The Faculty Lounge

The Shortlisting of Phyllis Schlafly

This post is part of a series about my new book Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court, co-authored with Hannah Brenner Johnson. The first post offered an overview of the book. The second shed some light on how we found the women profiled in the book. The third examined what it means to be "shortlisted." And now I turn to a shortlisting featured in the new FX show "Mrs. America."

Are you watching “Mrs. America”? If not, you should, if for no other reason than to enjoy the star-studded cast that includes Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, Niecy Nash as Flo Kennedy, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, and more. As my University of Houston colleague, the historian Leandra Zarnow, recently wrote in the Washington Post:

Covid-19 has denied political junkies the daily twists and turns of a typical presidential race, and left Americans scrambling for entertainment. This has helped turn the FX show “Mrs. America,” currently streaming on Hulu, into the latest quarantine hit. “Mrs. America” resurrects the dramatic final chapter of the protracted battle to secure an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, first introduced in 1923. It carries viewers from the heady moment when the ERA passed both houses of Congress in 1972 through the unexpected failure to ratify the amendment by a 1982 deadline. Conservative crusader Phyllis Schlafly is the figure driving “Mrs. America.” Creator Dahvi Waller dreamed up the show thinking former secretary of state Hillary Clinton would be well established in the West Wing by the time it aired, and a show about Schlafly would be a study of a vanishing force in U.S. politics. Clinton’s unexpected loss, however, created a series in which the anti-hero is the conqueror.

The series reminds us of forgotten moments in the women’s rights movement and illustrates how the politics of the 1970s are still very much at play today. Spoiler alert—you might not want to keep reading if you haven’t seen the series finale yet. (Otherwise, continue on to read about a shortlisting of Schlafly and to see some gems I uncovered while researching presidential archives.)

River

If you’re looking for something good to watch on television that does not require a huge time investment, I highly recommend the superb BBC detective series River. Written by the Welsh playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan, it stars Stellan Skarsgård as Detective Chief Inspector John River and Nicola Walker as Detective Sergeant Jackie “Stevie” Stevenson. Although only 6 episodes long, River is one of the most memorable detective shows I have ever watched. 

The central plot device is that DCI River suffers from vivid and often disturbing hallucinations. As River struggles to hide his psychological disorder from his superiors at the Metropolitan Police Service, he must solve a shocking murder that rocked the police force as well as his own fragile psyche. One of the many fascinating themes of the series is that mental illness does not preclude someone from still being highly effective at their job. Indeed, DCI River’s psychological and emotional torment actually makes him a better detective because it helps him think through the clues he discovers. But that only scratches the surface of Morgan’s rich and exceptionally well-crafted story. The show is great from start to finish. 

I’m afraid to give more details because there is a major plot twist about 10 minutes into the first episode. The show originally aired on the BBC in 2015 to rave reviews. The Telegraph’s reviewer called it “superlatively creepy” and the “most moving thing I’ve seen on television for some time.” The New York Times deemed it “a first-rate psychological study” that grows “deeper, darker and more intricate with each episode.” And the Irish Times described it as “pitch perfect.” On Rotten Tomatoes River has a 100% Tomatometer rating and an audience approval score of 94%.

River is available on Netflix  and Amazon. Most highly recommended. 

The Plantagenets

I am pleased to report that BBC’s historical documentary The Plantagenets is now available in high definition on YouTube. It is hosted by the distinguished medievalist Robert Bartlett, an emeritus professor of history at the University of St. Andrews.

The Plantagenets ruled England from 1154 to 1485, the longest reign of an English royal dynasty. The common law, the principle of stare decisis, and the parliamentary form of government all took hold under the Plantagenets. But their reign also included some of the bloodiest and most tumultuous chapters in the history of England, Wales, and Scotland. A century after the demise of the last Plantagenet king, William Shakespeare ensured the everlasting fame (and infamy) of the Plantagenet dynasty in plays such as Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Richard III.   

The real life story of the Plantagenets puts Game of Thrones to shame. Episode One of the BBC documentary on the Plantagenets—The Devil’s Brood—is available here. Episode Two—An English Empire—is available here. And the final episode—The Death of Kings—is available here.

On a related note, two months ago on his In Our Time BBC radio program Melvyn Bragg did a quite interesting 40-minute segment on Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets. During the program Bragg interviewed the Shakespeare scholars Emma Smith, Gordon McMullan, and Katherine Lewis. You can find the audio clip here.

The Art of the Deal

Peter Osnos, the founder of PublicAffairs Books, was interviewed on CSPAN’s Q & A program Sunday night. During his long career, Osnos has edited many prominent books, including Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father and Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal.

In the CSPAN interview, Osnos describes his contract negotiations with Trump, including the remarkable fact that Trump did not have a lawyer present to represent him: 

Babylon Berlin

If you are looking for something to watch this weekend, I highly recommend Babylon Berlin, a German television series broadcast in the United States on Netflix.

Babylon Berlin is the most expensive non-English-language television series ever made. Set in the final years of the doomed Weimar Republic, the series focuses on Gereon Rath (played by Volker Bruch), a police detective still suffering severe PTSD from his military service on the western front in 1918, and his assistant Charlotte Ritter (played by Liv Lisa Fries), a part-time prostitute and aspiring homicide detective. Bruch and Fries are absolutely superb, as are all the actors in the series.

One of the show’s major themes is the fragility of German law and democracy in the late 1920s. No movie or television series has ever done such a brilliant job of showing how World War I destabilized Europe long after the guns fell silent, creating seismic aftershocks that set the stage for the most evil regime and most devastating war of all time. The whole show is fantastic, with unforgettable characters and a storyline that provides a riveting window into late 1920s Europe.

Viewers in both Europe and North America have loved the series. On the invaluable Rotten Tomatoes website, Babylon Berlin has an off-the-charts 100% tomatometer score (the aggregate total of critics’ reviews) and a similarly impressive 93% audience score (the percentage of viewers who rated the show favorably). Those are extraordinarily high scores for any movie or television series, but especially for a non-English language production.

A couple of caveats are in order. First, the show is extremely graphic in every imaginable way. Be prepared to be shocked. Second, I recommend watching the German-language version, which has English subtitles. I don’t speak a word of German (I’m still trying to master my native tongue of English), but for me, watching the series with English subtitles kept the sense of realism that is so essential to the show. In any case Netflix allows you to choose the language.      

If you are interested, here is the Babylon Berlin trailer (dubbed in English, which is the only version I can find on the Netflix website). In addition, here is a YouTube preview that includes clips of many scenes as well the haunting soundtrack.

If you do watch the series with English subtitles, there is one notable mistake in the English translation. The final Netflix episode includes a flashback to a pivotal event involving the main character (Detective Rath) when he was a German soldier in the closing days of World War I. Inexplicably, the subtitle describes the battlefield event as occurring on November 14, 1918, but that makes no sense because the war ended on November 11. However, it turns out that in the German language version, the character actually says November 4, not November 14. Somehow the Netflix translator confused the German word for 4 with the word for 14. But otherwise the English subtitles are excellent and easy to follow.  

Long Shadow

Last weekend I recommended David Reynolds’s excellent documentary on the Armistice of 1918, which is available on Netflix. If you are interested, Prof. Reynolds is also host of an outstanding 3-part BBC documentary on post-war Europe called Long Shadow. It is based on his award-winning book, The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century.

The Long Shadow documentary is absolutely superb and quite timely. Reynolds shows how the chaos unleashed by World War I gave rise to a high-stakes ideological competition between three diametrically-opposed systems: communism, fascism, and liberal democracy. The competition was reflected in the revealing diversity of the various national war memorials, from the Cenotaph monument in London to Mussolini’s Redipuglia memorial in northeast Italy. 

One of the documentary’s many interesting themes is how Britain managed to avoid the self-destructive ideological extremism that plagued continental Europe after World War I. Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald may not be household names today, but those two prime ministers helped Britain chart a middle course at a time when the other major European powers veered off into fascism or communism. As Prof. Reynolds explains in his book:

“Mass democracy exploded across Europe in the wake of the war, inspired in very different ways by [Vladimir] Lenin and [Woodrow] Wilson. But its destabilizing effects were soon being channeled by new political elites—the Bolshevik concept of a vanguard supposedly preparing the way for eventual proletarian control, the fascist response in the form of a ‘superman’ leader directing a dominant party. By the mid-1930s much of continental Europe was polarized between left and right, even in Britain’s co-victor, France.”  

But unlike its continental neighbors, Britain pursued a centrist path:

“In Britain, by contrast, the sudden tripling of the electorate in 1918 was successfully absorbed within parliamentary politics. The threat of a crippling general strike never materialized. Under Ramsay MacDonald the Labour Party was desperate to prove it did not pose a threat to the Constitution, the empire or pound. The party’s ideology drew less on continental Marxism than on indigenous traditions of nineteenth-century radicalism and nonconformist Protestantism. At the same the Tories, led by Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, won the support of many of the newly enfranchised women and skilled workers, attracted by policies such as a ‘property-owning democracy.’”  

The dull pragmatism of British centrism paid off in spades in the years after World War I. In foreign affairs, Britain served as a critical bulwark against Nazi fascism in World War II and Soviet communism in the Cold War. At home, Parliament’s middle-of-the-ideological-road policies gave rise to a growing economy, a stable democracy, and a diverse society, especially in the metropolis of London. The British record of achievement in the twentieth century should not be forgotten, even amid the economic uncertainty created by the impulsive Brexit vote in 2016. Now more than ever we live in an age of charismatic politicians, but boringly competent leaders in the tradition of Baldwin and MacDonald have much to recommend them.

The series is filled with fascinating insights and observations. The third episode begins with Prof. Reynolds describing how, during the 90 years between 1914 and 2004, an Upper Silesian coalfield began as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then became part of Poland, later fell under the control of Czechoslovakia, then went back to Poland, only to subsequently come under the military domination of Nazi Germany, then reverted after WWII to Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, and finally ended up in the new Czech Republic, and now the coalfield is part of the European Union. The tumultuous history of the twentieth century is thus encapsulated in the history of a single piece of coal. 

Long Shadow is a great series and it is available for free on YouTube (in High Definition). You can find Part I (“Remembering and Understanding”) here,  Part II (“Ballots and Bullets”) here, and Part III (“Us and Them”) here. 

Armistice 1918

The First World War ended 100 years ago today. At 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the devastating four-year-long conflict finally came to an end. It was at the time the bloodiest war in history, costing the lives of 9 million troops and over 10 million civilians. Only the Second World War—which cost over 65 million lives—surpassed World War I’s death toll.

Although World War II greatly overshadows World War I, the immense scale of the 1914-18 conflict should not be forgotten. Even the United States, which played a relatively small role compared to the other major powers, provides a case-in-point. After declaring war on Germany in April 1917, the United States sent 2 million troops to fight in France (most of whom arrived in the summer and fall of 1918). To put that army in context, the four American military service branches today—the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps—have a combined total active duty force of 1.3 million. Thus, the American Army in France in 1918 was 50% larger than the entire American military in 2018.

And the United States military was small by World War I standards. For example, Germany put over 10 million troops in arms, 2 million of whom would die in the war. The other major powers suffered appalling casualties as well. Russia lost 1.8 million dead, France lost 1.4 million dead, and Britain over 800,000 dead. Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and Italy also suffered hundreds of thousands of fatalities. Many other countries experienced horrendous casualties, including the United States, which lost 117,000 troops killed in about six months of fighting (a much greater number than the 58,000 American troops killed in Vietnam in in the 1960s and 1970s). Similarly, Canada lost 61,000 troops killed in World War I and Australia lost 60,000 troops killed, enormous numbers in any context, but particularly when one considers the fact that Canada had only 8 million people and Australia only 5 million in 1918.

None of those figures above include the millions of troops wounded, physically, emotionally, and psychologically, by the horrific carnage of industrial-sized warfare. The scars of war haunted the World War I generation for the rest of their lives. 

On this important anniversary, I recommend an outstanding documentary called Armistice 1918. The host is David Reynolds, a history professor at Cambridge University and a leading expert on World War I. As Prof. Reynolds explains, contrary to one of the most enduring myths of twentieth-century history, World War I did not end in a military stalemate. Under the weight of a massive offensive by the combined armies of France, Britain, America, Australia, and Canada, the German Army was in full collapse in the fall of 1918. If the war had lasted into 1919, Allied forces would have seized Berlin and inflicted a crushing defeat on the German Army on German soil.

But in a cynically shrewd move, the German high command capitulated before ordinary Germans understood the full, catastrophic extent of Germany’s military disasters in the fall of 1918. The sudden surrender enabled the German military to falsely blame domestic unrest for the nation’s defeat. Thus arose the ludicrous “stabbed in the back” myth that paved the way for the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1920s and 1930s, a development that in turn led to the eruption of the most devastating war in history from 1939 to 1945. 

Armistice 1918 is available on Netflix (in high definition) and it is only 55 minutes long. In addition, the original BBC version of the documentary, which is 90 minutes long, is available on YouTube here. Whichever version you watch, I think you will agree that nobody is better than Prof. Reynolds at explaining the significance of World War I and its aftermath.  

Speaking of the First World War, if you are ever in the Kansas City area, do not miss the National World War I Museum and Memorial. It is a must-see destination for any visitor to Kansas City, one of the country’s most underrated cities. So too is the Truman Presidential Library and Museum, which is located in the Kansas City suburb of Independence, Missouri. Harry Truman served as an artillery officer in World War I, and his artillery battery fired its last barrage at 10:45 a.m. on November 11, 1918. Truman would later observe, “My whole political career is based on my war service and war associates.” Over 2,700 troops died in France and Belgium on November 11, the last day of the war. The world we live in today is shaped in no small part by the events that unfolded between August 1914 and November 1918.

The First World War from Above

A fitting film for Memorial Day is “The First World War from Above,” a short but engrossing BBC documentary hosted by the Irish journalist Fergal Keane. 

Meet the Romans

Professor Mary Beard’s book, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, is one of the best books I’ve read in the last couple of years. It’s a tour de force of historical synthesis, covering 1,000 years of Roman history in a deeply engaging and informative fashion. I was very sorry to reach the end of the book, and after finishing it, I became fascinated with all things Beard. She is a highly distinguished classics professor at Cambridge University and has been a prominent public intellectual in Britain for years. In January the Guardian did a great profile of her titled, “The cult of Mary Beard: How a late-blossoming classics don became Britain’s most beloved intellectual.” As the Guardian article makes clear, Prof. Beard’s life story is quite interesting in its own right, especially for anyone who has spent their own career in academia.

For an introduction to Beard’s work, you can’t do better than her BBC series Meet the Romans, which is now available on YouTube. The first episode is available here. What makes the series so great is that Prof. Beard focuses on ordinary Romans, from slaves to breadmakers to soldiers. She tells the story of what it was like to live in the most powerful, diverse, and interesting empire of the ancient world. In the process, she truly brings Rome to life. If you watch the first episode, I predict you won’t be able to stop. And in that case, I've got good news: episode 2 is available here, and episode 3 is available here.  

Shetland

If you are interested in watching something this weekend with a criminal law theme, there is a superb Scottish detective show currently available on Netflix. It’s called Shetland. A joint production of the BBC and ITV, Shetland is based on the novels of the distinguished mystery writer Ann Cleeves. The series is set in Scotland’s remote Shetland Islands and it follows the criminal investigations of Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, played by the superb Douglas Henshall. The show’s acting and writing are consistently outstanding and the scenery is breathtaking. The series has also attracted notable actors in guest roles, including Ciarán Hinds, Saskia Reeves, and Brian Cox.

If you are a fan of Kenneth Branagh’s great Wallander series (which aired on PBS a few years ago and is now also available on Netflix), you will love Shetland. Netflix has the first three seasons of Shetland but the fourth season is currently only available in the UK. Like Wallander, Shetland has also previously aired on PBS and may do so again, so if you don’t have Netflix, keep an eye on your local public television station. Shetland is definitely worth waiting for.

King George and the American Immigration Debate

At a time when the issue of immigration deeply divides Americans,  I recently came across a BBC documentary that could hardly be more timely. It’s called “The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain,” and it originally aired in Britain in 2014.  It is now available in America on YouTube. The host is Dr. Lucy Worsley,  chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and one of the most perceptive and interesting historians on television. She has made many superb historical documentaries for the BBC but the German Kings series is particularly apt for this moment in American history.

Race, law, and the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the National Football League’s championship game, an advertising extravaganza in which 100 million television viewers are expected to watch the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles compete for the Lombardi trophy.

However, the Super Bowl was not always the NFL’s championship game. In its earliest days, the Super Bowl pitted the NFL champion against the champions of a completely different league: the American Football League. The rivalry between the NFL and AFL is not only an interesting chapter in sports history, but also a turning point in the racial dynamics of professional football, one with ramifications that are still felt today.

Star Trek Copyright Infringement Claim Settles

I usually try to keep my geekery off the blog, but I've been watching the recent litigation involving the AXANAR (Star Trek fanfiction) film with interest in recent weeks. After the District Court for the Central District of California found on January 3 that the fanfiction film could not avail itself of the fair use defense to copyright infringement, the case went on to settle last week. The settlement reportedly includes the stipulation that the defendant adhere to a new set of fanfilm guidelines put forth by Paramount (which owns the relevant copyrights). These guidelines will likely affect future fanfilms. Presumably, if you adhere to the guidelines, you're working under a license from Paramount and won't have infringed copyright. The guidelines state that fanfilms have to be less than 15 minutes long and cannot use "Star Trek" in the title, among other things.

In some ways, it's actually helpful to fans when copyright holders set out guidelines like this, to make it clear precisely what fan activities are allowed with the copyright works. The Kindle Worlds program set up by Amazon a couple of years ago takes a similar approach to promulgating guidelines set out by the copyright holders of works included in the program to allow fans to make their own fanworks without infringing copyrights i.e., effectively under license from the copyright holders.

The downside is that it's possible, and indeed likely, that many of the guidelines now being put forth by copyright holders about fanfiction are actually more restrictive than, say, the fair use defense to copyright infringement might allow, but with the guidelines in place, many fans may take the path of least resistance (resistance is futile?) and comply with the guidelines for avoidance of doubt.

Creators of fanworks have not had much clear guidance from the law about when, and whether, their works are fair use - it's very difficult to make such determinations in the abstract and copyright law really requires these issues to be decided on a case by case basis. Several law professors (notably Rebecca Tushnet) have done a lot of extremely useful scholarly work over many years on fanfiction and copyright infringement, but we still have a long way to go in educating fan creators about their rights and obligations.

What kind of impact might the Star Trek infringement settlement have on the scope of fanfiction and fair use, if any? Or are we just seeing more of the same in the battle between content owners and fans?

C-SPAN Series on Historic Supreme Court Decisions

C-SPAN begins a twelve-part television series on landmark Supreme Court decisions next week, kicking off with Marbury v. Madison.  Readers can find additional details here.

Meet the Professors

Deana Pollard Sacks, the Roberson King professor of law at Texas Southern University, has developed a talk show, Meet the Professors.  The show combines talk of recent social issues with legal doctrine and social science research.  The first episode, "Sexy Media, Sexy Kids, Sad Kids," is available now.  I think you'll enjoy it.

Katie Holmes, Attorney At Law?

For readers desperate to confirm that Katie Holmes, actress and ex-wife of Scientologist Tom Cruise, is headed to law school, I have very good news: there has never been a better year for the daughter of Toledo attorney, 67 year old Martin J. Holmes Sr. to attend law school.  I trust that, if she is going to learn to think like a lawyer, she'll head to the family law school: the University of Toledo College of Law.  Her dad and her brother (the Junior, of course) are both graduates of UT and both practice in Toledo.  

I assume that having survived all the law-talk over the dinner table, as a kid, she'll get boffo LSAT scores and win a generous scholarship.  (Shoot: she got a 1310 on her SAT's and could have attended Columbia University.  She didn't, of course, and now she's going to have to complete 3/4 of her college degree first in order to go to an ABA accredited law school.  Alternatively, she could attend the California accredited  Southern California Institute of Law, which seems to admit people with no virtually no undergrad coursework, so long as 90% of the coursework that does exist is nonvocational.  But she should be forewarned that the school is boasting a 0% pass rate on the California bar recently.)   

In any case, she may not want to spend a ton on her legal education so she can stash away most of the $400K in annual child support she receives so that Suri's 529 plan will be nicely stuffed when it's time for her to head to college.   At the current pace, Suri's tuition at Columbia - should she be accepted and choose to attend - will be $84,702 per year in 2024, when she turns 18.   Of course, she could save a ton of money by attending a state school - say, the University of Toledo - for her BA.  At $43, 335 per year, it's sure to be a bargain!

 

The Risk of Revictimization and the Ethics of Covering School Shootings: What Journalists Can Learn from IRBs

Updated below

Like most parents, after learning about the latest mass school shooting this morning, my thoughts immediately went to my own kindergartener. And of course, like most reading this blog, I thought about how poorly we handle guns and mental illness. Before too long, though, I couldn’t help but make a less direct connection between today’s events and my scholarly interests. I’m thinking of the way journalists cover school shootings as compared to how we regulate human subjects research.

As I write in The Heterogeneity Problem, 65 Admin. L. Rev. __ at 14-16 (forth. June 2013):

Studies on sexual abuse and assault, grief, war, terrorism, natural disasters and various other traumatic experiences are critical to better understanding and addressing these phenomena. But exposure to trauma — whether as a survivor or as a first rescuer or other third party — often causes substantial psychological morbidity. . . . Given their potentially fragile state, IRBs understandably worry that “questioning [or otherwise studying] individuals who have experienced distressing events or who have been victimized in any number of ways . . . . might rekindle disturbing memories, producing a form of re-victimization.”

IRBs — local licensing committees who operate according to federal statute and regulation and must approve most studies involving humans before researchers can even approach anyone about possibly participating — sometimes impose burdensome requirements on the way trauma research is conducted in order to protect adult subjects from the risk of revictimization. And they do so in addition to applying regulations that require that researchers disclose that risk (and others) to subjects.

Contrast this with the way journalists cover trauma.

Scarlett, Tara, and the Personality Theory of Property

Like Al, I also watched several hours of “Gone With The Wind” on Thanksgiving Eve (don't judge - there was a marathon!).  GWTW has fascinated me for as long as I can remember, but this time, I was most struck by Scarlett's pitch perfect demonstration of the personality theory of property.  This is evident throughout the film, and most notably in the last scene, where Scarlett hears the voices of her dearly departed father and Ashley Wilkes in her head.  After Rhett abandons her, she asks aloud, "What is there to do? What is there that matters?" and the following exchange ensues:

Mr. O'HARA: You mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara doesn't mean anything to you? That land is the only thing that matters. It's the only thing that lasts. 

ASHLEY: Something you love better than me, though you may not know it.

Mr. O'HARA: Tara - this is where you get your strength.

ASHLEY: Tara - the red earth of Tara.

Mr. O'HARA: That land's the only thing that matters, it's the only thing that lasts.

ASHLEY: Something you love better than me, though you may not know it, Tara.

Mr. O'HARA: ...From which you get your strength... 

ASHLEY: ... the red earth of Tara.


Mr. O'HARA: Land's the only thing that matters... 

ASHLEY: something you love better than me...

BOTH:  Tara...Tara!... Tara!... Tara!

SCARLETT: Tara! Home. I'll go home..... 

Tara is the place where Scarlett achieves self-realization.  It is the place where her memories and ambitions are rooted.  It is also the place over which Scarlett asserts an entitlement that is superior to that of either of her sisters (and fellow heirs) Suellen and Carreen (recall the great scene where Scarlett bosses the sisters around, forces them to pick cotton, and then slaps Suellen for yelling "I hate Tara" in the fields).  I know there are some GWTW fans out there - what other theories of property are on full display in the film?

Arnold Horshack, RIP

Ron Palillo, the actor who played Arnold Horshack on Welcome Back, Kotter, died today.  He was 63.  He is not the only member of the Sweathogs who passed recently.  Robert Hegyes, who played the part of Juan Epstein, died this past January.

The Last Polka

My guest blogging began with a post in memory of The Band’s Levon Helm.  I would be remiss if I did not circle back by sharing a hidden gem and seeking other Shmengeheads. 

The Shmenge’s Last Polka is a mockumentary about brothers, Yosh (John Candy) and Stan (Eugene Levy) Shmenge, retiring from a long and illustrious career as the greatest Polka duo ever.  The format follows Martin Scorsese’s classic, The Band The Last Waltz.  The Shmenges were born on Second City TV and also known as the Happy Wanderers.

 Unfortunately, this classic has not made its way across the digital divide and is not (yet?) available on DVD, or whatever we’re using now.  Fortunately, a fellow Shmengehead posted the film in several parts in cyberspace. Here’s a part of the film with a Linsk Minyk (Rick Moranis) sit-in and banter.

 Thank you to the Lounge regulars for sharing their forum and to all the readers for sharing their time.  I hope to see/meet you at SEALS later this summer or somewhere down the So Many Roads we all know.

Cheers,

Joe

p.s. The last link above is to a late era Robert Hunter / Jerry Garcia song.  Jerry flubs a few lyrics, but this inspired performance from the Boston Garden in 1994 is worth seven and a half minutes of any music lover’s time, at least once.  For some reason, Jerry vocally wails on “to heal my soul” at the end, instead of the usual “to ease my soul.”

 p.p.s. RIP Doc Watson.  Sitting on Top of the World