Free time provides me the ability to take chances on movies that I would not have otherwise watched, and thus confirm that I should follow my instincts and not take chances on movies I would not have otherwise watched. I have watched a few movies this week between my hours of doing really productive stuff. And here’s a summary of what I thought about said movies.

Ironman

Really great movie that thankfully plays down it’s comic-bookiness with the wry humor and earnestness of Robert Downy Jr. (Great in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). Although Gwenyth Paltrow and Terrence Howard are both capable, Downy steals the show and plays a very believable millionaire playboy. I am not a big comic book person, but am a sucker for stories that chronicle the making of the comic book hero, or that put a spin on the superhero archetype. I think the movie works for Marvel-philes and those who don’t know the difference between Stan Lee and Stan Laurel.

Spiderman 3

Really poor movie that is way too comic-booky. It doesn’t sufficiently develop any character arcs because there are just too many characters doing too much, too fast. The acting is fine, but the movie feels like the only way they could get this cast together was for the studio to promise each one of them an indie film or whatever their pet-project-of-the-moment happened to be. One plot element, the venom suit, gives Toby McGuire’s nerd, boy scout Peter Parker a chance to explore his “dark side” and the result puts Parker a caked mascara lash away from a full-on Pete Wentz . . . I hate emo (Although I love Rob Dobi and his Fullbleed.org T-Shirts). I wasn’t a huge fan of the first two, and really disliked this installment.

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead

Two brother’s rob their parents’ jewelry store and complications ensue. Another movie that fell short. Ethan Hawk puts in a solid performance as a deadbeat dad and idiot brother who seems to live always at the end of his rope. Although, truthfully, when Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in a scene, the rest of the players get the volume turned down. Ever since Happiness (which I won’t link because I don’t want to be the guy who is in any way responsible for your viewing of that particular film) I will, as a rule, see anything that P.S.H. is in. While Hawk and Hoffman put out solid performances (predictably Hoffman is spot on as the successful brother that is helpless as he watches everything go sideways), I think the editing kills this film. The climax of the film is put right in the first 5 minutes.

In my estimation, the only time such a gimmick is effective is when what the viewer is watching will be illuminated by the rest of the film so that to watch the scene a second time is to watch an entirely different scene. For instance, Fight Club, admittedly my favorite film, begins with an end scene in which Tyler Durden holds the barrel of a gun inside Jack’s mouth. The viewer thinks they understand what is happening in this scene until they have seen the movie through and realize that to watch the scene a second time is to watch it with new eyes. The Usual Suspects or Memento uses the same narrative frame.

This technique sets up a final irony that will be delivered by the movie’s end. They problem with Before the Devil . . . is that what you see in the first scene is what you get in the end. There is no reason to put a climax at the beginning of a film. This is a small editing problem, but it creates a very large viewing problem, namely: you are waiting around the whole film, knowing what’s going to happen, getting bored and losing interest in the plight of the characters. The writing is sparse, and written to produce tension in the viewer, but this is completely frustrated by knowing what’s coming from the beginning.

If you like Phillip Seymour Hoffman as much as I do, then DEFINITELY rent Charlie Wilson’s War. Hoffman plays Gust Avratakos, a CIA company man that thinks his company has far too many idiots. Tom Hanks plays a congressman from East Texas (where his constituents demand only guns and to be left alone (which leaves him a good amount of room to do “favors”). These two get the best of Aaron Sorkin’s (Sports Night, West Wing) sardonic scripting:

Charlie Wilson: You mean to tell me that the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is to have the Afghans keep walking into machine gun fire ’til the Russians run out of bullets?
Gust Avrakotos: That’s Harold Holt’s strategy, not U.S. strategy.
Charlie Wilson: What is U.S. strategy?
Gust Avrakotos: Most strictly speaking, we don’t have one. But we’re working on it.
Charlie Wilson: Who’s ‘we’?
Gust Avrakotos: Well, me and three other guys. . . .

Charlie Wilson: I stood in Harold Holt’s office in Islamabad, and I offered him the keys to the safe. I said to him, “What do you need?” And I was apparently annoying him.
Gust Avrakotos: Well, that’s because Harold Holt is a tool. He’s a cake-eater, he’s a clown, he’s a bad station chief, and I don’t like to cast aspersions on a guy, but he’s going to get us all killed.

The critics who didn’t like this movie panned it because it wasn’t historically accurate, or if it was, then it was too big of a story condensed too far down. However, if the film’s treatment of the Afghan-Soviet war is cursory, then it seeks to reinforce one of the main points of the film: No one cared about that particular war except as it pertained to our defeat of the Soviet Empire. One of the running “gags” of the film is that no one can remember which country Afghanistan is.

Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times concluded that the film is “anachronistic,” a film about a time in history already written-over by history. I don’t know what he means. I do remember, that on the morning of September 11th, even in the relatively insulated halls of my dorm in Northern Colorado, two kids frothing at the mouth shouted about death to all Muslims, adding “let’s bomb the shit out of Pakistan!” . . . The film felt pretty relevant to me.

Late to the party.

In some ways, law school is like reaching the speed of light, you stay frozen while everything around you changes. Well, my finals are over, my law review competition is done and now I can focus on the important things. Like seeing what all the hype and hoopla is about with this movie, No Country for Old Men.

Obviously, just getting around to see this movie means my expectations automatically won’t be met because A) I have lived through with the hoopla and ballyhoo, and B) I read the book (the reason I won’t be renting Kite Runner). However, even generously lowering my expectations, I think the movie in question was just okay.

The movie is about a texas hunter who finds the remnants of a drug deal massacre in the borderlands. He also finds 2 million dollars in a satchel. This, in turn, leads a bad dude to come after him with a silenced pump action. There is a sheriff, always late to the scene, and a wife, a retired col. assassin, and Milten Waddams from Office Space . . . This is surely not the type of summary that spoils anything.

To start with, why did the movie get glowing reviews and the best film for whatever year was my lost year?

It was written by critics (who probably never read the book) that the Coen brothers really make this film their own, while others said the adaptation is a faithful rendering of the book. If by faithful rendering these critics mean that the only way the movie has changed is by reordering some scenes at the end and cutting a few of the kills Chigurh makes, then yes, faithful. While in most films a faithful rendering is difficult because of long descriptive passages, internal monologues, and authorial overviews, my impression of the book No Country for Old Men was that it was pretty much a script anyway. Therefore, I feel like making a faithful rendering of it is not really that big of a deal. A lot of the reviewers seized on the landscape of the movie; while I agree that the stark rendering fits the tone the story perfectly, I have to think that this is again a McCarthy choice. In all his tales, the desert is an objective correlative for his deistic, amoral chaos that accompanies all his characters (or at least the ones that I have read).

So no points off from me on the execution, but its a swan dive the Coen brothers are attempting here, not one and a half somersaults with three and a half twists, in the Free position

I liked the decision to stuff Bell’s (Tommy Lee Jones) visit to his mentor in the penultimate scenes, rather than the final (as it is in the book). In the book the talking about where the world has gone to brings a very nihilistic close and is too pat a commentary for a film. That is the change I give the film credit for, and in all other instances fault it with not doing more with what I think is a very mediocre book in the first place, although a fun read.

To me the book’s philosophy, hailed as brilliant by these critics, is neither brilliant nor consistent. Though, the problem with suggesting the philosophy is inconsistent is that you get a chorus of critics saying its brilliant in its inconsistency. That is just not an argument I will ever buy. Consistency is the indication of design and intention, even purposely inconsistent prose looks that way on purpose. But I digress.

If the movie is, as is claimed, “a literate meditation (scary words for the Transformers crowd) on America’s bloodlust for the easy fix,” then Chigurh is recompense for Moss’s greed in taking 2 million dollars in a satchel. However, as I see it, Moss was free and clear until he decided to go back to the massacre site to give a dying man a drink of water, something he himself refers to as “dumber n’ hell.” Is this the act of a blood luster? Surely the easier fix would be to dump the money on the bed, find the poorly hidden transceiver, and get the hell out of dodge.

Peter Travers (making fun of Transformers above) goes on to say that in No Country … “Good and evil are tackled with a rigorous fix on the complexity involved.” I’ve heard that a few times and can’t decipher what the critics mean (that’s what happens when they don’t include that pesky, justifying “because”).

So let’s take it apart. A.O. Scott called Sheriff Bell the “conscience and philosophical center of the movie” who’s place is to question “what has gone wrong with the world.” The line in which Bell considers that his forebears never even wore a gun seems to argue that it is the world catching up to this isolated Texas town that is the problem the Sheriff is really having. Aside from that, my estimation is that the only role Bell has is to be perpetually late to most of the major incidents in the movie, to be frightened of a changing world, and to provide the narrative framework for the story. In the book the Sheriff is heavier and soft, clearly not made for a hard world that kills with a cattle stun-gun. Thus, I don’t see Bell acting as the philosophical center of the movie, but whatevs.

Mostly what I don’t understand is the inconsistency of fate in the movie. Is Chigurh the fourth horseman of the apocalypse? A force, more than a man? Doubtful. He is seriously wounded after taking a shotgun blast to the leg and there is nothing supernatural about the way he injects lidacaine into his bleeding leg.

He does kill based on a flip of a coin (done to death by Two-face in Batman, if you ask me) and seems to believe his to be the delivery of predestined fate. Although, he foresees nothing. He tells Moss, “You know how this’ll end,” and prophesies Moss laying the satchel down at Chigurh’s feet, but unless I missed something, it is the band of Tech-9 wielding crazies that gets to Moss and starts a fracas at the hotel in the final hotel (getting intel from the old grandmother). Chigurh’s not even around. Carson Wells has it right when he tells Chigurh, “It’s you” not fate, that does the killing. This is proven by Moss’s wife’s refusal to play Chigurh’s predestination game and receiving the parting gift of the business end of his muffled shotgun (I believe that when he checks the bottom of his boots after stepping out her door, he is checking for blood–he shows his aversion to getting blood on his boots earlier in the film when he puts he feet up on the table to avoid Carson’s pool of blood. I don’t blame him; boots are expensive).

That he is a child of predestiny is further undercut when he gets hit by the car. He didn’t see that coming. And neither did we, because in fiction, if something totally random happens without any foreshadow, you will usually look around to find yourself in the story of a first-year writing student. Think, “and then he woke up and it was all a dream.” We call this, when such a random act resolves a main theme, “very convenient for the author.” If Chigurh had narrowly avoided a collision only to have another car hit him, then maybe that would be permissible because our expectations had settled on “safety” after thinking “whoa, that was close.” I vote for an airplane to come out of the sky and strike him, or a meteor.

He’s not fate personified, he’s just a psycho. The sheriff is just a spectator who was on the fence about retirement, and now isn’t. Moss is ridiculously over-matched because he assumes, for some reason, that Chigurh is alone in his pursuit of Moss, but he probably could have handled Chigurh if given the chance. Chigurh goes and kills the owner of the satchell because . . . well, that’s not entirely clear. Probably because he lacks enough back story to understand his motivations. He kills the wife because he thinks he is principled. He gets hit by a car because . . . I dunno, the world is a crazy, mixed-up place. Carson Wells dies because he’s obviously good enough to have been a top assassin hired to clean up major messes, but not good enough to look behind him in a lobby. And Chigurh will probably not be getting anymore hit-men gigs because employers tend to remember when you kills the last person that hired you and half of his crew.

Just too many holes and amorphous motivations for me. I would rent it, but not hail it as the greatest piece of film making to arrive the whole year.

It is my contention there are at least two kinds of apologies: those intended to make the recipient feel better about some encountered loss (an expression of regret), and those intended to clear the apologizer from wrongdoing (a defense of an accusation). Indeed, the word apology comes the Latin word for a speech in one’s own defense.

Recently I received this message on my comments section:

“Thank you for good information~~* Please comeback to visit my blog too : http://about-pedometers.blogspot.com/ I’m sorry , If you think this is spam. but may i thank you again.”

First off, please go to this pedometer blogspot and learn all about the fascinating world of counting your steps, or rather having your steps counted. I will add to the obviously excellent advice on this page my own pedometer advice.

As the article states, its not always easy to find an accurate pedometer. If knowing approximately how many steps you’ve walked in a day is motivation enough to continue walking, then get the free McDonald’s pedometer and be done with it.

However, if, like me, you are afraid that some of your steps won’t be counted or will be overcounted, then I recommend a back up system to monitor your pedometer. I like to think of this second pedometer as a pedometer’s pedometer.
It is a little device that will count, out loud, the counts of your pedometer. When I say little device, I am really talking about a little person (maybe a six or seven year old). Little is important because they will need to be at eye-level with your pedometer so that they can easily count the counting).

This is a great exercise if you have a child that loves to give uninterrupted focus to mundane things for long periods of time (and who doesn’t). Or even a child who doesn’t like to focus, but loves to count so much that she will endure the prolonged focus so that she can keep counting. If the latter is true, then it is best to make sure that she is not just ignoring the focus (the part she doesn’t like) and just focusing on the counting (the part she does like). The best way to ensure this focus is not broken is to get another little child (preferably one that likes to focus) to walk alongside the first child and ensure that she is not just counting willy-nilly.

Depending on your preference for redundant back-up systems, you may have as many as 8 little children providing pedometer oversight. I never leave the house for a walk without a half-dozen little children affixed to my hip–sure, the neighbors talk, but I get the kind of accuracy out of my pedometer that only 6 children all counting together at each of my steps will provide.
Secondly, back to hollow apologies.

It really takes no effort to NOT apologize, so why waste the effort if you aren’t really sorry. The person who spammed my comments with their idiotic pedometer advertisement clearly has no remorse about doing such a thing. They did not weigh the harms and benefits and decide that, yes, it was necessary to spam my blog no matter the annoyance I might suffer. Instead, they saw an advantage to be had and they took it.

Fine. I love an opportunist as much as any one else. However, I feel it is really a kind of insult to insist that you apologize for something for which you are not the least bit sorry. And a peremptory apology, a defense for yourself for an anticipated accusation, is worth little without an accompanying justification usually beginning with the word “because.” As that word is absent in my spammer’s case, I must assume that he or she actually is sorry with regret, not defense.

But sorry for what? Not sorry for the actual spamming, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. Indeed, the spammer is sorry in the event that I think the pedometer message is spam.

In other words, in the event that my warped and addled mind MISTAKES a comment, purely about pedometers and having no reference to my actual blog, as spam, then this person is truly sorry for the illogical conclusion I have drawn from overwhelming facts to the contrary.

Apology accepted.

Law Review is the law school version of yearbook; it’s where all the cool kids end up. Since I was only able to be an editor of my high school newspaper, being cool is a hugely motivating factor for me. I’ll do almost anything to be cool or just look cool. I’ll smoke cigarettes in the bathroom, I’ll jump off very high things, I’ll steal tootsie rolls from the gas station, and I’ll harass and beat up people smaller than me (but usually only to impress a girl).

However, the Law Review competition is, to date, the craziest thing I have done in an attempt to be cool.

It began on Thursday with a 300 page packet of cases, statutes, law journal articles, and other source material. I knew the packet would be large, however what I did not see coming was that there would be two pages per photocopied sheet, making 600 pages of reading. The object: A 15 page paper in seven days.

So, I set to reading.

This is me, with my friend the source packet (pictured left). I took the liberty of binder clipping all the different sections before beginning the reading

I threw each section of reading onto my bed once I had read and highlighted it.

I concurrently briefed each piece of writing (which is taking notes in a way that outlines the logical progression of each section of writing). Reading and taking notes on everything took me about 3 1/2 law school days. Law school days are typically 13 to 14 hours.

Then I laid everything out in a neat and orderly fashion.

Once everything was laid out, I drafted a whirlybird. A whirlybird is a pre-outline exercise that allows the writer to throw all his thoughts onto the paper in a very scattered and flexible manner. This in turn allowed me to think about the structure of my paper.

After my whirlybird’s first draft, I returned to rereading parts of the packet I had decided, during the first read, were particularly important. Then I tried to start typing something up to get in the process of thinking structurally about the arguments I would make.

After a few attempts at randomness on the word processor, I set out to create a more detailed whirly bird. At this point, it was Monday night, I had nothing written, and I sank into a chest-hardening panic that I would never finish on time. This panic evolved into pacing madly about my paper-strewn room. If I were not a robot incapable of human emotion, the night would have found me balled up in the corner of my room sobbing an oblivion out of tears. After I had been endlessly treading in a sea of cold, black self-doubt, I was tossed to shore and lay gasping for a little while. Then, as befits my modus operandi, I gave myself an impossible goal meant more to flagelllate then motivate. I set the goal to be done with the writing portion of my paper by noon the following day (Tuesday), and went to bed, exhausted, scared, and exhausted again at 3:30am.

As a result, I woke up at 7:30am Tuesday morning and typed until 5:30am Wednesday morning. I am told by friends that majored in math that this is a little less than 1 day (I cannot, however, verify that assertion). My paper contained around 65 footnotes to the source packet. However, everyone of these had to be cite checked in the dauntingly incomprehensible Bluebook Manual of Uniform Style 18 ed.

My usual expression when reading about quoting an opinion citing two other opinions, each of which feature dissenting opinions by the same judge. I’ve often wondered why it is called the blue book (it’s never a good sign when the book is so dense and convoluted that the closest thing the publisher can come up with to an overarching theme is a color). Also, if you notice, the pictures of me in this post all exhibit the same sweatshirt. These are post law-review-competition pictures. I staged these reenactments because during the actual competition I had no time. Also, during the actual competition I was bespectacled, wearing large baggy t-shirts with noticeable sweat stains, hair unkempt and mangy, beard untrimmed and retaining bits of shredded lettuce, and usually just sitting in my boxers (the prospect of putting on pants being too overwhelming).

I spent all day Wednesday cite checking over and over again.

Thursday morning I was able to invade the undergraduate library and monopolize the printer long enough to purge the requisite 69 copies of my paper. After two hundred pages or so had printed, I had to turn off the monitor of computer so that I would not be able to inadvertently find any typos. Since then, I have refused to look at my paper in part or whole.

I then clutched the 800 pages to my chest and made the journey back to my room, dreading that any second a wild wind would howl through the hall and turn my collated stack into a snow storm of citations. None did. I was able to get the papers into their respective envelopes without incident (see first picture).

Final thoughts about law review competition:

Rutgers uses a system that is part “write-on” and part “grade-on” for its law review. The vast majority of the staff positions will go to those who grade-on. However, much as a walk-on can join a football team, a write-on does not need a requisite GPA, but merely a superior showing in this contest. It sounds like an alluring proposition for anyone without stellar grades, but on closer inspection, like most things in law school, the write-on is statistically against the student. First, the write-on spots will go to those that score in the top 15-20 of the class (200). Second, the standards to score well consist of cogent and lucid, easy to follow analysis, flawless grammar and spelling, and perfect citation. Third, for the subject of the write-on competition, the search committee endeavors to find the most unsettled and complicated court case available. Fourth, if the sheer amount of the source packet is not disheartening, its complete opaqueness is.

I see this “walk-on” analogy as: We’ll give you a spot as center fielder, but first you have to pass a batting test. Okay, we want you to wear this blindfold. Wearing this blindfold, we want you to listen for the whistle of the ball coming over the plate. You must make contact with the ball on the first pitch, regardless of whether that pitch is over the plate or not. Further, you must hit the ball with enough velocity to send it out to right field. However, hitting it into right field isn’t enough. The ball must land in that brim-full pail of water. Oh, and under no circumstances may there be ANY splash … You may not think this is possible. I assure you it is. Many people have done it before you (although many others have cracked under the pressure, however, they have been forgotten as history hates losers, and if you fail history will hate you to, no doubt you’re already a loser). Doubtless, too, you will be visited by depression and self-loathing, loser. If this happens, just breathe deeply, but in a way that magically lifts your spirits. Good luck, and really, it looks harder than it is. You’ve seen The Matrix, it’s not as though I’m asking you to bend something with your mind … DON’T FORGET TO HAVE FUN WITH IT!

You see, it is my strong belief that law school is largely the training ground for can-do automatons … Hilarious.

It is a sublime thing, a supreme and luxurious safety, to reenter a life comprised primarily of those things that may be easily disposed.

What Law School did to my brain:

Reading, once an exploratory act concerned primarily with discovery and then creation, has become a task suitable only for the direct purpose of cataloguing. As such, one is strongly encouraged, invited, to have in his possession at all times a highlighter in order to mark in obscene color any idea or utterance that could possibly relate to some other idea or utterance. Which second idea or utterance the first might relate to is far less important than the matter in which it relates. Great pains should be taken to inventory all the possible relations idea or utterance A has to idea or utterance B. Although the instinctual reaction upon seeing an idea or utterance capable of prospective, present, or retroactive relation to another idea or utterance may be to follow the series of thoughts that spring instantly from the inception of a startling idea like a time-lapse, fully maturing weed, this urge must be suppressed. The value is in identifying, analyzing, and compartmentalizing the idea for future use at a later time. A note should be affixed in the margin so that the inventorying activity is artificially remembered; else all the energy thus expended was in waste.

I am in the midst of a seven day Law Review write-on contest, and due to the rules of the contest, that’s all I have to say about that. I should have pictures and stories later. So . . . Check back later.

my year in brief:

1. Entered the Minority Student Program (MSP) and entertained the question “how are you a minority” 132 times (was wearing a pedometer and each time I was asked walked a mile so as to keep track)

2. Started law school. Was called on in property class in the first week. Turned out to be the only time I was called on in property class, but because I didn’t know that, came prepared every day.

3. Took Property, Torts, Criminal, and Contract law classes (capitalized because I fear them)

4. Read and read and read and read

5. Visited Portuguese section of Newark (Ironbound) for Miles’ birthday.

6. Joined the student bar association (SBA).

7. Drank and drank and drank, and then when I was good and drunk, went back to my dorm room and read.

8. Lost my winter coat.

9. Complained that the cold air in the dorm room was too cold and could not be turned off.

10. Placed a t-shirt over the cold air vent in order to not get sick.

11. Got sick.

12. Went to class sick, leaving only once in five days of class to throw up outside.

13. Got everyone else sick. Complained about how people should not come to class when they are sick.

14. Vowed to fix the clocks in the law school, which were all set to incorrect times.

15. Started eating non-meat alternatives and insisting I was not a vegetarian.

16. Had my first legal, research, and writing (LRW) assignment. Realized that writing and “legal” writing were not very synonymous. Did poorly, but not graded. When given the opportunity to rewrite it, did poorly again. Had an inkling that this could be trouble.

17. Acquainted myself with the NJ Path system (light rail) and the NJ transit (trains).

18. Got my second LRW assignment. Did less poorly. Didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday so as not to interrupt their writing.

19. Got a 75 dollar ticket for not having a 65 cent subway ticket. The same day, took a train to see Elissa. Missed the first train because it stopped, its doors opened, and I just stood there (?waiting for someone to ask me if I would like to board?) …

20. Elected as a backup secretary to the SBA.

21. Read and read and read …

22. Third LRW assignment. Done good.

23. Got sick again. Thought I had MRSA because my friend kept mentioning MRSA. Turns out it was a pimple.

24. While at the doctor, learned that I had lost 20 lbs. The up side to losing all my muscle mass is that me and my orange horse friend Pokey can walk into any book.

25. Then crammed for exams. Outlined a few reading supplements.

26. Stayed in the theater district and watched the Macy’s parade from our window. Traveled to the village to buy Elissa a proper chess set. Had Thanksgiving dinner in Long Island with Elissa’s friends.

Kermit (Background), Me, and Elissa

27. Drank caffeine. Tabbed my textbooks. Took exams. Thought they were easy (spoiler: taken properly, they weren’t supposed to feel easy).

28. Rode with friends (Jorge and Susie!) to Boston to see Elisa. Found normalcy in Boston.

Jorge, Jane, Elissa, Some handsome dude from newsies

Elissa, Darcy, Jorge, Jordan

29. Stayed in Lake Placid with Elissa’s fam. Was not eaten by a crocodile. BEAT MARSHALL AT CHESS Went sledding. Ice skated for the first time. ELISSA AND I BEAT MARSHALL AND MARTY AT SPADES. Celebrated the new year in Boston.

Fam

Crushing defeat!

30. Bought a great suit (first one ever) at a tremendous price.

31. Left normalcy for Law School kicking and screaming.

32. Got into the lotteried Alternative Dispute Resolution class. Took Civil Procedure and Constitutional law classes.

33. Took a picture of Newark at night.

34. Won a MSP internship.

35. Visited the village for Melissa’s birthday.

36. Went to Boston to make up Valentine’s day.

37. Helped incarcerated kids with writing at the detention center.

38. Passed a resolution to fix the aforementioned clocks.

39. Turned in trial brief. Did less well than before.

40. Got caught up with Lost.

41. Read, read, read, read. Realized I have done so much reading that it changed my eyes and I can no longer read in contacts.

42. Lost another, lighter coat, but found it again with the help of a school wide email.

43. Went on interviews in the cold with a suit, but no overcoat.

44. Went to New York University to see Animal Legal Defense Fund presentation.

45. Went to great Boston restaurant and Monster mini-golf for Elissa’s birthday

Mike, Amy, and Elissa coveting their winnings

46. Turned in appellate brief.

47. Helped put on law school prom.

Me and Mary, my 3L mentor

48. Attended MSP banquet.

Me, Shera, Suzanne, and Romain

49. Elected SBA parliamentarian (Pretty easy as I ran unopposed).

50. Lost my voice to laryngitis. This coincided with oral arguments.

51. Interviewed and was accepted at Prudential working in Compliance and Business Ethics.

52. Elected as MSP Academic Affairs co-chair.

53. Went to Boston (via car ride with Jorge and Dave, in which Dave commented that there was nothing more beautiful than the Merrit Parkway covered with a light dusting of snow) for spring break/study no break.

54. Took civ pro exam.

55. Went to Boston to study for Con Law, but did less of that and more of watching John Adams (HBO) or sitting in the library lusting after my many books.

56. Took con law exam.

57. Breathed deeply.

58. Today.

The Long Road of LRW and First Year

I did not begin again I just began.
—Gertrude Stein, Composition as Explanation, 1926

This blog is so rusty from disuse that it sounds like metal on metal just to get it started. So rusty, that it took me 3 hours to find my password into the thing.

I am now done with my first year of law school (I am pretending that the 7 day intensive writing competition for law review—that begins today—is not part of the first year).

While those words (“I am done with my first year of law school”) may signify a discrete event in time to you, to me they are nothing short of a magic talisman that enables me to leave this very weird, exhausting world I have been living in. I am quite beyond myself to hear them.

They represent an end to a world without a living room, television, food in a pantry, self-esteem, or a proper book collection. They mean the hours I keep will only be slightly out of proportion with the hours I sleep. They institute a new time and place where I can once again read (and write) for personal edification.

I originally started the blog thinking it would be my outlet for the stress, confusion, and self-doubt bound to be found in law school. It wasn’t. I have learned that my approach to blogging is odd and I seem to lack the ability to felicitously recount a day’s events without getting all “meta” about everything. I have explained to a few friends that my dislike of networking events is similar to my dislike of journaling. I am in a room in which, business cards in hand, I have a predefined role: To chit chat with other people while we sanguinely ignore the fact that what we are doing could more efficiently be accomplished by standing in two opposing lines (think the “good game” line configuration in t-ball) and just hand a business card to every person we slap hands with.

The dynamic of the chit-chat is too much like pre-dating, except instead of a phone number, the object of the night is to proffer and receive the business card. It is hard to tell when a connection has been made:

Should I keep talking to her about ships or should I ask about her company’s benefits package? Would that be too forward? Does she want me to ask her about benefits so that she doesn’t have to bring it up? Why would she still be yammering on about mizenmasts if she wanted to talk benefits? Maybe she’s still talking about the America’s Cup in the hopes that I steer the conversation to something more business related? Or is she hoping I’ll shake hands and go away? Can I go in for the card palm-plant now, or would that be too abrupt and embarrass her? If we keep on this subject will she find me too boring? I don’t know much about ships … if we keep at it I’ll have to ask her where the terms port and starboard come from. I think port is from French. Isn’t porte “left” in French? Or is it door? If it is door, then why would you call that part of the boat “door”? Or is it different in France? What do they call the port side in France? I doubt they call it “door” … DAMNIT! She just mentioned the benefits package! What did she say? Wait, is she talking about this job or another job? Why would she tell me about another job? Did she just gulp the last of her drink? SHE’S WALKING AWAY!!! Give her your card! Giver her your card!

Of course, this is all complicated by the fact that in law school we have no business cards.

A blog is the same thing for me. I don’t know what you want to read, so I just start randomly typing things looking for a sign of recognition from you … Of course you see the obvious problem in that strategy. I’m sure you would tell me “Just write about what you want to tell me.” However (a word I learned this year), I don’t want to tell you anything. Or rather, I don’t not want to tell you anything. Which is to say, nothing is private, nothing is off limits … Excepting that which my girlfriend deems private and off limits.

I don’t write for me. A lot of people don’t understand this. If I wanted to do something for me, I would be watching TV. Or reading a book. Or, perhaps, drinking an organic wheat beer in the Colorado highlands.

If no one was reading it, I for sure wouldn’t be blogging.

So, we haven’t talked in 8 months. Whatcha wanna know? There is a comment box if you would like to ask any specifics.

As many of you know, Law School and I have been working out some issues. I think we might be pushing out of the tunnel and into the light!

Law School Love Letters

October 1st, 2007
Dear Law School.

This will be the last GMail I write to you.
I think it’s best that we stop seeing each other. We tried to make it work, but I really think it’s best if we just make a clean break. It’s the only way that we will reasonably be made whole. Haha. I will miss these little, legal jokes with you.

Fondly,
Sam

P.S. I know people always say it, but I mean it when I say it’s not you, it’s me. I hope you end up with someone great.

________

October 8th, 2007, 8:32 a.m.
Dear Law School.

I know I said previously that I would not write you again, but as it turns out I am missing NY Giants thumb drive with red lanyard. Have you seen it? I may have left it in the Baker Trial Room. Can you GChat me if you find it? … I promised myself I wouldn’t say anything, but it seems like years since we broke up. I firmly believe it was for the best. If it softens the blow, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love again.

Regards,
Sam

________

October 8th, 2007, 9:17 p.m.
Dear Law School,

Ha! Around my neck the whole time! Can you believe that? If I didn’t have my head screwed on—hahaha! …
But you know all that, don’t you? You always “got” me.
You know, I think about you at night sometimes. Do you think about me?

Remembrances,
Sam

________

October 12th, 2007
What up, LS?

Anyway, so I never heard back from you on GChat In re: the whole thumb drive thing. Just wanted to make sure that you knew you didn’t have to look for it anymore because it was hanging around my neck. I know, I know: sooo me.
I think you should GChat me just to make sure it is still working. Our connection, I mean. Well, not our soulful connection… you know what I mean (you always did ☺).

Thinking of you,
Sam

________

October 15th, 2007
Law School:

I’m trying to be civil about our dissolution. However, it is imperative you contact me via GChat so that I can verify that we can still reach each other in case of a crisis or emergency.

Our very lives may be at stake.
S.D.

________

October 21st, 2007

Are you trying to hurt me? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I am enjoying life so much it’s unreal. I have my eye on an MFA in Creative writing. There has been an interest from Business School, too. Looks like you’re not the only one moving on.
Look, I’m sorry if this hurts you, but we both knew this day would come. I need to be my own man, and by implication that means without you.

Nobody’s gonna rain on MY parade!
Sam

________
October 28th, 2007
Yo, L-Boogie!

There is the small matter of a Bert and Ernie costume rental. I mean, I already paid the down payment a month ago, so I have this perfectly good costume and can’t very well go be Bert by myself, can I? That would look weird. People would think I was going as “jaundice”, and as I learned before, there’s nothing very funny about jaundice. LOL!

If you’re into it, I guess we could just go together … not a date or anything. Just two old friends reminiscing. I could tell you about the MFA Program … J/K!!! To tell you the truth, it doesn’t look like that is going to pan out.

You have my Gmail. It’s really weird I haven’t heard from you on GChat. I am going to write an email to the Dean and see if facilities can check the internet connection in here. That would be the weirdest thing if something was blocking just yours and mine’s GChat. Wacky!

Your best bud,
S-to the-D

________

October 30th, 2007, 8:15 a.m.
Oogah woogah, Loopy Schmoopy,

Do you have the elements of libel? My uncle needs them.

Wuv woo,
Sammy Pants

________

October 31st, 2007, 9:12 a.m.
By the way,

I just wanted to let you know if you give me the elements, I’ll be sure to say the whole, “I’m not a lawyer. Don’t construe what I say as legal advice” disclaimer thingy.

Sam

________

October 31st, 2007, 11:14 a.m.

I ran home as soon as I could get out of the bank. Isn’t it weird how you’re on-line here in NYC, but you’re in-line in the West? Did some comedian do that bit? It’s certainly an observation RIFE for comedic analysis!
Can’t wait to hear from you!

________

October 31st, 2:05 p.m.

This is a test message. If you are not the intended recipient (Law School), please email me back and let me know. It is a federal crime to interfere with internet mail (I think). I’m a law student, so don’t screw with me. Well, I was. You know, it’s a long story. Don’t worry about it.
________
October 31st, 4:59 p.m.

Hahaha. If this were a business transaction, you’d be making me sweat. Um, just so you know, Halloween is pretty soon. Let me know.

What evs,
Sam

________

October 31st, 2007, 10:03 p.m.

I’m gonna put the Bert costume on and just meet you down at the bar. Don’t even worry about calling me, I’ll have the Ernie costume in my car. I mean, you can give me a call just to let me know you’re on your way. Or even, just call the bar if my phone isn’t working or something … You know, you may not even be able to get a car. It might be better if I come pick you up.
I’ll see you in a few!
This is the first moment of the rest of our lives!

Your man, Sam!

A week ago I wrote the following and posted it to the university’s blackboard. But more recent conversations on the illusory nature of the RPP reminded me that it existed.

________________________________________________

It’s Saturday night, which means right about now you’re probably asking “What is Sam thinking about?” I know I am.

So, if I had to name the word most-used at law school (“on-point” comes in second), it would far and away be: reasonable. And, to put this in the proper context, I guess I’m thinking of “at law school” as “in casebooks”. In any event, after using this word about eight score times, I thought it would be prudent to actually look it up in Blacks. I know that you have just as much a burning-loins desire as do I to know the According-to-Hoyle definition of the word, so I did the work for you.

Webster:
1 a : being in accordance with reason
1 b : not extreme or excessive
1 c : MODERATE, FAIR
2 a : having the faculty of reason
2 b : possessing sound judgment <a reasonable man>

Forget the gender exclusive example and the convention of defining a word with the word (e.g., “Clearly, reasonable means something about reason.”), and just focus hard on the total lack of anything concrete.

American Oxford Dictionary:
1 (of a person) having sound judgment; fair and sensible
• based on good sense : it seems a reasonable enough request
• able to think, understand, or form judgments by a logical process
2 as much as is appropriate or fair; moderate
• fairly good; average
• (of a price or product) not too expensive

From Blacks (emphasis added to quotation):
“It is extremely difficult to state what lawyers mean when they speak of ‘reasonableness.’ In part the expression refers to ordinary ideas of natural law and justice, in part to logical thought, working upon the basis of the rules of law.” John Salmond, Jurisprudence 183 n.(u) (Glanville L. Williams ed., 10th ed. 1947)

Also, it should be noted that no fewer than 29 entries in Blacks start with the term “reasonable” or some approximation thereon. So, for a word that is “extremely difficult to state what lawyers mean” when they use it, they use it a lot.

Of all the didactic definitions above, my favorite and the one I consider to be most apt would be: “able to think, understand, or form judgments by a logical process” (and the joke here is that if you agree, know that in the actual dictionary the definition is termed archaic). Archaic or not, I think it is the most fitting definition for the capability the texts assume when they refer to a person who is reasonable and prudent, or when they are talking about reasonable doubt or reasonable use.

And it’s little surprise that the ability to “think, understand, or form judgments by a logical process” is pretty much spot-on to what we’re learning to do here (i.e., think like a lawyer). Also, if the average lawyer goes to school to possess the same characteristics as the reasonable person purveys, then isn’t the objective “what would a reasonable and prudent person do?” test really just a “what would a lawyer do?” test?

Well, I just can’t abide multiple definitions that so widely vary from a type of thought process, to a calculus of equity, to not very expensive. Luckily, I’ve come up with a definition specifically for the legal field: Henceforth, be it resolved that “reasonable” will mean “Job security for the lawyerly type.”

I think this definition is very dead-on. Consider:

Plaintiff: How do I know if I can drain this surface water off my property?

Lawyer: Ah, well we have a very specific standard that can help guide you. In fact my friend is a law professor and just published on that standard. Let me get him on the phone.

Law Professor: Great question. Let me throw some hypotheticals at you and if it’s still a foggy concept, I have a friend that just wrote an opinion on it for the Court of Appeals here in the city.

Judge: Mmmmm … I’ve reviewed the facts and have decided that what you are considering does not outweigh the harms that will be put upon the community.

Plaintiff: But how do I know where the brightline is between harm to the community and the utility of what I’m doing?

Judge: Yeahhhhhh … Um, this “brightline” you’re looking for is really a question for a lawyer. Actually, I know a couple if you need one.

One question remains (if by one you mean, you know, not one): If we are all here to learn how to be reasonable, and if determining what is reasonable is the province of the law, and if a major culpability standard of the law is the reasonable and prudent person test, then how does the RPP approximate the actions of the average citizen? Or if it does, why does the average citizen need dictation on what is reasonable? Or if they don’t, why’s everybody in the casebook always actin’ a fool?