, if you're up for some funny reading, check some of the student comments on the sasi blog. Some have some great things to say, others, well... just take special note of the spelling.

Four, I know I haven't written about anything this week; this because it has been largely uneventful. Beck and I have hit the gym twice at 6 in the AM. That's intense.

Five - tomorrow we are headed to my student Danielle's directorial debut. Danielle is the school government president, a great actress, a great student and essentially an amazing human being - funny, sweet, serious and mature when necessary, but more than anything heart on her sleeve sincere about all that she does. She even stops by and chats even though she's not in my class this semester! Anyways, she's been hellaciously stressed out about her show's debut, so wish her luck and send good vibes her way. I'll let you know how it goes down tomorrow...

Six - It was pointed out to me that in my picture it looks like there's some kind of rifle pointing at my head. Not quite - this photo was taken by my friend Ian (pronounced Eye-un) in the basement of an apartment near the Tufts Medford campus; hence the general darkness. The light in the upper right corner is the back corner of a low hanging running lamp that's over a pool table (actually, a Beirut table, but now we're just splitting hairs)(as if you knew what a Beirut table was, anyways). The lamp apparently had some ornate flourishes on its side, which is why that looks like a trigger if you are prone to such morbid thoughts. There you have it - this week's entry for most boring paragraph on the blog.

Rock Laaaaahhhhobster...

Just Another...

Cool Monday. IF and I hit the gym at 6:30 in the AM and got a pre-day workout it, which was very cool; I ran, she ellipticaled. I made the brilliant decision of wearing my shorts to the gym - it was 8 degrees with a windchill of 0 K when we left the house this morning, so the post-run sweaty Nyet / frigid air combination was less than awesome. As Ringo might say, "I've got blisters on my nipples."

I headed down to the 'Nut for a day that should have been 50 minutes long a grew into a beast with meetings and the like. They were hella productive, but still, 'twas lame. My class itself involved me chewing them out for not doing the blog assignment, and then leading a pretty decent discussion on reliable and unreliable sources. Fun times in there, and I have them reading a DFW essay this week - given the high ESL content of my class, that may have been a bone-jarring mistake. But we'll see.

I eventually left the campus, heading back into the snot-freezing New England winter. I had some time to kill, so I headed to the Framingham Library to pick up some music and a bunch of books - I'm dumb, I know - but I will now force myself to read said books int he next couple of weeks. It's a sports departure, just to give you a preview.

Oh, and what music did I pick up? A couple of Prince albums. Why? Because of this, that's why:





Best Halftime Show in a loooooong time. Prince, you rock my face. Seriously, this was spectacle of the highest order but totally appropriate, and no malfunctions either, unless you consider the blatant use of guitars as phallic symbols to be malfunctory. More on the SB itself in a bit.

So one of the books I got is Baseball Between the Numbers, one I've been meaning to grab for a while now. And funny enough, the library had it listed under one "James Click" as a primary author. no... it couldn't be, could it?

Actually, I knew very well that it could, given Mr. Click's sports-numbers obsessions reported in years past by one Mike NTPB. So I called up the Mike to confirm, and indeed, this was true. Awesome! This is the most humble shout out to James, who was a great friend of Mike's at Yale - living the dream man, and that is fantastic. I look forward to reading your articles, and will rip you to shreds if necessary on this here blog which, given its readership of probably no more than 20, will cause you to lose something approximating no sleep. Seriously, homes, congrats. That is good stuff.

The call to Mike was awesome, too, because it allowed us to catch up on james's hijinks, his recent trip to SA for our CHS '96 reunion, as well as give each other notes both on our greatest art debate and our classes. SWEET! This is awesome, and if I were slicker, I could probably write this into a resume as some kind of interscholastic collaborative course design program. (Note to self: do that). Regardless, the convo was awesome - I've always felt like Mike and I bring a lot to the proverbial table and balance each other really well in terms of optimism / pessimism, real politics / theoretical background mumbo jumbo (I'm the latter on both counts, as if you didn't know), but it more or less always brings my geist back into alignment to have a good chat with him. And a good chat we did have; T-mobile be damned, we talked quite a bit. And yes, IFfy, I will cover that part of the bill.

More notes - Mike gave a hilarious account of the ill-attended HS reunion, which I will post as promised, but only AFTER he provides me with photographic evidence. the reason for this largely has to do with a string of quotes like "She was a 9 in high school, but she's an 11 now." That meat-market and clearly irony-laden comment is clearly not to be taken seriously. (But, red-blooded male readers, that previous sentence was to avert all XXs' attentive eyes, the blog equivalent of a shouted "Look! Over there! McDreamy!"; fear not, NTPB and I do not throw around the term "11" lightly, and so you should be now duly enticed. We're talking football post-game party Vacekian levels of excitement, so don't miss it).

(Previous joke will only be gotten by NTPB, but it is so, so worth it. Ah, Miguel, I cry for you, too; the lesson is, gather ye rosebuds, or Carpe Jamie, whichever version you prefer).

The oddest thing of all of this is that on the Monday after the SB, Mike and I talked that long and did not once mention the Super Bowl. WOAH! Clearly our intellectual stature has grown (or our athletic one has shrunk, it having been recently been exposed to the cold ocean). So that was nuts. As for my take - who cares! It was a tremendously exciting first quarter followed by something of an extended yawn; I think the Colts RB's deserved the MVP way more than Peyton pretty boy (if for no other reason to discourage further endorsement deals - it's not a good Porn unless it's a Peyton Porn, etc.), and as I've been saying all season, Rex Grossman is TERRIBLE, and not to get all emotion-aspect on you, but it just looks like he couldn't care less about the whole spectacle. Which you can't really blame him for, given this year's commercial output. I will, though, give props to

The Blockbuster Mouse
Garmin Navigation Maposaurus
Budweiser Dog With Spots
Emerald Nuts
And maybe the Jay-Z commercial

(And of course, the GoDaddy commercials, you crazy 11-obsessed males, you). Not really.

That's about it; it's dinner time here. I'll leave you with one of my favorite Onion articles and the brief instruction to read the comments of past entries for lots of insight from the readership, especially Karen, who continues to kick all of your collective asses.

I leave you with... Laser Cats 2:

We apologize. For any inconvenience, the delay may have caused you.

Woah, my eyes are blurry and dry on a Super Sunday morning (which has suspiciously found itself converted to PM). I have used up a lot of my WMP (writing magic points) and gems in writing a review:

Saturday

And this monstrosity of a musing regarding film's status as the 20th century's greatest art. Enjoy, and feel free to comment the crap out of them and my ridiculous opinions.

(I reserve the right to not post your comments. Yeah, spell it along with me, F-A-S-C-I-S-T. Welcome to the Nyetverse, I've got fun and games).

The past three days have brought their share of hilarity - the class is still in full swing, and unsurprisingly, as we sit here at t-minus 4 hours until their weekly blog assignment is due, a whopping two of the eighteen have done it (and another six of those eighteen have yet to have read the blog or this week's article). I smell some zeros for participation grades wafting up from apathy hell...

Friday was actually a great day in class, though because of auditions and college interviews only seven students were present. I also spent a part of Friday defending one of my advisees from expulsion; another notch on my belt of awesomeness and human assistance. But, por supuesto, all of this paled to Friday night, the celebratory dinner for The Grin's, AD's and my women folks' passing of the Boards.

We headed to El Basha, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Shrewsbury / Worcester. It occurred to someone (Sarah? aka "M&M") in our ranks that there are three restaurants with the name El Basha in the vicinity, so after we clarified the location of our dining jubilee, The Grin posted an internet poll in an attempt to clarify the plural of "El Basha." You'll notice that the obvious and correct choice, Los Bashas, is not given as an option. To my complaint, The Grin replied: "But I don't speak Italian." Ali then took off her belt upon entering the restaurant, reportedly accidentally, but this has further cemented her status as the group's most unpredictable and potentially restaurant-ejection-inducing member.

The restaurant was not up my alley, but it was up alleys, of the rest of the crüe I mean, so that was all good. Middle Eastern restaurants tend to restrict me and my delicate (read: picky-as-hell) palate to dishes like lamb kabobs and rice and/or the kiddie menu, so in an effort to head off the onslaught of fun-making that happens when I order things like, say, jello, or pizza bagels, or kids-in-a-blanket, I went with the plain kabab option. Which means, given the proclivity of my fellow crüe-members to eat like sophisticated peoples, I typically end up paying $25 for grilled-chicken and rice. Boo-urns, but I take the good and take the bad. Also, I would say that you're paying for the ambience, but in this case our ambience included drunk and loud as all get out, no really, get out, people at the bar. This included a petite, goblin-like woman with a voice that just happened to match the resonant frequency of the inhibitory portion of my frontal lobes. I unsurprisingly became violent and started discussing both my habit of assessing my chances of winning an all-out brawl any time i step into a restaurant, and then a discussion of Newtonian physics and the proper handle-to-blade ratio one would need for a reasonably (percentage-wise) successful throwing knife. Given the improper h-b ratio of the kabab-cutting knife I had in my arsenal, we opted against throwing my knife over my shoulder and impaling the goblin-woman, which may have perhaps ended her disruption of the restaurant's ambience as well as my violent tendencies, but actually also had a chance of scientifically testing my assessment of our group's ability to win an all out brawl. Ben's physics assessment probably saved our evening. Also, there was an old lady in the corner who was clearly dining with a gigolo and/or her son. And/or.

Ben also noticed that Christophe was stuck in a trap between all three vet-femmes (I've noted before the intestinal soul-death a vet-obsessed dinner conversation can induce), and took drastic measures (i.e., asked the pgoat to switch places) to form a more appropriate Boy-Girl conversational division at the table. This was awesome, because now we didn't have to listen to the gossipy crap the gals were talking about, and AD regaled us stories of 800 million gallons of water and bloody fish-heads. Sweet! The Grin and I then engaged in a contest to determine how many ways we could describe "800 million gallons of water;" his best entry was "500,000,000 toilet flushes" and mine was "800,000,000 gallons of milk with the milk poured out and water filled in them instead." PGoat then complained of her butter-tasting drink and its contestedly metallic aftertaste; Beck drank something vastly better, and M&M drank nothing in deference to her 80 pound bun.

Though challenged by Ben, I am highly underqualified to write a restaurant review (see roast chicken and rice meal, above). But the meals were opulent-looking, everyone seemed to seriously enjoy the appetizers and the entrees and the service was pretty speedy (though they did charge us an auto-gratuity for our party of 6 or more). So personally it was in the C range (just because of the price, the meal was actually good but for what I got, not worth the Hamiltons, baby). But for everyone else, it seemed like a B+ / A- affair, so that was very cool, and I was happy to fork down in celebration of our Pippens' accomplishment.

From there we braved a strange white and wet substance falling in masses from the sky... I think it's called sn...uhow? Yep, winter finally showed itself; we got about 3 inches on Friday which pretty much brings the winter's total to 3.7 inches. This has been a weird, apocalyptic type-winter; I fear for those who don't know AD. SO this was the first adventure of the Little Honda That Could on snowy roads, and it performed marvelously; no skids, and no troubles. We even found a parking spot in front of Cafe Dolce, our dessert destination. While Christophe tried to park his car in an incomprehensibly tight spot under the direction of Sarah and Ben, The Beck, Ali and I went in to check the scene. It was predictably full of couply couples, men trying to impress ladies with their ability to spend $10 on a slice of pie and a ridiculously fancy coffee. Awesome. Eventually, AD finished delivering the "Bumpers are For Bumping" lecture and the sextet assembled, our table next to the bathroom to render it less obvious that our sh*t doesn't stink.

And we had dessert, and it was seriously, seriously good. I opted for the nondecadent coffee, a regular old brewed blend, but it was called creme brulee and it was divine. Pretty much everybody ordered the chocolate pecan pie, except for Sarah who ordered (and was subsequently defeated by) some chocolate concoction, and beck, whose almond cake was largely saved for her Saturday morning breakfast. The revelry continued, and the dessert-fest capped off a great evening. Somehow, Christophe made it out of his space, and Ben, Ali, beck and I tiredly rolled home through the now official snowstorm. A great night.

On Saturday I got up early and stared outside my balcony curtains to witness a flaming airplane descending over the Thames into Heathrow. Or not. I got up early and monkeyed around the house, actually spending a lot of time writing *my musing* which I again reiterate that you should read. At 10, I headed out for two tutoring sessions discussing photosynthesis. Awesome, and possibly my least favorite thing to talk about, considering that plants are stupid. I am not a vegetarian because I like animals, etc. I decided to stop by the grocery store on my way home, and called my Beck accordingly; she answered neither phone. The usual non-despair-inducing possibilities raced through my mind: she was out on a walk, or maybe at the very grocery store sans phone reception to which I headed. She was doing neither of those things. After I bought a lot of diet soda and lean pockets for tonight's rock n' roll affair, I came home at 1:15 to find the Beck STILL IN BED. Bum! Get a job, Lebowski! She rumbled from her slumber to join me in a trip to the gym; we were better looking and more fit than everyone else there (because we rule). We came home and I wrote some more; Beck headed to Natick Mall for a thoroughly unsuccessful attempt at purchasing wedding accoutrements.

Beck headed home, smilingly repaying me for my patience at the Middle Eastern restaurant the night before, and offered to get pizza for tonight. The PGOAT then called, having been abandoned by her hubby and another friend, informing me that I was her third social choice. Huzzah! Just call me Plan C. Through a mass of confusion, Ali got a hold of Beck and escalated, I'm sorry, augmented the order to include her. Ali came over, we chilled and listened to Hair and ate pizza. Good times! Then we watched the Big Lebowksi, which I will review accordingly:

The Big Lebowski: 95

For all my low-art ramblings I made against film in my musing (seriously, read it already!), this film is just awesome. It's in a category that a precious few movies in mind are in, something I would call a "Scene-Saturated Flick." Every scene of this movie is funny; every single one. Beck said she would go the bathroom at the first non-awesome scene, and she never went! It's amazing, there's never a low moment, and the humor hits the entire range of witty, slapstick, subtle, visual, musical, absurd, ironic - it's just a postmodern sort of homerun on all fronts. In other words, it is what it is - there's no wonder this has become such a fixture in my Tufts-friend lexicon: it's in its own realm of brilliance. That's all I got; no real analysis, just a toe-sucking account of how much I enjoy the infinitely re-watchable film.

(Ed: It should be noted that there are several movies that I love for various reasons that don't fall into my normal movie-rating continuum, and TBL is one of them. All scene-saturated flicks are going to score in the 95 ballpark regardless of their other artistic, more film-snobbish merits. i hope you will forgive me - but when others like The Princess Bride and Wayne's World show up in my all-time faves list, this is why. You have been warned).

So eventually Ali headed back to her grinning option A, and Beck and I watched a little more TV and then retired for the evening. The snippet of TV that I watched was MTV's "Two-a-Days, and I think that Texas HS football players have, if it's possible, gotten even bigger. Will we reach a day where today's nickname of the 6'5" person, "Tiny," will cease to be ironic. Everyday, my assessment of my own athleticism, or whatever peak it ever achieved, dwindles more.

Enjoy the SB today - no calls here, but I will continue to ridicule all that I find stupid without suggesting reasonable alternatives. Oh, and here's your enticing "Tomorrow on The Ballad:" outro...

Mike NTPB is on assignment in San Antonio, TX, attending our 10th year high school reunion. He will surely report back to me, and I will give an account that will surely only make sense and/or be funny to the select view who have CHS '96 as part of their memory-horizon. As a questionable wise man once said, "We're excited 'bout it!"

Meatwad Get the Honeys, G

Another successful day in the terror-ridden postmodern now. In case you didn't hear, Boston police found 10 "suspicious devices" in the greater Boston area, spanning from NEMC to the BU Bridge to Somerville. Everyone obviously freaked out. Allof them turned out to be duds, which is nice, but it got better when Turner Broadcasting called the city of Boston (Operator - get me Boston!) to apologize for an ill-advised marketing stunt. Yep, that's right, it's the Aqua Teen Hunger Force!!! Make the homies say ho and the girlies wanna scream!!!

So this is all at least mildly funny in a "damn, the times are absurd" kinda way, but on the radio this afternoon it was Apocalypse brought to you Now by your friends at Tweeter. It was a nice little juxtaposition, the whole radio show on a maybe terrorist attack no not a terrorist attack oh wait actually a tv commercial, all of it interjected with ads for the usual mundane stuff (counter tops, tax advice, mortgage payment reduction schemes). While the city burned, Nero played the revenue generating ads.

So that was a fun cap to an otherwise uneventful day - we discussed p-values in class today, and I think I hit about 33% of the students which is pretty par for the p-value course. Followed by advisor meetings and faculty meetings and a bunch of other repeated exposures to the idea that teenagers are on the whole a messed up crüe. Don't ask. But on the plus side I got two drop-by visits from students from last semester who stopped in to say hi and tell me how their auditions were going. Fun times; there are quite a few awesome Nuts in the proverbial mixed bag. And the whole day was capped off with an interdepartmental meeting with the humanities folks and the science folks, and the usual bloody fact v. feeling debate erupted. Just kidding- we discussed standards of citation, and why no one should use Wikipedia as a source when writing a research paper. I totally agree, btw, though I think the Wiki dragon is fine to use for general info. We then attempted to make some kind of checkbox system algorithm for what makes websites okay to use that was on its way to failing miserably until I suggested a more holistic heuristic of asking the question "If someone challenged this source in my paper, would I be able to defend its inclusion." AS you can tell, it was a rip-roaring fun time.

Another tutoring session and I am back at home eating Beck-made macaroni casserole and blogging the night away. So now I will stop and do something awesome (not that this isn't). That will probably involve reading, the greatest art form of the 21st century.

It's a Cold Snow's a Gonna Fall

Welcome to the winter of our a-part-ment: we woke up this morning to a clogged oil tank (Don't ask me, I'm from the S'th), a non-functioning heater, and a frigid out-from-under the comforters ambiance; Beck bravely tried to fix the problem herself only to have created a cloud of blue smoke. She's a witch; freeze her! (Note - that is the second time I've used "she's a witch" today. The other was in today's awesome SASI class, where I compared a "guilty until proven innocent" justice system to witch trials. I actually told the class to burn one of my students. There goes my day job). Beck wisely then conjured the "Superior Oil Guy" spell and had him come bang the oil drum loudly. Seriously, I felt like I was on the set of A Christmas Story. Sans porn-star to be. For all people reading at the Nutty 12th grade level, "sans" means "without." And for those not in the know, the little boy in A Christmas Story, he of red rider b.b. gun wanting fame, later had a career in the porn industry. "You'll shoot her eye out," indeed. Anyways, said Superior Oil rescue man fixed the problem, and now we are sitting in a balmy (relatively) 60 degree apartment with a snowstorm (or three inches, whatever) on the horizon and beck in the ER. Another lonely night in the Nyetverse. So it goes.

Sherrybaby (2006): 74

Beck and I watched Sherrybaby the other night; I had been waiting a long time to see it and enjoyed Maggie's performance (yes we're on a first name basis) (because I know the PGOAT and the PGOAT knows the Gyllenhaals, booyeah) (and they know, um, Crackle) (that's the last Hedbergism, I promise). Beck accused her, as I think I mentioned earlier, of glorified pornstarism. (This is the all porn edition of the Tin Man, btw. Of course I didn't need to say that, because you knew it when you saw it. Yah!). And while it is true that there were copious amounts of naked Maggie in this film (and the last one we saw, Happy Endings, and the one before that, Secretary), I would beg to say that they were appropriate. This coming from someone who is confessedly infatuated with the Mags. So I am clearly not to be trusted.

The movie is of the type I would call an "acting vehicle" for lack of better terminology; everything is about the enchanting stylings and image of the lead actress, and the scene is locked on her and her point of view throughout. She is terribly gruff and rough-edged; my experience of the film bounced between feeling her soul being ripped from its roots by her situation and thinking that a large part of the problem was stemming from her own reckless stupidity. The film walked that line superbly, and did an admirable job of showing the hurricane effect Sherry's reckless life had on her family. The awkward pauses and fumblings of her torn brother are carried off with a nice subtle edge, as is her friendship / affair with a purposely scary looking Indian character who ends up, despite his own past, being the most responsible and loving person in the film. The overt and outlandish performance stands out brilliantly, but it is the subtle issues playing in the background that make the film poignant. I actually think Maggie's acting and situation steps across the line from endearing into painful for the audience to sit through; she just becomes clueless to a painfully unbelievable extent at a few quick scenes in the film. Overall she is great, and the movie carries a powerful, jarring scene that brought up images of the equally effective scenes from A History of Violence and Cache. You must see that one; it's a self-contained huge moment, and the film did a great job of revealing a great deal with a simple scene. Overall, it's a very good film, somewhat limited by its virtuoso aspect imho, but well worth the trip into this heartbreaking portrait.

END REVIEW

So that's it on this end; I spent the day tutoring and am now on my lonesome. I will leave by throwing my friend Mike NTPB under the proverbial bus; I read one of his syllabi for a course on American Film that starts off thusly:

"First, a confession: I’m a film junkie. I feel strongly that film is the greatest art form of the 20^th century. It combines painting’s ability to communicate meaning and emotion through pictures with literature’s power to express ideas through story and character. Quite simply, film is more powerful than literature and painting in its ability to stimulate us, to make us feel and react, which, after all, is what some would say is the point of art."

I've been thinking about this quote a lot today and wanted to see what the people think before I comment on it. This may be more of a musing type of thing; the ever evolving Ballad knows limited limits.

That's it for the time being; I'll be alone in snowy Grafton if you need me... in the next 10 hours.

A Big Congrats and a Vent-o-rama

So, in follow-up to the grand accomplishment of das Beck, we have the same news from our friend Ali aka the PGOAT - she, too, has passed her boards. Wahoo! Congrats Ali!!!

And now, some ventification. I taught a class today - you may check the progress of Ye Olde Science Ande Sociale Issuese if you wish - that got derailed an uncountable number of times by my class's lack of vocabulary skizills. I just e-mailed this to his NTPB-ness, but I am going to repeat the rant here - check out the following terms which either caused me to stop the lecture and completely define the term or caused someone to raise a hand and ask what it meant:

null
fallacy
sans
anecdote ("that's the thing that stops you from dying, right?")
authoritative
empirical
subjective
objective
Copernican
geocentric
heliocentric
geography (more than half the class thought this was the same as history)
lithography (really? visual artists don't know lithography?)
photography (just kidding, but this is what I had to use to make them understand what the root "graph" means. Ugh)
vantage point (maybe "perspective" would have clued the artists in)
Occam's Razor

Now, admittedly (heliocentric, for example) are basically "have you heard of this before" style words. But "sans?" "Anecdote?" Ay caramba. These would be the children of your future, not mine.

Alright, rant over. I accomplished a lot today, including 3.33 miles on a treadmill, some weights, some tutoring, and extensive lesson in vocabulary oh my god. I also slugged out all my class comments which is a big fat endeavor - I finished it in about 2 and a hlaf hours which is beyond record-setting.

My brain is fast fading though, so I will now hit the proverbial hay. No Beck tonight as she is 3 to 2-ing it with his royal highness, Mr. Heed-Pants-New himself. In the ER, no less. I was left to my omelet making devices. Sweet.

Alright folks, another glorious tick in chalk on the prison wall. Join me, um, later, for something more substantial. Like a review of Sherrybaby, the long-anticipated Maggie Gyllenhal movie. Beck's summary: "She's like a glorified pornstar." Golden Globes, I suppose.

Wal Art

Simple Gallery for Your Perusal / Approval / Comments:

Less Ranty / Sporty, More Sentimental / Sentimentless

So Monday, as mentioned, was the last day of the semester at the 'Nut. Here's another pic of my esteemed Stat class:


The day as a whole was sad, really - I had a lot of students genuinely say they were going to miss my class, which was really nice. Lots of hugs from the goofballs; one of my Taiwanese students even stopped by my office after class to give a bag of Spicy Asian Peanuts (he even added, "you know how to eat, right?" - meaning did I know I was supposed to take off the shells. He apparently knows of Gerald Fordian gaffes). A couple of students even told me they had never liked math before and now they do; I've also gotten a number of students taking Algebra II courses this next semester referred to me because "I heard you're really good at teaching kids who struggle with math." So it was a kinda over-the-top, smarmy emotional kinda day. More on that later.

Here, to provide some non-sappy levity, are some quotes from my student evaluations of my class:

"I loved this class even though it was hard for me."
"The tests were fun with the crazy characters and stuff."
"Nyet, you are awesome and I hate the lottery."
"Don't drink so much diet mountain dew."
"Now I know more ways to solve a problem."
"Nyet has a lot of good patience to stand and teach our international students. He always teaches with humorous."
"Nyet is fun, his teaching is fun. He has a lot of math game."
"I have nothing to say."

(And please don't think I'm laughing at the ESL quotes because of their ESL-ness; I find them very endearing, but you too would be hard-pressed not to find it awesome when someone says you "have a lot of math game.").

So it was a very fun morning - and I remembered that the Student Art Show at WHS took place on Thursday when I was out tutoring all over Western-Central Mass. I'll include a post of photos of some of my favorite pieces from this year and last.

Here's the more on later - as I left campus yesterday, I just got a stabbingly empty feeling. I think this was one of those days that should have clearly rung with "this is what it's all about." And it sadly just doesn't. I am glad that I helped these kids, and I do feel I made real, authentic connections with a lot of them. But then I don't. I'm just going through the motions / walking through the part / nothing seems to penetrate my (insert overt Tin Man reference here). There's a penetrating emptiness to everything that I'm doing that I just can't shake. Part of it is probably due to the "who knows what next year" factor; that everything the past couple of years has been a temporary salve to some kind of real thing to do. I feel like a refugee, I think I'm trying to say, all the while noting the dire inanity of comparing my middle class suburban plight to, say, the survivors of genocide. Which actually makes it feel all the more pointless - that I can't get off my keester to appreciate.

So the school is great and has been great; I was told repeatedly this week that I'm "making a great reputation for myself," which has the mixed effect of making me feel good that is the case but bad because it may in no time at all be rendered for naught. Square One again. And I would be moronic to fail to recognize the timing of all this with my 29th just occurring; I can't even sing along with Axl anymore. But it's that 29 and accomplished nothing (nor wanting to) buzz that renders days dark; on my long daily drives I have more than once daydreamed about happier academic days at Rice, wondering what went wrong. Let's also throw out that I saw friends Matt Kate and Jill this weekend who were all wrapped up in their application to residency talk; not that I'm jealous (as honestly as I can say anything, I will say that I'm not jealous), just that it's very easy to remember the days of walking around that skinny halled medical school, trudging through downtown boston ice-slushy streets, as a rather overt representation of hell; trapped somewhere I most certainly did not want to be and too much of a pussy to get my way out of it before I was head under water in debt.

What does all of this have to do with WHS? That even my most real of real connections, my ones with my students, ring empty. That ultimately what I'm doing is getting really good at hanging out with 15 year olds and making them feel better about themselves. Which is not a worthless thing at all; it's actually kinda beautiful (not to mention miraculous) to think that I got some artsy kids to like math; it's just that it's easy and pointless and I feel dispassionate about the whole thing and I think that maybe oh maybe oh yeah that's just it that what I do really well is feel pointless and be unhappy.

This has been whine with Nyet, bare-souled edition. Join us next week... or don't.

Recoillections of the Past Two Days

The 'Nut is now officially between semesters, which means I get a bonus weekend in the middle of my week. Thanks to some clever tutoring schedule rearranging (and the fact that it seems the fair Rebecca has deemed it necessary to share, share, share her coughing fit disease with me), I have nothing official on the docket today, which means you get great work like this picture and hopefully, this very blog entry.

To start, some photographic evidence of the birthday bash this weekend (not a lot, I promise). Here is one of the PGOAT attempting to strangle Sparkle:


Sparkle had her revenge, though, utilizing her tail to snap a picture of this candid Ali shot:

Next, we have the unquestionably excellent stylings of the Non-Vet men. As you will recall, this is moments before their cheating Pippens stole the Trivial Pursuit title for the evening (only to have it stripped like the Ben Johnsons they are):


I beg that you look carefully at that man in the middle. You will quickly learn why the new nickname of Ali's Ben is "The Grin."


So there you have it. Sunday turned out to be a much more somber affair - the last part of it, anyways. Beck spent her last day working in the ER, so I ambled around the apartment starting to feel the effects of breathing Beck's second-hand germs. I watched Chicago disembowel New Orleans in the first game on Sunday - bad news for my buds from NO (Matt and Speckle, I'm sorry), but good news for Da Bears. Plus it gives us a chance to see Brian Urlacher pulverize Peyton in the Super Bowl...

Wait, what's that you say? Yeah, hence the somber affair comment - the Pats blew a 21-3 lead to the Colts and lost 38-34 Sunday night. Just in case you're living in a cave. Sadness abounds, but not much to say - a few key plays (that too many men in the huddle play was killer) (and the PI call on Troy Brown, what the hell) (and, while we're at it, that roughing the passer on the last Colts drive was STOO-pid - I mean, I'm all for protecting the moneymakers, but a "blow to the head" usually consists of a little more than having hands within 3 feet of Peyton's large-foreheaded, product-selling noggin) were the difference in a defenseless game. But, all in all, the Colts big-time earned it. I'm just bummed that the Colts are finally making it to the Super Bowl with what is probably their worst team of the past few years - just happened to coincide with the pats worst team, too. And, lest we forget, the Chargers were one boneheaded interception away from having this game played in San Diego, instead. So, we'll count the blessings for another great, over-achieving Pats run, and hope the Bears can make a brutal show of it in Miami.

Before I forget - there is one stellar thing to point out about the Bears game. Early on, the Bears have it fourth and about 1/2 a yard at the 4 (yes, I will go ahead and say "at the Saints' 4," even though you should know that there's no way it can be fourth and half a yard at your own 4. Sheez). The Bears, flummoxed by an utterly unanticipatable situation (he said sarcastically), call timeout to discuss their options. A quick little stats check would tell you that you've got at least a 75% chance of converting 4th and 1/2 a yard, leading to a later attempt at a probable touchdown. Let's say at worst that the overall scenario of going for it is a 50/50 shot at a TD, or 3.5 points. I think that's reasonably conservative, actually. Let's also not forget that should you fail, the other team gets the ball at their own 4, not exactly the worst spot for your D to be in. All of this is versus the relatively guaranteed (let's say 95%) field goal for 3 points - or an expectation of 2.85 points. Eventually, some coach will sprout a brain and realize that you shouldn't pass up TD attempts. Lovie Smith (Bears coach) apparently did exactly that, sending in his O. The announcers immediately start declaring that this is the "wrong call."

It gets better. Last week, Lovie Smith did this exact same thing - went for it on fourth and short, passing up an attempt at an easy field goal. The announcer says that "that may have been okay last week, but this is the NFC championship, and you need the points." Um... you mean this was okay last week when you were facing elimination from the playoffs, but not okay this week when you're facing elimination? Huh? The announcer's comment was idiotic, of course, but he amps it up a bit - the Bears run for it, get two yards and the first down. The announcer of course says "I guess it was the right call." Awesome; I didn't realize that you could evaluate percentage-based calls solely on their results. I would like to ask the announcer - what's wrong with just saying that he made an "aggressive call," or really, if you think about it, the statistically preferable call? Why the right / wrong dichotomy? Oh, I forgot, we're stupid.

The tale of absurdity does not end there. The Bears now have it first and goal at about the two. First down, incomplete pass. Second down, run for a yard and a half. They now have it at the 1/2 yard line, 3rd and goal. Another incomplete pass. It's now fourth and goal, 1/2 a yard to go for the touchdown. Wait for it, wait... the Bears send in the kicking team!!!

"Now this is the right call," the announcer reliably chimes in. What? It was the right then the wrong call two minutes ago?!?!?! And now it's right again? ARRRRRRGGGHHH! And Lovie Smith, what exactly has changed? If anything, you're in a a better position now, closer to the goal line! Maybe, MAYBE you could argue that being closer to the goal line makes the playable field smaller and you only have a 60% chance of making 1/2 a yard. But now that half a yard is a direct touchdown! That's .6 times 7 = 4.2. Veruss 3 for the FG. What changed in the last two minutes? This is the exact same call you made 4 plays ago!!! ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH! The only thing I can guess is some kind of gambler's fallacy, like "well, we just used up our luck." Moronic. Either that or he suddenly realized that Rex Grossman is his QB.

And the announcers point none of this out. I know I'm a stathead and all, but this stuff seems ridiculously basic - the coach was either just completely inconsistent or he just gave up on his offense. And no one says this. Again, what's wrong with identifying certain calls as aggressive or conservative. No one even brought up whether they thought this was going to be a high or low scoring game, so 3 guaranteed may be worth more than usual (in the case of a low scorer), or 3 may be worthless, or 7 may be a dagger in a low-scoring game. none of this even comes up. I am generally disgusted by the level of analysis that goes into NFL game commentating - when are we going to get past the stop the run, stop the pass, control the line of scrimmage blah blah blah that everyone knows is how every game is played?????

All right, sports rant over, new topic, new post.

7 x 2 x 2 (And the feeling's fading)

Mmmmm... woke up this morning to the ever-pleasant (but ethically questionable) smell of Bacon (yes, Bacon is capitalized 'round these parts) wafting down from upstairs... mmmm. But being mindful of the quest for mother-of-the-bridehood (I am down to 207 this week, for those scoring at home) (and for those by yourselves), I thought about the caloric content of the bacon and opted for a healthy, allegedly cholesterol-reducing bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios (TM). The above picture of bacon, btw, is from an art gallery of things that = 200 calories. Check it out: enlightening, frightening and aesthetically pleasing all at once.

Tuesday night (sorry for the bloglessness) we had dinner with Ali, Ben, "Christ"ophe and Sarah at the Mexican place, Canyon Cafe (after a failed attempt at eating Korean). Another A+ meal; I can't even remember the slew of hilarious jokes we rolled off and the vet talk was actually held to a minimum, much to the delight of the XYs in the crowd. Aside from a Diet Coke misunderstanding of a tall order and S/C's general inability to drive around the area where they grew up, everything went swimmingly. Good times as always with the party people.

I should throw out the media talk of the week that I find most hilarious, that the show 24 is a right-wing conspiracy to instill paranoia in the American public in order to insure that the drastic measures taken by our friends in office are felt necessary for our safety. Yes, that's right, 24 is a puppet of the presidential office - this would be the show that last year portrayed the president as a traitor to the U.S. Good call, folks. The reason that this is coming up now, in season 6, a time when you think the "24's portrayal of Islam is negative" type headlines would be old news, is that the (SPOILER ALERT) 4 episode season premiere showed an unprecedented amount of realistic bombings and attacks occurring all over the U.S., culminating in a nuclear weapon exploding outside of Los Angeles. The effect was jarring; I've seen all 5+ seasons, and I think this was the most terror-inducing dose of "this is what it would look like if this started happening all over in the U.S." that the show has ever pulled off. But even while it was freshly shocking, I think it was more of a logical extreme the show had to go to to stay fresh and less of a "let's make America paranoid" conspiracy than people are throwing out.

I think the easier thing to point out as a corrosive-to-society flaw in the show are its murkier-than-hell ethics. Jack Bauer is entitled as a CTU agent to commit any crime he sees fit in the vague guise of protecting America or ascertaining information that may or may not lead to that protection. Sure the show is ridiculous - you can play a drinking game involving the lines "trust me," "we're running out of time," or "this is our only lead" and quickly learn how basically formulaic and superficially twisty the show is. (Not to say that it's not exciting). But what is the show really saying by giving Jack utilitarian authority to decide what is and what is not for the greater good? And notice this utilitarian equation is really just a "for the greater good of America" equation, not "for the greater good." The show's hero is directly supporting a line of behavior and thought that utilizes suspending moral laws in the present in order to accomplish something in the future. Hmmm, a group uniformly aligned with the idea of committing atrocities to achieve a greater future, what does that sound like... Terrorists, Alex? In the name of "all that is good," Jack routinely commits atrocities with the same kinds of ends-justifying-means logic used by those who even on the show are portrayed as evil. This is what's dangerous about the show; that its hero and the admiration he instills in the viewer reflect an implicit acceptance of "anything goes" morality when it comes to our safety. Jack is in short a homicidal maniac - he has killed, maimed, and tortured countless people; some in defense, some in pure cold-blooded revenge, but most with this idea of overall utility. Jack "does what it takes," true, and any real human capable of such acts would have to have a serious amount of confidence that what he was doing was right and good. But the entire package consists of a one-man wrecking crew with seemingly untouchable moral authority to do what he pleases, deciding the risks and benefits entirely for himself. That's the undercurrent message that's dangerous, that the ethics of our country in areas like Guantanamo Bay and the other dubious decisions (communications monitoring, etc.) reflects a nationwide submittal and furthermore, praise of ethics which use only "perceived national security" as their guideline. The question, as always: whose perception?

So, terrorist killing fantasies aside, this week has been very long. A lot of my tutees are studying for midterms, both here in SG and at the 'Nut, so I've been up to my ears. I've also been writing tests and scrambling to get the last grades in, which has swallowed a large dose of time as well. The Beck, of course, is still on her ER shift PLUS she got sick this week, so it's been a bummer in the fun times zone. I went to bed at 9 on Wednesday and 9:45 on Thursday; the party has just been that hoppin'.

Today was the end of term exams - and in a flash of brilliance, one of my trouble makers, let's call him "Lazy Genius Who Frequently Sleeps Through Class and Doesn't Pay Attention," came up to me during the test and tried to get me to tell him something that I had explained in class at least 7 times. After I refused politely several times, he said something along the lines of "could you just tell me something that knowing the right answer entails?" And I had had it, so I said "Knowing the right answer entails having paid attention in class." Mean, I know. But it elicited an embarrassing chorus of "ohhhhhs" from the class; one of my hipster Koreans even said "Oh snap." This of course is a seventeen on the one to ten funny scale (and a solid ten years out of date, taboot). In the end I felt bad, but didn't cave, and I actually think that form of refusal may have gotten the point across better than anything else I could've said. Don't know, so i feel slightly bad - insulting teenagers not exactly a write-home moment - but maybe I woke the dude up a bit. Who knows.

So tonight, Jill, Kate et al are coming over from Springfield to say hey and go out to dinner. Should be awesome. And tomorrow there's a shindig of sorts in the works. We shall see.

In the meantime, enjoy the hilarious audio stylings of two hockey guys about to get into a fight. This is seriously priceless: