this is what concerns me

I took the CBEST test today in the first step to becoming a credentialed substitute teacher in California (and Oregon!). That was some embarrassingly easy shit, I tell you what. Though I did enjoy the essay question on “the little everyday things that make [me] happy.” Indoor plumbing! I also finished the test in two hours and ten minutes, which is a little more than half of the time allotted; I was the first person finished in a room of about 30.

My favorite question, though, was in the reading comprehension section. There was a little anecdote about why teachers should dress nicely for work, because if they show up in “dirty jeans and sloppy T-shirts” then students won’t respect them. One of the questions asked what the article’s author had intended for this sloppy teacher example to indicate. One of the options? “That the teacher is a dangerous extremist.” That was hardly the only time I was nearly persuaded to answer jokingly. The Magpie and the Fox fable was simarily enticing. I’m going to make a terrible teacher. I can’t wait!!

This review is of the “Best American Comics 2008″ edition, which actually took chances on “up & coming” creators (that Eleanor Davis cover! my god!) as opposed to this year’s volume, which is about as recession-proof safe as one could imagine. My guess is they’ll sell as many(/few) of the boring as of the good ones, but try to convince some Houghton-Mifflin editor of such economic realities? Good fucking luck, he’s banking on modest Crumb-driven sales. (No, I cannot bring myself to blame guest editor Charles Burns.)

And I’m starting the year-end awards early, because really, there’s no way anything could top this.

Yes, this is the real forecast for the day after tomorrow in Oakland, California. So let’s just give it up, guys. Use all the plastic you want, gorge yourself on factory farmed burgers and have tons of Catholic babies. We’re clearly fucked as it is.

From this week’s missive. “A metastudy by several U.S. universities applied the Tightwad-Spendthrift scale to romantic relationships and determined that cheap and profligate people can love each other.”

I’m not saying it’s not possible, just highly unlikely, at least from where I’m standing. More from the study itself:

“That is, ‘tightwads,’ who generally spend less than they would ideally like to spend, and ’spendthrifts,’ who generally spend more than they would ideally like to spend, tend to marry each other, consistent with the notion that people are attracted to mates who possess characteristics dissimilar to those they deplore in themselves (Klohnen and Mendelsohn 1998). In spite of this complementary attraction, spendthrift/tightwad differences within a marriage predict conflict over finances, which in turn predict diminished marital well-being.”

I love the heavy parsing on “diminished marital well-being.” But I’m sad to hear that these tightwads are so ashamed and self-hating. I think moderate to extreme cheapness is one of the most attractive traits in a potential mate; I actually become very anxious around people who spend more than they should. But I never would have suspected that this is a rarity. Especially in this economy, amirite?

Because otherwise Dick Blick wouldn’t be selling these lifesize wooden manikins now would they?

Of course not.

Only $555 for the kid, $779 for the lady and $799 for the dude!

Hell, what’s another $800 when you’ve got $100K in art school loans, right kids? It’ll look so good in the condo! And now you’ll never have to draw from any of those gross naked people!!

I don’t know why everyone is so into the Mighty Boosh when they could be watching Time Trumpet.

This Bryant Park Project piece sheds a bunch of doubt on my road trip plans: now that gas is topping $4/gallon, used oil from restaurants is nearly as hot of an item. Not only are new greasy corporations signing contracts with most chain retaurants to collect and purify their grease for biodiesel, but there are grease-stealing rings already cutting into those corporations’ profits. I’m not sure where I’d fit into this new oil economy, but I guess I’m still optimistic about the small diners of the heartland.

“These are your own natural curves that are still there when your clothes come off.”

Turning off the television.

If you know me, you probably know I now have consistent access to cable television programming for the first time in about six years and that this means I’ve been introduced to the Food Network in all of its bloody glory. As Amy Sedaris says, “when you’re alone and high in the night,” you can switch back and forth between the Food Network and the medical shows with the box on mute and everything looks just about the same. (But I’m also kind of convinced that watching has improved my seriously sub-par vegetable chopping time significantly.)

This also, of course, means I’ve been introduced to RayRay, that ever-grinning reminder of our continued march as a culture toward the lowest common denominator. (Not to mention those recipes take at least an hour.)

Now, I find Anthony Bourdain as repugnant as any of y’all, but I just had to block quote this for posterity…

Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So…what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell, I could do that. I ain’t gonna but I could–if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better–teach us–and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion–you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing! Just sit there. Have another Triscuit. Sleep.. sleep..

That is all.