Wyzga On Words

Maurice Sendak Is Where The Wild Things Are.

By now you've learned about the recent passing of Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator.

But maybe you haven't read this memoriam, "Thanks, Maurice," by Steven Heller.  Sendak spooked many of us; and, come to find out that wasn't so bad.  Excerpt.

"Maurice Sendak’s 1963 “Where the Wild Things Are” unlocked a scary, psychologically nuanced, inner world long taboo in mainstream children’s books. Mr. Sendak once told me that King Kong was a great character and had influenced him when he created “Wild Things.”

“You’re supposed to be frightened of these things. Kids need Kongs to help them conquer their anxiety,” he said."

Make sure you check out the slide show to see and read about Sendak's universal influence.

Q&A Tuesday: Moot Court, Written Briefs & Oral Argument.

Q:    If written briefs pull the laboring oar in the judges' decision-making, what's the point of oral argument?

A:     To serve as a sounding board for the judges.

Time out of mind I argued the final rounds of Moot Court Competition in front of then sitting chief justices of state supreme courts.

One by one each member of the panel gave the winner (me) and the runner-up (the other guy) their evaluations and suggestions for our future practice.  This one I took careful note of: "In oral argument, do not evade a judge's questions.  The court is asking you questions so it can learn and understand your position.  Participate.  Give the court your best answer."

Imagine my surprise to read similar advice from the United States Supreme Court.  Adam Liptak writing for the NYTimes, "Are Oral Arguments Worth Arguing About?" informs us that the nature of oral argument is to involve the lawyers in the debate.  Excerpt.

"In an interview with Bryan A. Garner published in 2010 in The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, Justice Clarence Thomas was asked how often he changed his mind thanks to oral arguments.

“Almost never,” he said, adding that they may make a difference for his colleagues “in 5 or 10 percent of the cases, maybe, and I’m being generous there.”

That is as it should be, said Mr. Estrada, who has argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court.

“Somewhat refreshingly to our citizens,” he said, “the administration of justice has to do with the merits of the case and not entirely to do with the skill of the advocates.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who argued 39 cases in the Supreme Court before joining it, told students at Columbia Law School in 2008 that lawyers play a relatively minor role in that highly stylized discourse.

“Quite often the judges are debating among themselves and just using the lawyers as a backboard,” he said. “One of the real challenges for lawyers is to get involved in that debate.”

Oral arguments are in any event far less important than the written briefs.

“Of the two components of the presentation of a case, the brief is ever so much more important,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Mr. Garner. “It’s what we start with; it’s what we go back to.”"

TIP:    Write your best brief.  Give your best oral argument.  Answer the court's questions with a "clear, concise and cogent" reply.  Participate in the debate.

 

 

Shakepeare In Iraq Reminds Us: Themes & Stories Are Universal.

Where were you when you saw "Romeo & Juliet", the 1968 movie?

I imagine one listen brings it back.

What chance that the themes of young love, fighting families and war could find an audience in Iraq?

Tim Arango writing for the NYTimes, "In Iraq, 'Romeo and Juliet' Portryas Montague and Capulet as Shiite and Sunni," reminds us that stories grounded in Truths with a capital "T" are indeed universal.  No matter where you go in this world, who you talk with, the stories you learn - one thing remains consistent: universal Truths apply to all places.  We recognize them.  Yes, this may be Shakespeare's centuries old story, but the audience in Baghdad sees their own story in the timeless one of the doomed lovers.  Excerpt.

"BAGHDAD — It is not poison or a dagger that takes the lives of the young lovers, but a suicide bomb. The Montagues and Capulets are divided not just by family, but also by religious sect. And the dialogue in the Iraqi adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” is sprinkled with references to Blackwater, Iranians and the American reconstruction effort.

After a recent performance here at the National Theater, where the dramatic arts were once degraded to serve as a dictator’s propaganda, the audience filed out buzzing over the return of serious art to the Iraqi capital. Cloaked as a Shakespearean classic was a lively rendering of their own lives over the past nine years.

“It was about our reality, the killing that happened between the Sunnis and Shias,” said Senan Saadi, a university student who was in the audience."

TIP:    No matter whether you are writing a trial story for a decision-maker, a marketing story for a buying audience, or an inspirational story to motivate listeners, fall back on what you know: the universal Truths we recognize.

 

Q&A Tuesday: Do You Know That ASTC's 31st Annual Conference Is June 7th to 9th In New Orleans?

Q:    I heard tell that the American Society of Trial Consultants is holding its 31st Annual Conference in New Orleans.  What's happening?

A:    We are so jazzed to have the opportunity to learn, play, connect and succeed!

TIP:    Check out the ASTC website for an overview of the conference, registration and sponsorship opportunities.

TIP:    Get ready to let the good times role by reading through Conference Planning Committee Member Patricia Rhinehart's list of just a few things to do:

If you love music, New Orleans is the place to be! There’s music all over: people playing in the streets, on sidewalks and in the open-air cafes.

The best thing about the French Quarter is Royal and Chartres. Royal Street of course has great shops and all the fabulous art galleries. Check here for maps.

Stop at the Monteleone Hotel and have a drink at the Carousel Bar.  It's old, it's beautiful, and yes - it's a moving bar!

There's a great little restaurant on Orleans Avenue behind the cathedral - Orleans Grapevine - small, quaint, known for excellent wines.

Check out The Green Goddess. Something of a hole in the wall, but the food and the chef are SO worth it!!!

St. Louis Cathedral is a great stop for a beautiful church with pretty stained glass and even more history.   You may catch a wedding party spilling out into the square and second lining down Royal Street.

Frenchmen Street in the Marigny is New Orleans funky with lots of clubs for listening to music. Watch the clock for the Witching Hour!

Take the streetcar down St. Charles and get off at Lee's Circle.There's the Ogden Museum of Southern Art . A must see.

From there venture down Julia street and others in the Warehouse District  for Galleries and restaurants. 

For military buffs there is the National World War II Museum - a great and moving tribute to the service of the greatest generation.

Continue the streetcar down St. Charles through the Garden District  to Uptown and the University area. 

Stop at Carrollton Avenue and grab some breakfast or lunch at the Camellia Grill before spending some time shopping in the Riverbend area.

If you have access to a car go down Magazine Street for shopping and eating - where the locals go!

See you there when the good times roll!

"Capital Punishment Is Little More Than Revenge."

Mikhail Khodorkovsky writing for the Sunday NYTimes, "Notes From a Russion Penal Colony," relates a story about how one prisoner "refused to cut a deal with his conscience" and thereby helped Khodorkovsky, himself a prisoner in Penal Colony No. 7, Segezha, Russia.

Why is this story important to me?  Because of something a mother told me yesterday.  Apparently, her son is caught between dating two women - but only one does he really care for.  The mother told the son that it was not fair to the other girl and he should break it off if there was no future.  The father told the son, "Everyone dates around with multiple partners - no reason you should be different." 

To whom does the son listen?  That's not for me to say.  I can tell that there might be an answer in Khodorkovsky's essay:

"To cut a deal with one’s conscience — to lie, keep quiet, “not notice,” hiding behind the claim that it’s “for my family.” To convince oneself that “such are the times,” or that “everyone does it.” Who are we really dealing with? How do we find out that the other party — the conscience — refuses to deal? When we find ourselves face to face with disaster? Or later, when we are tallying up our life and become painfully aware that there’s no more dodging the raindrops, that there remain only memories? But by then you can’t change anything."

Along a similar theme - one's conscience - is a movie I watched the other night, Pierrepoint, The Last Hang Man. 

The movie is disturbing in subject matter but made all the more so by the plodding, methodical unfolding of the story.  It mimicks the methodical technique of the executioner.  After watching a few executions the viewer could become almost inured to death by hanging.  I still blinked when the rope snapped.  What saves the story is the hangman's role: he believes what he does is sacred work.  To him, the criminals have "paid the price" with death - the slate is wiped clean.  And he has a hand in that.  This is the power of the story whether or not you agree with his posture, or believe he is hiding behind an artfully crafted excuse to murder.

Who was Albert Pierrpoint?  He was a grocery delivery man whose father was an executioner for England.  Pierrepoint feels a calling to not only follow in his father's footsteps but to become the most efficient executioner England has witnessed.  He realizes that aim only to be reversed in his convictions about the benefits of capital punishment by one of his last hangings.  After 608 executions in 20 years, Pierrepoint writes, "Capital punishment is little more than revenge."

"'If death were a deterrent,' he wrote, 'I might be expected to know. It is I who have faced them at the last, young lads and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown.

'It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder.'"

"Suffering Is Not The Same As Unhappiness."

You are looking at a picture of people contemplating rocks in the Zen Garden at the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon (Ryon-ji) in Kyoto, Japan.

Storytellers look for stories in all the strange and familiar places.  For example, an update on traveling to Kyoto, Japan, might yield wisdom more inspiring than the travelogue.  That happened to me.

Pico Iyer writing for the NYTimes, "Now Is the Season for Japan," tells about Kyoto one year after the two-ton punch of an earthquake and tsunami.  I am humbled by the grief:

"The 9.0 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown that hit the country on March 11, 2011, claimed almost 20,000 lives, overturned an economy that had already been foundering through 20 years of recession, and demoralized a citizenry dealing with one suicide every 17 minutes, a loss of direction, and what is now seven prime ministers in fewer than six years."

Likewise, I am humbled by a country's resilience that arises like a flower growing from a crack in a boulder.  As storyteller and community activist Loren Niemi never tired of telling me: you know you have gained some sense of the world's story when you can hold two opposing notions in your mind at one time and not go crazy.  This story shows us the way we might do so:

"In Mitsuyo Kakuta’s “Pieces,” perhaps the subtlest and most beautiful story in “March Was Made of Yarn,” an anthology of short fiction just published in memory of last year’s disasters, a woman in middle age looks back on her life after she learns that her husband had been with a young mistress at the time of the Great Tokyo Blackout.

“To acquire was not to be happy,” she had learned during Japan’s boom years, and now she sees that “loss was not the root of unhappiness.” As lights come back to her city, she reflects that the happy moments in her life cannot erase the losses she’s known; nor can those losses ever keep her from knowing happiness.

To hold those two ideas in your head as many in Japan do — to see that life means a joyful participation in a world of sorrows, and that suffering is not the same as unhappiness — is one of the singular blessings this seasoned country still has to offer."  [Emphasis added.]

Indeed, "What you have is all you need."

Nothing Is More Important Than This Moment.

On the work station of a hair stylist I used to frequent was a framed photograph of himself and his new bride running through the waves of the Pacific Ocean just moments after they said "I do!" to each other.  While the photograph was lovely as only a wedding moment can be, what was more memorable were the words engraved around the frame: "Nothing is more important than this moment." 

Today I see another hair stylist.  The first one relocated after his marriage dissolved as quickly as the sand under the waves he and his bride splashed in.  Who knows what happened to the photograph in the frame.

These many years later I recall the inscription when a sister interrupts me in the middle of work; one of the Feline Four brings a pipe cleaner "mouse" she just caught for praise; the front door bell rings to announce a visit from the local Jehovah's Witness evangelizers; the camellia blooms but I'm in a hurry; a Downey Woodpecker taps outside my window but I figure it will come back another day - when I have time to listen; the phone rings with a solicitation for some charity; and so on.

We're all busier it seems than we have ever been before.  We are the generation of multi-tasking multi-taskers.  Just watch what folks are doing as they drive their cars on the freeway. 

I'm not perfect.  I don't have all the answers.  I don't even have all the questions.  The best I can do is remember to pay attention because "Nothing is more important than this moment."

 

"Emotional Meaning Leads To Listener Action."

My dear friend, colleague, author, writer, mediator, blogger and story-tracker, Stephanie West Allen, emailed me the link to The Inside Story, an article on the power of narrative by Peter Gruber published in Psychology Today.

Gruber's article is a tidy review of what we storytellers live and breathe.  Excerpt.

"Telling stories is not just the oldest form of entertainment, it's the highest form of consciousness. The need for narrative is embedded deep in our brains. Increasingly, success in the information age demands that we harness the hidden power of stories. Here's what you need to know to tell a killer tale."

I was encouraged to revisit many of the themes I have been writing and speaking about since 1994 when a book of stories fell off a shelf into my hand and said, "Come follow us."  Themes like "virtual journey" which Gruber calls "virtual transportation."  Either way you look at it the notion is a well told story invites the listener inside the story to share the experience. Remember to release them at the end.   

Stories are not fluff - they have become the "cornerstones of our conscience" as lawyers have learned. Pull accurately on the collective community conscience and you are likely to get them on your side of an argument.

This is another oft-told notion:

"The first rule of telling stories is to give the audience—whether it's one business person or a theater full of moviegoers—an emotional experience. The heart is always the first target in telling purposeful stories. Stories must give listeners an emotional experience if they are to ignite a call to action."

As I wrote on bookmark give-aways in 2003:

"Storytelling thrives on imagination.  Images touch the heart and become sensations, sensations trigger memories, memories create meaning and meaning leads to listener action."

Any story must be emotionally meaningful for the listener to care about it. That does not mean the story has to be emotional and fraught with drama.  No.  It must evoke a value or values that the listener identifies with as personal to them and their life experience, their view of how the world turns.  This is especially true of decision-makers, those people you want to give you some action in exchange for the story.

Not all of us are called to be storytellers.  There are three distinct and interwoven parts to any story: the story itself, the teller and the listener.  Listening attends to the images and helps translate the metaphors into "this is like that."  Without the listener there is no story.

If it's true that we read to know we are not alone, I believe we listen to stories for the same reason. 

Really, Now! Who Has Time To Write Poetry?

I am reading "The One-Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka.  Michael Pollan calls this little book,

"One of the founding documents of the alternative food movement, and indispensable to anyone hoping to understand the future of food and agriculture."

Why would I read such a book? I want to feed people organic apples and the foods one can make with apples.  We can always use a good apple, grown right - and a nice slice of pie.

In one chapter Mr. Fukuoka reflects on how the times have changed.  Not just for farmers but for all of us. In the act of cleaning his village shrine he uncovered bit of haiku written by villagers time out of mind.  Then, he notes, even farmers had time to write poetry.  But no more - we are hurried.

This seems true for all of us.  Even for me when I catch myself (again) eating a meal in front of the computer screen instead of appreciating what I prepared perhaps sitting in the sun.

It can be different, even if only incrementally. We just need to step out of the cave:

From Out the Cave
    by Joyce Sutphen

When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed

papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.  [from Straight Out of View. © Beacon Press, 1995]

Punishing Protest: What Is Happening To Confront Non-Violent Civil Disobedience?

   

For those who are considering taking part in non-violent protest, eschew protest, defend protestors, and all the rest of us who live in these United States, if you missed this eye-opening discussion click on the title following to listen to the audio of the one-hour discussion hosted by ORION Magazine:

Punishing Protest: Patrick Shea and Heidi Boghosian Discuss Law and Civil Disobedience

February 23, 2012

Summary: What is the justice system for? Activists from the Occupy movement to climate justice camps are regularly made examples of by courts while bank and oil company executives avoid prosecution for real crimes. During Orion's latest live web event, Patrick Shea, a lawyer who defended climate justice activist Tim DeChristopher (see "What Love Looks Like" in the January/February 2012 issue of Orion), and Heidi Boghosian, director of the National Lawyers Guild, discussed what activists engaging in nonviolent protest can expect from the justice system.