BY ALEX GORDON
When people ask me what I like about Harvard Law School, one of the first things I mention is Cambridge. Having spent four years as an undergrad in Middletown, CT, Cambridge stacks up quite favorably; of course so would, probably, Kabul, but reasonable minds could differ. While perusing The RECORD two week ago, I was somewhat startled to learn that the HLS/Cambridge community seems to include the presence of previously unpublicized wildlife as well as a large cadre of phenomenally talented tailors. I blame this ignorance primarily on Prof. Rosenberg’s insistence that I spend from 12-2 every morning reading headnotes on Westlaw. Evidently all that late-night studying has taken a toll on my powers of observation.
I was pulled out from under my veil of ignorance by Jeremy Blachman’s column entitled “Toilet Humor” in the March 6 RECORD. According to this opinion piece, it seems that not only are wild animals plentiful around the law school campus, but that the LL.M. students have taken to hunting down this wild game and roasting it in dormitory kitchens. More horrifying is that these same students are apparently also known to slaughter innocent goats and use the blood of these unfortunate beasts to decorate clothes that they apparently have patched together themselves.
Not since the T-Rex ate that goat in Jurassic Park have I heard of such senseless animal violence. At first, I was unsure how to respond. On the one hand, we have the LL.Ms who by mid-June will all have postgraduate degrees from Harvard Law to complement degrees previously achieved in law. One the other hand, we have Blachman, who by mid June will hopefully have mastered the complicated task of flushing his own toilet. I then thought that perhaps Blachman was attempting humor; that idea was quickly ruled out given that I’ve seen his attempts at humor in the past, and generally people write from their strengths.
Logically then, he must have meant what he said, though this struck me as very odd. Having befriended a number of LL.M.s, I was puzzled how they had managed to hide their savage ways from me for so long. Their cunning is exemplified by the homemade clothing, onto which they’ve cleverly sewn on designer labels from places like Paris, Rome and Zurich. I was also perplexed as to how goat blood could possibly be used as decoration on leathers, silks and satins.
I figured that the best way to find out whether Blachman’s claim was actually true was to go right to the source: the kitchens of Gropius (I figured I could extrapolate that data to cover North Hall as well). I didn’t have to search long before I discovered a horrifying stench coming from the Holmes Two kitchen. I braced myself for the inevitable animal carcass I was sure to encounter, but actually all I found were some old stank dishes that some J.D. named Aaron had left in the sink for a number of weeks (just playin’ Mr. Houck). Thoroughly frustrated in my search for proof, I soon gave up.
As I slunk back, head down, to my room, I was suddenly struck by the simplicity with which this issue could be resolved. As best I could figure, Blachman was groping for a laugh, and so decided to take a cheap shot at a group of students he knows nothing about. Due to this ignorance, however, the comment came out as rude, insulting and ridiculous. Based on this data, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is indeed some sort of smell coming from the dorms, but it’s most likely Blachman’s poor attempt at humor.