One of the few things I’ll actually read most weeks in the ABA Journal e-report (one of the forty gazillion e-newsletters I’m subscribed to for no good reason), is “Answers of the Week.” In each issue they pose a “Question of the Week” like “What book would you nominate to come along with a bar admission certificate?” or “What professional courtesy or favor was extended to you that made a real difference in a case, or in your career?” and people submit answers which are published in “Answers of the Week.” This week’s answers were stories about judges who have behaved less than reasonably and professionally on the bench. The responses are pretty horrifying - almost enough to make you not ever want to step into the courtroom. The ones about judges throwing stuff at lawyers and berating them with the apparent goal of hiding the judge’s own mistakes are terrible, but I’m most offended by the one about the judge who decied “someone was going to jail that day” soley because he was in bad mood. Always nice to be reminded that judges are human too and are capable of the petty capriciousness we all (well, not me) sometimes show.

How could I have forgotten about Survivor announcing that the tribes for the forthcoming Cook Islands edition are divided up by race - black, white, Latino, and Asian? That’s a mind-blowing story. It could be so awesome and so awful. What happens after the merge (typically occurring after some mixing up of the tribes)? When people gravitate back to their original tribe members, with whom their earliest loyalties were formed, will they be accused of being racist? No doubt ratings will be up, and I might even watch again. It’s been positively boring and routine the last few seasons and so I never made it past the premieres, if even that far.

I mean to post more often. I really do. Every day I come across events and articles I’m dying to write about, but because I can’t/shouldn’t/don’t blog at work (look, they’ve already taken away the sudoku), I keep it inside. Well, that’s not really true. I usually call up or e-mail one of my co-workers and we riff on the story for a few minutes, which yields the very enjoyable instant feedback and communal appreciation this medium does not always deliver. And by the time I get home, I’m usually too tired to write - and quite frankly I’m often a little sick of the computer. But I resolve to be better. (Like a fool I have many September resolutions in mind.) So this is what has been sparking my mind this week:

Bikes vs. Peds vs. Bikes vs. Autos vs. Bikes

Apparently the bicycles are taking over SF, and it’s a little scary, right? First, pedestrians (even blind ones) are effectively trapped on streetcorners by Critical Mass. Second, the the Bicycle Coalition is well on its way to world domination - well, SF street domination via their apparently immense political power. As important as encouraging, bicycling, walking, and public transportation is, I’m a little wary of the practicality of making SF a car-less city. There are plenty of people for whom going car-less just isn’t practical, particularly given how terrible Muni is, e.g., people with more than one small child to tote around. Finally, this is not explicitly a bicycle thing, but while the parking tax on the November SF ballot could be a great method of raising a little more scratch for the city and for Muni, a couple things give me pause. The money goes into the general fund, which means it doesn’t have to be used for any trasit related endeavors or costs and given that the city never has enough money for anything it wants to do, I’m not optimistic that it will end up fixing streets or public transportation. Further, as I mentioned above, there really are plenty of people for whom driving is really the only practical option. Lastly, I’m not really sure what the value is of giving Muni more money when there doesn’t seem to be much of correlation between the quality of Muni and its budget.

The Bright Shiny Glowing Box

I’m kind of excited about the fall television season even though I have no idea what’s going to be on. I’ve barely watched TV all summer, which was impressive for me, but I’m ready to become slavishly devoted to the idiot box again. The Prison Break premiere was delightfully tense goodness and I’m still basking in the summer euphoria of Project Runway (I miss Bradley, I’m still a bit shocked Jeffrey so cavalierly made someone’s mother cry, I kind of want to be there (and kind of don’t) when Vincent finally cracks, I want to rip off all of Angela’s damn rosettes!, I adore Uli and Michael, and Heidi Klum is all kinds of awesome) for a few more weeks.

On the giant, brighter, shinier box, I also saw two movies last weekend, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. It was the fun, and not at all terrible, Snakes on a Plane and the goofy, adorable Little Miss Sunshine. Both were thoroughly enjoyable. Snakes because it was just fun, it hit all the elements of a classic disaster flick, and the snakes (faulty science and all) were pretty darn cool. Though Little Miss Sunshine resulted in depicting the most unfortunately put upon nice, little family ever, it was a great story and everyone in it played their parts perfectly. I might take a small issue with the divine Toni Collette being stuck in the typical “mom” role where other than trying to make everyone in her family behave, she’s the only one without an issue.

Remind Me Never To Go To Maryland (At Least While I’m Still Black)

The story of a (black) guy in Baltimore arrested for stealing his own car, which looked nothing like the car that the cops happened to be looking for that day, is so obviously disgusting and wrong that you wouildn’t think we’d have to talk about such things happening in this day and age, but here we are. And those geniuses sold his car (which they thought was stolen, so they sold it why?) while he was awaiting trial. And it took the testimony of the owner of the stolen car to exonerate the guy. Nice.

Poor Pluto

I’m just saying. And everyone’s taking it so personally.

And Ew

Don’t Marry Career Women. Thanks Forbes. [via Gawker, Shocker: Forbes Recommends Trophy Wives, via Boing Boing] At least they put up a counterpoint (Don’t Marry A Lazy Man) now, which I’m sure will elevate the discourse between the genders. At least Forbes.com is getting a lot of page views.

You and Me Acoustic Tour - 8:00 PM

I have frequently proclaimed that I am too old to go to concerts where I cannot sit down and thus refuse so to do. Sadly, the musicians I want to see live do not agree and insist on playing the various, relatively interchangable, mostly SRO clubs like Slim’s, Bimbo’s, Bottom of the Hill, The Fillmore, The Independent, Cafe Du Nord, and, of course, The Great American Music Hall. (Of note, my favorite current venue is the Swedish-American Hall. So pretty, so full of seats. Unfortunately, a little too intimate for those with big aspirations.)

I had not been to the GAMH since seeing Michelle Branch there just before she broke (in my unintentional Michelle Branch double summer), opening for the sweet, apparently forgotten Evan and Jaron. Unlike my last visit, Pete Yorn was playing to a sold out audience, which meant that the 30 minutes between doors and the show was a tad optimistic. We were all properly packed in like sardines by at least 8:30, but Pete didn’t take the stage until 9. (Possibly he was late due to the in-store accross the Bay? He left long after I did.) This gave me plenty of time to notice that the GAMH has all this very ornate, old-world looking detailing, but upon examination it all kind of really looks a bit cheap and rushed.*

Pete was fantastic. He started off solo acoustic, then invited Dirty Bird Joe Kennedy (who does a mean It Isn’t Easy Being Green) onstage after 4 full-length songs to play piano and provide some backing vocals. Eventually, they were joined by Minibar drummer Malcolm Cross and bass player Sid Jordan, the latter looking far more farmer than drunk rocker than when I saw Minibar last. The mix of new songs, “rare” songs, and new songs was just right. Pete sang Closet, what I think is the best song on musicforthemorningafter, admitting he had no idea what the song was about. Long Way Down, the best song on Day I Forgot made an appearance as well. Those almost make up for me never seeing him play EZ (a request for which was shouted (and not by me)), which he apparently did perform the previous week. He also told the very interesting story that apparently the label didn’t want June on the first album and people hate it, even though it’s one of the quality songs that powers through the strong middle of mftma.  He also, because he really just has to now, played Burrito, which is an excellent song when you ignore the entire burrito portion of it.

During the encore, he gave us a little more alone time to start before bringing back the band. Unfortunately, by this time my lack of having had dinner (rushing over from the in-store and all) combined with a late-developing case of claustrouphobia (chiefly caused by the 4′9″ and 4′11″ girls in front of me progressively backing toward me all night until I was effectively penned in), made me start to feel rather sick and I uttered to Matt words I never thought I would at a Pete Yorn show, “Whenever you want to leave, I’m ready to go.” Realizing I must have been really ill to say such a thing, Matt suggested we move to the back. That brilliant idea allowed me to survive the encore - it was far less crowded and the cool air from the open doors was much more breathable. Also, I was in a better position to grab (ok, really, ask Matt in my most pitiful, “I’m sick” voice to grab) a poster for the show from one of the columns. I needed a momento given that Virtuous does ticketless ticketing.

All in all, a great show, worth every penny, and I can only hope that when he comes through again in the fall after Nightcrawler drops on August 29, he plays, oh, let’s say, The Warfield.

Setlist:

PY solo acoustic:
Intro > For Nancy
Hunter Green
Burrito
Life on a Chain

PY & Joe K.:
Lose You
Closet
June

Full Band:
Alive
Pass Me By
Just Another
When You See The Light
Long Way Down
Black
Bandstand in the Sky
For Us
Murray
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths cover)
Ask (The Smiths cover)
Crystal Village

Encore:

PY solo:
Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead cover)

Full Band
Lions
The Good Advice
Strange Condition
Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley cover)
I Feel Good Again (Junior Kimbrough cover)

PY solo:
A Girl Like You

*There was also very nearly a short person revolt in the interim - I still have no idea why clubs are designed so that everyone pays the same, but must strategically position themselves and fight to see who they came to see, and the vertically challenged always get screwed.

So this is the first book by Jodi Picoult that I have read, recommended because she often writes about lawyers. Of course, I pick one of her books where there aren’t really any lawyers except for a minor cameo in the concluding third. Oh, well.

I found Harvesting the Heart extremely well-written and engrossing. It’s all very real and there’s something a tad traumatic about Picoult’s portrait of young motherhood. There are horrifying (probably only to a childless woman) moments that read like birth control in print form. But ultimately, the story skillfully captures how very different women can be mothers and, in a sense, be exactly the same - not terrified or terrible, but capable, and enough. I liked that characters who I found frustrating had the good sense to grow and evolve, to make choices I disagreed with vehemently, and to find a way to a resolution that worked. Like about 95% of all modern fiction, the end comes too quickly, too pat, too neat, but it’s the ending you root for so it’s forgivable.

NB: In my quest to figure out whether I’ll like Wicked (second book listed) better if I feel like Gregory Maguire actually based some of his depictions of Oz on things I don’t remember from the Oz books and the lesser known Oz books, I am reading all the L. Frank Baum Oz books. Previously, The Wizard of Oz.

Maguire got nothing from this except the whole Ozma getting dethroned thing. I finished this a month ago, but couldn’t find the right way to write about it.

This book is slightly ridiculous. It’s hard to evaluate The Marvelous Land of Oz for what it is - a children’s book and a sequel (a sequel to a great example of the genre at that) rather than just a book. But it’s a goofy, daffy book. It’s weirdly “feminist” for 1904 - everyone who makes anything happen is a woman (Jinjur, Mombi, Glinda) and the men all kind of fall into good luck and the fruits of the women’s labor. At the same time, the women who aren’t named Glinda are consistently terrible. For example, Mombi’s just evil for evil’s sake - well, she really wants to be a witch and isn’t allowed so she’s full of misdirected, crotchety-old lady anger. Jinjur’s army of girls (armed with knitting needles, see, beacuse they’re girls) wants to storm the Emerald City so they can steal the emeralds and other jems to make jewelry (not to finance other wars or anything, but to make pretty jewelry, see, beacuse they’re girls). Amusingly, Jinjur’s girls were actually rebelling because they wanted a little more out of their futures than to cook and clean for husbands - Betty Friedan would be proud.

In this, the second book in the Oz series, The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and Glinda return for the festivities with a random assortment of friends, enemies, and obstacles. Their adventures are interesting if silly and laden with puns (my god the puns, some make you giggle, some make you want to rip your eyes out). The end though, is great, especially in the gender-swapping tolerance and the surprisingly just outcome of who gets to rule Oz.