PicoBlog

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking on the button below. Thanks! “Let’s be honest. Attorneys are attorneys. Law firms are law firms. Most blend into one another, while nonetheless proclaiming themselves better than the next.” “Every once in a while, you find an attorney, even a whole firm, which does seem different….

Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). If you’re interested in taking this journey with me, make sure you subscribe so you never miss a review. If you want to ensure I review any specific bagels (or want to let me know why I’m wrong), you can email me at seanmatthewkeeley@gmail.com. Ed. Note - This week’s mid-week post is free for all subscribers.

The power of love is within me. I am surrounded by love. I am worthy of love. Share Happy Wednesday, everybody! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We are welcoming and embracing thicc girl season. With all the eating festivities during the holidays, give yourself grace and enjoy your favorite dishes! It’s all about balance. Enjoy the treats, and take a walk. Eat the feast, and get a sweat in.

In October of 1998 — 25 years ago this week — director Todd Haynes released Velvet Goldmine, his elaborate and clearly very personal homage to the glam rock era. It featured a narrative structure borrowed from Citizen Kane, and rock stars very clearly inspired by David Bowie and Iggy Pop (with a touch of Lou Reed too) who have a chaotic affair with one another.  The film followed a trajectory familiar from that particular decade- it flopped upon release but has since been rediscovered by audiences.

The stakes were high from the moment opening arguments were made at the Munk debate on the media in Toronto on Wednesday, and only escalated from there. The riveting event — staged by a Canadian charitable foundation and skillfully moderated by Rudyard Griffiths — brought together four prominent international journalists to debate a resolution: “Don’t trust mainstream media.” Independent investigative reporter Matt Taibbi and Spectator editor Douglas Murray faced off against mainstream media luminaries Malcolm Gladwell, a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, and Michelle Goldberg, a columnist for The New York Times.

Photos by Matthew Schniper For our lead news item this week, we have the highly anticipated opening of Folklore, which replaces Lucky Dumpling. If you missed the backstory on this venture, catch up with this brief article I posted on March 1. The reason I say that it’s highly anticipated is that I know it from online metrics: When I shared my blog that same day to my Culinary Colorado Springs Facebook Group (which you should definitely join if you aren’t already a member), it received more engagement among our almost 9,000 members and beyond than any post to-date.

Greetings! If you’re not a regular reader of this column, I’m glad you found me! If you’re a regular, welcome back. For those who don’t know me, a brief introduction: I’ve been writing about the Des Moines dining scene for nearly 25 years, 15 for The Des Moines Register, and quite … ncG1vNJzZmivmaO2rrvRmqWvoZyhsm%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2ivmJq%2FpnnTqGSdoZ6aeqq6jJ2msKakpMSvecOeqmaln567pr8%3D

In her super useful but also a little bit wackadoo book, How to Get Your Child to Love Reading (which I reviewed in issue No. 21), Esmé Raji Codell writes this about building community around the power of literacy and what a gift this service is to children: “If children’s literature is the potato, the thing that nourishes, then we are the plowshares that ready the land for planting.” I love this image — being a plowshare readying the reading land for my children.

A student fashion show inspired by Paradise Lost brought down the mandolin-strumming president of a college that once billed itself as “the World’s Most Unusual University.” There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. As both a historian of 20th century religion in America and as an alumnus of Bob Jones University, I’m somewhat uniquely qualified to walk you through the ultimate causes of the late unpleasantness. The imbroglio began with a student fashion show in December 2021.