RARA-AVIS: Re: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Secret Noir Ambitions

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 15 Oct 2008

  • Next message: JIM DOHERTY: "RARA-AVIS: Re:Hardboiled financial?"

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Frederick Zackel" <fzackel@...> wrote:
    >
    > Roberts wrote:
    >
    > "North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike
    Force, was
    > working the morning shift. Undercover surveillance. The
    neighborhood? Tough
    > as a three-dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine
    months
    > with the Strike Force. He'd made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the
    > neighborhood.
    >
    > "Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached.
    Quick
    > exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each
    man
    > then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn't buying bus
    tokens.
    > He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure
    enough:
    > three bags of crack in the guy's pocket. Head downtown and book him.
    Just
    > another day at the office."
    >
    >
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/14/AR2008101402818.html?nav=hcmodule
    >
    > No jive. The dude's got a secret yearning ...

    It sounds like he's channelling Ellroy... I wonder if people who have to constantly read, write and talk the awful non-language that is legal and formalistic language (also archaic) don't end up so sick of it that they yearn for the hardboiled style. The hardboiled style is, after all, the style of the street. People in the street don't bother with moreovers and notwithstandings. They don't deal in words for the sake of words.

    Best,

    mrt



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