The Notorious RBG

November 8, 2015 2:57 PM

'Marty Was Always My Best Friend': Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Love Story, an excerpt in Jezebel from the new book Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik. [Don't read this unless you're ready to sob like a baby.]
posted by Ragini (16 comments total)

“If my first memories are of Daddy cooking,” Jane said, “so are my last. Cooking for Mother even when he could not himself eat, nor stand in the kitchen without pain, because for him it was ever a joy to discuss the law over dinner with Mother while ensuring that she ate well and with pleasure.”

GODDAMMIT HEED THE WARNINGS ON THIS
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:17 PM on November 8, 2015 [11 favorites]

Heartbreaking and wonderful!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:21 PM on November 8, 2015

That wasn't sad, that was goddamned happy!
posted by chavenet at 3:35 PM on November 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Absolutely lovely. Marty sounds like the best type of human.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:40 PM on November 8, 2015 [5 favorites]

Story told to me by a lawyer I know:

From childhood, this lawyer heard stories about the epic romance of how his dad and mom got together. In particular, there was something about how his dad dumped his high school sweetheart in order to get with his mom, and it was mildly scandalous, but it was decades ago, and the lawyer never really followed up on the details. One day, though, the lawyer visits his parents for dinner. It's the 90's, so the lawyer has a copy of a news magazine with him.

And his dad wanders in, and sees the cover of the news magazine. Dad says, "Hey, it's Kiki! I always wondered what happened to her."

Yes, friends, Kiki was Ruth Bader Ginsburg's nickname in high school, and yes, this lawyer's dad had dumped her because because he met someone he liked more.

The news magazine in question had her picture on the cover because she had just been confirmed to the Supreme Court.
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:41 PM on November 8, 2015 [40 favorites]

As Chief Justice Roberts read a brief tribute to Marty, Scalia wept.

He must have been an utterly remarkable man to have overcome the forces of evil so entirely.



Edited to add: a Nina Totenberg memorial from NPR.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 4:25 PM on November 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I had Martin Ginsburg for tax in law school. He liked to complain that 8/9 of the Supreme Court had no idea what to do with tax law issues. He was a delight as a teacher (though not as a grader, jeez), and clearly adored his wife even while teaching tax, in a way that was utterly charming, even though it could have seemed like boasting.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:27 PM on November 8, 2015 [15 favorites]

He must have been an utterly remarkable man to have overcome the forces of evil so entirely.

In spite of being such intense ideological opponents, Scalia and Ginsburg are close friends; there's even an opera about their friendship. Scalia and his wife had dinner with Ruth Bader and Martin Ginsburg every New Year's Eve for decades, they knew each other very well.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:53 PM on November 8, 2015 [10 favorites]

Excellent and touching excerpt. Looking forward to reading the book!
posted by gryphonlover at 5:50 PM on November 8, 2015

I had the good fortune to work with Marty a couple times as a young lawyer. In addition to being an absolutely brilliant attorney with a great sense of humor, he was very humble and usually referred to himself as merely the husband of a Supreme Court justice.
posted by Falconetti at 6:46 PM on November 8, 2015 [8 favorites]

My girlfriend portrayed (a French horn playing) RBG in a reenactment of the oral argument for Obergefel v Hodges a few months ago, so it was nice to read that my dramatic counterpart also loves to cook.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 7:13 PM on November 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

a French horn playing) RBG

Um, please go on. How did this work?!
posted by ostro at 7:43 PM on November 8, 2015

That was moving. Surprisingly so. Is the piece just an advert for the book, though?
posted by trif at 6:44 AM on November 9, 2015

Edited to add: a Nina Totenberg memorial from NPR.

Periodic general reminder: please don't use the edit function to add or change non-typo-level stuff in comments; just make a followup comment if you need to add or clarify something.
posted by cortex at 8:20 AM on November 9, 2015

The author's tumblr is also a delightful collection of RBG memes, fandom, and general RBG info.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:53 AM on November 10, 2015

Thanks for posting this -- I recently finished the book and found it really engaging and insightful, as someone not really familiar with RBG or SCOTUS history outside of what I've seen from previous MeFi posts. In the context of the entire book, I thought the excerpt about Martin Ginsburg linked above was even more heartaching (even though I'd read it first and knew it was coming).

For anyone thinking about getting the book: Not sure if this applies to all digital editions, but the version I tried first (via Amazon Kindle app) had some graphics that were too low-res to read (e.g. a few charts, annotated photos, comics) so I ended up exchanging it for the print edition which was fine.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 7:51 PM on November 29, 2015