…to join in the fight against our cousins, the Hun. I doubt many of NYU’s ROTC students would be brave enough to don their BDUs in the streets of Greenwich Village these days. Well I don’t doubt they’d be brave enough, but they’d no doubt be more prudent perhaps. Anyhow, the ROTC program for all the colleges and universities in the City are based up in the Bronx at fortress Fordham, where the administration has been happy to play host to the future leaders of America. (Though we’ve heard the Pershing Rifles at Fordham are given to somewhat riotous behavior). This li’l bit of New York nostalgia was dug up from the NYU Archives.

Lucas de Soto triggered a bout of homesickness when he sent me this link with desktop-sized photos of Larchmont. (The first four photos are from the link). Larchmont is sort of two towns over from my dwelling place, and has been home to many good friends including Lucas and Clara de Soto and family, Adam Brenner, ‘the P’ (Retha Petrosino – my legendary high school English teacher) and her husband Fred, and others. Also, my graduation ceremony was in the Larchmont Avenue Church. (more…)

So that’s what WFB’s living room looks like…

Photo from the N.Y. Sun

A long morning. A few people filtered into the flat from 1:00am. Kat, Jocie, C., Dave Watt, Rob and Maria. After having some celebratory champagne with future American immigrant D. P. at around 7:00, I finally got to bed around 8:00am and slept until 11:30am. Half past midday now and I need some breakfast/lunch.

Electoral college of beverages consumed: A California’s worth of tea, a New Hampshire of whiskey, and probably about a New York of beer. And an Alaska of bubbly.

Condi versus Hillary in ’08, anyone? God forbid.

ALMIGHTY God, whose kingdom is everlasting and power infinite; Have mercy upon this whole land; and so rule the hearts of thy servants The President of the United Sates, The Governor of New York, and all others in authority, that they, knowing whose ministers they are, may above all things seek thy honour and glory; and that we and all the People, duly considering whose authority they bear, may faithfully and obediently honour them, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston, New York.

The Guardian has an interesting article on Tom Wolfe, the habitual man in the cream suit, and his thoughts on the election, the boring uniformity of the liberal elite, and other assorted topics. Wolfe is an old-school liberal, bit of a dandy, and another Bush supporter. Touches upon the theme of “if Bush wins, I’m leaving” as well.

An excerpt:

Read the entire article.

The other day after rosary I realised I had never been all the way to the end of the West Sands and decided to accomplish such a task.

For those who don’t know St Andrews, I’ve provided a little map at right. The West Sands is a long stretch of beach that is about a mile and a half long down the coast from the town of St Andrews to Out Head.

Anyhow, I went all the way to the end, and turned around Out Head. There I perched myself into a sand bank, facing the RAF base at Leuchars, and proceeded to read a bit of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief. It was just past high tide, so the tide was heading out and as it was a late autumnal afternoon, not many people were on the beach. Though it was somewhat chilly, there was no wind, and I found it quite amenable for reading.

The town as seen from the dunes.

Much further down the West Sands, you can still make out the spires of St Andrews.

The beach.

Reading, with RAF Leuchars in the distance. A few fighter jets landed and took off, I believe they might have been Tornados, and three massive Hercules transport planes.

The Maine Monument has always been one of my favourite monuments in New York. It’s dedicated to the dead of the U.S.S. Maine incident and the Spanish-American War. The Monument is beautiful, not only due to its intriguing massing and beautiful sculpted work, but also because its placement in relation to Columbus Circle. It moves upward, encompassed in the lush greenery of Central Park behind it, and the bottom half projects itself forward into the Circle and creates a pleasing visual arrangement.

Above, as seen through the window of the Allen Room of the new Frederick P. Rose Hall at the AOL Time Warner Center. According to the review of opening night in the Sun, the Allen Room’s acoustics are amazing, and it looks as if Rose Hall will be an important addition to the cultural world of the City. (Note to Lucas and Adam: pencil this into your schedules).

Above the Maine Monument is pictured with the base of the Columbus column in the middle of Columbus Circle. The Circle is currently undergoing a massive refurbishment to try to make it more accesible and parklike rather than just a glorified traffic circle.

Top photo by Corin Anderson

Having left the West Bank, it appears that Yasser Arafat has aspirations to join Team Zissou.

I am a philistine. The reason I am a philistine is because when it comes to art, I only like what I find beautiful. Today in the world of art, you’re supposed to appreciate art for the ideology and thought that goes behind it. If you only like what’s beautiful, then you are a philistine. I am quite happy being a philistine and hope I remain a philistine for the rest of my life.

Nonetheless, there have been a few recent works of art I felt I ought to show you. The common theme is New York. (more…)

This photo of Albany, the capital of New York, from the 1950s shows a city that, if it weren’t for the straight streets, almost feels like a poverty-stricken Eastern European capital.

Unfortunately, it became even more like a poverty-stricken Eastern European capital when Big Brother decided to get rid of it all and replace it with a giant, heartless, government plaza.

I wonder if Governor Rockefeller visited Brasilia and thought “Gee, I ought to get me one of them!” Empire State Plaza (or Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza as it is now officially known) involved the displacement of thousands of poor people, hundreds of small businesses, bad architecture, and the humongous cost – partly owing to the omnipresent use of marble instead of more economic stones.

The result was the destruction of a large community built on a human scale in favor of an expensive, espansive, inhospitable Communist dreamland on the Hudson. A crime.

Boy did we have a blast last night! Bishop Rifan of Campos swung by Edinburgh on his tour of the United Kingdom (organised by Una Voce Scotland and the British Friends of Campos), and I was among a number of St Andreans lucky enough to make his aquaintance and receive the episcopal blessing.

It began with a Pontifical Low Mass at the Church of St Andrew in Ravelston, Edinburgh. The church is a wooden structure that would not look out of place in the Catskills or Adirondacks. In fact, it somewhat reminded me of the Chapel at Camp Jeanne d’Arc, where my sister spent her summers growing up. Such a setting in addition to the Mass being in the old rite slightly assuaged my permanent yearning for New York. (more…)

City Hall, now Borough Hall, in Brooklyn, from the Historic American Buildings Survey at the Library of Congress.

What?!? You still don’t read the New York Sun? Well you’re a fool then. I used to think the Daily Telegraph was the greatest newspaper in the English-speaking world, but now I think it’s got to be the New York Sun. It’s the quality hometown newspaper for the greatest town that ever was.

Almost like comparing the City of New York to the New York Times, the Sun is more colorful, less pretentious, loves America, and is a million times more interesting. The only way the Times is more like New York than the Sun is that the Times is so big you can never get through all of it at once.

In yesterday’s Sun there was a fascinating profile of ‘the Rev’ (photo below), the men’s room attendant in the 21 Club. It was absolutely fascinating to find out about a gem of a man such as he. Reading the Times is arduous and depressing, whilst reading the Sun is informative and pleasing.

Purchasing an online subscription to the Sun was the wisest investment I think I’ve ever made. And economical as well at a mere $16.50 per quarter (with free 4-week trial period), allowing me to cancel for the quarter of the year I can actually buy the paper edition. Most satisfying.

Perhaps you should join me in reading A history of New York, from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Knickerbocker, Washington Irving’s superb masterpiece of New York mythology. Above is an old rendering of Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s home in Tarrytown.

I’m in the midst of Book II, the more interesting part. However, reading books online is rather irritating, and a strain on the old eyes, so I might give in sometime soon and get Ottakar’s to order it in. (Actually, I might be able to get a nifty ‘thift edition’ on Amazon.co.uk). Sadly, Ottakar’s don’t believe in stocking the classics of New York literature. And so we must mourn for them.

St Andreans were all quite intrigued by the arrival of an Ottakar’s branch, but it’s turned out to be all in vain. Though it is bigger than any other bookshop in town, that’s not saying much, and the rumours that it would be two floors have turned out to be woefully untrue. Give me the Strand and it’s eighteen miles of books (used to be just eight miles) any day of the week.

Chain bookstores are atrocious anyhow and are best avoided when it comes to purchasing. Whenever I feel like book browsing in Westchester, if I don’t feel satisfied by the Womrath Bookshop on Pondfield Rd in Bronxville then I will browse Border’s on White Plains Road in Eastchester (or Scarsdale, as it claims), find something interesting, and order it from Womrath’s. The Strand is the best because it gives you 1) the varied selection usually only available at massive chain stores, 2) the quality of service of independent bookshops, and 3) the added bonus of used books, which are quite often better editions than more recent reissues. Eighteen miles of books, people! That’s insane.

An article in last week’s issue of the New Yorker displays that periodical’s current malaise. David Denby discusses Thomas Aikenhead, a student at the University of Edinburgh who was hung for publicly rejecting essential Christian dogmas in 1697. Denby goes through a few of Aikenhead’s proclamations and then comes up with this startling, nay, just plain idiotic, remark:

While I would be the first to condemn some of the Englightenment ideas underlying the American Revolution, Mr. Denby could not possibly make this statement unless he has little or no knowledge of the Declaration of Independence. The whole goshdarned point of the Declaration is that moral laws are not the work of governments but instead they are “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

One wonders what Denby would make if he ever decided to give a gander to the founding document of the regime under which he lives and writes, and found the assertion that God endows Mankind with “inherent and inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” One might argue Denby’s ignorance is due to a general proclivity to relegate knowledge of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution to middle school.

Today in my ‘Monarchy, Church, and State’ seminar, I remarked that a few U.S. states had their own established churches well into the 1800’s. Dr. Bradley made the quite innocent mistake of remarking that this was interesting since it’s in contrast to the Constitution which “has such a clear seperation between Church and State.”

Now, Dr. Bradley is easily forgiven for not having much knowledge of the Constitution of a country not his own. But Americans ought to know that Seperation of Church and State is nowhere mentioned in the United States Constitution. One can argue about whether or not there ought to be seperation between the two – there are cogent arguments for both sides – but the fact remains that the concept is completely and wholly absent from our Constitution.

What the First Amendment does do, among other things, is prevent the Federal Government (and only the Federal Government) from making laws which 1) establish a religion or 2) prevent the free exercise of religion. We must remember that establishment is a technical term. It means an arrangement similar to that of the Church of England and Church of Scotland here in the United Kingdom. And not being allowed to make laws preventing the free excersise of religion is pretty clear enough.

Elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution, it says that those powers neither granted to the Federal Government nor denied to the States by the Constitution are reserved respectively to the States. Thus, individual states are free to have established churches or religions, as Massachusetts and Connecticut did after the ratification of the Constitution. And if, tommorrow, the state legislature of Vermont with the approval of the Governor decided to establish the Congregational Church as the official religion of Vermont, the Supreme Court of the United States couldn’t legally do a damned thing about.

Of course, though the Supreme Court of the U.S. couldn’t legally do a damned thing about it, it still could do something illegally. Namely, it could hear an appeal and decide that Vermont’s establishment of Congregationalism was unconstitutional. Of course, as anyone who can read the U.S. Constituion ought to be able to deduce, they would be completely incorrect in stating this. Thus their ruling would be completely null and void, and Vermont could carry on its merry little way. In reality, however, Vermont would probably heed the illegitimate ruling.

Therein lies the problem. A court makes rulings which the Constitution states it has no right to make, and the parties involved obey such rulings. Hopefully sometime within the next decade, this conflict will come to the fore, and some state (probably Southern) will attempt to set things right. I’m not saying any state should establish a church (arguably, the establishment of religion is inappropriate in the United States). But nonetheless, I don’t see why we have a Constitution if we don’t plan on running the government according to it. Of course, all the Democratic Party and a third of the GOP would disagree with me.

Yet another reason, perhaps one of the best reasons, to vote for President Bush in Novemeber is that with Bush there’s at least a chance that constitutionalist judges will be appointed to the Supreme Court. Sadly, Senator Kerry and the Democratic Party are so enamored with abortion which – right or wrong – also has no defense in the U.S. Constitution, that there is zero chance of Kerry appointing constitutionalist judges. Abortion law is most certainly reserved to the States, despite the Court of the 1970’s inventing a “Right to Privacy” which it believed encompassed the “right” to commit prenatal infanticide. No one who supports the current Constitution of the United States can really support Senator Kerry.

Woke up at 9:00 this morning and had ‘breakfast’ at the Northpoint Café with C.. I put the word in quotations because breakfast ought to imply a meal, but owing to the Northpoint’s scant menu, breakfast meant buttered toast and a pot of tea. At least it was only £2.00.

The topics of conversation were of the usual C. n’ Cusack ilk: How ridiculous Britain is, how brilliant the States are, delving into meaningless and ultimately feckless points of argument, hoping for the downfall of world Islam, and recalling past misadventures as well as plotting new ones.

I think the only reason we ever have breakfast at the Northpoint is because Afghan president Hamid Karzai had tea there when he was in town last year, and Chris has some sort of bizarre fascination with this.

“French Algeria 1830-1962” was at 11:00am, with Dr. Stephen Tyre. A fascinating class of five students which we usually manage to steer onto some even more fascinating tangent, which itself usually tangentalizes onto football somehow. Today was all about Abd el-Qadir and his jihad. We also discussed an Islamic figure in 1840’s Algeria who claimed his goat was the Prophet Mohammed and sparked a brief uprising. Oh those wacky savages and their messianic goats!

Read quite a lot during the afternoon, had spaghetti bolognese from Pizza Connection across the street (since Jocelyn has Mondays off), and then popped down to the Cellar Bar for a pint of de Konick with Robert O’Brien, Maria Bramble, “Ishmael”, and Jon Burke – an assemblage which ought to be collectively known as the Inappropriate Joke Squadron. Classic.

“Monarchy, Church, and State” tommorrow with the indomitable Rev. Dr. Ian C. Bradley. I think I shall have to abandon or change my Hapsburg essay plans owing to lack of adequate sources.

Last night I had a few people over for dinner and drinks that lasted until 1:00am. Jocelyn, our trusted agent of culinary perfection, and Jenny, whose ancestors had beastly things done to them by Chinese pirates, cooked up a splendid shepherd’s pie. On the receiving end of said pie were fellow American Rob (one of Jocie’s choir friends), apostate Catholic and former Literary Society president David Taylor, Mitre associate editor and former Catholic Society president Robert O’Brien, his fiancée and my good friend Maria Bramble, current Catholic Society president Matthew Gorrie, California’s prettiest Antiochian Orthodox girl Abigail Hesser (engaged to an Aussie), and Connecticut’s prettiest Choate grad, Kat ‘Kiki’ Murphy.

Jocie and Jenny left for the Byre shortly after dinner to meet up with a friend of theirs. We were then joined by traditionalist/OTC/Old Cliftonian Jon Burke and the legendary Blackpudlian, “Ishmael”.

I think we got through four or five bottles of wine if not more, at least one bottle of port, and luckily not too much of my whiskey. We just about went through our entire retinue of politically-incorrect jokes as well. One of the highlights of the evening was getting the former ‘most enthusiastic man in St Andrews’ on the phone: none other than the great Peter Cox. We had all had a fair amount to drink and decided calling Brussels wasn’t a bad idea. True to form, Peter Cox was enthusiastic as ever, explained that he is organising things for the upcoming World Youth Day and working in a youth hostel to pay the bills. The man is brilliant.

We listened to half of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, our favourite Breton/French hip-hop/jazz group Manau and the obligatory Smashing Pumpkins.

One of my flatmates left his KK tie lying around, and Jon Burke decided to put it on. Fair enough. Unfortunately, Burke forgot he had it on, left my place and proceeded to Ma Bell’s – one of the preferred night spots for members of the Kate Kennedy Club. Of course the first KKer who observed Jon and his illegitimate usage of club neckware gave him a right verbal bollicking. Still, nothing nearly as bad as what happened when Paul Pennyfeather ran into the inebriated members of the Bollinger Club wearing his old school tie which was surprising similar to that of the Bollingers. This, of course, took place at Scone College, Oxford in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall.

David Taylor agreed to write a piece on Derrida for the next Mitre, although it’ll probably be fawning. The current crisis in modern poetry was discussed, and it was agreed that Milton is more important than Shakespeare.

“Yeah, Abby. That’s about as funny as the sack of Constantinople.”
– “Ishmael”

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