Prop up the front, the back falls down All around the canyons of L.A. town —J.J. Cale, “Downtown L.A.” (1982) It was a warm Tuesday in January 2012 when I introduced myself to John. He was lying on his side along a semicircular concrete bench in the undercroft of Bunche Hall at UCLA, his head propped up on his right arm, looking every bit the Greek philosopher as he peered into Stefan Collini’s book Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain . He had a gray, turf-like mustache and tobacco-stained fingertips. One pouch of Bugler was stuffed in his pants and another poked out of his breast pocket. I approached cautiously. Squinting through thick glasses, he asked for my first and last name, twice. After a pause, he wondered about the latter, “Is it English? German?” When I said my family was from Lithuania, John’s face puckered. “Were they involved in the fascist occupation?” he asked pointedly. It was my first year of graduate studies in history, and I had noticed John hanging around the department.…