I can't get used to how different it feels to write for the blog and to do any other sort of writing. You'd think writing so much here would build up my capacity to tap out the words at will for any purpose. But it's not so. I try telling myself to pretend it's just a blog post. But it's always different.
Perhaps it has something to do with deadlines. With blogging, there's just another time stamp, and you never know when the next one will appear... though you do have a very strong feeling that something needs to go up in the morning.... like this one, which I'm putting here just before I withdraw into my deadline-meeting cocoon.
Meanwhile, check out this heading, which startled me this morning. Fortunately, I'm holed up out here in Madison, Wisconsin, so no Cambridge posse can reach me. I am picturing Harvardians cursing me, but I can't hear them out here. Yes, of course, they can blog about me... Well, let them try. I need more material today.
Anyway, as I've said, I've got to curl up inside that deadline-meeting cocoon, so let me declare this post a coffeehouse -- an Alt-coffee-house -- and let all you thirsty readers talk about whatever you like. You can even confess to crimes in the hope that the authorities will come and serve you paté and prawns.
August 21, 2006
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23 comments:
So, who saw Mother-f#@$*^$ Snakes on a Mother-f#@$*^$ Plane this weekend? What did you think? And do you wish there had been snakes on this flight?
The weather in Madison was too breathtakingly wonderful to hide oneself in a movie house. Movies are for snowy evenings, too-hot-to-breathe summer days, or rainy afternoons.
There is far too much press on the confessed killer. How is what he ate in any way interesting? The only telling tidbit I heard was that he primped for 30 minutes before deplaning. I'm ready for my closeup now.
You did, indeed, slay him. I truly do appreciate being able to get a law professor's "take" on events of the day. Especially since I don't have the lawyer's (or law student's) access to law reviews. And with what I've read here and at Voloch, nobody really wants to read law review articles anyway.
Hey, I'm ready for the Samuel L. Jackson - Scarlett Johannson ticket in Ought Eight! Who wouldn't want to see Sam at the UN saying things like, "Normally, both your asses would be dead as fried chicken, but I'm in a transitional period and I don't want to have to kill you."
and SJ? Much, MUCH more preferably than Elmer Fudd-like renegade hunters, or all-too-Krispy-Kremy ambulance chasing attornies. All age-related objections -- overruled! I start watching her vote in the Senate on CSPAN more...
The ad campaign alone...
People stare into camera, repeatedly saying, "Sam Jackson? He's my bad M*F*!", with the last one being Mr. Starr, and then Sam comes on to say, "I'm tryin' real hard, Ringo."
What do get instead? John Kerry...
Sorry, Icepick, I'm still convinced that Mother-f#@$*^$ Snakes on a Mother-f#@$*^$ Plane is a gigantic hoax. I bet that after the opening credits there's a shot of Samuel L. Jackson sitting in director's chair, wearing a beret and smoking a cigar. And he says something like this:
F#@$*^$ you, you ignorant mother-f#@$*^$. We got your f#@$*^$ing money and we're not f#@$*^$ing giving it back. So just sit the f#@$*^$ down, shut the f#@$*^$ up, and watch Amos and Andrew.
Those who saw it are either part of the conspiracy or too embarrassed to admit they are that gullible. Me? Nope, not falling for it.
A snippet from one of the Dispatches from the "Little-Pitchers-Have-Big-Ears" front:
"Have you adults taken care of the terrorists yet?" "What?!?" "XX [referring to a little friend] told me they use snakes, too." ...
No "Mother-f#@$*^$" involved in the conversation (except for inside my head), thank goodness for small favors.
First grade started today. I can see it's going to be an interesting year.
Ann the Lawprof Slayer. Like Buffy only way smarter!
No Snakes here. World Trade Center. Very well done.
For Snakes Fans - Send someone a message from Samuel L. Jackson.
Hey, everyone's shooting for a spot on the masthead this morning.
...
Back to my cocoon...
With one hour to go on the deadline, which I belatedly realized referred to Eastern not Central time.
So very nice to come back from a week of vacation without email and internet to see Ann had quite properly taken care of business.
Good work by her and many commenters.
Wait, in Clue, you don't name the victim, but the murderer. So, it should be: Professor Althouse, on the blog, with the post.
I threw in the "Professor" in honor of Plum.
The post looks a lot like the lead pipe.
Bill, I find your lack of faith ... disturbing....
Not a coffee house. Coffee houses are too trendy. So are those little yuppie cafes.
I want to go back to the soda fountain. Pop Schneider's or Pop Schnellmans.
Pop Althouse's ?????
That was a wonderful time in life, where you could walk into the soda shop and sit at the counter, browse the magazines, or sample a new lipstick shade. Kindly, old Pop Schneider would come and make small-talk.
Every time someone came through the door, the little bell would ring. You'd always see people you knew, who'd rustle up a stool and sit at the counter with you.
Lana Turner waiting to be discoverd.
Ann: In these little yuppie cafes you frequent, are there any starlets sitting there waiting to be discovered, ....like at the soda fountains of yesteryear ???
No comparison.
Peace, Maxine
Althouse Clue: I say it's the troll in coffeehouse with the IED.
Snakes on a Plane was excellent. (And it's hard to get me to say that about a movie.) I was excited about it, and it was better than I thought it would be. Very funny (on purpose).
Fantastic recent rental: Brick
Tomorrow August 22 is the end-of-the-world.
According to the Muslum/Islamic (all the same to me) calendar.
Happy Doomsday Eve, everyone!
Yawn, wake me when it's over.
Peace, Maxine
If tomorrow is Doomsday then I am NOT setting the alarm clock tonight.
But tomorrow just can't be the End Time. My best suit is at the cleaners - I'd have nothing to wear for the occasion!
Hey, I like the Ale-house idea! Might not be as good for generating blog topics, coherently, in any case.
Burkean Reflections
August 22? Off by a week. I assure you all, August 29 is the anniversary of Doomsday.
I don't think it's the deadlines that make the difference (a difference that I experience all the time too). I think it's spontaneous vs. planned structure -- preconceiving a sequence of thoughts that you then feel assigned or obligated or sentenced to replicate in the real world. It might be the very same structure of ideas that you'd informally and spontaneously write from in a blog post, but there's something daunting and artificial about working from a mental plan. (It can also be more deeply satisfying when it works -- maybe just because of the difficulty and then the relief, or maybe it's puritanism -- you've EARNED it.)
VW: bhlutibg
Amba: The other side of that is the way you feel kind of guilty about blogging. Am I doing something wrong? I used to feel really clandestine about it. And some commenters play on that, saying shouldn't you, a law professor, be working on a law review article. Larry Tribe was playing into that guilt with his recent blog post about criticizing Judge Taylor.
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