Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground

OATES ON MAILER . . . "Joyce Carol Oates Salutes Norman Mailer," from the Daily Beast.

In a speech given upon receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Norman Mailer Center, Joyce Carol Oates commented that Mailer "represented not only the most passionate and ambitious writing of his generation but the spirit of a kind of American writer who will possibly not come again. Norman was the very antithesis of minimalism—he was a maximalist."

Related post from Beyond the Underground: "Are You Open-Minded Enough for Norman Mailer on Iraq?"

News about My Book How to Feed a Lawyer

How to Feed a Lawyer (and Other Irreverent Observations from the Legal Underground) is now available at Amazon, in both print and e-book formats.

The book is a compilation of some of the writing I've done on this blog over the years. Although I'm fully aware that the world doesn't need more blog compilations, I'm publishing mine anyway, mostly for the reasons I noted in the book's foreword, which you can read for free by clicking "look inside the book" at Amazon.

Though some of the selections in the book are still being read daily on this site, I'm willing to bet that no one has read all of the posts I've included--about 125 posts from a total of over 3000. Most of these posts were written without internal links (which don't translate well into book form), specifically because I hoped one day to collect them in print.

You can read more about the book at Amazon. Both the book's description as well as its Table of Contents (available by "looking inside the book") will give you a good idea of what's inside.

I've already sent How to Feed a Lawyer to a number of bloggers and writers who expressed interest in my writing over the years. I'm willing to send out more. If you're a blogger who wants a review copy, send me an email and I'll be happy to oblige.

As always, thanks for reading!

A TIP FROM THE MACHIAVELLIAN LAWYER . . .

The Machiavellian Lawyer once said:

It is commonly thought that lawyers should be “civil” with one another, meaning they should concede ground to their opponents merely because as lawyers, they're all secretly in league with one another.

Continue reading "A Tip from the Machiavellian Lawyer" in the archives.

ROSEMARIE TROCKEL'S SOLO EXHIBITION . . .

Rosemarie Trockel, Botanical Slide Show, 2011–2012.

From the New York Times: "An Artist’s Solo Show Contains Multitudes," by Randy Kennedy.

In itself, the work can look like that of several different artists, as Ms. Trockel burrows into ideas, exhausts them and then moves on, sometimes returning to recycle the old, occasionally with a vengeance. One piece in the New Museum show is a clear plastic cube filled with the cut-up remains of many years’ worth of her trademark textile paintings, which she had saved in her studio. (A single painting similar to those she destroyed sold last year at auction for almost a million dollars.)

And here's a related art story from the New York Times: "Here’s Looking at You, Conceptualism," by Holland Cotter.

How to Flatter a Judge: A Guide for Ambitious Lawyers Who Want to Get Ahead (Part 2 of 2)

Flattering Judges: The Next Steps

When Part 1 of this guide concluded, I left you sitting in a bar next to a judge who, because of your skillful flattery, was already feeling very good about himself.

You’d engaged him in conversation, laughed at his jokes, even complimented him on being a hard worker.

So what’s next? As you find yourself settling in for a long afternoon of trying to stay awake during the judge’s “war stories,” what’s the best way to keep your waterfall of judicial adulation flowing at full strength?

According to some commentators, it’s now time to offer the judge an expensive gift.

Should you give the judge an expensive gift?

The judge is drinking single-malt Scotch? You might tell him that tomorrow, you’ll be sending an entire case of Glenmorangie to his chambers. The judge’s shirt is hopelessly stained? You might tell him that next week, you’re setting him up with your tailor, all expenses paid.

You’ll be surprised to learn I don’t agree with this approach. The trouble with giving judges expensive gifts is that it seems too much like bribery. You’re not seeking a bar complaint, remember, much less an opportunity to rub elbows with Dickie Scruggs; you’re merely trying to make a judge see you in a new light, so that he thinks twice the next time he’s about to throw a file at you, or call you a moron in open court, or hold you in contempt because you’ve forgotten to show up a third time for the hearing on your opponent's motion to dismiss.

THE FIFTY BEST FILMS OF THE '90s  . . .

#41 Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

You'll find the list at the A.V. Club. There's criticism of this list, plus an alternative, at Slate: "50 Other Best Films of the 1990s," by Aisha Harris. Finally, you can skip the lists altogether and read why Camille Paglia thinks George Lucas might be the greatest artist of our time.

If you want my opinion, I'd stick to the lists.

GOOD-BYE, "WHOM" . . .

The word "whom" is used just 53 times out of every million spoken words. I believe its days are numbered.

Do I care? Not really, although I did take the time once to learn how to use it correctly.

And still will, I suppose. It's a future generation that's going to kill "whom" off for good.

THE INTERNET IS AN AMAZING THING . . .

Some binders full of women like to party.

It's an image from the tumblr blog, Binders Full of Women, which popped up last night almost the moment Mitt Romney uttered the phrase and launched a new meme.

THE PICTURE MUST RADIATE LIGHT . . .

"The picture must radiate light, the bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from outside." --Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele, an Austrian painter, died in 1918 during the Spanish flu pandemic at 28, succumbing three days after his pregnant wife. Though his career was short, he's remembered today in books, films, and essays. The largest collection of his work can be found at the Leopold Museum in Vienna.

Schiele came up this weekend in Kansas City, where I was visiting my son Austin, a sophomore at the Kansas City Art Institute. Other topics of conversation: anarchy, figure-drawing technique, and Seapunk. The visit was so action-packed that it deserves its own post. No promises, however . . . 

MO YAN, THE "CHINESE PYNCHON" . . .

. . . wins the 2012 Nobel Prize in literature.



Here's coverage of the award from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. At the Guardian's Book Blog, Paul Mason had this to say--

Mo is not the only "magic realist" in modern Chinese literature; but his handling of the slippage between reality and surreality is the most deft, the most painful. He is more like a Chinese Pynchon than a Chinese Marquez – and in the end he is unlike any of the great living authors.