That's Just Insipid!

SOURCES OF HAPPINESS

• Amanda, everything she is and is not. Her presence, her eyes, her beagle...
  

• The Wedding is just six months away. Although loads of preparation remain, much has been accomplished or at least decided upon. The vision of that day is ever clearer, although I'm sure I have no emotional precedent for something like this.
  
• The Barry family reunion in Las Vegas was five days completely saturated with love and hedonism. Although it was my first experience in Vegas, I had plenty to be skeptical about. While all of it was confirmed, my indignation softened and I had no trouble enjoying the pampered life for a time. And the gambling never stops. It is a world of comps and not of sleep. I played in two Texas Hold 'em tournaments and wasn't the first guy out either day. In fact, I took joy in knocking out a couple of mouthy players. One guy was playing so by the book that he couldn't believe it when I was the only one who called his overstrong pre-flop bet with a 9 Q off-suit. He continued to intimidate me and I ended up drawing the straight. It was only the third hand and he was so rattled (by that and by the two coffees with six sugars each he specifically ordered from the cocktail waitress) that he wouldn't stop muttering until he left an hour later. I was coasting with the winnings for a while, but chased a flush too many times in a row and didn't survive the increasing blinds/antes. Still, I finished 18th out of 40 that day.
  
• More Vegas: after losing/winning/losing money at slots (which my uncles play like fiends), and winning $100/losing $250 at 3-card casino poker (a great game that often pays well), I was beginning to feel like a total loser. Leave it to Vegas to redeem itself/myself on the last night: I took out the last $200 I was willing to lose and bellied up to the right $10-minimum bet 3-card poker table at around 2am, and was dealth three flushes, three straights, a bunch of pairs, and the grandaddy straight flush, which pays 40 to 1 on the bonus and 20 to 1 on the ante. It was an $800 hand that replenished all I had lost in one instant. The thrill was a joyous rattle that even two free Bombay and tonics could calm. I let two-hundred of it burn, just so I could continue enjoying the game for another 45 minutes or so, but I walked away with over $600. The next morning, just before getting into a cab to the airport, I went for one last slot-machine. Cautiously, I put $40 in a $1 per credit machine (you play 2 credits at a time for maximum pay-off) and did the up/down dance for 10 minutes before I scored the bonus and won $45. Cab/snack fare.
  
• Still more Vegas: in the airport terminal, an hour before boarding, I got a beer on-tap (yes in the airport) and sat down with Amanda at a 25c credit video poker machine (five card draw) which pays for hands better than a pair-of-jacks, just to kill time. Twenty bucks we put in. She played, then I played, and when I got sick of just betting fifty cents, I bet the maximum (5 quarters) three or four times and on the last, I rang up four 4s. The lady came by to pay me off in cash, and counted up my winnings: 20-40-60-80-100-5. I should have made $85, but she mistakenly gave me a $1o0 bill instead of the last $20, so I actually won $165. Thank you Vegas.
• Actually, there's a lot more to tell about Vegas that I can't/won't. But it was just as enjoyable as winning, and it was free, and it involved spending so much contiguous time with Amanda and being so much in love.
• Music, as always. Currently, after Gary's apt recommendation of 24 Hour Party People, Joy Division, The Happy Mondays, among others. Also, looking back at how closely I followed music in 2004, and the few but outstanding concerts I attended, I am pleased to be so involved in a sub-culture that is so rewarding and fundamental to my identity. See BEST OF 2004 list below.
• I have tickets to see Animal Collective again at the end of Feburary.
• Amanda and I are taking 10 students to Eastern Europe over spring break: Budapest, Prague, Vienna, and Berlin.
• Cinema, of course, is still a living passion. And Amanda is becoming more and more involved in that part of me, sharing.
  
• I am becoming, or already am, a lover of fine cooking. (I already loved beer and chocolate, but now it's everything). Ah well, one more arena in which I have to admit I'm an elitist.
• My family is healthy and happy.
• One student, whom I've known now for three school years, is someone I can call a friend, even if there are limits on our friendship for various reasons (age difference, maturity difference, teacher/student). He is funny, smart, kind, and we share many inside jokes. He is real, not perfect, but always somehow appropriate. He is both Korean and very American. I am happy to know him, and glad that he has decided to stay at the school where many of us love him. We share an appreciation of music and film, soccer and goofy humor. I wish more students were like him, and I hope I have a son like him.
• Bailey the beagle, the only dog I have ever loved.
• Blue Point Brewery's Hoptical Illusion IPA, awful name for a remarkable beer.
• It's time to teach Austen again.
• College Basketball.
• I had a disturbing dream last night in which baseball season had already started and I was too busy and missed it, I saw a Sportscenter highlight about some rookie who had 7 homeruns in the first week, and I had forgotten to sign up for Fantasy baseball. I woke up relieved.
  

THE TOP/BEST/FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2004 List
Also available at ThePhiller

Arcade Fire — Funeral
An intricate rhapsodious weep from Montreal, music as sincere as it is beautiful. A flawless record, immaculately sequenced, made to sound fresh indefinitely.

Devendra Banhart — Rejoicing in the Hands
Fifteen singular songs from an endlessly inventive character who proves that music does not have to be anguished, ironic, timely, or even aware of its surroundings to be memorable. A song can be as outré and silly as a third-grade doodle, as long as grace pervades. Banhart is style that doesn't know it's stylish, and the material here is golden corn.

Animal Collective — Sung Tongs
Did you see what happened to the hare in their video for "You Could Win a Rabbit"? Panda Bear and Avey Tare have come up with more lush forest pop as played by ecstatic chanting jackals: the delirious falsetto chorus of "We Tigers," the sizzling bacon and amusing brevity of "College," and the gorgeously unconventional melody of "Leaf House." "Kids on Holiday" features their best shouting duet since Here Comes the Indian's "Hey Light."

Devendra Banhart — Nino Rojo
You'll never love animals the same way again. "We All Know."

Morrissey — You Are the Quarry
Say what you want to about the aging Moz, this album is hella better than what Duran Duran or The Cure could come with this year. No one else can get away with the wit of "First of the Gang to Die" in L.A. without suffering a drive by. No one else can think to sing "Close your eyes/ and think of someone you physically admire/ and let me kiss you" without seeming so comfortably pathetic.

Jason Forrest — The Unrelenting Sounds of the 1979 post Disco Crash
Nothing kicks the ass of a party into myth like blasting "Satan Cries Again", especially when the glitches and stutters pause momentarily and the CCR swamp groove is allowed to breath solo, reminding you that this is a record that allows you to experience the best of two worlds - experimental electronica and classic rock radio - simultaneously.

Black Dice — Creature Comforts
Flutters, bloops, and warps populate the soundscapes of Black Dice's studio procedures. Not as organic or woodsy as cohorts Animal Collective, the music comprising this album sounds like 21st century computer doctors emulating B-scifi soundtrack ambiance from the 1950s. And their live show is really, really loud.

Madvillain — Madvillainy
Thick on assonance and maniacal wit, Madvillain/Viktor Vaughn/ MF Doom runs plenty of virtuosic rhymes through his gums (and his iron mask), while Madlib's production runs brilliantly askew, sometimes bothering to accompany Doom, or not.

Sufjan Stevens — Seven Swans
Songs with the musty beauty of a cottage from a singer/songwriter who sincerely thinks that dress looks nice on you.

Franz Ferdinand — Franz Ferdinand
It was infectious at first, but with the dubious caveat that it was doomed to spread too far and wide. Like the night, its fun wasn't meant to last, but it's still among the best of 2004 and will be remembered as such."Michael" was funny to listen to, but how often did you actually dance to it (or want to)? "Take Me Out"'s delirious bounce will be a retro-blast in five years.

It's January, and my sinuses are congested. There has been only one major snowfall, but A and I were in Las Vegas to miss it. Only six weeks remain in the winter term, but there is much to do before they have passed. To start, I have to contend with a challenging freshmen English class each school day from 10:55 - 11:40am. My other four classes are coasting as usual, and are as rewarding as they are work, but this one class is such an unfair drain. It would be better if I didn't care about any of them, but after investing so much time and effort in the class and in getting them this far (the two worst-behaving/performing students are my advisees who both live less than ten yards away from me) I can't just disregard them. It takes so much patience to sustain the understanding that they are just freshmen, boggled by hormones and so open to all influence. Some of the behavior is purely rotten, but even the worst I find I have to apply some consideration to, and besides, since this is a small familial school, it isn't my job just to let them fail, I have to find some way to make them work as young students. The disparity between some of my top honors students and some of my most immature underachievers is sickening, but somehow believable. A lot of teenage behavior is sickening to me, and what does that mean? I think of them using drugs off-campus, or drinking, or having sex (which I'm certain some of them do), and I have such strange feelings about it. I don't want to condemn them, but I don't want to condone the actions, either. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in making them meet every guideline that any infraction is infuriating. On the other hand, how much leniancy do we grant them before we're just suckers? It's such a fucking balancing act. These aren't my biological children, but with the amount of care and thought and stress they each exact in me binds me to them to the extent that extends my relationship with them beyond that of "teacher." I'm not a parent, or even a friend to them, but I'm not just a teacher. Two years ago, I think I perceived my job as just a teacher and maybe a babysitter, but now it's something more. The cost is that it hurts more when they disappoint me, and I am more attuned to the many ways they can disappoint.

They hurt me when they I think they are top students and model citizens and then they hand me a stack of twenty letters of recommendation each so they can transfer to another (and in their (or their parents') view, better) high school next year. The kicker is the personalized letter they write to me, about how they feel I know them better than any other teacher; then it turns out they wrote the SAME EXACT LETTER to Amanda for her stack of letters. Bullshit (and even worse are the gifts and letters the parents give you, equally hollow). But still, I do see how they are in this for their life and career, and maybe I shouldn't be so proud of my school (and its flaws), but for what we lack in organization and structure we make up for in genuine connections. Behind all the empty slogans and ad campaigns and air-brushed pictures of the campus, some incredible relationships are forged, many which are not apparent until graduation day. These kids are weeping in May, and it's always the ones who have been here for the longest (three, four, five, six years) who are moved, and because the school means something to them. Not all high schools are equal (just like college) but the experience you can have at any school (especially one like mine which is safe, small, familial, and secluded on Long Island with acres of grass and a view of Stony Brook harbor and with all we offer) can be wonderful if you make it wounderful. Part of that requires staying put and nurturing roots.

They also hurt me when they lie, and then lie about lying. Especially about me or my colleagues, and especially especially about Amanda.

The seniors hurt me when they are late to first period class everyday, and then try to make me feel guilty about it. When they can't hand a paper in on time despite extensions and then they make me feel guilty about it. When they ask me at the last second to write a letter of recommendation over my winter vacation and mail it, but are rude about asking and make it seem like I'm the one who is wrong when I explain (after I had agreed to do it) that they really should have come to me sooner. When not one of seven day student seniors show up for a manditory academic Saturday trip to the Natural History Museum in Manhattan (a free trip for them), when the reason for having Saturday class (there are only four per year) is because we give them an extra day off at the beginning of the week when school re-starts after vacation for travel time).

But complaining does not improve any of these situations, and although I make their failings clear to them, I have to suck-up the stress and frustration and keep moving forward optimistically. I hope this un-written requirement of the job serves me in some other phase of life, most likely when I have my own children.