[Sigh.] We're back.

A lot has happened since N2.

I went back to school, got both my MA and Ph.D., and am now a bona fide, certified, unemployed professor of literature. I tried to get a gig at all the usual places, starting at home base in Cambridge and working my way down to Crackhead Community College for the Criminally Connected in North Febrile, New Jersey, but with no luck. So until my employment ship comes in, I am writing freelance for the Huffington Post, as is every other out-of-work person with access to a word processor. Meanwhile I keep sending out resumes and making calls. Somebody out there needs an English Professor. Or English Instructor. Or tutor. Or junior high substitute teacher. Or hall monitor. Somebody. Please!!!

Meanwhile, I remain of the single persuasion, although the fact that there is a woman (who will remain nameless until I actually name her) with whom I have promised to share digs in a few weeks is a potential indication of something else altogether. More about that later.

The Nostrumite, on the other hand, remains gainfully employed, and even tenured, at Tennessee Williams High School right here in Cambridge, and as far as relationships are concerned, he now has six children. As does his long-suffering wife, the Nostrumate. Whoda thunkit? My guess was that the Mite, far from being the marrying kind, much less the parenting kind, would by now have left behind a string of unpaid alimony debts to more women than most men run into on the New York City subway system, but what do I know? I only work here. Or, I guess, don’t work here, here still being Cambridge, and me still being unemployed.

Welcome to the Bahamas.

The urge to go back to Nostrum resulted from nudging from our old friend and colleague Menick, who, now that he no longer coaches, was looking for something to distract him from the quiet desperation of his debate-free life, even though he is still hanging on to his day job by his fingernails and he tabs pretty much every weekend and the debate community at large can’t seem to get rid of him no matter how hard they try. He complained that our first two series never got very far into the school year, and that although we often mentioned the COC, we never even got close to being there. Why not rectify the situation, said he. Why not indeed, said we.

And here we are. I realize that we should have dumped the old goat once he gave us the idea for Nostrum Series 3, A Very Special (Set of) Episode(s)—including Joanie Marries Chichi, Rhoda's Wedding and the Simpsons Banksy title sequence—Or, the Combat of Conquerors (heretofore to be referred to always as NCOC or N3, or maybe N3COC, or something like that, but without any more references to shark-jumping “very special” TV episodes), but once again while we will be burning the midnight oil writing the damned things, Menick will be recording them for posterity, i.e., for the two people who think they should listen rather than read them, unlike the other two people who follow Nostrum, the normal ones who like to use their eyes rather than their ears on their reading assignments.

So without further ado, return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear, or, maybe, this year, with Nostrum, the High School Debate Soap Opera, Where Deontology is More Than Just an Idea, it’s a Rebuttal: Series 3, the Combat of Conquerors.

The written version - the garbled audio version.