I'm in between self-assigned assignments right now (nothing like being a law student), and so I thought I would drop some thoughts into my digital world after a long hibernation out in the flesh.                 

3. Arts & Entertainment

     I'm scared for Spike Jonze.  Last weekend I saw Where the Wild Things Are, and I thought it was great.  The considerations of the impossibility of utopia...the portrayal of how emotions can swing between extremes (happy, sad) at the drop of a hat in a feral state...the parody of how certain people get "crushes" on couples (i.e. KW's crush on Bob and Terry, the owls, Aren't they great?)...the fact that Bob and Terry were in fact, owls...KW's farewell to Max (I'll eat you up, I love you so)...that James Gandolfini played a "wild thing" named Carol...Carol's throwaway joke about the giant dog...Max biting his mom.  Although, why did Mark Ruffalo's character, the mom's boyfriend, ever feel entitled to yell at Max's mother, You can't let him treat you like that! while Max is still present storming around the kitchen and stairwell.  If I were Max I'd have kicked him in the balls and then C-walked around his groaning adult body.  If I were Max's mom I'd dump that fool in a New York minute.  I suppose the point was to show that adults generally don't understand children, but I don't think that many adults misunderstand children and those children's mothers THAT badly or simultaneously. 

     The thing is, of all those things that I liked, I only think kids are going to like the last one.  And I don't think enough adults are going to go see the movie independently.  Meaning that the movie isn't going to make enough money to offset the enormous costs of production.  So I take back what I said.  It's not Spike Jonze who will lose but the studio.  Spike Jonze will get out of this unscathed because I imagine the critics, who happen to not be children and who happen to have not been children for some time, will like the movie, too.  What can I say, I have great taste.

     I suppose by hiring Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, known prominently for being artsy and well-received in the hipster communities, the studio had to know that it was taking a risk.  And informed parents should know that they were, too.  But of course, the type of parent who complained is probably the type of person who doesn't know that he/she risks kid-boredom (or self-boredom) by taking his/her child(ren) to a Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers joint or who those people even are.  Spike Jonze?  Didn't he, uh, do that "Do the Right Thing" movie? 

     On another matter, it seems that some parents have been complaining about how the movie's too scary or too boring (for their kids).  I agree on the scary part.  I was slightly scared whenever Judith got mad at Max (she had a mean looking mouth) or all the wild things started jumping and pouncing around Max...although I suspect that little kids won't be afraid of Max getting hurt like I was and as Max, a true kid, wasn't.  And actually, I agree that the movie was probably boring for quite a lot of kids who had expected that the wild rumpus would never end once it started.  I disagree with the fact that the parents are complaining.  What did they expect?  There are like 18 words in the entire book.  And Jonze, by setting the movie in a faded and minimal autumn-only color scheme, is faithful to Sendak's original illustrations.  In short, the parents should have seen it coming. 

2. Editorial

     Today I was in an informational meeting, and the promised pizza was late in coming.  The meeting was supposed to last from 12:30 to 1:20, and it was 1:15, and there was still no pizza breaking down into simple starch in my saliva, which was a problem.  However, who should walk into the classroom at 1:15 but...not the pizza man...people who had class at 1:30.  Really?  Why would you ever, EVER get to class 15 minutes early unless you were the professor?

     But that's just me.  I'm sure there are plenty of decent reasons to get into the classroom 15 minutes early like...well...maybe you have no friends?  The thing is, these kids had friends.  The walked in together, and they were relatively well dressed and both relatively physically attractive.  This type of person has friends. 

     I've never understood the mentality that wants to be early for the sake of being early.  I don't know why I don't like it.*  It seems so subservient.  My high school band teacher would always say If you're early you're on time, and if you're on time, you're late.  That's crap.  If you want me to be there at 1:15, schedule class for 1:15.  Your job, as I understand it, is for you to not worry about me until 1:30, and if at 1:30 you pop your head up over the class and don't see me, THEN you can censure me, not a second before.  But of course my mother would chime in and say something like, Well, Tim, do you not have to travel to get to class?  Can you just teleport into your seat?**  Isn't life so much nicer when you get to a place early and relax?  But I was already enjoying myself plenty outside of the classroom or whatever designated space in which my appointment was to take place.  Maybe it's Space and Time I have a problem with. 

*Probably because both of my parents do

**That's a lie.  My mother would never use the word "teleport".  I don't think she even knows it exists.  

1. Finance

   The other night I was yukking it up in the law library with some of my chums, and somehow we landed on the topic of winning the lottery, which brings me to this question: If you won the lottery, why would you EVER complain about the taxes???  I only ask because that seems to be the primary concern of any person with whom I have ever spoken about the lottery.  Yeah, but think about how much tax they take out...  Are you kidding me?  How much did that lottery ticket cost you?  Even if you bought $300,000.00 worth of lottery tickets and got your prize stripped to $350,000.00, you still win huge.  You just got $50,000.00 for scratching some gray crap off of high-weight paper with a quarter, and you want to complain about taxes?  Of course, spending $300,000.00 on lottery tickets with no guaranteed payoff isn't the best investment in the world, but in the hypothetical world people don't worry about that. 

   They apparently worry about taxes, though.  I'm pretty sure that this complaint is a strictly middle class invention because I don't think I've ever spoken about the lottery with anybody who was outside of it.  I'm pretty sure rich people never think about the lottery, and I haven't had enough contact with "poor" people for it to come up.  The only times I've ever had real, personal contact with "poor" people I've talked with them about sports or religion.  Those are probably more important topics than the lottery, anyway.  The lottery is best suited for overly self-conscious bourgeoisie bloggers.          

     On a related matter, I'm always mystified by how relentlessly certain members of the middle class defend the super-rich's "right" to keep all that money, regardless of how they spend it.  The traditional explanation is annoyingly easy...that the middle class think (even if only subconsciously) they can one day get their hands on all dough if they put in enough hours in the bakery.  They forget (or never bothered to learn) that most people who populate the super-rich's stratosphere don't get there on merit alone.  Which also explains the traditional middle class view of the poor.  So when another movie comes out about somebody rising from poverty to a stable life, the middle class moviegoer who, when considering the super-rich thinks "I can do it" thinks confidently about the movie's protagonist, "I could have done it".  I'm sorry for using such clunky terminology, but again, I've got stuff to do! 

     If we go back to the lottery example, the traditional definition of the middle class still holds true.  Though they realistically have as much (or as little) chance at winning the lottery as becoming the next CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, they go Debbie-Downer on the lotto-money because it was not earned money.  But maybe I'm trying too hard.  What about about sour grapes?  That's human first and perhaps the best explanation.  That middle-classers denigrate lottery winnings for being unearned is probably a theory invented by somebody who wants to be hard on the middle-class and more specifically people who disfavor taxing the super-rich at a higher rate than everybody else.   

     And interestingly enough, it leads me to the middle class's denigration of taxing the super-rich.  They complain about taxing the super-rich b/c they think they can get that money.  They complain about taxing lottery winnings because they know they can't.  The opposite motivation produces the same response.     

     I have to make one more trip up the soapbox.  During the past election, certain members of my childhood church began to vociferously post things on facebook about socialism and capitalism and how capitalism is better, etc. etc.  One especially energetic person posted a video in which she conducted an experiment with her three sons.  In part one, she told them that they would each get 5 pieces of candy no matter how many push ups they accomplished in 30 seconds.  They did a couple lazy push-ups apiece.  Next, she told them that they would be rewarded candy in proportion to how many pushups they accomplished in 30 seconds.  Look at those boys go!

     I have no qualms with rewarding merit.  However, I have plenty of qualms with people assuming that the only reason you perform an activity is to get some type of external compensation.  The illustration reveals quite a bit about how we perceive "work" in our society, no?  And how a human being should spend the majority of his/her given hours in a week?  And as I have mentioned earlier, I have plenty of qualms with people projecting a merit-only paradigm into systems where it clearly doesn't exist.  

 

Well, I appreciate all the time you've put into it, but I think we've had a breakthrough.  You see, they talked to the Bishop this morning, and she told him about what ___________ had been doing.  The Bishop came down pretty hard on ________, and he called me up yesterday and apologized.  Oh, I've got another call coming in...

Mormons have never caused me so much stress.  Three evenings ago I was feeling guilty that I had to drop a worried mother's call to make it to an Ultimate (Frisbee) match on time because it was "picture night" and we were supposed to be there early.  Of course I didn't tell her THAT; I told her that I had an engagement or an appointment or some other important sounding thing. 

You see, her daughter was being abused and was planning to flee across several state lines with the kids, and I was trying to bear the massive empty time and space of all the moments in which Daughter should have called the police and didn't.  In the end I know that I could not have become her proof, no matter how vigorously I pored through the Kansas Family Law Practitioner's Guide.  Help me help you.  Jerry Maguire had it right 10 or so years ago.  These battered women are hard to reason with.  I lack the tools.  Like, say, a time machine. 

Here's the dilemma of the legal aid intern.  You will deal with desperate people all day.  And you will forget, in your youth, that despite the tones of their voices, these panicky callers expect to meet you somewhere between their apparent need and your schedule.  And so you will want to help them expeditiously, and the most expeditious way of all is to drop everything and ask a more experienced attorney.  But you don't want to do that.  (Especially if you've already exercised that option before, and you HAVE.)  You want to tackle the hard questions on your own.  And though you do a very good job sitting on your hindparts and looking at black letters on a white background (Law School, has, after all, taught you SOMEthing), you still can't get all the slippery answers.  You talk to the managing attorney.  Who refers you to a past employee working in a nearby office.  Who you call.  Who is out until Monday.  Who you call on Monday and get, in about 2 minutes, what it took you 2 hours to plan on a Word document. 

We're back at the beginning, talking to Mormon mom, who placed the call to Legal Aid in the first place, who we may have forgotten has her own agenda for Daughter's life, who, by her plaintive tones belies the fact that Daughter, despite being threatened with knives, has never called the police on Son-in-Law.  Mormon mom doesn't want to hear any more legal advice on say, what to do should Son-in-Law hit Daughter again.  She's got another caller.  Son-in-Law called and apologized.  Thank you, thank you for your help.

My supervisors scoff at Mormon mom, and so do the secretaries and a paralegal.  I want to scoff with them, but why shouldn't I believe in Mom and the Bishop?  Humans have shown themselves to be capable of profound and shocking change.  Bodies fall through the Law's holes all the time, so shouldn't I want to believe it when private hands purport to sew up a public institution? 

Anyway, I checked my email after that and looked at digital picture versions of my friends and a couple of athletes.  Then I put Mormon mom and her daughter in a basket with other paperclipped people and went to the bathroom and then made more calls before lunch.