Miscellaneous

?Tony,? says Reepicheep, with a

Posted on May 16, 2013
?Tony,? says Reepicheep, with a gleam of challenge in his eyes, ?It is my belief that the capacity of a mouse is no less than the capacity of a man. Will you match me, drink for drink??I salute him with my shot glass. Soon I?m in a disgraceful state, seeing double, barely able to get the glass to my lips...

I just got my review copy of Civil

Posted on May 16, 2013
I just got my review copy of Civil Litigation in New York, Sixth Edition, by Oscar G. Chase and Robert A. Barker. It is a casebook, not a treatise-- it is designed and intended to be an instructional tool, so before I make any other comment I feel that I should say this: the book on my desk retails for $194 bucks...

The Hon. Ruth Bader Ginzburg is

Posted on May 15, 2013
The Hon. Ruth Bader Ginzburg is plain wrong about Roe v. Wade. I do not often disagree with her, but when she says that the Supreme Court should have let matters take their own course, and that by accepting the case the Court, "seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change," she is not only wrong, she is horribly wrong at the worst possible time...

At one time I was a Roches completist--

Posted on May 14, 2013
At one time I was a Roches completist-- I guess up through the time that they started releasing sides as solo artists. I still have it all-- I held onto that Willie Nile album precisely because they sang back-up on one of the tracks, and I even ordered a signed copy of Seductive Reasoning when that was re-issued a year or so ago...

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Reading about the Guatemalan genocide

Posted on May 11, 2013
Reading about the Guatemalan genocide what horrifies me the most is that I was so oblivious to it as it was happening.

To Gretchen Parlato at Bruce Eaton's

Posted on May 06, 2013
To Gretchen Parlato at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz-- the final show of the season. Parlato is a pro, as versed in showmanship as she is in music. Her excellent trio* took the stage and vamped a bit before she made her entrance, and she then proceeded to move smoothly from one song to the next with scarcely a breath...

To Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud at

Posted on May 03, 2013
To Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud at Hallwalls last night. I've wanted to see it for years, Louis Malle's first feature. (He made a documentary with Jacques Cousteau before that.) My first awareness of the movie came with Miles Davis' soundtrack, an essential recording that captured Miles as he was transitioning from post-Bop into the modal "Kind of Blue"...

I like it when schools do things

Posted on May 01, 2013
I like it when schools do things like this:The 48 Good Films program is a companion to the 48 Good Books Project. Students are encouraged to read a book from the list and see a movie from the list each month during their undergraduate career."Faculty submitted film titles that are important to them and embody the mission and spirit of the five Undergraduate Academies: Civic Engagement, Entrepreneurship, Global Perspectives, Research Exploration and Sustainability...

I have a standing offer with my

Posted on April 30, 2013
I have a standing offer with my undergraduates: if they submit a draft of their final papers a week early I will review and make suggestions. This offer is without prejudice-- I will not grade the drafts, and the draft will not color their subsequent grade...

At the risk of turning this space

Posted on April 26, 2013
At the risk of turning this space into a digest of obituaries Outside Counsel notes with regret that Larry Felser has died. When I moved to Western New York I was more of a baseball guy than a football guy, so I didn't appreciate Felser as much as I should have right off...

E.L. Konigsburg has died. A potential

Posted on April 23, 2013
E.L. Konigsburg has died. A potential candidate  for the Big Pink Hall of Fame, I'd say, and I'm sorry we didn't think to honor her before her demise. I hope her life was as pleasing as her stories. I suspect it probably was.

Amusing piece at Slate about the

Posted on April 23, 2013
Amusing piece at Slate about the songs the Beatles gave away. It's not complete: no Badfinger, for example, but the Spotify playlist is illuminating. Beatles songs are finite, so you'd think that a cache of  Lennon-McCartney numbers like this would be a treasure trove...

The other day CLA called with news

Posted on April 20, 2013
The other day CLA called with news that a Geneseo professor that she'd liked was giving a talk this coming Monday called "Against 'Sexual' 'Assault' 'Awareness'". Today Jezebel provides details. I am not inclined to delve into the scholarship which Theodore Everett has produced*, but as a social thinker he impresses me as kind of an asshole...

Around the corner from our house

Posted on April 19, 2013
Around the corner from our house is a big ol' Presbyterian church that is being converted into condos. Its congregation has dwindled to a handful, but the structure is an attractive one, and it houses a day care center, and a soup kitchen, and the winter farmer's market...

The entire city of Boston is shut

Posted on April 19, 2013
The entire city of Boston is shut down while the cops look for a 19 year old. Here's the challenge: when they find him-- and they will find him-- will the American justice system process him, or will we find some pretext to ship him to Gitmo?

It occurs to me-- sadly not for

Posted on April 18, 2013
It occurs to me-- sadly not for the first time-- that the things we think of as good news frequently become less and less like what good news used to be like when we were younger. "It's operable." "It's only stage 2." "They say if you have to have it, this is the kind to have...

A friend and I engaged in a Facebook

Posted on April 17, 2013
A friend and I engaged in a Facebook exchange about the forthcoming release of a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young live album from 1974. I was... scornful, and the fact that he was so passionate in his defense led me to reconsider the positions I have staked out earlier...

As I write this A is driving to

Posted on April 16, 2013
As I write this A is driving to Boston for a conference. That's how we win: people do what they do, and they don't let the evil or the insane stop them.

To the Edible Books event at the

Posted on April 15, 2013
To the Edible Books event at the Western New York Book Arts Center yesterday, where we saw these:

Further to my musings on Eric Clapton's

Posted on April 10, 2013
Further to my musings on Eric Clapton's No Reason to Cry, sort of: out of nowhere I had the urge to hear what Ronnie Wood's solo stuff sounds like. I'd never had the opportunity to hear I've Got My Own Album To Do , and now I'm going to hunt it up, because Spotify has Gimme Some Neck and it sounds like the really good Keith Richards solo project that we will never have...

Obviously I'm not going to go to

Posted on April 09, 2013
Obviously I'm not going to go to this, but it is the sort of thing I'd like to think I'd be doing if I were a full-time academic. One of the frustrations of the work we do on the NYSBA Committee on the  Civil Practice Law and Rules (spelled out because NYSBA CPLR Committee would be incoherent) is that although there is a great deal of data out there we mostly work on the basis of anecdotal information...

You cannot keep LCA off the stage,

Posted on April 09, 2013
You cannot keep LCA off the stage, nor should you.

A very modest sort of fame indeed,

Posted on April 09, 2013
A very modest sort of fame indeed, but nevertheless a nice little thrill: I'm all over today's post at Expecting Rain, the essential Dylan site. Greil Marcus, here's your hat.

Margaret Thatcher dead. Good riddance

Posted on April 08, 2013
Margaret Thatcher dead. Good riddance to bad fooking rubbish, say I. As evil as Dick Cheney. She was so horrible she made Ronald Reagan look decent-- although that was more because of Ronnie's affability; on a policy level they were peers. Tramp the dirt down.

To Bob Dylan last night at UB's

Posted on April 06, 2013
To Bob Dylan last night at UB's Alumni Arena. Set list first:Things Have ChangedLove Sick (Time Out Of Mind)High Water (For Charley Patton) (Love and Theft)Soon After Midnight(Tempest)Early Roman Kings (Tempest)Tangled Up In Blue (Blood on the Tracks)Pay In Blood (Tempest)Visions of Johanna (Blonde on Blonde)Spirit On The Water (Modern Times)Blind Willie McTell Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (Together Through Life)What Good Am I (Oh Mercy)Thunder On The Mountain (Modern Times)Scarlet Town (Tempest)Highway 61 Revisited (Highway 61 Revisited)(encore)Ballad of A Thin Man (Highway 61 Revisited)I was hoping that he would concentrate on more recent material, and was not disappointed: four songs from Tempest, two from Modern Times, one each from Together Through Life and Love and Theft...

We did Anatomy of a Murder in Lawyers

Posted on April 05, 2013
We did Anatomy of a Murder in Lawyers in Movies the other night. It's funny how it goes: Sometimes the students bounce right off it, and sometimes they totally get it. This class gets it, which makes me happy: there is a great deal to like about it. I am tempted to move it up in the rotation, to show it earlier in the semester, but I probably won't; the problem the students seem to have-- other than the fact that it is black and white-- is that it takes a little while for the story to reach a full boil...

Oh damn. Carmine Infanto has died.

Posted on April 05, 2013
Oh damn. Carmine Infanto has died. His Flash (and the Elongated Man) were two of my favorites.It isn't particularly hip to admit an affection for the DC books of this period: at the time Marvel was producing books that were more angst-y, and that influence has pretty much taken over the form...

Rousseau.

Posted on April 04, 2013
Rousseau.

You know, a decent film based on

Posted on April 04, 2013
You know, a decent film based on The Great Gatsby is theoretically possible, but in order to accomplish it I think the filmmaker would have to commit to a personal vision of the material. It won't happen if Fitzgerald's writing is what you love about the novel...

Everyone is going to be writing

Posted on April 04, 2013
Everyone is going to be writing about Roger Ebert, and that's fine. His writing was perceptive and I enjoyed reading his stuff. The whole "battle" idea of cancer, or illness in general has always seemed to me to be a very bad way to describe what happens to people...

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