The Hero's Welcome

By Robert S. Oakes - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. DIGITAL ID: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b07877">cph 3b07877</a>, Public Domain, Link

Aye, the hour grows late, and we've time fair nay mair tales...what's that? I promised one? Aye, so I did. The year was 1987, and Uncle John was a law student, at Columbia Law School, a lowly first year student at the time. The Law School was convening a celebration of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and then-Chief Justice Rehnquist was there, but he was not the focus of the event. No, CLS had decided to honor the contribution to constitutional law of Associate Justice, William J. Brennan. The event was divided, like Gallia, into three parts. First, a relatively brief gathering, open to all, where Dean Black, Rehnquist (and, if I remember aright, Justice Thurgood Marshall) spoke about Brennan, and his jurisprudence. Brennan himself said a few words, and the event recessed. The second part was a formal dinner, the tickets for which were prohibitively expensive. When I told my then-significant other, Holly, about it, she was fiercely determined we should attend. She insisted on buying the tickets (she was working, I was not; at the time CLS discouraged first years from working during term.) When we bought the tickets, the woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow that we should be attending. It was a very generous gift on her part, and we went in our best. True fact: As far as I could tell, I was the only student there except for one 2L I recognized who was working the event as a waiter. Another True Fact (tm): Other than my professors, most of whom were socializing with each other, the judges and scholars from other places who were gathered,I didn't know any of the people there. I was seated--as happened several times in my first year--next to Visiting Professor Arthur Chaskalson, an anti-apartheid lawyer from South Africa, (praise to Jack Greenberg for inviting him!) who was one of the bravest people I've ever met, and was courtly and gracious as always (he had to be sick of me turning u at all these dinners, and invariably being his companion, but he never showed it.) As Arthur (what? He told me to call him Arthur. He was a mensch, ok?) was caught up in the social whirl. Holly and I were pretty much deserted, until my Torts professor, Kendall Thomas, came over to keep us company a bit. Always one to look after the underdog, and for this one night I was that, Professor Thomas visited with us a bit, made Holly laugh, and went on his way. Dinner ensued, and then--well, this: The desserts and liqueurs were wheeled out, and the large cluster of academics, judges and Illustrious Alumni and Visitors swooped down on them with a remorseless efficiency. Justice Brennan stood all alone, for just a moment. Holly, God bless her, pushed me in the lower back, and hissed "Go SAY something to him." So I did. I have no idea what undergraduate gabble I spewed, but he took my hand, and as I was about to stagger off, having failed to communicate to this great man in my chosen profession, he wouldn't let me go. He insisted on talking to me, and asked me questions about what I hoped to do and be. Somehow he closed the gap of age and eminence, and I relaxed, and it was a lovely conversation. He caught eye of Holly, who was a very pretty woman, and beckoned her over. And he charmed us both. Not with facile charm, but by being interested in us as people. He teased us--"you're headed to Legal Aid," he said to me (and years later Vivian Bergerwould make that happen), and he praised Holly's acting ambitions, and brilliance was in the air. We left, awed, but warmed and excited about the potential in our young lives. After graduation, when I published my first law review article, on the First Amendment, the subject on which the now-retired Justice was the greatest living expert, I sent him an offprint, thanking him for his kindness that night. To my shock, I received a reply--Justice Brennan thanked me for the article, saying he was sure he would read it "with pleasure and profit" and thanking me for thinking of him. His signature was spidery but clear. I framed that letter, and it hangs in my office to this day. One is not often blessed by one's heroes.

What They Did in the Shadows: Dark Shadows, The Beginning: Episodes 1-5

By Uploaded by TheCustomOfLife; from World of Soap Themes (Webmaster: Brian Puckett)., Fair use, Link

Before the pandemic, I had a minor surgery, but one that laid me up for a month, to my astonishment. Confined to laying on my side, I couldn't easily read and so I was stick with the pleasures of streaming video, which led me to the old Gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows. I watched it throughout my recovery, and, outsode of work hours, followed it through the next few months. Then, I was lured by Amazon into buying the complete series on DVD. Yes, the infamous "Coffin Set." Now, this may seem daft, but that's just because it is. But when the series came, I fired up the first episode, to see the new introduction by Alexandra Moltke, and to test the quality of my purchase. In doing so, I found that the quality was very high, and found myself drawn into theses first episodes all over again. So a few thoughts. First, the series uses its paltry budget extremely well; the main Collinwood sets are handsome and convincing, and the stratgic use of location filming at Seaview Terrace in these first epsiodes really cements Collinwood in the viewer's mind--it's as much a presence as is Shirley Jackson's Hill House. It also looks lived in, a place that has been inhabited for centuries in a way that the locales for the 1991 revival and the 1970 film House of Dark Shadows don't measure up to, beautiful as they are. The first episode introduces Victoria Winters, a foundling seeking her identity, traveling to Collinsport Maine to take a job with the Collins family as a companion/governess. A fellow traveler on the train from New York, Burke Devlin (Mitchell Ryan who gives her a ride in his chauffered car to the hotel where she can get a taxi. We also meet Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), the tough-talking hardboiled blonde, Eve Arden-type waitress at the coffee shop. She's kind to Victoria, still waiting for her taxi,but urges her to get back to NY. The episode ends with Victoria's arrival at Collinwood, and Elizabeth letting her in. In the second episode, we meet Elizabeth's daughter, Carolyn (Nancy Barrett) who humiliates her nice guy boyfriend Joe Haskell (Joel Crothers) to dance with the local skels (to use NYC-talk). Carolyn is presented as seeking distraction, recklessly dancing with anyone, until Joe throws a punch, and Devlin orders him to take her home. Devlin tries to use their spat as a chance to bribe Joe to spy on the Collins family for him. Joe demurs. Episodes 3 and 4 focus on the rest of this night, especially Roger's increasingly edgy efforts to pump Victoria for information regarding Burke Devlin. He's hiding his terror of the man well, but it's costing him. He vacillates between charm and panicked frustration. Edmonds is awfully good. As is Bennett, quietly playing the piano in the gloomy sitting room, her head quietly drooping as the notes fade. When we first see Victoria and Elizabeth togther, the similarity is striking--Victoria's hunt for her identity, and the fact that the checks that paid the Foundling Home in which she was raised are postmarked from only 50 miles away from Collinsport raises the thought that they are mother and daughter. (We so often think of Victoria as a governess that we forget that her time with Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (a regal Joan Bennett) is as much a part of her job as educating the appalling brat David. (Roger Collins has his issues, but his snide exhortations to Victoria to "give him a good kick" have considerable justification (albeit not good child-rearing even in 1966). Despite David's nasty efforts to scare her off (much smaller, and thus more credible, than the Grand Guignol he attempts in the revival or HODS) Roger's apology, Carolyn's friendship, and Elizabeth's quiet need, plus her own desire to know, impel her to stay. The show is an extraordinary achievement thus far, and in this slowly unfolding plot the actors have a chance to make their marks. The core cast is extremely good--Bennett brings all her years of film acting to the small scree, Edmonds is a superb general utility player, finding character notes and comic moments in the blandest lines, and Barrett makes a strong impression. Moltke is more gentle, more tentative--with a strong backbone when challenged.

Coming Home

It has been a long fallow period in the world, and on this blog. Not so in life--work continues, co-writing with a good friend a project regarding Anthony Trollpe (more to come!), and other events have made the plague time pass. But yesterday, fter six months away (one and a half due to healing from an operation, the rest due to the Coronavirus), I returned home to St. Bartholomew's Church, whre I have been a regular attendee since 2007 (occasional attendee even earler--mid 1990s), where I became an acolyte, from where my wife and I were married, where I discerned a call to the vocational diaconate, and where I returned as deacon in 2014, and have served since. In the video above, the Church is mostly empty. The Rev. Susan Anderson-Smith and teh Rev. Deborah Lee preside and preach respectively, and I have the honor, forthe first time since early in this bizarre, calmitous year, of reading the lessons, leading the psalm, proclaining the Gospel, and dismissing the people. Fittingly enough, the prescribed dismissal was that used by J.D. Clarke, my beloved predecessor and mentor as St. Barts's deacon: "Let go into the World, rejoicing in the Power of the Spirit!" After a long adventitious exile, I had come home. And tonight, I remember the beautiful words of Be Jonson's "A Farewell to the World": But what we're born for, we must bear: Our frail condition it is such That what to all may happen here, If 't chance to me, I must not grutch. Else I my state should much mistake To harbour a divided thought From all my kind—that, for my sake, There should a miracle be wrought. No, I do know that I was born To age, misfortune, sickness, grief: But I will bear these with that scorn As shall not need thy false relief. Nor for my peace will I go far, As wanderers do, that still do roam; But make my strengths, such as they are, Here in my bosom, and at home.