Jeremy Blachman's Weblog: 2012

UK Lawyers?

My book is getting released in the UK in February, with a different cover, from Vintage.  I just suggested to the publicist over there that maybe I could write an FAQ of some sort, for her to use when pitching to the UK media, in the voice of Anonymous Lawyer, explaining the differences between US law school / law firm mechanics and culture, and what the process is like in the UK.  I think that could be funny.  I'm wondering if there are any UK lawyers or law students reading this who might be willing to help me out a bit, by explaining what it's like over there.  Maybe just a quick e-mail back-and-forth?  In exchange for a free copy of the book?  Shoot me an e-mail if you want to help.

Borat link

This post over at Baseball Toaster pretty much gets at what I was trying to say about Borat.  Funny movie, but not as satisfying as I hoped it would be.  His post is better than mine.

The Woman at The Washington Zoo

I reviewed this book earlier in the year over here.  Recently got an e-mail from the publicist about the launch of the paperback, and the associated website. It was a good book, and the website is informative and clean and worth checking out if you want to know more about the book.  And posting about it lets me unflag the e-mail, which is what I've been spending the last couple hours trying to do as much as possible.  (In other words, if I owe you an e-mail and you haven't gotten one from me tonight, I probably don't know that I owe you an e-mail....  Well, that's not really true.  I've sent 7 e-mails tonight.  This isn't really an assembly-line operation.  But, anyway, at least I can unflag this one.)

Demetri Martin

Browsing random British TV shows for download on a terrific and terribly-addictive site called UKNova.com, I came across a BBC filming of a 2003 award-winning one-man show by comedian Demetri Martin called "If I."  It's brilliant.  It's 45 minutes of comedy mixed with personal reflection and somehow it all comes together to give you a real glimpse inside his head and about how someone goes from being a smart kid to becoming an adult in a world where the things that smart kids do -- in Martin's case: solving MENSA puzzles, finding palindromes, learning to ride the unicycle -- don't really have much value.  Martin dropped out of law school after 2 years, afraid he was going to become that funny guy at the law firm, and wanting more than that.  Okay, maybe I identified a little too much.  I don't know how to ride a unicycle, and I didn't drop out of law school, but, okay, I identified a little too much.  But that's the magic of any of this creation stuff.  There's a line in the Alan Bennett play (and Broadway musical, and upcoming movie) "The History Boys" where the teacher says (I'm paraphrasing) that the joy of reading is finding thoughts and feelings you've had coming out in someone else's words, even though you've never met them before.  And that's how I felt watching Demetri Martin's special.  Anyway, I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and I hardly think anything is brilliant.  Another review here.

I've seen Demetri Martin do stand-up once.  I thought he was funny.  He has a new comedy CD out, called "These Are Jokes" that is good, but "If I" is more than that.  "These Are Jokes" doesn't get you inside his head in the same way.  But it's still really funny, and totally worth checking out.  He's funny-clever.  Watching the special made me go web-surfing for whatever else I could find about Martin.  He's been doing some videos for Microsoft on a site called Clearification.  They're cool.  Long and terrific interview with him here.   Another one here.   And here.  Here, here, here, here.  He's done a lot of cool interviews.

Borat

I saw the Borat movie on Friday night.  My grandma saw it on Saturday.

My grandma has been seeing a lot of movies lately.  Mostly because one of her good friends, who she likes to do things with on the weekends, has been having trouble walking and so the movies are pretty much the best option.  I find my grandma's thoughts about the movies she sees to be pretty interesting.  She and her friends usually pick the movies they see based on the time they're playing, so she ends up seeing things that aren't necessarily in her demographic.  She's 90 years old, so perhaps nothing is in her demographic anyway.  Borat is almost certainly not in her demographic.

My grandma's thoughts: "Was the fat, naked person a man or a woman?  He had a big bosom, and seemed very developed.  Maybe he's half-man, half-woman?  I never saw a man with a bosom like that."

I thought there was a little too much nudity going on.  It seemed excessive.  A lot of the movie seemed excessive, like how much stuff he broke in the Confederate Memorabilia store, and bringing his feces to the table at dinner.  But a lot of it was funny.  I mean, the movie was funny, but I feel sort of ashamed for finding it funny.  It's a dirty kind of funny.  I want to be able to be above that, to be like the people who don't watch TV and look down on the people who do, but what can I say, I watch TV, and I found the movie funny.  But what I don't think I understand are all the reviews that are saying it's brilliant and uncovers great truths about America.  A lot of Americans are ignorant.  Okay, and a lot of Americans aren't.  And if you act like an idiot, you can get people to act like idiots too, and say stupid, bigoted, terrible things.  But who knows how much filming he had to do to find the people he ended up using, and who knows how much of it is really authentic, and is it really such a proud accomplishment to make Bob Barr think he's eating cheese made from breast milk?  Really?  Is this what someone really wants to spend a year of his life working on?  Anything for the sake of a laugh?  Anything?

All Too Human: An Evening With Clarence Darrow

A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail, through my publisher, inviting me to see the opening afternoon performance of a new off-broadway show called "All Too Human: An Evening With Clarence Darrow."  So this afternoon I went to see it, and since they gave me a free ticket I feel compelled to write about it.  They probably want me to write about it on Anonymous Lawyer, since that gets a lot more readers... and I might use this as an excuse to write about Clarence Darrow on there... but any way I do it as Anonymous Lawyer seems unlikely to actually drive anyone to see the show. 

The invitation to this show being an exception, I'm a tiny bit jealous of bloggers like The Amateur Gourmet, who got a free $320 white truffle dinner last week at Alain Ducasse because of his blog.  Eh, actually The Amateur Gourmet sort of deserves it, because his blog gets 5,000 readers a day and that's all because he's good at what he does, because there's no real gimmick there.  But a lot of book blogs have 30 readers a day and get a ton of free books.  Wait, let me take this paragraph back a little bit.  It would be awesome to receive lots of free stuff because of my blog, and I would probably write about all of it, but I'm doing okay, I don't really need lots of free stuff, and the people giving away free stuff to bloggers should probably stop for a minute and figure out whether the money they're spending on giving stuff away to bloggers is actually providing any benefit at all to them.  If I was paying out of my own pocket for the advance copies of my book that my publisher sent to bloggers, I would have had a higher threshold for who would have gotten them.   Then again, the cost of sending free books to bloggers is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the costs related to publishing a book, so why not send to everyone they can think of?

Okay, that was an unnecessary digression.  Where was I?  Oh, yes, Clarence Darrow.  The play is a one man show, performed by lawyer Henry Miller.  Miller is the senior member of a small law firm with a very unattractive web site.  Mr. Miller: If you are reading this, I'm sorry for making fun of your web site but it is very bad.  The good news is that some very easy changes could make it better.  The gray background, and the white text on top of it, makes it very hard to read.  Just make it a white background and black text and it will be easier to read, and it won't look like it was designed by a college freshman taking a 100-level class in web programming.  Also, the scrolling bar on top, about Vioxx cases, is making my eyes hurt.  Just put it in a different color at the top of the page.  It doesn't need to scroll like that.  Really.

Okay, besides his terrible web page, Henry Miller is a pretty appealing actor.  He'd have to be, to carry a 90-minute show all by himself.  Honestly, the show is about as good as I can imagine a one-man show about Clarence Darrow could be.  From the moment he stepped on stage, I bought Miller as Clarence Darrow.  It becomes easy to forget he's just a lawyer with an unattractive web page playing a part.  He's very good.  And the script is clear and easy to follow.  I didn't know much about Clarence Darrow -- just what I learned when I read Inherit The Wind in junior high school -- but now I feel like I know an awful lot.  Miller goes through Darrow's life, focusing on a series of interesting cases he took part in.  Lots of interesting stuff about the Pullman strike, and Leopold & Loeb, and the Scopes Monkey Trial.  There were some moments where Miller recited portions of Darrow's actual courtroom speeches where I found my attention wandering, and once I knew we were getting toward the end of the show I found myself ready for him to wrap up, but for the most part, I was pretty into it.   I probably wouldn't pick a one-man show about Clarence Darrow as the show I'd most like to see, given a choice of some other subjects, but, like I said, I can't imagine it being done much better than this.

But to some degree, it felt a bit unsatisfying.  Miller spends a lot of his script trying to get into the head of Clarence Darrow and present how Darrow felt about the world, from the perspective of a trial lawyer from a century ago.  As Darrow, Miller gave advice, talked about the legal system... but I found myself wishing that instead of hearing Miller's interpretation of Darrow's thoughts, I could hear Miller's actual, genuine thoughts about the world.  As a trial lawyer for the past 40 years, former president of the New York State Bar Association -- and clearly a pretty gifted actor and playwright -- I wondered what *he* thought about the world, instead of Darrow.  I have a hunch he's written this monologue too, but I'd be interested in seeing what he could come up with if he was presenting his authentic thoughts about the law and his experiences, instead of the thoughts of someone he's only able to guess from the historical materials available.

So, yeah, if you're into Clarence Darrow, or want to learn more about him, this show is totally worth seeing, and I was surprised how good a performer Miller is, for a 75-year-old lawyer.  I'm curious how he's been able to keep his creative impulses alive as a practicing attorney, although I expect some of it has to do with the kind of law he practices.

More information about the show here.

Book Thoughts: Adam Gopnik's "Through the Children's Gate"

I read Adam Gopnik's previous book, about his 5 years as an American living in Paris -- "Paris to the Moon" -- and really enjoyed it.  I read it while I was in Paris for a week a few years ago, because my cousin who lived in Paris at the time, and who I was staying with, had the book on his bookshelf and recommended it.  So I was pretty excited to check out Gopnik's new book of essays, "Through the Children's Gate," about his return to New York, and raising two kids in the city.  I don't know how many of the essays in the book were originally in The New Yorker, which Gopnik regularly writes for.  I haven't been reading The New Yorker long enough to have seen most of them, but I expect much of this book originally appeared there.  I liked the book, but I expected to like it even more.  The essays that are most personal are great -- the pieces that stood out for me are about Gopnik's daughter's imaginary friend, about Gopnik's son returning his chess tournament trophy, and about Gopnik learning how to instant message with his son.  And, really, as I look back through the book, most of the essays are personal like these, and most of them are so delicate and affecting and worthwhile... and then you hit the occasional piece about the history of department  stores or the music of Bill Evans, and they're fine, but they felt like repurposed New Yorker pieces.  For me, they took away from the rest of the book.  Gopnik's writing is terrific.  This book will make you want to have two kids and raise them in New York.  Or at least understand how someone could raise two kids in New York instead of moving to the suburbs.  There will probably be pages you skim, or even skip, but this is a really good read.

Blogging from the University of Minnesota Law Library

At the University of Minnesota right now, sitting in the law library before I head to dinner with some students.  Signing went really well, I think.  Huge turnout at the lunchtime event -- I think it was the food.  Potbelly Sandwich Works, which I've eaten once or twice in DC and wasn't bad.  Looked like they got about 120-130 people there.  Standing room only.  I talked for about ten or twelve minutes, and then took questions.  Gave away some pencils and stress balls.  Signed some books just now in the library's new Legal Fiction wing.  Everyone was really nice.  This was the first time I had to do something where I had to talk about this stuff in a non Q&A setting for any length of time, so it was interesting to see what got a laugh and what felt boring as I was saying it and at which points I was more or less articulate and more or less comfortable and more or less interesting, and it'll help me be better if I have to do this again somewhere else.  Plus hearing the questions people asked was useful as far as figuring out what I should have talked about in the first place.  This is maybe just a precursor post to a post I'll write once I'm back home -- I may write out the stuff I talked about and the questions I remember, because maybe that's interesting.

Observations about the law school here... building looks like Northwestern's, on the inside.  Very similar.  It's cold outside.  But it will be in NY soon enough I guess.  Pretty big library.  OK, these are pretty ordinary observations.  Did you know the Cincinnati airport is actually in Kentucky?  That was where my stopover was.  One of the students here told me a story about how he ate a street vendor hot dog in NY before an interview and ended up having an accident in his pants, while wearing his suit, on his way to the firm.  Good story.

More when I get home.

Update: A nice post from a University of Minnesota blogger about my visit here.