Blawg Review 2008 Blawg Review of the Year Nominations
NEWS ALERT: I'm not working here.
If blogging isn't fun or compelling in some other way - if I'm not just BURSTING to share something with my readers, I'm not doing it. The same is true for Blawg Review. If it's not laugh out loud funny, genuinely inspiring or impossible to put down (the well told tale) I'm not reading it. Really. Talk about social networking and search engine optimization all you want. Twitter on with an eye toward building your "brand" or expanding your client base or padding your curriculum vitae. I admire you for blogging and linking and tweeting with a genuine business plan. Me? I'm just trying to have a little fun; give and get a little wisdom; and, populate my life with smart people who make me think, laugh or cry.
Before I proceed, I want you to know what I mean when I say "well told tale" because that's pretty much the standard for my Blawg Review nominations (along with creativity, which needs no example other than the Blawg Review that exemplifies it below.
Magnolia. Well Told Tale. Which also asks the question most critical to reconciliation (about which this blog posts quite a bit): "What can we forgive?"
That said, here are my choices for Blawg Review of the Year.
#182 David Gulbransen's Preaching to the Perverted
I said "Flat out brilliant! And fun!" at the time and looking back at David's Multi-State Bar Exam Template for Blawg Review #182, I'm as entertained today as I was at first sight. I'm certain thousands of other lawyers reading Gulbransen's Bar Exam Blawg Review still have nightmares about this test (as do I) ten, twenty or thirty years later. Blawg Review #182 subverts the nightmare and makes this old boogy-man a clown. Sharp in lay-out too, which no other Blawg Review of 2008 matched. And I must admit that any Blawg with the kicker "wise up suckers" shows just the kind of rebelliousness I look for in my posse.
Below: Wise Up from Magnolia
BlawgReview #182 is highly deserving of the award for Blawg Review of the Year.
#188 NY Personal Injury Law
"Arlo Guthrie was at my door," reports Eric Turkewitz. "Which was kind of funny," he said, "since I hadn't exactly invited him to Thanksgiving dinner with the law bloggers we were having, but this being Thanksgiving he thought it would be a friendly gesture to show up and help me write Blawg Review. And so he did." Blame it on the Baby Boom or my Lit Major, but taking the Legal Blawgosphere on a Time Trip back to Alice's Restaurant is likely my own favorite for BlawgReview of the year even as I give it an even tie with Preaching to the Perverted's slick 21st Century template.
BlawgReview#188 is equally deserving of the award for Blawg Review of the Year.
Below: Alice's Restaurant (no need to acquire the taste; you pretty much had to be there)
The Wedding Guest is the Compelling Narrator's ideal reader and the Ancient Mariner the Ideal Reader's compelling narrator.
He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot chuse but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
Colin's Blawg Review also grasped us by our labels and demanded our attention, for which we were richly rewarded, garnering my humble Blawg Review of the Year nomination in a four-way tie.
Below Jack Nicholson Recites Rudyard Kipling in Honor of Blawg Review #189
Ron Coleman's BlawgReview #191 at Likelihood of Confusion is the final, but not the least, of my Blawg Review of the Year Nominations for 2008. Ron reminds us that the law; the way we are tormented by it and the means by which we torment it back - is totally the JUDEO part of our Western Civ heritage. Ron's Hannukah theme does not merely suit the year-end holiday spirit but also our entire rule of law Schtick as it takes us several centuries back in time to find the original legal mash-up. As I wrote at the time #191 was first posted:
The Menorah represents Torah She'baal Peh or the "Oral Law" which is a companion of the Written Torah; the part that man can derive, embellish, and - in a sense - 'create' by using his own diligence and intelligence in accord with the God-given hermeneutical principles. In other words, the Torah She'baal Peh is the original mash-up and hence a fitting symbol for Ron Coleman's brilliant (pun intended) Blawg Review #191.
For Ron: Lewis Black on "His" Book
