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September 20, 2006

Why Entourage is so great ::
narrative — tagged , and
7:57 pm

Slate has an interesting piece on the greatness of Entourage. It reasons that people, particularly men, love the show because it represents something called “attainable greatness”:

Every guy between the ages of 13 and 30 has got that one friend destined for greatness, either at the minor or major level….For those of us sneered at by cruel nature, this person represents our only chance for sampling the run-off glory of vicarious accomplishment. Wingmen, moochers, and hangers-on—we’re usually the guy’s best friends, and we’re remunerated for being just that.

I sort of agree. After seeing two seaons of the show, I find I gravitate toward the character Eric more than any of the others. He’s the most responsible of the characters, and also the one who actually treats his life in Hollywood as real work. And he’s weird and awkward and has that East Coast neurosis that makes him really stand out among the beautiful people of LA. But yeah, at the end of the day, they guy would be working as a manager for Sbarro in New York if his friend hadn’t taken him out to LA to be his manager. So Slate does have a point, as much as I hate to admit it.

July 5, 2006

Buffalo trip: one final post ::
travel, narrative, personal — No Tags
7:41 am

I find I’m having a hard time constructing a cohesive narrative for the final day of my time in Buffalo, so I figure that, rather than forcing my story into something it just simply isn’t I’d do what comes naturally and just provide some random examples of things that happened yesterday:

Saw two of my cousins, Patrick and Janet. They are siblings. Patrick is moving to the Boston area in a month, and begins law school in the fall. We talked about the law school survival techniques I’ve picked up over the past three years, and how to deal with the unmanageable amount of work and stress that school involves. The way we left it was that I told him I was really excited for him. I hope that was OK —the last thing I want is to make it sound like law school is totally awesome because, really, it isn’t.

Talked with Janet about housing transitions, which we are both dealing with to some degree or another. Different stories, but the feelings are generally the same for the both of us, especially since we both have a particular aversion to moving, it seems.

Saw my cousin Jeff and his new son Sam. I have a particular affection for Jeff because: (1) we were born a week apart and visiting Buffalo when I was a kid was synonymous with having sleepovers at his house; (2) he’s an avid Simpson’s fan, so we can quote obscure lines from various decade-old shows and know what the other is talking about; (3) he’s a CPA, and I’m an attorney (why is this a reason that I like him? Don’t know!); (4) even tough our lives have taken very different turns and we’ve grown into different people, we still have quite a bit in common.

Oh, and lest you think this entire visit was about nothing but seeing family members, here’s one other thing. I saw no fireworks at all this year, except for a few off in the distance as Robin and I were driving out of Toronto. Why fireworks in Toronto, I do not know. Maybe it was some show of support or something. Or an excuse to party. In either case, I say that we start doing something in recognition of Boxing Day. For the sake of reciprocity, you know?

And finally, my plane doesn’t leave until 11:25, so I’m going to be here for quite some time. I have more than enough items on my agenda to keep me busy for the duration, but none of them I find particularly interesting. Why that is, I’m not sure.

Sidewalk bike swap, Toronto ::
travel, narrative, personal — No Tags
6:29 am


Sidewalk bike swap
Originally uploaded by gjs.

So, the trip is over and I’m waiting on my flight back to Burlington. With the free time I now have (missed my flight—first time that’s happened), I’m going to describe for you a spontaneous trip Robin and I took up to Toronto on July third.

You will likely find this hard to believe, but I’ve never been to Toronto. Yes, my parents now live in Buffalo and I grew up visiting Buffalo at least twice a year, but I never made it up there. I don’t know why, really—I wish I had an explanation, or at least something more profound than never making the trip a priority. So, this weekend, with both my sister and I in Buffalo and with a little down time before the small get-together my parents threw on the Fourth (more on that later), I thought a trip up to that city would (finally!) be in order. I even called up a couple of my cousins to see if I could drum up some additional interest. No luck there, but that’s to be expected—people do have lives outside my semispontaneous trips to Canada.

So Robin and I get up there and hit Queen Street and just start walking toward downtown. The weather was beautiful and there were tons of people out. We found a nice Thai place to eat for dinner called Friendly Thai (I took a picture of it but didn’t post it, because I truncated the sign so it read “riendly hai”), and then continued on our walk, not really sure where we were going to end up.

We then stumbled across The Cameron House, a nice little bar/artspace that has a front and back room for bands to play. The owner was working the bar that night, and was quite talkative, first about all the beers he had on tap (of which he had ratherly astonishingly intimate knowledge) and then about the place. He could tell from our accents we were American, and once the news spread to the other four patrons, they erupted in cheers because, well, the Americans were there. It was mostly welcoming , though I did sense more than a tinge of good natured ribbing. That was fine. I told them I was from Vermont, and we all agreed that’s not really America anyway. A house band started playing at some point, and Robin and I sipped beers, not talking too much. I was surprised how quickly I felt at home there.

Other things worth noting about Toronto, which didn’t necessarily fit well in the above narrative:

So overall, not bad. I figure now that if this whole attorney thing doesn’t work out for some reason, I could just chuck everything and move up there and do something. Who knows what that might be. In the meantime, I think just a trip up there in summer and with my bike (of course) for five days or so would be a lot of fun.

July 2, 2006

The things I neglected to mention ::
travel, narrative, personal — No Tags
9:53 am

So, I forgot to post here that last week my car broke down again, after it had been in the shop for an extended period of time. (I did mention that first round of maintenance, however, which took two weeks to complete). Had I remembered to post about that, I would have mentioned that I was on my way up to Burlington to see Devotchka at Higher Ground, and that about ten miles north of Randolph I looked down at my thermostat to find my car was off-the-charts overheating. So I pulled over to find the engine steaming and the fans under the hood still blowing. Oh, and there was rain. And the sun was setting, so we had failing light. Luckily, I had a cell phone and a AAA membership, so I was able to get a tow. And the good news (I guess) is that the only thing wrong with the car (this time) was a blown radiator. So, two days and $260 later, I was back on the road. I am fully aware of the immediate need to make a break with my car and get a new one, but that is something to be dealt with in the near future, not right now.

I also forgot to post about how I was planning on heading out to Buffalo. Well, that’s where I am now, and I’ll be here until Wednesday morning, early. It’s been a nice visit—the weather has been warm and the people generally friendly. My parents live in a particularly hip area of town, with lots of small, local shops, walkables streets, pretty nice bike shop, and lots of youngish people riding around on fixed gear bikes. Things are good here, it’s a relief to have the hyper familiarity of family after two weeks of the completely foreign world of simulated bar exams and post-breakup singledom.

Oh, and I also forgot mention that I found myself at a wedding shortly after I got here. Someone (that is, my sister) said there was going to be this party, and that some friends of ours were getting married. But she didn’t make the connection between the two and, for whatever reason, I was unable to piece together the clues of our conversation to figure out for myself what was going on. Needless to say, I’m glad I played it safe and brought some reasonably dressy clothes.

The wedding was a nice affair. They held it at the Buffalo Central Terminal, the city’s former train station that closed down in the late 1970’s and has since fallen into disrepair since successive owners sold off the fixtures and the plumbing (what you might also refer to as “assets”) and then ignored it after selling the place off for parts. The terminal is currently owned by a nonprofit corporation, which has plans to turn it into a multipurpose public space. The dusty art deco facades and broken out windows contrasted with the strung up lights and wedding decor (e.g., here and here) made for a dream-like, almost science fiction-like setting for a wedding. Oh, and the soundtrack was dominated by quiet, folky love songs by bands like the Shins and Built to Spill, which made for one of the best wedding soundtracks I can personally remember. For my part, I was completely satisfied to be happy for the bride and groom and generally enjoy the scenery.

June 26, 2006

If I’d skipped the lecture, today would have been much better ::
narrative, personal, vermont — No Tags
5:30 pm

I woke up at 3:30 AM to the sound of rain on the standing-seam roof. It was a downpour without any wind, it was like a constant stream of water that comes from a shower head. It was nice to listen to for a while, but it wound up keeping me awake for about an hour. I got back to sleep and woke up just before 7. The alarm clock was blinking 1:17, so the power had gone out at some point. I laid in bed dozing, listening to the rain, seriously contemplating skipping out on this morning’s bankruptcy lecture. But no, I thought to myself, I need to get up and see the lecture. I understood bankrupcy only in the most general terms, and the extent of that knowledge came from what my Corporations professor incidentally mentioned during a somewhat meandering lecture.

Turns out I should have stayed in bed, because the bar review people sent along an old version of the video that didn’t match up with our handouts. So we spent most of our time totally lost—like he’d refer to hypotheticals that were just not there, then he would skip one to two-page sections of the lecture notes. So these bar review people tell us that they’re going to send up the CD’s of the lecture by the end of the week, and those will match up with the notes. Guh.

Notwithstanding that, things are generally moving along pretty well. I got my car back today after it was in the shop for almost two weeks. (Fuel line leak, then a brake line rupture; the real problem is that my car has 200,000 miles on it and needs to be retired.) Now, after a day of bar study, I’ll be heading up to Higher Ground to see Devotchka with Josh, which should be fun. I know Josh only through the Internet and through friends, but I feel like I know him personally. One of those weird things about spending as much time online as I do. I’m looking forward to spending a little time on the road for the first time in ten days.

June 24, 2006

New home ::
narrative, personal, vermont — No Tags
9:05 am

So I’m sitting here in the local coffee shop, drinking espresso and getting caught up on Internet. One of the strange things about my new place is that I have no Internet there—for the first time in four years or so, I actually don’t have at least a 1Mb line going into the house—which means that I have to make certain adjustments to my surfing habits. So far it’s working out OK—I get up in the morning, grab my ancient Power Book and head either here or to school and, well, do exactly what I’m doing right now. And another benefit? I’ve been forced to break my old bad habit of screwing around online until just before I go to bed, which always made sleeping difficult.

More generally, I’ve quickly grown accustomed to living in South Royalton over the past few days. There’s a lot of stuff to appreciate. Like for example: when I go out biking, I do it only for the exercise, and not as a method of getting myself to school. (I don’t know why, but in retrospect relying on my bike to get to school created a certain level of stress for me, even though my bike is now more reliable than my car). Also, being so close to school means that I don’t have to spend as much time picking and choosing all the books and other things I’ll need to have with me for the entire day. If I forget anything, I just have to walk up the street. Oh, and this town is full of people I know in some capacity or another, which made it feel like home even before I moved here. And as this photo shows, the evenings here can be overwhelmingly beautiful. It was a strike of good fortune for me to wind up here like I did.

I know my time in South Royalton will be brief, but it’s nice to think of this as my new home.

March 8, 2006

Town meeting ::
politics, narrative, personal, photos, vermont, legal photos — No Tags
8:20 am

2006 town meeting agenda
Originally uploaded by gjs.

Yesterday was town meeting here in Bethel (as it was throughout the state). At one point in my life, I could see such a day as being time off from work or school, an extra day to shirk responsibilities. But yesterday, at least until noon, Jessamyn and I went to Whitcomb High School, met with the other Bethel citizens (Bethelites?) and dealt with the seventeen items on this year’s agenda.

In this picture, Jessamyn checks off each of the items on the agenda as we vote on them. Here’s my small Flickr set for the day.

February 13, 2006

Me * 4^3 ::
meta, narrative, personal — No Tags
10:52 pm

I’m with Jessamyn when it comes to these meme things. I don’t know what it is, but something about them just makes me, well, uncomfortable. It’s kind of like dancing. But, also like dancing, if my girlfriend asks me to do it, I have no problem saying yes. So here goes:

Four jobs I’ve had

Four movies I could watch over and over:

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch

Four places I’ve been on vacation

Four favorite dishes

Four websites I visit regularly

Four places I’d rather be

Four books I recommend

Four bloggers I’m tagging

January 31, 2006

Winter commuting ::
narrative, photos, vermont — No Tags
9:44 am

snow line
Originally uploaded by jessamyn.

Jessamyn has a nice Flickr photoset of her recent commute to the Calef Library in Washington, Vermont.

January 26, 2006

Frogs and toads in Corporations ::
narrative, personal, legal — No Tags
3:53 pm

When getting to know a new professor, it’s kind of fun to see what sort of metaphors he or she uses to explain the more abstract areas of law they are teaching. I came across one of the more interesting of these metaphors in my Corporations class this semester. In that course, the professor made a comment during the first class that we must realize that Corporations law involves a certain amount of magic. If we do the magic right, then great things (or at least not-bad things) will happen. If we do it wrong then, and I’m quoting here “frogs and toads will come out of your mouth.”

Having been exposed to exactly zero Harry Potter, I didn’t know what he was talking about. But then today—most likely for the benefit of people like me, who know nothing about Harry Potter—he was more explicit: if you cast the right spell (that is, file the right paperwork that insulates your client, structure the business in the right way, etc.), then you can create great things with the law; but if you cast the wrong spell (or neglect to cast a spell at all, I suppose) then terrible things will happen to your client (for example, they will be held personally liable for the debts incurred by their company). Kind of a nice metaphor—and it had its entertainment value as well, which is more than I can say for some of the other explanatory devices I’ve been exposed to over the past few years…

January 22, 2006

My old neighborhood ::
narrative, photos — No Tags
5:16 pm


IMG_1012
Originally uploaded by mattluce.

More Milwaukee photography. I used to live right up the street from where this shot was taken, on the other side of the apartment tower. When I lived there, I would come down to the river to take photographs not entirely different from this one.

January 17, 2006

John Lewis ::
narrative — tagged , , and
10:40 pm

As a part of this year’s Martin Luther King Day celebration, my law school hosted an event with Congressman John Lewis (here’s a reasonable press release on my school’s site). His presentation was pretty excellent—combining a personal narrative about growing up poor in rural Alabama with his experiences in the civil rights movement in Selma and his current work as a Congressman. Throughout the speech was the constant theme of constant struggle—working for a just and fair society is not something that can be completed in a day or in a week, but rather is something we must commit our entire lives to.

I left feeling I was ready to do more work.

October 23, 2005

First snow ::
narrative, personal — No Tags
10:36 am

So, I woke up to snow this morning, which was a little surprising. Although I’ve experienced early snowfalls in my three years in Vermont, this by far was the earliest by at least a week. (The previous record for me was set on November 1, 2002. On that day, I seem to remember waking up to a light dusting of snow). And while I’ve intellectually come to expect an early change in the seasons, emotionally speaking I still must contend with the experience every year. It gets easier as time passes, though.

September 27, 2005

Too long! ::
meta, narrative, personal — No Tags
12:13 pm

Well, it’s been quite some time since I last posted here. Some might argue it’s been too long. I wanted to send along a little update to let you all know what I was up to. First off, I was invited to participate in a group weblog over at the Rutland Herald. The best way I can describe it is a group of blog-savvy Vermonters get together to discuss their diverse political views. Further discussion on the posts is available through a comments forum. It’s just getting off the ground right now, but I think it’s worth keeping your eye on. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a member—I honestly think the discussion is worthwhile.

Also, starting today I will begin posting as a staff member at JURIST Paperchase. There I will be writing up on all matters legal, and will be doing so with the most objective mindset. It should be a fun project, and will most likely fulfill all the ambitions that have gone unrealized since I chose not to go out for law review.

So if you’re looking for me online in the next few months and you find that this place has been unnaturally quiet, you should check either of those places. Oh, and if you email me, I should be able to respond in some reasonable amount of time.

September 9, 2005

My only Rehnquist post ::
supreme court, narrative, legal — No Tags
2:57 pm

From a legal or historical perspective, I think everything that could be said about Chief Justice Rehnquist has already been said. So I don’t think I can add all that much to either converstation. But I want to take a moment to note that Rehnquist, like me, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although throughout most of his life, William Rehnquist was thought of as a Southwesterner (much like I will be thought of as a Northeasterner—funny, that), his Milwaukeean roots were noted during the funeral service. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The chief justice’s son, James C. Rehnquist, a lawyer from Sharon, Mass., paid homage to his father’s roots. He had traveled little in his youth, the son said, and while in high school, he would visit the Milwaukee bus station, watching buses go to “exotic places” such as Sheboygan and Duluth, Minn.

And for those who think James Rehnquist was joking, clearly you haven’t been to Sheboygan.

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