A podcast about books, art & life — not necessarily in that order
Good thing I got an early start today! It put me on the road with perfect timing, so I could get behind this guy —
— for two miles. At this moment, I was going around 17 mph, or one-third of the speed limit on that sign to the right. We got up to about 25 mph by the time he turned off this road. TWO MILES LATER.
At least I had the new B.S. Report to listen to on my iPod.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to check the “apes” box in my list of categories!
Today’s paper has the story of Travis, a 200-lb. chimp on Xanax in Connecticut who, um, went ape after seeing his 70-year-old owner’s friend wear a different hairstyle. This fashion choice led to mauling, stabbing, and gunplay.
On the plus side, Travis was able to brush his own teeth, something I’m hoping Rufus will get around to learning.
I don’t write about the perils of DIY plumbing on this blog (except for this post, which featured one of my favorite stupid puns), because them’s the breaks of home-sorta-ownership, right?
Anyway, the flapper in the upstairs toilet has been faulty for a few months now. After flushing, I have to take the lid off the cistern, tap the flapper down over the flush valve, or it’ll keep draining for quite a while until the flapper drops down on its own.
Today, I finally decided to pick up a replacement flapper and do the repair. It wasn’t too difficult: shut off the supply valve to the toilet, flush to empty the cistern, and remove the faulty flapper. (Note: my wife was on flashlight duty, ably assisting with light and tool-retrieval.) Since it was apparently a factory-assembled component of the fill valve, I needed to cut through it with an Xacto knife to remove it. It came off fine, and the new one fit just on easily. There was some experimentation with the length of the chain from the flapper to the flush arm, which necessitated turning the supply valve on and off, but we found a correct length, and all was good! Flapper repair: complete!
Then I noticed the leak on the floor.
At first, I thought it was a spillover from the cistern, since I did some of the work while the tank was full. But no: the leak was coming from the supply valve, which does not appear to have been replaced since the house was built. In 1968.
The leak would only stop when the valve itself was shutoff (meaning no water gets to the toilet). I called my dad, a genius of household repair, for his advice, but his tips were for naught. Good thing we have a second bathroom downstairs!
Now it looks like I need to engage in this guy’s strategy, shutting off the water in the house, draining the pipes, removing the valve stem, buying a replacement, and fitting the new one on.
You don’t want to go buy a replacement without having the old one on hand, because you will always buy the wrong one. So that means the house’s water has to be turned off from the beginning of the process to the end. And that means I’ll be waiting till tomorrow, because there’s no way I’d be stupid enough to start a job like this at night and risk being without water for another day!
Which is to say, I may skip Monday Morning Montaigne this week.
(Note: Sure, I could call a plumber, but this simply cannot be that complex a job and, with the NFL season over with, I need to do something manly this weekend!)
There are several awesome things about this NYTimes article about shopping malls:
New Jersey’s small size has a lot to do with both its much-inflated deficiencies and its virtues. A lot is packed into limited territory. Urban squalor is squeezed up against dairy farms; picturesque villages right out of a New England landscape are a sneeze away from sulfurous factories and malodorous highways. For a lot of people, caricature of the state’s deficiencies is an efficient way to reduce its multifaceted nature to a clear meaning.
The jumble of contrasts is, on the contrary, the source of Jersey’s remarkable harvest of talent. It drives certain people to either build a unified artistic sensibility out of the divisions around them, or to create art unhindered by a narrow identity.
and why Billy Joel sucks:
I decided to make a serious effort to identify the consistent qualities across Joel’s “body of work” (it almost hurts to write that) that make it so meretricious, so fraudulent, so pitifully bad. And so, risking humiliation and embarrassment, I ventured to the Barnes & Noble music section and bought a four-disc set of B.J.’s “Greatest Hits,” one of which was a full disc of his musings about art and music. I must admit that I also bought a copy of an album I already had — Return of the Grievous Angel, covers of Gram Parsons songs by the likes of the Cowboy Junkies and Gillian Welch, whose “Hickory Wind” is just ravishing—so the cashier might think the B.J. box was merely a gift, maybe for someone with no musical taste. Yes, reader. I couldn’t bear the sneer, even for your benefit.
And I think I’ve done it! I think I’ve identified the qualities in B.J.’s work that distinguish his badness from other kinds of badness: It exhibits unearned contempt. Both a self-righteous contempt for others and the self-approbation and self-congratulation that is contempt’s backside, so to speak. Most frequently a contempt for the supposed phoniness or inauthenticity of other people as opposed to the rock-solid authenticity of our B.J.
My complete lack of a social life during high school (1985-1988).
The weather was really wonderful yesterday morning, so we decided to take Rufus on an extended walk around Skyline Lake. I don’t recall ever walking all the way around the lake when I was growing up here, but I enjoy meandering around with our boy and looking at the environs. I’m sure I won’t in wintertime, but I’ll cut down his food a little so he doesn’t pack on the pounds.
Anyway, in the last third of our walk, we stopped for a few moments at the lakeside and I busted out the iPhone to take some pix. Here’s the best one:
After, we went down to our weekly farmers’ market. It’s the last one till next May, so Rufus made sure to stop by all his regular booths and get lots of affection. In our conversations with other shoppers, we found four different families that have owned greyhounds in the past. Which is freaky, is all.
Anyway, no Wawayanda hike today, as we’ve got tickets for the Cowboys/Giants game, so here’s your cute pic of the week of Rufus Noir, Ace Dogtective:
We didn’t get as many trick-or-treaters as we did last year, so Rufus had an easier evening than I’d anticipated. He barked like a maniac everytime the doorbell rang, of course. I’d put his leash on him and open the door, at which point he’d invariably wag his tail and try to get all the kids to pet him or put their faces close enough for a good lick.
All in all, he had a better day than Jill Rappaport’s dog:
At a traffic light during my drive home yesterday, I noticed this car in the next lane:
In case you can’t see this iPhone photo too clearly, it’s of a Volkswagen Phaeton with a W 12 engine. According to the Wikipedia page for this car, it looks like the W 12 is the top of the line for a Phaeton. This means that I was on the road with someone who spent more than $100,000 on a Volkswagen.
Or maybe — given the letter-sequence of his license plate — he bought it used for around $55,000.
Either way, I may have found the stupidest driver in New Jersey. It’s a Volkswagen!
We’ve had a bunch of bear sightings this summer. On my drive home from work two weeks ago, I saw a bear wandering around the soccer field of a local grade school. I called the police about it when I got home a few minutes later, since the field was right around the corner from their station.
That weekend, one of my neighbors told me that they saw a bear in the yard beside our house. When they looked an hour later, the bear was still there, just hanging out.
Last Tuesday night, during Rufus’ evening walk, one of my neighbors was raking up trash in the woods about 15 feet back from the street. He told me, “I live across the street. My wife called during my drive to work and told me that a bear had just picked up our trash can and was carrying it over to the woods for breakfast.”
Tonight, we decided to walk down to the local CVS during Rufus’ evening walk, so I could pick up a Cherry Coke. About a third of a mile from my house, I noticed a jeep parked on the side of the road. The driver reached out the window as if to tap a cigarette. We walked up to her car, and she said, “He’s over there. Do you see him?” Pointing again, not tapping a cigarette.
I thought she was talking about her toddler, with whom I’d seen her walking many times. I wondered why her toddler was meandering around in someone’s yard, while she and her husband sat in her jeep. I looked where she was pointing, and realized that there wasn’t any toddler to be found.
However, there was a very large black bear beside the house across the street, in the process of emptying a trash can.
I said, “Wow, that is one giant bear!”, took Rufus’ leash from my wife, and trotted briskly on to CVS. As we got over the next hill, Amy asked, “Is there a reason we didn’t just head back home?”
Seriously, that bear would’ve towered over me on its hind legs. “Because . . . I wanted to get a Cherry Coke?”
We kept walking. As we approached the drug store, a pair of kids (around 10-11 years old, I think) were playing with their skateboard and scooter. One said to us, “There’s a bear back up the street.”
I told him that we’d passed it already, and thanked him for the warning. Amy went into the store and got my Cherry Coke. She asked, “Should we walk back the same way, or try the back road instead?”
I pondered for a moment. We’d seen the bear beside a house that let out onto that back road, so I figured there was a 50/50 chance he’d have come out on that side by the time we got back. I decided we’d go home by our regular route. The two kids left with us. I figured the bear would go after them first, since they’re trashcan-sized.
We approached the area where we’d seen the bear, and I figured that if it was in the same location, about 35 or 40 feet back from the road, chomping on trash, the five of us would be fine. Rufus gave no sign of sniffing him out, but he didn’t react during the walk down the street, either.
A neighbor across the street from that house called to us, “Be careful! There’s a bear out!”
“We know,” one of the kids said.
“No, he’s right over there!” the neighbor said, pointing to a stand of pine trees about 10 feet from the road.
I turned and bolted up the front yard of another neighbor and rang his doorbell, Amy and the kids racing behind me. The man of the house, whom I believe is a policeman, answered the door, and I hurriedly said, “There’salargebearacrossthestreet. Isitokayifmywife,dogandthesetwokidsstayinsideforaminute? I’llgogetmycarsoIcanbringeveryoneupthestreet.”
He assented, but started looking over at the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of the big bear. He offered to drive us all, but I impulsively decided a good run was in order. I handed Amy the leash and sprinted (as best I can) back to the house. The bear had already retreated from view, probably heading to that ‘back road’ area. On the way, I warned a neighbor who was just taking his little terrier out, “Gotheotherdirection. Blackbeardownthisway.”
He let out a yelp and hurried back into his garage.
I got to the car and drove down to the house. The two kids were getting into one of their mothers’ cars, since she was out looking for them. Amy & I got Rufus in, thanked the gentleman, petted his dog (he and Rufus got to make friends while I was gone), and drove back to the house.
And that’s life in Ringwood. Come visit!