Building Castles on the Beach

When I met my wife I made fun of her magazine subscriptions. She had set both The New Yorker (swanky) and Entertainment Weekly (trashy) next to each other on the end table. Outwardly, I mocked her contradictory sensibilities, but I knew I would never read The New Yorker and instead would secret away the EW to the back porch or the bathroom to read while she wasn’t looking. It was my pop culture porn: I was ashamed that I couldn't look away. I gradually gave up trying to hide my gratification of the pop culture dish that is the EW . Now I proudly read nearly every word every week. My descent into a pop culture junkie wouldn't have happened without it. I eagerly await the arrival of the next issue. If it doesn't show up in the mail on Friday, I'm desolate until Saturday when I hear the mail carrier open that mail slot. And if it's not there and I have to wait until Monday? Oh, the humanity! I take a new  EW and flip through the pages, identifying the major...

I made this playlist a couple of years ago to play during a warm-up for one of the girls' soccer games I coach at my school. Our school is adjacent to the district stadium, and we get to play a handful of games there. They used to let home teams play their own music during warm-ups until one of my girls' teams played a contemporary tune with the a-word buried under the beat somewhere. My fault for trusting the girls when they said it was all appropriate for school. Someone complained, I got a talking-to, and the district obtained an innocuous sports-themed CD to play before games. You know, Gary Glitter sings "Celebrate Good Champions Because We are the World," or something like that. Anyway, I thought we could do better, or at least classier, so I made a CD with these tracks that could not possibly be offensive to anyone because they're classical, right? Unfortunately the CD started cutting out after about three songs. I've made two subsequent CDs, and I ...

This week I'm on my Fall Break from school. I capitalize it to emphasize its importance in the education lexicon. People think Spring Break is the fo-shizzle, but Fall Break is really the 411. (Thought I'd utilize some recent additions to the slang lexicon in my own vocabulary. Did I do it right?) So, I haven't had much time lately. For anything. No time to do my job. No time to spend with my family. But more importantly, and most sadly, no time to blog right. When I started this last January, I obsessed about it so much that I lost sleep. I obsessed about each post I wrote that about 15 people actually read. I obsessed about the other blogs I stumbled upon and obsessed about how accurately idiotic my comments made me seem. But it was easy back then to keep up. To post a couple thoughts each week. To read each of the blogs I followed. Even Hyperbole and a Half only posted something once a month. (Now she's gone, ostensibly to work on getting her book published. And...

As an introduction to a unit on literary analysis, this week I asked my juniors to think about where they come from in terms of culture. I gave them this handout . It asks them to think about ten ways to define themselves, from religion to family to entertainment choices. I then gave them this handout , outlining a three minute presentation where they were to talk about which cultural group they most identify with and share a text that illustrates that culture. The presentation also required a visual aide of this text they identify with. It's show and tell for the high school set. Here's my example presentation: You might see me as ...an angry-all-the-time white guy who follows all the rules and only want you to do things his way. What you don't know is ...that I'm a liberal-minded Mormon who used to dress weird and listens to indie music, anything different. I most identify with ...punk culture and nonconformists. (Side note: Remember that this was a presenta...

Like, gag me with a spoon.  Ready Player One will do the trick. It's a high concept story. A reclusive computer genius invents a virtual reality system called OASIS that changes the world, and with his death, it's announced that his billions of dollars and control of the OASIS system will be awarded to the person who can solve an elaborate puzzle he constructed using the whole system. A young lad who dubs himself Parzival sets out to solve it and change his life. So begins the adventure. The hook for me is that the genius named Halliday came of age in the 1980's and his OASIS game can only be solved by someone with an acute knowledge of 80's pop culture and trivia. So the whole world becomes obsessed with the 80's and kids like Parzival dedicate their lives to learning everything they can about the decade. This leads to Family Ties viewing marathons, Pac-Man perfect scores, and not-so-friendly arguments about the merits of the film Ladyhawke and it's att...

The boy will be eleven months tomorrow. Considering I started this blog as a way to chronicle my baby's growth, I haven't written much about him lately. Teaching has basically been a boot to the head so far this year, and I've had about five minutes to myself since August. To temper the sting, though, my soccer team has had a swell season, and in a week we'll be garnering a decent berth at the state playoffs. So what has the boy been up to lately? Not much. He seems to be past the milestone-every-week phase. He's not walking, not talking, not cruising, not waving, not clapping, not teething, not drinking from a cup, not potty training (that's a-waaaay off). Not that he's unhealthy or anything. He's been deemed "normal" at this point, despite the circumstances of his birth. He's just on the cusp. It's like he's gearing up to turn into a real boy, but Jiminy Cricket hasn't visited just yet. (Is that the wrong reference? I don...

Charlie Pulsipher has written and self-published a book called The Crystal Bridge . He's weird. He can be found at Notice Your World . You should buy his book, not only because it will make me jealous, but because it's a ripping yarn about inter-dimensional travel and dragons.  I spoke with Charlie while we sipped cocktails (root beer and grape Welch's) on the veranda at a swanky Beverly Hills club.   Let's get the easy stuff out of the way: What's your book about?   It's about a boy who can open wormholes to far away worlds, a girl who can see other people's memories as though they were her own, and their adventures after their gifts interact. They end up lost on a planet on the edge of war surrounded by dangerous creatures. That distant world is in danger as an ancient being imprisoned in the space between universes awakens. Pretty much my two main characters must decide to save the world or go home, but Earth isn't safe, either.   ...

20 years ago last month (I wanted to write about this in September, but that didn't happen), Nirvana released Nevermind , which would turn into some kind of phenomenon and change the way we thought of popular music. In the Fall of 1991, I was driving around Provo, Utah, in my 1981 VW Rabbit, that German engineering putting it's way around town, when a song came on the radio. I didn't know what it was, but it was distinct and different from most anything on the radio at the time, even as I listened to the  "modern music" and "alternative" stations that were actually pretty decent in Utah back then. This song began with a staccatto guitar riff, which really hit when the drums kicked in moments later. The singer didn't seem to be singing as much as mumbling incoherently, then screaming a chorus that included the unforgettable "Here we are now/ Entertain us." Over the next few weeks, Nirvana exploded. The "Smells Like Teen Spirit...