#7

And so, with snow days piling up, I was able to complete the Library of America's Zuckerman Bound collection last evening by reading straight through the short novel "The Prague Orgy." I just read a memoir by Tony Judt in the NYRB about young West European radicals in the late 60s who protested Viet Nam and who heaved cobblestones in Paris and yet were totally unaware of the true revolutions happening in Prague and Budapest. Judt notes: "It was the student rebels of Central Europe who went on to undermine, discredit, and overthrow not just a couple of dilapidated Communist regimes, but the very Communist idea itself. Had we cared a little more about the fate of ideas we tossed around so glibly, we might have paid greater attention to the actions and opinions of those who had been brought up in their shadow." I think Roth was of the same opinion (albeit before the crumbling of the Iron Curtain), and sent his alter-ego to Czechoslovakia as a result.

In "The Prague Orgy" Nathan Zuckerman travels behind the Iron Curtain to retrieve the short stories of a friends' father. While in Prague he is trailed by secret police, he is bugged, he is persued by a celebrity actress, he witnesses a grand orgy in an old manse, and he sees what becomes of artists and writers under totalitarian regimes: they sweep floors, they bake bread, they get interrogated and moved further down the social ladder by apparatchiks fearful of their influence. And they fuck a lot, and write in secret, and nobody reads them, but they don't have nervous breakdowns, and they don't get bogged down hopelessly by celebrity.

I think I've only 3 left in the Zuckerman books: The Human Stain, The Counterlife, and Exit Ghost.

netflixed

Fairly typical Quentin Tarantino--occasionally entertaining, but mostly annoying. This is an hommage to really bad WW2 caper films I loved as a kid, like Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes (I'm pretty sure the music of the former was referenced in a key scene in Inglorious Basterds, but since Where Eagles Dare is unwatchable to anyone over the age of 12, I won't essay to verify this).

Yes, both Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes were Clint Eastwood vehicles, and there are other references to Clint Eastwood scattered throughout. The opening scene is right out of Unforgiven, and the music is of course spaghetti western Morricone. Despite the distractions of pointless pastiche, the opening is effective, until the requisite Tarantino dialogue about rodents turns it totally absurd. Every time he does this it pulls me out of his films and makes me think "here we go with the not-so-clever 'clever' dialogue." Ugh. So right away, I was thinking it was a mistake to get the movie.

It was. I didn't enjoy the alternate history. I didn't enjoy Brad Pitt's 'performance,' (though many of the other actors were excellent in several languages). I didn't even enjoy the cartoonish violence, which is often the best part of Tarantino's flicks. So, whatever. I'm too bored with it to even pan Inglorious Basterds. Where's Werner Klemperer when you need him? Or Schulz?

netflixed

Netflix recommended this because of my interest in Miyazaki. Cha and I got about 30 minutes in before we swore at the Blu-Ray player and packaged it back up in its red envelope. The dialogue is artless, the voice-over is painfully wooden, the characterization is random and insipid, and much (not all, to be fair) of the animation is at the level of the original Speed Racer cartoon. Perfect Blue certainly not perfect: fuck this movie.

Snow Day #4

I'm a bit aggravated to be off for the 4th snow day this year. I mean, a couple snow days are fine, but these days will be added to the end of the school year, and I doubt we're done yet, given that the City is still paralyzed, and there's another 6-12 inches coming tomorrow night. After they add the first five snow days to the end of the school year, headquarters will start erasing them from our Spring Break week in March. I'd much rather work now and play later!

But last night I started to wheeze and cough and ache all over, and this morning I expectorated a chartreuse glob which looked radioactive and had bloody streaks throughout. My lovely wife, who was herself a classroom teacher for a decade, says: 'that happens to teachers at the beginnings of their careers. You constantly have minor colds and sore throats, but if you get a day off for snow, your body says "OK, now I can rest and be really sick."' Fuck that. I want to rest and be well! I probably over-did the snow-shoveling the past couple days, given I had a minor cold heading into this weekend.

True, I've had minor colds and one serious flu over the past two years, but I haven't had my annual sinus infection from hell in three years. I think it's a result of the frustration and stress I felt after last week's performance review. Stress is deadly shit!

Snowtorious

Here We Go

I love this graphic because of its use of the word "paralyzing." 4-6 inches paralyzes Baltimore, after all. 2-4 sends people rushing off to local groceries and Wal-Marts to stock up, like if they don't buy a loaf and a gallon of 2% they gonna be getting all Donner Party on each other. Nobody in Baltimore has ever been stuck in the house for more than a couple days, even following each of the Storms of the Century at the end of the '90s, and yet folks continue to freak out and to hoard TP and milk and bread before a snow.

18-24 inches is liable to shut this City down for a couple days. When we got a bit more than 20 the Saturday before Xmas, schools were closed the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I don't want any more school days, because they get added to the end of the year in June, or shaved off our Spring Break. I'd rather suffer through school now and enjoy free time later.

#6

Nathan Zuckerman is in a funk. He's developed mysterious, shooting pains in his neck, back, and shoulders. Despite his fame and fortune he is unable to find a specialist who can diagnose, let alone treat, his malady. He can't write, he can't socialize, so he lies on the floor in his apartment and kvetches. And carries out affairs with women who drop by to do errands for him.

In order to alleviate his pain, Nathan starts eating Percodan like candy and swilling vodka. This leads quickly to a mania which makes him believe he can go to med school at age 40 and start a new career. He flies to Chicago in order to apply to schools and has a breakdown. Along the way, he adopts the name of his worst critic and pretends to be a pornographer.

Again, Roth effortlessly inhabits Zuckerman, and of course one wonders how much is autobiographical in his work, but Roth is wholly aware of this concern and he plays with it to full effect. Despite great passages of breathless hilarity and clever invention, this is a very dark and sad book about the collapse of a great genius into total despair. And again, I just think Roth is Da Shit, which explains why I read two back-to-back.

a new day

So the Big Cheese rambled up to my room today for the first time in months. Because of the two-hour delay we had about 40% occupancy, but the kids who came were fired up to goof off. Fortunately I had just gotten my kids under control after a loud outburst when she strolled in and mosied on up to the front of the class. Old school educator as she is, she spotted four kids chewing gum and had them "empty they mouths," and reminded me that I should do the same. I always tell the kids "If I don't see or hear it, I don't care if you chew gum." It keeps them busy and awake!

She came to the front of the room and requested a meeting. In her hands were the two detailed emails I'd sent her the previous sleepless evening, with the attached data charts showing that I had doubled the number of proficient kids from Test A to Test B on the NCLB crapola. Tomorrow is Test C and I hope my numbers go up again!

But anyway, we met, and she called my concerns "valid," and she said she was re-writing my review based on "new information" and some "corrections of misunderstandings" of previous conversations she had with the ISTs and the AP following a leadership team meeting.

Translation: I lied my ass off on your review, you didn't fold as expected and you called me on it, and now I am eating my words.