A Trial Lawyer in Court

Image from “Mrs. Nelson’s
American Government”

Like directing a play

By James T. Carney, Attorney at Law

I was recently involved in a case that well illustrates what trial lawyers do. The case had to do with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, and included a good deal of esoteric discussion about ERISA, which I won’t bore you with. The case in question boiled down to a brass and knuckles fight over whether or not a couple who divorced after having been married in a religious ceremony had subsequently reunited in a common law marriage.

Side Story: Word count’s bane

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Paul, in a comment on April 20, you acknowledged that, “since I have worked as an editor and writer, sure, I have some thoughts to share on the subject of the importance of word count versus fully telling a story. And maybe I could even chare those thoughts in 250 or so words, or maybe a few more....”
    Please write those thoughts up, for another column in this informative and thought-provoking series, “Side Story.” (And be sure to accumulate your word count.) —Moristotle

Reply by Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [16]

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16. At night the rain would invade

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Real people

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Goines used to think of time spent watching movies or TV series as “escapist” – time away from “real life.” For that reason, he was caught off guard and surprised, a few episodes into watching the Israeli TV series Shtisel, to realize that the characters of most of the dramatizations he watched were as real to him as the actual people he interacted with. Goines truly cared about some (or most) of the characters he encountered in various dramas, perhaps especially in the case of Shtisel.

All Over the Place: Spring

By Michael H. Brownstein












All winter the lilies broke through earth,
an easy winter,
splashes of snow now and then,
a few mosaics of frost,
houseflies did not know to die,
ground hogs did not know to hibernate,
everywhere great bald eagles over the Missouri,
the early caw of crows,
a grand scheme of geese,
ponds did not freeze,
and today a worm surfaced,
a robin dropped from a tree
and the wonder of life began its renovations.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

Poetry & Portraits: May

Drawing by Susan C. Price

May
By Eric Meub

Sweet friends, I never hear you once complain.
      You linger in your alabaster urn
Behind the jewelry box and the Guerlain.
      One evening, angel host, you’ll have your turn.

Goines On: More masked men

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On their trip to Costco that day, the next piece of music was lively, and Mrs. Goines said it sounded like ballet music. An image of Trump dancing on stage and reciting tweets forced itself onto the screen of Goines’ imagination. He slapped the steering wheel with some glee. “Someone has to be composing a comic opera of Trump. History claims no bigger fool…Would the role be for a tenor or a baritone, do you think?”

Two Is Enough: Life as senior citizens

By Vic Midyett

Fear not, you who are young'ens, for life as a senior citizen can still be hilarious!
    I had planned to get my hair cut on the day the government morons decided to close the barber shops. My hair had gotten a lot longer than I like and was batting my forehead.

Six Years Ago Today: Missionary Kid

Raja

By Vic Midyett

[Editor’s Note: This Missionary Kid story originally appeared on May 6, 2014. The author was reminded of his story about Raja when he learned from a cousin in India of a story about Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma titled “32 Years Without a Weekend Off: This Elephant Doctor Treats 700+ Jumbos Every Year!” by Jovita Aranha. Make your day by reading both Vic’s and Ms. Aranha’s stories.]

I was about six years old when we got Raja, a half-grown elephant. He was about the same height as Dad. We didn’t have him long, because his appetite was bigger than Dad’s wallet. For several weeks though, I enjoyed his company immensely. I have no picture of Raja, so this one will have to do; Raja was about the size of the smallest of the three elephants.

Adventures from Bulgaria: Belasitsa and the 3 Dogs

Detail from 12th photo

By Valeria Idakieva

Stuck at home in the middle of coronavirus lockdown, I am following the current social debate about going out of your home. While reading comments like “So, you can take your dog for a walk, but you can’t take your child for a walk!,” a memory of three dogs that followed me on one of my hiking adventures occupied my mind and made me go back two years and look through the pictures I made during that adventure. I am not going to take a side in the debate whether it is right to take your dog but not your child out; I think there should be a way to take both of them for a walk, even in quarantine time.

Side Story: Stalked by wild dogs

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Ed, you commented that you were “stalked by a pack of wild dogs once,” but gave no details. Please tell us more. I’ve heard of people having horrible confrontations with wild dogs – and wild hogs – but so far I have avoided both. —Paul Clark

Reply by Ed Rogers

All Over the Place: Death by Indecision

By Michael H. Brownstein








1.

We’re in the bank:
I’d tell you a coronavirus joke, a customer said way too loud,
but you wouldn’t get it.

And I didn’t get it – not at first –
but others smiled.
No one laughed.

Recommending Emergence Magazine

Illustration by Jia Sung

To meet a global need

By Moristotle

Thank our colleague Bob Boldt for sending me the text of Emergence Magazine’s op-ed “Finnegas” by Paul Kingsnorth, a writer living in rural Ireland. Mr. Kingsnorth opens with the statement, “I would like to tell you a few things about this virus and the lessons it should teach us, all the things we should be learning. I would like to add my voice to the crowd and be heard above it.” As you can see, the op-ed is timely.
    We have inserted a few links into the excerpt, for your convenience. And, following the excerpt, we provide some information about the Kalliopeia Foundation and Emergence Magazine.

Two Is Enough

And so are these two funnies

By Vic Midyett

Ol’ Zeb, the fish-catchin’est old fart that ever was, always caught his dinner of fish. By and by I came across Ol’ Zeb and asked him how that came to be. How did he always catch enough fish for dinner?

Goines On: Curled sidelocks

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The Goineses had been watching the Israeli TV series Shtisel, a fictional story about a conservative (Haredi) Jewish family in Jerusalem who adhere strictly to their interpretation of Jewish law and values. The men wear religious vestments and curl their sidelocks. The Goineses found these people’s customs fascinating. But hardly anyone in the huge Shtisel family seems happy, and it was impossible to watch the series without sharing their sadness.