Coppertops

Tomorrow is the day. Or, if you're in a major media market, today is the day. As Salon puts it:

Four years of waiting are finally over for "Matrix" fans. This Thursday will mark the simultaneous release of "The Matrix Reloaded," the first of two sequels set to hit movie screens this year, and "Enter the Matrix," a companion video game. The second wave will arrive on June 3, with the release of a DVD titled "The Animatrix," containing a series of nine animated film shorts set in the world of the Matrix. The DVD of "Reloaded" is expected to follow in late October, clearing the way for the release of "The Matrix Revolutions," the third and final installment of the "Matrix" saga, in early November.

But while the press goes googy over the onslaught of Matrix merchandise, it not surprisingly has very little to say about what—besides guns and kung-fu—makes "The Matrix" such a brilliant cultural artifact. I was going to point out a big windy rant to explain what I mean by that, but instead I'll just point you to Jane Dark's Reloaded Questions, which says most of what I wanted to say. After running through a list of the many allusions that comprise the world of "The Matrix"—i.e.: messianism, gnosticism, metaphysical and existential conundrums— Dark says all of those are neat, but not quite the point. Instead, it's all about power (in all senses of the word):

When I asked Laurence Fishburne, who plays Morpheus, if he followed the first flick's philosophy, he announced he'd mused plenty in his life about "all that, you know, spiritual fucking voodoo fucking mumbo jumbo kind of shit." He said this in his Othello-goes-drinking voice, tinged with the gentle irony of someone who has actually gazed long and hard at his navel and come out the other side. For him, the religious reading wasn't the film's hard core. As he put it, "The idea that machines are using us for batteries is pretty fucking severe."

Marx thought so, though in his matrix the master class of machines was just called the master class, the enslaved humans just the workers, and battery power was called labor. Same shit, different name (though not very different: Matrix is just Marxist avant la lettre s).
...

This is the dystopia on offer in The Matrix. The war between intelligent machines and humans is a sci-fi cliché, no less than hey-this-could-all-be-a-simulation. What the Brothers got is that the masters of reality don't want to destroy us. They want us jacked directly into the economy, stupid, and they want it 24-7. The concept of "the matrix" might stand for abstractions like "ideology" or "the spectacle," but it resembles more concretely the endgame of millennial merger mania—what happens when all the corporations of the world become one seamless super-entity within which you labor, eat, make love, pay rent ( The Truman Show offered a different version of the same surmise). The evolution from Warner Bros. to AOL Time Warner required only a few years of corporate copulation. From AOL Time Warner to the matrix—it's just a kiss away.

Dark obviously took the red pill. I'm guessing "Reloaded" will confirm the accuracy of Dark's reading of "The Matrix"—at least I hope it does.

Spoiler Alert: Near the end of her article, Dark also gives a few little details about "Reloaded," so if you haven't seen it yet and want to do so w/out any spoilage, skip the last couple of paragraphs of Dark's piece.

Posted 05:54 PM | ai movies

Ultimate Contradiction

If there was ever an argument for maintaining a robust system of social services, it's natural disasters. Thousands of people have been affected by tornadoes and flooding in recent weeks, many losing their homes and businesses. Should they all be left to fend for themselves? Does anyone begrudge the victims of natural disasters the money they'll get from state and federal governments to help them rebuild their lives. Taxes fund social services that we need to maintain a healthy society. That's why this makes no sense at all:

President Bush finished off a two-day, three-state campaign for his half-trillion-dollar tax cuts this afternoon with a stop in a driving rain to see the damage in Pierce City, a town about 45 miles southwest of here that was devastated last week when a tornado tore through its center.

The story goes on to say that Bush talked a lot about god and prayer, then promised financial aid to those who lost everything. How can this man demand tax cuts even as he promises more spending? How stupid does he think Americans are? (Answer: Very.) Those people in Missouri and other midwestern states are going to need to pray hard, because Bush is doing everything he can to make sure there's no way their state or federal governments will be able to help them rebuild their lives. Isn't "faith" a beautiful thing? "Dear god, thank you for sending these tornadoes to destroy everything I've ever known and loved. Now please help me rebuild everything because the people in my society don't seem to care about anything but themselves, so without you I'm pretty much on my own down here. Thanks."

Posted 05:39 PM | general politics

1L Externship How-To

Here's how one Mid-top-tier 1L got an externship with a federal judge in his/her city of intended practice:

I found the list of federal judges in the city I wanted on another law school's website. I wrote a cover letter, only personalizing with name and address. On December 1, the first day 1Ls can contact employers, I sent 60 judges packets containing: a) cover letter, b) resume, c) grad school transcript, and d) a writing sample from my legal writing class. I received 7-8 interview offers and a few "send me your grades when you get them and we'll see." I scheduled the interviews for Xmas break, flew out there, and got an offer in my first interview merely because the judge knew someone who enjoyed their time at my UG. I accepted on the spot, and cancelled the other interviews.

For all 1L job hunt stuff--judge or firm--I think the key is to start preparing in September or October: generating your lists, getting your materials together, etc. You don't want to deal with this stuff during midterms. When December 1 rolled around, I just had to drop the envelopes in the mail. Others in my class hadn't even considered the summer yet and had less luck. Many still don't have jobs.

Sounds like a plan. Many other comments in the thread agree that getting application packets out early (Dec 1) is key. [Link via jd2b.]

Posted 12:23 PM | law school

Catsup

What a strange word that is, "catsup." It sounds funny, and it's spelled funny. How do you say it? Some people say it like "catch-up," which is what I'm doing now. The following are links I don't have time to really comment on, but which are worth posting anyway:

• Earth to Bill Gates: Thank You—I saw the NOW program last Friday and I'll be damned if it didn't make even me, a hardened anti-M$ partisan, think twice about refusing to give my software dollars to M$. (But Gates still didn't pay for his coffee [link via Scripting News.
• TV social experiment involving student ends—Still more proof that more money is not the complete solution to problems w/public education. For those of you who played LSAT games some time in the recent past, this story shows that money is necessary but not sufficient for a good education.
• Type-Ho's—It must be hard to be a legal secretary.
• Law Review: Worth it or not?—A must-read for people unsure of whether they'll pursue a spot on their law review. Don't skip the comments. [link via jd2b, I think.]
• Senate broadens terror surveillance law—This is not good news.
• Democrats flee Texas, freeze legislature—This also does not seem like good news—neither the Dems leaving or Delay's open attempt to rig the 2004 election in the Republicans' favor. If we thought American democracy could survive the gross influence peddling that is campaign finance, the debacle of election 2000, and unending wars on terrorism that are used to justify what increasingly looks like an unending war on civil liberties (not to mention a corporate press with goals contradictory to those of democracy), we might have to think again.
• Verizon to turn pay phones into WiFi hot spots—This, on the other hand, does seem like good news.

Posted 12:22 PM | Comments (1) | life generally