Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Excuse me while I ascend my ivory tower

It has been a long time since I've posted anything substantial.  That's law school.  We're in the middle of finals right now.  I just had my first this morning- I'm feeling good about it, but feelings are law school finals are never good predictors of anything at all.

As a result though, I'm kind of taking some time away from studying, and I thought I'd weigh in on a bit of pop culture in the only way I know how: as it relates to Kanye West.



About two weeks ago, Kanye released this music video for Bound 2.  It takes about four seconds to find someone ridiculing it and Kanye (mostly Kanye) just about anywhere on the internet.  I'd imagine you can find some deleterious commentary about it in even the comments section of a rhubarb pie recipe at allrecipes.com.  Kanye, as is nothing new, became the internet's horse of the moment, and everyone wanted a ride- if not to go anywhere, at least to use the whip.

Knowing Kanye as I do (which is not at all personally- just as a closely studied auteur, from afar), he's probably taking it very personally, or attributing it to jealousy.  I'm not sure it's either really: I think it's, literally, a lack of education (or at least the right kind of education) on the part of anyone who criticizes it.

That is not to say that you have to like it- I'm not sure I do.  But I am saying you can't just watch it and understand it, especially if you majored in math at a state school and work at Wal-Mart.  Or worse.

You see, Kanye's video for Bound 2 does nothing less than show that he is not just years, but decades, centuries, millennia ahead of the pop culture world.

Some facts you need to know: Bound 2 is the last song on Yeezus.  Yeezus is essentially Kanye's Finnegan's Wake at this point- it proves more that he can do it than that anyone will enjoy it.  I do enjoy it, but more for what it is than how it sounds...very much like Finnegan's Wake.

Another fact: Hip-Hop is, and has been, necessarily post-modern since its inception.  It is an art form driven by collaboration and individuality, celebrated not for individual accomplishment as uniqueness: there's a relatively fine line in this area, between modernism and post-modernism.  The difference is based on the emphasis.  In modern times (the 40s, roughly, for instance), we celebrated what individuals achieved.  In post-modern times, we celebrate that they are individual.  Hip Hop started doing this while Led Zeppelin was still fighting for radio plays because white executives were unwilling to risk jumping format.  It's not just the music (though that's the biggest part- were it not, ODB would not be famous-- he's not the best, but he's unique)-- it's the dance, the DJ, the MC.  Hip-Hop is a tapestry, and was eons before that became a cool thing to be.

But post-modernism does not stop there (actually, it does not start there- hip-hop has simply expressed post-modernism through celebrating individuality).  Post-moderism is, as an ethos, the decentering of all things: values, expectations, reality as we know it.  It is founded and has its form in the (far more honest but much less workable) notion that we use centers because we think we need them, but they do not actually exist.

Kanye famously dropped out of college- but his entire career has and does embody that notion.  From the start, he couldn't get a deal as a rapper because people viewed him as a producer.  Now, he wants to be an architect, to design clothes, etc.: but he can't, because people view him as a rapper.  His entire career has been defined by others, clinging to their personal center of classification: "producers can't rap/rappers can't design clothes" and on and on.  But there is nothing necessarily true about that. Nothing at all.

Bound 2 is a straight perpetuation of expectation-shattering Kanye at his best.  It is the last track on Yeezus.  Other famous last tracks include A Day in the Life by the Beatles, Freebird by Lynyrd Skynard, All You Need is Love, etc.  It's the epic sum-up, the happy note, the grand finale.  Bound 2 is anything but.  It's one of the least serious, most ridiculous songs Kanye has ever released.  Its very structure breaks expectations with the "ah-ha honey" cutting in at all the "wrong times."  Its a song that barely sounds like more than a smattering of unfinished work.  I still like it, because it's largely Kanye's way of saying that he can make even the dumbest crap in the world sound good.

And then- the music video: it takes that very song and applies it to something that's supposed to feel epic: the monstrous long shots, the horses, the open fields.  The song does not "fit" at all.   What's more, when it actually shows Kanye rapping, he's just standing in a poorly lit medium shot, rapping and doing stereotypical rapper hand movements.  There's no plot to the video whatsoever.   The song is not where it "should" be on the album, it's not even what a song "should be" from one of the most successful artists of our day.  To top it all off, it features the comically suggestive motorcycling/sex action with naked Kim Kardashian.

Whether he realizes it or not, the motorcycle portions are the most subversive: he's Kanye, the most ridiculed man in white America, clearly having a relationship with a woman that (as annoying as keeping up with the Kardashians is) most American men would rank, from a pure looks standard, among the most beautiful.  But Kanye has her.  And he does not just have her, he is running away with her, on his motorcycle, and rapping loudly while he does it.  Could much more enrage stereotypical white America further?  The loud, rich black man, running away with a beautiful white woman: and, not just any white woman, but the daughter of a man who got OJ Simpson off for allegedly murdering a white woman?

The anti-misegenation crowd is quiet these days, but a vast portion of American men still cringe a little, when they see a beautiful white woman with a black man-- to the point that they make jokes about it.   It just "looks unnatural" I've often heard, as if that makes it okay.  But that's really the point of Kanye: it only looks unnatural because you insist that anything is natural.

Bound 2 breaks all sorts of unwritten rules, and it takes hip-hop to the next level on the post-modern spectrum.  You don't have to enjoy it to realize that.  Generally though, I suspect that the internet does not realize that- nor even attempt to.  Though I probably strive to see the best in Kanye first (because that's such a crime...seeing the best in someone...), it's almost an unwritten rule amongst white-interneters that Kanye=ridiculous, and so does everything he does.  It's a lie though, a lie rooted in ignorance, and perpetuated by it.  Whether he realizes it or not, Kanye is a consummate artist who pushes boundaries so we can all see that there are no boundaries.  That's the conclusion of my IS: if we don't take time to let ourselves get decentered by art, we never give ourselves a chance to look beyond our parochial worldview.  It's not that Kanye breaks rules.  It's that there are no rules.

So Seth Rogen can parody all he wants- he's just playing to the crowd.  Too often, the very post-modern social networks of today allow us to remain a monoculture, because we are subject to intense and instant group-think.  If you can create the funniest meme the fastest, you get to be celebrated.  IF you can't, you're trolled.  That's pitiful modernist activity if its ever existed.

Kanye is creating art.  We are, unfortunately, as a society, literally too uneducated to realize it.  If something isn't how we think it ought to be, we ridicule it.  If something isn't how we think it out to be, we find a way to ignore it.  The great irony is that, in all of this, we'll have nothing but a bunch of misinformed snide comments to show for it.  Kanye, however, will have done his part to change the world (as crazy as that might sound).

By writing this, I hope I am too.

-Zack

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Back to Life, pt. 3

This two-part series turned trilogy has reached its conclusion.  Law school is back in full swing, already 3 days in the books.
2L year, in the trilogy of lawschool years, is supposedly the "work you to death" year, sandwiched between the "scare you to death" and "bore you to death" iterations.  Only three days in, I can see how that's the case, but I've also realized that we've all become adjusted to the work that will be required.

Perhaps its the lack of active scare tactics on the part of the faculty (though I'm not sure how much they ever really existed), but everyone is much less uptight now.  Perhaps it's because we've  stratified around our class ranks.  Perhaps its because we've all realized that even getting here is an accomplishment and moving forward is more important (finally) than being better than everyone else.  1L year is spasmodic.  Everyone thinks they can be ranked number 1.  After first semester, when only one person is, the pressure just intensifies as job interviews begin and summer plans start to formulate.  It even carries into the summer a bit, as people make their claims to journal positions.  But then it dissipates, almost like magic.  I didn't expect the chilled-out demeanor that has drifted over the whole 2L class, but it's more than welcome.  (that being said, I know people are still serious about their careers and the way class-ranks will always control our "destinies."  But it's not controlling us, at least overtly anymore.  Even so, I can't help but think there are probably still a number of people that would more than gladly sell their soul for grades- at least amongst those who managed to maintain it after last year).

Once more, any doubts I've ever had about assuming the legal profession dissipate the moment class begins.  There's a rightness about my place in law school that I'd never known before last year- and its done nothing but grow stronger with affirmation over the past year.  It could be said, and fairly, that I operate much less on the empirical and make my decisions based on intuited feelings.  To that end, I've been right about few things like I was about going to law school.  It's far from easy, its wholly consumptive, and it requires (or creates) a certain measure of neuroses, but its the place for me- and when it is over, legal practice, or something else to which law school leads me will be too.

In many ways, it feels like life is on hold until May 2015, while I bide my time and plough my allotted plot with an eye to the future.  But on the other hand, there's little about this life, at least for the three years I'm committed to it, that I'd want to give up.  Cleveland-Marshall is just another weigh-station on the route- but so was Wooster, so was Hillsdale, so was the Curry House.  But were it not for each of those places, I'd have missed the others and all that came with them.

As much it might seem to me that I'm biding my time and putting in my work until my three years are up, I'd be remiss to ignore the potential that simply being here holds.  My life is not on hold for three years while I'm in law school.  For three years, law school is very much what my life is.

And ultimately, it is good.  There's little else for which I could ask.  Law is a field of professionals and thus, law school draws the upwardly mobile- there's a certain bend toward the next, bigger and better thing at every turn.  But if I get caught up in that, I'll let what may be three of the most enjoyable years of my life pass me by.  In some ways, I may look back on these as three of the hardest years of my life for any number of reasons- and not all of them because of school.  But I.S. was far from easy- and my senior year at Wooster was nothing if not glorious.  Life is difficult.  Humans, us, we don't want difficulty.  But its rare if we don't find the most value in coming through it- and finding the joy in the midst of it is always so much greater than never fighting through.   (ed.: this is not meant to support the boilerplate response to tragedy which tries to turn great loss of life or war or any other uncontrollable circumstances that we encounter-- I don't believe it's ever good (no matter the good that may arise, by the grade of God) when people die or families fall apart-- I'm speaking specifically about creative and constructive struggles)

I don't know when I'll get a chance to write again- but I hope it's sooner rather than later.  In the meantime, if you don't hear from me, it's just law school, sapping every bit of me out again- but I know that means its exactly as it ought to be.

-Zack

"I'm saying nothing in the past or future ever will feel like today"
-Bright Eyes

Friday, August 2, 2013

Verdant.

When I first spent real time in Cleveland, Spring Break 2007, the Putnam County, Ohio raised farm boy felt as out of place as one might expect.

When I say first, I really mean "first."  By the end of that week, I was consummately in love with the city.  But initially, it just felt so unnatural.

Wooster was a bigger city than I'd ever lived since leaving Cincinnati at 4.  Now I was in Cleveland, supposedly learning about what exactly was going on in the city.  But I had never been around seemingly so few plants.  As goofy as that might sound, the endless concrete, the lack of farmland, the short horizons, the seemingly unending buildings took me out of what I considered my "comfort zone" in ways I'd never experienced.  By all measures, I'd never experienced such a powerful aura purely from my physical surroundings.

A lot of things happened that week, perhaps the most significant being a reordering of my thinking which allowed me to see city's as full of life, not devoid of it.

Now, 6 years later, every single day, I can't believe how green Cleveland actually is.  There are so many parks, so many random outgrowths of trees, so many urban farms, so many marshy shores around the lake and river.    Cleveland is called the "forest city" traditionally (though you'll rarely hear that nationally)- if you look at it from the right angles, it's obvious as to why- Cleveland was hewn out of a forest and it still maintains that general feel.

It is a major urban setting, and its far from the rural flat land in which I grew up.  But there's something to be said for its natural beauty that does persist, right alongside all of the vibrant life emanating from it due to its diverse, beautiful population.    I took a few pictures on my ride home today.  It was one of those beautiful "Cleveland" days, where there's sunlight, but it's overcast, and you know the clouds are made of pure metaphor.







You could say I've come full circle.
-Zack
"In the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love, we must plunge we must plunge we must plunge"
-Bright Eyes

Blank Ruminations

In one week, 7 hours, and 23 minutes (give or take the time it takes me to write the rest of this), I'll be on the road again, headed south, back to Savannah.

In 10 hours and 23 minutes, from right now (give or take again), I'll be ostensibly finished with my time as a "summer" clerk at Sherwin-Williams, transitioning into my part time hours for the school year-- at the end of the day today, I'll have finished my final full week of work.

I have learned a lot this summer about the legal practice and what it means to be a lawyer.

A lot of it is interesting to the interested, but broadly, I've learned that it is not only easy to grow complacent in pursuit of "the good life," but it is nearly mandatory in the legal field.

It's not a secret that the "noblest" legal jobs pay little or at least less.  I had been under the impression that the less noble jobs could be leveraged for good, and to a degree they can.  But in the end, being a corporate dog is being a corporate dog.

The legal field is unique in that your job consists of one of two things: fighting for something you wholeheartedly believe in, or suspending your own ideals in the name of the higher ideal of advocacy and representation.  That's, also, is no secret to anyone.

But I've learned this summer that, at some point, no matter which of the dualistic roles you're filling, you're going to begin to absorb the values implicated by your situation.  What I mean by that is really simple: if you are suspending your ideals in order to defend a party in the wrong (and the lion's share of corporate legal work is just that), your values invariably start to shift.  It's not as possible to give fair representation to a party, no matter your own beliefs, as lawyers like to let on.  This should seem obvious, but lawyers like to act like superheroes who get paid for their shapeshifting, above all else.

But it's not true.  Lawyers are either adapting to the values of their client, or growing increasingly despondent.  There's a vast middle ground, where everyone really dwells- but the process rolls on forward- we are becoming one or the other.

I cannot, unfortunately, give any really specific examples from my own experience.  But I can cite some common knowledge:  plaintiffs lawyers tend to stay plaintiffs lawyers, while defense do the opposite-- and in the criminal law world, defense-minded attorneys typically don't make the flip to prosecutors.  Other than the need for a job, it's rare that an attorney has much motivation to pick a side at the beginning.  But then, at some point, their particular path begins to define their career and, much of the time, their personality.

There probably is something innate about specific individuals that leads them to one side or the other.  But I've now seen people who, in law school and prior, were raging against the machine as much or more than myself, now oiling it and feeding it daily.

Much of law comes down to money.  It would be easy to attribute it all to greed and move on.  But it's not just greed- there's a very real need to support one's family, after all, and it's not altogether evil to desire life's comforts when they're affordable and non-exploitive.

But there's very little about the way lawyers make money in the private sector which does not have some kind of exploitive opportunity cost at least.

The "best" firms only accept the "smartest" students, with the "highest grades."  That's their prerogative, but it means the entire law school world is beholden to firms that do nothing but protect huge corporations.  That means, at the end, that we, law students, are striving to be able to apply and work and the sorts of places that ensure corporate greed persists.  No matter your initial goal in coming to law school, the well-performing student will invariably look like a slacker, flawed interviewer, or not all that well-performing, by choosing to pursue a better path.

Law school shames you into corporate defense.

I should add that I do not dislike my summer job.  Indeed, it's good, and it's a great experience.  But it's so far from what I want my eventual legal-career-path to look like.  I know that now more than ever, and without it, I wouldn't.  I am thankful for that.  Sherwin-Williams, as big corporations go, really is a pretty good company for which one could work- and it's always going to be a bright resume spot.

But even in that litany, I realize that I- my future success- is the center.  If nothing else, even if you aren't as borderline Marxist as I am, it is hard to look past the self-preservationist nature of the corporate world.  It's all about making your own money.  That is a disease much bigger than legal practice.  That is the disease that has been destroying souls since money was invented- and probably prior.  As I said above, there's nothing wrong with providing for one's family or being comfortable in life.  But there is something very wrong in orienting your entire life around yourself by way of your bank account.  It does not matter what field or job you have.  That has always been the case.

But it is apparent and celebrated in the world of corporate law.

I probably cannot turn the tide on my own.  I doubt, when I retire, little will have changed.  But if everyone allows that sort of thinking to quelch their motivation, there will never be change.  While I cannot guarantee change (I gave that up May 2012), I can guarantee that I won't stop fighting for it.  Let everyone else have all the money- I've something much better for which to strive.

-Zack
"OG is one who's standing on his own feet"
-Rick Ross


Sunday, July 28, 2013

Back to Life (pt. 2)

In a bit under two weeks, we're heading back to Savannah, for the second year of vacation there.  Somehow, probably divine providence, the hotel deals and the proximity to both a beach and Cleveland were unparalleled when we looked at our vacation desires and options.  

You may remember some discussion last year about how much I loved our time in Savannah.  I can't wait to get back this year.  

But I'm also looking forward to getting away for awhile.  

It has been a good, but very full summer.  I have learned a lot about law, about being a lawyer, about the world, about Cleveland, about myself.  

Clerking at Sherwin-Williams is a good job, a very good summer law job, an excellent, unique experience, and quite the mark on a resume.  I am definitely glad for it, but it will be nice to have a bit of time to relax before diving back into law school again August 19th.  

Likewise, it will be nice not to be in Cleveland for a week or so.  

I make it no secret that I love Cleveland and would not pick a different place to live the bulk of my life for anything.  But loving Cleveland is a full time job in its own right.  Though there are plenty of great things to do in Cleveland, it's not those things that make me love Cleveland.  Those are certainly things to love about Cleveland, but New York, Chicago, and Columbus all have great restaurants, museums, concerts, and sports teams too-- more and better, to some degree.  Loving the "good things" about Cleveland is not, in its own right, loving Cleveland.  Loving that Cleveland has all of those things and wanting to be here because of it comes closer.  But there is so much more to it than that.  

Because restaurants, malls, and sports teams come and go, to a certain extent.  Love, to be love, must be more than that.  Inasmuch as it's possible to love a city in a way that mirrors love for another person, there's got to be something more.  That's the difference between liking someone you have a crush on because of the way the sunlight plays upon her hair, and loving her despite her insecurities and obsessive tendencies.  

Love is complicated, and I'm far from an expert- but what I do know is that, at its core, it is a choice and commitment beyond the face-value traits- in so many ways, its an indescribable rhythm that fits together between two individuals, and remains, no matter the trappings otherwise.  

Despite that eternal rhythm, love is not always easy.  Loving Cleveland, for all the ways it feels like the place I belong, the place I fit, and the ways I fit into it, with all of its intricacies, tensions, and spirit, is a non-stop chore that can weigh so heavily on me, all of the time.  Riding the train downtown everyday, I see all of Cleveland- the fortress-shaped down town consuming the streams of people coming to work, right alongside the people on the train with nowhere particular to go- because their last job was a long time ago, and their next job might not exist.  

Cleveland is the most interesting place I have ever been, but that does not imply that its all good.  It is poverty and determination, amazing food at world-class restaurants and wide-spread hunger.  It is small art-deco skyscrapers built by millionaires, now vacant and derelict. It is east and west- the strongly divided rich east-side suburbs against the poor east-side itself, and the urban-appalachian poverty of the west-side mixed with hipsters of the highest order.  

And I love it.  I love all of it, and I love the people here.  I love that they are here, for one, even if they want to leave.  And I love that Cleveland is on the rebound, the renaissance, the rebirth.  

But it is such a long road.  And I love being a part of it.  

It is so rarely easy though, and it is time to take a reprieve.  It is right and good, I know it is, that so much of my life- from my career path to my grocery-shopping choices attempt to orient themselves for the good of Cleveland.  

But I have to get out sometimes, to recharge and to remember.  Savannah is largely the antithesis of Cleveland, at least for me.  Though I love being in Savannah, and I may casually say "I love Savannah," its far from the same.  

I cannot wait for vacation, I cannot wait to refuel and recharge.  But I also can't wait for that feeling I invariably get, every time I come back to Cleveland after awhile away, the feeling of home and rightness, that I've returned to the place I know I am supposed to be, that I belong here-- that somehow, my own life is tied to the fate of this city, for better or worse.  Nowhere else is like that- getting to live here is a blessing with an ubiquitous responsibility.  I would not have it any other way.  

But for the time I am in Savannah, it will be nice to put it on pause.

-Zack
"Strange how this journey's hurting
In ways we accept as part of fate's decree"
-Vienna Teng


Monday, June 17, 2013

See Something, Say Something.

I've not been the most current-events oriented person for around a year or so.  I wish I was, but Law school is the eternal excuse, for whatever I want it to be.

But it's also a very current-events driven field, so I've had to do some catching up this summer.

As you likely know, we're at the beginning of the 3rd week of the Bradley Manning trial: the guy who gave the stuff to the Wikileaks controversy.

There are hundreds or thousands of things you can read about it, all over the internet, so I won't do any rehashing.

But I will do what I believe is my duty and identify it for what it is: the most gross injustice of our lifetime.

That's a monstrous charge, but it's a monstrous act.  That we even allow our military to continue existing, as citizens of a democracy, after the leaks, is ludicrous enough.

Then we court martial and likely jail, for life, the only person with the guts to make it public?

Much of what you read about it, with a quick google-job, is going to ask if he's a hero or a sick-man, who shouldn't have been in the military in the first place.  Right.  Because then we'd never know.  That's what the majority of the articles are asking: is this man a hero, or would we be better off not knowing?  How is that a question?

It is valid to inquire as to his mental health, certainly.  Though I'll never agree with you, it's even kind of okay to say he's a traitor who broke the law and the rules of the military.

But it's not okay to accept ignorance as preferable and it's certainly not okay to think that what he revealed is at all okay for Americans to tolerate from their "military."  We can ask about the rule of law all day, but that doesn't change the reprehensible acts done in the name of freedom that Bradley Manning brought to light.

We need to stand up, and perhaps wake up.  I get e-mails from causes every single day, asking for my signature on some petition, but somehow, little to nothing on this.

Are we all that heartless, that gutless, that castrated, as a nation?

I understand that the government is doing it's "job" in prosecuting the person who released their classified information.

But we aren't doing ours as a democracy in demanding answers for what was actually in the leaked video and documents.

I do believe Manning should be free and protected because he shined a light on injustice and brutality- but I know our legal system doesn't always work in favor of morality and the downtrodden.

But we can.

I want true justice for Bradley Manning, I want him to be absolved of his "crimes."

And I want the soldiers in the helicopter who gunned down innocent civilians and reporters, then laughed about it to face justice for their war crimes.  I want the highest members of the military who have been a part of these egregious crimes against humanity and their cover-ups since the wars started, held accountable.

The United States has largely become the country of "too-big-to-fail."  Banks. Lobbies. the Military and its control of information.

But we can be too big to fail too.  If enough of us would actually rise and give voice against the injustice in our society, on behalf of the downtrodden, the impoverished, the falsely accused, the Bradley Manning's of the world- if we could rise together, our voice could be too big to fail too.

Like Bradley Manning, who risked everything to reveal the gross injustices he encountered in our illegitimate and illicit military, we too have to stand up and shine a light on the injustices around us- in our everyday lives, and larger- everywhere there is injustice, even if we don't have the physical ability to help, we have a voice we must employ.

The American Evangelical hegemony likes to tell us it was idol worship that led to Israel's captivity.  It's certainly not that it wasn't.  But if you peel back the pages from Isaiah through Malachi, it's obvious that God's harshest fury is reserved for those who perpetuate injustice or do nothing to stop it.  That same evangelical hegemony now aligns and perpetuates its agenda with the political party organized around "capitalism, the free market, and family values,": all bywords of the false prophets known as injustice and oppression.

We need to turn this world inside out and upside down.  Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.  Amos 5:24.

-Zack
"Stand up, we shall not be moved, except by a child with no socks and shoes"
-Flobots

Saturday, May 18, 2013

You Can Make it Anywhere

As I said, I saw The Great Gatsby two nights ago.

It has been ten years since I read the book.

I had either forgotten how great it was, or was too much a novice to understand it.

I remember liking it, to be certain; but certainly not this much.

Perhaps it's because Leonardo DiCaprio captured Gatsby's character better than Fitzgerald's flawless prose ever could.

Perhaps it's because Luhrman reconceptualized the story, so it wasn't a time capsule as much as a capsule for all times.  The universality of the plot shines through, without really losing the glory.

I loved most that Luhrman post-modernized what very well may be the pinnacle of (readable) modern fiction.  (disclaimer: the true pinnacle is Finnegan's Wake, if not, then Ulysses.  But they won't be required reading in any high school, anywhere, ever).  When I say modern, I skip right over the misunderstanding that it means contemporary.  When I say modern, think modern art: forms, lines, ridges: a celebration of expression at its highest point, best understood through the highest familiarity with the entirety of all art, ever.  That's modernism: the idea that we can achieve perfection.  Fitzgerald was an arch modernist.  Luhrman is Joel and Ethan Coen's little, more accessible brother: that is to say, an absolute post-modern artist.  At every turn, Luhrman destroys whatever center of understanding you think you might have: Mercutio is a cross-dresser, 19th century france is best understood through 1970's pop-music, and Jay-Z epitomizes the jazz age.

But Luhrman is not without his overarching themes: indeed, he's a one trick pony with one hell of a schtick: love is tragic, catharsis is absolute, and everything is beautiful, if you find the right point of view.

For the most part, Luhrman uses other people's stories to tell the same story, over and over again.

I think, at least right now, it works best in Gatsby.  I haven't seen Australia for awhile, though I remember enjoying it.  I don't remember it well though, because it lacks the tragedy.  I understand it's Luhrman's swan song to his country, but its not him, the way Gatsby is.

Perhaps that means Luhrman lacks the range of truly great directors.  I don't doubt that: even with the brilliance of New York 1922 as his canvas, Luhrman's settings feel like theatre backdrops for his strong characters and predictable yet always perfect story.  That may be intentional (Gatsby is, after all, the first time he really took on a non-theatric piece, apart from Australia).  Either way, even knowing how it is going to end, Luhrman paints a brilliant picture that is always a joy to watch.

Much has been said of the soundtrack.  It's apparently been too long since Romeo + Juliet.  It's exactly what it needed to be.  A post-modern Gatsby can't use Jazz for aesthetic reasons, and let's face it- pre-beat big-band music just isn't rebellious sounding anymore.  Jay-Z did a great job putting together a perfect score, with some excellent stand-alone tracks.  I've listened to the soundtrack pretty incessantly since seeing the movie- it's wonderful, and even features the three or four best lines from the whole film.  Jay-Z is a master at what he does, which is a little bit of everything, a little bit better, than everyone else.

Go see the Great Gatsby if you can.  It carries my highest recommendation of any film yet this year.  It's not perfect as films go.  It's not perfect as adaptations go.  But it does what it intends to do as good as anything you'll ever see.

-Zack

"Just give me the green light"
-Florence + the Machine

Thursday, May 16, 2013

A week out

It's  been a week since I passed through the gates of summer, 1 years down at the old law school.

It's been a good week.  I've contra-danced in Oberlin.  I'd never contra-danced at Oberlin, but Contra-dancing and Oberlin go together well.  It was free, because there are enough Oberlin music students to make it happen, and quirky enough people to make it worth it.  In a way, I think Wooster was more progressive than Oberlin, but Oberlin is more liberal.  If that makes sense...

I've really done next to nothing for 7 days, and it's been remarkable.  I've watched movies, I've watched Breaking Bad, I've played video games, I've read books that aren't law text books (and I've even finished two of them) I've worked out, I've walked the dog.

I've just lived.


Tonight, we're going to see the Great Gatsby.  I have no idea if I'll actually like it, but Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet are two old favorites of mine- I don't think Baz Luhrman can make a bad movie, per se.  It might not be his best, but I should withhold judgment before actually seeing it.

It's actually been a fast week, though I've enjoyed it.  I hope the rest of summer isn't this fast, but I imagine that's actually a little bit too much to ask.

Before I know it, I'll be back at school, hurtling, once more, toward exams within the competitive world in which we're forced to live, 4 months at a time.

That's not bad either though.  If this summer is just a chance to catch my breath, I'll take it.  But if it's much more than that, I'll start feeling like I'm not getting anywhere all over again, and that's frustrating.

So I hope this summer is appropriately paced; not too slow, too fast, or needlessly begrudged.

I've semi-rediscovered an excellent song from Kanye's "College Dropout"  It's called "Two Words" and I think it would be the most popular song on the album if it came out today.  It's amazing how prophetically ahead of his time he's always been.  In ten years, precisely structured communal albums like "Cruel Summer" will either be the norm or we'll look back on this decade like we look back on the 60s for rock and roll.  Anyway, a week into summer, and this is my current song of the summer.  Maybe I'll check in weekly with a new track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_qp5vJ23k


There's a pretty good music video too, but all of the youtube versions are edited, and I don't play like that.

-Zack

"From the bottom so the top's the only place to go now"
-Kanye West

Friday, May 10, 2013

Back to Life (pt. 1)

And so with that, I have completed my first year of law school.

It's hard to believe that, this time last year, I wasn't even sure I had what it took to be a successful starbucks barista.  Three months later, I was terrified of Torts.  Two months ago, I was sure I was about to fail property.

But now, it's just over, on pause, if you will, for a much needed summer off.  It's not that there's actually anything "off" about my summer- but it's not school, and that's positive.

I've got an unexpected week off next week.  Trying to figure out how to use it well and relax well, but not, in the end, feel like it was wasted.

Lost in the tussle of all of this, the finally ending, after the unending feeling of finals and papers and reading, are a whole lot of people, from every angle.

I've been unfortunately withdrawn, from the non-immediate people in my life, for the past nine months. I've often been withdrawn from the immediate too, as far as all of that goes.  I've never been so consumed by a singular goal, as I was, because of law school.

And I'm only 1/3rd of the way done.  Apparently it's the hardest third, as evidenced by the not-coming-back-portion of classmates I'll inevitably have in a month or two.

In many ways, I've probably changed and hopefully grown over the last 9 months.  At the very least, I'm sure I don't see things, everyday little things even, in the same way.  I've always been great at knowing things- it's been, perhaps, my most persistent quality since I was 2 years old.  In one way or another though, lawschool has helped me to understand things.  It's like I finally have some kind of context through which the world filters.  It's not a worldview as much as a skeleton upon which society hangs.

It's been less than 24 hours since my last final and I'm still working on putting on my non-school-life mindset.

I'm not sure I know how to do that.  I've got a degree of lawschool Stockholm syndrome at the moment.

I'll get over it though.

For now, I'm back, I'm free, and I'm learning what that means again.  I have more freetime over the next week than I have had since the summer before my senior year at Wooster.  That was five years ago.

I'll find a way to enjoy it.

-Zack

"Yeah I questioned if I could go the distance
That's just the work, regardless of who's listening"-Macklemore

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Finals descending

So here we are.  In the midst of reading days, leading up to finals, to end the first year.   "They" always say the first year is the hardest.  If that isn't true, I'm not sure how anyone actually graduates from law school.  It's a winnowing process.

Or something like that.

I don't actually have time to be writing this right now; I should either be studying or getting ready for a wedding (which, of course, is what makes that studying that much more important, since I won't be studying the rest of the afternoon).  

I feel okay about finals.  It's hard to tell though, because it's all set to a curve.  I don't just have to do well to get good grades: I have to do better than my classmates.  No matter how much you study, there's no way to ever feel good about out-performing people on essay questions.

The competition notwithstanding, I do feel good about my chances.  As long as I keep my scholarship, I won't be heartbroken.  As long as I perform near the top of the middle of the pack in each class, then I won't lose my scholarship.

It's hard to believe the first year is already almost over.  Until finals end, it won't feel like it's over.  No matter how well I actually do, just getting this far feels like an accomplishment.

To think that, a year ago, I was still with InterVarsity, just starting at Starbucks, and didn't really know what a "tort" is, makes the road look much longer than it felt.

Truthfully, it was somewhere between the fastest year I've lived, and the hardest- not that those actually preclude each other.

In 20 years, I might look back on this post and laugh at how much I worried about my grades and studying for property.

But 20 years ago, I cared about the teenage mutant ninja turtles a lot more than I do now too.

And even now, I don't think that was stupid, all things considered.

-Zack

"I ain't play the hand I was dealt, I changed my cards
I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars"
-Kanye

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Unchained

One year ago today, I announced, as much as a post on here is an announcement, my split with InterVarsity on ideological grounds.

Little did I know, those ideological grounds would become the issue in our country for the 365 days after that.  Around a month after my termination with InterVarsity, President Obama announced his "evolving views" on gay marriage.  About one month ago, 2 Supreme Court cases were heard on the very issue (which, in typical post-marshall fashion, will probably render divergent judgments, if they both survive the inane technicalities Roberts harps on to avoid making useful decisions.  Though I can't actually blame Roberts for that as much as I'd like- it's a hallmark of post-Holmes Courts in many ways-- and it's not entirely invalid, from a legal/lawyer point of view: just unhelpful for lay-people who maybe follow 2 SC cases per year and don't have legal training).

But I wasn't just taking a stand for my progressive political views.  I wasn't just trying to up my Lakewood hipster street-cred.  Indeed, though "an ideological split" is not the worst way to put it, I was really just standing up for people I love.  I was just standing up for people who love Jesus, as much as anyone in InterVarsity, and who, for whatever reason (it is not my road to walk), searched out the  Bible, attuned to the Holy Spirit speaking to themselves, as individuals and couples and families, and heard nothing but blessing of the love inside them for a person of the same sex.

Though I can describe it as "taking a stand," in ways, it was the opposite: I was deciding not to take a stand.  I was deciding that, at least for me, I cannot declare that an honest, God-fearing, bible-reading, Jesus-loving person, who feels, in the deepest depths of themselves, that God created them with a true and blessed orientation to be attracted to and love a person of the same sex.  I decided not to take that stand.  It's not my place.  It's not anyone's place.  It's not InterVarsity's place.  It's not the pope's place.  It's not Justices Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas' place.

In the early days of InterVarsity, a woman who owned a mansion offered it to InterVarsity for retreats, so long as no black students be in attendance.  InterVarsity refused and went on to strike a path of racial reconciliation among Christians that is essentially, historically, unequaled.  I was always proud to be a part of that tradition.

But InterVarsity has recanted on that sort of justice-driven fortitude.  Truth be told, had InterVarsity either A. decided not to have an official position on the morality of same-sex intimacy in all its levels or B. decided it wasn't as outlawed in the Bible as we've been led to believe, millions of dollars flowing in from rich, southern donors would have been cut off immediately.  Perhaps that was never considered.  Unfortunately, everything I saw from InterVarsity said otherwise: what donors thought and think controlled everything we did.

That's really beside the point though.  We've come to a grand canyon as a country, as a church.  There are those on the side of the progressive, who see the unclarity in the Bible (and it is unclear: what we mean by homosexuality today is nowhere near what it meant 2000 years ago, and further), coupled with the experiences of gay Christians, as God's blessing on love in all its forms.  Conversely, there are those on the other side, who see everything as always already literal, and believe more in the meaning of words than the importance of people.  InterVarsity publishes gains, in almost every category, every single year.  That will continue, but make no mistake: growing your organization with parochially minded conservative students who fear what they do not know will, some day, lead to a reversal.  Kids who grew up opposed to gay people (because that's what it really is) are going to be drawn to InterVarsity: tacit hatred is an attractive cause.  But as our country and Church grows, and love regains its ground (God is love, after all), the traction will start to wear.  Those drawn to InterVarsity and its ilk because of their closed-mindedness will decrease in number.  InterVarsity will either have to reverse its position (though without swift action at that point, that may not undo the damage), or face a form of extinction.

I understand that the strongly-literalist minded believe that, because they believe God is on their side, they can't fail.  When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, after all.  Of course, if God is on your side, you can't fail.  That's what Jesus said.  But Jesus only ever said he's on the side of the poor and downtrodden- not the protectionist privileged who fear what they don't understand.

Claiming God's on your side doesn't put him on your side.

And that's why I don't take the stand and judge anyone's love. From what I know of God, according to the Bible, it's our job to love, and nothing else.  The most damning words in the Bible are reserved for the oppressors.

And I ask this, to end this, what is more oppressive than telling two people that their love, which they ardently believe is a gift from God, is nothing but a product of sinful desires?

Dieu est amour.

-Zack

"Blast me but never ask me to live a lie"
-2Pac

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Because it's spring break, and I could, and I should

And so here it is; the Thursday of CSU's 1 week long spring break.  If I didn't post this today, there would be a good chance this blog would be a law school casualty.  I've fallen behind on everything that is at all "optional"- and many things that really aren't.  It's consumptive, in every sense of the world, including the tuberculosis sense.  Not literally.  But it feels like it.

3 midterms in three weeks, a large paper in the midst, and then we hit the ground running with just 5 weeks til finals when we get back.  It's a battle that we can't afford to lose, that takes everything just to endure.  Thankfully, endurance is 85% of winning.

Our property teacher is less than stellar.  Not only did she schedule the midterm for the first day back from break, but she's not the best at explaining anything as it is, so this break has been less free, less relaxing than I'd at some point envisioned.

But it's a break.  And I've done all I can to enjoy it while I can.

March 3rd was my 4 year I.S.-iversary.  4 years never felt faster, or, in so many ways, more brilliant.

Were it not for law school, I'd be quickly running out of any adult, non-married friends.

So turns our world with us upon it.

And as such, we've got a new pope; the first non-European since the Church decided Christian and European were synonyms.  Maybe it's that big wheel turning, turning back to the Kingdom.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.  Interesting note?  Argentina legalized gay marriage in 2010 and Cardinal Bergoglio stopped speaking out on the subject publicly.  Last he said anything, it was in opposition to that legislation- but he's been silent since.  No one knows what that means; but it at least means he's leading with humility and love, and not political swag.  (http://www.believeoutloud.com/latest/could-pope-francis-be-gay-communitys-greatest-hope).

I've also finished a book this week- just the third of the year, and it was short, and a children's book (Number the Stars, but Lois Lowry).  But it was good.  Very good.  With few exceptions, they still don't give away Newberry Medals for nothing (save for you, Missing May.  Kramer v. Kramer deserved the Oscar more than you deserved that).

For what it's worth, Downton Abbey is still the best-shot t.v. show I've ever seen.  It's intellectually dishonest to say you don't like it because its mushy then, in that same token, claim to like artistic movies.  It does have a fairly soap-operatic bend to a degree, but I could mute it and just watch the camera roam around, and cut to upside-down shots, and carefully arranged close-ups, and actual, skillful use of focus- without a care for the plot; just watching an underrated filmic director do his work.

I wish I had more insight to write; but right about now, I've got to shut this down; hopefully, before long, I'll be back- or at least sometime after finals.

-Zack
"I don't tip, I pay bills"
-Lil' Wayne

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Week 7: Spiderwebs

It was never my intention to take so much time off between posts.  For the first time in what feels like months (but it's just been 1, at the most), I have some breathing space, and it actually feels like breathing space.

I only have one class tomorrow, and I am ready for it.  Then it's the weekend.  I'm glad to catch my breath right now, because starting this weekend, I've got to hold it for as long as I can, taking the plunge back into the ocean for weekly midterms, papers, and unending outlining.

Even now, I feel like there's a little voice telling me that I should be doing homework.

That's the thing with law school.  There's always something to do, much more than in Undergrad.

Until summer, there's always going to be something I can do.  For a structure wherein the only important grade comes from a final exam at the end of the semester, everything that must be done beforehand sure piles up...

Today couldn't have come at a better time.  It was a long, arduous, and full month.  But it's just a space to breath- not a true break at all.  I've got to remember that, and strap back in tomorrow morning, all the way through to spring break.  Just two weeks left...but a midterm the day we return.  Spring break won't be so much a break, as a slight pause.

It's a roller coaster.

But it's a good ride, so far.

We're talking about the death penalty in criminal law tomorrow morning.  Most of the time, that class is full of people's opinions as it is.  I look forward to whatever class becomes tomorrow, as we're all ready for the weekend.

Personally, I've been against the death penalty for longer than I've even identified with progressive politics.  I was against the death penalty when I was still "conservative."  It's one of the benchmarks that eventually led to law school (perhaps the earliest).  I'll try not to argue tomorrow...

-Zack
"Into the face of every criminal strapped into a chair, we must stare, we must stare, we must stare"
-Bright Eyes

Friday, January 25, 2013

Week 3: Every New Day

In my life, I've had three interviews that did not render me the job for which I interviewed- the first at Burger King, the summer before my first year at Wooster.  I think I didn't get the job because I wore shorts to the interview (in my defense, it was a hot summer day, and they were nice shorts).  Realistically, it was probably also because I was leaving for school a couple of months later.  Similarly, the following summer, before landing a horrific job at Wal*Mart, I interviewed at Arbys and was summarily turned down because "college is great and all, it's good to go after what you think your dreams are, but we're looking for people who won't be going away."  I didn't hold it against them.  It was still my favorite fast food joint in Ottawa for the remainder of my time in Ottawa (which, after that summer, was spotty at best, to say the least).  A few years later, I interviewed at Meijer in Lima, while fundraising.  They turned me down because my chance of someday leaving in the future just wasn't worth the risk.  Their loss.  Ironically, I ended up working a very much seasonal position at the Meijer in Findlay later that year and, were that not the case, may not have ever met Alexandra.

Oh how the cogs, they turn.

Otherwise, I've received a job offer from every single interview I've ever had.  My most recent alighting upon me this afternoon.

Last December (the 21st), I frantically went from department store to department store to find a suit, because I had an interview at, quite literally, the best possible clerkship in Cleveland, at least as I see things.

Sherwin Williams, the world's leading paint manufacturer and retailer, and one of Cleveland's flagship corporations was hiring a litigation clerk in their corporate offices.  It's a well-paid position that extends through next school year- paid law-related positions for people just out of their first year are white buffalo.  Few exist, so the competition is stiff and the deadlines harsh.

But Wooster came through again for me.  Sherwin Williams liked my IT background (and didn't care about my I.S.; sorry, Grant), and got me in for an interview before the deadline for applications even passed.

One of my "to do before school starts" items was purchasing the aforementioned professional suit, for the spring interview season.  If you've never bought a man's professional suit, give yourself some time- they have to hem the pants (at least) before its even wearable.

To make matters worse, I only have brown dress shoes (Size 16-17 doesn't afford many options, and I like brown, so that's what I have).  On a night's notice, getting new shoes was literally impossible.

If you're following, I was out, wherever I could be that might sell professional clothing, looking for a suit that went with my oddball shoes, less than 24 hours before an interview for my dream 1L summer position.

I went to Dillards- far too expensive generally, and definitely not readily selling suits off-the-rack ready to wear.

But, by an act of God, they had a suit that fit in every single way, save for the unhemmed pants.  I hope whomever helped me (she had her own law school dreams early in life apparently, though her name now escapes) got paid commission- because she was resourceful and helpful.  One of her coworker's mothers just so happens to run an alteration shop.   The shop was closed, but she got him to pull some strings with his mom, gave me the address, and sent me on the way.  My interview was at 10:30.  At 9:00 a.m., I was waiting outside of their shop for the door to open, so I could retrieve my suit, hurry downtown (park too, at Tower City no less, then walk), and do the interview.

But I made it.  It was the most laid-back interview I've ever had.

But I guess it worked.

Save for those three times, I'm still running a pretty good average on the interview/job offer ratio.

So I don't have to worry about getting a job this summer anymore- I've got one.  Most of my classmates (or all, as far as I know) haven't interviewed anywhere yet.  Indeed, few have applied.

But that stressful part is over.

It feels like I've reached the top of the mountain today.  Of course I haven't.  This is just the beginning of my legal career (all of the orientation "your legal career starts now" speeches, that started as soon as winter visit day last year, before some of us had ever taken the LSAT notwithstanding)- but it is a good beginning.  Indeed, it's as good a beginning as I'd ever wish.

This summer and next school year, I'll be in the same building where the "We are all Witnesses" poster once hung (and was consequently fire-bombed by drunk Cavs fans in June 2010).  Even now, when I step back and think about it, I can't help but laugh- the ghost of LeBron haunts me still, in some menial, neutered way.

It's a major step on the path, to be sure.  And as I think about it (LeBron included), it's obvious that a light's been leading me along the whole way.  I could take the side most law students, personality-wise would, and claim credit for the early and great job-search success.  But how dishonest would that be?  Were I not rejected by the Meijer in Lima in 2009, and accepted by the one in Findlay, I'd never have met Alexandra, I wouldn't be in law school, and I wouldn't have a remarkable summer job to celebrate right now.  The fact is I'm not in control of my life anymore than I'm allowed to be, by our Father in heaven- and though hindsight is so characteristically 20/20, I can't help but realize He's been behind it all- the ups and the downs, all the way through, to today, this summer, and beyond.  I could take the evangelistic tactic here and say it's because I've had "such great faith" that He's intervened for me.  But I won't do that either- I've had the measure of faith He's allowed me, and trust me, I've screwed the pooch on that one countless times.  But he's deigned to bless me in so many ways, so many times, even when I don't count it as such.  This is just one more of those.  I will, however, be the stereotypical liberal activist with it, and quote spiderman- with great power comes great responsibility- and I've got to do my part now, from this/these blessings I've been given, and do something for God, His Kingdom, and the city of Cleveland.

-Zack

"I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing"
-Flannery O'Connor

Friday, January 18, 2013

Week 2: With the Tide

Yesterday morning, our civil procedure professor told us about a class, a few years back, with a horrifying reputation that persists to this day.  Their 1L year, when they were still divided into sections, the competition boiled over.  People were hiding library books, lying to each other, and doing anything necessary to get an edge on the ever important curve.  Apparently, to this day, she denies writing letters of recommendation for members of this particular class.

They tell us, at every juncture: your classmates will be your colleagues for your entire career.
They tell us all sorts of things at every juncture: Lawyers become alcoholics, network, get experience your first semester, don't worry about grades but grades determine the rest of your life, legal writing is important (though it's worth the least amount of credits), etc, etc, etc, all down the line.

This week though, I've internalized that first one.  My classmates will be my colleagues during my legal career in Cleveland.

Most of the sage wisdom imparted by the administration has something of an ominous tone, and that particular piece is no exception.  But the tone of delivery does the fact a disservice.  Knowing that I'll be working in a community made up of people I'm in class with right now, for the most part, is one of the best pieces of news I've heard about the legal world.

I like the people I'm in class with right now.  They are good, brilliant, wonderful people who, even when class gets long and the workload unbearable (though we always find a way to bear it), make every day a little brighter and easier to get through.  It's like we're all fighting together, like it's us against the complex material.  Thankfully, we are winning.

Law school is a competitive environment, just like the job market and the adversarial judicial system.  But that does not mean we have to be enemies.  I think a few people might be obsessed with that idea.  Maybe, at some point, I was too.

But I'm past it.  We're all in this together.  I'll keep trying my best, with regards to grades now, job interviews, and work later.  But my classmates now and future colleagues, even those who get on my nerves from time to time, well, they're in this with me too.

Last semester, I don't think I quite got it.  I know upperclassmen who still haven't.

But we've been thrust into a fire and as I see us, as a group, growing and learning together in apparent ways.  At least our section is a community and I think, for the most part, we actually care about each other like a community should.

I'd imagine there will be a cutthroat side to everything, when business starts getting in the way in a few years.  That's to be expected.  But when it happens, it will be the communal experiences we're sharing now that inform how we treat each other then.

I can't speak for the law school experience others might have, but, at least for me, and at least for nearly everyone in our section, it seems to be that we're interested in solving problems, not creating them.

Though we're only two weeks in on this new semester, next year, we won't have a section.  Everything will get closer and closer to the "real world."

And that's why it's so important now, while we're all just 1L's, learning what it means to "learn law and live Justice," that we learn how to share this life, to some off the wall degree.

The situation always turns a bit neurotic, when you throw a bunch of law students together.  But at least, I hope, in ten years, professors are telling stories about the section who felt more like a family than a team of rivals.

-Zack

"The mood it changes like the wind, hard to control where it begins"
-The Naked and Famous

Friday, January 11, 2013

Week 1: A Whole New World

The first week of Law School's second semester is in the books.

Some things are the same: Legal Writing, section 2, same egos, same law school.

But some things are very different: Upper classmen.  In our classes.  It feels like they're moving in on our turf.  It also feels like they're going to get all of the A's and leave the 1L's to fight for the B's on down on the curve.

Section 2, split in two, for Criminal law.

Up to this point, we'd had class together.  Every class.  Every day (save for the smaller grouped Legal Writing).  But our section drew the short stick.  We've been lopped in two and applied to the other two sections for Criminal Law.

Criminal law is a great class so far- but 60 people is a bigger class than I've ever been in, anywhere.

I'm biased, but it does seem that our section is excelling, at least in our criminal law class.


Jobs jobs jobs!

We can finally apply and interview for summer interships, externships, and associate positions.  It's a wonderful opportunity.-- a wonderful opportunity that feels far too easy to sweep aside while the other homework piles on.

All of my professors are women this semester.  I've had that happen at Wooster- the English department is mostly women (by maybe one or two, or at least it was), but in law school, where there are 3-4 men for every woman in the student body, it's a refreshing change.

But they are stricter.  You can be absent for not being prepared.  All of our midterms are graded.

On the other hand, we watched a movie for the first two classes in Property- Amistad.  It was a better use of my time than I'd have come up with for myself, had I not been in class.  If you never have, you should watch Amistad.


Grades have been handed out too.  The world is starting to stratify based on performance.  I did alright- not all As, but close enough that I'm able to apply to any job.

I forget a lot though, and I shouldn't, that the majority of the educated world (so, not even taking into account those who don't live where education is possible), the people who have any college degree, though growing, is small.  Those with bachelors degrees smaller.  And those who, from that number, who can get into law school is smaller still.  Taking the curve into account, performing well in class is an accomplishment-  passing a class at all is nothing at which to sneer.

But Law School is a lot of work.  It is a lot of worthwhile work, indeed.  But it is work.  Some things never change.

-Zack

"You know where to find me, when you're on your way out"
-Imogen Heap



Thursday, January 3, 2013

2012 was a Year

In some ways, it feels like I was just writing about the end of 2011 a few weeks ago.  So much happened in 2012 that that's obviously impossible, but it was easily the fastest year in recent memory.  I don't exactly know how to quantify the quickness of a year.  I just know I've never felt like a year didn't really pass, when one actually did, until I met January 1st, 2013.

So much did happen.

I now know what it's like to be married for a whole year.  It's hard, but wonderful.  Everything everyone says is actually mostly true.  Besides all of the stuff about hating it you here in pop-culture from time to time.  I couldn't love being married more.  The secret to that is simple: I couldn't love my wife anymore than I do, but then, somehow, each day, I wake up, and realize that I do, much more than the day before.

I learned that much of my 2011 strife over my employment with InteVarsity and pull toward law school was part of a master plan which gave me an immediate landing spot, once InterVarsity diverged from the ranks of an organization for which I can ideologically work.

We've now officially lived in Cleveland for 1 year.  It's everything I thought it would be and more.  I love living in Cleveland and, unless I somehow manage to retire to Savannah Georgia, I can't imagine calling anywhere else home.

As different as it is from Cleveland, I happened to fall in love with Savannah this year too, when we visited it in August.  Perhaps it was the adventure, driving across five states and all that, then ending up in a historic, semi-tropical-paradise city without a care in the world for a week, but, like Cleveland, Savannah has its interesting, historic, alluring dark spots.  There's nothing like it in the world.  Supposedly, its the most haunted city in the country- and why wouldn't it be?  Historically, it was the end of the civil war, a pirate port, and an antebellum wonderland.  In some ways, it was built on evil- but in others, it is something of a pure pearl, untouched by too much jarring modernity.

And of course, I started law school this year.  It was like the heavens opened up and showed me a path I'd been searching for, for so long.  I can't wait to see where it leads, but for now, I'm overjoyed at being on it.  Still waiting for first semester grades, and that makes me a little nervous, but no matter what they are, as long as I don't fail out, I'll still be happy to be there and be engaging with the body of law.
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For those of you who have been reading this for any number of years, you may know what's coming next.  Each year, I go through the rolls of my memory and determine my favorite things from the past year in each of several categories- movies, music, etc.

2012 was a good year on that front, but law school made it quite a bit thinner than in years past.  I did not crack 40 books or 55 movies for the first time in 3 years (at least- I haven't been keeping track for longer).  The mere fact that I'm okay with that fact means I think law school is worth it, but that's another story for another day.  For now, I'll address the categories as I have been, for at least six years, spanning www.xanga.com/dulacian and this blog.  Past  entries can be found, somewhere around the beginning of the year, by searching either place.   Last year's is just 13 back of this one.  It was a thin year in blogging.  It might go without saying, but this list is compiled from things I first read, watched, or listened to in 2011- much of it is much older.

Without further adieu, I give you the best of my year, in terms of entertainment and ephemera:

Literature:
Book of the year:  This is always the hardest choice for me to make, though at least I have less to choose from this year.  I only made it to a paltry 34 books in 2012, after posting 52 in 2011.  I have a good excuse, but I still wish I could have made more progress.  Even so, I greatly enjoyed what I did read.  In many ways, it was the year of Proust and Stephen King.  In total, that only means 4 books- but  more than 2500 pages therein.  Proust is the greatest technical writer whoever lived, for my money.  He took a fairly normal life and made it into a wonderful dance through revelry, ribaldry, grace, and candor.  His sentences are powerful yet elegant, graceful yet frank.  King, on the other hand, is a great story teller and a good enough writer.  He gets the job done, and that job captures imaginations better than most American writers can dream to do.  But it's actually none of them that take the proverbial cake this year.  It's actually a children's book.  The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman, to which I give my honor this year.  It's also the first book I finished in 2012.  Pullman tugs at the heart, writes for children like they are growing into adulthood instead of as children, and tells a story few could read and ever forget.  It's quite possibly the best children's book ever written, and most certainly the best I've ever read.  It's more perfect than the rest, and that's why it wins 2012 for me.
Runner Up: Guermantes Way, Marcel Proust

Author of the year: Marcel Proust.  See above for why.  Words in his hands are more powerful than 1000 armies.
Runner Up: Stephen King

(You may notice that that's just an inversion of last year's winners.  I'm pretty sure that's the first time that's happened to me.  It's a testament to how law school prevents me from branching out in my reading adventures)

Motion Pictures

Film of the Year:  2012 marked the first time that as many as 1/3 of the films I saw were in theaters.  I started going to movies by myself, when I had the time, and it was a good decision.  Watching movies is probably my favorite personal past time, and college got me in the habit of doing it alone.  I do like going to movies with people too- but I don't let lack of a group hold me back from seeing something I want to see.  So, seeing movies is what I did.  A lot.  Right after I got fired by InterVarsity, I went to see a movie.  Almost every free day this winter break, I've seen a movie.  I'm glad it's become fun again, and not academic, as it had been, for so long.  So that means this decision is a hard one.  Two of my favorite directors released movies last year (Moonrise Kingdom and Django Unchained being those) and both were brilliant.  Some other favorites included Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi.  On top of that, I saw plenty of great films apart from the theater too: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Roshamon, Intolerance.  Life of Pi is probably the best film of last year, for Oscar considerations (though Lincoln will probably win, even though I haven't seen it, I'm calling it).  But Moonrise Kingdom was my favorite.  And so I'm picking it.
Runner Up: Roshamon

Television show of the year: It probably shouldn't be too surprising that I didn't watch much TV last year.  In fact, it's hard to even think of a single show that I just "had to watch-" I'm months behind even on The Office and Parks and Rec.  Thankfully, Downton Abbey exists, and though there aren't many episodes and I've never watched it on broadcast, it's literally the only show I wanted to watch more than doing something else, all year.  It's a little, sudsy, I believe, according to a mutual friend (and she wasn't wrong), but it's well acted, better shot than the Les Miserables musical-movie atrocity (of course, so was Goatman 2, but that's another post..., to pull an Alton Brown on early Good Eats), and relentlessly compelling.  I don't think I should resolve to watch more t.v. anytime soon, but unless something changes, there's a good chance this entry will look similar in 2013's edition of this very post.
Runner Up: Phineas and Ferb

Music


Song of the year: It's next to impossible for me to actually pick a single song to represent my 2012.  A lot of great stuff came out, and a lot of stuff that already existed managed to enamor me, in one way or another.  However, for some oddly fortuitous lyrics with the way I exited InterVarsity, and because it's an awesome song, I'm actually picking Heartlines, by Florence and the Machine this year: http://youtu.be/WouoSftCIz8  To this day, everytime it happens upon my randomized music while driving or working out, it brings me back to the central narrative that defined my 2012.

Runner Up:  Joy to the World, Sufjan Stevens (from Silver and Gold)  http://youtu.be/QhTCh7smrR4
Though I don't typically comment on "runner up" winners, I'll make an exception.  The reason I picked this, a Christmas song no less, is twofold: when I first heard this song, it was roughly the end of exams for my first semester.  The mood, the tone, they just fit.  It also made me love Joy to the World, usually one of my least favorite Christmas songs.  The tune is a variation on "Impossible Soul," one of the greatest 9 minute songs in history (off of his Age of Adz album, the closing track), and incorporates the most ending refrain from that piece.  It (JttW) also closes with a line from the best modern Christmas classic, turning not just to the finality that JttW typically is, closing Christmas Eve services the world over (unless you're of the sort that does the candle lit, hand-holdey silent night.  Were I a pastor, I'd either abolish that or let it be the beginning), by turning to the hope and expectation Christmas represents.  It's the best arrangement of a Christmas song I've ever heard, if sentimentalism isn't your bag (at least not christmastime sentimentalism), and, in terms of significance and greatness, my second favorite song of 2012

Artist of the Year: It's always difficult to determine the most definitive artist of my past year in music listening.  Much like LeBron could always win the MVP because he's the best player in the league, I could always just pick Kanye, because he's the best artist in the game.  He even did some great things in 2012 (what GOOD Music Cruel Summer represents in terms of communal artistry is groundbreaking, if mostly ignored commercially).  But I don't think it's actually that easy.  Certainly, the day I rode to school listening to it for the first time was sufficiently mind-blowing.  Likewise, I could just pick Sufjan because he's Sufjan and I will listen to him til the world ends or I'm drawn from it.  It's quite honestly a coin flip between those two.  I feel unoriginal to say it, but everything else isn't as consistent.  Just look at last years.  All I'm doing different is disallowing a runner up, when there just isn't one.  http://youtu.be/1nCmeSGVpyU
http://youtu.be/Zr5Q5UJ0udw

Album of the Year:  Though you might not know it from all of the musing above, my favorite album was actually Mumford and Sons' Babel this year.  It's graceful, forceful, powerful, and charming.  There's everything about the human experience and more, all right there.  http://youtu.be/urYjkkitfvc
Runner-Up: Kanye West Presents Good Music: Cruel Summer

Sports:
Personal Favorite Team of the Year:  2012 was rough for my rooting interests.  Ohio State was suspended from bowls, The Packers lost their first playoff game, the Indians, Browns, and Cavs are/were all pretty abysmal.  Thankfully, the OG Titan Football team went undefeated and lost a close game to the eventual state champs.  That's remarkable for a program that won all of 3 games my freshman year (now, of course, 11 years back....)
Runner Up: The ever disappointing come post-season, Cincinatti Reds.



So that's that.  I'm going to do my best to update once a week this semester/year, probably/hopefully on Thursdays.  I can't be held to that, if last year was any indication.  But we'll see.  Thanks for reading.
-Zack
"There's fantasy, there's fallacy, there's tumbling stone, echoes of a city that's long overgrown"
-Florence and the Machine