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11 February 2005
karl haas, r.i.p.
Who is this happy man? For decades he was the host of "Adventures in Good Music" and hearing the opening of his show (always the same: a one-minute selection from Beethoven's Pathetique followed by "Hello, Everyone") always signaled the start of the evening. When I was listenting at work, I knew the clock was spinning; when listening at home, it said that it was time to slow down and relax. Mr. Haas died last weekend. The Times' obit is here.
Unrelated to Mr. Haas's death but of note to me was the passing of E. Allan Farnsworth, author of what may be the reference book on contract law. Farnsworth was a student of Karl Llewellyn and later a professor at Columbia, and his treatise is one of those books that really does belong on every lawyer's shelves and should be a must-read for 1L students taking their basic Contracts course. (For my class it was an optional reference, I think out of concern that our book bill was already quite high, but now that Aspen has made it available in a paperback edition, I don't think cost is really a barrier.) Terrence's copy of the Second Edition is nestled on our shelves downstairs; the updated Third Edition is next to me as I type (literally: I turn my head and it's on the shelf to my immediate left). Perhaps we'll light a fire, put on one of Mr. Haas's archived radio shows, and have a reading tonight.