Unwifeable - Mandy Stadtmiller (2018)

Unwifeable is a memoir by Mandy Stadtmiller.  Stadtmiller was a recent guest on the WTF podcast.  I probably would not have read the book if I had not heard the episode. The episode effectively functions as a preview of all the most shocking moments in the book, and is a tour de force.  I highly recommend either listening to that episode or reading this book.

I would describe Unwifeable as post-chick lit.  It's still chick-lit, but with an edge of insanity.  It's about basically trying to find Mr. Right at age 30 and beyond, post-divorce.  Stadtmiller cuts a striking figure, and achieves a sort of grandeur in her commitment to fearlessly revealing all of the sketchy details of her romantic life.  She made her living as the weekly writer of a column about dating in the New York Post.  She writes of how she learned to develop boundaries in who she wrote about--her family didn't like when she wrote about them.  The only part of this book that feels a little underdeveloped is the story of what happened in her marriage, which is perhaps out of respect for her ex-husband.

There is a ton of gossip in this book that will satiate basically anyone, though it takes a certain person to want to read it.  There has always been a literary tradition of writing about one's romantic life, but few will do it without the disguise of fiction.  There is something pure and beautiful about writing truthfully on the subject of how fucked up of a person you are, and how you have tried to be better, and Stadtmiller deserves praise for many sections of the book.  She is, however, shameless about name-dropping, and sometimes her funny secret stories about celebrities tend to cheapen the proceedings.  Still it's very amusing to read about her dates with Aaron Sorkin and Keith Olbermann and her pseudo-romances with Moby and Hannibal Buress.  Perhaps the book will be adapted and Andy Dick, Gerard Butler, Courtney Love, Marc Maron, Joy Behar, and John Mayer can all play themselves in Player-like cameos.

There was, however, one glaring typo:

"'Mandy, you are a Kashmir Sapphire,' he writes, 'The famous sapphires of Kashmir are mined from a remote region high in the Great Himalayan mountains of northwestern India.  Lying at an elevation of approximately 150,000 feet.  These sapphires are so beautiful and rare.  Today with the exception of estate sales, fine Kashmir sapphires are virtually unobtainable, mute testimony of the degree to which they are coveted.  They are often categorized as a conundrum gem.  They form an exclusive class of its own.  And once they are cut, they make a beautiful jewel.'" (187)

Perhaps because this is such a beautiful passage, the typo feels more unforgivable.  I did look it up because I started to doubt my knowledge that the highest point on earth is Mt. Everest and that is somewhere just over 27,000 feet.  There is no place at 150,000 feet but the ionosphere.  It should be 15,000.  This, however, is an e-mail from a friend of hers, so perhaps the mistake was preserved.

Around halfway through the book, she references a movement preaching brutal honesty as its core, after being assigned a story on it:

"The piece is ostensibly about a new TV show centered around the concept, and will include an interview with the founder of the movement, Brad Blanton, and then a first-person documentation of my attempts to be 'radically honest.'
But it is Brad Blanton who blows my mind.
I talk to him on the phone, and he is unlike anyone I've ever interviewed.  He will literally tell you anything you want to know--including if he wants to have sex with your sister, the fact that he's let a dog lick peanut butter off his balls, even how much money he makes.  This is the theory of radical honesty.  He calls 'withholding' the most pernicious form of lying.  That is when you try to abide by the mores of polite society by not saying things like that you want to fuck someone's sister.
'Whenever something occurs in the world, there's always what occurred and then there is the story about what occurred, and then there is the meaning made out of the story about what occurred,' he tells me in explaining why most communication--filled with all of its half-truths, twisted perceptions, and withholdings--is so problematic. 'Most people stay lost in the meaning made out of the story.'
It's true.
I don't think about reality: 'I got divorced.' I think about the story I tell about it: 'My ex-husband betrayed me.'  And the meaning I attach to that: 'I am unlovable.  I am unwifeable.  I am a failure.  I am not worth it.'
Brad also forced me to look at some painful truths about my own anger and discomfort.  He tells me that you should just say what you are thinking about someone.  I tell him that I hate when strangers start talking to me about my height.
'So if someone says, "God, you look tall," do you get offended by it still?' he asks me.
'I don't get annoyed,' I say, 'It's just boring.'
'Well, boredom is anger and you haven't expressed your anger sufficiently to all those people who ask you about being tall,' he says.  'You still have a lot of resentment about people--and probably some resentment about being tall.  So when someone says, 'What's it like being so tall?' just say, 'Fuck you!  Eat shit and die!  And I resent you for saying I'm so tall."'
I crack up.  'Then I would appear like this easily hurt social leper,' I say.
Then he reveals the real key, the real magic of what he is preaching.
'You're worried about how you would appear, see?' he says.  'That's what you think your identity is.  It doesn't matter how you appear.  You'll appear differently in another half a minute anyway because people's registry of how you appear changes very dynamically.  For a while, you appear to be a leper of some sort, and a little while later you'll appear to be someone who's very brave and willing to talk about things honestly.  Later on, you'll appear as a kind of person to be trusted because you're not going to be withholding.'" (150-151)

This story most likely informs Stadtmiller's r'aison d'etre, which is, reveal everything in the hopes of helping others with what you've learned along the way.  In this case, she goes on to freak out at a department store clerk for her "shitty attitude."  Apart from this immediate implementation of radical honesty, the entirety of the book is an exercise in the practice, and is all the more worthwhile because of it.

Now only because we've also recently reviewed a memoir that included a Courtney Love anecdote, some excerpt must be included from the section detailing Stadtmiller's friendship with Love, and the ultimate redemption she appears to be experiencing in the culture.  As a student of bankruptcy law, however, I must include what I consider another typo:

"'I'm broke, Courtney,' I say. 'That's why I'm basically stuck at the Post, even if I wanted to leave.  Because I need the paycheck.  I'm barely surviving in New York.  I'm even thinking about doing bankruptcy.'
'Do Chapter 7 if you do it,' she says, without missing a beat.  'Chapter 11 is so pedestrian.'
I have no idea what this means, but she's got a bunch of gold records on the wall, so I'll take her word for it.
'You know, I used to be really broke when I was young,' she says.  'But then I started chanting 'Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,' and within two months I had two million dollars.  I'm serious.  Don't fuck around.  It's the only thing that really works.  Here, let's chant.'" (244-245)

Now it's possible that Courtney Love is referring to actual Chapter 11 business reorganization bankruptcy as pedestrian, but I believe she meant to say Chapter 13.  Granted she does have substantial business holdings but I would not characterize Chapter 11 as pedestrian.

There is not much else I think I can say about this book.  I wrote a note to myself to find an excerpt about "crazy impulses" but that is basically what this entire book is about, also: going through crazy impulses in your 30's and trying to find a piece of stability in this life.  In this case the story has a happy ending, and Stadtmiller appears to have moved her life in a more positive direction.  Yet how can we end reviews of memoirs?  The story is not over and life continues after the memoir.  The book is written in a very conversational tone and its 300 pages flow swiftly.  It will not necessarily go down in history as a classic of the genre but I have to believe that most people will find the majority of it entertaining, and perhaps even eye-opening.

A Fighting Chance - Elizabeth Warren (2014)

I don't know where to start with this review.  I was thinking maybe when I first became aware of Elizabeth Warren.  I was thinking maybe a warning that if you are a conservative, you should avoid reading so as to not give yourself a headache and start a thankless debate with me on some social media platform.  I was thinking maybe an actual quote from the text:

"Near the end of the line was a young man: early twenties, medium height, sandy-brown short hair.  When I reached him, he stepped forward and, with no preliminaries, blurted out that he had done everything he was supposed to do.  Counting on his fingers, he punched out the list.  Worked hard in high school.  Went to a good university.  Got good grades.  Graduated on time.  Everything--check, check, check.
And then...nothing.  No job.  No new apartment.  No bright future.  He'd been looking for work for more than a year, and still nothing.
Actually, it was worse than nothing.  Every day he fell a little further behind.  His student loan debt got a little bigger.  His stretch of unemployment got a little longer.  His fear that he would never build a secure, independent life cut a little deeper.
Now he had moved back in with his parents--and he had no idea when he would move out or how he would get his own life under way.
I met him in Worcester.  But I heard the same story in Falmouth and Dorchester.  In Marlborough, Marshfield, and Methuen.  In Weymouth and Westport and Ware.
I heard the story over and over and over, until I wanted to shout to the rooftops on behalf of these young men and women.  They were trying so hard, but they felt like their futures had broken apart before they had even begun." (274)

Everyone else reviewed this book when it came out--about three or four months ago (I put it on hold at the CPL and just got it now).  And they all pretty much started the same way: Elizabeth Warren says she is not running for President, but maybe, oh pretty please, she might!  And after this summer, and the multiple times she has reaffirmed that she has absolutely no intention of running, and after reading this book (which provides a pretty thorough treatment of the extraordinary anxiety she endured while mounting her senatorial campaign), I believe her, and I don't blame her.

***

The quote from above illustrates why I care enough about Elizabeth Warren to read her book.  All too often in this world it seems like nobody really looks out for you except for your family and friends.  It's passages like this in her book that reveal why Elizabeth Warren has become one of the most important political figures in the 21st century.  She really does care about serving the public.

A Fighting Chance is broken up into a prologue, six chapters, and an epilogue.  The prologue is her thesis statement, so to speak, in which she explains how she was able to build a life decidedly worth living from the foundation of a lower-middle class background.  And how it probably couldn't happen today:

"Here's the hard truth: America isn't building that kind of future any longer.
Today the game is rigged--rigged to work for those who have money and power.  Big corporations hire armies of lobbyists to get billion-dollar loopholes into the tax system and persuade their friends in Congress to supports laws that keep the playing field tilted in their favor.  Meanwhile, hardworking families are told that they'll just have to live with smaller dreams for their children." (2)

The first chapter, "Choosing Battles," is 42 pages long and is basically the purest "autobiography" in the book.  It tells her story from her childhood in the early 1960's through her second marriage and professorship at Harvard Law in the early 1990's.  It's pretty concise and appropriately details all of the sometimes idiosyncratic changes she made over the course of thirty years.  It will again prove to anyone that life is not always a straight path with obvious signposts along the way to help you achieve the best possible outcome.

The second chapter, "The Bankruptcy Wars," is 34 pages long and is probably my favorite section.  I am sure plenty of people expect that reading about her efforts to maintain actual consumer protections in the law that would come to be known as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (or BAPCPA) will be boring--unless they happened to study it, and realize how fascinating it can be.  To those unfamiliar with BAPCPA, the first thing to note is that its title is extremely misleading.  The banking industry began lobbying for changes in the Bankruptcy Code sometime in the late 1990's, and Elizabeth Warren served on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.  I won't talk about the changes--I am sure you can look it up on wikipedia.  But I was particularly surprised to see how the number of bankruptcy filings fluctuated over the years.  In 1980, there were 287,570 non-business bankruptcy filings.  In 1990, there were  718,107.  In 2004, there were 1,563,145 filings (however I think this figure includes business bankruptcies).  In 2005, before BAPCPA kicked in, the number hit 2,039,214.  The next year, it dropped down 597,965.  Just reading Warren try to explain these figures is illuminating.

The third chapter, "Bailing Out the Wrong People," is 54 pages long and primarily about the 2008 financial crisis and her role on the Congressional Oversight Panel (or COP, which she loves the idea of being).

The fourth chapter, "What $1 Million a Day Can Buy," is 43 pages long and reads like an extension of the previous chapter.  There doesn't appear to be much appreciable difference about the content or tone.

The fifth chapter, "An Agency for the People," is 44 pages long and details her efforts at starting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  While I laud the CFPB, it seems pretty much impossible for me to get a job there, so reading this chapter made me feel slightly depressed.

The sixth chapter, "The Battle for the Senate," is 65 pages long and will probably be the highlight for most readers.  I had followed Warren's campaign in 2012 pretty closely and I remembered a lot of the events she described, so it was very fun to read about her private thoughts on formerly public matters.

The epilogue briefly mentions her bill to cap student loan interest rates.  Like most of the legislation she has tried to affect, her dreams did not completely come true--compromises were made, but a few more people would be helped:

"And student loans?  No, I didn't get the Bank on Students Act passed.  But at least the final deal on student loan interest rates was better than where it started: $15 billion better for students over the next ten years.  An, in the end, I wasn't alone.  More than a dozen senators from around the country stood up with me to say no to any deal in which the government makes a profit off the backs of our students.  That's not a bad place to begin the next round in this battle--and believe me, we will come back to this issue again." (275-276)

That may be cold comfort to people with 6.8% and 7.8% interest rates on debt with a principal of $95,000, especially since the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act was blocked (thank you, Mitch McConnell).  Nevertheless, after reading A Fighting Chance, I am confident that Warren is not going to stop until she secures another victory--even if it is only a partial one.

To be honest this feels like kind of a toothless review.  I like the way Warren breaks up each chapter into mini-chapters.  The book is very reader-friendly.  It's very detailed, and I enjoyed reading it.  I am a huge fan of Senator Warren so obviously my review is going to be a bit biased.  I must admit that sometimes the book feels repetitive--in particular it seems like she mentions the support of the Firefighters in Boston twice, where the second time is a more detailed account (and includes the only f-bomb, expurgated, in the text--earlier on Warren spells out "Bullshit Whistle" and apologizes for the dirty word).  Sometimes certain turns of phrase show up several more times than seems necessary.  But I suppose this is all part-and-parcel of writing a "political" book.

One of the most annoying things to me in the world is reading internet comments after news stories.  I have to admit that it is a guilty pleasure of mine, and an interesting way that the "marketplace of ideas" from the First Amendment plays out.  I do it, but I hate myself for doing it.  Some stories on Warren are filled with comments that say how wonderful she is and proclaim that they will write her name in at the next Presidential election; others snipe that she lied about being Native American so that she could get treated favorably for a job at Harvard.  It's a pretty pathetic attempt to attack her, considering it seems like it's just been made out of thin air from the paranoid fantasies of privileged white conservative pundits, but Warren's description shows just how crass they can be:

"Right-wing blogs took to calling me 'Fauxcahontas.'  Someone took out a billboard with a picture of me in a Native American headdress, declaring, 'Elizabeth Warren is a joke.'  One sunny afternoon, as I marched in a parade and shook hands and waved at people, a group of guys standing together on a corner started making Indian war whoops--patting their mouths as if they were some kind of cartoon braves.  It was appalling." (240-241)

Warren is salient on the details of bankruptcy, TARP funds, and consumer protection.  Plenty of lay readers will have a good start at exploring more complex areas of financial regulation with this book.  It doesn't really talk about the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, but Warren does mention that after BAPCPA passed, third-party debt collectors were telling the people they called that the new law made it illegal to file for bankruptcy, or so difficult to qualify that they would never be eligible.  No doubt some details will bore a fair number of readers, but Warren is great at practically explaining what complex changes to the law mean in real-life terms.

She also writes extensively about her family, and her series of dogs in very loving terms.  And then some moments of the book are downright hilarious:

"Vicki Kennedy called with thoughtful advice borne of years of campaigning across the state.  Former governor Mike Dukakis, who was now in his late seventies, took Bruce out to show him the finer points of knocking on doors, setting a blistering pace that kept them half-running from house to house.  At one home, no one answered the front door, but the governor thought perhaps someone was in the backyard.  While Bruce was thinking about the laws of trespass--he's a professor of property law and takes this sort of thing pretty seriously--the governor bounded to the side of the house and began fiddling with the gate to the backyard.  Just as he got it open, a big dog came racing around the corner, barking wildly, slobber flying everywhere.  The governor never missed a step.  After jumping onto a small side porch, he called over his shoulder to Bruce with the first lesson of political door knocking: 'Ignore the dog.  You won't change his mind anyway.'" (242)

At another point, a couple of supporters wave and shout at her from across the street, and she waves back and walks straight into a telephone pole.

This is about as good of a political autobiography as you can do while you are still in office.  I am not sure exactly what the reason is for it--Warren also writes about earlier books (the influential but policy-oriented The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke and its more utilitarian follow-up All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan) and they seem to deliver the same kind of information she researched in her bankruptcy studies.  This may be a way to bring more attention to the legislation she supports, rather than an effort to publicize herself for the presidency.  It seems she is happy with what she can do as a senator, and is aware of the parameters in which the President must operate.  It may also be a way to help other Democratic hopefuls in this election year--by publicizing herself, when candidates drop her name, more voters will know what kind of issues they support.

In summary, A Fighting Chance is similar to My Beloved World.  They're both very compelling, but I'm tempted to say I like My Beloved World better.  That is just a matter of preference.  Justice Sotomayor seemed a little more unpredictable and allowed her narrative to unfold in ways that sometimes felt more like literary fiction.  By contrast Warren is very business-like in her prose.  Regardless, the book is a pleasure and I am very grateful that Senator Warren has sacrificed herself in a way (certainly opened herself up to many painful attacks) on behalf of struggling Americans.  I have yet to feel any relief on my own putrid financial state, but I am optimistic that something positive may happen in the next few years.  In short, this book can give you hope.

Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)

Barbara Ehrenreich spoke at the Printer's Row Lit Fest yesterday (June 7, 2014) but I could not get a ticket.  So instead I went to the God, Sex and Death Variety Hour, which included a reading by Tim Kinsella, who has just published his second book.  I have just put a hold on his first book from the library, so I will review it soon, and I tried to talk to Tim Kinsella afterwards and he said he didn't really like to read reviews, so I didn't need to let him know when I published my review.  Of course, part of me wanted to see Ehrenreich and ask a pointless question during the Q & A (presuming there was one) and film it with my camera and post it here.  Because it is quite ironic that I could have seen her while I had been putting off reviewing Nickel and Dimed for about a week--this gave me a purpose!  But it was not to be.  Such as it is with this review.  It could have been great--with multimedia and almost real-time updating, on an extremely pertinent issue--but I didn't doggedly pursue a spot at the reading, when I probably could have gotten in if I really tried.  No, I wanted to see Tim Kinsella (and actually all of the performers at the GSDVH were wonderful), and since they were both at the same time, I easily deferred to my back up plan.

My first exposure to Nickel and Dimed came in a law school clinic, the Consumer Counseling and Bankruptcy clinic.  We had to work an internship at a placement (which was easy because they basically found the job for you) and go to a seminar once a week.  We had some readings to discuss at the seminars, and our professor had given us a couple chapters photocopied out of Nickel and Dimed.  She briefly mentioned it in going through the syllabus and I looked forward to it as more enjoyable reading material than one usually encounters there.  I am pretty sure we read the final chapter, "Evaluation," and maybe one other chapter that I can't remember.

I wanted to take this book out of the library because I've been obsessed with keeping track of my monthly expenses--particularly when I was doing my post-graduate fellowship at the CTA.  That paid a stipend of $1000 a month.  I would only be disbursed $1000 after four weeks as the school only authorized 20 hours per week.  This worked out to a wage of $12.50 an hour.  I was obsessed with figuring out if I could live on $460 a month, because that was what was left over after paying the rent.  I am sure a lot of people would say they could live on that amount without a problem, but I wasn't sure.  I usually spend about $300 a month on food ($301.46, in December 2013).  I had a bad cell phone deal and was paying $63.86 a month for that.  It was another $64.57 for utilities, which leaves about $40 for everything else (and this isn't even mentioning alcohol).  Commuting alone - $45.00 for ten days of round trips to CTA Headquarters - put me in the hole.  Of course, that they did not give me free riding privileges, like they did for all the other law school externs, stung.

If I had been working 40 hours per week, there wouldn't have been a problem in covering those costs.  But people tell me I should consider myself lucky--I am not working at Wal-Mart or a fast food restaurant for $7.75 an hour.

Nickel and Dimed has a simple premise: Barbara Ehrenreich goes out to lunch with an editor at Harper's to discuss future articles she might write for the magazine and they start talking about how difficult it is to live on the minimum wage and Ehrenreich says somebody ought to go out there and try it for themselves as a sort of old-school journalism project.  The editor tells her she is just the one to do it.  The year is 1998.  From there, she travels to Key West, FL, Portland, ME, and Minneapolis, MN to work as a waitress, maid, and Wal-Mart associate, respectively.

***

For anyone who has worked these jobs, moments of this book will seem instantly familiar.  Personally I think the strongest chapter in the book is "Selling in Minnesota," because it delves deeply into the culture of Wal-Mart and gives Ehrenreich the occasion to unleash her most sardonic barbs.  I was under the impression that it was the longest chapter, but at 72 pages, it barely edges out "Scrubbing in Maine"'s 70 ("Serving in Florida" is only 40 pages).  However, this entire book is a pleasure to read.  It does feel a bit dated at times, but I have to say that rent is not obscenely higher than it was in 1998.  Nor is the minimum wage--but it seems inevitable that will not be true much longer.  While it is at $7.25 presently, when Ms. Ehrenreich worked as a waitress at "Hearthside" in Key West, it was $5.15.  It looks like it will change to $10.10 soon, and then maybe $15.00 in certain states.  The jump to $15 is unprecedented and could dramatically shift the landscape of the low-wage workforce.  And while Ehrenreich may not be directly cited as an influence on this positive trend, this book has gotten major attention over the past 15 years, and through a kind of cultural osmosis, the sad reality that life on minimum wage is unsustainable has seeped into the public consciousness.  The only criticism I can make is that the book is not pure reality.  It is a great social experiment, but Ehrenreich's desperation is only temporary.  Because she does not need to try and figure out some way to get out of the mess she's in, or resign to struggle throughout the rest of her life, the book is less valuable than the genuine article could be.

Perhaps that gives some of Ehrenreich's observations an air of hyperbole.  While she is looking for a place before craigslist, she does not come across any shared apartments, so naturally any apartment she keeps to herself will be more expensive.  But she writes often about staying in dirty motels:

"There are no secret economies that nourish the poor; on the contrary, there are a host of special costs.  If you can't put up the two months' rent you need to secure an apartment, you end up paying through the nose for a room by the week.  If you have only a room, with a hot plate at best, you can't save by cooking up huge lentil stews that can be frozen for the week ahead.  You eat fast food or the hot dogs and Styrofoam cups of soup that can be microwaved in a convenience store." (27)

***

While going back through the book to try and find passages, I found too many.  I didn't want this review to just be a huge collection of quotes.  But it made me realize that, when I did the same thing for The Circle, I had a lot of difficulty finding good examples.  At a very basic level then, this book is better than The Circle, but it's less surprising and more depressing because it's real.

Ehrenreich does a wonderful job portraying the life of a server--and I say that as a former server of 18 months at 2 restaurants.  She works at two restaurants concurrently to make ends meet, and she provides a fantastic account of a sensation every server must have felt at least once in their past:

"Ideally, at some point you enter what servers call a 'rhythm' and psychologists term a 'flow state,' where signals pass from the sense organs directly to the muscles, bypassing the cerebral cortex, and a Zen-like emptiness sets in.  I'm on a 2:00-10:00 PM shift now, and a male server from the morning shift tells me about the time he 'pulled a triple'--three shifts in a row, all the way around the clock--and then got off and had a drink and met this girl, and maybe he shouldn't tell me this, but they had sex right then and there and it was like beautiful." (33)

A personal favorite part of the book for me is Ehrenreich's experience flushing out her system to take a drug test for Wal-Mart:

"If it weren't for the drug test, I might have stopped looking right then and there, but there has been a chemical indiscretion in recent weeks and I'm not at all sure I can pass.  A poster in the room where Roberta interviewed me warns jobs applicants not to 'waste your time or ours' if you've taken drugs within the last six weeks.  If I had used cocaine or heroin there would be no problem, since these are water-soluble and wash out of the body in a couple days.  (LSD isn't even tested for.) But my indiscretion involved the only drug usually detected by testing, marijuana, which is fat-soluble and, I have read, can linger in the body for months.  And what about the prescription drugs I've been taking for a chronic nasal congestion problem?  What if Claritin-D, which gives you a nice little bounce, shows up as crystal meth?" (125)

Her tales of life as a "Wal-Martian" belong in any anthology of literature or essays on corporate culture.  As I've said, this is the highlight of the book, but I don't want this entire post to be about Wal-Mart either.  Because this book is not about that store--but the way it allows its employees to remain in poverty.

Ehrenreich gets hung up on a few topics: housing, transportation, health care, and food (a dearth of each).  I found her comments about housing surprising, because, while it is understandably difficult to get started on a new apartment on a limited budget and without a job, I still thought the rents would be cheaper in the places she lived.  I say this as a former resident of New York and Los Angeles and current resident of Chicago.  I know rents are cheaper elsewhere, and I am currently paying roughly what the "deals" were for a one bedroom or studio apartment per month, if you added up the weekly rates.

The food issue of note is the lack of nutritional value in the meals the poor can afford to eat.  One footnote, an example of the foodstuffs obtained through a pantry, seems almost too ridiculous to believe, but obviously is true:

"Middle class people often criticize the poor for their eating habits, but this charitable agency seemed to be promoting a reliance on 'empty calories.'  The complete inventory of the box of free food I received is as follows: 21 ounces of General Mills Honey Nut Chex cereal; 24 ounces of Post Grape-Nuts cereal; 20 ounces of Mississippi Barbecue Sauce; several small plastic bags of candy, including Tootsie Rolls, Smarties fruit snacks, Sweet Tarts, and two bars of Ghirardelli chocolate; one bubble gum; a 13-ounce package of iced sugar cookies; hamburger buns; six 6-ounce Minute Maid juice coolers; one loaf of Vienna bread; Star Wars fruit snacks; one loaf of cinnamon bread; 18 ounces of peanut butter; 18 ounces of jojoba shampoo; 16 ounces of canned ham; one bar of Dial soap; four Kellogg Rice Krispies Treats bars; two Ritz cracker packages; one 5-ounce Swanson canned chicken breast; 2 ounces of a Kool Aid-like drink mix; two Lady Speed Stick deodorants." (174, n.8)

The best is saved for last, when Ehrenreich steps back from being the fearless hero of low-wage adventures (which gives this book an appeal similar to Dishwasher) and puts on her Ph.D garb and analyzes the situation.  She makes some wonderful points, and writes powerfully about her subject matter:

"It is common, among the nonpoor, to think of poverty as a sustainable condition--austere, perhaps, but they get by somehow, don't they?  They are 'always with us.'  What is harder for the nonpoor to see is poverty as acute distress: The lunch that consists of Doritos or hot dog rolls, leading to faintness before the end of the shift.  The 'home' that is also a car or a van.  The illness or injury that must be 'worked through,' with gritted teeth, because there's no sick pay or health insurance and the loss of one day's pay will mean no groceries for the next.  These experiences are not part of a sustainable lifestyle, even a lifestyle of chronic deprivation and relentless low-level punishment.  They are, by almost any standard of subsistence, emergency situations.  And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans--as a state of emergency." (214)

I've said about all I can.  Please note that I did not  read the 10 year anniversary edition, released in 2011, as I did not know it existed until now.  Obviously, after the financial meltdown of 2008, Ehrenreich was going to have more to say.  She wrote a long essay that is posted here and is definitely worth checking out: http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/

I could go off about the minimum wage, and the debate that the cost of goods will go up if it is increased, but I am glad it is happening.  I could also go off about my options as a law grad, and how they barely pay more, but I will desist for another day.  I am just glad that a small victory seems likely, and hope that other bigger ones will follow.

The Big Short - Michael Lewis (2011)

The Big Short is a tough book to review for the same reasons it must have been a tough book to write.  On the one hand it is certainly well-written, brisk, entertaining, informative, and intriguing; on the other it tends to leave the reader in the dust.  It comes out of the gate with enormous energy--and the first 50 pages are about as good as any I've read.  It also ends very strongly (I wanted to write "on a high note" but that wouldn't be accurate, content-wise).  However, for the middle 180 pages or so it tends to run over the same ground with little or no development.  Thus while I highly recommend this book, I do so with reservations, which I hope I can adequately articulate.

First of all, I need to get something off my chest: this book made me depressed.  Okay, you say, the subject matter is depressing so no big surprise there.  And actually it's not that depressing--it's really an incredible success story.  However, I do not recommend this book for recent law school graduates who have mounting debt obligations and feelings of hopelessness with regard to their career prospects.  This book is all about betting against homeowners who signed up for subprime mortgages.  Of course, there is little reason to believe that people will be able to make their loan payments when the interest rate on their loan balloons after two years, but if these people knew what they were getting into, they must have believed that good things were going to come their way--that they would get a big enough raise two years from now to make much higher mortgage payments, or that the value of their home would continue to rise and they could refinance.  Alas, when millions of people are packaged together in an asset-backed security or collateralized debt obligation, the odds are not in their favor.  Such is life for law students, too, and people do not want to be sympathetic to our plight because we should have known better.  It wasn't like there was fine print that we neglected to read because nobody reads that stuff anyways--we were going to be trained to write that fine print.

So yes, the future appears hopeless for many of us, and five years ago, the future appeared hopeless for millions of Americans.  But things are gradually getting better, we're told.  Interest rates are low and home prices are rising and jobs are being created.  Unfortunately they are not getting better fast enough for many of us (law school enrollment rates are way down, finally).

So when you're poor and feeling hopeless, watching your bank account dwindle to the point where homelessness starts to feel inevitable, this is not a good book to be reading.  You can't really laugh along with it.

It's not supposed to be comic, though:

"Writing this book, I bumped up early and often against a new discomfort: the material would not allow me to do what I naturally would like to do with it.  It was as if I'd been asked to play basketball using only my right hand, or write a sonnet using only sight rhymes.  It took me a while to understand the problem: I was accustomed to writing stories that were, at heart, comic.  The story of the investors who made their fortunes from the collapse of the U.S. financial system had lots of funny bits to it, but it was, at heart, a tragedy." (265)

When I first started reading this book--the first ten pages or so--I mistook it for a work of fiction.  I thought maybe it was a roman a clef.  But it is non-fiction.  It is the story of three hedge funds (Frontpoint Partners, Scion Capital, and Cornwall Capital) and the quirky people that started them and made a boatload of money.  The story begins with Steve Eisman, and perhaps disaffected recent law graduates might seek a new path after reading about his:

"Eisman entered finance about the time I exited it.  He'd grown up in New York City, gone to yeshiva schools, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude, and then with honors from Harvard Law School.  In 1991 he was a thirty-year-old corporate lawyer wondering why he ever thought he'd enjoy being a lawyer.  'I hated it,' he says.  'I hated being a lawyer.  My parents worked as brokers at Oppenheimer securities.  They managed to finagle me a job.  It's not pretty but that's what happened.'" (1)

As a side note, since Lewis references himself in the first sentence (as well as during the excellent prologue and epilogue), his background bears mentioning.  I am straight-up jealous of Michael Lewis.  I have not read Liar's Poker, but I have heard it is a very good book, and he mentions a couple times that Ohio State University students read it is a "how-to" manual for making money on Wall Street.  It is apparently about his time working for the infamous Salomon Brothers partnership-turned-corporation in the 1980's.  One presumes he made a boatload of money himself working for that company, and also that he has made a boatload of money off the book, to say nothing of The Blind Side and Moneyball.  Now, apparently Brad Pitt owns the movie rights to The Big Short and I am sure that it will make for a great film that could potentially rival the iconic Wall Street.  In case Brad Pitt is reading this, I would like to ask him for the chance to audition for a small part in the movie because I think I have undiscovered acting talent.  I think I would like to play Charlie Leadley but maybe that is reserved for an A-lister.  But I see I am getting ahead of myself.

Steve Eisman started Frontpoint Partners.  There is a very interesting episode that takes place in 2002 involving Household Finance--a kind of prelude to the subprime lending boom.  He is also really into comic books, Spiderman in particular.  There is also a nice point about his political persuasion:

"In his youth, Eisman had been a strident Republican.  He joined right-wing organizations, voted for Reagan twice, and even loved Robert Bork.  It wasn't until he got to Wall Street, oddly, that his politics drifted left.  He attributed his first baby steps back to the middle of the political spectrum to the end of the cold war.  'I wasn't as right-wing because there wasn't as much to be right-wing about.' By the time Household's CEO, Bill Aldinger, collected his $100 million, Eisman was on his way to becoming the financial market's first socialist.  'When you're a conservative Republican, you never think people are making money by ripping other people off,' he said.  His mind was now fully open to the possibility.  'I now realized there was an entire industry, called consumer finance, that basically existed to rip people off.'" (20)

After Eisman is introduced, Michael Burry follows.  Burry started Scion Capital.  While Eisman is certainly quirky, Burry takes it to another level.  First, he only has one eye.  Second, instead of law school he went to medical school:

"Investing was something you had to learn how to do on your own, in your own peculiar way.  Burry had no real money to invest, but he nevertheless dragged his obsession along with him through high school, college, and medical school.  He'd reached Stanford Hospital without ever taking a class in finance or accounting, let alone working for any Wall Street firm.  He had maybe $40,000 in cash, against $145,000 in student loans.  He had spent the previous four years working medical student hours.  Nevertheless, he had found time to make himself a financial expert of sorts." (36)

What is interesting about Eisman and Burry is that they appear to disprove the Efficient Capital Markets Hypothesis, which basically states that you cannot "game" the stock market, because everyone else has the same information as you (the exception being insider trading).  I'm sure not just anyone can do what they did, but it is nice to see an "outlier" make good when the consensus says otherwise:

"Right from the start, Scion Capital was madly, almost comically, successful.  By the middle of 2005, over a period in which the broad stock market index had fallen by 6.84 percent, Burry's fund was up 242 percent and he was turning away investors.  To his swelling audience, it didn't seem to matter whether the stock market rose or fell; Mike Burry found places to invest money shrewdly.  He used no leverage and avoided shorting stocks.  He was doing nothing more promising than buying common stocks and nothing more complicated than sitting in a room reading financial statements.  For roughly $100 a year he became a subscriber to 10-K Wizard.  Scion Capital's decision-making apparatus consisted of one guy in a room, with the door closed and the shades drawn, poring over publicly available information and date on 10-K Wizard.  He went looking for court rulings, deal completions, or government regulatory changes--anything that might change the value of a company." (44-45)

Burry is also diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome later in the story, and while Asperger's may be a difficult thing to live with, it seems like everyone who is a genius has Asperger's.  So maybe it is not the worst diagnosis to get.

Finally, the story features Jamie Mai and Charlie Leadley, who started Cornwall Capital:

"Jamie Mai was tall and strikingly handsome and so, almost by definition, had the air of a man in charge--until he opened his mouth and betrayed his lack of confidence in everything from tomorrow's sunrise to the future of the human race.  Jamie had a habit of stopping himself midsentence and stammering--'uh, uh, uh'--as if he was somehow unsettled by his own thought.  Charlie Leadley was even worse: He had the pallor of a mortician and the manner of a man bent on putting off, for as long as possible, definite action.  Asked a simple question, he'd stare mutely into space, nodding and blinking like an actor who has forgotten his lines, so that when he finally opened his mouth the sound that emerged caused you to jolt in your chair.  It speaks!" (108-109)

Basically, the human side of the story is told very well by Lewis, but again, most of the middle of this book seems to get repetitive.

You could sum up the middle of the book with one phrase: basically nobody knows what's in a CDO!

And that is my major complaint about this book.  It's very hard to write an interesting story about these ridiculously arcane financial instruments.  Lewis does the best job he can--and at times, he can be rather lucid:

"A couple years earlier, he'd [Burry] discovered credit default swaps.  A credit default swap was confusing mainly because it wasn't really a swap at all.  It was an insurance policy, typically on a corporate bond, with semiannual premium payments and a fixed term.  For instance, you might pay $200,000 a year to buy a ten-year credit default swap on $100 million in General Electric bonds.  The most you could lose was $2 million: $200,000 a year for ten years.  The most you could make was $100 million, if General Electric defaulted on its debt any time in the next ten years and bondholders recovered nothing.  It was a zero-sum bet: If you made $100 million, the guy who had sold you the credit default swap lost $100 million.  It was also an asymmetric bet, like laying down money on a number in roulette.  The most you could lose were the chips you put on the table; but if your number came up you made thirty, forty, even fifty times your money.  'Credit default swaps remedied the problem of open-ended risk for me,' said Burry.  'If I bought a credit default swap, my downside was defined and certain, and the upside was many multiples of it.'" (29)

However, after the instrument in question has been defined once, Lewis expects the reader to be fluent in what it means.  Of course it would be annoying and pedantic to keep reminding the reader what he was talking about, so it is a hard balance to strike.  Still, at a certain point in the middle, it almost seems as if he throws up his hands in the air and says, "No one knows what it means anyways!"

I am particularly sensitive to this problem because I had the same issue when I took a Corporate Finance course in law school.  True, I felt I learned a lot in it--but it was also my worst grade in law school (tied with two others).  I still don't really understand how "selling short" works, but I think it has something to do with options--calls and puts.

These instruments are complex, and part of the problem with Wall Street is the "doubletalk"--the hope that retail investors won't really understand what brokers are talking about, so they'll either stay away or invest blindly.  I personally don't have any money to invest.  I'd like to do it, but it seems very intimidating for this simple fact.

There are some nice moments in the middle.  For example, the chapter that details a subprime bond market convention in Las Vegas is particularly entertaining (and will probably make for the best sequence in the film).  But my criticisms stand.

Would it have been possible for Lewis to write a better book?  Maybe, but I can't say for sure.  You can get kind of lost in the characters (apart from the three principal hedge funds) and the financial lingo.  But if you really want to learn about this industry, and you take the time to read very slowly, you will probably get a lot out of it.  If you want to breeze through it, I think you will find it reasonably entertaining but it will all start to seem like a blur.

That's what I did.  I read the first 50 pages very slowly, and then read pretty quickly through the rest (though it took me a long time--almost two months--mainly because my life is pretty much a huge mess right now).  So maybe that colors my interpretation of the text.  And again, the recent law school graduate depression thing certainly affected my enjoyment.  If I had disposable income, I would probably like this book a lot more.

One other thing I found hilarious: Michael Lewis is married to Tabitha Soren.  I had completely forgotten about her until I saw the "take back MTV" episode in Portlandia and find it awesome that the house where Fred and Carrie went to recruit Tabitha was the house where Lewis lived.  All I have to say is that I still want to be a rich and famous author after reading this book.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #24: Farewell (Ode to the Napping Room)

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #24: Farewell (Ode to the Napping Room)

By Christopher J. Knorps

“Is this thing on?
Can you hear me now?
Are we going?
Is this thing on?
Test, test, test, test, test, test...
Can you hear me now?

As we come to the close of our broadcast day
This is my farewell transmission
Signing off

Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea
Anyone within the sound of my voice
I've got 50,000 watts of power
I want to ionize the air
This microphone turns sound into electricity
Can you hear me now?
Out on route 128, the dark and lonely
I got my radio on
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
It's the end of radio

And that snare drum
That drum roll
Means we've got a winner!
If you're the fifth caller
Or any caller at all... 

Welcome to my top ten
I'd like to thank our sponsor
But... we haven't got a sponsor!
Not if you were the last man on earth….
She was prepared to prove it…
This one goes up to a special girl
But... there is no special girl!

It's the end of radio
The last announcer plays the last record
The last watt leaves the transmitter 
Circles the globe in search of a listener
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?

Is this really broadcasting if there is no one there to receive?
It's the end of radio
As we come to the close of our broadcast day

I got my radio on
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?

This is the test 
If this had been a real emergency...
Hey, hey,

This is a real god damn emergency!”
-Shellac, “The End of Radio”

I.                     Introduction

When I started this column back in February of 2012, I took my cues from “Notions to Dismiss” by Michael Berman (for the name of the column) and “Legally in Love” by Lizzie B. (for the “sexiness” of the juicy gossip floating through our school—and yes, I think people still want to know who Lizzie B. was), but I had no idea I would complete 24 articles.  Before we go any further, I want to thank Steven Hasty for clueing me into the Advocate, Julie Adler for being the best editor I have ever  had, and Dwayne Thomas for allowing me to continue to express myself, as well as keeping me on guard when I would fall off the rails.

I wrote this column because law school is not great, but it has so much potential to be great.  I wrote this column because people seemed miserable here, and I sought to enumerate the reasons why.  There may be more than 24 reasons (and I fully admit that the topics of my columns have sometimes overlapped—See the multiple columns discussing the “50/50 Rule,” now the “60/40 Rule”) but I have done my best to give any prospective or current law student a road map of the pitfalls of legal education.

I would also like to note that I received significantly more “hate mail” when I was a 2L, but that now, as a 3L, with my columns becoming arguably more and more esoteric, few people ever comment on them.  This is either because (a) I am obsolete, or (b) the haters have realized the error of their ways. 

I may very well be obsolete.  I was not named our class commencement speaker, but I did not compete for that position.  This happened in high school too, you know.  I made an audition to be class speaker, and the class clown ended up getting it.  It was fine by me, and I just wrote my own “commencement speech” into an article in The Log at Loomis Chaffee.  I am not doing that here.  I am offering the ultimate NIED.  Welcome to my top 10.

II.                  Top Ten Classes

#10: Contracts (Prof. Winnie Taylor)

                While I did not do well in this course (B-), and while I sat in the way back row of the classroom (top left) and was doomed to failure by anxiety and the belief I still hold that Contracts is one of the hardest classes in law school and should actually be taken over both semesters for six credits (as Prof. Taylor also believed), the reading was always a pleasure (go figure!).  Perhaps it was in this course that I realized I wanted to take a curriculum in Business Law (which may have decimated my GPA, but which I believe was worth it—at this juncture at least), but most importantly, this was a 9:00 AM class which met three times a week.  There was a ton of reading and I didn’t put it into a good outline, but Prof. Taylor brought so much energy into the classroom everyday that I couldn’t help but pay attention.  I may not have done well in the course, but I will always remember her writing “POOR BLACK WIDOW” on the chalkboard, and the way she would say, “Oh boy!”

#9: Administrative Law (Prof. Araiza)

                I did reasonably well in this course (B+) and I sat in the middle on the right side with a couple friends that helped keep me on track—but they weren’t totally necessary: Araiza is an excellent professor.  This course sounds boring, and sometimes it is a little boring, to be honest, but its importance is adequately understood: the “headless” fourth branch of government probably has more impact on our everyday lives than any of the other “big three.”  There are also sometimes fascinating cases that branch off into many different areas of the law.  My favorite case was the Cinderella case, and I will never forget the feeling of knowing the material so well, but knowing that I would not be at the top of the class because there were so many other top students in it, and because Araiza was just that good of a teacher.

#8: Trusts & Estates (Prof. Serkin)

                I did reasonably well in this course as well (B+) and I sat in the second row (which became my de facto seat during 3L year).  Serkin lived up to the hype.  Unfortunately there appears to be a joke that can be made about the SBA Transition Dinner: whoever wins faculty of the year also wins “faculty most likely to leave BLS.”  While many may be sad that they will not have the opportunity to take a class with Professor Serkin, I cannot fault him for wanting to move to Tennessee, for it is a great state that still remarkably flies under the radar.  This was a fun course to take, and the casebook certainly made things interesting.  By far, from all the classes I took, this had the most bizarre casebook (the footnotes alone made me feel like the writers were constantly getting stoned and just telling the ridiculous stories behind the cases—or giving their opinions on James Lipton—because they realized how boring the material could be otherwise).  Serkin also recommended we watch The Art of the Steal, which is a great documentary and served as a nice “study break” (watch for the one scene near the beginning where an art appraiser walks through a gallery and is like, “Oh, Barnes would never get this, this is terrible,” and later says it is impossible to quantify how much the Barnes collection is worth—perhaps billions(!)) as we studied charitable trusts near the end of the semester.  I didn’t learn the intestacy regimes as well as I should have, but I felt the final was one of the “fairest” I have ever taken, and I feel that Serkin taught this course almost masterfully.

#7: Employment Law (Prof. Minda)/Debtors’ & Creditors’ Rights (Hon. Martin Glenn) (tie)

                Most of my classmates from these courses must think I am crazy for putting them in the top ten, but Employment Law gave me the highest grade I received in a 3 credit course (A—and though the results are not yet in from this year, I’m not optimistic) and Elizabeth Warren wrote the casebook for Debtor/Creditor and it was the best one I studied in law school.  Employment Law was a fascinating area to study and I am glad I read From Widgets to Digits and also glad I wrote a paper in lieu of a final exam (the only time I got to do that).  Debtor/Creditor was a tough class, and made tougher by a Judge-Professor taking on the MF Global case around Halloween, and though I may not have done well on the final, nobody did, and I got a B+.  So I think it was the only time a really hard final worked in my favor.

#6: Constitutional Law III: First Amendment (Prof. Araiza)

                Araiza gets two mentions, but this course ranks higher because it has some of the most fascinating jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.  It was in this course that I finally realized Justice Douglas was my favorite of them all, and that I should try to live up to the standards that he set for himself.  Araiza never talks about his clerkship on the Court, but it hung out there in the back of my mind, and I wanted badly to ask him about all the things that happened while he was there, but I understand if that must be kept confidential.  Regardless, hearing his eminently reasonable and incisive interpretations of the Court’s opinions was a true highlight, and I bemoan the fact that I will never be able to take a course with him again.  Not only was he a good professor—he was a good person, and made himself more available to students than any other professor I had.  I will never forget him saying, “Pardon my language, but I’m just quoting: ‘We’ll take the fucking street later!’” or the last time a group of us sat in his office and discussed how obscene internet videos had to get before the Court would say they fell outside the protection of the First Amendment. 

#5: Evidence (Prof. Pitler)

                This is another one that a lot of my classmates might disagree with, but Pitler did not try to pull any tricks.  He told us that if we just did the problems, we would do well.  And I did.  While I only got a B+ on the exam, he told me he boosted me to an A- because I came into every class prepared to offer up my answers to the problems he had assigned.  I appreciated that there was very little reading.  Also, Pitler delivered a stirring lecture in our final class on the Crawford case and the Confrontation Clause that was one of the most entertaining and informative talks I have ever attended.  The school should have video recorded that class, because it was a definite highlight for me.

#4: Criminal Procedure (Prof. Baer)

                Professor Baer warned me that if I took Crim Pro with her, she would “kick my butt.”  She “kicked my butt” in Corporations (giving me a B, while admitting I earned a B- on the exam, but participated well in class and therefore got boosted) even though I appear (very briefly, and in a friend’s beret!) on the school’s website in a video from that course.  It was not a bad course, but I bemoaned her use of Powerpoint.  She did not use Powerpoint in Crim Pro, and this was easily one of the most fascinating courses in law school.  The reading was usually quite interesting (some people call it Con Law IV because it is all Supreme Court opinions) and Prof. Baer always assigned a reasonable amount of reading for each class.  I never felt overwhelmed and felt that she used her time in class very effectively.  And I do not think she will kick my butt, because I took the course pass/fail (and update: I passed).

#3: Interviewing & Counseling (Prof. Schultze)

                Everybody should take a class with Prof. Schultze.  He is a popular professor, and for good reason: there really is not much work to do.  This is a 2 credit class.  But it can be a little bit stressful when you are on the chopping block!  Prof. Schultze could have his own reality show based on his classes.  While the class was easy, it was also fun and useful—learning how to appropriately approach clients is a fine art, and it is one skill that I will leave law school believing I have learned well.

#2: Business Reorganizations (Prof. Gerber)

                Also known as “Debtor/Creditor Part 2,” this was a fun 3 credit class to take, and Prof. Gerber is one of the best at BLS.  I will never forget his drawings of pies to represent chapter 7 and buche-de-noels (or twinkies) to represent chapter 11 (and I am sort of sad I missed taking the class after Hostess declared bankruptcy) and his drawings of pigs to represent banks, nor his mentioning that his brother wrote the comic book Howard the Duck or that he went to high school with Sheldon Toibb.  While the course can sometimes be challenging, Prof. Gerber always made it comprehensible through his classes, which blended lecturing and calling on volunteers.  He did not try to “trick us” on the final, and I was very pleased to get an A- in that course—it is one of the grades that I am most proud of in law school.  It was also through this course that I found my “dream area of practice” and at least got a shot at a couple bankruptcy judge clerkships.  I didn’t get them, but Prof. Gerber made time to help me try.  Also, it is perhaps worth noting that I sat in on his Contracts class in the Spring of 2010, and that it was the best class I attended at any of the law schools I visited, and that his style and presence as an “interim Dean” made me feel reasonably secure (not totally secure!) that I had made the right decision by attending BLS. 

#1: Securities Regulation (Prof. Fanto)

                I just mentioned Fanto to another student a couple hours ago and she said, “Oh, Fanto’s a god.”  That about sums it up.  Securities Regulation may be one of the most difficult classes in law school (I personally found Corporate Finance more difficult because of all the math, and Federal Income Taxation more difficult because of all the material), but it was always a pleasure to attend the lectures, even when Fanto admitted that he hated teaching the material (on Regulation S).   Simply put, I was very lucky to take a class with him.  I will never forget him shouting, “you have to be quiet!” during the first few classes or hearing his opinions on Congress (“they don’t have any idea what’s going on anyways…”) and our unfortunate position of needing to implement the JOBS Act into our understanding of the securities laws.  Also now whenever I go on a road trip, I will try to pick out abandoned bowling alleys, because he says it is usually easy to do—and that underscores my opinions on this course: it’s incredibly important stuff, but it’s contained in these incredibly dense and archaic statutes.  Fanto was great at making us understand just how important it was, and while I do not know my grade yet (perhaps I did terribly), I will always remember those classes very fondly. 

III.                 NIED #23 ½ : Restriction on the Right to Practice

90% of us will be staying in New York City post-graduation.  That is the figure that gets tossed around as a student begins their law school journey.  90% of law school students stay in the same jurisdiction (or is it state?) as their school.  A problem arises when a student’s attitude towards their “law school home” sours over the course of three years. 

Sometimes it is not too big of a deal.  You don’t like New York?  Well go to Connecticut, or New Jersey, or Massachusetts.  Take 2 Bars.  You can do it; it’s fine.  BLS “strongly recommends” taking the Bar Exam in two states (i.e. New York and New Jersey), and updates information for these two states but leaves the rest up to the student. 

I don’t know the deadline in California, I’ll admit.  But I do know the deadline in Illinois is February 15, and the total fee (if filing is timely) is $850.  It then jumps to $1,050 for “late” registration if done by March 31, and $1,450 for “really late” registration if done by May 31.  I never looked into this matter until a fellow Chicagoan told me it wasn’t possible to do Illinois and New York at the same time.

It would have been fine, for me, a student without a job who is torn between two states, if that other state was New Jersey, but it’s not.  Perhaps it’s the difficulty of traveling between two states on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (or can you take the Bar in a different state in your home state?  I don’t think so…), but you cannot take the New York and Illinois Bar exams because they are both two day exams on Tuesday and Wednesday (i.e. the MBE on Tuesday and the “state test” on Wednesday).  

The deadline for New York (we all knew) was April 30, so it is still possible for me to file “really late” in Illinois, and forfeit the NY Registration fee of $250, but I’ll have spent $1,700 in the process and will probably incur about $1,300 in moving expenses, and then who even knows about residency in Illinois.  Furthermore, switching at this late stage of the game is exactly the type of distraction that seems tailor-made for Bar Failure. 

This is the last NIED column because it goes to the last complaint about law school: when you don’t have a job, and aren’t sure where things will be better for the long term, nobody can give you satisfactory advice.  You just need to stick to your guns, pick one, and pray.  The state of indecisiveness is a horrible one that can make even the most talented minds wither under pressure.  It’s not like we’re Lebron James and we can orchestrate a television special to state which city will be so lucky as to have our legal talents.  We’re the opposite.  There’s too many of us, we’ve been told, so which city is unlucky enough to have to support one more mediocre (if grades are any indication) lawyer?  After all if we were destined to be a great lawyer, we would have a job by now, right? 

I throw my hands up and say once and for all that this is one area in which I cannot offer persuasive advice.  The best advice I’ve been given is to take the New York Bar, stay here until December or so, see if I have a job by then, and if not, return to Illinois and take the Bar there in February, because the MBE score will transfer.  This is easier said than done, though, as my remaining funds will likely dwindle down to almost nothing by that point.  And who really wants to take the Bar Exam twice? 

It’s all cold comfort this time, I suppose.  You should just pick your law school in the region where you’re sure you want to live.  If you didn’t do that, then you must be sure you want to return home, and you will already have your plan in place.  Unfortunately there is no back-up option—except if one happens to be from Washington D.C. (or Alaska, I’ve been told), where you can “waive in” immediately. 

In order to promote fairness, law students should be able to “waive in” to every state.  There are questions on the MPRE (which—surprise, surprise—applies nationwide) which state that non-compete clauses in partnership agreements are unenforceable because they constitute a restriction on the right to practice.  The Bar Exam is the ultimate restriction on the right to practice, because it forces a person to say, “This is my home, and I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.” 

I loved going to school in New York from 2001-2005 (the “honeymoon period” after 9/11 truly made me believe that New York was the greatest city in America, and that there was nowhere else I’d rather be) so it seemed to make sense for me to pick New York over Los Angeles (and Chicago) for law school between 2010 and 2013.  Now I just see it as an overcrowded bundle of nerves, anxiety, car-lessness, high rent and claustrophobia (or maybe I only feel this way because I lived in Brooklyn Heights for 3 years) and I wish I had more “contacts” in other cities so that I could confidently believe that it would not be a bad career move to leave this place.   

The ABA should definitely consider broadening the right to “waive in” because while 90% of us may be staying, it may not be the most “voluntary” decision we make after starting.  Many of us are simply not the same people we were three years ago. 

There is a quote in the library (a gift from the class of 2010) from a movie that is not about law school, but is thought to apply to law school.  I have one other such quote: “I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you…stranger.” 

IV.                 Top 5 Hardest Exams

#5: Property (Prof. Macey – Spring 2011)

While I earned a B+ in this course, and do not feel I did all that well on the exam, I was pleasantly surprised by this grade.  Property, it has been said, is the most useless first year course in law school.  That may be so, but sometimes it can touch on interesting and/or “useful” areas of the law (I remember hating the Mark Rothko case in Property, but then embracing it during Trusts & Estates).  In any case, many students complained about how hard this exam was, and I had no real reason to complain, but it was a very difficult exam to finish properly in the time allotted (there were “too many issues”).

#4: Accounting for Lawyers (Prof. Hauptman – Fall 2012)

While this exam was not necessarily difficult, the course itself was certainly the hardest 2 credit course I took in law school.  Our professor told us there would be no “tricks” on the exam, but this is a tricky course, and because I did not put in the requisite amount of effort throughout the semester, I suffered on the final.  My advice is not to underestimate this course if you plan to take it.  It is not “easy,” as a student a year ahead of me claimed. 

#3: Civil Procedure (Prof. Schneider – Fall 2010)

While this was the most “pleasant” grade I received in my first semester of law school, question #4 was the hardest question I have ever had to answer on an exam.  It made me want to cry.  I wrote two short paragraphs as an answer to #4 (which had a lengthy and confusing fact pattern about two and half legal-sized pages long) and apparently did as well or better on that question than any of my other percentages.  I guess it was one of the few times that everyone else was just as flummoxed as me.

#2: Corporate Finance (Prof. Myers – Fall 2012)

While I did not do all that poorly on the essays on this exam, I badly fouled up the multiple choice section.  This was one of the most difficult classes in all of law school because (like accounting), I did not put in the right amount of effort in during the semester.  It was a strange exam.  It was completely “open.”  We could use any and every resource at our disposal.  A lot of the other students probably hit “Control + F” and cycled through their outlines and cut-and –pasted their answers.  I didn’t have the presence of mind to do that, nor did I have the presence of mind to know all of the Microsoft Excel functions like the back of my hand.  A tough course and exam primarily because of the math involved.

#1: Debtors’ and Creditors’ Rights (Hon. Martin Glenn – Fall 2011)

I will never tire of talking about this course, nor the impossibility of this exam.  This exam caused both vomiting and tears (not from me, but other students taking it).  I was pleased with my grade on it (as noted above) but found the experience of taking it to be excruciating.  It was like a really scary roller coaster ride but gave off no great feeling of relief and accomplishment at its end. 

V.                  Areas for Reform and Conclusion

Brooklyn Law School is not a terrible place, but there are certainly some changes that would go a long way towards making it better.  I offer my own idiosyncratic suggestions here:

First, BLS should offer its students $50.00 per year on their printing account.  $25.00 (or $12.50 per semester) is insufficient for a typical student’s printing needs.  Further, there should be an option for students that never use the printing stations in the library to have a zero balance.  The former President of the SBA rebuffed this recommendation saying, “You need to raise tuition to do that.”  Well, our tuition was raised roughly $3,000 over the course of our three years and our printing account amount never went up, so to that I say, “No.”

Second, BLS should offer one color printer in the library.  It is sad when a student asks me if we have color printing and I sheepishly send them to 1 Boerum Place, even though I am not 100% sure there is a color printer there that they can use.  Just one color printer would be a nice addition to the library. 

Third, BLS should have a more robust academic advisement program.  We are given an academic advisor in our first year (one of our professors, I presume) but that professor may not necessarily want to engage the students in talking about their long-term goals and how best to achieve them.  While I am generally satisfied with my course selection, there were two or three classes that I wish I hadn’t taken.  The school does offer a panel every year on how to choose your upper-class curriculum, but more student-specific counseling should be mandated in the way that career-counseling is only “suggested.”

Fourth and finally (and this list is by no means exhaustive, just specific things I would have liked), the school should offer the option of a retroactive pass/fail.  This could be used by students to “nix” a grade that destroyed their GPA if the course had a pass/fail option that was not elected by the student during the course of the semester.  While this may have caused internal problems earlier, with the bright-line 80% standard the school has set for scholarships, just as remedial statutes should be interpreted broadly, such a standard would improve student morale and remove the problem of students “shooting for a D” on exams they know will be graded pass/fail.  If there were concerns about abuse, it could be changed to only allow for retroactivity in the third year (and not be available for the incoming 2-year-program).

In conclusion, it has been a long and often boring ride, but I hope that I have played a small part in helping to make this school a better place for students.  Some of the best moments I have enjoyed were in the “napping room” (104M in the library), and it is my hope that one day I can return to the school and officially have that room designated as such in my honor.  Students need a place in the library where they can relax for a few moments in an anxiety-free zone, and sleep if they must.  Everyone that knows the “napping room” is for this purpose will agree that it is one of the best “student-made” changes in the school.  And it is my hope that other students’ suggestions will bring about positive changes in the future in different areas of the school.   

Skyfall - Dir. Sam Mendes (The Bond Project #23 - JM)

Skyfall (2012)

Dir: Sam Mendes

Mendes Aims a Walther at Oscar
by
Jay Maronde

                50 years after Dr. No was first released, and six James Bonds later, the James Bond Franchise is now going stronger than ever with the release of BOND 23 aka Skyfall. While this film featured an almost interminable wait while MGM reorganized under Chapter 11, director Sam Mendes, who was signed onto the project during the filming of Quantum of Solace, hung on quietly through the corporate bankruptcy process and did everything possible to make the film more than worth the wait. And it shows with beautiful colours.

His vision of a big money blockbuster action movie with a plot and story worthy of a real film was directly inspired by Christopher Nolan’s exciting work with the new Batman trilogy, and much as the that new trilogy has delighted audiences worldwide, Mendes work has been just as successful, managing to stand tall against other epic holiday releases such as the conclusion of the Twilight saga. The movie has something for everyone. I’ve seen it three times so it’s easily worth it for you, dear reader, to see once.

                Let me start with the two biggest features of this film: Dench and Bardem. First off this is Dame Judi Dench’s 7^th appearance as the staunch old grey lady at the head of Britain’s MI6. This is easily her (or any M’s) biggest role in the entire James Bond Franchise and she is glorious! Let me say right here, if nothing else, she deserves an Oscar for this this performance. As the only woman who Bond can relate to or respect, her role in his life and Bond’s role in hers is profoundly explored in beautiful twisted ways throughout the film. Such character development is almost rare in a Bond Movie, but as I’ve already mentioned this isn’t a movie, this is a film.  Mendes directs her so well and explores her character so deeply and thoroughly it almost brings to mind the levels of stunning character development within his Oscar-winning American Beauty (of note: Skyfall is the first Bond ever to be directed by an Academy Award winning Director, and the Eon Productions staff should stick to hiring very good directors because—in truth—when you give a very good director a very large budget, there is a relatively high chance of them producing a film as enjoyable as Skyfall).

                While there had been much speculation that BOND 23 would complete the Craig/Bond trilogy, and finally have Bond take down the evil organization known as Quantum, the producers announced during press conferences that in true Bond fashion the franchise would go new places, leaving this evil organization to be slain by Bond at a later date. As such there is no reference to Quantum and a new villain is brought to the silver screen and most certainly the history books in Raoul Silva.

Mendes had originally spoken with Kevin Spacey (who I have long thought would make a fantastic Bond villain) about taking the role of Silva, but after he refused talks turned to Javier Bardem. Bardem is only the second Oscar winner (having won for No Country For Old Men) ever to play a Bond villain (the first was Christopher Walken, fresh off of The Deer Hunter, in A View to a Kill ) and if I were part of the Academy I would make him the first Bond Villain to win an Oscar. He is outrageously good—sickeningly and scarily good! Bardem had the whole script translated into his native Spanish so as to be able to better understand the film and he worked extensively with Mendes on his character’s development. All of this sets the bar incredibly high for whoever accepts the role as the next Bond villain.  I’ve seen all the Bond Films, and there have been a few weirder villains, but Bardem can easily stand toe-to-toe with the bests (worsts). I don’t want to give away any spoilers but Silva definitely made the audience collectively gasp at all of the screenings I attended.

                 As always this film features certain Bond staples such as beautiful women. And yes, women, as Skyfall is the first Bond ever in which all of the Bond Girls are referred to as Bond Women. First off there is Bond’s associate Eve (played magically by the inordinately beautiful Naomie Harris) who provides great assistance to Bond in the opening scene before things take an ugly turn. She returns later in the film to provide a few gasps of her own, but her beauty is stunning and her onscreen rapport with Craig is unmatched. Also of note is Silva’s henchwoman Severine, who is played by the stunning Berenice Lim Marlohe. I’ve always felt that the Bond franchise has chosen more “typically Asian” actresses, often to the detriment of the film, but Marlohe is radiant, effluent, and magical. She has also commented that she was surprised at Daniel Craig’s modesty when filming their shower scene, and that she demanded he lose his shorts and that she offered to do ANYTHING to make him more comfortable. Clearly, being James Bond has some perks even in real life.

                Another Bond staple that returns in this film is Q and the Quartermaster Branch of MI6, which have both been revamped for the modern era. Instead of an armorer, Q is more of a super nerd, and is played excellently by the very believable Ben Whishaw, who I am told by numerous women is easily as “hunk-able” as Daniel Craig. Q plays one of his larger roles in the Canon, providing much assistance to Bond throughout the film even while the Franchise eschews more of the sillier Bond gadgets, in lieu of more realism. Q and Bond’s interactions throughout the film also always serve to enlighten the audience even more to the dark icy role of Craig’s (again marvelous performance as) Bond by using Whishaw’s delightful nerd as the perfect foil.

                I couldn’t write this review without paying at least some mention to the action in this film. While the Bond Canon has always been known for its stupendous action sequences, Skyfall takes the franchise to an entirely new plateau. There are car chases, fist fights, assassinations, helicopters (which by the way, the helicopter featured in the film is the same exact helicopter from which Bond and Her Majesty the Queen jumped to open the 2012 London Olympics) train chases, scorpions, automatic weapons, motorcycle chases, and even an all-out gun battle in the middle of Parliament. Again I can’t stress how great of a plan it is to give a really good director a really big budget. The movies have always been about making “unreality” happen for the viewer and this Bond is heart-stopping (though hopefully it will not end your life).

                Now that I’ve raved on for some time about what makes this film so delightful I would like to take a brief moment and discuss what I did not like, which luckily is extremely minor and should not detract  very much at all from what is a great film. First off, the Adele theme song sucks. It has done well on the pop charts, and I know Adele is all the rage and probably the closest that the production staff could come in finding a new age Shirley Bassey, but the song is boring. It kind of gets stuck in your head in a way that I don’t like. To be honest, they should have had Adele record the song, and then let Kanye remix it a-la “Diamonds Are Forever.” This is obviously minor in the scope of the film, but I couldn’t let her off unscathed. The other factor I didn’t like about this movie (which is entirely personal) is that this film is really, really, really, really long. Like seriously, go to the bathroom before you sit down in the theater and only get the medium squishy because otherwise you are going to need a pee break. This is the second longest Bond film ever, only one minute shorter than Casino Royale and only one minute longer than On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s long, I feel like it drags at points, but I doubt most critics would complain about this fact. Even though this film is long, it is very good, so as I said initially these two complaints are relatively minor.

                Skyfall is an excellent film and Mendes definitely deserves a pat on the back. I doubt the Academy will even consider giving the film, Mendes, or Craig a nomination, let alone the prize, as they have always been notoriously unkind to franchise films. But it will be a crime against the art if Dench doesn’t at least get a nomination for her exquisite performance. Bardem also deserves an Oscar for his performance as he is quickly turning out to be one of the great evil genius actors in a generation or more. This film is wonderful, and I suggest seeing it more than once just to be able to appreciate the way the entire audience gasps and applauds at various moments.