Friday, November 14, 2014

Surfeit

No containing the unstable liquids within. Concrete, lead, fail spectacularly, bursting, crumbling, disseminating poison in dissolution.

Equanimity is as fleeting as joy or triumph and in its impermanence is suffering just like everything else.

This moment won't hold. This love. This safety. It's already passed, destroyed by observation.

This sky will rain acid. This earth will breathe mercury. This body will breathe dirt.

You, my love, my reason, are a wisp, a puff, a fragmentary figment.

We, together, this holy union, a notion, and the believers strung up, pilloried, crucified, and piked line the road ahead and behind.

I hate to talk so, but sideways, with averted eyes, is the only way to approach Truth, because to see Truth is to know death. To know death is to be free. To be free is to let go of attachment. To let go of attachment is to see the futility of desire. To see the futility of desire is to know death.

You want sense? It doesn't exist. You want justification? I present to you sheaves of it.
 

Saturday, November 01, 2014

Computer Dependence

Computer as Mediator of Experience

Frequently, when I notice something interesting, I want to share it. And I immediately think of this disinterested throng of Facebook "friends." For praise, or commiseration, or to provoke an argument.  Not that I'm thinking of these things so clearly.  Really I'm just thinking of some girl I went to law school with and thought was cool.  Or my family. On facebook, the interactions are short - usually less than full sentences. So when I consider it more carefully, I usually decide not to share my pithy thought with a group of people who are at best only partly listening.

And so the thought shrivels.

When I'm the least bit bored.  When I have a "what do I do now?" moment, I almost always reach for the computer. There's a siren call of transcendence in the ultimate power of a computer.  Endless instant information, ideas, opinions, arguments, laughter.  All available to just about everyone at the incredibly low price of all of your privacy.

Usually, a few hours slip away, as I click away at the same few pages over and over again. It's ridiculous. I should seek out stuff. Instead, I want it to come to me.  So I sometimes open reddit in a new tab while I'm waiting for something to load on reddit. "God this is taking too long, I need something to entertain myself during these long fractions of seconds, how about the exact same thing I'm already doing? Oh look, it's a guy in a clever rocketpack costume. Some gifted "redditor" (such an cloyingly dumb appellation) explains how a universal joint works. Comics. Funny pictures. Time to stop, but one more link. In a second. Just one more.

I sometimes check my email when I'm driving. Or text.

This is obviously insane. This is so incredibly stupid. I can't justify doing it at all. The only explanation is addiction. I have to stop before I crash into a truck or run over a kid on a bike. I'm risking my life and others' for the meagerest of pleasures. Most everything that appears on my phone is garbage. Like 99% of it.  It's all ads or more shit I have to do.




Friday, October 31, 2014

VICTORY

Justice today. Justice for once. Today was why I went to law school. To defend the unjustly persecuted.

All I had to do was convince 12 people to set free a man who raped several women and murdered his final victim in over 30 years ago.

I deal with civil commitment of sex offenders. It's a bullshit law cloaked in pseudo-science. State experts testified that a 50+ year old man was the same today as he was at 18. They said ominously that we could not know what he would do outside a controlled environment.

He had been paroled, but a different arm of the state just could not let go of him.

I got the case about a year ago. Looking at it, I thought "what a dog. How the hell can we win a case where the guy killed somebody."

Then I went to see him in prison.  And I realized I had to win this case.  He had changed. For real. College in prison. He gave me references of women he'd worked with in prison. I checked them out and they were glowing. He had become a model prisoner and a man dedicated to improving himself.

The state's case (which I anticipated) focused on a difference in his confession made in 1980 on one hand and what he told the parole board and sex offender treatment 30 years later. It centered on the precise manner in which he killed a victim. The state's unethical hacks testified that this discrepancy meant he was in "complete denial." It made his rehabilitative efforts meaningless, and his completion of sex offender treatment "technical." Although he had always admitted the murders and rapes, the inconsistency in his statements gave the state a way to continuously return to the manner of the death. How she died. When she died. The sex act occurring at the time of her death.

Again and again for two weeks, the jury heard about my client "fucking her ass." They heard how the state's experts had identified him as a psychopath.  This allowed them to say all his work and rehabilitation was a sham. Essentially, according to them, he was running a 30-year long con, and appearing to grow and change so that he could get out and rape again.

When the verdict came in, I was barely able to contain my anxiety. A verdict comes by way of note from the jury to the judge: "We have a verdict." The judge's clerk calls the lawyers for each side, and they come scrambling from their offices or coffee shops, sweaty and jangled to the courtroom.

When we got to the courtroom, the judge was still taking a plea from his criminal calendar, so we waited in the judge's waiting room with the Assistant Attorney General and state investigator.  The Assistant Attorney General was even more nervous than me. The jury had been out eight hours, and the State does not lose these cases. Almost never.

When we finally went in the courtroom, we waited anxiously for our client. He came in, looking serene, and wearing his prison greens as he had throughout the trial. Normally, prisoners get outfitted with khakis and a white shirt so that they don't look so much like prisoners. But my client had said he wanted to wear his greens to the courtroom. He would wear civilian clothes if and when he became a civilian again and not before.

He sat while I paced.  A man who's been down for 30 year and learned a sphinx-like gaze, he seemed unconcerned. My co-counsel, who has been invaluable throughout the trial, not simply as a source of advice and help, but as a friend to lend a hand when I felt weak, said "we should follow his calm."

I looked at him and saw that, despite his mostly flat gaze, he was scared. To death. I sat. If he can sit and be calm, so can I.

The jury came in. My heart pounded. The judge asked the jury if they had reached a verdict. The forewoman said yes, She handed the verdict sheet to a court officer, who handed it to the judge. The judge looked at it, handed it back to the officer, who handed it back to the forewoman.

The judge asked if the jury was unanimous on the first question: whether respondent now suffered from a disorder that predisposed him to commit sex offenses.

"Yes."

Answer?

"Yes."

My heart dropped as my head dropped into my hands. I tried to gird myself for the loss -- both for my sake and my client's. I would tell him that he would be sent to a sex offender facility, but that he had a strong case on appeal.

My chest rocked with every heartbeat. It felt like it would burst from my sweated through shirt.

My co-counsel laid her hand on our client's forearm.

The judge asked if they had reached a unanimous verdict on the second question: whether my client had a disorder that resulted in him having serious difficulty controlling his sex offending behavior,

"No."

No! No! The impossible was real. I let out a half sigh, half cry, looked up at the ceiling and shuddered. I clapped my client on the back and kept the tears at bay.  A tear rolled down my co-consel's cheek.

As the jury left the room, I shook my client's hand.  Asked if I could hug him, and did.  All 74 inches and 300 pounds of him. I couldn't get my arms all the way around him.

When we reacted with such visible relief, the forewoman broke down in tears. Talking to the jurors afterward, I saw that she had overcome intense emotion to make the fair and legally justified decision.

Don't tell me nobody cares. Don't tell me regular people can't do the right thing. Those 12 people in the jury room wrangled and fought and struggled. They were afraid of my client and what he might do if released. But they stuck to the law. And they set him free (subject to parole) because the law said that they must.

I actually furthered justice today. I protected a man's liberty. I gave this man a chance to show, after over 30 years in prison, that even a murdered and rapist can be redeemed.

I did my job as a lawyer, buddhist, and human.

The judge, before the verdict, and as deliberations dragged on, asked if we (respondent's counsel) were upset that the first alternate had ended up on the jury. We said. "no, I think we like that guy." He's a computer engineer, and he seems like he knows how to think without emotion. The judge thought we should have challenged him because he was president of something like the Holy Name Society.

I think the judge's thinking erred in two ways. First is assuming that a catholic, religious person is going to automatically rule against our client, who sat in the position of defendant. Dedicated Christians may be more conservative than the society overall, but a dedicated Christian may well also believe in redemption more earnestly than a nominal Christian. Second, a Catholic in a hierarchical position is likely to be a rule follower who will not reach out to use this trial as a proceeding to punish someone. A rule-following Catholic is also likely to believe in fundamental fairness and see civil commitment after the completion of a long criminal sentence as fundamentally unfair.

When we talked to the jury, a corrections officer could not believe he had been left on the jury. He wanted to know why. The short answer is no amount of challenges in the world could get rid of all the potential jurors with biases against sex offenders. We can't challenge everyone.

The long answer is that he seemed like a fair/honest guy during jury selection, and we figured, as a correction officer, he would know what an out-of-control inmate was like, and he would understand our client's prison time in the right context.

Obviously, he ended up ruling in our client's favor. One lesson is that it's dangerous to rely on stereotypes. You can't say "no corrections officers," or you may miss a juror who can be really receptive to your case.

You know why I liked him? I talked to him about what he like to read. He mentioned John Krakauer. I asked "Into Thin Air"? Yep. That indicates to me an open minded and adventurous person. A non-conformist and critical thinker who admires bravery. The kind of guy you want fighting on your side in the jury room.

If he had said "Michael Chrichton," he never would have made the jury.

Friday, July 18, 2014

sketchbook













I have to figure out how to link to larger images.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

On Melancholia



Leave it to Lars von Trier to save his most searching and sensitive portrait of female leads for a movie about the end of the world.  There is less sadism in Melancholia than in any other von Trier film I've seen.  He is a great director, but I have to force myself to watch his films to some extent, because I know they will involve the utter wrenching destruction of a vulnerable female lead.  He doesn't do that here.  He's almost subtle. And the beauty and incredible composition of every shot, the willingness to let a shot go on and then on some more -- to let people be mundane -- calls to mind Kubrick.  The introduction contains some of the most striking images I've ever seen on film.

The Basics (mild spoilers)
Kirsten Dunst as Justine is the center of Part 1.  It's a lavish wedding at a country estate owned by John (Kiefer Sutherland) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).  Justine has just wed Michael (Alexander Skarsgard).  If you've ever seen a von Trier film, you know that some sort of extended tragedy is imminent. And yet, the reception, its myriad complications, and Justine's struggle to maintain the appearance of happiness despite what appears to be dread, depression, or mental illness vying for dominance.  Her mother, Gaby (Charlotte Rampling), is a "domineering," cruel, antisentimantalist who proclaims she does not believe in marriage, and tells Justine to just flee the palatial estate.  Her father, Dexter (John Hurt), is a dissipate Casanova.  He too appears unwilling or unable to see or acknowledge her terror.

So things do not turn out as all had hoped.  Yet, in the style of the suffocating wealth among which the reception takes place, the disasters are self contained.  Without air, the fire doesn't burn but quickly goes out.  A couple makes a scene and the rest of the party-goers go on as if they had not noticed a thing.  In spite of all provocations, a monied dignity overmasters all but Justine.

Claire is the focus of Part 2, which takes place at the same palatial estate where Part 1 took place.  She tends her family, including her seemingly catatonic sister.  John is masterfully self assured.  He keeps Claire in a bubble, tries to protect her -- as it becomes clear that he sees her, too as fragile.  This part centers around the approach of the heretofore unknown planet "Melancholia," which has been hiding on the other side of the sun.  (The science in the film is somewhat fanciful (major spoiler)) .

Von Trier uses tons of still or nearly still long, wide shots at the outset.  As the film progresses, he continues to do so, creating a dim, melancholy mood, like the earth that seems to be grabbing at Justine's feet. Moments linger, lose their heat, and turn to dust.  Mood and character take the place of plot.  Yet it's not boring.  It's transfixing.  And the acting is on the money.  Even Kiefer, who I don't normally find very convincing, was right on.  The man knows how to be rich and in control, as it happens.  (Props to von Trier for the inspired Jack Bauer casting - I mean that sincerely.)

Interpretation (No Spoilers)
In this mist of the mood are numerous apparent symbols and opportunities for interpretation.  For instance, John refers multiple times to how incredible it is that they are able to have the party at a golf course with how many holes?  As the film nears its conclusion, we see the flag stick for what one might assume is the final hole: 19.  There are other moments like this, as when Justine rearranges the art books on display in the study, or the bridge into the village. I don't pretend to know what these symbols were meant to convey, though I could hazard some guesses t.  I will share, though, a conceptualization that occurred to me toward the end of the film.

My theory is that Justine is the artist.  Her nephew calls her "Auntie Steelbreaker," though she hardly appears to be as tough as her moniker.  He asks her several times when they are going to make caves together.  She is in touch with the other world.  She "sees things" that no one else can.  She knows truth no one else can tolerate.  The business people of the world, the masters of the universe, lose their mastery when confronted with the fundamental why and when of life.  They buy grand estates and expensive telescopes to avoid those very questions.  And they hate the sensitives, the artists, when they can't just put a brave face on and power through, get it done.  The artist must stop when there is no point in going forward.  The artist is spirtually uncompromised.  She refuses to use her talent in the service of money.  The artists is always fundamentally alone, because she alone can face the truth.  She is the Steelbreaker.  She sees the truth, faces it, and ultimately mitigates it for the normals.

Postscript
A little research reveals that Durer created a famous engraving called Melencolia I, of which I found this on Wikipedia:

"Ivan Fenyo considered the print a representation of the artist beset by a loss of confidence, saying 'shortly before [Durer] drew Melancholy, he wrote: 'what is beautiful, I do not know' ... Melancholy is a lyric confession, the self-conscious introspection of the Renaissance artist, unprecedented in northern art.  Erwin Panofsky is right in considering this admirable place the spiritual self-portrait of Durer."  Cool.

The Met's interpretation of the engraving.




Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Why Worry

What good does worry do?  It can't magically bring the future within control.  Worry is the epitome of wasted effort.  Example: prepping for trial involves a huge amount of work.  Documents must be read, clients talked to, strategy formulated, motions submitted, and witnesses prepared.  You have to know the case cold so you can handle whatever may happen.  And generally, when you go to trial, the stakes are high.  Big money invested or, more vitally, freedom on the line.

So the specter of worry hovers nearby.  But it does not one whit of good, and often does positive damage.  If things go well, if you win your motions, your witnesses cover themselves in glory, and the opposition witnesses fumble, and the jury goes your way, your worry will not have contributed to that outcome.  But if it goes awry, if you forget to ask an important question, or make a vital objection, if you sweat and stammer your way through argument, worrying about it beforehand will only have intensified the agony.

Not only that, but worry probably helped nudge things the wrong way.  By preventing you from focusing with a clear mind. By keeping images of failure in your mind.  By sapping your capacity for relaxation and enjoyment.

In my case, I had a trial approaching.  As the date grew nearer, so did my worry.  How will I do?  Will I win?  Will I say the right things?  Will I look foolish?  Will I let my client down?  I prepared, but with a pit of anxiety that I am well familiar with.  And then, today, the trial gets adjourned three weeks.  The worry was for nothing.  But the takeaway is, it also would have been for nothing if we went to trial next week.  It's just easier to see now that the deadline has softened.

All this is obvious to the practiced and observant worrier.  But changing reflexive behaviors like worry is easier desired than achieved.  I think it can be done, though.

Step one is awareness.  You notice, "Oh, the reason I'm reading The Onion instead of working is because my work is making me worry."

Step two is observation.   You realize the distraction you're engaged in isn't actually treating the worry, and that it's still there, just harder to hear.

Step three is acceptance.  So you're worrying.  No big deal. It's just an emotion and it will pass like all emotions.

Step four is to not let it control you.  You remind yourself of all of the above.  That it's not helping.  That fleeing the worry is going to help make your fears come true.  And that, if you can just turn to the task at hand, the worry will almost certainly subside as you bring your whole attention to your task.

Step five is it's okay if it doesn't work.  Keep trying.  Sometimes it will.  And that will give you confidence to continue and redouble your efforts.


Sunday, February 02, 2014

The Most Important Thing

This summer, when I was swimming, just past the breakers at the South Jersey shore, a couple of kids, maybe 12 or 13, got near me. I could tell they had never been in the ocean before because their minds were just blown.  They were giddy and half terrified, their eyes just starting out of their heads.   The tide was going out a bit.  One of the kids was kicking on boogie board, laughing and smiling.  When he floated by me, in the direction of the open sea, I saw his situation was a split second from panic.  His smile was tight, and I could tell his mind was in utter turmoil.

The lifeguard started blowing his whistle.  I reached out and gave the kid my hand, pulled him back to shallower water, until he could stand.  Told him and the other kid (who just had to be his brother) that they should not go above their waist.  That was that.  The lifeguard gave me a quick thanks when I came out.

When I pulled him in, he had just passed to the point where he needed rescue.  He had just gotten into a position from which he could not recover without help. Now, the kid was on a boogie board, and the lifeguard I'm sure was about to come out for him, so it would be a huge misstatement for me to say I saved this kid.  Heck, if I wasn't there, overwhelming odds are, he ends up just fine.

So what I did there wasn't extraordinary, and in fact was extraordinarily easy -- I just reached out my arm and pulled him in -- but if that's the greatest feat of my life, it is enough.  Even if all I really did was save the kid from real panic in the water.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Analog

I got a record player for Christmas.  Yesterday, I set it up after finally managing to get together a couple speakers, speaker wire, an amp, and some records.

Before 2013, I'd never really been much interested in vinyl. I love music, and I listen to a lot of it, but I am not an audiophile in the least.  Vinyl seemed almost perversely difficult: at once fragile and clunky.  Yeah, I'd heard claims that, if you got the right setup, nothing compared to a turntable.  Sure.  If you get the right setup, I would allow for the possibility at the highest level of equipment.  But then, who but the most obsessed could divine the difference?  Any minimal increase in sound quality couldn't possibly be worth an investment I couldn't come close to making.  We're talking thousand dollar styluses (styli is also correct!).  Thousand dollar speaker wire.

Why pursue an expensive, obsolete parallel music platform when I already had first tapes, then CDs?  You could get those anywhere that sold music.  But you had to go looking for vinyl.   After the dawn of constant connectivity (2007?) I got all my music from emusic for a while, then pandora and spotify took over.  Now, the only reason I even own CDs is the car CD player.

My thinking changed in the fall of 2013 when I heard Paul Green play some records on Radio Woodstock.   Maybe Led Zeppelin.  It was something rich and meaty.  It did sound richer than the rest of the (digital) tracks they were spinning.  Somehow brighter and fuller.  This perception of mine may have been a sort of placebo, but, I am sure it sounded good, and certainly not inferior to the other tracks.

I started to think I might want to sink a couple hundred bucks into a budget system.  If the purity of vinyl could come through a radio over car speakers, surely even a mediocre record player and speakers could still produce very satisfying sound.

The lure of vinyl came not just from a perceived richness of sound, but also from its anachronistic quality.
Its simplicity is its advantage.  For one, I have a rudimentary understanding of how a turntable and speakers work.  Not so much with a CD.

And then there's the feel of a record in your hands. I've long been attracted to records as objects because they flat out look cool: all glossy and grooved, spinning smoothly, cardboard jackets like this.  Even better than unfolding the paper insert from a cassette case is sliding a record out of its sleeve, and then poring over the album art and lyrics while the sound washes over you. 

If you put your ear near the turntable, you can even hear the sound coming off the record.  How cool is that?

Looking for records is an adventure with tangible rewards.  I found Born to Run for a dollar. I figured it was probably all crapped up (I can't really tell if a record is in bad shape unless it is severely scratched).   When I put it on, it popped a little on the first song, but after that, it was perfect. Won that find.

Maybe most importantly, it isn't smart, and it doesn't have Internet connectivity.  When you listen to a record, it's not collecting your data or playing commercials at you.  Record listening is a step removed from the commodity and markets that attend every online moment.   Which I think makes it easier to appreciate the music as art.

Then again, all the pre-internet nostalgia and appreciation for the object of an album itself wouldn't com to much if my contemptible little setup didn't sound at least a little awesome.  And it does.  Better than anything I've ever had.  (I admit I've spent an unforgivable lot of time listening to music over computer speakers). Now, if I plugged a CD player into the setup instead of the turntable and cued up the same album, I don't know whether it would sound better or worse or whether I would be able to tell the difference.  But I do know that I've been having a blast with it so far.  Looks like I'm going to need more than four records.