Archive for the ‘Just for Fun’ Category
Some Selected New Year’s Resolutions of the Federal Judiciary
posted by Kyle Graham
Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:
Write at least one opinion in which every word is a contraction
United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts:
On June 29, at precisely 6:30 a.m., move part in hair from left side of head to the right side; change it back moments later
United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (retired):
Track down John Riggins; tell him to “loosen up”
Guido Calabresi, Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit:
Climactic showdown with 101-year-old Ron Coase atop the Eiffel Tower
United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy:
Finally receive “SWNGVOT” personalized license plate from the Washington, DC, Department of Motor Vehicles
***
If any of you have heard of any other judge’s resolution, please feel free to relate it in the comments below.
December 22, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Posted in: Humor, Just for Fun
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Trivia Time: (Legal) Person of the Year
posted by Kyle Graham
As Gerard indicated when he introduced me to this blog, he and I were on the Stanford College Bowl team together way-back-when. I remain amazed by Gerard’s encyclopedic knowledge of Roman emperors. I was merely the go-to guy for pop culture and sports trivia.
In any event, in honor of Time’s unveiling of “The Protester” as its 2011 Person of the Year, consider the following trivia question:
Who is, or was, the only United States judge to be named Man (or Person) of the Year while he (or she) was sitting on the bench?
(And no, one cannot point to Time’s designation, say, of “American Women” as its People of the Year for 1975, and say that this cohort captured many judges; we’re talking about specific individuals here—even though North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Susie Sharp was among the women on the cover of that issue.)
The answer, after the jump.
December 14, 2011 at 10:42 am
Posted in: Humor, Just for Fun
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The Annals of Article Placement
posted by Kyle Graham
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: January 5, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please find attached, for your review and publication consideration, a copy of my recent article, “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.” As you will see, my scholarship sheds light on this heretofore overlooked, but (as I discuss) extremely important, provision.
I am prepared to give the Impressive Law Review exclusive publication rights for this piece until January 12, 2012.
Please contact me at your first convenience, should you wish to publish this article.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: January 12, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
This message follows upon my earlier note to you, sent via e-mail on January 5, 2012. As indicated in that e-mail, I had originally planned to make my article available to other journals as of today. However, I appreciate that with the New Year, the Winter Break, and the various college football bowl games on television, you may not have been able to turn to the piece quite yet. Or, perhaps, you did not receive my earlier e-mail; I know how sometimes these messages can get lost in the wires. Accordingly, I am pleased to relate that I will continue to hold my “exclusive” window open for another two weeks, through January 26, 2012.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: January 26, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
I am just about to distribute my article to a variety of other law journals via ExpressO—seriously, my right index finger is hovering above the “submit” button, even as my left hand types this message—but before I do, I want to make absolutely certain that you have (1) received the article; and (2) had an opportunity to review it.
Having not heard from you as yet, I assume the answer to both of these questions is “yes,” but one never knows. I really think the piece is a good fit for your journal, especially seeing as how your law school is in a coastal state. Accordingly, I am pleased to relate that I will grant one final extension of my “exclusive” window, now holding it open to February 3, 2012.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: February 3, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
Just a friendly reminder that this is the expiration date of my “exclusive” offer!
Regards,
Kyle Graham
P.S. Did you get the gift basket I sent?
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: February 10, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
This letter follows upon my earlier communications. As previously related, I have circulated my article to other journals via ExpressO, such that my “exclusive” offer is no longer in effect. However, I remain open to publication with your journal; please contact me if interested.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: February 21, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
I have just received offers to have my article published by several highly reputable journals that I cannot disclose at this time and which I absolutely, positively did not just make up. Given this turn of events, I ask that you expedite your consideration of my piece.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: February 29, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
Thank you very much for your letter of February 24, 2012; it is nice to finally hear from you, and to put an autopen signature to your journal’s face.
I admit that I was both surprised and impressed by your diligence in checking with the editorial board of, apparently, every other law journal in the United States and Canada. Based on your report, I must acknowledge that I may have misconstrued their prior communications to me. In my defense, how was I to know that an advisement that my article was “under review” was anything less than a binding commitment to publish? I’m just a law professor, not a rocket scientist, after all.
In any event, I do hope that this little misunderstanding does not affect your continued consideration of my article. I remain eager to see it published in your journal.
I may be in the neighborhood of your institution for a conference within the next few weeks. If so, I hope you will not mind if I take the liberty of dropping by your office to discuss the potential publication of my piece.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: March 12, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
I write this letter to acknowledge my receipt of a restraining order, apparently taken out by your publication against me.
In response, this letter also serves as a formal withdrawal of my article, “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution” from consideration by your publication. This is your loss, but I feel that your recent actions leave me no choice in the matter.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
P.S. There was a glaring citation error on page 2340 of your last volume. Which sucked, by the way.
***
To: Editor-In-Chief, Impressive Law Review
From: Kyle Graham
Date: May 26, 2012
Re: My Article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution.”
How are you doing? Well, I hope. How are classes? Looking forward to that post-graduation clerkship?
I also hope that you realize by now that I was just joking with my last message. If you don’t remember, don’t worry about it. It was nothing important. I simply wanted to “lighten” what I am certain is a laborious review process for you and your staff.
In any event, I write to offer my article “Madison’s ‘dock-Yards’? The Founding Fathers, Sailing, and Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the United States Constitution” for inclusion in your online journal “Supplement.” As you will see, I have modified the introduction and thesis so as to draw a closer connection to the 2013 America’s Cup, such that I believe the piece will be cited frequently in connection with that regatta.
Please contact me at your first convenience, should you wish to publish this article.
Regards,
Kyle Graham
December 14, 2011 at 12:11 am
Posted in: Humor, Just for Fun
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Professor Graham’s Top Nine Failed Attempts to Increase His SSRN Downloads
posted by Kyle Graham
9. Offering Justin Bieber $2,500 to rave about latest article on Twitter
8. Frequent integration of trendy words and phrases like “jeggings,” “Winning!” and “Tebowing” into article titles
7. Legally changing my name to “Eddie Murphy” for one month prior to, and following, the posting of each new piece, because if Eddie Murphy were to write a law-review article, that would really be something else
6. Ill-fated promise to students that if I get up to 5,000 total downloads, A+ grades for everyone, unless I don’t like them
5. Offering Charlie Sheen $2,500 to rave about latest article on Twitter
4. Having article titles painted on the sides of the turkeys thrown from the WKRP helicopter pursuant to their Thanksgiving giveaway
3. Extensive unsuccessful efforts to have Oprah name “Why Torts Die” as her Book of the Month
2. “Rick-Rolling” people over from Cass Sunstein’s latest article on SSRN
1. Prominent advertisements that each article is guaranteed to be “100 percent Kardashian-Free”
December 11, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Posted in: Humor, Just for Fun, Teaching
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A Guide to the Eight Most Suspect Types of Law Review Articles
posted by Kyle Graham
This is simply my list of the eight most suspect types of articles; I appreciate that others may suggest different, or additional, entries.
1. The Repository of Hope
“As the single-word title connotes, I am very disappointed that this article did not place in a T14 journal.”
2. The Strained Debunker
“In Part I, I will characterize a 1974 Pace Law Review note and a 2007 MySpace entry as embodying ‘conventional wisdom.’ ”
3. The Old-Wine-In-New-Bottles
“No one has evaluated the rule against perpetuities from an animal-rights perspective before, so, you know, what the hell.”
4. The One-Off
“In my previous article, I made a significant contribution to the literature. In this piece, I will coast on the vapors of that article.”
5. The Something Is Unconstitutional
“This article would make a fairly solid student note. It is my tenure piece.”
6. The Turf Staker
“My pre-emption check discovered no articles that cover this territory. I pretty much worked backward from there.”
7. The Half-Hearted Symposium Submission
“We would have tried harder, but hey, we’re talking about a symposium here.”
8. The Torn from the Headlines
“Few would recognize that the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in ___ vs. ___ would fundamentally alter ___ law. Yet it did, or at least, you won’t be able to prove that it didn’t until this article is already well on its way to publication.”
December 3, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Posted in: Education, Humor, Just for Fun, Law Talk, Teaching
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Come With Me and Escape
posted by Deven Desai
“If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain.”
Bay Area radio struggles to have decent music. I tend to cycle through the few stations that may have something of interest. A recent addition to the dial focuses on 60s. 70s, and 80s. As a competitor points out, the new comer tends to repeat the same track several times a day. Recently the song Escape (The Pina Colada Song) has been playing quite a bit. The funny thing to me is that yoga and health food seem to have been dating and compatibility differentiators for more than 30 years. The style of the song and especially the attire, however, may not be as timeless; just reminders of the end of the seventies and the start of eighties (It was the last number 1 of the seventies and first of the eighties). Oddly that decade seems a bit more sane regarding taxes.
It took more than two years to produce that tax code overhaul. During that time, Reagan went on the road to plead his case for the plan. At a high school in Atlanta, Ga., in 1985, Reagan said they were going to “close the unproductive loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share.”
Meanwhile in Congress, Democrats and Republicans worked together to merge competing proposals for tax reform. Still in office today, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont was there during the passage of the bill. He says it was a different era.
“We had a lot of grownups in both parties, people who actually wanted the government to work,” Leahy says.
All of which makes me wish there was a world where I could write a personal ad seeking a new politician and find that the one who turned up was already in place. Now that is a fantasy.
Anyway, enjoy the song. Oh as moment of who knew: The song was released on September 21, 1979. The movie “10” which is a rather similar story and also a huge hit of the era was released October 5, 1979. As far I know they were not connected directly; yet they stuck together in my head because of the story lines.
November 3, 2011 at 12:12 am
Posted in: Culture, Just for Fun, Tax
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Beauty in the Eyes of the Beheld
posted by Frank Pasquale
Appearances can be deceiving. Media can easily make people appear worse or better than they actually look. Certain tacos may seem meatier than they are; others falsely flaunt meatlessness. The “beauty retouch mode on the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP7 camera” is now bringing image massaging to the masses. Soon every picture will be a glamour shot.
But what to do with contested features, which can be interpreted in different ways by different audiences? For example, some may find bloodshot eyes frightening; others see them as evidence of heroically hard work. Science has an answer: do a study. And new research conclusively shows that red eyes are “associated with the sad, unhealthy and unattractive:”
This is the first study to demonstrate that eye redness is perceived as a cue of emotion. . . . “Standards of beauty vary across cultures, however, youth and healthiness are always in fashion because they are associated with reproductive fitness,” said [lead author Dr. Robert R.] Provine. “Traits such as long, lustrous hair and smooth or scar-free skin are cues of youth and offer the beholder a partial record of health.
Now clear eye whites join these traits as a universal standard for the perception of beauty and a cue of health and reproductive fitness. Given this discovery, eye drops that ‘get the red out’ can be considered beauty aids.”
I am glad that’s settled. But perhaps, ala Jonah Lerner, the study authors should concede that an artist got there first. Namely, Hank Penny’s classic “Don’t Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes At Me” (including the immortal lines, “Your eyes look like a roadmap/I’m scared to smell your breath”). Score one for consilience!
Image Credit: Coleend.
April 19, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Posted in: Culture, Humor, Just for Fun
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Scientists Report Lack of Evidence for Health Benefits of Parachutes
posted by David Gray
Here.
March 28, 2011 at 8:36 am
Posted in: Humor, Just for Fun
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A Little Joie de Vivre for an Almost-Spring Day
posted by David Gray
I’ll post something a more serious in a bit, but for the moment I am feeling spring, Zaz, and Ani Difranco.
March 4, 2011 at 10:41 am
Posted in: Feminism and Gender, Humor, Just for Fun
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The Opposite of Dog Eat Dog
posted by Lawrence Cunningham
At a Faculty Meeting years ago, our distingished new Dean, who’d been Dean elsewhere, President of a University, and CEO in the private sector, began by saying how people often ask him: “What’s the difference between the academic world and the corporate world?”
The Dean said he replied: “In the corporate world, it’s DOG EAT DOG, whereas in the academic world, it is exactly the other way around.” Those assembled at the Faculty Meeting laughed knowingly.
Just as the guffaws died out, my great and wonderful friend, a learned faculty member, and former Dean, quipped: “Do you mean, in academia, it’s GOD EAT GOD?” Louder knowing laughter erupted and I still laugh about it today.
Academia can be a wonderful place. Yet it’s no Ivory Tower and can be viscious , especially for younger scholars, doing graduate work at elite institutions. It usually gets better but it can be tough later too.
There are many ways to cope. One is remembering to research and write for yourself, in the first instance, not to please or even influence others. Of course, it can be rewarding to have those effects and, especially, to be cited favorably, but that usually comes in due course.
Keeping a sense of humor and some sobriety about also helps. Whenever I hear about the lion cages of graduate study, or vexing insecurity during early years of untenured appointments, I share the foregoing memorable scene.
January 19, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Posted in: Humor, Just for Fun, Law School (Teaching), Law Student Discussions, Law Talk
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The Business Section of “The Last Newspaper”
posted by Frank Pasquale
The New Museum of Contemporary Art has hosted an exhibit called “The Last Newspaper” the past few months. Part of the exhibit centers around newspaper-based art. Another focus has been a “hybrid of journalism and performance art,” as groups of editors and writers developed “last newspaper sections” in areas ranging from real estate to sports to leisure. I co-edited the business section, which is available here in a low-res copy. I’m posting our editorial statement below.
I like how the various articles (contributed by entrepreneurs, theorists, designers, and others) hang together. The terrific design work is a refreshing change from the barren pages of business blogs, law reviews, and academic books (though it looks like some legal scholars are renewing interest in visual aspects of justice).
December 27, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Posted in: Architecture, Cyberlaw, Economic Analysis of Law, Just for Fun, Law and Inequality, Philosophy of Social Science, Politics, Technology
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Credit Where Credit is Specifically Due
posted by Joseph Blocher
An Andy Rooney-esque musing to close out the week: Why do we tend to acknowledge useful feedback from colleagues in a single “thank you” footnote at the beginning of an article, instead of at specific points throughout? The former seems to be the preferred practice, but the latter seems more appropriate in many cases, and I’m not sure why it’s so rare.
My own impulse is to treat colleagues and outside readers just like any other source, and to drop footnotes indicating their specific contributions. If someone gives me an idea that I would have footnoted had it been a published source, it seems that the person should get credit in precisely the same way—that is, at the spot in the article where the idea appears. And while my impressions are admittedly totally unscientific, it seems to me that such footnotes (i.e., “Many thanks to X for bringing this point to my attention.”) are pretty rare.
Maybe the single “thank you” footnote ensures that all the people who contributed to the article will have their names noted by casual readers, who are unlikely to scan any footnotes beyond the first. Or if the purpose of footnotes isn’t so much to give credit as it is to help interested readers pursue their own research, maybe it’s less troubling when a human source goes uncited, since readers are presumably unlikely to follow up with individual people directly. Or perhaps most feedback from colleagues and outside readers is not specific enough to be attributed to any one part of an article.
All of those strike me as plausible explanations, though I’m not sure any of them accurately explains why authors do things the way they do.
December 10, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Posted in: Just for Fun, Law School (Law Reviews), Law School (Scholarship)
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Mad Glee-actica: The Virtues of Extreme Recycling
posted by Jonathan Lipson
I don’t watch much TV. So, I am hardly the person to make strong claims about its quality or trends. That said, I find it fascinating that three of the best shows of the past few years—Battlestar Galactica, Madmen, and Glee—share a really odd structural feature: They have all taken ridiculously bad ideas from cringe-able eras and turned them around completely, made them not only fresh, but evocative, disturbing, intriguing.
Where's the goo?
They are, in short, evidence of the virtues of extreme recycling.
Just imagine the pitch meeting for Galactica: We’ll take what has to have been one of the dumbest pop-culture packing peanuts ever and make it stronger, faster, better: How about an allegory about civil liberties and faith after 9/11 using Cylons and vats of goo?
Or what about Madmen: Let’s explore the most virulent cancers on our culture with lovingly pornographic attention to detail, to demonstrate the complex symbiosis among banality, beauty, evil and exculpation. Madmen is the money shot of commodity fetishism, proving once again the truth of Chomsky’s admonition that if you want to learn what’s wrong with capitalism, don’t read The Nation, read the Wall Street Journal.
And Glee? Well, all I can say is: Don’t Stop Believing.
Which may lead you to this question: No one really takes the “and everything else” part of CoOps’s desktop mantra seriously, so what the frak does this have to do with law? Read the rest of this post »
November 2, 2010 at 10:25 am
Tags: Bankruptcy, battlestar galactica, Corporate Finance, Corporate Law, dodd-frank, glee, good faith, lender liability, madmen, shadow bankruptcy
Posted in: Bankruptcy, Contract Law & Beyond, Corporate Finance, Just for Fun, Movies & Television
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Church-owned Cows and Inflation
posted by Nate Oman
I recently taught Sherwood v. Walker, the famous case involving a Michigan cow named Rose 2nd of Aberlone, as well as a number of other mistake cases in contracts dealing with cows. I’ve got bovine jurisprudence on the mind. It seems that the same is true for Eugene Volokh, who recently noted a case involving a “church owned cow.” The cow in question was owned by the Mormon Church and seems to have negligently collided with a motorcycle. In the interests of extending our jurisprudential understanding of cows, I can’t resist adding another twist to the church-owned cow story.
The Mormon Church’s involvement in agriculture is a legacy of the nineteenth century practice of Mormons paying tithing in kind to the church. As a result of this practice, in the nineteenth century, the church acquired large herds of cattle as well as other food stuffs. It then issued so-called “tithing scrip,” which was in effect private currency. The holder of scrip could redeem it for foodstuffs, including beef, at church storehouses. The scrip then circulated as money, in effect providing liquidity to the perpetually cash starved economies of the Intermountain West in the nineteenth century. Because the currency was in effect backed by cows, however, it was subject to some odd monetary pressures. For example, when a particularly harsh winter killed off a large proportion of the church’s cattle herds, it was forced to reduce the purchasing power of tithing scrip at church storehouses because there simply wasn’t as much beef available as previously. The result was price inflation as the value of the scrip declined.
As part of its efforts to raise revenue during the Civil War, the U.S. government passed a series of banking acts designed to decrease government borrowing costs. All nationally chartered banks were required to hold their reserves in the form of treasury bonds, and non-federally chartered institutions were hit with a heavy tax on the notes that they issued. The effect was to slap a punitive tax on any bank depositor who did not loan his or her savings to the U.S. government. During the 1880s federal prosecutors in Utah decided that the various scrip-issuing bodies of the Mormon church were subject to this tax, and demanded decades of back taxes, eventually killing off the scrip and replacing it with currency issued by federally chartered banks.
Taxes. Regulation. Inflation. Cows. Some things never change.
April 7, 2010 at 10:39 am
Posted in: Agricultural Law, Contract Law & Beyond, Food, History of Law, Just for Fun, Religion
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A Little Literary Diversion
posted by Deven Desai
Compare and contrast is the name of the game today.
Openings are vital to a novel and maybe any writing. I was reading an older text, and it reminded me of another beautiful opening from an even older work. I thought I’d share short portions above the fold, to whet your appetite. Larger excerpts are below the fold for those who wish to see the full passages and revel in the glory of great writing. (For fun, you might try and guess the sources).
1st passage:
All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world’s wildernesses I first should wander.
2nd passage:
Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
March 5, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Posted in: Just for Fun
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A Great Horn Section and Some Wild Clothes to Brighten Your Day
posted by Deven Desai
Most of the country is facing some rather grim weather. Classes have begun. Grades are in. The holidays are over. There is work to do. Many things may be getting you down. So I offer this tune as a small pick-me-up for those who may need it. If the music doesn’t work for you, perhaps the outfits and the early special effects will. Enjoy.
January 25, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Posted in: Just for Fun
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Sherlock Holmes and The Sparks
posted by Deven Desai
Here’s just a little free association for what I hope are ongoing happy holidays for everyone. Sherlock Holmes opens on Christmas Day and is a front runner for holiday films I want to see. I happen to think that Robert Downey Jr. is in a great groove. I loved his acting in Chaplin and am quite pleased to see that his career as bloomed. Whether Guy Ritchie can make this one good remains to be seen. My guess is that like Star Trek some annoying we-have-to-do-it allegedly new action sequences or martial arts inspired skills and fights will make their way into the series. As William Goldman noted, film is a business; idealized versions of a story don’t often work in that arena. So perhaps this potential nonsense is necessary.
As a fan of the original works, I am sure to be disappointed and think that House is a better modern version of Holmes than this film’s idea. But that is the fun of open culture. Folks get to play with types and see what works. Indeed, theorists can track the way in which Holmes is portrayed and examine how a given era sees the character (Check out the difference between Bogart’s 1941 Sam Spade and the earlier, 1931, version to get a sense of how much a character can morph; or think of the ever-changing, yet stable, James Bond. Les Liaisons Dangereuses provides another example. The Marquise de Merteuil is quite different in Dangerous Liaisons and Valmont).
Regardless of my concerns, there is a chance people will discover the original works and enjoy them as well (free at the link). Or maybe the film will introduce you to the Sparks, a band that I happen love for its lyrics which are rather good at poking at society by mixing cultural references into their music. For instance you might enjoy the song Mickey Mouse (I especially enjoy the introduction which discusses the mouse as a general matter but this version has better sound and some fun mashup). The song I Predict may seem too familiar to lawyers and law students with its refrain “Are My Sources Correct?”, but it also refers to transsexuals, Elvis, Lassie, Maxim’s, marketing, and the oddity of prediction in general. Cool Places seems to pick up on theme of society’s obsession with being, well, cool. And after the jump there, you can check out The Sparks and their comment on Sherlock Holmes. Believe it or not, the song is a love song of sorts (the ironic tone makes it hard to be a straight forward ballad). Here is a teaser
“Fog matters to you and me, but it can’t touch Sherlock Holmes
Dogs bark and he knows their breed
And knows where they went last night
Knows their masters too
Oh baby, hold me tight.
Just pretend I’m Sherlock Holmes.”
Who knows? Maybe The Sparks predicted what the film industry hopes happens with the film: millions will want to be (or be with) Sherlock Holmes (but as the song points out, they can’t be).
December 24, 2009 at 7:05 am
Posted in: Culture, Humor, Intellectual Property, Just for Fun
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Cultural Evolution?
posted by Deven Desai
You be the judge.
1976
Pastime Paradise – Stevie Wonder
1995
1996
By the way, I suggest that anyone wanting a great album acquire Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life.
November 16, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Posted in: Intellectual Property, Just for Fun
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Shame on the Brits!
posted by Nate Oman
By temperament, I am not a particularly passionate person. Every so often, however, the world throws up an event of such mindless horror that even phlegmatic me is roused to ire. Chris Lund points out such a horror in this post over at Prawfs. All I can say is, “What the hell are their Lordships thinking over at the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom?” Shame! Shame on you! Read the rest of this post »
October 22, 2009 at 7:50 am
Posted in: History of Law, International & Comparative Law, Jurisprudence, Just for Fun, Law Practice, Politics, Weird
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A Little Los Lobos and Early Halloween
posted by Deven Desai
One of my best friends gave me the album Kiko by Los Lobos as a college graduation gift. I love the album to this day. The title track, Kiko and the Lavender Moon, is great. It always reminds me of old spooky cartoons from the Bugs Bunny era with the sheet-like ghosts drifting, floating, bobbing down the hall and inexorably coming towards your room. Enjoy.
Kiko And The Lavender Moon – Los Lobos
As general matter, although I cannot say I know all Los Lobos’s work, I love almost everything I do know. If you like the film, Bull Durham, the song during the fabricated rain out is “I Got Loaded” performed by Los Lobos. You may also want to check out an odd and, to me, creepy Sesame Street version of the song, Elmo and the Lavender Moon.
October 18, 2009 at 11:00 am
Tags: Kiko, Los Lobos
Posted in: Just for Fun
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