May 31, 2006
Review: Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen ::
books — tagged books, environment, fiction, Jonathan Franzen, love story, Massachusetts and Somerville
8:47 pm
I neglected to mention that two weeks ago I read my first post-JD novel. And I must say that Strong Motion was a great way to get into recreational reading, even if my foray was cut short by studying for the Vermont Bar.
But seriously: what a great book. Before writing this, I went back to check my review of The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen’s other, perhaps better-known book. And although it seems from that review that I enjoyed it much more than I remember, I have to say that Strong Motion was even better. In addition to the complicated characters and emotionally intense personal narratives, this book has a much more plot-centered structure, which I have grown to appreciate more as I’ve gotten older. Not only that, but the plot is particularly compelling: a corporation’s dumping of toxic chemicals into a four-mile deep shaft in Peabody, Massachussetts leads to earthquakes throughout the greater Boston area. So in addition to having the characters drive me ever forward in reading the story, I also had an impending environmental disaster to add to the tension. In the end, I didn’t even question whether such a situation were actually not scientifically feasible.
Throughout my adult life, I have been searching for novels that most accurately describe what I consider to be the Generation X condition. Although no author could render that condition perfectly, Franzen does come up with a compelling narrative, combining loneliness, advancing technology, abortion politics, environmental degredation, overconsumption, and unregulated business into a cohesive story that constantly makes me say, “yeah, this is what life is really like.” And what’s particularly amazing is that Franzen wrote this book back in 1992. I only wish I’d taken the time to read this book sooner.
May 29, 2006
Snowden = good new music ::
personal, music — No Tags
3:00 pm
Over the past week or so since graduation, I’ve been looking for reasons to procrastinate on studying for the bar. With a working bicycle and easy access to the Internet, there seems to be no shortage of opportunties to find stuff to do other than review the Privileges and Immunities clause of the Constitution. I swear, the ease with which I am entertained will be my undoing.
Mostly the Internet has served as a gateway for new music over the past week (really!). In that vein, Brian directed me to Snowden, a new-ish band out of Atlanta, Georgia with a full length exepected in late August on Jade Tree records. The music has a pretty great feel to it—sharp-edged and fast-paced, but with an underlying sadness to it. It sounds kind of like the Cure if the Cure, you know, rocked. They’ve made a lot of music available on their site, which is nice. I particularly recommend Anti-Anti, off their forthcoming album.
Download, and have fun!
May 26, 2006
My contribution to the growing pool of cuteness on the Web ::
photos — tagged basset hound, photos, puppy, shamus and vermont
5:31 pm
Shamus puppy 5
Originally uploaded by gjs.
Last week we found a small photo album with pictures of Shamus, our house Bassett Hound, in it. The pictures were just so adorable I felt compelled to share them. So here you go.
You can find other puppy photos of Shamus here, here, here, and here. But browse wisely—cuteness, like candy, will make you soft, you know.
May 25, 2006
Post-JD song list ::
music — tagged favorites, indie rock, mixes and music
7:26 pm
In honor of my becoming a newly-minted lawyer, an updated song list. It’s a rough reflection of my general mood, but it has no deeper meaning than that. So don’t read too deeply into it. In Song name, Artist order:
- Stadiums and Shrines II, Sunset Rubdown
- Protein and Poison, Maritime
- Disco Sheets, Wolf Parade
- Our Swords, Band of Horses
- What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?, The Wedding Present
- Black Cab, Jens Lekman
- Caterpillar Girl, Lou Barlow
- In Between Days, Ben Folds
- Casio Bossa Nova, Holy Fuck
- Details Of The War, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
- Trahison, Vitalic
- Love And Some Verses, Iron & Wine
- Patterns of Fairytales, The National
Well, now that I think of it, there might be a deeper meaning to at least one of the songs. I remembered this from “Patterns of Fairytales”:
so I’m turning on the stereo
and I’m lining up the names
on the mixes I made before you…
So there you go. How meta, indeed.
May 24, 2006
Yes, they really make you study that ::
personal — tagged bar study, the simpsons and weird
3:59 pm
One of the weird aspects of bar review is the obsessive coverage of areas of law that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual practice of law in the real world. One such area, which we covered today, was the area of common law crimes. (For the uninitiated, these are crimes that were created by the courts rather than by statute. Why is this obscure? Because in every state in this country, all crimes are defined by statute.) Why do the bar review people do this? According to the man on the video tape, it’s because each state has its own peculiar version of the criminal statutes, so you can’t really have a multi-state review of, say, the law of murder, by studying some particular murder statute. If you’re thinking about how absurd this is, I am with you.
In any event, I just spent two and a half hours reviewing common law crimes, and the only thing that kept going through my head is that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart calls 911, is placed into an unworkably complex automated voice mail service, and, in an act of utter frustration mashes the key pad. The response? “You have selected regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.”
I’m not sure what I’m going to do if the rest of my summer is going to be like this. All of the classes may be boring, but at least I’ll be entertained in my mind.
May 23, 2006
Done! ::
personal, vermont — No Tags
7:30 pm
So, if you haven’t already figured out from the photos, I graduated on Saturday. It was really an excellent event, filled with friends and family and friends and realizations of all the connections I’d made over the past three years with my school and the people there. It was emotional yet fun, difficult yet unmissable.
So, the timeline: graduated on Saturday; family get-together in the afternoon; party on Saturday night that lasted well into the morning hours of Sunday; not enough sleep before hanging out with my family on Sunday; nap on Sunday afternoon (of course!); dinner with family on Sunday evening; caught up on sleep Sunday night; said goodbye to family on Monday morning; returned to a semi-regular life by noon on Monday. It’s exactly what you might expect from a graduation from law school. Or from anywhere else for that matter.
In the late morning on Monday I got back on my bike for the first time in my post-JD life. Although that wasn’t all that meaningful by itself, I rode through South Royalton, by school for the first time after graduation, and was struck by a not-insignificant wave of nostalgia for a phase of my life that was just recently completed. The two weeks of rain we had gotten had finally subsided, leaving cool temperatures, a smell of mud and manure everywhere, and a general sense that everything had been cleaned out. I rode past school, which was oddly silent and empty of students, past the town green that had just a few people on it, and past moving vans parked in front of every other house with fresh law graduates filling them with their possessions to be moved all over the country. I expected, when I saw this, to feel stranded or stuck, but those feelings never presented themselves. That led me to believe that I’d made the right decision to stay here. The ride was the perfect way to say goodbye to my life as a law student and to get a certain perspective—however small—on what the past three years have meant to me. I don’t have much else to say about it, other than saying goodbye always takes longer—and is much harder—than I want it to be.
Tomorrow I start my overpriced bar review course. That will last up until the first week of July, at which point I’ll really be able to freak out about the upcoming test. (Yikes!) But at this point I’ll just take everyone’s advice and believe that I will do just fine.
May 6, 2006
30 ::
personal — No Tags
5:18 pm
30
Originally uploaded by &mark.
Well, as you may (or may not) have heard, I turned 30 on Thursday. And I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting such a turnout for Jessamyn’s Flickr birthday wishes for my birthday. In all, more than 40 pictures, which you can see here. Thanks to everyone who participated—it really meant a lot to me.
Other than that, it’s been a great birthday week. I had my last law school final of all time yesterday, and was greeted by friends when I came home yesterday. Now all I have left between now and graduation is some wrap-up work at the clinic. It’ll be strange to be done, but I think I’m ready for it, too.
