« June 2023 | Main | August 2023 »
July 31, 2023
Let's Rethink It: Ordeal By Water
Posted by JD Hull at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2023
Bring Back Real Women.
Ms. Parker Posey
Posted by JD Hull at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
Hitler: The Bunny Years
Posted by JD Hull at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2023
162 pages, Harper, 2011
Posted by JD Hull at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2023
St. Thomas Episcopal
I’m not religious. But I like churches. Inside and out. Mainly, the architecture. But also the hope held out. The notion of “sanctuary.” The beliefs of centuries that inspired each one. The endless constellation of them everywhere you go in the Western world, under the radar, and unnoticed, until needed. Washington, DC’s depth/density in the number and variety of Christian churches is second only to Europe’s great cities. This is north corner door of St. Thomas Episcopal, built 1875. S and 16th, N.W. It took me about 3 decades of passing it at least weekly before noticing it.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2023
Satire is Good.
The satirist is to be regarded as our physician, not our enemy.
--Henry Fielding, 1707-1754
Physicians--like lawyers--may no longer be the great community of leaders and societal architects they once were or people had hoped they could be. Both professions now breed technicians. As things get more complex, that, of course, makes sense, and we could do worse. But you still get what Fielding was trying to say.
Satire down through the ages never has had the power, on its own, to make people change things. Satire does clarify and make us think. But the law needs certainty, clarity and steadiness of tone--all kept at a consistent wave-length so we do not lose our place. We need to know the speaker or writer is 100% sober. It's not always fun. It's steady. You can rely on it.
However, you do get excited and think you are about to see some great and epic satire and commentary every time you read a pleading which begins "COMES NOW...", a letter which begins (and our favorite) "Enclosed herewith please find..." or contract which uses "said" frequently. You are disappointed when you realize it's intended to be a serious document.
Legal writing. Legalese. Can't we just "say it"?
From past WAC/P? posts circa 2008
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2023
Folger
Posted by JD Hull at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2023
Preserve Alphas
Julius Caesar 100 BC - 44 BC
Posted by JD Hull at 08:31 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2023
Oh New York City you talk a lot...
You look like a city. You feel like a religion.
--L. Nyro, 1969
Five Points, George Catlin, 1827
Foley Square, 1963 (Bettmann/CORBIS)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2023
Bring back real women and girls.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2023
Am I a bad person?
Some 20-something pre-law Swarthmore College girl summer intern four weeks into her internship just told me that she‘d be the BEST intern we would ever have. I responded that’s great you’ll be the most beautiful maiden in the leper colony. Then she started to cry.
Am I a bad person?
Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2023
Hot muggy angsty with increasing existential dread by Thursday night
Global warming-driven or not, now is the always-hot weather period between July 1 and August 15 that early Greeks and Romans roughly 25 centuries ago named after the Dog Star, or Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens. Be reminded, however, that the "dog days of summer" coming early this year isn't just about the heat. You feeling okay there, Jack? If you are uncomfortable due to the heat and humidity alone, no problem. It does look like Al Gore was right about something.
But if you are walking around your town or city not only sweltering but also confused, overly-emotional, a bit paranoid and perhaps seeing mythical animals, penguins, weasels or other fauna you know for a fact are not real or certainly not native or known to survive in Metro Detroit--and finally you are not too much of a whack-job or flake to begin with--you may do well to head for a short summer respite at a local looney bin or garden-variety detox. Three or four days may be all you need. There are also some highly-recommended, reputation-saving out-patient programs where you can meet not only men and women for dating purposes but also a healthy chunk of the city's Irish big law partners who would much rather try six-week breach of contract and UCC Article 2 cases than spend time learning the names of their own children back in Swampoodle.
Indeed, dog days are not just about crazy hot summers. They are in league with Chaos Itself: "the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics and phrensies". See (above) Brady's Clavis Calendarium, 1813.
Woof, y'all.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2023
2121 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest
Cosmos Club. Since 1878. Library.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:20 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2023
Jane Mallory Birkin (1946-2023)
Jane Mallory Birkin (1946-2023). Anglo-Gallic elegance, way-talented, enduring, hardworking, beautiful, and as well-rounded as humans get.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2023
Bastille II
“Is it a revolt?”
“No, Sire. It is a Revolution.”
Jean-Baptiste Lallemand
The Storming of the Bastille
July 14, 1789
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Bastille I
“The Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789.” Jean-Pierre Houël, 1789.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:17 PM | Comments (0)
Help me save The West.
Help me. The new body positivity for women and girls is grossing me out. It’s grossing out my dog, too. We’re out and about a lot. We’re thinking of offing ourselves. What’s wrong with salads? Exercise? Fasting? Bring back eating disorders. Dexedrine. Something. Please help.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2023
Milan Kundera (1929-2023)
An older woman is a jewel in the life of a man.
--Kundera in "Immortality," 1990
One critic: The book will make you "maybe even a better lover".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2023
37 years
On July 12, 1986, around 1:30 AM EST, on 14 F Street N.W., I had my last drink. Probably a beer--likely a Heineken. But no one really knows. I still miss beer. Like right now. By "last drink" I mean my last beer, Bass Ale, Guinness, Jameson, Scotch, Bourbon, vodka, Bombay gin, red wine, hooch or intoxicant of any kind. Where this happened was a wonderfully depraved Irish bar my friends--i.e. cocky litigators, journalists, Hill workers, network news people, and serious degenerates with serious jobs--and I really loved.
It was midway between my house on Capitol Hill and my job on Eye Street. Like all Washington, D.C. bars, it had straight-up trial lawyers, deal lawyers, politicians, writers, students, professors, diplomats, and a novelist or two. But this was no fern bar. It was whispered that the IRA raised money and ran guns through the place. It was common to see people in suits asleep on the floor. The waiters and waitresses had brogues from places like Tralee and Cork. The day bartenders were belligerent, and usually drunk by noon.
Perfect venue for a last drink. Or for any Celtic Romp. Dark, drafty, smoky, bent, horny, Satanic. In the off-limits basement, on some Saturday nights you could catch Eugene McCarthy in poet mode with a few admirers. On others, that basement was empty and dark and unlocked. You told regulars like Whorehouse Mary or that drunk Congressman’s wife to meet you there in 10 minutes. As a goof, we told tourists that Kelly’s was a reasonably-priced "family" restaurant, where everyone sang wholesome songs on weekend nights around midnight, when the entire operation was an alcoholic nightmare for even the people who worked there.
Unlike most Irish bars, Kelly’s rarely had drunken fights. But daily there were odd scenes: like word-slurring diplomats dressed in bathrobes and cowboy hats, and reckless married pols with Irish surnames openly fondling au pairs named Brigit or Maeve. Or an editor of a D.C. newspaper furiously charging in from the summer humidity to "claim" his wife, and seeming to grip a small firearm. No one really noticed him. In 5 minutes something else would happen. Once for hours huge mail order sex dolls filled with helium floated from table to table. Which I remember especially because no one seemed to really notice that, either. One guy without even looking up batted one away when it flew too low. This was our bar. These things happened. Normal.
So the venue I had chosen was spot on. Despite my mission early that morning, the place was still somehow exciting and irreverent. A remarkable slice of Washington. Unheard of. I would miss it. But there was nothing remarkable about why I quit. No huge losses yet (sure, I could see them coming). I had a great job, and was headed toward a partnership. My childhood had been lucky--and fun. I could not have asked for more loving parents, siblings and friends. Nothing to drink about. I just liked it way too much. Born different, I guess. It isolated me, even with people around. That isolation, and knowing that drinking had somehow separated me from the rest of the Universe, was enough. It's a lucky, and unusual, break to have that suddenly hit you. Sure, it's hard to quit doing something you love, and nine out of ten times you're pretty good at--even if it's killing you. You may experience for the first time "exclusion", albeit a somewhat self-imposed one. You're still a boring white collar WASP--but finally in a real minority. You never thought that would happen. You feel left out. But you learn a few things, too.
I still miss beer, almost every day. Yet lots of people, including adventuresome trial lawyers or reporters with one dash of the wrong DNA, do finally give up booze, drugs or whatever else controls their life, so they can tap into and use the gifts they have--and grow. I was lucky. Not to just wake up--but to have the problem in the first place. If you hit it head on, you grow in ways you would never grow if you did not have "it". That is what people can never get. And they shouldn't. So I don't try to explain.
Born different, maybe. Born lucky, too.
Thanks Larry, Fritz, Ev Rose, Valerie, Helen--and Jeremiah Bresnahan.
Original post: July 12, 2012
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
The Best of Partner Emeritus: "I own a dog so I can understand how to be patient with associates."
If you work for a peer firm, you will encounter me or someone very much like me. [Y]ou cannot avoid the essence of my character if you aspire to succeed... I or some form of my embodiment will exist to make your existence as uncomfortable and unpleasant as it can be. Welcome to the legal profession you self-entitled nimrods have created.
--Partner Emeritus, commenting at Above The Law, 2009
To the dismay of many, Partner Emeritus, the urbane, well-heeled lawyer, writer, satirist, culture critic, enemy of the militantly mediocre and hands-down Dean Swift of Above the Law's wise if wonderfully deranged Commentariat, has caught this blog's attention. With humility and honor, we today announce that "Best of Partner Emeritus" will be a feature and its own category here at What About Clients/Paris? Probably forever.
Among other subjects, we will spotlight PE's views on dogs, lawyers, brothels, sexual techniques and remedial programs for broken GenY JDs with Tourettes, Sydenham's chorea and/or lifelong spine problems.
We begin simply. We love a short but busy comment PE just made about his dog Simeon and his love for dogs--which for our money are about the best thing on this fourth-rate planet anyway. It follows from yesterday's ATL piece, Prosecutor’s Pooch Spawns Epic Email Bitchfest by ATL's founder, ageless boy wonder and polymath David Lat:
Everyone here on ATL knows I am a dog lover. In the early '90s, a German colleague suggested that I own a dog so I can understand how to be patient with associates. I purchased my first Afghan hound, the late Algernon, in 1995 and I trained him to be a show dog champion. Algernon then sired my current canine companion, Simeon, who was a favorite to win the 2008 Westminster Dog Show before someone sabotaged his chances by slipping contaminated food in his kennel the night before the competition commenced.
This all being said, the AUSA who complains about doing his job on the weekend is in the wrong here. The workplace is not his home and he simply cannot act as if he were home (e.g., take off his mustard stained chinos and walk around in his underwear, etc.). Moreover, what if the dog bites a co-worker? Can the co-worker file a workman's compensation claim or does the lout who brought his dog to the office have separate liability insurance for the dog? As much as I detest government bureaucrats, I have to side with the dragon lady office manager in this dogfight.
Simeon cruising London's Hyde Park?
The Best of Partner Emeritus: Introduction/No. 1
Original post September 15, 2015
Posted by JD Hull at 12:52 AM | Comments (1)
July 11, 2023
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963)
Posted by JD Hull at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
Huxley: So many gods to chose from.
More people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country. The craving for ethyl alcohol and the opiates has been stronger, in these millions, than the love of God, of home, of children.
--Aldous Huxley, "Drugs That Shape Men's Minds", The Saturday Evening Post, October 18, 1958
Posted by JD Hull at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2023
See this movie.
Just saw this in Georgetown. Not my usual movie fare but well done, tasteful, nuanced and surprisingly powerful. What mainstream film American critics have said about it, its cast and production is hopelessly misleading and mendacious. See it.
Posted by JD Hull at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2023
The Jurists
“Art. III judicial meltdown,
It’s always the same.
Having a nervous breakdown,
It drives you insane.”
~ R. Plant, J. Page, D. Hull
Posted by JD Hull at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
MC5: Shakin’ Street (1970)
Little Orphan Annie and Sweet Sue too
They've been coming around
Gives 'em somethin' to do
Their mamas all warned 'em not to come to town
It got into their blood
Now they gonna get down
Shakin' street it's got that beat
Shakin' street where all the kids meet
Shakin' street it's got that sound
Shakin' street say you gotta get down
Streetlight Sammy decided to make the trip
All the way from New Jersey
On his girlfriend's tip
He pulled into town and met Skinny Leg Pete
Said come here, boy I heard about the streets
I heard about the place where all the kids go
Now, I'm about to flip
I just gotta know about
Shakin' street it's got that beat
Shakin' street where all the kids meet
Shakin' street it's got that sound
Shakin' street say you gotta get down
Well the kids on shakin' street never give in
'Cause all of their lives they've been livin' in sin
You know that they're bad, you know that they're mad
They take for the takin'
They shake for the shakin'
Shakin' Shakin' Shakin'
The folks keep complaining they find it so shockin'
All the kids wanna do is just keep on rockin'
They ain't got no time to think about stoppin'
They gotta get down and do a little stompin'
Now Sally Baker wants to shake her shaker
And Bobby C. says he's gonna take her to
Shakin' street it's got that beat
Shakin' street where all the kids meet
Shakin' street it's got that sound
Shakin' street say you gotta get down
Songwriters: Dennis Thompson / Fred Smith / Michael Davis / Robert W. Derminer / Wayne Kramer
Shakin' Street lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc
Posted by JD Hull at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2023
Prince Hal with Falstaff at Boar’s Head Tavern. Henry IV, Part 1. 1840
Hal listens to Falstaff's lies in Henry IV, Part 1. Folger Shakespeare library. Unknown artist, c.1840
Peto, Bardolph and Gadshill at left; Falstaff in the centre; Hal and Poins at right in the Boar's Head Tavern. Illustration to Henry IV, Part 1, Act 2, scene 4.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
What About Paris?
"What About Paris? is a blog about lawyering and doing business globally. Established in 2005 as What About Clients?, it features law firm client service posts based on a set of “12 Rules.” There are also odes to Parker Posey, Catherine Deneuve, Flaubert, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, and the federal rules of evidence. It is still daily, irreverent, funny, “edgy” and eclectic. It makes people mad. It has won several awards, including the American Bar Association’s 2007 Best Business Blog. That year it bested the law blogs of The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and several other mainstream business law sites. In 2005 we were ranked 80th in Carnegie Mellon's 100 Most Informative Blogs in the World."
Posted by JD Hull at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2023
Americans: Born Outlaws
Make no mistake. Americans are born outlaws. 2023? Year 234 of our current form of business. Still a very new nation. With work to do. Happy 4th, Campers.
Posted by JD Hull at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2023
July 3, 1863
July 3, 1863. Day 3 of Gettysburg. I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War. Scores of them. I walked Pickett’s charge — 7000 casualties to CSA alone in less than an hour of fighting — through the old cornfield one cold autumn day alone 20 years ago. No one was around. No people. No vehicles. It’s still a long flat march with no natural cover. I had tears in my eyes when I reached the Angle.
Posted by JD Hull at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2023
Congrats, Penny and John. 73 years.
Heroes. July 1, 1950. Happy Anniversary, Kids. We love you.
Posted by JD Hull at 05:46 AM | Comments (0)
Ozark
Posted by JD Hull at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)