Interview with John Sexton
Contents
John Sexton is President Emeritus of New York University, the Dean Emeritus of NYU Law School, and the Benjamin Butler Professor of Law.
Email and Immortality
Max Raskin: One of my favorite stories that you tell is about Chief Justice Burger’s blivits – the thoughts he would record while shaving. Do you have a place where you get ideas or have a way of remembering them?
John Sexton: Until about 15 years ago, it was known in the office that there would arrive each morning a pile of index cards – half an inch on most days and an inch thick on a particularly active day. I would carry the index cards around in my pocket. I rarely remember dreams, but I do awaken a couple of times a night, and there’ll be a thought – I also have a pile of index cards next to the bed. I have a pile of index cards outside the shower. And these index cards would appear and be dispersed to the person whose name was at the top. There’d be a generally coherent thought that would prompt action – or would sometimes, maybe more than I would have liked, have come back with just a red X through it.
This was still a time when I did not do email. Lisa was already a minimum 10 years, maybe 15 years into email. And of course, the office and the world around me was into email. But, Dan, the venerable Dan, who's now been with me for 30 years as my chief assistant – Dan each night would run off the email that had come into my account, and I would bring home this pile of papers. I would write my responses on that pile of papers and bring it back to Dan in the morning, who would then type in my email response to whomever had emailed me.
MR: When did you get your first email account that you used yourself?
JS: Well, it was a very conscious decision. As you know, Lisa died without any warning. She died in an instant – it was an aneurysm, so she wasn't ill. I was, ironically, on this Sunday, January the 21st 2007 down here in my den writing – the talk I was going to give at St. John’s University I decided would be on immortality.
When I went down to ask Lisa if she wanted me to get dinner, she said, “I'm reading something I want to talk to you about at dinner. Come back in half an hour.” Turned out she was reading a piece I'd given her by Max Tegmark, the astrophysicist, on immortality, in a way. When I came back in half an hour, she was gone.
At that moment I was numb and aching with a desire that I rather than she had been taken from the family and the world – because it was out of turn. She was 10 years younger than me, far more useful than me – for the world and for the family. And I remember the next day Marty Lipton visited me, and I said to him, “I just have to tell you I'm not quite sure I'm capable of going forward.” It took me a couple of weeks – with the wonderful support of family and friends, all of whom were numb – to get to a point where I could throw myself back into the fray.
But when I threw myself back into the fray – and boy, I didn't mean to go into that epicycle out of a simple question – but I said I will begin using email as a way of incorporating her – to honor her. And that's when I started using email.
MR: What kind of pen do you use?
JS: Only felt tip pen. Black felt tip pen. And if I write in my handwriting, as opposed to print, probably only Lisa and Dan Evans can read it. I print because my handwriting has become so illegible.
MR: Did Chief Justice Burger have good handwriting?
JS: Beautiful handwriting.
MR: Did anyone have terrible handwriting?
JS: Judge Bazelon had terrible handwriting. As a metaphor – Burger was classic – the Palmer method of writing with a fountain pen. Bazelon, on the other hand, who was an iconoclast, broke freely from classic penmanship. And Leventhal was somewhere in the middle.
MR: What did Lisa write with?
JS: Lisa wrote typically with a blue ballpoint pen, and she had just tiny, beautiful, completely lucid handwriting. She had a capacity with the written word that was remarkable. She almost wrote in poetry.
MR: Do you sing in the shower?
JS: No. I think in the shower.
MR: Do you sing?
JS: I was thrown out of the sixth-grade choir by Sister Helen Patricia because I was tone deaf. And it was nearly devastatingly traumatic. Dougie and I were thrown out together. And we couldn't go to midnight mass or any other things. And we said, “Sister, let us stay and we'll lip sync.” And she said, “I'm afraid you'll get carried away you'll throw the whole damn choir off.”
MR: Do you have rhythm?
JS: I have a rhythm. The problem is it's different from the rhythm of anyone else or any music in the world. Lisa and I could dance. She accepted the fact that I make the same steps no matter what the music is doing, and she could somehow syncopate with that. And miraculously, genetically, Katie can dance with me. It’s not surprising that my daughter-in-law, Danielle, can dance with me because she was a Broadway dancer.
I cha-cha to everything because it's the one dance my sister, who is the fourth person with whom I could dance, finally taught me in a desperate rush in my senior year before the first dance I ever attended. So I do my cha-cha no matter what the music is – and Lisa and I would dance a lot.
MR: What’s the last song you listened to?
JS: “March of the Slaves” from Nabucco.
MR: What's the last TV show you watched?
JS: Episode six of season four of The Last Kingdom, which is a show that I've loved not least because it coordinates with the BBC podcast on the history of the period that I just by coincidence was listening to when I first started watching it.
MR: Are there any shows or movies that you re-watch?
JS: Some of my favorite movies I enjoy sharing with my children and grandchildren and students. I mean, The Seventh Seal, for example, is a movie that I really enjoy watching and analyzing with other people.
Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants
MR: Talk to me about your traveling pants. You gave me a recommendation once.
JS: I don't invest in clothing. I'm very utilitarian about my clothing. I only own one suit, which is the suit that I bought for Katie's wedding.
Otherwise my entire wardrobe is TravelSmith. I probably recommended to you TravelSmith expandable waist pants. This has not yet been an issue for you. But for me, Rufus, which is what my children and grandchildren have named my stomach, can get quite large. So the expandable waist feature is very useful. You have one good TravelSmith jacket and a couple pairs of TravelSmith expandable waist pants and one tie.
MR: How long does it take you to pack when you travel?
JS: 15 minutes.
Hal’s Seltzer and Bootless John Sexton
MR: Do you snack during the day?
JS: Not at all. Zero. Not a single pretzel.
MR: What about drinking?
JS: I'll have coffee in the morning. Two cups – large cups.
MR: How do you make it?
JS: With a coffeemaker.
MR: Are you particular about your beans or anything like that?
JS: No, not at all. I can enjoy a really good cup of coffee when I get a really good cup.
MR: How do you take your coffee?
JS: Just black.
And then after that it's a combination of Hal’s Seltzer and at a certain point at the end of the day, I switch into coconut water. But I consume an enormous amount of fluid. During the day, I mean, on average, I would say 12 to 15 Hal’s Seltzers and four or five before I hit the sack at night. It takes me about a half a minute to fall asleep most nights.
Breakfast is always a single protein bar. And lunch is almost always a salad or if I can't get the right kind of salad, two protein bars.
MR: What's your favorite Hal’s flavor?
JS: Well, I rotate, but right now, blackberry.
MR: How often do you rotate?
JS: I’d say I rotate maybe every two weeks. The creator of Hal’s is a neighbor of ours out in Fire Island.
MR: What about dinner?
JS: Dinner is the meal of the day for me depending on how virtuous I am. I’m doing 10,000 steps a day. Each day if I'm home here in the Village, I walk from the park up to Grand Central Station and back – that's 10,000 steps. If I'm with Katie, we do hills and trails. If I'm out at Fire Island, I do the beach. I haven't missed a day – rain, snow, or shine.
MR: Even in the blizzard?
JS: Yep.
MR: What kind of boots do you wear?
JS: I don’t wear boots.
You’ve been to the Grand Canyon with me. Getting wet is not a problem. If it rains, I don't bring an umbrella, I don't put a raincoat – I just get wet. Because I come back, and I take a nice warm shower.
MR: Do you ever take a bath?
JS: I was a great bath taker in my time. I could do seven, eight hours in the bathtub and I had perfected keeping the water warm with a great toe move.
MR: You would take a bath for seven hours?
JS: Yeah, if there was a Dodger doubleheader. I’d have the radio there.
MR: Do you prefer watching a game on TV or the radio?
JS: Watching TV now. We didn’t own a TV back then so there wasn’t a choice.
Volare
MR: Getting back to dinner –
JS: I was talking to a friend today who is confronting alcoholism literally today. And this person asked me – because the person knew that my dad was an alcoholic – what advice I had. The person hadn’t focused on the fact that for a long time I’ve said to my students that I’m an alcoholic. The person said they didn’t know that about me. And I said I haven't had a drink in 60 years. “But did you drink a lot?” I said I've only had two drinks in my life but look – you know me well – I don't do things in moderation.
And for me, I can see through the indicators of pasta and ice cream what would happen if I drank.
MR: What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?
JS: Well, I haven't had ice cream in a long, long time. But if you said you’ve got six months to live, I would have a minimum of a pint a night, probably a quart a night. And I'd rotate through a set of three or four favorite flavors. But if I could have only one, it would be vanilla fudge.
MR: And what would be the pasta that you would eat the most?
JS: I mean, it's more the sauce than the pasta.
If Volare were open and I could have anything I wanted, I’d probably go for the bowties for the pasta and probably the norcino. It’s a special kind of sweet sausage in a kind of white sauce.
It doesn’t bother me to eat the same thing night after night after night after night.
MR: Do you eat from Volare now?
JS: They’re open now. They send over dinner for me.
MR: Do you have the same thing every night?
JS: If I were behaving, I would have for dinner either chicken or pork without sauce. Fish even better. But I don't like many fish.
MR: What did you have last night for dinner?
JS: Last night I had two pork chops. Big ones. No sauce, just grilled pork chops, but big.
MR: What do you recommend at Volare.
JS: I always say to people if you're a meat lover, the steaks at Volare are as good as any. They're as good as Peter Luger. But what’s special at Volare is the broiled veal chop, which is named for me. So just ask for the Sexton veal chop – but be prepared that you'll probably want to bring some of it home.
MR: I love the hot pepper sauce – do you put the hot pepper sauce on it?
JS: You can do all kinds of things with it, but the pure Sexton veal chop is just a grilled veal chop.
I have an ensemble of four pastas I usually order for my guests. I don't eat them myself. But all you have to do is say “John’s four.” And don’t miss desserts, the desserts are spectacular at Volare.
MR: What's your favorite slice of pizza in New York City?
JS: If you said to me, you can only order one pizza, this is your last one, then it's John's Pizza on Bleecker, which is the brick oven pizza. There used to be a place over on Sixth Avenue, which was part of a chain, called Uno’s, which did Chicago deep-dish pizza.
MR: Do you like Chicago-style pizza more than New York?
JS: No. Of course not. But there is a place in the world for the Second City because it implies the first city.
MR: Do know why it was called the Second City? I learned this when I was on a tour of Chicago. It's not because it's the second city compared to New York. It's that after the fire they rebuilt the city, and this is the second city. Isn't that fascinating?
JS: That sounds like something a tour guide would say.
Opera Man
MR: Old time New York – are there any institutions you are upset no longer exist food-wise?
JS: I wish that there still existed on 13th Street in Greenwich Village, a restaurant by the name of Felix's, which was the first restaurant I ever went to.
Charlie, my great teacher – 14 of us piled into his car, I was one of the four in the trunk. And we drove from Lincoln Road in Brooklyn over to this restaurant, Felix's, which was much like Volare – with the exception that the waiters would spontaneously, when they got a little bit of a relief from serving on the tables, sing opera. And it was the most extraordinary experience. First of all, I'd never been to an opera. And secondly, they could really sing. And thirdly, they weren't more than 10 feet from you. So these unbelievable voices singing these classics and hitting those notes.
MR: How often do you listen to opera?
JS: Well, I rarely listen to an opera start to finish. But I listen to a lot of opera and symphonic music while I'm working and writing.
I put on Sirius and I go to the classical channel. I know much more about symphonic music – I’m a late-comer to opera. Charlie introduced us to opera, and I loved opera but didn't attend. But it's strange because if you look at me and Lisa and you said which of these people would have subscription tickets to the Met, everybody would pick her because she was so elegant and educated, refined. But she just had no interest in going. Since her death, I will go to the opera here in New York five or six times a year, maybe eight times a year when it's running.
MR: Is there anything you’ve really enjoyed?
JS: There isn’t anything I haven’t enjoyed.
When I was working with the C.S. Lewis High School in Bratislava, I would stay in Vienna. I did the full ring in Vienna. I did Macbeth in Vienna done as the Soviet Union occupation by the Vienna State Opera. I'll go to an opera anywhere I can.
Hildegard of Bingen
MR: What about the Gregorian chants? You turned me onto them. What are they about to you?
JS: Well, the Gregorian chants have the capacity, if one just allows – they have the capacity to transport you to a spiritual dimension that you really touch the divine. But you just have to allow yourself to move from the world of cognition in which we live to the real world of spirituality and ineffability. As you know from being a student of mine, there is the known, the knowable, but not yet known – the research part of the agenda. But then there is, as Heschel says, that which is beyond those two categories. And that's the ineffable. And that's love. And that's the transcendent. And that's the domain of the Gregorian chant.
If I've succeeded in getting you into the Gregorian chants, what I want to do is succeed in getting you into the music of Hildegard of Bingen.
Have you gotten into that at all now?
MR: No.
JS: Her music, which is over 1,000 years old, has only been discovered in the last 30 years. It's not Gregorian.
Max, do this today – this is your assignment.
MR: Are there any Gregorian chants you would recommend?
JS: Well, in my law school office there's a famous album Chant. But the short answer is, I don't know. I'm not sufficiently expert. I just know I love it.
Philosophize This!
MR: I know you like podcasts – which one have you spent the most time listening to?
JS: Well, first of all, I'm new to podcasts.
My daughter, Katie, prompted me into podcasts as part of her plan to get me to walk 10,000 steps a day. So it's really only in the last six months that I'm into podcasts.
One of my students recommended to me a podcast by a pretty interesting person – his name is Stephen West – it’s called Philosophize This! It was, in a way, made for me. He’s never gone to college, as far as I understand. And he's lived as a homeless person. But he began reading philosophy at the age of 12 or 13. It’s chronological – there are about 200 broadcasts, about 30, 40 minutes each. And I just went A to Z – from the pre-Socrates to Habermas. And I loved it.
MR: Do you listen at regular speed or 2x speed?
JS: I am a regular speed listener. That is a fight against the whole drift in the direction of hyper living. You know my Fire Island t-shirt has on the back “Live Slow.”
I wanted to continue with philosophy, so I went to the man that I think created the first great podcast, this guy Melvyn Bragg on the BBC. It’s called In Our Time – and there’s an In Our Time: Philosophy. There’s about 200 of those episodes – not in chronological order. It’s him with three dons. So I listened to that completely. I do it chronologically by him – I start in 1995 and go up to 2021. What I'm on now is his In Our Time: History. I started in 1995 – he does one a week – and I’m up to about 2014.
MR: Favorite baseball radio announcer?
JS: Oh – Vin Scully . . . duh!
MR: Not Red Barber?
JS: Vin Scully.