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November 30, 2008
A China business snapshot.
See The World Bank's December 2008 Quarterly Update. Via China Law Blog.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2008
Mumbai
IHT (Paris ed.): Standoff in Mumbai Down to One Hotel.
WSJ: FBI Sends Agents to Mumbai.
Washington Post (op-ed:) Mumbai May Derail India-Pakistan Peace Progress.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2008
Anti-Client Remark of the Century.
"We" versus "Them"--and clients not even part of the equation. Anti-client, clueless and--but we'll be charitable and stop there. In response to Legal Blog Watch's post "Should Firms Cut Bonuses in Response to Clients?", the first comment was:
Associates don't share in the good times the way partners do, so why should they suffer in the bad times? The answer is not to cut associate bonuses, but to cut profits per partner.
"Jesus, Beavis, get over it. The partner guys--who work for those client guys--will always stiff us."
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
Formerly Known As a privilege, an honor, a trust: Lawyering.
The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die. With apologies to Uncle Ted's writer of the 1980 speech, we refer here to the search for Value to Clients. We do revel in a fleeting glimpse of it now and then. More on clients, hard work, marginal work, associate bonuses, real life and common sense at David Giacalone's always superb and thoughtful f/k/a... See "Smart Clients Care About Bonuses and Marketplace 'Value'". He gives you all the parts, and then puts it all together himself.
"I showed. I suffered. Pay me."
Alternate universe: no one loses, everyone gets a trophy.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 09:51 PM | Comments (1)
November 22, 2008
U.S. News & World Report: "The best schools in the world"?
'Hyperbole' means what? Should Dartmouth College (no. 54), just behind University of Wisconsin-Madison (no. 55), wish to lodge an appeal, we're available for a song. Call us, James Wright. According to USN&WR, of the 200 "best" colleges and universities "in the world", the "Top 25" are:
1. Harvard (U.S.)
2. Yale (U.S.)
3. Cambridge (U.K.)
4. Oxford (U.K.)
5. Cal Tech (U.S.)
6. Imperial College London (U.K.)
7. University College London (U.K.)
8. Chicago (U.S.)
9. MIT (U.S.)
10. Columbia (U.S.)
11. Penn (U.S.)
12. Princeton (U.S.)
13. Duke (U.S.)
14. Johns Hopkins (U.S.)
15. Cornell (U.S.)
16. Australian National University (Australia)
17. Stanford (U.S.)
18. Michigan (U.S.)
19. Tokyo (Japan)
20. McGill (Canada)
21. Carnegie Mellon (U.S.)
22. King's College London (U.K.)
23. Edinburgh (U.K.)
24. ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
25. Kyoto (Japan)
(Photo: Universal Studios)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2008
"I'm good enough, smart enough, close enough."
Forget your politics. Norm Coleman isn't fun. And Franken's (gulp) just smarter than Norm, when Al is calm. Finally, this Minnesota U.S. Senate race annoys the right people. Think of it as a cattle prod. The Hill: "Franken narrows Coleman lead in Recount".
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
In any year, just firms--not sophisticated clients--should care about associate bonuses.
Permanently Happy Useful Associates are the rarer younger lawyers you paid higher bonuses to who are straight-up kick-ass, energetic and mega-talented wunderkinds you can't practice law without; you want to be partners with them some day. They did better than their peers at work. ("I like the cut of your jib, Sally.")
Three days ago, Above The Law drew more than its usual avalanche of comments on Kashmir Hill's "Associate Bonus Watch Warning: Outlook Bleak", as part of the ongoing never-ending comment-generating "Bonus Fest" slew of posts that's keeping that blog busy. (We don't know how much Kash, Elie and David get paid, but these days, it's not enough.) Anyway, in Tuesday's post:
With the dismal economy and the frequency of law firm layoffs, we speculated last month that regular bonuses may be less than last year, and special bonuses would likely disappear. The New York Law Journal agrees with us, and suggests two other reasons for it:
The scale of the expense and the almost compulsory nature of the market are widely resented by partners. But they also realize bonuses play a huge role in associate morale, recruitment and retention. Most managing partners who spoke to the Law Journal about bonuses cited potential problems with associates in requesting anonymity. But this year they all also mentioned another interest group keeping a watchful eye on bonuses: clients.
The comments to Tuesday's post--mostly from associates at larger firms--are fascinating because at first blush many of them reflect an angry sense of entitlement (yeah, it's overused but useful here) to year-end big money without any, well, basis--i.e., and we paraphrase, "I'm here, Big Papa, so pay me."
[We did like this one: "I deserve to make $200k or more because I'm one of the smartest and hardest-working people in this country." Call us, dude. And this one: "Bonus? You guys are lucky to have jobs." Friend, we'll buy you a drink.]
So ATL also asks in the post, what about clients? Should great clients care about associate bonuses this year--this evil and financially difficult one of 2008--more than any other year?
The answer: absolutely not.
Unless this happens: clients begin to perceive that bonuses paid to associates in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and will be paid again for 2008, reflected something other than actual value-added or superior associate performances. In short, in any year, firms didn't: (a) pay great associates great bonuses commensurate with the firm's overall performance, (b) pay marginal or bad associates little or nothing (or get them to leave), and (c) reward everyone else accordingly as they stack up on the scale in between "great" and "marginal".
Any other regime or system--except maybe if you live in Cuba, and really really like living there--sends the wrong message to everyone.
Back to entitlement theory. No wonder there are almost no attempts at even bad arguments in the comments in support of "why I get my being-there bonus". The "compulsory nature" (NYLJ) of the bonuses make you side with the associates. Why be grateful, or have to make an argument for, something you thought you'd get whether you were any good at your job or not, or whether you were "getting lawyering" quicker than Wendell down the hall, the clueless Law Review editor from Cornell Law with big grades, and absolutely "no engine" for practicing law?
"Just being-there" bonuses tells the whole world--not just your clients--that your law firm values "talent retention", crowd control and morale in the associate ranks over common sense economics and the kind of things clients think about: reward, punishment, incentive, efficiency, penny-pinching in good times and bad. Hey, this is still America; you reward performance, you give incentives for doing great work in the future, and you stiff people who didn't perform (but still hold out that carrot).
And a profit is still a reward for being efficient; you need to protect it, and keep being efficient with it. It's not something you spread around like a demented old sea captain buying everyone hooch at the end of the voyage to celebrate good fortune. You don't dole it out without a metric or a standard in mind. Query: Also, partners, think about the details of your current bonus program. What kind of money managers are your associates going to be as partners, once they are steeped a few years in the program at your firm?
Have law firms been thinking that way in past recent years? Probably not. WAC? thinks that, generally, the best law firms in the world need to re-think how to compensate even some very talented associates, especially those in their first couple of years (they don't know much of anything--and they can rarely do much of anything.)
To sum up: Clients getting ragged off at associate bonuses in view of the rotten economy? Nah, we don't see it. In fact just the opposite: in good times and bad, you pay extra to your good people as a reward to them and incentive to others. But across the board? No, we don't see that either--good year or bad--but we don't suspect that firms will give up the practice of "being there" bonuses any time soon--even after 2008. Yearly bonuses, given no-matter-what, should make anyone sane nuts, crazy, twisted, Flip City, in short order. Give the firms time to get properly and routinely tight with money, which they should have done all along.
If they do not, clients are going to have problems with that--and with "being there" associate pay generally--in good economies and bad ones.
Value, anyone?
Temporarily Happy "I'm-here-so-pay-me" Associates are younger lawyers who got Being There bonuses; you have no earthly idea why you ever pay them anything. ("Hey, Justin, go away, grow up.")
(Photos: M. Shulman/20th Cent. Fox., M. Judge/El Greco)
Posted by JD Hull at 01:26 AM | Comments (3)
November 19, 2008
Law students have an International Day?
Blawg Review #186. Yes, really. It was Monday, two days ago, and WAC? of course looks dimly upon celebrating the birth of yet more global law cattle--all self-esteem and no work ethic--who in twenty years will rock back and forth in their chairs mumbling "I am so totally way special". But the host of Blawg Review this week at Res Ipsa Blog gathers facts and writes well, for a lawyer, or for a law student, for that matter. Which he apparently is. Besides, he's a law student in Texas. We do love Texans. A good Texan regularly will say and do things other humans just get nervous about.
Meeting of local insurance defense bar, young lawyer division, 2004
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:43 PM | Comments (6)
November 18, 2008
Chuck Newton: "Sir, your electronic cottage is here."
Your future office may well be a "shed", and Texas-based Chuck Newton at Chuck Newton Rides The Third Wave makes it sound a lot more appealing than, say, your digs at Washington Square in downtown D.C., Pittsburgh's U.S. Steel Tower or the Generic Dweeb Office Building in Every Town, USA. Behold "Shed Work Might Be A Solution For Many Work-At-Home Lawyer Hopefuls". You could get a lot done in one of these--if you can just keep your family and friends out of it.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 03:06 AM | Comments (1)
November 17, 2008
The Economist: Obama, Eastern Europe and Russia.
See "Looking West, Hopefully". The President-elect is popular and "has juice" in most of mainstream Europe. He presumably wants to keep that. What, if anything, would the Obama administration do to promote the political and economic autonomy of eastern European nations? Will the new administration "fight hard for greater European independence from Russia’s monopoly of east-west gas pipelines"?
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2008
The popularly elected judiciary.
U.S. Supreme Court grants cert. in Harman Mining-Massey Energy state judge campaign contribution case; but it's not just a West Virginia thing. In the 1980s and 1990s, I frequently defended "Big Coal" (often on ERISA withdrawal liability matters), and for some fine West Virginia-based clients, which I admired and fought hard for. Unions were usually the plaintiffs. My firm was lucky to stay out of state courts in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and always could work in federal courts, usually in D.C. where, frankly, the judges are better, and classier, than any court pocket I've practiced in. D.C. federal judges "get it", and the law is important to them. Even the D.C. Superior Court judges are appointed on the basis of merit--by the U.S. President--and that more local, "state-like" system works, too.
Sadly, elected state court judges--just acting like humans will eventually act in flawed and medieval systems--is a big topic here at What About Clients? Even good elected judges are bad for good clients. But few believe that American states will abolish any time soon judicial systems which popularly elect judges (a majority of states do this)--or even act a little embarrassed every now and then about this widespread practice. Optimistic WAC? is pessimistic about abolishing elected-judges systems. But there is hope. See at Bloomberg Judicial Campaign Contributions Get U.S. Supreme Court Hearing. Excerpt: "The Supreme Court has never found that the Constitution's due process clause requires recusal because of the appearance created by a judge's campaign contributions."
Popular election of state court judges is perhaps the legacy of tribal and agricultural systems where some guy in the village gets elected to hear and decide, or otherwise resolve, a very local and petty dispute or fistfight over rights to a horse, grazing land, food supply, woman or a dog. In a post-industrial, cross-border and complex society, it is no longer needed.
Posted by JD Hull at 09:06 PM | Comments (1)
November 14, 2008
Princess Hillary of Foggy Bottom?
So Hillary Clinton, who I have always liked, and I might soon be neighbors, sort of.
The State Department in Washington, D.C sits on its haunches on 22nd and C, Northwest, a few blocks south of the the official WAC? birthplace on 23rd and H. There, just off Washington Circle, at the edge of the West End, and every single Friday evening about 5:45, my astral twin lurks, and hunts for cabs to go east to Kelly's Irish Times near Georgetown Law. Or scouts out interesting women walking west (those woman are never headed to Kelly's). Every single day, the other twin misses D.C. like the perfect friend and lover who got away.
But Hillary Clinton is interesting enough, even if not our long lost love. And she's smart, even though she greatly annoys, to put it mildly, many of our firm's client reps--who are not likely to read this blog, especially on Friday evenings. We (the twins) will accept her into our Foggy Bottom 'hood. The Huffington Post, which is wonderful even when it's wrong, says that "Officials: Obama Offered Clinton Secretary Of State".
Foggy Bottom: People buy homes near WAC? birthplace.
New Haven: People plot careers at State.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2008
Your boss wants a word with you: GC Value Challenge (cont.)
So you guys were serious about that, huh? If outside law firms couldn't figure it out for themselves, the ACC offered to explain it to us last month, after a meeting the in-house group held in late September in DC. In his weekly thought piece, Jim Hassett writes about it, sans the usual shameless pandering often displayed when corporate lawyer-bloggers (WAC? for example) seize on an issue they know GCs love and champion: "ACC’s Value Challenge (Part 1)".
Forget about how you bill. Focus on what you are adding on each project. But what's the incentive for that, you ask, when you can just "feed the monster" in a series of one-night stands? A: Long-term relationships with companies you want to keep as clients. For once, though, don't listen to What About Clients? Pay attention to your boss. A springboard for working Value Challenge ideas can be found at the ACC website. Folks, they're serious.
Diogenes of Sinope searches for honest, value-focused, counsel. J.H.W. Tischbein (c. 1780).
Posted by JD Hull at 08:15 PM | Comments (2)
Franken-Coleman update: Just lawyering up for the Holidays.
Yesterday's Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Getting All Lawyered Up for Senate Recount
By Kevin Duchschere
The U.S. Senate recount will ensure a hectic holiday season for lawyers, scores of whom are expected to be deployed across Minnesota by the Coleman and Franken campaigns in the weeks ahead to monitor the counting and to prepare for a possible post-recount challenge. [more]
Posted by JD Hull at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2008
Action Item: In FY 2009, get nicer narcissists on Executive Committee.
Refer please to your DSM-IV. Respected global law firm consultant Altman Weil reports a finding (of sorts) that millions of people have known--under various rubrics, and in many languages--for thousands of years about leaders, doers, movers and shakers in other contexts. It's that "Narcissists with Big Egos Lead Many Law Firms". To be fair, AW realizes that the solution is, in effect, to get better narcissists. But there is another happy spot in the report--well, for WAC?, anyway. We were heartened that the ABA Journal article summarizing the report notes that such "nonreflective" and insensitive law firm leaders may directly cause "high lateral partner movement and high attrition among younger lawyers for whom money and status are not primary motivators." (Guys, please be serious. That's a bad thing?)
John William Waterhouse's "Echo and Narcissus" (1903)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)
Return of the Alpha Ds: Howard Dean, MD.
The 50-state strategy. DNC Chairman Howard Dean, the 2004 presidential candidate and ex-governor of Vermont, can take a lot of credit for Obama's big win last week--if people will only let him. See "Obama's Debt to Howard Dean" by Mike Madden at Salon.com.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2008
Circuit City: Down, and not likely to get up.
Financial Times: The Richmond, Virginia-based Fortune 500 company, the second largest electronics retailer, files under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Owes HP and Sony a bundle, too. For what it's worth, Circuit City was a leader in spectacularly lame CS at every store we "studied". Lethargy, and GenY-led apathy raised to high art, really jumped out at you. We're not that sad. Bonus bummer: most stores will operate through the holidays.
Circuit City employees keep on working anyway.
Art: M. Judge/MTV
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (1)
November 07, 2008
America to Germany: "We'll show you something green".
Hermann the German reports that Germans are mad at the U.S. again. After Germany's brief honeymoon with the two-day old Obama-Biden new America, foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed serious misgivings about President-elect Obama’s sincerity on environmental issues, "thus gently ushering in the next era of Germany’s unfortunate but necessary disillusionment with America."
According to Hermann, the Obama camp's response was very Yank-like:
An unofficial spokesman for the President-elect said the new administration will most certainly examine Herr Steinmeier’s suggestion very thoroughly and quite intensely but for the moment “We got your new green deal for you right here, pal.”
Germans, tree-loving pagans and wariors of the woods, have a thing about "green". Armnius, hero of Germany, led a coalition of Germanic tribes to victory in 9 AD over a Roman army of Augustus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Centuries later, Martin Luther, legend has it, got tipsy and nicknamed Armnius "Hermann the German".
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Keeping Clients and Customers: Why not compete on "Ease-of-Use"?
If the following seems like a previous post, you are right. We'll keep publishing a version of it until "Ease-of-Use" as a term of art/catch phrase replaces "Customer Service". WAC? is convinced that "Customer Service" throws people, bores people or renders them straight-up Numb...
What if the Services Sector, now King, competed for clients and customers on the basis of "Ease-of-Use"?
Develop and apply ease-of-use concepts for products and goods to pure services? Our clients' services? Our services? Law. Accounting. Consulting. Advertising. Newer and non-traditional services, too. Anything where a service (something valuable but "invisible") or product-service mix is part of what you pay for. In other words, pretty much Everything these days--and the direction global markets now march, in good and bad times.
Consider for a moment just products. In 2006, The Folgers Coffee Company was awarded an Ease-of-Use Commendation by the Arthritis Foundation for its AromaSeal™ Canister. If you're a Folgers® drinker, you notice that Folgers® added an easy-to-peel tin freshness seal (no need for a can-opener), a new "snap-tight" lid and even a grip on its plastic red can.
Folgers® did it for coffee cans. IBM and CISCO have ease-of-use programs for the products they sell.
The great companies many of us represent do spend money and expertise on making their goods, equipment and products usable. Think about your car, your luggage, your TV remote (well, strike that one), your watch and even grips on household tools. Think about Apple, Dell and Microsoft. Each year they think through your experience with their products and try to make it better. Continuous improvement models for "things."
Develop and apply ease-of-use concepts to pure services? Our clients' services? Our services? Sure, why not?
It's probably coming anyway, even while it will be infinitely harder to do for services than for products. WAC? has noted before that even corporate clients that sell goods see themselves as selling solutions and not products. In 2004, services sold alone or as support features to the sale of goods and products accounted for over 65% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the US, 50% of the United Kingdom's GDP and 90% of Hong Kong's. Even products sold by IBM and CISCO, now chiefly service companies, are part of a services-products mix in which the services component is the main event.
Law firms, of course, have always sold services. And we are a small but powerful engine in the growth of the services sector. We strategize with and guide big clients every day. While that's all going on--day in and day out--what is it like for the client to work with you and yours? Are clients experiencing a team--or hearing and seeing isolated acts by talented but soul-less techies? Do you make reports and communications short, easy and to the point? Who gets copied openly so clients don't have to guess about who knows what? Is it fun (yeah, we just said "fun") to work with your firm? How are your logistics for client meetings, travel and lodging? Do you make life easier? Or harder? Are you accessible 24/7? In short, aside from the technical aspects of your service (i.e., the client "is safe"), do your clients "feel safe"?
What if law firms--or any other service provider for that matter--"thought through," applied and constantly improved the delivery of our services and how clients really experience them?
And then competed on it...?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
Obama-Biden on international law and policy.
The DC-based American Society of International Law (ASIL) has compiled the policy statements of President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden on international law-related matters. The statements also include Obama’s response to an ASIL survey.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2008
"The Globalization of the Legal Profession"
See Empirical Legal Studies, an interdisciplinary law prof site, and the upcoming HLS conference mentioned.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Our vote for White House Chief of Staff.
It's Chicago North Side Congressman, boy wonder and pit bull Rahm Emanuel, former White House staffer, and from the most amazing and increasingly-celebrated batch of Chicago kids in one family you could dream up. See Washingtonion.com. Emanuel has the added advantage of not being a lawyer. He swears wonderfully, we hear--maybe better than the famously irreverent Ben Bradlee, former Washington Post editor. He has never even heard of Work-Life Balance, or thinks it's a foo-foo drink you can order in Lincoln Park. Openly rude to slackers. And wonderfully un-PC. Democrats badly need a guy like that. We hear Obama has offered and he will accept. This is fun. Pinch us.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)
Minnesota U.S. Senate race: Recount over 725 votes.
I'm good enough, smart enough, close enough. Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Recount: The Coleman-Franken brawl drags on".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2008
The Complete Lawyer is now Global.
It's a New Day, and this morning America, as well as the World, welcomes new leaders. And a new issue of the Atlanta-based The Complete Lawyer is out. Several authors, writing on lawyering for clients in Mexico, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Greater China, are lawyers with law firms that are members of the invitation-only International Business Law Consortium. The IBLC is based in Salzburg, Austria, and was established in 1996.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
November 4, 2008: All Americans win.
So America is built to last after all. Even if, like me, you didn't vote for Barack Obama, you're a winner if you voted. John McCain is a great man, and not that different ideologically from Obama. But the win for Obama, our first black commander-in-chief, is a great moment for the United States--that aggressive young country which could never square ideals with reality. Let time put my reservations about President-elect Obama to rest. Everybody won, and the candidates we saw over the last two years who lost party nods were the best crop I've seen in my lifetime. America still has political talent. The process still works, however imperfectly. We still fight in the open air. Yes, I preferred one of "my lot", Hillary Clinton, to be president, and yes I voted for McCain. But even the Clintons must feel pride today. I do.
The Winner
Sore losers--yet somehow happy about it. So sue us.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2008
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and I may soon be a U.S. Senator."
From pizza to field staff, from lawn signs to phone lines, a campaign costs a lot of money. We could try asking the pharmaceutical companies and Big Oil for big checks, but somehow we don't think they're going to help.
From Al Franken for U.S. Senate, Minnesota, via yesterday's e-mail from his campaign re: "The last (and best) fundraising email of the campaign".
Franken, a liberal Democrat, is an ex-SNL writer-player, Harvard graduate, actor, funnyman, author and broadcaster, with a talented daughter and Renaissance woman WAC? has big crush on. Both Franken and Minnesota first-term Senator Norm Coleman (Franken's polar opposite in all respects) are spending serious fortunes on the race. Franken may win today, too.
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and I have a shot at Norm Coleman's Senate seat."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2008
Got any money left?
Election 2008: Summary of Federal Campaign Contribution Limits. State of California, too.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Voting, stepping up and America.
No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
--Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
For most of us, given the apparent complexity of the world, universe and whatever else is out there, there aren't many absolute principles in play these days. But here's one: All Americans who can vote should vote, even if--as I am doing tomorrow--you are holding your nose and voting for the "least objectionable alternative." The American vote is a special and very hard won thing.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
November 02, 2008
Studs Terkel (1912-2008)
He was a writer, journalist, interviewer, broadcaster, oral history pioneer, Pulitzer Prize winner, UC-educated lawyer who never practiced, part-time actor (query: what famous movie about baseball did he have a big role in?) and Chicago's main Renaissance man. He died Friday home in Chicago at age 96. If you are an American under 60 and don't know who he is, or have never heard of him, feel free to sue the secondary schools and colleges you attended.
Posted by JD Hull at 06:37 PM | Comments (1)
November 01, 2008
Underground in Buenos Aires.
The first time I went to Buenos Aires was seven years ago. I was bowled over and charmed silly by my host and IBLC friend of 10 years, the talented Daniel Roque Vitolo--who it seems everyone all over the world knows, and who knows everyone--and also by the spirit and physical beauty of the people. Yes. Color me shallow, but the humans who live in the city are both engaging and gorgeous in a natural way--with minds, hearts, bodies and faces truly informed by ideas, cultures, tribes and races from all over the world.
The second time I went, I wanted to live and work there--with thoughts of perhaps breeding a bit in my spare time, and certainly eating only beef three meals a day, which is apparently good for you after all. If I go a third time, I may not make it back to the States. Yank lawyer Evan Schaeffer of The Legal Underground is there now with his family (and law firm) for a month-long stay in this thoroughly cosmopolitan city. Don't miss his reporting and photography. Yesterday was Part 6. Bravo, sir, you captured the excitement of you and yours in the City of Borges.
E. Schaeffer photo: Recoleta
D. Hull: Mystery Person, Spring 2002
Posted by JD Hull at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
Just Otis
"...got got got to now now now got got got to try a little tenderness..."
Hey we be duck walkin' in Palo Alto. Watch the young woman, who'd be about 60 now, midway through the clip. When was the last time you were moved by anything, Jack?
"Got got got got got got got got got got got got got got got got..."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:15 PM | Comments (1)