The (lost) art of winning

An interesting take on the movie “the Miracle” appears in the New Yorker this week.

Most people would say that I am the last person to ever blog about sports. That may be true, but I am a great fan of the Olympics – especially the Winter Games. Maybe it’s because I was raised with skis and skates strapped to my feet. For a brief spell, my mother believed that ruddy cheeks were a sign of healthy upbringing (her theories on this bought my sister and I noses and cheeks that look like we’re perpetually nipping at the flask: frost bite never goes away) and so we were out skidding on icy surfaces (you could hardly call that skating) and on hills where you had to CLIMB back up after each crazed run, frequently each winter. My passion for this nutso winter physical stuff continued into my adulthood, though over the years I adopted the label of “fair weather skier” – meaning I’d only do it if the snow was perfect, the sun was out, and the temps were decent. But I still love watching the stuff every four years on TV.

No surprise, then, that I was glued to the set for the 1980s hockey match between the Soviets and the US team. It was a shocking victory, and I remember feeling pleased in the way that one always is pleased when the underdog wins. Still, to me, it seemed that the Russians were always getting punched at from both sides – they had the tough lives, the corrupt government, and also the disrespect of the West. Beating the Soviets or Poles or Czechs always felt so good for the Americans –in a way that beating the Americans or other Western teams never did for Eastern bloc players, for whom it was always just a game, not a political statement (maybe “beat those damn imperialists!” just isn’t as catchy as “beat those damn commies!”).

Thus, predictably, in the States, the game became over time more than just a game: it became a STATEMENT about how these young, enthusiastic American players could undo the iron fist and the grim strength of the Soviets. That’s how winners from the Eastern bloc were always portrayed here: they were all robotic machines, cheerless, determined, without souls.

In the New Yorker, the author talks to Igor Larionov – now an NFL player, once a Soviet hockey star. Larionov was too young to make the Soviet team in 1980, but he watched back home in disbelief as the game progressed and it became clear that the Soviets would lose.

The irony is that the Russian players were anything but passionless machines. Larionov, for example, has the reputation of loving his Pushkin and his chess as much as the hockey that he plays so well. In the article, he describes how it felt to see the recently released “Miracle” – the movie about the historic hockey match:

At the multiplex, Larionov said, he had sat quietly, admiring the approach, as it was depicted in “Miracle,” of the American coach, Herb Brooks. He heard Brooks use the old Russian expression “The legs feed the wolf” and saw his compatriots depicted, as usual, as talented but humorless automatons. He was caught up in the movie, riding the emotion. He liked the story.
“At the end of the movie, there was a standing ovation in the theatre,” Larionov said. “I just left. To be honest, I felt like I’d lost. My friends played there—Krutov, Makarov, Fetisov, Kasatonov. I wish the guys in Hollywood had spent more time, maybe even just five minutes, to show the Russian side of the story. They should have showed a little bit of what happened inside the Soviet camp. But I know American movies are always like that.”

It’s sad that even in our victory, we can not appear gracious to the other side.

It ain’t over…

What Julia Child did to French food in America, Luciano Pavarotti did to Italian Opera worldwide. I’m a sucker for Italian music of any sort – especially the kind that climbs along full blown crescendos and explodes into an orchestral climax. And so it was with shock and sadness that I read the NYT headline today stating “Pavarotti Dies.”

It took only a minute to realize that his death was a stage death. I do remember vaguely his desire to retire from opera and concentrate on his new wife and family. And I’d picked up his lovely CD of Italian pop last year so I know the man’s branching out in other directions. But for a minute I thought we’d lost a great.

Hang your shingle

My sister is a freelance translator. I know a large number of freelance writers and cooks (aka caterers). Add to it the freelance teachers, tutors, even lawyers. People striking out on their own, fighting the institutional/bureaucratic model of service, opting for the personal touch. And don’t forget the freelance embalmer. NPR reports on one of the last in his trade (here).

Hurry up if you want to take advantage of his experience and expertise. He still makes housecalls. But he’s been at it for 41 years (that’s 40,000 bodies), and may retire soon so speed up the carbs and enlist his services now, while he’s still taking new clients.

Too many words, too few ideas

A writers group that I am loosely affiliated with posted this week a list of the most overused expressions in writing. Most of these words could be eliminated from any text without great detriment; the cuts would add crispness to a story or paragraph.

I can’t reprint them all without the writer’s permission, but I’ll post a few – just so you can laugh out loud at how often you’ve found them liberally sprinkled throughout the posts below. I read through posts with my finger poised on the backspace key, but I am not careful. After I’m done, oftentimes, here’s what remains:

actually
all of (replace with "all")
apparently
as it were
as you know
at an early date (replace with "soon")
at the present time or this time or this point in time (replace with "now")
at the same time as (replace with "while")
basically
be in a position to (replace with "can")
completely
despite the fact that (replace with "despite")
due to the fact that (replace with "because")
during the time that (replace with "while")
essentially
extremely
first of all (replace with "first")
for the purpose of (replace with "for")
generally
etc.

I make closet editors happy by feeding their ingrained sense of superiority.

The unwelcome reappearance of Simon

Hardly two months have passed, and he is with us again. On January 11, I posted a testimonial to Simon, the robot who takes care of all lost luggage for every defeated, worn down traveler who has the bad luck of waiting at a United baggage carousel, only to walk away without the one black upright suitcase that bears his or her name.

Well, Simon reentered my world last night, as I picked up yet another visitor to Madison, and returned home with said visitor but not her bags. The bags and the visitor are suffering pangs of separation anxiety and I am on a mission, determined to move toward reunification, asap.

Simon and I are about to have our famous protracted and nonsensical conversation whereby he collects voluminous tomes of information, disappears to think about it all, and comes back to tell me that United is working on my request.

Simon’s not dumb. He knows how to dangle a thread of hope, suggesting that any week, any day, any HOUR now I WILL see the luggage that I grow to covet more than anything else in the world. When months later the luggage does arrive, I am so deliriously overjoyed that I feel great indebtedness to Simon and we part friends.

That was then. These days, I am less sanguine about the matter. And because it is the THIRD time this year alone that bags have not traveled for us to Madison along with the passenger, I was given the PRIVATE NUMBER that is Simon’s “boss.” It may be a humanoid, or it may be a robot of superior intelligence: I am ready to go to this CEO of lost luggage, inc. and file my charges against the placating, ineffective, insufferable Simon. The goal is to penetrate through the thick layer of United indifference, and levy my punch in the Simon gut. Sounds brutal? I can’t help it –he’s made warriors of us all.

And, adversity breeds its own rewards. Because I have resilient entrepreneurial blood running through my communist childhood arteries, I will post the sale of the private United number on ebay. I’m certain it’s good for at least a two week vacation to Europe, traveling first class. After all, the number of otherwise peace-loving, God-fearing people wanting to maim and slaughter Simon and take him to task for his buoyant yet ultimately impotent nature must be substantial.

Three-part blog on why I feel better already and it’s only the first day of Spring Break

Pt.3 Where I come to understand that to not know something is divine
In an article by Farrar (look for it in the “Critical Review”) I read about the necessity of ignorance and I feel good all over. To “not know” is everything! Suddenly, any vestiges of dumbness within me are an asset, not a liability: my empti-headedness furthers science, politics, the quest for human camaraderie; you name it: whatever your quest in life –I am helping you achieve it by staying locked in my un-intelligence.

The author notes (in the essay entitled “In Praise of Ignorance”) that “ignorance is essential to life as we know it [go nc!]. Foreknowledge of the future would preclude choice, responsibility, individuality—even history. Full knowledge is the enemy of both intimate and impersonal relationships…Military strategy and natural science both depend on ignorance, as do law and politics.”

I realize that just because Farrar said it is so, doesn’t mean that it is indeed so. Nonetheless, the assertion does appear in print. Only a fool would not take it seriously.

Three-part blog on why I feel better already and it’s only the first day of Spring Break

Pt. 2 Don’t believe all that is said about Poland
In an article from the Journal of Democracy, I read that perhaps the western press has exaggerated the split between East and West Europe in terms of its support for the American decision to invade Iraq. We know that countries of Western Europe are anything but uniform in their support for the preemptive strike. And countries of the Eastern block? It appears that the deeply pro-American stance doesn’t put blinders on all citizens. The article by Zielonka states the following:

In the Czech Republic, for instance, opinion against (emphasis added) invading Iraq without a second UN Security Council resolution reached 70%. In Poland, which is considered pro-American and now has troops serving in Iraq, 62% said in February 2003 that Warsaw should decline to support Washington in the Iraq matter.

If you read the pro-American statements issued by the Polish government, you’d never guess that the nation had greater skepticism about the move toward full-scale war.

Three-part blog on why I feel better already and it’s only the first day of Spring Break

Pt.1 We talk because we don’t have time to pick nits
I spent the afternoon reacquainting myself with the feel of paper and the smell of ink. It’s been a while since I went through the literary mags at Borders (this is my periodic check-in to reassure myself that the published essays aren’t nearly as brilliant as the ones in my head, waiting to be written—only this time they were and so that was kind of a low point in the afternoon).

One essay was especially appealing (in the same ways as yesterday’s story on European identity in the Times was appealing, see post March 11—I feel myself much aligned with the subject matter and the conclusions). Diane McWhorter (who is no mere essayist – having already walked off with a Pulitzer Prize) wrote a sage piece about the value of “talk” (this is in the American Scholar, which does have a website, but today is paper day for me)—the conversational kind of talk.

I have to cite this one brief paragraph, which actually is a summary of Robin Dunbar’s Darwinian-like thesis on the origins of talk. She describes Dungar’s point thus:

Language was the evolutionary continuation of the grooming behaviors of our primate ancestors. The social cohesions essential for their survival flowed from the emotional bonds established by the obsessive intimacy of nit-picking and fur-raking. As the size of animal groupings grew, however, social management became trickier, and the amount of grooming time needed to grease the system (up to 50% of a primate day) began to interfere with the basic survival activities of gathering food and defending against predators. So humans evolved in such a way as to vocalize those rituals of emotional maintenance, which freed them to attend to other business simultaneously. And voila! –multitasking. Thus, through talk, are we h. sapiens able to massage the body politic while shelling peas on the porch.

McWhorter, who no longer worries that she is always the last to get up and leave parties, says a friend gave her his blessing for her constant quest for talk. He told her “There’s plenty of time for silence. Talk away.”

I suppose blogging and emailing are the next evolutionary steps (now that shelling peas on porches has gone by the wayside and coffee-house culture isn’t what I remember it to be), though they’re ones that push us even further from the obsessive fur-raking and nit-picking that were the hallmark of bonding. Ah well, one takes what one can get.

Stop the car and lemme outta here, pt. 2

So maybe China is not the only place where traffic has had a pernicious influence on daily life. The WashPost has an article on DC week-end driving issues (here). Compare these (China, post below & the DC story) to Madison’s own struggle with traffic problems (here) –obviously a high priority, as evidenced by the following statement (referring to the parkway project that is to ease congestion north of Lake Mendota): "The parkway is expected to be a joint county-state partnership and will be constructed in the next 10 to 20 years. Smaller road improvements are likely to happen sooner."

Stop the car and lemme outta here, pt.1

Maybe I’ve not seen my share of road rage in the States, or witnessed traffic patterns in remote corners of the globe, but I am fairly convinced that China must grab the title of the country with the greatest number of insane drivers, deserving of quality jail time for their road behavior. I remember several years ago sitting in a cab in Beijing with two girls in my charge (one was unrelated, making me wonder if her parents could sue me for the psychic trauma she suffered by riding in a taxi there) thinking that every single maneuver done by the driver would have gained him a hefty fine and a suspension of driving privileges in the States. As we shot through red lights, scraping the legs of cyclists and causing pedestrians to bang the trunk of this speeding demon, I wondered if the driver was putting an a show, what with the incongruous tape of Elvis music in the background and his own screaming tirade at every animal and three-wheeled contraption that got in his field of vision. Twenty cab rides later, I decided there was no show in it – they were all maniacs. Only one guy, perhaps 90+ years old, drove with any degree of civility as he slept his way through the traffic of Shanghai. It was rush hour, nothing moved much anyway. I gave him a 300% tip.

I read with great interest the NYT article today that spoke of changes that are around the corner in China: stricter enforcement of traffic regs (as opposed to zero enforcement), enactment of codes protecting pedestrian rights (anyone from the west would have to agree that crossing a street in a Chinese city ranks as the most terrifying experience: it’s you against a million moving objects, each going at a different speed and in a creatively executed direction), more rigorous testing of license applicants.

On this latter point though, I’m not sure they got it right yet. The Times mentions one of the test questions:

“If you come upon an accident and find a motorist lying unconscious on the road, and if that person's internal organs are also lying on the road, should you pick up the organs and put them back inside the person?”

Thankfully, the correct answer is “no.” But maybe the question should be rephrased. How about “If you come across a person on the road, should you maybe avoid hitting her or him so that organs may remain safely intact, protected by a firm skeletal structure, musculature, and a fine layer of undisturbed epidermis?”

Think: prevention.

Silent rage?

If the Finns cannot express anger, does that make them more prone to suicide, alcoholism and depression? What happens when a nation practices stoicism and silence to such an extent that it makes the government and the mental health professionals nervous? Is a STAID nation a happy nation? Or is it a repressed, resentful nation, in need of help and deserving of pity?

Why is anger completely absent from the very limited palate of available emotions in Finland? The IHT offers some possible explanations (here):

"Self-control is very important in Finland," said Liisa Keltikangas-Jarvinen, a prominent professor of psychology at the University of Helsinki. "You cannot show anger; it means you can't cope. If a person is very temperamental and alive, expresses emotions like anger and happiness, the person is seen as infantile."

How is life without anger and with minimal emotion? Well, it’s externally calm:

Here, experts say, a car accident triggers, not blame and insults, but a polite exchange of information. A bus breakdown causes no complaints; rather, the Finns on the bus will file off and try to push it to the next stop. …It is not unusual to walk into a restaurant and spot most people eating dinner in silence, content to chew and not chatter. Silence is a sign of wisdom and good manners, not boredom.

Well, I was willing to go along until that last comment. A quiet meal? To a Pole – how utterly awful.


When I was in my college years, I spent several months working on a farm in Finland, hired to teach the kids there some English. It was impossible: the time was too short, their language base was too limited and varied. But I loved the multigenerational family, all coexisting in a small, meticulously clean house. True, the father in the family was a bit of a drunk, but he was a QUIET drunk. If there was violence, I did not see it. There was, however, one opportunity for a form of family rage to come through, and that was in the sauna. As we piled into the family hot house after a day’s work, the kids would bring out the birch branches, wet them in the water (just to hear that sizzle of hot steam against flesh), and whip away at each other, me included. The practice was then to run across the field and jump into a cold lake (even in June, it was freezing). Emotions, both positive and negative, would somehow be drained out of you, so that all that remained was the isolation (we were close to the Arctic circle), the forest, and the eerie quiet.
[photo source:FinlandPhoto]

Spring break and a hidden past

With the last class over for the week, my spring break has begun. Some students stock up on sun screen, others on printer paper (conversation from yesterday: “Yes, your outlines are due in March, of course they are, what did you think? If you can’t do an outline by the end of March, can you do the full research paper by the end of April? No, don’t answer that, let me live with my illusions that you’ve been making consistent progress throughout the semester.”), I stock up on lists of things to read, write, tidy, pay, mail, post (new one this year!), watch, eat.

A reader suggested that, since I have a lot of New York coming up in my next year, I should pick up a copy of “Work and Other Sins: Life in New York City and Thereabouts” by Leduff. Wanting to learn more about the book, I googled.

The book comes highly recommended. It’s about the forgotten men and women of New York. Writes one reviewer: “It is about laborers, dreamers, hustlers and immigrants from the city’s uncelebrated ranks of working stiffs. There’s the man who replaces light bulbs at the top of the Empire State Building, the last licensed trapper within city limits, the harbor policemen charged with the grisly task of removing dead bodies from the river, the black Santa Claus at Rockefeller Center, and the last civilian lighthouse keeper on Coney Island.”

So far so good, but what about the author? He’s a correspondent for the NYT, okay, cool, and what else?

I come across an article about Leduff in the San Francisco Magazine Online (here). Well now, Leduff appears to have a history of allegations of plagiarism. That’s not good. Are the accusations substantiated? Some are, others are borderline plagiarism (more like “idea theft” rather than text theft). Leduff appears to have a reputation for arrogance and a personality that is “bigger than life.” Suddenly I am wary.

On the one hand, this racy portrayal of the author should make him controversial enough to be, ipso facto, interesting. But suspicion, now running rampant, causes me to wonder about the veracity of some of his stories. So do I read the book, or reject the author and therefore his work? Seems like a harsh result based on a reading of an online magazine. Still, maybe I’ll begin my New York immersion with the other recommended book for now – “Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan” by Lopate. And I wont google the author until after I've read the book.

Get well notes

Thanks to all readers who wrote with deep concern and regret over what happened to the car (post March 7, below). [sample email: “eek!” “I feel terrible about your car’s mugging.” “Madison police are to be feared!”—okay, is there a story behind those words? “next year, park it in my block; nothing ever happens in my block” etc] I am sure if my torso got bashed in and my extremities were ripped out you’d all be equally horrified (wouldn’t you?). It is indeed reassuring that you exercise such deep feelings of empathy for the fate of an older Corolla. You’re not the type to do in an ailing grandmother or a sick dog --I admire you for your compassion.

Health update: unfortunately, the Corolla’s recovery is stalled. She’s turned temperamental ever since her brush with violence. The other day, for instance, she wouldn’t let me open her trunk and I had to undo the backseat and crawl in through there just to retrieve some groceries. I’m thinking it’s post traumatic stress, which should abate with the passage of time.

European identity

As May 1st draws near –the day 10 more countries, including Poland, officially become part of the EU- the number of articles in the press mentioning countries of Eastern Europe grows. Today, the NYT revisits the theme of apprehension about the great merger, evident both among the 15 current EU nations and the 10 still waiting on the side (here).

It’s a “refresher” article, in that it says nothing new, repeating ideas that have been much analyzed in recent months, especially in the European press (with all due respect to its author, because John Darnton is probably the most experienced western correspondent out there writing about Poland). But I liked reading it anyway. And, what’s old hat to me may need restatement for those less focused on that part of the globe.

One little paragraph in the piece hits the “belonging” (v. displacement) issue that I’ve blogged about previously. In describing the importance of a European identity, Darnton writes:

For others it becomes an effort to define what it means to be a European. Quickly, such conversations turn to intangibles, to talk of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and definitions offered centuries earlier by Dante and Voltaire. Some talk of a feeling of belonging that overcomes them in a Central European coffeehouse or of alienation when they visit the United States.

Yes, it is paradoxical that oftentimes you feel most “European” when you visit (live in) the United States. I feel somewhat vindicated, in the way that you feel vindicated when the NYT parrots something you have said again and again. I’ve often been asked what I miss most about Europe. For lack of anything specific to say I’ve answered that it is something about feeing the shadow of history at every corner, and living in a coffee-house culture. Darnton has spies in this house.

My life is my work

There are people who do not think about retirement. They never want to not go to work. As long as the feet move and the mind stays on track 82% of the time – the world of work continues (I’ve noticed that academia, the judiciary and the papacy attract this level of commitment). Sometimes this is a good thing. So many accomplished scientists, writers, academics never lessened their level of commitment to their field until they were well past 90. But this is not the majority. Most people, even the “love my work!” diehards want to give it up at some stage of their lives in favor of fly fishing or bird watching (no insult intended: I would right now love to watch birds; I don’t know the first thing about birds, but it seems like a fine activity, as long as it does not include watching crows, see post March 9).

My father was forced to retire early, prior to when he would have considered himself ready (age: not even 60); my mother began a “career” of sorts when she decided to learn word processing – this was when she was approximately 70. She quit when she felt she couldn’t take one more winter in Wisconsin, forcing a move to warmer places at the age of 78.

Today, the WashPost (here) reported the following: “Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who will turn 80 this year, acknowledges that he is thinking about retirement. But he will not say when that might come.” That’s a hint that it might come soon, isn’t it? The article states further that Justice Rehnquisit is not the oldest member of the Court. Justice Stevens will turn 84 this year.

I am impressed. But also, I am a little nervous about it all. There are the mental alacrity issues to worry about, sure, but there are also the human dimensions. Who should make decisions of this magnitude, the justices (professors, popes) who have passed the point where the issue would have any impact on their lives? Surely at some point the act of stepping down is more admirable than staying put.

Thanks, Madison Police

I take back my friendly notes on your warm and fuzzy approach to helping those in trouble (see post below, March 7). You are MEAN! I have a crippled car. Shattered glass is lodged in the pavement around it’s wounded body. The sole comfort it receives is from the heartening rays of the WARM SPRING SUN. Emphasis should be on SPRING SUN, because there is not a trace of snow on the ground and I want to believe we are seasonally there. Call me an optimist, but the weather is on my side and the daffodil tips are clearly visible underneath the birch tree.

But in the eyes of the Madison police, we are in a chilly frosty cold spell of a “hit you in the gut” way of life, and a calendar that says “nope, no spring yet.”

Okay, have it your way. I will pay the $10 ticket you stuck in the broken-down-in-spirit-and-in-form little Corolla. We didn’t move her to the other side of the street last night. She needed a rest. We thought you’d understand. Obviously not, mean-spirited cops that you are.

Snail news

My Polish friend and reader asks if I knew of the fact that the Slow Food organization now has a Polish chapter. I did not. But my respect for the work of this group is monstrously huge, and I was thrilled that Poles were grouping together to revive an interest in growing, producing and eating foods with attention and respect for tradition, taste and natural ingredients. My friend described some of the intriguing ways of crafting (Polish) quality foods (for example: making sour pickles in barrels dunked in a river). It would be great fun to see this. Next time.

In the meantime, moving back to this side of the ocean, let me quote from a favorite website, SlowFood.com, where I found this note on the Coppola wines:

Sofia Coppola toasted her Best Screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation with the trendy new wine in Hollywood, Sofia Blanc de Blancs. This sparkling wine had its official debut on February 29 at the Oscar parties. It is composed of 70% pinot blanc, 20% sauvignon blanc and 10% muscat canelli and is made by Frances Ford Coppola’s winery, Niebaum-Coppola Winery in Napa Valley. A bottle costs $19, but the wine also comes packaged in single serving magenta pink cans with a straw attached, called the Sofia Mini, sold for $20 per box of four.

The Sofia Mini sounds too odd. And it hardly is fitting for a Slow Food temperament: sparkling wine out of a can, with a straw? Thumbs down!

Ter ror ism and birthdays

As you can see from the title, I have reached new levels of google paranoia.

Yesterday I attended a fascinating lecture on Europe’s reaction to nine slash eleven. The speaker contrasted the UK and Germany and attempted to find explanations for the differences in the national alert strategies adopted in these two countries. The UK has implemented a vast array of anti-ter ror measures that extend well beyond what was in place in Northern Ireland at the heyday of its period of violence (I always think that the current political climate in Ireland is a forgotten Clinton legacy). Germany, for perhaps obvious reasons, is treading with greater care, putting civil liberties on the table each time a new measure is proposed.

Having this talk fresh in my mind, I was interested to read a comment in the International Herald Tribune today about some of our own (US), less talked of anti-ter rorist measures. Let me reprint the humorous-in-a-dark-sort-of-way article here (copyright caveat: you can pick up the text on the Net here), because I know that most readers don’t bother following links (I speak from my own experience)—it is written by a retired correspondent living in England:

LONDON: My mother had a birthday coming up, and she loves English cookies. So we boxed up a selection, all under the irreproachable Duchy Originals hallmark of Prince Charles's Prince's Trust, and set out to mail them to Massachusetts.
.
The woman at the Post Office wanted to know if they were home-made cookies. If they were home-made, we could have just sent them. But since they were bought, we would have to go through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It's part of the war on ter rorism, you see. She referred us to a Web site: www.access.fda.gov.
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"FDA industry systems," the site proclaims. Created "in response to the Bioter rorism Act of 2002."
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Can this daunting rubric accommodate Cookies for Mom? I have my doubts. But I'm relieved to find a four-page section, "Sending Food Gifts Through International Mail."
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It quotes the rulebook: You can send foreign food gifts if you warn the Food and Drug Administration in advance and get a Prior Notice Number to put on the package.
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"Who is authorized to submit prior notice?" it asks, rhetorically. "A prior notice for an article of food may be submitted by any person with knowledge of the required information. This person is the submitter."
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Resigned to going through the same rigmarole as someone shipping a freighterload of Duchy Originals, I pull up the five-page "Prior Notice of Imported Foods."
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I get my account number and password, and start applying online for a Prior Notice Number. As I turn in my submitter information, I'm stopped. The system doesn't like something.
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Rejected, I send an e-mail to Help, and two days later a woman apologizes for the problem and asks for my account ID and password so it can be researched. I send those, and I hear back that it's going to their "test environment." Please allow two to three business days.
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Meanwhile I decide to try again on the submitter information. Now I can't even get to where I was before! Can the Food and Drug Administration have learned what I'm thinking of it?
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The Help woman says: "No one else has reported this problem. Try restarting your computer."
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I do that, and again I'm turned away.
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Has anyone got a recipe for home-made shortbread?

Lawyers who write on the side

I met a lawyer today who is a mystery writer on the side. That seems almost mundane and therefore uninteresting, but just to get your attention, I was told that he is the winner of the Poe prize for the best new mystery short story of the year. This not insignificant accomplishment clearly impressed ME and so he gave me his card. I was going to look him up once I got home, but then I noticed that the card was (mistakenly?) actually that of an insurance agent in California. So what now? Track him down to let him know that I have the number of the person he needs to call for his insurance question? I looked up the award winners on google for the past several years and none of them sound like they might have been him.

The thing is, I had a very interesting conversation on the art of short story writing. If I find out that this is not based in reality, because the guy is really a fake, then are some of my thoughts on writing, formed during this talk, suddenly less valid?

Audacious emails, pt. 1

This new feature will give you an idea of the type of people who write to me. I’m not talking about blog reader email and I’m not talking about spam – i.e. email generated by the truckload to anonymous addresses—I’m talking about email sent to ME PERSONALLY. Of course, I will protect the confidentiality of senders. As I said, I do not make things up on the weblog [yes, the “triplets of Bellville” post (March 8) is true—subsequently I decided that this person simply must like the feel of all those “ll” sounds rolling off the tongue]. In posting a message, I wont tamper with grammar or style. I will, however, change names and facts slightly because 1. I’m a nice person and 2. I don’t want to get sued.

Email message (A):

My ex wife kidnapped my son 4 yrs ago. She fled to Austria with him. My son is now 10yrs old. Last year was the first time she allowed me visitation with him (in Austria). She has sole custody of him in Austria. I have custody of him in the U.S. She said if I change the court papers here stating she has custody of him in the US she would allow him to come for a visit here in a few months. Is there an easy and inexpensive way I can change the court documents so they would be vague but state that she has custody and I have visitation rights? When my son arrives here I would of course want to wipe it out so it’s back to my having sole custody. Please if you could help me I would deeply appreciate it. Or if you know of one of your students that could help me out with the paper work....or what ever you could do. I am very desperate and don't have much time to take care of this.

I should have replied thus: So let me get this straight: you’re asking a law prof and students, future illustrious members of the legal profession, to help you figure out a way to “adjust” court records so that their “message” would be fake but look real? And you want me to do this quickly and with little expectation of getting anything for my illegal and immoral acts, with the exception of possibly a criminal charge that’ll land me in jail along with homicidal drunk-drivers and convicted drug felons? If your ex siphoned money from a bank, would you write a prof in the business school asking for help so that you could do the same? I’m not denying that child kidnapping is a tremendous problem among divorced parents. But your devious plot, leading to the “recapture” of your son (possibly a lynching party, to go after your ex later on?) sounds like a BAD IDEA that should be PUT TO REST.
Copied to: Board of Professional Responsibility with a Post-it saying: “please put this in my file as evidence of the fact that I am a morally and legally upright attorney, that I do not take bribes and I turn away potential clients who ask me to do illegal acts. Thanks, NC”