December 1, 2008
Hogwarts School of Jurisprudence and Statutory Interpretation
Although it’s not in her official biography, I’ve come to believe that JK Rowlings at some point in her life attended law school. How else could she have become so familiar with the academic tradition that so clearly inspired her seemingly fantastical (now obviously derivative) creation, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Perhaps the astounding curricular parallels are merely due to the fact that law schools bear a closer vestigial resemblance to the British education system than other American institutions, but still it seems suspicious that Rowling’s school for magic would have so much in common with a typical American school for law.
Magic and law are similar disciplines when it comes down to it. Unlike any other academic experience I’ve ever had, law school is not principally about acquiring knowledge nor about creative expression nor about abstract analysis. Law school is about learning arcane incantations, incomprehensibly esoteric but nevertheless capable of producing powerful real-world effects when properly executed. In other words, we’re learning to cast spells.
Magic-law is little understood by laypeople (let’s call them “muggles”), and wizard-lawyers often revel in their ability to confound and manipulate the uninitiated. Their muggle neighbors consequently fear and distrust them, even forcing themselves to believe that magic-law is mere illusion with no power in the real world—that is until they find themselves on the receiving end of a particularly vicious spell. Meanwhile, the art’s practitioners continue to inhabit a parallel shadow-world, doing battle with each other over the muggles’ collective fate and following their own strange rules and codes.
Like magic, law is composed of various sub-disciplines that a young wizard-in-training must master if he or she wishes to pass the Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations (the bar) and be allowed to cast spells in the outside world. Classes are standardized in the first year. Everyone must take Charms (Property), Transfiguration (Torts), Potions (Contracts), and, of course, Defense Against the Dark Arts (Civil Procedure). Later, students can take more specialized subjects, such as Arithmancy (Accountancy) or History of Magic (History of Law). Outside of class, young lawyers hone their skills by dueling (moot court), furiously brandishing their wands with the knowledge that while the stakes may be lower, the spells which they hurl at one another are the same as they will use once they graduate.
Most importantly, like the four houses at Hogwarts, law school students can be divided roughly evenly into exactly four categories, corresponding not to students’ abilities or innate qualities but to their aspirations (after all, the Hogwarts Sorting Hat doesn’t tell young wizards who they are so much as who they want to be).
The most stereotypical type of law student is of course the Slytherin. Contracts and Corporate Law are their strong suits, and they pay keen attention in Defense Against the Dark Arts (Civ Pro), although they are secretly more interested in learning the dark arts than in how to defend against them. In class, you can see their ears perk up as the professor explains how to concoct the most potent of contracts or to cast a particularly devious tort defense. Naked ambition oozes from their reptilian lawyer-glands as they compete for prestigious big-firm internships, yet it is the thrill of combat as much as the lure of wealth and power that motivates them. Slyths crave the feeling of superiority that comes with mastery of the legal arts, seeking out opportunities to best lesser wizards and assert their dominion over the ignorant muggle cattle. As mercenaries for corporate America, Slytherins rightly consider themselves defenders of our collective economic prosperity, keeping the levers of power in the proper hands, full of scorn for those who cannot see the morality of self-interest.
Elbow-to-elbow with the Slytherins sit the Gryffindors. They come to law school hoping to pursue public interest fields. They dream of using their magic to defend non-magical beings, and if they find themselves at large firms in practice, they redeem themselves with pro bono muggle-interest work. However, one of the appealing symmetries of the Hogwarts houses is the thin line which separates the Gryffindors from the Slytherins. Much as they might deny it, the Gryffs rival their snake-like colleagues in ambition and ego. Both love the real-world applicability of Civil Procedure, though for different reasons. Both love to duel. The self-righteousness and arrogance of the Gryffindors is nearly as insufferable as the ruthlessness of the Slytherins.
Then there’s the Ravenclaws, the philosopher-kings. They look forward to Constitutional Law (Runes?) and chafe under the drudgery of Civil Procedure. They look down on the Gryffindors and the Slytherins and their petty rivalries. It is the artistry, the intellectual sophistry of magic-law that attracts the contemplative Ravenclaws. They are destined for judgeships and the ivory towers of legal academia.
Finally, often keeping a lower profile than the other houses though no less numerous by my count, we have the Hufflepuffs. They don’t share the Ravenclaws’ evident intellectual pleasure in the abstract discipline of magic, and they look on the strivings of the Gryffindors and Slytherins with fatigue, and in some cases contempt. How did they even end up at Hogwarts? Perhaps some of them come from old wizarding families or perhaps, enamored with some of the flashier hexes and displaying some early aptitude for magic, they casually enrolled without considering the day-to-day tedium of spellcraft. Whatever the reasons, they seem indifferent to perfecting their charms, precisely balancing their potion ingredients or giving the most insightful interpretation to a particular rune. They would rather spend their time playing pickup quidditch, collecting chocolate frogs and writing wizard-blogs comparing their experience at Hogwarts to whatever children’s book is popular in the wizarding world at the time.
November 3, 2008
UHL: Project Pico
In the year 1832 of the Mexican calendar, Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California and a man of not insubstantial beard, made landfall on the shore of what is now Santa Monica. Together with a handful of his most loyal conquistadors, he walked inland for approximately 16 miles before planting the flag of the Empress of Mexico and founding La Ciudad de los Angeles, which in Spanish literally means “semi-arid coastal basin.” Their path from the sea was later paved and became known as Pico Boulevard, the street around which the entire grid of Los Angeles was later formed.
As our first expedition, the recently formed Urban Hiking League set out to replicate this historical journey (only backwards). Leaving downtown around 9 in the morning and reaching the beach in Santa Monica a little after dark, we trekked the full length of Pico Blvd., documenting one of the most impressive and diverse of L.A.’s sprawling car-trails.
The following are excerpted from the notes and observations taken during the epic march:
Trailhead~09:30
The Mighty Pico begins as little more than a trickle at Central Avenue in Downtown. This legendary wellspring is also the location of the Los Angeles Coke bottling plant, a bizarre Art Deco complex designed to look like a cruise ship. A block or two downstream, we come to the Peoples Sausage Co. and its horrible secret… Peoples Sausage is peoples!
Fashion District ~10:00
Pico suddenly picks up steam as it burbles its way through Downtown’s Fashion District. This might seem like an excessively glamorous name for such a gritty area (”No tirar basura,” pleads a cardboard sign), but the District is named not for the flashy celebrities that lock their car doors as they drive past but for the garment manufacturers who pack the surrounding blocks with their wholesale shops and showrooms. Prom dresses, baby bonnets and stores packed with eerie rows of headless naked mannequins, the Fashion District bustles mid-morning on a Saturday. Crowds window shop from storefront to storefront under the watchful eye of the heavy steel shutters poised to crash down at sunset. The tamale cart rumbles past me. “Tamales arroz con leche tamales!” A Middle-Eastern-looking man in a pinstripe jacket stands in the doorway of his shop smoking a cigarette. The Tamale Cart Man stops. “Tamales arroz con leche tamales?” he asks. The man with the cigarette says nothing.
L.A. Convention Center-Vermont Blvd. ~11:00
I’m not sure what this area is called, but I’d probably name it either Little San Salvador or the Pupusa District. We stop at Numero Uno Supermercado to buy supplies (mostly Jarritos). Outside, there is a decapitated Day of the Dead pinata lying on the sidewalk.
Byzantine-Latino Quarter ~12:30
The most intricate and involved of all the Latinos quarters in Los Angeles, certainly much more so that the Fairly-Straightforward-Latino Quarter, the Byzantine-Latino Quarter has two major landmarks: Papa Cristo’s Greek deli and a giant sign that says, “Byzantine-Latino Quarter.” The former served us a smashing gyro pizza. The latter is underscored by what is apparently the motto of the ever-inscrutable Quarter: “we are all angels with one wing.” If the folks in the BLQ wanted to compare themselves to deformed mythical creatures, I personally would prefer “we are all manticores with no tails” or “we are all genies with learning disabilities.” But whatever.
Koreatown ~13:30
Ah, back in my hood. Time for a boba tea.
Crenshaw ~15:00
How many barbershops does a neighborhood need per block. On Pico between about Crenshaw and La Brea, the answer is at least two. I want to take a picture of one of these L.A. institutions, but every time I stop and reach for my camera, everyone inside the barbershop stops talking and turns to scowl at me and I have to pretend to be tying my shoes. As uniform, most of these barbers can choose between a Lakers jersey and an Obama T-shirt. Some opt for one on top of the other. Between barbershops, there is the occasional soul food or Jamaican restaurant. Outside Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, I noticed a vending machine selling only Pit Bull energy drinks, a beverage I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of let alone considered buying from a machine.
Fairfax and Century City ~17:00
It’s the Sabbath, so suddenly my beard, wide-brimmed hat and the fact that I’m not driving a car don’t draw quite so many stares. Moving west towards Century City, the temples and Kosher eateries give way to high-rises, country clubs and Fox Studioses. The Pico is a thundering torrent by this point, three lanes in either direction. On one side, an enormous ivy-covered wall protects the golfers sequestered within from the roaring traffic. On the other, Jason Lee stares down from his gigantic My Name Is Earl billboard with his sad, soulless eyes.
Westside Pavilion ~18:30
The only interior leg of the journey, the Pavilion provides a chance to get off the concrete for a block or two. This might be a good place to replenish supplies if I needed either a corndog or a handbag.
Santa Monica ~20:00
Feet are getting a little sore as we make the final push from the 405 to the Pacific Ocean. Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica College and Santa Monica Cemetery are all on Pico, so when you graduate from one you can move on to the next. Finally, we make it out onto the sand and see the lights of the Santa Monica Pier reflected in the water. Pico conquered!
October 16, 2008
Dispatch from Toolsville
As many of you know, I’ve embarked on a comprehensive three-year study of the behavior of tools in their natural habitat, law school. I’ve chosen to focus my research on the University of Southern California, an island ecosystem incongruously situated in downtown Los Angeles and widely acknowledged to have one of the highest concentrations of tools in North America.
A while back, over a three-course catered lunch of chicken cutlet and steamed asparagus (the height of tool cuisine), I was welcomed to the Trojan family and informed that one of USC’s finest features was its degree of school spirit. There’s no denying it. Mere moments on the USC campus is all it takes to get the needle on your toolometer dancing. A huge percentage (one to two thirds?) of students are decked out in USC paraphernalia, loudly advertising the fact that they attend a particular university within the grounds of that university to other people who also attend that university. Cardinal and gold (recently voted the national colors of the Republic of Toolia) baby T’s, track pants and trucker hats bob around campus emblazoned with declarations of athletic pride deafening in their oppressive lameness.
Obviously, you don’t have to be a law student to be a tool at USC, but it helps. The school of law is the university’s withered tool heart, pumping tool bile through its tool veins. Here, the tool’s desperate desire for society’s approval combined with his crippling lack of imagination is given fullest expression.
This project has only just begun. Who are all these tools? What makes them tick (like a really lame clock or a bomb about to go off in an explosion of vapidity)? What does Joe Tool want out of life? What are his shallow dreams and incredibly boring plans? The only way to find out is to keep quiet and observe.
September 29, 2008
Jee Hoon and Sashimi in… Money Trouble
For all you fans of ESL cinema out there, we just wrapped up this semester’s latest project, “Money Trouble.” Once again, we ran over the ten minute mark, so Youtube makes us split it up.
“Jee Hoon and Sashimi are the original Odd Couple. Well, not so much the original as a cheap knock off Odd Couple. In their first adventure, the two mismatched roommates struggle to pay the rent.”
August 1, 2008
The Monkey King
Sun Wukong, the stick-wielding semi-divine primate hero of the Journey West, is usually known in the English-speaking world, to the extent that he is known, as the Monkey King.He is a character of such ubiquity and stature in China that it boggles my mind that I could go nearly 24 years having never been introduced to him (the culture valves work the other way too). He is more well-known than Robin Hood, Spiderman and Jesus combined, and the idea that I knew nothing about so elementary a figure was insane and literally laughable to my students. Who hasn’t heard of the Monkey King?
Once I did hear of him, however, I became obsessed, going as far as writing a 2,000-line epic poem in rhyming couplets about the first episode in Monkey’s saga: his rebellion against the Jade Emperor. Between one thing and another, Sun Wukong’s been on the back burner for the last six months, but two things have recently got me thinking about the furry little demigod. The first was reading Gene Luen Yang’s excellent graphic novel, American Born Chinese, which draws heavily on the legend. The second was this BBC promo for the Olympics by the Gorillaz guys:
The two other characters in the above cartoon are Sun Wukong’s sidekicks (or, more accurately, his fellow sidekicks): Zhu Bajie (sometimes unimaginatively known as Piggy here in the West) and Sha Sang (called alternately Sandy, the Sand Monk or Friar Sand). All three of them are traditionally tethered to a Buddhist pilgrim (absent here) often known simply as the priest of Tang. The pilgrim and his disciples are on a Wizard-of-Oz style quest of redemption and more specifically to fetch the Buddhist sutras from India. Here, however, they appear to be looking for an athletic stadium, which is cool too I guess.
The really interesting twist on the story was provided by Yang’s ABC. Yang uses Sun Wukong as a metaphor for the second-generation Asian-American experience. That’s all well and good, but what really intrigued me was the off-handed way that he shoehorns Christianity into the myth. Buddha becomes an omnipotent, Yahweh-like creator god, and, most jarringly of all, the mission of the Fellowship of the Sutras is not to acquire Buddhist scriptures from India but rather to (I’m not making this up) bring presents to the Baby Jesus. What I want to know is whether conflating the Journey West with the story of the Three Wise Men is Gene Yang’s own innovation or whether this is actually the version he grew up with as part of the Chinese diaspora Christian community.
I’m a little suspect of the moral that Yang squeezes out of the myth (essentially, “you have no control over who you are, so don’t strive for anything more”), but what I love about cultural icons like the Monkey King is the ability of each artistic treatment to find new significance in the character. The thing I puzzle over with Sun Wukong is what his place is in contemporary China. He’s a character defined by hubris and a contempt for authority, and, though he’s arguably punished for these traits, most modern retellings tend to gloss over this aspect. It would be as if our society developed a preoccupation with the story of Babel but focused relentlessly on how awesome the tower was.
Nothing in Chinese culture really clicked with me before I encountered Monkey and Friends. Something about the myth really captured my imagination. In the Chinese century, I think it’s inevitable that the character will become universally recognizable to Western audiences. But what will our take on him be?
June 30, 2008
Related by Blood
Fans of amateur English-as-a-second-language film, rejoice. Language Systems International Film Group Project brings you another action-packed extravaganza just in time for summer. Can the magic of Lobbel Schoor be recreated? You be the judge.
(in our ambitious vision, we exceeded Youtube’s 10 minute limit, so I had to annoyingly split it into two parts. Be sure to click part 2 right away so as not to lose the cinematic momentum)
June 24, 2008
Dispatch from Kor-azy Town
Katie and just I moved into a new place, a one bedroom apartment in a tiny courtyard complex called El Castillo del Frog (”is that its real name or your pretend name?” Katie recently asked me in her Kindergarten teacher voice… it’s the latter). It’s on the western edge of Koreatown, some might even place it on the other side of the nebulous border with mansion-lined Hancock Park, though the distinction would be geographic and not cultural. I’ve been working in K-Town for the last nine months (see Korean Pirate Disco Christmas), but living here is of course an entirely different barrel of spicy pickled cabbage. I’ve spent the last week or two taking careful note, Sesame Street style, of just who exactly are the people in my neighborhood.
The Beekeeper’s a person in my neighborhood
I like fresh honey as much as the next guy, but urban beekeeping is something that’s never occurred to me. In fact, I’ve known people to pay good money to get rid of bees in their yard. The bizarre way the letters are divided up on the boxes (H Bee FA R M) suggests some kind of acronym like: Hardcore Bee Fanatics Association -Residential, Metropolitan.
The Chinese Chess Guy’s a person in my neighborhood
I often feel like I’m back in China when I stroll around Koreatown. There’s the folks squatting on the curbside smoking cigarettes, the old people walking behind their tiny snoutless dogs, the umbrellas in summer, the bizarrely worded T-shirts (see Chinglish T-Shirt Bonanza). There’s even some guys around the corner from El Castillo who play xiang qi on the sidewalk, just like on every block in Xi’an. The games attract crowds, just like in Xi’an, but they consist mostly of puzzled Hispanic teenagers.
The Produce Truck’s a… truck in my neighborhood
This dilapidated van permanently parked about a block from my apartment, selling vegetables and cheap Mexican toys, is a perfect example of the many businesses in LA that operate entirely within the intra-Latino economy. While I fully intend to patronize the many local taco trucks, mariscos wagons and snow cone carts just as soon as I acquire the appropriate antibodies, I cannot picture myself ever buying my veggies from a dude in a truck, much less seeking out the rusting beige hull the next time I’m in the market for some plastic toy soldiers.
Upscale Frozen Yogurt Establishments are businesses in my neighborhood
Pinkberry, a Korean-American-owned dessert chain which I’m told serves up delicious treats concocted with frozen yogurt and fruit, has apparently become a trendy L.A. fixture while I’ve been away. Logically, K-Town boasts an above-average density of Pinkberries, but this alone would be unremarkable. What is noteworthy is the insane number of Pinkberry knock-offs in the area: Blueberry, Roseberry, Yogurberry, Snowberry, Iceberry, Swirlberry, and FruitMilky to name only a few. I’d like to venture that my zip code probably has the highest concentration of stupidly named fruit and frozen yogurt parlors in the world.
These are the people in my neighborhood. They’re the people whom I meet each day.
May 12, 2008
Voices from Line 42
As a Latvian deli worker, my limited English prevents me from conversing too intimately with the other people on the bus (see Gypsy’s Curse 2). If I could, I might be able to ask the young man with “PBS” tattooed on his knuckles when his love affair with public broadcasting began. I might get closer to unraveling the riddle of the inscrutable Swa (see Dispatch from Line 42). As it is, I’m merely a passive consumer of my fellow passengers’ colorful viewpoints.
On fashion:
“You know what I’ma get? I’ma get me some motherfucking cardigans.”
On politics:
“Barack Obama, y’all! We about to see some change! Gonna put all you god damn Mexicans in your place. Betta respeck! Change, motherfuckers! Change!”
On ethnic demographics:
“See, what most people don’t realize cuz they ignorant is black folks is the majority. Global majority. We God’s people. White folks is just some devil’s perversion. I truly believe that.”
Thank you, good people of Line 42. Without you, I would never have learned what Senator Obama really meant by “change” or that the Chinese consider themselves black. I could go on, of course, but I need to run out and stock up on motherfucking cardigans.
April 20, 2008
Writing a best-selling novel seems pretty easy
Last semester, I taught the acclaimed novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) in my ESL reading class. I didn’t like it the first time through, but having now read it several times, I think I understand why people consider it so uplifting: it really makes you believe that with a little determination and a little imagination (and I’m talking about a very little), just about anybody can write one of the most popular books of the decade.
I’ve been so inspired that I’ve decided to give it a shot myself. Over the next few months, I’m going to add one chapter per week to a serialized novel in blog form. After it’s done, I’ll submit it to Oprah’s book club and wait for the checks to roll in. Chapter one is up. So check it out and let me know what you think:
Yeah, ok. The title’s a little bit derivative. So sue me (unless you are Mitch Albom, in which case please do not sue me). But I think the titular gimmick’s still got some legs. I mean, there’s a whole aisle of greeting cards at Vons that you can mine for material.
You shouldn’t need to read the original to appreciate this parody, and I wouldn’t recommend it. In fact, you should think of this novel less as a parody of Albom’s book and more as a cheap knock-off. Sure, it may not replicate exactly the flavor and texture of the brand-name novel, but on the other hand, I’m giving my version out free on the internet whereas Hyperion charges 18 bucks for a tiny little hardcover.
April 10, 2008
Robber School
On Friday afternoons, I run a film club for the ESL students I work with, and we make a movie over the course of the 10 week term. Here’s this semester’s project: