Frustration and Literature

1) Grrrrrrrr! I just came from what was supposed to be the "advanced training session" for NY lawyers who are volunteering to go to polling sites in PA on election day to ensure compliance with the voting laws. It was -- and I do NOT use this term lightly -- a total fucking clown show. The guy who was in charge, who purported to have "studied PA election law" couldn't answer a single question. About what the law was, what we were supposed to do, what the logistical arrangements were going to be, nada. The PA lawyer participating by conference call knew slightly more. There were 400 plus (I think) NY lawyers in this room who had taken valuable time out of their schedules because they were told this was a crucial session in order to learn how to do this volunteer work for which they are taking an additional day to week out of their schedules. The billing rate for the room as a whole likely far exceeded $100,000 per hour. And these jackasses didn't know the first thing about anything.

I actually (and this is SO un-me) stood up in the very last row of the room and yelled out, interrupting the head jackass's mumbling to explain that the answers to each of the questions posed -- and just about everything else someone should need to know in order to be confident in doing the poll monitoring -- was contained in a pamphlet, which I pulled out of my briefcase and raised above my head. I explained that said pamphlet was available from the DNC website. And that I had found said pamphlet by clicking on a link in an email I received from the very organization running the meeting. The jackasses were dumbfounded. They continued to hem and haw and stumble, while I accepted thanks and congratulations (and some suggestions that I should be in charge), passed around the pamphlet to the people in my immediate area of the crowd, and answered some questions from other lawyers who apparently hadn't even gotten the email yet, because this group is clearly so well organized. I then decided I could take no more jackassness. So I got up while head jackass was still babbling, and made my way clear across the room, and out the door. I'd like to say I got a standing O, but I was content with the big smile from the cute girl I passed on my way out (Were I in full playa mode, I would have said something to the effect of "If you ever want to get together and study PA election law, give me a call," and handed her my card. But, uh, I didn't.).

I'm going to study the booklet. And, if I ever get assigned to a polling place, I'm going to go to PA and do this thing, because I believe it's necessary and will make me feel better. But this was a really disheartening experience. The campaigns and various sub-groups are really really good at asking for money, and apparently not much else.

2) I'm reading a book right now called "The Fortress of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem. I had read one of his previous books, "Motherless Brooklyn," and loved it. This one had failed to impress so far. I'm only 80 pages in, but I feel like Lethem is trying way to hard to make the writing style complex and poetic, and not doing a great job of telling a story, where there clearly is one to be told. I was about to give up. Emotionally - as in, resign myself to not liking it, but finish it anyway. Because, with very rare exceptions, once I start a book, I finish it even if it su-ucks. But I think he might have renewed my faith with the following paragraph, which I know might not look look like all that, but there was just something about it:

"Though certain to resume his galactic harangue before long, Perry Kandel paused now to savor his own last rhetorical flourish like he was sucking on an invisible cigar. Then, price extracted -- Abraham Ebdus was more than usually conscious this day that every single thing in the world had its price -- his old teacher scribbled a name and a phone number on the pink duplicate copy of a student evaluation form and pushed it across the desk."

H-Dog Out.