recent tracks:

Unemployment

Yesterday was day one, a day of action! I dusted, cleaned the floors and did the laundry, I worked on some job applications, I began working on a budget, and (most successfully) prepared a southern dinner of smoked catfish, collard greens, and jalapeno cornbread. My first experimentation with the smoker turned out wonderfully, the catfish imparted with plenty of flavor from its 5 hour brine (in a mixture of water, salt, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic) and 4.5 hours of low-heat applewood smoking. The catfish remained tender and flaky. I simmered the collards in the leftover brine, and they turned out to be delicious as well. The cornbread, I'm sad to say, was a bit dense and dry.

Today is day two, a day of beginnings. I have accomplished smaller cleaning projects, and I finished a draft budget, but the only job application I've been able to submit was one I finished yesterday. I'm hoping that tomorrow I am in a writing mood, because I have to complete several cover letters, some thank you notes, and some other projects which are currently in various stages of germination. What I have only begun today, I hope to finish tomorrow (along with some other household projects).

Incidentally, we have an axolotl, as my previous post perhaps implied. She (?) remains nameless as of yet. Any suggestions?

What an Autumn!

I have had a fantastic fall. Here's why:

1) The election. Not just the overall result, but also the simple act of civic participation is exhilarating.

2) I passed the Rhode Island and Massachusetts Bar Examinations.

3) In the last ten days, I have seen my two favorite bands of the moment in concert.

   (a) Of Montreal created an amazing visual and sonic experience at a fun but decrepit venue.

   (b) Man Man were their usual frenetic, circus-act selves.

4) My association with Philadelphia sports is actually making me happy.

   (a) I attended my first Eagles game at the Linc.

   (b) The Eagles appear to have recovered from the poor showing they put on at that (nevertheless extraordinarily fun) experience.

   (c) Although baseball is not my thing, riding the Phillies wave to the first major professional championship Philadelphia has seen since I was an infant was pretty great.

5) There have been lots of good times with friends new and old, and with family.

6) I very much enjoy my current employment.

7) Community supported agriculture has enriched our lives and our menu. The experience of turning a native and sustainable bounty into tasty and sustaining meals is pleasantly conducive to creativity.

So here's to the changing leaves, the bit of bite in the autumn breeze, and plentiful apple cider!

40 days

We started getting produce from our CSA (community supported agriculture) share.


I attended my first Eagles game in Philadelphia! We were really high up. The good guys lost.


We picked out pumpkins.


We carved jack-o-lanterns.


I made a delicious apple pie.

Also I applied for a fellowship. And I get my first bar results in less than a week.

Mount Desert Island, Maine

On the way up, we stopped at Red's Eats, where (after a 40 minute wait in line) we split a world famous lobster roll accompanied by some fried fresh-caught clams:



We did good work:



On Friday morning, we went to the Bar Harbor Whale Museum:



Then on Friday afternoon, we went out on a lobster boat (named Lulu) for a tour.

First we saw seals (view image then zoom in and you can see them on the rock):



Then Captain John told us about lobsters and lobstering:



I even got to hold the starfish that came up with the trap!



After that we went to the Atlantic Brewing Company for a tour and tasting.

We hadn't had lunch so we were hungry. Luckily, the brewery also runs a barbecue joint:



Again we did well:



Saturday was mostly devoted to Acadia National Park.

First was a drive up Cadillac Mountain, which afforded some lovely views through the clouds:



Then came Jordan Pond:



Next up was Otter Cliff, which was surprisingly difficult to capture photographically.

After a tasty lunch at the Thirsty Whale Tavern, we wended our way southwest to the less crowded parts of Acadia.

First up was Wonder Land.

In the tidepools we found scuttling little baby crabs, and what were likely the shells of recently moulted crabs:



After Wonder Land we traversed the Ship Harbor Nature Trail.

We were happy:



After getting our fill of nature, we decided to crown our Maine trip with a visit to Thurston's Lobster Pound.

In order to compare flavors, we got a one pound hardshell and a one and a quarter pound softshell:



As usual, we did good work:



Walking back to the car, we got a nice view of Thurston's (in yellow), a pier covered with lobster traps (in dark), and a harbor full of lobster boats.



We finished off the evening with ice cream from Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium; Summer's Maine blueberry ice cream was so potent that the drop that landed on my hand, when licked, overpowered my own cone:



The vacation was a success!

A momentous occasion

SEA and I celebrated one year last week! SEA took off just a tad early and we headed out to Horseneck Beach, played in the ocean, lay on the sand and watched people metal-detect, then cleaned up and went to a small certified green restaurant by the water. We split crab cakes, I got delicious fresh fish and chips and a Buzzards Bay Black Lager, and SEA got a lobster roll (with butter instead of the standard mayonnaise) and a Buzzards Bay Summer Wheat beer. It was a nice little celebration.

Sundry

FIRST, note the place links to the right. These are WPA-era travel guides to the named states, in Google book form. Some highlights:
MN p. 45 - picture of Skinner Chapel @ Carleton
MN p. 419 - a brief history of Northfield
RI p. 255 - a description of Providence

The appearance of the city today is that of a community which has undergone three successive stages of development. The agricultural character of the early settlement gave way in the eighteenth century to shipping enterprises which filled the waterways with tall-masted India-men. By the middle of the nineteenth century the eminent position of shipping was usurped by the industrialism characteristic of modern Providence. In like manner the simple homes of the first settlers were nearly all torn down to make room for the mansions of the shipping merchants. Many of the latter, in turn, were converted into offices for industrial enterprise or supplanted by modern buildings. Here and there, however, fascinating relics of the early settlement survive, especially along old Towne Street, now Main Street, which runs along the east bank of the river, from Rosemary Lane, now College Street, to the North Burial Ground. From the hill above, many stately Colonial dwellings look out over the rush and excitement of the modern city; and many of the downtown streets, following their ancient courses, express the leisure and intimacy of earlier centuries, when the curve was not an impediment to traffic and great spaces were not necessary. The present-day visitor to Providence cannot fail to notice the short streets that can be taken in at a glance, and whose ends frame a glimpse of another street, or of an obliquely places building on another lane.

[I recommend the entire history/description, pp. 253-260.]

RI pp. 261-62 - where I will work

The Courthouse is constructed of red brick with limestone trim, and is a modern adaptation of Early Republican architecture. In the late eighteenth century no building of such tremendous size as this would have been considered practical, nor could an eight-story building have been constructed in the days of wooden beams and framework. Designed by Jackson, Robertson and Adams of Providence, this towered and gabled structure covers an entire city block, and its plan is well adapted to a steep hillside plot. A secondary entrance, on Benefit St., is at the fifth floor level. Projecting wings at each end, connected by two arcaded entrances and a Corinthian colonnade, form a forecourt. Pediments on the wings, suggestive of gable ends, rise in three successive stages -- a motif that is repeated in the central section in front of the tower. The building not only rises with the hill, but its entire mass is given a sense of balance by the lofty tower which, rising in four square stages to a slender octagonal cupola, is the dominant feature of the exterior. The thid stage, surrounded by a balustrade, has a clock on each side. The formal arrangement of windows in the gable ends in monumental in effect. The large central windows, flanked by slender pilasters and crowned with a semicircular heading, are further emphasized by projecting balconies. The uppermost tier of windows in the facade, for the sake of lightness and balance, is doubled in height, the windows being arched at the top and divided in the middle by pediments set in panels. The fine central doorway, with its segmental pediment supported by engaged Roman Doric columns, is unfortunately obscured by the front colonnade. The interior is modern and furnished in tasteful simplicity.

SECOND, I loved Wall-E and I haven't been able to clearly express why yet. I think one reason might be that "[i]f Wendell Berry made a sci-fi movie for kids, it would be 'Wall-E.'" The movie acknowledges the incredible destructive power of a society in which so many costs are externalized merely because we fail to properly set economic boundaries with a rational long-term view. It acknowledges the potential harm of consumer choice--the fact that each of us daily engages in myriad incorrect analyses of market choices, being unable to identify correctly all relevant variables, and to predict accurately the long-term consequences of our choices. It acknowledges the pervasive force of advertising. It acknowledges that while consumer culture itself might be empty, people are nevertheless capable of creating great beauty, even in the overlooked detritus of everyday life. Most of these ideas are of a kind that does not get much air-time in popular media, since they are critical of the economic foundation on which the popular media themselves rest. But Wall-E is not afraid to be self-critical. A. O. Scott of the New York Times recognized that the movie implicitly criticizes cinemagoers:

Mr. Stanton shows his awareness of the contradictions inherent in using the medium of popular cinema to advance a critique of corporate consumer culture. The residents of the space station, accustomed to being tended by industrious robots, have grown to resemble giant babies, with soft faces, rounded torsos and stubby, weak limbs. Consumer capitalism, anticipating every possible need and swaddling its subjects in convenience, is an infantilizing force. But as they cruise around on reclining chairs, eyes fixed on video screens, taking in calories from straws sticking out of giant cups, these overgrown space babies also look like moviegoers at a multiplex.

They’re us, in other words.

But at some level that makes Pixar into the movie's ubiquitous corporate quasi-antagonist, Buy-N-Large, feeding us our sugar-coated petroleum. Perhaps because it is capable of this self-criticism, however, Wall-E ends with a message of some hope--a way out of our current muck. Andy writes, "Odd that the film both lampoons the weak laziness of humankind and at the same time assumes a limitless reserve of pluck and perseverance." But I think that this observation is not so odd: we as a culture are guilty of laziness, but we as individuals do harbor a reserve of pluck and perseverance. So what I take away as the film's message is this: don't let the group think for you. Take things into your own hands.

The other reason I loved Wall-E is more straightforward and I think the part that has truly defied description for me: artistry. I'll again let A. O. Scott do some of the work for me, because he likely says it better than I can:

The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E” — in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen — is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. The scene is an intricately rendered city, bristling with skyscrapers but bereft of any inhabitants apart from a battered, industrious robot and his loyal cockroach sidekick. Hazy, dust-filtered sunlight illuminates a landscape of eerie, post-apocalyptic silence. This is a world without people, you might say without animation, though it teems with evidence of past life.

And I'll leave it at that.

THIRD, the Eagles have begun training camp, and one development depresses me somewhat. Coach Reid has instituted a "30-plus club" whereby team members over the age of thirty get to sit out certain practices in order to reduce wear on their bodies. Or so the team says. I suspect, however, that the true motive for this move is to allow the younger members of the team to cohere as a unit, in preparation for the days when Donovan McNabb, William (nee Tra) Thomas, Jon Runyan, and Brian Dawkins spend each autumn at home realizing the long-term physical toll of their football careers. While this is likely a prudent move from a rational perspective, the idea of the team without Dawkins in particular is one that entirely bypasses my rational circuitry, sparking more of a reaction in my gut than my head. Sad.

FOURTH I take the Rhode Island state portion of the Bar Exam tomorrow, the multiple choice Multistate Bar Exam on Wednesday, and the Massachusetts state portion on Thursday. Wish me luck.

The Story of Yesterday

The morning of Thursday, June 19th, 2008 sprang into being full of energy. The sun was straining to cast its beams beyond the restrictive clouds, so each ray of sunlight that escaped and struck Angell Street was particularly bright. This was the morning that face value Eagles tickets were to go on sale, a fact of which the universe was surely aware.

I had been preparing for this day since the ticket sale had been announced. The tickets normally sold out in minutes, and quick-fingered fans (as well as folks looking to make a quick buck, with tickets likely to go for well over a hundred percent markup on resale) often managed to secure holds on every ticket within seconds of the release. In order to secure my place among these quick-fingered fans, therefore, I had trained well, reading strategy and flexing my typing fingers. At nine o'clock ante meridian, an hour before the tickets were due for release, I updated my Ticketmaster account to reflect my current vital statistics. Shortly thereafter, I opened six tabs in two browsers: my first choice, the Ticketmaster page for the Eagles-Redskins game, open as tab number one in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, my second choice (the Falcons) open as tab number two both browsers, and the Thanksgiving game as my third-string option. Then came the hard part--waiting.

I closed out the bandwidth-snacking Gmail (for fear of an ill-timed auto-reload) and opened the U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock Time. I reloaded each of my tabs periodically to ensure that I would not be somehow "timed out" before the appointed hour. I read snippets of bar study material, but was too jazzed to pay sufficient attention. Soon it was 9:52:05. Then it was 9:56:55. At 9:59:05 I closed out the Master Clock and began cyclically reloading my Ticketmaster pages. About a minute later I had reached the gateway to the promised land--both Mozilla and Internet Explorer pages showed tickets available for the Redskins game. Internet Explorer had proven slightly faster on my earlier reload experiments, so I input my request for two tickets, then advanced through the next screen by entering two random, skewed and distorted words in order to prove that I was not a machine. My training had prepared me for this moment so well that I am now certain that I was practically a machine--my fingers worked without the aid of my brain, which was busy chewing on the time limit printed at the top of each page and panicking. What if I could not discern and enter the random words within two minutes and fifteen seconds? I could not let this effort fizzle into failure.

The Internet Explorer tab provided that I would have a one minute wait while Ticketmaster searched for the best available tickets. I hoped only for available--best was of no concern to me. While Ticketmaster sifted through its records, I scooted over to Firefox to go through the same stages, just in case something went wrong in Internet Explorer. Here I wound up with a two minute wait, which led me to believe that my progress in Internet Explorer, which worry had distorted as an ordeal, had taken mere seconds. After all, certainly an early October game against a division rival, when the weather would likely be ideal both for football and for spectating, would be a popular ticket!

Less than a minute had passed when I clicked back over to Internet Explorer. There they were. I raised my glasses and rubbed my eyes. Squinted to make sure. There were tickets reserved just for me! I now had to muzzle my excitement in order to ensure that the shipping and payment methods were correct. I checked the numbers formed from colored LCD pixels against those embossed in my plastic card. They matched. I might have yelped. I clicked SUBMIT. I checked my email. The confirmation was there. I might have yelped again. At 10:03:54 I sent Summer an email which contained thirty-six exclamation points. I got up and paced and sat back down.

I breathed again. The sun shone brightly through the windows into the study. My efforts and training had paid off. I had tickets, and I was finally going to see my beloved Eagles on their home turf.

Change

I Graduated, Then Made Cookies

I am a juris doctor, cum laude.

Pictures from graduation are available at the link posted under "Weekend in NY."

Here are the shortbread cookies I made using Anna's and Neal's homemade strawberry jam:



Now I while away my hours studying for the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Bars.

DONE

I finished my last exam. Now, assuming I passed everything, I just have to wait a week and a half to get some fancy new letters after my name.

Pro Cras Teneo

WARNING: The following is pretty much nothing but utterly self-involved introspection.

I am too scatterbrained at the moment to do anything useful, it would seem, so I have turned to digitizing the contents of my meandering mind.

One class period remains between now and the onset of exams; one paper and three exams remain between this evening and my graduation. Some 3 months remain between now and the bar exam; some 3½ - 4 months remain between now and full-time, paid employment.

Unlike June 2005, now I am eager to move on from my current institution; like June 2005, now I am eager to move on to what may follow.

My first true departure from academic life, however, has me anxious: I have the opportunity now to consider what I most want to do and seek a means to do it. For the next year or so I can really sort out my professional priorities and pursue whatever position or positions I find most appetizing. That said, my priorities are as yet unclear--the issues I find most piquant are child welfare, education, and environment; issues that fascinate me but appear overly academic include proliferating a potent and legitimate regime of international law and building up the concept of human rights by means both domestic and international. I would dearly love, I think, to procure a Ph.D. at some point nowhere near the present, and to teach at a college like the one I attended. In the interim, however, I am fully committed to more hands-on work, and must decide what I most want that work to be. Thankfully, I am certain that prospective employers will help to limit my options.

* * *

Here is my review of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan.

* * *

Finally, earlier today I went down to the edge of campus and sat under a tree, looking over Mt. Hope Bay. I took in a little sun, ate my lunch, and read a Wendell Berry essay. There is quite a bit to love about Rhode Island, especially on a sunny, 65 degree day.

Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

For over a year now, my (now thoroughly tattered and destroyed) copy has sat next to the bed. I have read from it in earnest some nights and skimmed it others.

I can't seem to organize my thoughts at the moment, but here are some highlights:

Song of Myself revels in the self and its relationship to the rest of the world, the joys of moving in and perceiving the world. This stanza particularly resonates with me:

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Song of the Open Road is such a perfect paean to life that, if you have not read it recently or ever, then I implore you to do so now. Some of it might sound familiar to those who attended a certain July '07 ceremony.

On the Beach at Night Alone:
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer:
When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

List & Reviews

People on my iPod that I saw in person in the last seven days:

• Vampire Weekend
• Lupe Fiasco
• Girl Talk
• M.I.A.
• Antonin Scalia

Concerts:
Vampire Weekend was disappointing to me, probably because they've received a lot of hype and I found most of their set to be not particularly interesting.
Lupe Fiasco was pretty good; I don't know his music well, but I enjoyed what I heard, and he worked the crowd well.
Girl Talk was fantastic in every way.
M.I.A. was mixed--I generally enjoyed her individually, but her backups were grating, her DJ filled the indoor arena with sirens and the sounds of gunshots, and the sound mixing was awful--the noise was ear-splitting and unintelligible. I once attended a Dismemberment Plan concert which suffered from the mixing/volume problem, but still entranced me because the band was so good. Here, I couldn't get over it because I wasn't feeling anyone but M.I.A. herself. All in all, I'd prefer to listen to her albums.

Here is my review of Human Smoke.

Raisin Videos

S and I watched this short video about making raisins not long ago. The fact that I find myself thinking about it this morning seems to indicate that it is sufficiently interesting for me to share with you. More raisin videos here.

ALSO
Sarah arrived Saturday; yesterday we went to the zoo. We saw the elephants up close in the barn. I found them completely captivating; I could have watched only them all day I think. They made me rather sad.

Later we went to Colt and took statuesque pictures.

Human Smoke

A nuanced and thoughtful review of Human Smoke from the New York Times.

A small profile of N.B. from the same publication.

Yesterday, walking from the dentist to the bank, I was intrigued to hear a mourning dove. I don't believe I've heard one in Rhode Island before.

A Real Update

Tomorrow I will be one quarter century old.


Summer and I did the Newport cliff walk on Saturday, totaling approximately 6.5 miles (including walking back to our starting point among the wealth-drenched neighborhoods of Newport). All in all this made for a very enjoyable experience.

Approximately a week and a half ago, I went to a job fair at NYU and had an interview, which I think went well. I will have another interview this week. Keep your fingers crossed! While I was in New York, I enjoyed Julia's hospitality, as well as some delicious Ethiopian food and over the top delicious barbecue.

In fact, this weekend has featured some delicious food as well; Saturday we warmed up for our walk in Newport with my own concoction: a baby spinach-pinenut frittata with gorgonzola cream sauce (made from the gorgonzola leftover from our gorgonzola-brie-wild mushroom fondue from Valentine's Day). Saturday night I dined on duck confit from CAV and tonight will end our extravagance with a birthday (observed) dinner hopefully at Waterman Grille, which has an enticing prix fixe menu on weeknights. Delicious.

Sometime soon we will perhaps travel to Amherst, where there are dinosaurs. I don't think I knew that when I visited for undergrad...

Movies: standouts I watched between December '07 and yesterday.

• Juno, (which has lately received some critical backlash) in which Ellen Page plays a pregnant teenager with much more complexity than I think is generally recognized. Michael Cera also gives what I found to be a clever performance as the teenage father.


• No Country for Old Men, an adaptation by the Coen brothers of the spare Cormac McCarthy novel, in which McCarthy/the Coen brothers toy with some literary and cinematic conventions in presenting a bleak but captivating story.


• Michael Clayton, which is about reasons not to work for a big firm.


• The Savages, in which Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney provide outstanding performances as not entirely successful, academically inclined siblings dealing with their aging father's senile dementia.


• Charlie Wilson's War, an interesting depiction of an underachieving U.S. Representative with loose morals, and his efforts to covertly drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan during the Cold War.


• Rabbit-Proof Fence, a wrenching story of three "half-caste" aborigine girls abducted by the Australian government in order to train them as domestic servants.


• There Will Be Blood, which has gained enough press not to demand much commentary from me (see Worlds of Fragments for an apt but uncommon stylistic note). Suffice to say that the strengths are as strong as advertised, and there are plenty of thought-provoking devices to boot!
  

Music: lately I have been listening to a lot of the following.

• Elizabeth and the Catapult [self-titled EP]which is well-worth $5.94 on iTunes. S and I saw them in Boston a few weeks ago (with Old Springs Pike) and I was sufficiently enchanted not only to buy the EP but also to listen to their tracks some 70 times since then by last.fm's count.


• Viva Voce The Heat Can Melt Your Brain, the 2004 album by this indie-rocking husband and wife duo who played The Cave at Carleton way back when.

January

Christmas vacation in Oregon was delightful and relaxing, save for the mostly interesting work I did on the Exxon case, which was interesting and satisfying. We hung out with Summer's family and high school friends, who are all fun people doing good and interesting things with themselves. We also visited Grandma and Bill! And Summer and I went on a nice date to an authentic Italian (Roman, moreover) restaurant in the Pearl, followed up by an extensive Powell's visit--always a good time.

I suppose I'm more or less into the swing of January now. The semester I've just begun will be christened the semester of stuff that I might actually be able to use to help friends and family--wills, trusts, real estate transactions, family law, for example--and only one class with a full-time academic, while all the rest are with practitioners. Pretty wild! I only have class Mon.-Wed., which allows me days like today to catch up on Law Review responsibilities and life responsibilities.

My activities are roughly the same as always, with the addition of Facebook Scrabble as a full-fledged addiction. You can keep track of what I've been reading via the GoodReads link to the right. I think I've seen too many movies to even attempt any comprehensive comment, save that I really enjoyed multiple Coen Bros. movies, Juno, and The Station Agent, and mostly enjoyed American Gangster and Barbarella. And there's still plenty that I want to see.

Taylor visited last weekend, which was fun. Jen stopped by another time and brought us a supercool homemade wedding gift. We're heading to New Haven this weekend to see Lauren, Dan, et al., which will be fun. The next weekend the parents and sibling will visit, which will be fun. There are many people to see and too few weekends.

Also I have applied for a couple more jobs in hopes of interviewing at a job fair in NYC in February. I will likely attend the job fair anyway, but keep your fingers crossed for me.

Time to go make sweet and sour tofu...

Hello, I Exist

Here is a paper I wrote this semester. Another will likely follow soon.

Oregon is lovely!

Hope everyone's well. Maybe I'll post again tomorrow.

The theme of the afternoon

was "My Car Was Broken Into; Now What Do I Do?"

Indeed, as I (figuratively) skipped merrily toward Symposium Books in search of a $6.98 copy of Diet for a Dead Planet, I noticed glass on the passenger seat of Big Red, the mighty Bonneville. Say what?

Sadly, some undoubtedly unhappy soul had seen fit to smash the front passenger window, seemingly seeking a digital music player of some sort (steered to my steed by an iPod adapter, so a squad member later said). Alas, no satisfaction was supplied to this someone, as my iPod slumbered safely indoors. Nevertheless, glass littered the passenger seat just inside the void that had previously been the passenger window, my iPod adapter strewn carelessly aside a neighboring vehicle.

Perhaps the law book in the backseat scared the sneaking scoundrel away?

At any rate, I stumbled across my injured steed en route to Symposium (a sojourn started but stalled under the circumstances), and, saddened by its state, surrendered to my abode to telephone the authorities. The arm of the law arrived with admirably little adjournment, and this amicable authority informed me that my antagonist had absconded with some others' articles, appropriated from their automobiles. I, having had little for [him? her?] to haul away, had achieved the optimal outcome from this atrocity.

BUT what to do now? Big Red was missing a window!

To Home Depot, of course (after shrimp tacos and a gas station vacuum)! The helpful clerks led us to plexiglass, polyethylene, and the like; we liked plexiglass best, and purchased some, for at least a pro tempore purpose. Proceeding to our apartment, we pondered potential plexiglass paths. My pluck piqued, I plunged into the project, carving the plastic as if possessed. Proximately, I produced a perfect (well, plastic) picture of the precedential passenger window! Imagine my pleasure!

A little duct tape (and some lopped plexiglass) later, our limousine was again livable. At least, so we hope, as we anticipate a potentially perilous journey through Jersey to Delaware...

Because I am feeling useless right now

there is little I can coerce myself to do other than provide an update for whomever still checks in on me here.

First, I changed the sidebar to more accurately reflect my regular reading.

Second, I am working on three papers right now:

• Religious and Moral Reasoning in Judicial Decisions (due Dec. 3)
• Toward a Robust Application of the Convention Against Torture to U.S. Removal Cases (due Dec. 5)
• Implementing the International Right to Food Via Localization (due Dec. 14)

(All titles rough.) The latter duo I'm hoping will be of sufficient quality that I might seek their publication.

Third, I am editing a couple of interesting articles for Law Review.

Fourth, S made delicious pumpkin ice cream with the KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment I got her for her birthday. We took the ice cream to an enjoyable, homemade dessert-themed party we attended on Saturday night @ Bethany, Ceci, and Nellwyn's.

Fifth, S and I have watched Boston-themed movies, namely Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. Both were excellent. I particularly recommend the second as an interesting moral musing touching on the work I did the last two summers. Both featured excellent acting and directing, in my opinion, which will not be rendered humbler by my claiming it is so.

Sixth, I finished Demian by Hermann Hesse, which felt like a first novel to me, though it actually falls midway through Hesse's catalog. Perhaps that new writer smell may be attributed to Hesse's life of self-questioning and -reinvention. Anyway, I would describe the work as uneven but decidedly worth reading--the dialogue, on which Hesse focuses, is unconvincing but thought-provoking. I am now reading The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and early returns are extremely favorable. I will also likely purchase Diet for a Dead Planet by Christopher Cook sometime in the near future.

Seventh, the weekend of November 9th to 11th, S and I hosted an array of interesting persons, namely Andy, Anna, Cristina, and Neal. We enjoyed Brown's campus, Myopic Books, Prospect Park, and undoubtedly most of all our apartment, which is shockingly well-suited for such high-volume visits these days! Most importantly, though, the visit was of the eminently enjoyable sort.

Eighth, Alex will be here tomorrow, and we will depart for Delaware on Wednesday. Good times will undoubtedly be had by all.