Starting to see a way out of the procrastination-paralysis of the last month and a half. Rather than reading and preparing for exams, I’ve been worrying about what to write for the two papers I have to do this term. My philosophy of law class has been a real worry, because most of what we read and discuss has to do with the question of whether law and morality are separate. I can’t seem to become invested in that question. I just don’t see how it matters. What interests me is the construction of law, how it’s linguistic and textual. The problems of language and the problems of texts (indeterminacy, ambiguity, desire for closure) are the problems of law.

The light for me at the end of this particular tunnel is Barthes. I’m going to try to discuss the genres of legal texts in terms of the readerly/writerly distinction. Maybe I’ll also throw in some Saussure and discuss the difference between speech and writing and try to argue that because writing is inferior so is law...

Hmm. Yeah, this probably won’t work. But whatever, I get to read Barthes again, Yay!

How little thought patterns matter.

A sentence like this is comforting because I feel that its absurd complexity relieves me of any obligation to understand it.

And during the period of twenty-one years from my death if the said Lilian Aspinall shall live so long to accumulate the surplus if any of such income at compound interest by investing the same and the resulting income thereof in any of the investments aforesaid by way of addition to the capital of such fund as aforesaid and so as to be subject to the same trusts as are hereby declared concerning the same and during the remainder of the life of the said Lilian Aspinall in case she shall survive the said period of twenty-one years to pay or apply such surplus income (if any) to the person or persons or for the purposes to whom and for which the same would for the time being be payable or applicable if the said Lilian Aspinall were then dead.
In Re Smith, England, 1928

Slightly shocked today to see the Post-Prairie anthology all spiffy on display at the university book store. I've had the experience a few times of seeing a publication I'm part of in a bookstore before receiving my contributor copy in the mail, and I always have the same reaction. Curiosity, pride, etc. but also a horrible cringing regret, a desperate desire to take the poem back, rewrite it, erase it, burn it. There's such a crushing finality to words on paper. I tend to have to acclimate myself to publication -- leave it around the house for a while, flip through it a bit, read some of the other contributions -- before I can stand to look at my poems in print.

It's an interesting and absurd neurosis: I hate not being published, but whenever I am published, I feel like I've misrepresented myself.

Anyway, the anthology looks amazing, I can't wait to read it, and I am thrilled to be part of it. Go buy.

Law is mind without reason.
-Aristotle

I don't understand this quotation. I find it completely impenetrable. Granted, I read it out of any context, or rather in the random context of a webpage of quotations about law or reason or whatever. But still. What is mind without reason? What is law without reason? Everything in law is reasonable. That's a joke, ha. Well not ha, more blah. The answer to any question anyone can ask in law school is "reasonable." What is the standard of care to which a tortfeasor is held? The standard of the reasonable person. What kind of notice is required to avoid a claim of wrongful dismissal? Reasonable notice. Why can't I think of any better examples? No reason. In fact, I'm doing pro bono research for a civil liberties project looking at tenants' right, focusing on a particular piece of legislation that provides for a reasonable standard. My job is to figure how the standard would be applied were the provision to be adjudicated. My guess is reasonably.

My god. Law is not really this boring, I swear.

With absolute, overwhelming conviction, he didn’t believe it.
- Philip K. Dick, Minority Report

I’m enthralled with the paradox in that sentence, but I’m not sure why. I read it in one of the texts for a Law and Literature mini-course I took last year. I remember at the time I thought the sentence reflected the theme of the story quite powerfully; now I don’t remember the theme of the story anymore and I don’t really care.

I took the course because I figured it would provide me with some familiar ground in an unfamiliar environment, but it was an incredibly disappointing class. The focus was on the themes of law, justice, and criminality within science fiction. Not really my cup of tea, but I’ll read anything with a narrative. The class discussions, however, were mind-numbing. They went from quick plot summaries of the short stories to the question, how does this theme relate to what we already know about law in the world? From there, no-one ever returned to the stories themselves, except to refer to the actions of the characters in a decontextualized way, as though the experience of a character in a short story and one’s own experiences are discursively equivalent.

I guess I shouldn’t criticize too much; there’s no reason why a class of law students should conform to the expectations of a literature class. But it seemed that the course was indicative of the practice of the burgeoning “law and literature” movement. Apparently some legal academics are starting to recognize the relevance of narrative within the law. How facts, evidence, issues are framed by narrative, and how narratives about law (like Dickens’ Bleak House, which seems to be the main object of study) can offer lawyers a way to examine the legal system and its flaws. Fair enough, but I don’t think it goes far enough. I think a law and literature movement should look at not only novelists, but also poets and theorists: writers who recognize the complexity and inadequacy of language; who can shift the question from what does this mean to how can this mean?

I had hoped to make some kind of poem out of phrases from the Magna Carta, but so far it’s just not happening. Maybe it’s better to just enjoy the language for its own absurdity.

There shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the London quarter), throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russet, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges.

All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.

People who live outside the forest need not in future appear before the royal justices of the forest in answer to general summonses, unless they are actually involved in proceedings or are sureties for someone who has been seized for a forest offence.

All evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters and warreners, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the country, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably.

All forests that have been created in our reign shall at once be disafforested. River-banks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be treated similarly.

No town or person shall be forced to build bridges over rivers except those with an ancient obligation to do so.

Style is a very simple matter: all rhythm. Once you get that you can't use the wrong words.
-Virginia Woolf