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Hey fam, diving into the art scene at a liberal arts uni? It’s like entering a whole new galaxy of creative vibes. Forget just messing with paint or clay; it’s all about finding your groove and expressing your true self in the most epic ways.

So, like, for a Cali girl who’s all about art and kinda obsessed with the classics, studio art is like a modern-day time-travel sesh. Imagine the canvas as a time machine, letting me vibe with peeps from back in the day or channel my inner Renaissance queen. Every brushstroke is a vibe, merging my essence with stories that go way back.

In the liberal arts mix, studio art is where the cool subjects collide. It’s not just about making something look nice; it’s about mixing art with classics. My paintbrush turns into a storyteller, dropping tales inspired by ancient myths. And when I’m sculpting, it’s not just about messing with clay; I’m giving life to stories that feel like they’ve been around forever.

The canvases I’m working on? Not just surfaces; they’re like portals into history, showing off the chill vibes of classical times. Mixing art and classics in the studio is like blending the old with the new in this never-ending story. It’s not just about creating art; it’s about vibing with the classics and dropping my own twist into a story that’s been rolling forever. Studio art in a liberal arts spot? It’s not just school; it’s like a laid-back hangout with creativity and a dash of classic coolness.  And you betcha we’re bringing those ancient vibes into the modern Cali game. 

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(Yes, ChatGPT included emojis in its output. I wonder how many college application essays organically incorporate emojis as part of the narrative?)

(I guess ChatGPT thinks it’s GenZ-speak to use the term “vibe”? It shows up 6 times).

Just to state the obvious, my daughter did not end up using any part of ChatGPT’s output for her essay. LOL.

The post ChatGPT’s College Application Essay, “Cali Girl” Style appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

* * *

LEIA: I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee.
HAN: I can arrange that.

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DECK OFFICER: Your Tauntaun’ll freeze before you reach the first marker.
HAN: Then I’ll see you in hell!

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LEIA: I don’t know where you get your delusions, laser brain.
HAN: Laugh it up, fuzzball.

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LEIA: Why, you stuck up,… half-witted…scruffy-looking…nerf-herder!

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VADER: You have failed me for the last time, Admiral.

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THREEPIO: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one.
HAN: Never tell me the odds!

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VADER: He will join us or die, my master.

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YODA: Do. Or do not. There is no try.

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YODA: Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?

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LUKE: I don’t believe it.
YODA: That is why you fail.

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LANDO: She’s the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.

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BEN: That boy is our last hope.
YODA: No. There is another.

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LEIA I love you!
HAN: I know.

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VADER: I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.

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VADER: No. I am your father….Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

The post What Are the Best Lines of Dialogue from “The Empire Strikes Back”? appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

Decade-Based Playlists

I divide music into decades, rather than genre or mood. Thus, I’ve built decade-specific playlists:

• Pre-1960s (135 songs). Little-known fact: in my first couple of years of high school, I listened primarily to the local radio station catering to listeners from the Greatest Generation and Silent Generation (and older Boomers), featuring big band and old-school pre-rock pop songs. Many of the songs in this playlist are culturally significant but unknown to millennials and younger. I’m not sure how well these songs resonate with those generations.
• 1960s (1,143 song). This playlist is heavy on psychedelia, garage, and proto-punk, with a good dollop of old-school R&B/Motown.
• 1970s (1,283 songs). The 70s were a sprawling mess (musically and otherwise), and this playlist reflects the chaos. I’ve included many different genres in this playlist: from psychedelia/prog rock to punk; sunshine pop to old-school soul; early new wave to disco. You may get genre whiplash in this playlist.
• 1980s (1,535 songs). The playlist emphasizes new wave, synthpop, post-pop, and alternative, but I’ve been open to great songs from other genres. The 1980s were such an amazing period for music.
• 1990s (845 songs). I graduated grad school in 1994, so my musical tastes started ossifying after that. That’s part of why the 1990s playlist is half the size of the 1980s playlist.
• 2000s and beyond (262 songs). I’m sharing this playlist for comprehensiveness, not because it appropriately celebrates music from the last two decades. The reality is that I’m just not excited about most of the post-2000 music, in part because I’m not in in the target audience. Beyond the mass-market pop songs that appeal to everyone, the post-2000 music I like best pays homage to old-school genres like neo-psychedelia; but most modern implementations don’t sound quite right because of improved production values and changes in social norms. Usually, when I listen to modern invocations of old-school genres, it makes me nostalgic for the originals and pushes me back into Spotify’s long-tail to prospect for more forgotten gems from the past.

I also have a top 100ish playlist of the songs I enjoy listening to the most across all decades.

Topical Playlists

I have also built playlists based on topical themes. My typical approach to building these playlists: I do keyword searches related to the theme, toss out any song that doesn’t have lyrics at least tangentially related to the theme, and then supplement the search results with a few other relevant songs that I can find other ways. This approach to playlist building means that the playlist is dominated by long-tail songs; and because I don’t make any quality judgments, it means that many of the songs in the playlist are terrible (at least to me). I wouldn’t say these long-tail-heavy playlists are “fun” to listen to, but I think they are an interesting way to capture the zeitgeist.

• Songs about vegans and vegetarians (454 songs; primarily created in 2019). I’m amazed at how many hip-hop songs have celebrated veganism, and I learned about a new subniche called “vegan straight edge” (which I don’t really like musically, but I respect the sentiments).
• Songs about lawyers (57 songs; primarily created in 2018). There are too many songs about lawyers, so I never finished this playlist.
• Songs about intellectual property (63 songs; primarily created in 2018). Some real gems in here for IP nerds.
• Songs about emojis and emoticons (136 songs; primarily created in 2019). I love emojis, but this is a problematic playlist. There are many songs in this playlist that celebrate misogyny and drop the N-word relentlessly. NSFW, and caveat listener.
• Songs about computers and the Internet (40 songs). This is an under-developed playlist that I’ve never tried to complete. There’s a little overlap with the emoji playlist.
• Songs about privacy (28 songs). Also under-developed.
• Songs about impeachment (53 songs; primarily built in 2020). I built this to commemorate Trump’s first impeachment, but there are more songs about impeaching George W. Bush than about impeaching Trump.

I’d welcome song suggestions for the topical playlists!

Hope you enjoy the playlists. For those of you who take the Internet for granted, note that this project would never have been possible without a “celestial jukebox” like Spotify. Which I can listen to for free. I the Internet.

The post All of My Spotify Playlists appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

In particular, this playlist has many songs with anti-social content, such as rampant misogyny and phrases that would make George Carlin blush. I cannot stress this enough: THIS PLAYLIST IS COMPLETELY, UNAMBIGUOUSLY, 100% NSFW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Indeed, I didn’t enjoy listening to most of these songs, and I wouldn’t choose to listen to them again. Still, the exercise was a fun way to capture the zeitgeist of emojis in music circa summer 2019. To that end, superstar RA Jess Miers put together a helpful chart of the emojis referenced in the songs. (Given the inscrutability of some of the lyrics, this is only an approximation). I also have the chart as an Excel spreadsheet–email me if interested. According to Jess’ tally, the most-frequently-referenced emojis in this playlist:

Hearts: 27
Heart Eyes: 23
Eggplant: 20
Blowing a Kiss: 18

As usual, if I’m missing any songs that you think belong in the playlist, please let me know. Otherwise, I hope .

The post A Pandemic Distraction: A Spotify Playlist About Emojis 🎶🎶🎶 appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

You can find the playlist at:

* Playlist web page
* Spotify URI

If you’re having trouble accessing it, try my public profile in the app and follow the links from there.

I intended the list to be organized alphabetically by band name, but Spotify won’t let me set that as a default for you, so I encourage you to reorder the playlist before you dig in.

An annoying quirk of Spotify: The web page for the playlist is out-of-date. It shows songs that no longer exist in Spotify’s catalog, and it does not properly represent the songs I deleted from the playlist (I relistened to and edited the playlist several times). As a result, to get my current master playlist, you should listen to the playlist in the Spotify app.

Another annoying quirk: Spotify removed songs that dropped out of its catalog without telling me, even when Spotify has the identical song from another source. As a result, dozens of songs exited my playlist over the six years. This is an unsurprising hazard of digging deep into Spotify’s long tail, where licensing seems more chaotic. I resurrected some songs by finding an alternative version in the database. However, many songs are out of the Spotify database; and I have no idea if Spotify made other deletions that I didn’t discover.

Enough Spotify-bashing. We live in a golden era of online music. What a treat it has been to explore Spotify’s long tail and find forgotten and obscure gems. It’s so much better than the old days where comprehensive exposure to recorded music’s long tail would be extremely expensive and time-consuming.

As always, a list like this constantly evolves, so I’d be grateful for your suggestions. I have other playlists I’ll announce in due course. However, I think the 1960s playlist coheres the best. I hope you enjoy it.

The post Spotify Playlist: 1960s Music appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

In this post, I’ll discuss how I chose a listing broker. In some cases, my mom had a solid existing relationship with a broker that made them the obvious choice. In most cases, however, I started from scratch. Often, I could generate a list of broker candidates through personal referrals from my personal network. Also, I sometimes got helpful referrals from the property manager (where there was one) or from the property appraiser we needed to hire (they know who is moving properties in the area). I interviewed no fewer than 3 brokers per property.

Here is the checklist of questions I used in my interviews:

* Describe some of your recent transactions similar to this one. [Note: for example, if I was trying to sell a condo, I wanted to see recent condo transactions.]

* Is there a better or worse time to sell? (i.e., is there a seasonality to the market that will affect sales price and listing duration?)

* Describe the types of buyer segments you think are likely to want to be interested in the property. [Note: this is just marketing 101. Who are your target customers, and what do they want?]

* What steps will you take to market the house, and do you do anything unique to make sure the target buyer segments know about the listing? [Note: I rarely got great answers to this question. No matter what they say, most brokers depend heavily on the Multiple Listing Service as their primary marketing tool. Still, just asking the question signaled to the broker that I expected them to up their game. Also, I found some brokers are more comfortable with social media marketing than others; it’s a good way to judge if a broker is trying to stay ahead of shifting marketing trends.]

* What work do you recommend we do to prepare the property for sale? Will you help coordinate getting that work done?

* What is your commission rate and what services do you include as part of your commission? [Note: commissions are totally negotiable. Even if a broker doesn’t budge on commission percentages, they may be willing to absorb some expenses (e.g., cleaning, inspections, closing costs) out of their share. If your broker sources the buyer, they might also be willing to take a discount because they don’t have to share the commission with a cooperating broker.]

* Do you have a preliminary estimate of a recommended listing price? [Note: I found the answers to this question surprisingly insightful. It told me a lot about how the broker viewed the property and the competitive properties. In some cases, it was clear that some brokers planned to recommend a below-market price to get a quick sale even if it left money on the table; and other brokers tried to “buy” the listing by promising an above-market price that they could never deliver.]

I don’t have any guidance about how to sort through the brokers’ answers to these questions. A lot will depend on your intuition. If I didn’t like the answers I got after interviewing three brokers, I kept adding new broker candidates until I found someone I could trust and who matched my work style. Choosing a sub-optimal broker candidate will inevitably lead to months of frustration, so don’t settle!

A final thought: I prefer to communicate with emails rather than phone or texts, so I needed to ensure that each broker was comfortable with email (not all of them are!). Thus, I required each broker candidate to follow up with me by email after the interview (usually, I asked for a Comparative Market Analysis). You’d be amazed how many brokers didn’t follow up with me or took weeks to do so, and that immediately ruled them out.

The post Selling Real Estate? Some Suggested Interview Questions For Prospective Brokers (LinkedIn Cross-Post) appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

* Protip: the “I automatically delete my emails after reading them” defense rarely works http://j.mp/1OepwZ1 (Twitter 2016)

* Protip: don’t try to intimidate witnesses, especially if your Instagram handle is “snitch_killa305” http://j.mp/1ljPHpf (Twitter 2015)

* Protip: you’ll never match up with Mr. (or Ms.) Right if you don’t enter your email address correctly #millennials #TextingPreferred (Twitter 2015)

* Protip to personal injury plaintiffs: don’t Facebook-checkin at courthouse with the status “becoming a millionaire” http://j.mp/1mb18AE (Twitter 2015)

* I just signed a 14 page law firm engagement letter. Protip: if your engagement letter is 14 pages, it’s probably 12-13 pages too long (Twitter 2015)

* Kozinski used the term “neutral tools” five times, but he never defined the term or explained if online tool ever can be “neutral” (protip: the answer is no). (Blog 2015)

* Protip: usually when a disciplinary authority enforces the lawyer oath, it’s because they didn’t have a very strong case of misconduct (Blog 2015)

* Protip to lawyers: be careful signing online petitions, especially if they possibly relate to a matter you’re working on! (Blog 2015)

* a protip we knew even before Google’s critics shat on the first three settlement proposals: Google’s critics will *NEVER* be happy with any settlement proposal that Google would voluntarily accept (Blog 2015)

* protip to griping bloggers: even though it’s surely fair use, please don’t include headshots on your blog (Blog 2014)

* Protip: save your “I hate my job” gallows humor and workplace venting for your diary or happy hour at the local bar, not your Facebook timeline. (Blog 2014)

* another protip to griping bloggers: even though it’s surely fair use, please don’t include headshots on your blog. It’s avoidable litigation-bait (Blog 2014)

* Protip: before buying a digital song or movie, I check eBay and Half.com to see how much it costs to buy the same CD or DVD used (Blog 2013)

* Protip: Kegstands and Vertigo Are Inconsistent With Each Other–Johnson v. Ingalls (Blog 2012)

* A protip of general applicability: never allow sharp objects at family reunions. (Blog 2012)

* a new protip: if you’re involved in a fight, check with your lawyer before discussing said fight on Facebook (Blog 2012)

BONUS: My co-blogger Venkat Balasubramani has blogged some protips as well:

* Pro-tip: if you’re going to let someone borrow your phone, make sure you don’t have any sexy selfies that can be freely accessed by anyone who accesses the phone. (Blog 2014)

* PRO TIP: I presume the temptation is strong to monitor your soon-to-be-ex-spouse’s email, but resist it at all costs! (Blog 2014)

* Pro-tip: First Amendment merits aside, as a lawyer, I would avoid the “I have an absolute right to contact my ex” argument. (Blog 2014)

* Protip: Don’t Send Emails Threatening to “Inflict the Maximum Amount of Financial Pain” Allowed By Law (Blog 2014)

The post A Collection Of Protips From The Last Half-Decade appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

Over the weekend, we converted the blog from Movable Type to WordPress.  If you haven’t had a chance to check out the new page layout, I encourage you to do so.  You can see the difference by comparing www.ericgoldman.org, which retains the old layout for now.  We’ll be updating that soon.  The UI remains a work-in-progress, so we’ll be continuing to tinker and refine it over the next few weeks.

We’re experimenting with some features, such as comments and WordPress’ automated related-posts tool.  Let me know what you think of them. And PLEASE email me your feedback and any suggestions, especially if you see anything broken (other than links to external websites, which I don’t try to maintain).  If you have any favorite WordPress plug-ins you recommend we install, let me know.

The RSS feeds should be working properly.  If you subscribed via RSS and didn’t get this post in your RSS feed, please email me what RSS feed URL you’re using and I will work on it ASAP.

Thanks for your patience during this conversion, and thanks again for your continued readership

The post Check Out the New Blog Design! appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bauhaus (terrific song)

Monster Mash – Boris Pickett (corny but essential)

Werewolves of London – Warren Zevon

The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Charlie Daniels

Thriller – Michael Jackson

Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo (another great song; I’m surprised at how rarely this song makes Halloween mix lists given how topical it is)

The Exorcist (Theme from Tubular Bells)

Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell

I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow (this is Lisa being silly)

Overture from Phantom of the Opera

Black Magic Woman – Santana

Requiem: Dies Irae – Mozart (another great Halloween song that doesn’t make the mix lists often enough)

Great Balls of Fire – Jerry Lee Lewis

Superstition – Stevie Wonder

I Put A Spell On You – Creedence Clearwater Revival

In some of her spinning classes, she gives out halloween candy as prizes to people who can guess some of the obscure artists represented in this list. Hope you have a happy and safe halloween!

The post Halloween Spinning Mix appeared first on Goldman's Observations.

1. Rock With You

2. Blame It On the Boogie

3. Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)

4. Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’

5. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)

6. Man In the Mirror

7. When I Think of You (an interlude from Michael’s sister Janet)

8. Black or White

9. Fat (this is “Weird Al” Yankovic’s spoof of “Bad”)

10. Thriller

11. Somebody’s Watching Me (from Michael’s childhood friend Rockwell; Michael sings prominently in the chorus)

12. I Want You Back

13. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

14. ABC

15. Human Nature

16. Never Can Say Goodbye (of course we have to say goodbye to the singer, but we never can say goodbye to the songs)

The post Michael Jackson Spinning Mix appeared first on Goldman's Observations.