MAY 30, 2019 – [NOTE TO READERS: The poetry of Wallace Stevens will have to wait (see yesterday’s post).] – After Robert Mueller’s appearance yesterday, I read Volume II of his Report. Volume II addresses the question of the president’s obstruction of justice. The Report is an exemplary piece of rigorous legal writing, but you …
THE “OPEN AND SHUT” CASE
MAY 29, 2019 – Occasionally a client wants me to sue the pants off someone. The client is as indignant as can be over a business deal gone bad. The opposing side, he says, is dumb, lying and crazy. The client is so worked up s/he starts in the middle of the story, then travels …
MR. [CABIN] SCIENCE
MAY 28, 2019 – This past weekend, my wife and I worked from dawn to dusk getting our cabin and grounds prepared for our younger son’s wedding late in August. In rain and shine we worked. En route home, I came up with this multiple choice test: Ultimately, what is ownership of a lake cabin? …
“[JASCHA] WHO?”
MAY 27, 2019 – I come from a family of violinists. Grandpa Nilsson (1891 – 1973) started it all. In Minneapolis in the early 1900s, he played in the pit for silent movies. Later, he established a music school, and at its zenith, he had over 60 weekly violin students. Later still, along came my …
THE NOT SO MIGHTY DUCKS
MAY 26, 2019 – I grew up in Minnesota in the ’60s, which means I grew up on ice skates. Though I never played organized hockey, I attended a small college where in the ’70s hockey was by far the biggest sport. By the team roster, you could tell which states (and Canadian provinces) had …
SURPRISE!
MAY 24, 2019 – The recent flooding in mid-America reminds me of the time when floodwaters inundated my family’s neighborhood. We lived across the street from the Mississippi in Anoka, Minnesota. In March ’65 (I was in fifth grade), the river rose to threaten many homes along our street. One Saturday morning the doorbell rang …
“. . . YOU RICH SON OF A BITCH!”
MAY 24, 2019 – One day my dad came home from work and told a funny second-hand story, which means I’m making it third-hand. But if you read The Art of the Detail on this site (May 22), you’d know that Dad was a man of precision. I’m sure that in relating the story to …
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
MAY 23, 2019 – Every so often I play a kind of amusing thought experiment that also sharpens the powers of observation. It goes like this . . . I decide on a person from some age a long time ago. Sometimes it’s a relative—a great, great grandparent, for example; or a famous person about …
THE ART OF THE DETAIL
MAY 22, 2019 – Attention to detail can be critical. Observing a “No Left Turns” sign can avoid a head-on crash on a one-way street. Describing a parcel of real estate as “Lot 1, Block 2” instead of “Lot 2, Block 1” can prevent a legal malpractice case. Returning the pliers to its designated drawer …
PREJUDGED
MAY 21, 2019 – Prejudice—I’m as guilty of it as is the next person. One of my best examples occurred aboard an overnight train from Lyon to Paris. The train had originated in Rome and pulled into Lyon well past midnight. My reservation was for a second-class compartment already occupied by three other men about …
SCALING THE MOUNTAIN
MAY 20, 2019 – I don’t know of a single accomplished string player, however gifted or endowed with genius, who didn’t practice. Hard. Just as every NBA star has practiced 10,000 free throws, so has every string star practiced 10,000 scales. Jascha Heifetz, among the most extraordinary violinists ever, once quipped that if he were …
“FOR” CIVILIZATION
MAY 19, 2019 – According to the notable behavior scientists, Robert W. Mitchell and Nicholas S. Thompson, many animals are capable of various forms of deceit. No creature, however, outdoes humans when it comes to selling—and buying—a bill of goods. Think, “[truthfully] fake news.” Or look at the founder—and followers—of any cult. Consider too the …
A 25-CENT APHORISM TO IMPROVE MY BETS
MAY 18, 2019 – Generally, I’m a fairly good judge of character. Throughout my careers as a practicing lawyer and a manager inside a large bank, I’ve had to place bets on many people. Most bets have turned out as I’d hoped or better. But a few years back a bet went wrong. I misjudged …
A GUY NAMED GUY
MAY 17, 2019 – Yesterday was our lawnmower’s first outing of the season. I poured fresh gasoline into the tank, pressed the choke button nine times, pulled the starter cord just once, and VRROOOOM! With such luck I imagined being the starting pitcher of the season opener, at home, throwing my first pitch; a 98.7 …
WHO IN THE WORLD . . .?
MAY 16, 2019 – We who despise the president struggle to answer this: “Who in the world are the people who continue to support him?” Joining now thousands of other armchair pundits, diviners, and opinion purveyors, I proclaim the answer! (Drum roll . . .) The president’s supporters fall into one of four groups: ANTI-TAX, …
THE RETRIEVER, THE DOBERMAN, AND . . . THE FELINE
MAY 14, 2019 – Yesterday afternoon I spent two-and-a-half hours holed up in a conference room with another lawyer, an accountant, and a business guy. Our goal was to agree on a number as we pored over financials, struggling to find the source of a discrepancy. By the meeting’s end, we agreed only that we …
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
MAY 14, 2019 – Today is bright and sunny. That wasn’t the case nine years ago. Dark, thick clouds darkened the day, and a hard rain fell most of the morning and into the afternoon. It was the day of Dad’s funeral. He had played a prominent, positive role in my life, and I was …
TRASH AND STASH
MAY 13, 2019 – Among our idiosyncrasies are the dichotomous traits of “trashing” and “stashing.” On one hand, we design obsolescence into our “durable” goods’ to ensure that they won’t be that durable, and all the other stuff we buy comes with loads of packaging, which winds up in the trash . . . along …
IRREGULAR MOTHER (Part II of II from INHERITANCE by Eric Nilsson)
MAY 12, 2019 [See Part I] . . . Shortly after that, I had another experience, which also made a lasting impression on me as to Mother’s willingness to see what I saw, as well as taste what I tasted. For dessert one hot summer evening, Mother had served each of us half a grapefruit …
“IRREGULAR MOTHER” (Part I of II from INHERITANCE by Eric Nilsson)
MAY 12, 2019 – When you’re a kid, it’s the random, passing experience of little apparent consequence that can leave a lasting impression about a person. One such experience with Mother occurred for me on a warm, sunny, summer afternoon before I was school age. With her small-boned arms, Mother turned hard on the wheel …
FUTURE SCREENPLAY?
MAY 11, 2019 – In earlier times, I was more intense. Each day I’d crawl into the cage, jump on the wheel, and make it go round and round. I was sure the wheel drove a generator, because a little light bulb inside the cage blinked as soon as the wheel began to turn and …
THE BEST TEST: A GOOD LANDING
MAY 10, 2019 – I once had a flight simulator computer program that allowed me to “fly” all sorts of aircraft, big and small, fast and slow, old and new. Taking off was the easy part. I adjusted the flaps, powered up and away I flew. The toughest part was always landing the damn plane. …
IMPEACHIM’
MAY 9, 2019 – I think the producers of The West Wing should do an encore called, IMPEACHIM’. The show would mimic what’s unfolding today—mostly on CNN—but provide depth and context. The first season would feature the president behaving within a full range of what people of taste would find distasteful. Some of the infractions …
FRAME OF REFERENCE
MAY 8, 2019 – I once heard an historian say that a probative history can’t be written until the subject matter is at least 50 years in the past. By extension, I suppose, the historian would caution us against making any judgments about the (always) tumultuous present. If you think hard enough about those correlative …
FROM “DE MINIMIS” TO “DEEP DO-DO”
MAY 7, 2019 – We hear and read regularly that we’re slip-sliding into ever deeper ecological do-do. The latest cause for alarm: a U.N. report on the imminent disappearance of a million species. I count myself (smugly) among the 63% of Americans who accept what’s believed by 97% of actively publishing climatologists: human activity threatens …