Hey folks!

Sorry for the infrequency of these blog posts. Because we spend a lot of days traveling, concerting, eating, singing, and getting lost or nearly run over in strange countryside side streets, it’s been hard to find time to write. Nevertheless, I’ve been having great fun on the UK leg of the tour, and finding touches of home in the strangest places — for example in the warm welcomes of the farmers at a nearby market in Queen’s Park in Glasgow.

My new writing solution is to tap out posts on my iPod while riding in the van. Here’s one from a couple of days ago, when we were riding off to Manchester:

Yesterday after an evening workshop we went to our first English pub, the Duke’s. It looked like the inside of a nice hotel with conservatively striped crimson wall paper, gilt framed mirrors, and a wood stove helping to warm us up where we sat by mahogany tables. At the bar I ordered a Shropshire gold, a mild pale brew that almost overcame my distaste for beers. I sat next to an young English couple, one of whom was studying forensic science in college, the other of whom was taking a gap year before going off to university. On a pop culture note, the forensic scientist told me that the TV show glee has just made it to England. And the English have a special holiday called Red Nose Day every other March: a day when all sport red noses and act silliy to benefit charity.

I had such wonderful vegetarian hosts here; it’s so nice to be in a house with young kids, energetic puppies, and parents who laugh at each others’ jokes (or groan knowingly, as the case may be). I shared with Molly a taste for garlic, with Aeife an interest in swimming, and with a Liam a love off instruments. (He played about five.) I need to learn more languages and more instruments!

So many if my sentences here begin with it’s so nice! Or look at that! I suppose I’m noticing and enjoying the words, the accent, the sheep we pass by on the highway. Lynn looks at me when I say these things and sort of smiles and nods in a doleful way. That dampless enthusiasm again. Will, when I lope around the Steiner school yard in the morning before two hours of driving in the van, calls me a leprechaun. I wish I had someone to share these enthusiasms with as fully as we share our music on stage. (But hey — I’ve been told that when I’m not around, all confess to actually enjoying my puns. It’s more bark than bite when Will jokes about reinstating his policy of punches for puns).

I’m looking forward to Glasgow tomorrow. I’m sorry that my postings have been so rare, but time has been spare, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that writing takes me away from all these wonderful experiences. So I’m typing this out on my iPod as we drive to Manchester and discuss the horses we see on the side of the road. (Please forgive the wigliness of spelling, capitalization, and such). I’m loving England so far. I’ll let you know, when I have the chance, what I think of Glasgow!

The forest was also home to Jake, who was a couple of weeks older than Arabella and already had a reputation as a trickster. One day, Jake had simply disappeared from the forest. When he didn’t return that evening, or the next, or the next, the elders sent out a search party to look for the red-flecked ruffian. Finally, on the evening of the fourth day, Jake barged into the elders’ house with a laugh, telling the assembled greywhiskers how much fun it was to watch all the cats looking for him. It turned out that Jack had climbed a tree and thought it would be funny not to come down.

In addition to being a trickser, Jake had a reputation as a showman, which everycat knew came straight from his elder brother. Jake’s elder brother had a meow that carried from one end of the dell to the other, and Jake wanted his meow (which he called his “roar”) to be just as gigantic. To the annoyance of everycat who went to bed early, Jake practiced his roar late into the evening. So Jake’s roar came to be pretty fierce.

One day, Jake the trickster and the showman decided to have some fun at Arabella’s expense. He climbed a tree near the road in the middle of the forest, and waited for her to approach. Soon enough, little grey Arabella came to the side of the road and stopped to look both ways. When Jake saw her from his perch atop the tree, he gathered up all his might and roared. GROOM!!!! His roar resounded across the forest.

Arabella skittered. She heard a sudden GROOM!!! from her left , and remembered that her mom had told her not to cross the road if she heard such a thing. But all Arabella saw down the road was trees and bees and tracks in the mud. There was nothing suspicious. As she looked probingly into the distance, Arabella wondered what she should do.

Meanwhile, Jacob scampered down from his tree on Arabella’s left and scampered up a tree on Arabella’s right. This was quite fun, he thought. From a branch on Arabella’s right he puffed out his chest and let out another roar. GROOM!!! His roar resounded across the forest.

Arabella nearly jumped out of her whiskers. First left, now right – the GROOM!!! was everywhere, yet seemed to come from nowhere. Despite her mom had said, the road seemed safe. Arabella pondered her dilemma. Should she cross the road, or not?

I’ve been applying to law school, and thinking weird mangled thoughts lying somewhere in between law and cognitive science. Here are some oversimplified thoughts that I’ve found useful to think with.

Analysis is a way of thinking that takes an idea and breaks it into parts. For instance, “A car includes a chassis, an engine, a transmission, wheels, …, (and optionally a driver, a paintjob, …)”

Analysis:

Synthesis is a way of thinking that describes two or more ideas as members of a category. For example, “red and violent are both colors of the rainbow.” In linguistics, the process of making a syntactic unit out of individual words is called Merge, and Merge is an example of synthesis. An example of a Merge is the process by which our brains create the noun phrase “red pepper” out of the adjective “red” and the noun “pepper.”

Synthesis:

So far, so boring. The clincher is – my LSAT studying and my legal internship have made my thoughts more analytic. Most of the of legal thinking I’ve been doing has been breaking down a problem into parts. This is a fine way to solve a problem, but analysis and synthesis should be complementary. You can’t have one without the other. And furthermore, though I like both ways of thinking, I prefer synthesis.

Why do I like synthesis? My most creative and insightful thoughts are synthetic. The more improbable the induction, the more diverse the components, the better the thought (the more it changes my theories about the world). Of course, my preference for synthesis extends only to useful categories. When the heading under which concepts are synthesized becomes too abstract (for example, categorizing “making nouns out of verbs” and “making verbs out of nouns” under the way-too-abstract heading of “ambiguitization”), this heading ceases to refer to definite things like “shoe” or “lizard” and instead becomes a mental chameleon that can be whatever you want it to be.

I am uncomfortable with legal thinking so far as it does not balance analysis and synthesis. That said, I have too little experience to trust my characterization of legal thinking. The analyst in me says legal thinking is not one, but many, processes.

So I will put my discomfort on hold for now. My ongoing project is figuring out how to maintain creativity and spark within legal thinking, within the legal profession, — if that is what I want to do — and within my life.

Yesterdream, I had this conversation:

Me: What should I do with my life? (approximately)

Paul Bloom: Do what you love. What do you love?

Me: Writing and music, of course!

Of course!

Arabella was a tabby cat who lived in the big forest. She was little and she was grey, and she had a big streak of white on her tail. All the other kittens laughed at Arabella and said her white tail made her look silly, but Arabella didn’t let the other kittens get to her. Arabella was proud of her tail and thought she would grow into it — or so her mother told her. Arabella’s mother told her many things. Her mother told her — always clean your fur after sipping milk in the morning. And Arabella did. Her mother told her — purr quietly when other kittens are nearby. And Arabella did. Her mother told – always look both ways before crossing the street, and never cross the street when you hear a loud GROOM!!!. And that is where Arabella got into a spot of trouble almost as big as the spot on her tail.

You see, Arabella wasn’t the only kitten in the forest…

Explanation for craziness is, friend Josh-the-weird-one came to Moscow for LA for tourist week. With parents, on mission find Jews and interrogate them. So went to Hillel, talk to teenagers who rule world. Er, international Hillel organization. Talked smilingly in Englishy and I translate for them, get invited to next Sunday make-costume-creative-holiday. Learn new English word: flashMob. I did not think, would learn new English word in Moscow. Many interesting things happen in Moscow, like when I nearly fall in hole with barking dog. But nearly, say I. Ha ha! You laugh at my joke.

Think I, this Josh-the-weird-one now off to Turkmeniwhoknowswhereistan, return triumvirately Sat/Sun for more get-to-getherers. Nice to be Moscow go-to guy! Maybe see Romeo/Juliet, or narrate milleniums of russian history as stroll through krelilin. Evertheless, be it good, perkiness infects me.

Freedom of action.
Width of gesture, length of stride.
How strong is your step and the pump in your arms
You breeze through the world’s at your side.

Russian sign language
10 perky Russian Hillellies, a contradiction in terms
No less that I, vegan aesthete, should fly to Motherus’s uranium arms!
The confidence concoction, it’s no secret, it’s on auction,
Just think the cup’s half full runneth over
Walk unstopped, cork unpopped, your pizzazz is the raspberry fiz on top.
Whirl out and whirl back in, metro doors swing on invisible hinges
Levers and fulcrums and invisible gears,
People change days, illuminate weeks, and haunt the years
Of my life. Yes that’s right. This is life. And I’m here.