Scrivener's Error

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Scrivener's Error	Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.

25 July 2009

link to: 13:39 [GMT-6]

Hollywood Sausages

Just like any other sausages, you really can't examine the ingredients of movies too carefully, or you'll be completely turned off.

Like the trailers, which indicate pretty unmistakeably that the War on Drugs has not interdicted any of the hallucingens commonly consumed by the idiots who green-light this stuff. At screenings both last week and the week before, separated by half a continent, the only commonality is that the people who approved G-Force, Shorts, and half-a-dozen other forthcoming trainwrecks had dropped acid, followed by a variety of other illicit substances.
The idiots who design the seats in cinemas should be treated by an expert neurosurgeon to create two or three bulging spinal disks each, then forced to sit in their creations for three hours. And the same goes, of course, for the idiots who design the seats in airliners. If my 1986 Chevy (from a 1985 Toyota design) could have adjustable back support, there's little reason that one can't have the same — or even just some back support — a quarter-century later.
Squirrel! (made you look)

Hypothesis: The primary difference between Pixar's films and other animations is that Pixar treats the animation as a method of telling a story, while the others treat the story as a method for assembling kewl visual set-pieces. Thus, the latter will be stuck wearing the Collar of Shame. That particularly includes the forthcoming Disney nightmare The Princess and the Frog, which includes a lot of stereotypical "kewl black guy" behavior in the frog... and just tints a stereotypical caucasian Disney princess brown, at least in the trailer.
The latest Harry Potter film has taken a radical turn in its storytelling style: It no longer relies upon verbalizing all significant aspects of the story, even the throw-away devices in the visual and/or audio background. In many ways, this is an immense improvement, and represents possibly the only hope for condensing the (sadly overlong, primarily because they didn't get a hard-enough edit) last two novels. On the whole, HP&tHBP was a successful-enough placeholder, or more accurately rececitive in the series. The individual performances were more interesting, although Rupert Grint retains an unfortunate tendency toward predictable, broad, old-school-vaudeville overacting.

Those comments aside, HP&tHBP is sort of a mid-grade imported dark chocolate bar: It has satisfying dark undertones, is just sweet enough to be noticed, and it doesn't melt in the hands. Emma Watson and Bonnie Wright did a nice job of restraining the impulse to go emo.
On a distinctly sillier note, I took the younger remora to Burger King for lunch today. We sat down next to some of those clean-cut young men in white shirts and black pants (who probably ignored us thanks to the remora's t-shirt), and he then wondered which was worse: Kingons or Mormulans. I think I know how to deal with the latter, though (or, for that matter, any solicitors who come to my door and can't read the "no soliciting" sign).

Labels: culture, life, mass media, miscellany

Ritual disclaimer: This blog contains legal commentary, but it is only general commentary. It does not constitute legal advice for your situation. It does not create an attorney-client relationship or any other expectation of confidentiality, nor is it an offer of representation.

All material © 2003–12 except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. This blawg does not use the Creative Commons License, although I'm usually pretty good-natured about permissions for attributed reuse.

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Sausages?

Internet link sausages, as frequently appear here, are gathered from uninspected meaty internet products and byproducts via processes you really, really don't want to observe; spiced with my own secret, snarky, sarcastic blend; quite possibly extended with sawdust or other indigestibles; and stuffed into your monitor (instead of either real or artificial casings). They're sort of like "link salad" or "pot pourri" or "miscellaneous musings" (or, for that matter, "making law"), but far more disturbing.

I am not responsible for any changes to your lipid counts or blood pressure from consuming these sausages... nor for your monitor if you insist on covering them with mash or sauce.

Archives

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Links of Interest

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Writer Beware and the Writer Beware Blog provide essential knowledge for writers who don't want to be ripped off
Writing-World.com published by the former managing editor of the now-defunct Inklings
Agent Research & Evaluation provides both free and paid analyses of literary agents
US Copyright Office, including both registration forms and records and quite a bit of other helpful information
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows searches of granted, pending, and some rejected trademark registrations
US Supreme Court Opinions from the current and past couple of terms
Law Library of Congress includes statutes for free
The Public Library of Law can help you find the law... but not use it in court, as many of its resources are not in proper form and do not provide all of the citation information needed in court papers
Legal, free e-books are available through Online Books (University of Pennsylvania) and Shakespeare (MIT)
Legal, free music is available through
- ClassicCat.net (what kind of music do you think you'll find here?)
- Music.Download.com (long-awaited successor to MP3.com)
- Janis Ian (artist)
- John McCutcheon (artist)

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.

A blawg is sort of like a blog on legal issues, but usually has a lot more links to outside resources (other than other blogs) than does a typical blog. Scrivener's Error is a blawg, not just a blog. You can find other blawgs at < ? law blogs # >.

How Appealing is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To concentrate on the Supreme Court, don't forget SCOTUSBlog.
Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:
- Professor Anthony Arend (Georgetown Law)
- Professor Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA Law) (aka "The Perfesser")
- Professor Jack Balkin (Yale Law)
- Professor Dennis Crouch (Missouri Law) (better known as Patently-O)
- Professor Michael Froomkin (University of Miami Law)
- Professor Eric Goldman (Santa Clara University Law)
- Professor Rick Hasen (Loyola-LA Law)
- Professor Brian Leiter (U of Chicago Law/Philosophy)
- Professor Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law)
- Professor Michael Madison (Pitt Law)
- Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law)
BoingBoing, by speculative fiction writer (and 'net activist) Cory Doctorow, is quite hostile to copyright enforcement efforts, particularly regarding file-sharing
The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance
Cyberlaw (Stanford) has its agenda grounded firmly in the so-called "digital commons," which might make a bit more sense if any of the advocates of that viewpoint understood diddly-squat about population ecology
The American Constitution Society blawg is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called "Federalist Society" (which, despite its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe that's all to the good.

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