Sunday, October 01, 2006
Whooaa - More Deep Thoughts (Mirren/Dickinson/ Monastic Life)
It's ridiculously early on Sunday morning and my Protestant brain is listing again toward thoughts religious, though church-going is not on my North Troy agenda this morning (for further discussion on that point see previous post, "Softly and Tenderly").
Instead I have been pondering a little revelation provided by reading John Lahr's profile of Helen Mirren in a recent issue of the New Yorker. Helen Mirren may be the actress I most admire. She has been so brilliant in Prime Suspect, it's unspeakable. Until two hours ago, when I finished my insomniac reading of this profile, I never knew anything about her background. Turns out she's the daughter of a Russian emigre (I don't know how to manage a accent mark on this blog keyboard), a defeated sort of character as per the interview, and a virago-sounding atheist English mother. Well, that is interesting. Maybe I should blame it on Lahr, but, despite these promising beginnings in this profile Dame Helen comes off as being sort of insubstantial. Lahr writes about her as a "QUEEN" but talks about a trip he makes with her and her husband - Taylor Somebody - to a California race track where she makes cheap bets. Perhaps I am being unduly influenced by the fact that she has lived in California, primarily, for more than 20 years and has no children. Both leading characteristics of a light weight. Also, the only movie in the long list on her CV that I knew and admired was the Madness of King George. I remember when I saw it, years ago, that her performance had been praised, and Lahr praises it again, but as I recall, her part was just barely more than eensy weensy. She was wasted there. Still, she has got to be brilliant. You can see it on TV.
So, get to the revelation you say. My other weekend reading has been, incidentally, a few poems by Emily Dickinson. At 41 I am now ready for her. I admired the assigned readings I did back at McGill 20 years ago, but I don't think I "got" them like I can get them now. I was lying down to dry off after a bath yesterday and picked up a Modern Library Anthology of Engilsh and American Poetry that I scavenged from the book sale at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington two weeks ago. I read this:
Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence-
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
OK, ladies and gentleman, let us observe a moment of silence for that!
So, reading Helen Mirren's profile, thinking of her and California, as it exists iconically to all of us non-Californians around the world, and the cult of celebrity of which the New Yorker performs its part, at the upper end where it is nearly priestly, and of Emily Dickinson and the previous 2000 years or so of Western Civilization, what happened to our ancestors' focus on death? Emily was notably profound on the subject. Good riddance, you say? Well, Yes. I guess. But does it make us silly - even the artists? Memento Mori - remember you must die - was drilled into everybody's heads in Christendom for thousands of years. It made a big impact on Emily. What about Helen? I don't have the answer, just asking the question.
I have thought for a while that many things that we seem to think we have done with in this day and time are really only waiting for a revival in a new "incarnation." All the nuns are old ladies now and no one in the first world is signing up for their thing. But the baby is still there in the bathwater and I think it is due to be born again, even here, where everyone is bowing toward California ...
Instead I have been pondering a little revelation provided by reading John Lahr's profile of Helen Mirren in a recent issue of the New Yorker. Helen Mirren may be the actress I most admire. She has been so brilliant in Prime Suspect, it's unspeakable. Until two hours ago, when I finished my insomniac reading of this profile, I never knew anything about her background. Turns out she's the daughter of a Russian emigre (I don't know how to manage a accent mark on this blog keyboard), a defeated sort of character as per the interview, and a virago-sounding atheist English mother. Well, that is interesting. Maybe I should blame it on Lahr, but, despite these promising beginnings in this profile Dame Helen comes off as being sort of insubstantial. Lahr writes about her as a "QUEEN" but talks about a trip he makes with her and her husband - Taylor Somebody - to a California race track where she makes cheap bets. Perhaps I am being unduly influenced by the fact that she has lived in California, primarily, for more than 20 years and has no children. Both leading characteristics of a light weight. Also, the only movie in the long list on her CV that I knew and admired was the Madness of King George. I remember when I saw it, years ago, that her performance had been praised, and Lahr praises it again, but as I recall, her part was just barely more than eensy weensy. She was wasted there. Still, she has got to be brilliant. You can see it on TV.
So, get to the revelation you say. My other weekend reading has been, incidentally, a few poems by Emily Dickinson. At 41 I am now ready for her. I admired the assigned readings I did back at McGill 20 years ago, but I don't think I "got" them like I can get them now. I was lying down to dry off after a bath yesterday and picked up a Modern Library Anthology of Engilsh and American Poetry that I scavenged from the book sale at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington two weeks ago. I read this:
Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence-
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
OK, ladies and gentleman, let us observe a moment of silence for that!
So, reading Helen Mirren's profile, thinking of her and California, as it exists iconically to all of us non-Californians around the world, and the cult of celebrity of which the New Yorker performs its part, at the upper end where it is nearly priestly, and of Emily Dickinson and the previous 2000 years or so of Western Civilization, what happened to our ancestors' focus on death? Emily was notably profound on the subject. Good riddance, you say? Well, Yes. I guess. But does it make us silly - even the artists? Memento Mori - remember you must die - was drilled into everybody's heads in Christendom for thousands of years. It made a big impact on Emily. What about Helen? I don't have the answer, just asking the question.
I have thought for a while that many things that we seem to think we have done with in this day and time are really only waiting for a revival in a new "incarnation." All the nuns are old ladies now and no one in the first world is signing up for their thing. But the baby is still there in the bathwater and I think it is due to be born again, even here, where everyone is bowing toward California ...
Sunday, September 24, 2006
St. Kathleen of the D-List
My face has mostly recovered from the strain of laughing and non-stop smiling I endured the night before last when I saw Kathy Griffin at the Palace Theater in Albany, NY. Now friends, despite the rave review she properly got from the Albany Times Union, I alone am returned to tell you why we really all love Kathy, beyond the too obvious reason that she is funny.
She is doing the Lord's work - an apostle with an audience - sold out, adoring. As Jesus came to say unto us that, truly, those who sat at the lunchtable of the popular kids have had had their reward Kathy is returned to remind us of that truth. Nevermind that she, a professed long ago and deeply lapsed Catholic called priests "Kidf___ers" a few times, well, maybe a dozen times or so in the hour and a half, or that the funniest bit in the whole show was her rendition of her devout 85-year-old mother's disregard of the commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain (when asked by Kathy to go on a lesbian cruise for a Bravo TV special) her moral authority is intact.
A-list celebrities are ridiculous and the ordinary sloggers, and the despised and outcast (gays of both sexes ascendant and a big part of her fan club) are, uplifted in Kathy's company. She's come to tell us nobodies in a conspiratorial tone, how ridiculous those fabulous people are. She's one of us - or convincingly pretends to be - whose been in their world spying and is here to tell us, and, you guys, you won't believe it!
Come to think of it, Moses hung out with Pharoah and his ilk for a long time and was a Jewish guy. Maybe, instead of thundering down the mountain and smashing stone tablets, dishing up Pharoah and his hangers on would have helped keep the Israelites in line. Maybe Aaron, history's first Jewish lawyer and a smooth talker, could have had that job...Of course, he wasn't adopted into Pharoah's family the way that Moses was. To make it work you need a first-hand account from someone who has really seen how it all works.
OK, that Old Testament analogy probably isn't really that apt. That dour northerner in me just won't shut up. (Do we always have to loop back to Jesus - even in a review of a nearly x-rated comedienne? hmmm). I have to admit as well that we love to laugh at Paris Hilton and her crabs and don't really want her to stop doing what she is doing. It's fun and its funny and part of what makes America great; you can see that when Kathy is talking about it. Go see her if you can.
She is doing the Lord's work - an apostle with an audience - sold out, adoring. As Jesus came to say unto us that, truly, those who sat at the lunchtable of the popular kids have had had their reward Kathy is returned to remind us of that truth. Nevermind that she, a professed long ago and deeply lapsed Catholic called priests "Kidf___ers" a few times, well, maybe a dozen times or so in the hour and a half, or that the funniest bit in the whole show was her rendition of her devout 85-year-old mother's disregard of the commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain (when asked by Kathy to go on a lesbian cruise for a Bravo TV special) her moral authority is intact.
A-list celebrities are ridiculous and the ordinary sloggers, and the despised and outcast (gays of both sexes ascendant and a big part of her fan club) are, uplifted in Kathy's company. She's come to tell us nobodies in a conspiratorial tone, how ridiculous those fabulous people are. She's one of us - or convincingly pretends to be - whose been in their world spying and is here to tell us, and, you guys, you won't believe it!
Come to think of it, Moses hung out with Pharoah and his ilk for a long time and was a Jewish guy. Maybe, instead of thundering down the mountain and smashing stone tablets, dishing up Pharoah and his hangers on would have helped keep the Israelites in line. Maybe Aaron, history's first Jewish lawyer and a smooth talker, could have had that job...Of course, he wasn't adopted into Pharoah's family the way that Moses was. To make it work you need a first-hand account from someone who has really seen how it all works.
OK, that Old Testament analogy probably isn't really that apt. That dour northerner in me just won't shut up. (Do we always have to loop back to Jesus - even in a review of a nearly x-rated comedienne? hmmm). I have to admit as well that we love to laugh at Paris Hilton and her crabs and don't really want her to stop doing what she is doing. It's fun and its funny and part of what makes America great; you can see that when Kathy is talking about it. Go see her if you can.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Before I Forget
I know there are people out there who are paid lots of money to come up with names for things. I am not one of those people. No one has ever offered me one red cent for an idea for a name. Yet, without hope for remuneration, I can't help having some good ideas. I am putting them down here hoping for compliments on my genius and to protect these gems, the way inventors put things down in the patent office. It's on the record. Potential uses, you ask? Company names, rock bands, products. Just about any old thing. Here goes:
The Vanilla Cycle
East Coast Girls (if I ever start a consulting firm, I think this will be its name. As we know, East Coast Girls are hip. Perhaps ECG, LLC will be in the business of genius branding... hmmm. Hey, I like that too, "Genius Branding, LLC")
Repreself
That's all for now. Bidders can contact me here ;-)
The Vanilla Cycle
East Coast Girls (if I ever start a consulting firm, I think this will be its name. As we know, East Coast Girls are hip. Perhaps ECG, LLC will be in the business of genius branding... hmmm. Hey, I like that too, "Genius Branding, LLC")
Repreself
That's all for now. Bidders can contact me here ;-)
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Do the Math, Or Life in the Law for a Writer Manque
This is Woolfoot’s entry into the 2006 Ross Essay Contest sponsored by the American Bar Association. Lawyers were invited to submit an essay describing how life in the law has changed them. I had counted on winning, but wound up an also-ran (they did “publish” this in their weekly e-newsletter but no coin for yours truly). I liked it though, so I'm sharing
If I had been good at math, and or science, I could have been a doctor. But I was not. The only thing I remember about 10th-grade geometry is the time a classmate came to the front of the room to get a hall pass and barfed all over the one teacher in school who had a PhD. That is vivid. I can’t remember one theorem. About one week into 11th-grade chemistry, the teacher started talking about “atomic weights.” I fled. Chemistry wasn’t required for high school graduation.
Within the first few weeks of law school I learned that the capacity for logical thinking, math/science-style thinking, would be required for graduation. And so, in my late 20s, I was forced to forge new pathways through my swiftly hardening brain. One of our first assignments was to write a memo analyzing a torts fact pattern that involved the balance of probabilities. This did not quite make blood come out of my ears.
Writing that memo was a do-or-die moment, and I did it. I managed a respectable law school career and have now been practicing law for 10 years. I have worked in a small firm doing general legal work, then for a few years as a prosecutor, and now as a family law attorney at the biggest law firm in our state. For better or worse, I now can think like a lawyer. In fact, I can’t stop thinking like a lawyer. This is the great change that The Law Hath Wrought in me. I am still not very handy with numbers, but now, my mind is forever, completely unbidden, processing equations of the following sort:
• 1 North American Woman + 1 Man from former Soviet Republic x (1 Child + 1 Child) + Money Problems = Legal Fees requiring Grandma to take a 2nd Mortgage.
• 5 Boys between ages 17 and 20 + 1 Campfire + 1 fifteen-year-old Girl passing by who knows 1 of the Boys + 2 cases of Bud Ice + 1 Marijuana Cigarette + 1 Cargo Van ≈ minimum of 7 Misdemeanors and 2 Felonies.
• 1 Stock Boy + 1 Long-Handled Dust Mop + 1 Friend of Stock Boy behind Service Desk with Time on his Hands + 1 Woman with Multiple Sclerosis and Associated Vision and Gait Problems = 6 to 18 Months Employment for Insurance Defense Counsel.
And while, as noted, geometry was never my strong suit, I now understand that where two neighbors with a long set-back from the highway share an interest in a rectangular area of driveway where their properties meet the road, the cost and number of legal problems that will arise is directly proportionate to the size of the rectangle times the disparity in income between them.
Needless to say, this is not how normal people, process the everyday situations that confront us. Recently, I was discussing a terrible plane crash with my sister, a nice “civilian” who teaches middle-school social studies. She said it had never occurred to her that lawsuits might follow after a passenger plane went down. I had to tell her that was generally the first thing that occurred to me.
It is in moments like these that I wish I had been smart enough or good enough to be a doctor or an artist or whatever. Still, if there’s one other thing I have learned in the last ten years it is that our world, with all its constant conflicts, actually needs and desperately relies upon people who can work things out the way we lawyers do.
If I had been good at math, and or science, I could have been a doctor. But I was not. The only thing I remember about 10th-grade geometry is the time a classmate came to the front of the room to get a hall pass and barfed all over the one teacher in school who had a PhD. That is vivid. I can’t remember one theorem. About one week into 11th-grade chemistry, the teacher started talking about “atomic weights.” I fled. Chemistry wasn’t required for high school graduation.
Within the first few weeks of law school I learned that the capacity for logical thinking, math/science-style thinking, would be required for graduation. And so, in my late 20s, I was forced to forge new pathways through my swiftly hardening brain. One of our first assignments was to write a memo analyzing a torts fact pattern that involved the balance of probabilities. This did not quite make blood come out of my ears.
Writing that memo was a do-or-die moment, and I did it. I managed a respectable law school career and have now been practicing law for 10 years. I have worked in a small firm doing general legal work, then for a few years as a prosecutor, and now as a family law attorney at the biggest law firm in our state. For better or worse, I now can think like a lawyer. In fact, I can’t stop thinking like a lawyer. This is the great change that The Law Hath Wrought in me. I am still not very handy with numbers, but now, my mind is forever, completely unbidden, processing equations of the following sort:
• 1 North American Woman + 1 Man from former Soviet Republic x (1 Child + 1 Child) + Money Problems = Legal Fees requiring Grandma to take a 2nd Mortgage.
• 5 Boys between ages 17 and 20 + 1 Campfire + 1 fifteen-year-old Girl passing by who knows 1 of the Boys + 2 cases of Bud Ice + 1 Marijuana Cigarette + 1 Cargo Van ≈ minimum of 7 Misdemeanors and 2 Felonies.
• 1 Stock Boy + 1 Long-Handled Dust Mop + 1 Friend of Stock Boy behind Service Desk with Time on his Hands + 1 Woman with Multiple Sclerosis and Associated Vision and Gait Problems = 6 to 18 Months Employment for Insurance Defense Counsel.
And while, as noted, geometry was never my strong suit, I now understand that where two neighbors with a long set-back from the highway share an interest in a rectangular area of driveway where their properties meet the road, the cost and number of legal problems that will arise is directly proportionate to the size of the rectangle times the disparity in income between them.
Needless to say, this is not how normal people, process the everyday situations that confront us. Recently, I was discussing a terrible plane crash with my sister, a nice “civilian” who teaches middle-school social studies. She said it had never occurred to her that lawsuits might follow after a passenger plane went down. I had to tell her that was generally the first thing that occurred to me.
It is in moments like these that I wish I had been smart enough or good enough to be a doctor or an artist or whatever. Still, if there’s one other thing I have learned in the last ten years it is that our world, with all its constant conflicts, actually needs and desperately relies upon people who can work things out the way we lawyers do.
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