Next Week on This Screen! -- sequels and sadness

I hate sequels.  They have the feeling of a serial that didn't know when to quit.

I think a problem inherent in the sequel as a literary form is that, all too often, it seems to be an afterthought, and I have the distinct feeling that the last two I've read are exactly that.

The concept of the sequel is not to be confused with the extremely popular--and extremely profitable--"trilogy" genre, which seems to have taken over the world of young adult literature in recent years.  Those things aren't really sequels--the authors know well in advance that they have a longer story to tell, but divide it into partres tres for the easier digestion of their younger readers.  I suspect too that having a story in three parts is in no small part a marketing angle as well; you get to sell three books instead of one longer one, and you also get to make three different movies out of them.

The sequel was always a bad idea with movies--other than maybe, and I stress maybe, Star Wars--has there ever been a sequel (much less a continuing saga) that was worth a damn? It's not a new development; the earliest one I can remember is "Son of the Sheik," a 1926 follow up to the smash hit "The Sheik."  Valentino looked pretty great in all that fake Arabian stuff, but the original wasn't that great and the sequel was abysmal (though the presence of Vilma Banky sure helped).

I've harbored this opinion for years and so I don't know why I had to pick up the sequels to The Shining and The Talisman this year.  Really I do know why; when I'm not wearing my official English Teacher Hat (which actually takes the form of a tweed jacket with elbow patches) I love reading horror stories.  I particularly loved The Talisman when first I read it thirty some years ago.  I had already developed a fascination with the idea of alternate worlds or alternate realities, and Talisman is a definitive in the genre.  Besides its protagonist was more or less my age, so his journey through worlds really hit home.

Black House, its recently published sequel, could only disappoint.  Except that it really didn't, or it wouldn't have as a stand-alone novel.  I so badly wanted a couple of evenings' escape to the fascinating world of the first novel  that, when the sequel promptly didn't really have much to do with it, it was primed for failure in my eyes.  The young protagonist of the first book is all grown up now; what was once an otherworldly quest has pretty much turned into a detective novel, albeit a really long one that involves some supernatural crap thrown in.  Oh, it works, and it's a pretty good read--but just as Taco Bell is delicious as long as you don't try to think of it as being Mexican food, Black House is a great novel as long as you don't try to think of it as the continuation of The Talisman.

What does a ghetto classroom sound like?

This, pretty much. 

If you ever end up teaching a, let's just say disadvantaged, population, be prepared for the fact that these kids (who claim they can't afford pens and paper) will ALWAYS, and I mean every damn period of every damn day, have a plastic bag (usually from Aldi) full of sodas and small bags of Cheetos (TM) or corn chips.  It takes about twenty minutes to consume one of the snack bags because the chips are eaten very daintily, one at a time.  So there's the constant rustle, because twenty different people start eating at different times.

Just don't allow food in the classroom, you say?  You've never heard these kids whine.  It's like asking them to gouge their mothers' eyes out.  I'd spend more time telling them to put the fucking chips away than I'd ever spend teaching, sort of like the cell phone thing.  So I just put up with it.

Sadly, the chips are an example of two things.  First, as what's obviously a primary food source, they explain why these kids are invariably overweight and in poor health.  Second, they explain why the kids are stuck in an economic rut. Snack food is more expensive than real food.  Buying six small bags is more expensive than buying one big one.  Since they obviously had to go to a store in the first place, they could have gotten a pre-made sandwich for less money, which would be healthier.

Also it wouldn't make that infernal rustling. 

What to do when your internet doesn't work...or justification for Luddism.

I have to admit that I actually really love technology.  Never mind that I barely believe in science. (Oh, don’t get all weird on me; it’s not like I’m one of those people who believes the earth was literally created in seven days and is only 48 years old or something.  I just don’t really understand most science so I don’t pay much attention to it.)  I mean, I’m pretty antediluvian in my application of technology.  People who are up to date, as a rule, at least have an electric record player.  (I exaggerate—I do have one but I’m not terribly good at operating it.)

If it weren’t for technology I wouldn’t even have my trusty Grafonola, because while significantly out of date it does represent a technological advance.  Ditto electricity, which I mistrust but of which I am quite fond.  Candles are great at dinner parties but otherwise are kind of a pain in the ass (see post—“I live with retarded cats”)especially when Wally manages to catch his tail on fire. And indoor plumbing? Thanks, but I’m not about to give that up.  The past loses its romance in great part when you consider Elizabethan London, where the contents of chamber pots were usually tossed out the window and into the street.

The major downside to technology is that we are utterly lost without it.  The school lost its internet connection this morning (I’m typing this up in Word, intending to post it later).  This completely poleaxes my lesson for the day.  Fortunately my kids are perfectly happy to just sit here and read, because there’s nothing else to do.  See, we are the pilot program for school-issued Chromebooks ™ in Chesterfield.  Therefore, most kids don’t have paper, because they don’t usually need it.  I can’t see my lesson plans because they’re all online. I would resort to older, still-functioning technology and pop a movie on, but…I don’t have any DVDs or even VHS tapes in the classroom because since the ‘net is the savior of the world I usually just show stuff that’s online, when I need to use a movie.      

      

Most of my kids can’t really remember the Y2K panic, but I do, and I found it hilarious at the time.  People really expected airplanes to drop out of the sky. I’m sure that even hypermodern airliners have manual overrides.  I even heard someone claim that elevators would stop working and people would be trapped in office buildings all over the world.  (To be fair I suppose that would be a result of power outages, but the person seemed particularly concerned about elevators, as if the elevators themselves would be distracted by the event.)  What I never did figure out was why it was such a big deal if all the computers thought it was 1900.  I could see that it might be problematic for record keeping, but why would it make computers just up and die?  Would the computers possibly realize that if it was indeed 1900 they wouldn’t have been invented yet, and shut down in order to preserve the time-space continuum?  It didn’t happen anyway so speculation in hindsight is a little pointless. 

On the other hand I am sitting here with a bunch of kids who have effectively forgotten how to complete assignments on paper (we did discover some paper).  Also: none of them know how to write in cursive.  It’s “old fashioned” so schools don’t teach it anymore.  And a bonus for today, mesdames and messieurs—today’s Thing My Students Don’t Know: “What’s a boxcar?”

FML

If you could merge a print of "The Scream" with a still of the Death Star exploding, that's pretty much what I probably looked like at about 7:30 this morning.  Everyone has "one of those days" occasionally but the Universe must have been saving up in its stock of "pissy, annoying little things" for a few weeks just to dump them today.  Here's a chronological review of the day, and keep in mind that it's only now 9:03.

• Hit snooze alarm once too many times.  Proceed to wake up at 6:10 instead of 5:45, therefore lose much-needed breakfast/coffee time.
• Drop bar of soap on foot in shower. Ow.
• Slosh cats' drinking water on floor. Spill some into cat food dish. [Proves to actually be good thing as cats are inexplicably excited about this.  Mental note: still does not merit buying wet food which stinks.]
• Get halfway down stairs; realize classroom key is still in apartment. 
• Start car; cannot find lighter.
• Stop on Meadow street for gas/coffee. Pull up at the one gas pump that is out of order.
• Move to functioning gas pump.  Go inside to obtain coffee.
• Realize at this point that do not have change for Downtown Expressway.  Figure this is OK and will get cash back from coffee purchase.
• This gas station does not have a cash-back option when paying with debit.
• Need to use gas station ATM which rapes you for two bucks because do not have time to go to real ATM.
• Get on downtown expressway.  Somehow the $20 bill has escaped into thin air.  Have to get IOU from very pleasant toll booth attendant.
• Still can't find goddamn lighter. 
• Lighter is in crotch.  Discover this when shifting around and lighter pokes sensitive dude-parts.
• Make it to school just in time for first bell.
• Receive email from colleague saying there's a $20 bill next to my car. 
• Have complete meltdown. Implode. Compose blog entry from a different dimension.

Welcome to my world.

Mini-post because once again the marking period is over and grades are due and mine are totally not ready and therefore I am losing my  mind BUT because I love my tiny little reader base very much, I thought I'd let you have a little glimpse through a porthole into my world.

People who don't work in education, or teach in schools that serve a more well-to-do population, really don't understand how completely out of touch our kids are.  Actually, I'm willing to bet that even kids at well-heeled suburban schools are pretty out of it, reality-wise.

When I say that my kids don't know shit from shinola, I'm not referring to their academic knowledge.  My students in Baltimore really, really didn't know anything about the world outside their dismal little four-block radius in West Baltimore.  My kids here never actually go into Richmond because they're either afraid of it or it just plain doesn't compute.  They think dinner at Ruby Tuesday's is super high class and Olive Garden is beyond the pale.

But here's a little tidbit from my 9th graders that will help you understand just how disconnected they are:

J: "I hate the First Lady."  [apparently because of her healthy-eating campaign]
T: "Who the fuck is that?"
J: "You know, the White House wife."

Just....wow. 

Hooray, hooray, the first of May...

...outdoor fucking begins today!

Come on now. How could I not acknowledge my favorite dirty little line?  It's an old English thing too so it's allright.  A very pleasant aspect of teaching and studying the English language is that, until the famously prudish Victoria ascended, it was a very bawdy language and culture.  I love teaching Shakespeare because it allows me to be fairly dirty in class.  Real English literature isn't happy without the occasional reference to pissing or farting.

On that note, does anyone have good dirty limericks? I'm quite partial to them, so here are a couple of mine:

There once was a fellow named Sweeney
Who spilled some gin on his weenie
Without lacking couth
He added vermouth
And slipped his girl a martini.

There once was a plumber named Lee
Who was plumbing his girl next the sea
She said, "Stop your plumbing!
I hear someone coming!"
Said Lee, "No one's coming but me!"

And some notes from the trenches...

While Mencken said one could never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, he clearly never taught in high school.  It was probably bad enough in his day, but WOW modern kids really don't know their asses from page eight.  One of today's hypothetical questions was "Why are manhole covers round?"  Not a single HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR knew what a manhole was.  Naturally they all think they know everything about sex so they thought the question referred to mens' assholes.  When, in fact, manholes are, you know, those things in streets.  I realize that this is Chesterfield County and there isn't a whole lot of pavement, but..really?  And there was a kid yesterday who didn't know what a chimney is. I mean, come on--these are not exactly esoterica.

I really need to start using the word "esoterica" in class more often, because kids will think I'm saying "erotica" and get all excited about English class.

Jesus, the Customer Service Representative

Really, everyone, I'm not being especially prolific today.  I wrote this over Spring Break when I didn't have wifi and also when I was too busy doing nothing to go find wifi so I could post.

Just south of Richmond is a long, crappy stretch of I-95.  It is crappy for many reasons.  Primarily, it is always busy and not fun to drive upon, but also it passes through most of Richmond's heavily industrialized areas so whatever scenic value the land had was destroyed long before 95 existed.  Add the belching smoke from the factories and the horrendous smell of the huge paper mills and you end up with one really annoying whole.

For whatever reason--proximity to the Capital? Sheer amount of traffic volume? the local Bible bangers have elected this stretch above all others in Virginia to plaster with various Jesus-y billboards.  I find these endlessly amusing.  Most of them are the really admonitory type that say things like "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."  Anyone who already agrees with that doesn't need the billboard; anyone who doesn't won't put any stock in it anyway--especially not after the billboard has just called him a fool. Whether I believe in God or not I don't cotton to being insulted by billboards.  Also, who the hell gets converted by a billboard anyway?  Unless it's a billboard advertising Krispy Kremes which would totally convert me to Krispy Kremes if I didn't worship them already.

One of the billboards offers a hotline phone number. While the others are just sort of amusing, this one weirds me out.

See, I've always wanted to call a hotline for something, just to see what they actually say.  Unfortunately there are really no hotlines that cater to my specific brands of freakazoid, so I've never had a valid option.  I mean, I'm pretty sure that it would be unethical to call the suicide hotline or the cancer hotline and be all "My favorite department store closed in 1990 and I'm out of mixers and also the cat just puked on the rug, WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW????"

I'm not sure what one is supposed to accomplish with the Jesus hotline.  One assumes that it's there in case people feel the need to turn to God.  Once again, though, if one already believes in God, does one need a hotline to convince oneself even further?  Those who don't believe in God would be highly unlikely, I think, to be zipping up 95 and think, "Hey, I've never believed in God before but that billboard totes has a hotline. Maybe I should check that shit out."

Furthermore, what actually happens when you call?  If I didn't believe in God, and I called, the only way I could be reasonably expected to start believing in God is if God actually answered. And if He did this is how the conversation would probably go:

"God here. So you're having some trouble believing in me?"
"Actually, I already do, but I was driving up 95 and I wanted to see happened if I called the hotline."
"You really shouldn't be on the cell phone while you're driving, you know."
"Well, but I'm talking to You. I mean, you would totally keep me from dying, right?"
"That's your guardian angel's job, technically, but I suppose so."
"You're a pretty major deity. What are you doing working in a call center? That's like, what, $10.10 an hour? Assuming you're in the continental US?"
"I'm omnipotent, bro. I can do this AND cause floods.", 
"So how do I know you're actually God and not some dude in Lahore? Can you turn the Philip Morris smokestack into a giant jujube, or something?"
"I could, but would that really make you believe?"
"I told you I already do. I just think it would be really cool if that smokestack turned into a jujube."
"And then you'd wreck the car and we'd be right back to you not talking on the phone while you drive."
"What are you, dude? My mom? Oh, wait--that showed that you're omniscient, right? Cool. But the jujube would still be awesome."
"No jujube, brah. But I'll tell you what--Broad street is seriously backed up. You might wanna take the Mayo Bridge today."
"Sweet! Thanks, God! Hey, could you turn the Mayo Bridge into..."
"NO."

Also y'all should totally scope my buddy/former colleague, Derrick's, blog.  He's a lot less snarky than I am.

reflectionsconnectionnonesense.blogspot.com/

Down in the City of Sighs and Tears

The past century has done some really weird things to our culture.  Since American culture in 1914 was already steaming full ahead to weird, this means that we're now a bunch of damned strange people.  I should probably forewarn you that this is a rant against the suburban ethos, so if you're one of those people who believes that your life only has quality because you live in a cul-de-sac, you should probably stop reading now.  Go eat at TGI Friday's (TM) and have a few mangochocosugartinis before you come back.

A century ago the vast majority of America's population lived in the sticks.  By "sticks," I do not mean places like Frederick County, Maryland--where I have lived, and which is mostly rural.  Frederick County had things like electricity and pavement, even in 1914.  It had one small city and several towns with main streets and brick houses and stuff.  I am talking about places that were a long, long way--like seventy miles--from anything resembling pavement.  Places where the only buildings at all for miles were your own house and barns.  Places where the only living things within thirty miles were either quadrupeds or your relatives. (In some cases, both.)

People in the sticks inherently mistrusted cities.  Popular music did not help; in the 1890s every other piece of sheet music was about some chick from the sticks (see what I did there?) who went to The Big City in search of adventure.  Though of course propriety wouldn't allow direct statements it allowed an awful lot of innuendo.  If you believed sheet music, every girl who ever left the country got knocked up within minutes of seeing Detroit/Philadelphia/Baltimore/New Orleans.  If I had that kind of luck I'd be visiting a new Big City every damn weekend, but these girls of course didn't know what to do and couldn't go home so they became hookers, or showed up at the Society Wedding of the guy who ruined them, or chastised other men.  There was a lot of chastising of men, too--reminding them of their sisters, mothers, sweethearts in Indiana, etc. While women were apparently getting it all over the place, it's a wonder any man ever got laid, with all those fallen women reminding him of his mom.

So it probably comes naturally that when people started to move into the cities, they still mistrusted them, which is probably part of the reason that for the last sixty years people have been trying to get out of cities again.  They still need the city--that whole job thing that made them move there in the first place--but they don't want to actually live in it, so the no-man's-land of suburbia came to pass.  And pass it did; it ran Reebok-shod over the countryside and sucked life out of the cities.

Invariably, suburbs think of their cities as scary, dangerous places.  In some cases this is true; there are plenty of city neighborhoods across the country that are very good places to get killed.  On the other hand, in the city someone will hear you scream (even if, a la poor Kitty Genovese, no one does anything about it).  In the country only the deer will hear you and they don't care that someone's going all Leatherface on you.  In the suburbs someone will hear you scream, but they will assume that you're a recent transplant from the city and that you're the one at fault, not the person murdering you.  The only thing a suburbanite will do is file a complaint with the neighborhood association.

Interestingly, suburbanites automatically fear any and all parts of every city.  I have been told, and quite authoritatively, that the Guilford section of Baltimore is a really bad neighborhood.  This is the area with zillion-dollar neo-Georgian houses; the land of croquet and gin-and-tonics.  But, you see, it's In The City so it has to be a bad neighborhood.  The same people think nothing of Lochearn, which is a pretty good place to get killed--but isn't inside city limits.

So, today, some of my students are en route to the Virginia Museum.  They are terrified because the Virginia Museum is in Richmond. It is, in fact, half a block from where I live.  As everyone knows, if it's inside city limits, it's in a bad neighborhood.

Clearly a bad neighborhood.

The really laughable aspect of this is that most of these kids are from really godawful neighborhoods in Chesterfield County.  One of them actually lives in the crumbling ruins of a 30s motel on Jeff Davis Highway.  But they're terrorized by the idea of going to The Boulevard.  

Weird things, people.  Weird things. 

A happy blind haze

I've never been particularly opposed to the use of weed.  I just don't really care that much because it doesn't affect my life, for the most part. Like every self-respecting college student I tried it a few times and the effect wasn't so thrilling that I wanted to keep smoking the stuff.  A lot of folks claim that it "didn't do anything for them" or they "just got a headache," which implies to me that they're like the people who light a cigarette but don't really inhale the smoke.  They just want to look cool.  I'd rather have a Manhattan, which is legal and doesn't smell like the rotting anus of a week-dead skunk.

This week has done a few things to change my mind.  I've been playing host to an old college friend who cannot get through the day without a few bowls.  Since he's ensconced in my spare bedroom it doesn't affect me that much--the stink stays in there with him--but I've come to realize the long term effects of pot. I figure I'm also safe from retribution because the person in question isn't the type who follows blogs and so will, in all likelihood, never read this.

I'll give some credit to weed: it doesn't make you mean, and those who've been around me after a few too many drinks know that booze can turn you really nasty. Weed doesn't do this but its cumulative effect over the course of twenty-odd years can make you damned stupid.

Not to say that our case subject is stupid.  People who have degrees from William and Mary are not stupid.  Academically, the guy is brilliant--but his common sense is so utterly fried that I'm not sure how he finds his way around life.

Actually, he doesn't.  This is his first visit to Richmond in many years, but he's spent time here before.  It is not a difficult city to navigate, but his helplessness started off on Monday as comic and  has degenerated to a big pain in the ass.

Example 1: I get a call as he's driving in.  He takes the Boulevard exit as instructed, but then wants to stay on the phone so he can get step-by-step instructions. OK, that sort of makes sense.
Me: "Drive past the baseball field. You'll cross Broad street and then you'll see Monument Avenue.  Keep going until you see the Virginia Museum, and then take the very next left."
Dude: "There's a statue..."
Me: "That's Monument Avenue. You're good. Keep going."
Dude: "Is that a college?"
Me: "?"
Dude: "Some big brick thing. It has a sign."
Me: (to self) he can only mean the Museum...wtf?
Dude: "I don't see the street. Oh, wait, that's Ellwood."
Me: "You drove past it. Circle around and come back."
Dude: "How?"
At this point I was ready to send out the Marines, but I was able to talk him back around.

Example 2: After a day touring on his own he was driving back to my place. Once again, he got lost trying to find it despite having been there for two days, but found it on his own.  Another call:
"I'm on your street. Where should I park?"
"Um...wherever you see a parking place."
"But I don't see any."
"Dude. This works like any other city. Find a damn parking place and walk back."
"But where???"
"How the hell do I know? I don't have some magic parking spot finder."

He did eventually park--a block away--which led to Example 3, in which he was so confused by the parking signs which are exactly the same as those in every other city that he took a picture of them to show me so I could decipher them for him. Let me point out that Richmond's parking signs are identical to those I've seen in every other city.

Example 4 was when one of the cats puked in the hallway.  This became a matter of great concern for visiting dude.  Let me point out, here, that he also has a cat.   Cats vomit. It's just something they do.  He not only felt the need to report it, but made it a topic of conversation for five minutes. It's cat barf, man. It happens.

None of these particular examples is anything egregious, but it demonstrates to me that weed will ultimately rot your brain.  So will booze, I suppose, but most alkies I know can still pretty much function as long as they're sober at the time.  This guy is hopelessly lost even when he hasn't had a hit for hours.  Do I know for certain it's the weed's fault? No, but I do know that the man wasn't like this twenty years ago and I don't know what else might have caused it.

So does this mean I think marijuana should remain illegal? No.  It just means I think it's a bad idea to make heavy use of it.  Why shouldn't it be illegal?  I think there are quite a few logical reasons that it shouldn't be.  To me, the biggest problem with illegalized pot is that it consumes far too much time in the legal system, and gets far too many otherwise good people in trouble.  As much as my friend's brain has been addled by pot, he's a good guy and a productive (if often lost) member of society.  However, if his employer did test--he's in the same line of work that I am--he'd lose his job.  If he gets pulled over on his way home from Richmond, he'll probably be in trouble if anyone takes a good look at his car. Not only does this waste police effort, it gums up the court system with things that just aren't that big of a deal.  We have bigger problems.  Marijuana simply does not cause the problems that "bigger" drugs cause.  No drug warfare erupts over pot--it just doesn't generate enough revenue.

What about legalizing other things?  Well--did we learn nothing from Prohibition? You just can't legislate morality.  If people want to do something, they're going to find a way to do it.  And, just like booze in the '20s, making coke and its relatives illegal just means that people will still use them, but that a thriving underworld will blossom.  It has, and it's ruined almost all of our major cities. Even small cities--e.g., Hagerstown--have a gangrenous underbelly because not only do they have their own drug world, they have become distribution centers for the larger cities.

Let's go ahead and legalize all the stuff.  We can regulate it and tax hell out of it, just like we do with booze.  Think of the jobs created: all the stores: "Just Mary Jane!" "Heroin To Go".  And the bureaucracy: by the time the US, in its post-Roosevelt fashion, gets done opening up regulatory agencies in every city, states following suit, and of course Treatment Options for those with Problems, there will be millions of new jobs. Which will mean that the down-and-out who are currently drug users will be able to have productive lives.

Also, we'll be able to play "I Get a Kick Out Of You" on the radio without censoring its lyrics.

A few of the reasons why I'm going to hell.

Let me preface this with the statement that yes, I do believe in Hell.  I'm not entirely clear on the concept  though, because the idea is that you go to Hell if you're a really bad person.  Since Satan is already bad, it seems to follow that he would want the bad people there, so why would he torture the people he actually wants to have around? It seems kind of like peeing in your friends' beer.  I guess the bad people are down with it because maybe they play nasty tricks on each other and, one presumes, Satan.  I mean, once at Homecoming my friends put salt in my beer while I was peeing, and I drank it anyway because that's what friends do and also it would have taken forever to get another pitcher right in the middle of Homecoming.

So, yes, I believe in Hell.  I'm never sure about those people who are all smarmy and oh-so-enlightened who say (usually after I say "You are evil and you are going to burn in Hell") "Well, I don't believe in Hell so I can't go there."  Let me tell you, smartass, I never believed in Newark either because it just didn't seem like a very good idea, but I finally ended up having to actually be in Newark. No matter how much you hate the idea of a place doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it doesn't suck.  I wonder if one also gets indecent propositions in the main train station in Hell.

I am probably going to Hell because I do have a filter, but I don't always remember to turn it on and without it I can be pretty nasty, though usually in response to something I find nasty in the first place--or just really stupid.  In recent memory:

Student J: "Yo. You look like a fuckin cholo."
Me: (one inch from student's face) "How do you know I'm not? And if I am, do you really want to piss me off?"

Student V: (busting the I'm-a-sexy-ghetto-ho eye-roll and tude) "I don't need no library card cuz I doan read."
Me: "Oh, OK. You made the active decision to be stupid and uninformed. I totally see your point.  Have fun on the pole!"

Whiny, very loud lady berating a stockboy at the store for not having something:  "I'm going to call the manager!"
Me, almost sotto voce: "I'm going to call the SS."

Pseudo-intellectual chick at bar: "Writing a blog is so narcissistic."
Me: "So narcissistic...what? Use the language correctly.  Besides, if I lived your life, I'd want to read about mine."

Damnit, I've got to stop sitting in handcars by mistake.  Oh, shit, wait...

The Steadfast Refrigerator and the Stinky Nothing

So this morning I had a lengthy discussion with my refrigerator.  Not really; because "discussion" implies that the fridge was contributing something to conversation, which it wasn't.  It was, however, contributing a pretty nasty smell to the kitchen. This was why it needed a good talking-to.

You'd think this was actually my fault, that I'd left something in there just a little too long. I'm pretty well known for Refrigerator Science Experiments.  Hell, I once left a thing of leftover Chinese in the fridge so long that it developed representative government. When I got around to throwing it out it formed an allegiance with the mustard and tried to revolt against my totalitarian regime.

Not this time.  I have been pretty good about keeping a clean fridge lately so I don't know what's gone south in there.  I decided that the fridge itself must be responsible so I started grilling it. This was extremely confusing for the cats, who usually and correctly assume that I am talking to them.  The fridge steadfastly refused to acknowledge responsibility; in fact refused to say anything whatsoever.  It hummed insolently and continued to stink.

I have always had a habit of talking to inanimate objects, and occasionally yelling at them (particularly cars and computers, which do not seem to enjoy doing what I need them to do) but I think this was the first time I have caught myself actually expecting to get an answer from something which is not actually alive.

This is how I know it's about damn time for spring break. 

Mini-Post!

Sorry. Grades due in an hour. Can't post.

Sort of.   You know how people talk about comfort food all the time now?  That's what we used to just call "food."  People don't want to do that anymore; it has to be in a category that expresses how New York and up to date you are because of course you don't really eat that stuff every day. You usually eat fusion cuisine, with an amuse-bouche of some shit that normal people wouldn't consider actually a food, and sushi for breakfast (when you're slumming, because sushi is SOOO 90s).  So when you admit that you actually eat stuff like tomato soup and grilled cheese, you call it comfort food.

I am eating tomato soup and grilled cheese because it's one of my favorite things ever.  It came from the school cafeteria, so the cheese should probably really be spelled cheez because it probably really isn't cheese. The bread is anything but artisanal and I'm pretty sure the soup came out of a five gallon bucket that says "Fred's Soup for Schools--Chase City, Virginia."

This is the best goddamn meal I've had all week. 

When I was in high school Special Ed, which we are now supposed to call Exceptional Ed, hadn't become the burgeoning industry that it is today.  Every grade had those couple of kids who were politely called "slow."  You didn't really see them because they existed in their own classes and maybe turned up for gym and lunch.  If a kid happened to be really slow, he ended up at a different school with his fellow brakes-applied learners.

But of course we can't do that anymore because someone, somewhere, might have his feelings hurt and sue the bejesus out of the school system (which doesn't really give a damn about whether people are learning or not, but does care about being sued).

So, in order to keep as many SpEd teachers, counselors and coordinators employed as possible, we keep coming up with changes in diagnoses so that people will have to spend hours filling out reams of new paperwork.

I just learned that Asperger's Syndrome doesn't exist anymore. (It's now properly called High Functioning Autism.)  This didn't really surprise me as I didn't really believe in it in the first place.  The first time I'd ever heard of it was the one miserable year I spent teaching at Parkville High School, which is in a suburb of Baltimore.  I was at a meeting in the beginning of the year when I heard somebody talking about a kid who had what I heard as "ass burgers."  I was shocked because I thought the teacher was talking about the kid's ass, which is of course totally inappropriate, until I gleaned enough from context to realize that she was talking about some supposed disorder.
Of which I'd never heard.
Despite being well-educated and well-read.
And having been in classrooms for three years already.
I soon learned that Parkville had over thirty students diagnosed with Asperger's.  Now, I realize that the air and water in Parkville are not that great; it's a crappy suburb of a crappy city, but still it defies logic that thirty  kids all born within three years of each other in one suburban area are going to have this disorder.
Well, they didn't, because now we've decided that it doesn't really exist.

Eventually, we're going to realize that as a culture we're painting ourselves into a small corner, educationally.  At least, we would if we could find kids who wouldn't whine to their parents about having to paint.  By the time the Karing n Koncerned SpEd folks are done, there will be fewer than ten percent of the population who doesn't have some sort of ostensible learning disability.  And parents will eat it up, because a "disability" absolves them from any parental responsibility.

Has no one figured out that employers do not have Accomodations and Modfications? You show up on time and do your job, or you stop having a job. We have got to stop coddling children who, for the most part, have nothing wrong with them except laziness and indulgent parents.  If they're really that "exceptional," they need to be in an exceptional school where they can draw exceptional bunnies and make exceptional macrame until they're seventy, by which time we will have gone through forty new terms for "exceptional" because that will have become passe and offensive.

I'd say "Will the last person to finish reading this blog please turn off the lights," but I don't have all of your Individualized Educational Plans, so I don't know who has to have a calculator or extra time to flip a goddamn light switch. 

Cause of death: poor grammar

So last night's cocktail hour conversation was on the morbid side.  I don't remember how we got to this point in the first place, but we were talking about causes of death when someone said "what if you die in some really gruesome accident, or murder, or something and they don't know exactly which injury killed you?"

I can answer that because in one of my former lives when I worked at the Bank of Baltimore, I handled credit accounts that belonged to dead people. That is, people who'd been alive once and had a credit account and then died; it's not like we were establishing lines of credit in Green Mount Cemetery.  As part of the job I needed to review death certificates.  It was really pretty interesting; people who work in  credit and collections always refer to deadbeat customers.  In my case they really were deadbeats.

The strange part is that no matter what happens to you, almost every death certificate lists cause of death as "heart failure." Then, it'll give the "secondary" cause, which usually is what happened to you that made your heart stop.  As far as the coroner is concerned, you died because your heart stopped.  The fact that your heart stopped because you got hit by the Crescent Limited is apparently of minor significance.  I suppose this is a bit of a kindness in some cases, if your death is either unbearably tragic or really stupid. I had one case where a college kid blew his brains out; at least his family was spared seeing that every time they had to show the certificate since it still said "Heart failure."  And if I died because I did something really idiotic, I'd rather not have my last public record say "Got drunk and tried to surf on subway rails."

Actually, I have already planned my demise.  It's been done before, but it's just so apt.  Years ago some dude died in his seat in the balcony at the Byrd.  He sat there for about three shows before someone figured out that either he wasn't doing too well or he really liked that movie.  This sounds like a fine plan to me.

So, if I am found dead anyplace but a movie theatre balcony, know that I was probably murdered.  And since the primary cause of death will invariably be "Heart Failure,"  I expect the secondary cause will be "conversation with person who believes 'alot' is a word."

Irradiated Utz. It's what's for lunch. Also people are retarded.

So, I completely forgot to pack lunch today (read: "I overslept and barely had time to poop and shower") so I went to the school cafeteria.  Unfortunately I also forgot to have any money and teachers have to pony up three bucks for the "food," so I busted out my one remaining dollar and got a bag of potato chips.  I am inordinately fond of snack food, so this wasn't really a bad thing, but then I saw the writing on the wall.  And by wall I mean the bag of chips.

Quick aside--what the hell are potato chip bags made of these days? I remember when they were wax paper; this crap is maybe foil and maybe plastic and possibly both, but is definitely going to give us all cancer.

I was happily nomming away on my salt 'n vinegar chips when I noticed the warning on the bag: "Do Not Microwave This Pouch."

What. the. hell.

I'll admit, for a party snack I have sprinkled cayenne pepper on Grandma Utz Kettle Chips and baked them for a few minutes, but who in creation microwaves potato chips?  Ever?  Why would you? What... Oh, I don't know, this is just too weird for words.

Oh, fine, I'm sure there are stranger things one might do with potato chips--say, pulverizing them and inserting into one's urethra--but why not caution against that, too?

Some time ago I mentioned the "Caution: Hot Contents" warning on fast food coffee cups.  While this, to me, comes under the heading of "No shit!" I understand that some idiot sued McDonalds--successfully--because she scalded her thighs with coffee from the drive-thru, and claimed that she wasn't warned about the heat.  Look, you stupid bitch, you would have complained if your coffee had been cold, and now because you're too goddamn dumb to hold on to it, you sue McDonalds because coffee is hot?

So I don't quite understand the warning, because who the hell would microwave potato chips, but I do understand it, because some jackass would microwave the package and burn himself and then sue Utz because he wasn't specifically told not to microwave it.  Frankly, if you microwave a bag of potato chips, you deserve what's coming to you.

The beautiful grand staircase at the Hotel Jefferson has been marred for years now by an ungainly railing that goes down the middle.  Why?  Safety code insists.  Never mind that there are railings on either side; the twenty-foot-wide stair must have a railing down the middle.  I am not clear on this, either.  If you need a damn handrail, then walk on the side of the staircase where there's a rail.  I don't give a rat's ass how many people fall to their deaths on the staircase--if they're that stupid they need to die, anyway--but do not screw with good Richmond architecture.

Salute to 1921!

Today, a salute to two great movie palaces that opened this week in 1921:  the Allen and Hanna in Cleveland,   Because it's one of my favorite theatres, here's a link to some pictures of the Allen:

http://www.cinematour.com/tour/us/9963.html

Since the pictures allow the Allen to speak for itself I won't babble on about it too much.  The Hanna is pretty swell too, but I couldn't find any pictures of it, and I doubt that anyone really wants to read lengthy descriptions of its interior. 

It seems odd that two fairly major theatres would open in the same week in one city, and even more odd that they would have opened in April.  Most big palace theatres opened in the fall, because they were trying to present themselves as a high-class form of entertainment.  They mimicked the "legitimate" theatres and opera houses. Since those venues typically started their season in the fall, the movie theatres followed suit. (Eventually people realized that stage shows are deadly dull and opera is all in Italian and who wanted to smell all that garlic anyway? and so the fall opening became less of a big deal.)

But open in April they did, and thankfully Clevelanders have had the good sense to keep both of them functioning for nearly a century.  Speaking of centuries... the Century in Baltimore opened in 1921 as well.  As did my very favorite theatre, Richmond's one and only Colonial (see picture on the right sidebar).  And the Stanley in Philadelphia, the State in Minneapolis, the Chicago in (surprise) Chicago, the Tivoli in Chattanooga...the list is pretty long.  1921 was a very good year for moviegoers.

It's common, among movie palace weirdos, to think of the late '20s as the real pinnacle of the idea.  Without a doubt the late 20s theatres were bigger and more grandiose, certainly more exotic--but I'll vote for 1921 every time.  The fad was for Adamesque decor, one of the most pissily formal, but also stunningly elegant, styles ever to leave a decorator's drafting table.  And an awful lot of those theatres were Adamesque.  (Richmonders clearly fell in love with the idea, because when the National opened two years later, it borrowed the Adam style from its older sister.)

Theatres seemed to come in waves.  1921 was probably the first real boom year for big picture palaces, though quite a few sprang up in 1917 and 1918.  That seems weird, given that we were at war, but maybe it was a pleasant diversion from the idea of war.  No such thing happened in the next war, though.  I suspect that we took World War II much more seriously than we took World War I -- which for most people on the home front was more of an opportunity to show off their patriotism, rather than the later war, which people understood was a pretty serious threat.  

1926 and 1928 were also big theatre building years.  I don't really know the historic economy well enough to say whether that was part of the cycle or not, though certainly after 1930 not too many things got built at all unless they were already under construction.  

It must have been an exciting time.  The war was over, prosperity was here to stay, skirts were going up and new buildings were popping up all over the place.  

Here's the Colonial's interior, just to give you one last glimpse of 1921.

Happiness is sticky and has a hole in the middle

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter.  I almost said "happiness is covered in white sticky stuff" but I knew you little pervs would really go nuts with that one.  Heheh, nuts.

I meant donuts, damnit.  Specifically Krispy Kreme donuts, which I am convinced are God's way of letting nice Southern people know that he loves us and wants us to be happy.  Fat, but happy. You know you're in a good place when one of your assistant principals walks around the building giving KK's to teachers.

There was a quiz floating around teh Facebooks a while back where you got to find out what kind of breakfast pastry you were.  Since there was no option for a pastry that farts first thing in the morning and then rolls over and goes back to sleep, I ended up being some kind of weirdass muffin.  I am not really into muffins in the first place; they're never sweet enough for my taste and they have a nasty habit of containing things that are supposed to be good for you like blueberries and cranberries.  Come on, people, if you're going to have a fruit-based pastry make it worth my while.  Or bran, which just makes you poop a lot.  Who needs a breakfast food that makes you poop?  I mean, I have a first period class; I can't exactly go hightailing it off to the "lavatory" just because I ate baked Metamucil.  The truly disturbing thing about the breakfast pastry quiz was that there was nothing normal on it.  No donuts, no Danish, and the only c roissant was also something weird.

I blame Panera for this.  I have to admit that I really like Panera for the most part, but they're kind of the Starbucks of the carbohydrate world.  They have managed to convince everyone that they're the only high-end bread out there.  Their stuff is supposedly "artisanal."  I know what an artisan is (that's the beauty of English-majordom) but really it should apply to things like porcelain and sculpture,  not broccoli-cheese bagels.  I think that where food is concerned, "artisanal" means "we threw some weird crap into the dough and are now charging six dollars for one roll."

Fortunately here in Dreamy Dixie we are still firm believers in the Donut Gospel.  Krispy Kreme is nothing short of heaven right there.  I am personally capable of eating nineteen of those suckers in one sitting and, diabetic coma notwithstanding, it's a sugar high you want to try.  Dixie Donuts on Cary street, right by the Byrd movie, is also pretty awesome and while they also have a tendency to do weird things with donuts, they are sugary versions of weird so it's OK.   I have just learned that the famed Duck Donuts, of Duck, North Carolina, is opening a Richmond store.  I have to keep reminding myself that the Easter Parade is coming up and I need to fit into my seersucker suit, and that bathing-suit weather isn't far behind, because otherwise with all these options I would be surfing a wave of lemon filling onto a Hot Donuts Now beach.

There is now a Krispy Kreme app for your iPhone that lets you know where the nearest KK is and if their Hot Donuts sign is lit.  Is it wrong that I decided to drive around just to test it out?

I am a good typist and therefore I am better than you are.

Until I walked into a classroom for the first time (as a teacher, that is) in 2003, the only class I'd ever taken that was worth a flying shit was Mrs. Gibson's typing class at Walkersville High School (pronounced Wockersveeyul Hah Skoo) in 1985.  Why, you ask?  Because despite my lofty education, the only job you can get as an English major is a teaching job--or utter crap.  Since I was convinced for several years that I didn't want to teach, my jobs tended to the utter crap.  Which meant that the only skill I needed was my ability to type.

This is becoming a rare skill indeed.  No one learns to touch type anymore.  Like cursive writing, it's "old-fashioned" and "unnecessary" because the computer fucking does everything except for how it doesn't.  See what a computer has? Oh, I don't know, could it be A KEYBOARD?  WITH LITTLE BUTTON-Y THINGS THAT YOU HAVE TO PRESS TO MAKE A LETTER HAPPEN?  IN OTHER WORDS--TYPING????

As I've mentioned, my students can't type.  They have Chromebooks, but they try to use their thumbs to type, because that's how they text. Also my students may be retarded.  (Call off the PC police, I don't really give a damn today.) I'm surprised by the number of adults who can't type, or at least hunt-and-peck somewhat functionally.

This morning, while my little darlings were ostensibly reading silently (hah!) I caught up with The Bloggess (who may or may not be a minor deity).  Apparently someone criticized her for putting two spaces after a period.

All six of you who follow this damn thing know that I am a grammar Nazi and I will, in fact, persecute and possibly torture/kill people who misuse English unless done in a way that I have personally sanctioned.  So listen up, you little bastards: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH PUTTING TWO SPACES AT THE END OF A SENTENCE (i.e., after a period).

Here's why:  the convention of a "space" was really created by typewriting in the first place.  Before the existence of typewriters, a "space" existed only in the mind of its creator.  Written material was either created by hand or a printing press.  If you are actually writing, the amount of space you leave between letters or words or sentences is entirely up to you, alt h ou  gh  i              f    yo u  wr  it      e   like this it looks really weird and people will think you're a sped.  Printing presses, too, were left to the whim of the typesetter, who hand-set the slugs.  If he left one space, or       ten between words, it was at his own discretion.

Typewriters didn't allow for such things and so demanded a uniformity that had never previously existed.  The convention of leaving two spaces after a period was born because it just plain looked better and helped to set sentences apart.  There was never a rule regarding this before typewriters.  There are those who claim that "this rule was invented for typewriting and so it's irrelevant now."  Of course it was invented for typewriting.  Why does that make it irrelevant? Guess what I'm doing right now--I'm typewriting, just not on the Underwood that still sits on my desk.  Why does the rule still apply?  BECAUSE IT STILL LOOKS BETTER, which was why it happened in the first place.

I double-space after every period.  So does The Bloggess.  She's really cool and I'm really easily pissed off, so either double-space yourself or a)incur my wrath or b)don't be a jerk and keep your single-spaced assholery to yourself.

Today's rant over.  Here, listen and watch as Wally Cat enjoys hearing one of his favorite dance numbers ("Wishing," played by Isham Jones and his Rain-Bo Orchestra).

Fun with Technology in the Classroom

No one will ever accuse me of being an up-to-date teacher.  Far too many teachers rely on technological doodads to cover up their complete ignorance of their subject material.  They will then huffily tell anyis is critic that they are keeping up with the times and that "kids don't need to know _________  because it's all available online."  This is the mental equivalent of a toupee.  Case in point: the young teacher with whom I worked a few years ago who honestly did not believe that there was such a thing as the second person, but who had a daily Power Point presentation for anything imaginable.  I still wonder what her presentations were actually about, since she clearly didn't know jack shit about her subject (which was, supposedly, English).

So it will not shock you that I cast a dim view at the myriad Google apps and smart boards and power points and other educational magic beans.  I'm sure they can be helpful, but they're not necessary and they get on my nerves.  I have enough to do without having to learn how to use all this crap.  You know what I can use? Chalk. And a blackboard.  My current school is old enough that the boards are indeed black.

There is one issue.  The erasers we have don't work.  Apparently if one MUST be so antediluvian as to use your hands to write something, for the love of all that is holy, one should do so on a white board. (This is a cultural flip--these days, people will do anything to deride white things in favor of black things, unless it's a writing surface...) So I have a white board which I loathe because chalk dust is easier to clean off the ass of my trousers than dry-erase marker, and also because dry erase markers have a life of approximately fourteen minutes.  I use the damn blackboard.  Except for how the erasers don't work.  Let me demonstrate:

I want one of those old felt jobs that you had to beat outside for hours, making everything in your vicinity white and yellow and unable to breathe. 

Or maybe I'm just really jazzed that I figured out how to post pictures on here.