Lights, Camera, Action!

     As Uncle Jack has often said, there is never a dull moment in Bawlmer.  This week he and Mrs. U.J. have found themselves in the middle of a movie set---or more correctly---looking down on a movie set from their seventh floor balcony.  A movie production company from Hollywood has been on the Johns Hopkins campus this week filming location scenes for a new movie, as yet unnamed, about the origins of the popular internet phenomenon called Facebook.  A couple of nights ago they set up their lights and reflectors and cameras almost directly under Uncle Jack's condo and spent the next several hours shooting what appeared to be the same scene over and over and over again until they finally got it right.  It was interesting to watch for a while but then it became tedious.  Very tedious.  Movie-making is not always thrilling from the looks of it.
       Johns Hopkins is actually standing in for Harvard in this epic, much to the dismay of many students who felt that the administration should not have sold out to Hollywood just to make a few bucks.  Classy Harvard, with its zillion dollar endowment, would never stoop to allow a movie to be made in its hallowed precincts for any amount of money.  Facebook was actually dreamed up by a Harvard student who, when he cashes in on his invention, will be able to buy his own university if he is so inclined.
    Uncle Jack no longer remembers why he has a Facebook page but he does and he checks in on it once in a while just to see if anything interesting has turned up.  So far he is utterly baffled as to why it has become such a fabulous success on the internet. Google he can understand.  Facebook is a mystery.
      He and Mrs. U.J. returned to the historic neighborhood of Mt. Vernon on their way to a concert at the Peabody Conservatory one day this week.  They missed several streets on an earlier excursion, pictures of which appear below.

 This trio of triangular buildings at the corner of Madison and Tyson streets caught their eye, especially the tiny one in the middle. Early 19th century builders didn't let any space go to waste.

Tyson Street is one of the hidden treasures of Baltimore.  It's only a couple of blocks long but consists almost entirely of late 18th and early 19th century houses, all impeccably restored and extremely charming.

                                      More Tyson Street houses.

                   And still more---one of which is for sale, probably for a pretty penny.

                Yet another triangular house. The interiors must present challenges for the occupants.

This elegant old hotel on Tyson, once the residence of Wallis Warfield Simpson, later the Duchess of Windsor, is being rehabbed into what the developers claim will become the most prestigious hotel in all of Charm City when it opens next spring.

Eubie Blake, composer of the Charleston Rag and I'm Just Wild About Harry and jazz pianist extraordinaire was a native of Baltimore.  This museum in Mt. Vernon is high on Uncle Jack's list of places to visit soon.  It was closed on this occasion.

This was the scene of the filming as seen from Uncle Jack's balcony.  No sign of it remained the next morning.

The Law is an Ass, So Far

    Tragedy has visited Johns Hopkins University twice in the past month.  On the first occasion a male student killed a presumed burglar in his back yard near the campus with a samurai sword.  Then last week a female student was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street in front of  Uncle Jack's condo building. Both events cast a pall of gloom over the community but the second has also raised a storm of outrage as facts have emerged about the alleged driver, John Meighan, 39, who turned himself in to the police the day after the incident.  According to a report in the Baltimore Sun newspaper:
    Meighan already has 21 motor vehicle convictions on his record, including six for driving while intoxicated and two for driving under the influence. He was free on $100,000 bail before his arrest Saturday, awaiting a December trial on unrelated hit-and-run and DWI allegations from late July. He's also been convicted of escape for leaving an alcohol treatment facility while in custody in 2002.
    On the day of the accident several eyewitnesses reported to the police that Meighan's truck was being driven erratically  and at least one witness identified Meighan as the driver a couple of hours before the fatal accident. There were no witnesses to the accident itself so the authorities have not as yet been able to add manslaughter to the long list of offenses with which Meighan has been charged.
    Meighan is now locked up without bail while awaiting further disposition of his latest and most serious alleged crime.  Needless to say Baltimoreans are aghast and astonished at the failure of the judicial system to protect other drivers from a proven menace like Meighan.  Some observers fear that the lack of an eyewitness at the scene of the accident may allow him to escape serious punishment because the only evidence against him is circumstantial at this point.
    Readers may recall a similar tragedy in Kitty Hawk a few years ago when an oft-convicted drunken driver plowed into a Jeep at an intersection on the Bypass, killing four young women.  If Uncle Jack is not mistaken the driver is serving a life term in prison for that heinous offense.  Will some way be found to keep Meighan from driving again?  Lots of folks around here, including Uncle Jack, will be watching carefully as the wheels of  justice slowly grind through this sad case.  Stay tuned.

P.S. Readers who would like to be notified by email each time Uncle Jack posts a new blog entry should click on the "comment" button below and enter their email address (which will not be visible to anyone but him).  Thanks. (And don't miss the pictures below!)

    Sunset over Johns Hopkins Homestead Campus, from Uncle Jack's balcony, October 25

                                                           Ditto

                                                        And again