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About Andrew Cusack
Writer, web designer, etc.; born in New York; educated in Argentina, Scotland, and South Africa; now based in London. read more
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Burns Tower
Which is the oldest university in California? The Jesuits began teaching at the University of Santa Clara in 1851. In the same year, and in the same town, a gaggle of Presbyterians received a state charter to found a college that only began teaching the following year.
The Jesuits decided to crack on and start instruction before they could raise the $20,000 endowment the state required before a charter was granted whereas the Wesleyans went the other way round. That latter institution eventually moved to Stockton, east of San Francisco, where it is today known as the University of the Pacific.
When a university actually began operating seems a more appropriate foundation date than mere form filling, so despite its 1855 charter I’d say Santa Clara still beats the 1851 University of the Pacific.
Since that time, Pacific has claimed a few honours. It has educated students as wide-ranging as Jamie Lee Curtis, who left after a term to become an actress, to the orthodontist Arif Alvi who was President of Pakistan until last month. Jazz giant Dave Brubeck studied veterinary medicine here.
The campus’s Ivy League look with a California location has led to it appearing in many films, including ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’.
In the late 1950s, the elders of Pacific were looking for a way to cut the university’s water bill. They decided building a 150,000-gallon water tower was the solution. But they didn’t want to blight their beautiful campus with an unsightly functional design.
They turned to architects Howard G. Bissell and Glen H. Mortensen who created the tower that has become an icon of the university and was the tallest building in Stockton for decades.
Articles of Note: 29 January 2024
A lively Doubleyoo-Ess once took me to lunch at the New Club and, in whispered tones, pointed out a gentleman sitting at another table.
“He is the world’s leading expert on the Scots tongue,” my friend explained.
“But he was excommunicated by all the other experts on Scots when he pointed out that eighty per cent of Scots words are interchangeable with Northumbrian English.”
Scots is fascinating for its closeness to English and its distinction. Those who’ve had the pleasure of tarrying awhile in the Netherlandic world (whether in Europe, the Cape of Good Hope, or elsewhere) can detect the odd affinities to Dutch and Afrikaans — reminding you that the North Sea was once a highway, not a barrier.
Luka Ivan Jukic has written an enlightening exploration of how and why Scotland lost its tongue.
Jukic contends there are no signs of revival, which I dispute. There is a much increased interest in the use of Scots, but it feels contrived and falls somewhat flat. If you take a look at the Scots column in The National newspaper, it comes across as the ravings of a kook something akin to Anglish.
■ Amongst the many of Scotland’s joys is the pleasure of just looking at its buildings.
Witold Rybczynski pleads “Give us something to look at!” in his account of why ornament matters in architecture.
■ The New York Post — founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801 and thus the Empire State’s oldest and most venerable newspaper — reports that the world’s oldest and most venerable forest has been discovered right in the heart of the Catskill Mountains.
This is one of the most beautiful places in America, especially when the leaves begin to turn in autumn, and features widely in the old stories transcribed by Washington Irving and others.
The name of the Catskills is believed to be from the catamounts that used to roam the woods and bergs when our Dutch forefathers of old first arrived in the valley of the Hudson. Our earliest record of it is on a map by Nicolaes Visscher père from 1656 — and pleasingly the local magazine retains the old spelling in its name of Kaatskill Life.
This fossilised forest within the Catskills is believed to date from 385 million years ago (for those who doubt the Ussher chronology — and we remain open-minded ourselves) and was discovered at the bottom of an old quarry.
■ As a precocious teenager I remember a visit to the maritime museum in Rochefort on France’s Atlantic coast that included a fascinating display of the intricacies and accomplishments of global shipping, housed in the long old ropeworks that kept France’s navy afloat in the era of sail.
It’s all been kicking off in the Red Sea, which inspired Wessie du Toit to write that the shipping container is an uncanny symbol of modern life
■ Some people claim there is no life outside of NW3, but as much a fan of Hampstead as I am, my first loyalty in London neighbourhoods is firmly lodged in Southwark. (Pimlico is high on the list, too.)
Many will pine for those precious late summer afternoons idly dawdling on the Heath, but Hampstead in winter has its distinct pleasures. For me, it’s curdling up with a pile of books beside the coal fire in the Old White Bear.
In the Christmas issue of The Oldie, Peter York wrote about the rise and fall of arty Hampstead.
■ One of our Hampstead mates is originally a West Country man and now finds himself even further west, studying law in California.
For a New Yorker, California is The Great Other. If not quite a rival, then certainly something we are always being compared against.
Naturally, one looks down on California, but also with a certain envy. If ever America had a golden moment when imperial might was combined with the simple goodness of life, it must have been coastal California from the 1930s to 1960s — with a hint of survival into the 1980s.
California’s decline is evident to all, though its power and influence is still vast (as the iPhone in your pocket proves). The Manhattan Institute recently devoted an entire issue to the question of Can California Be Golden Again?
I haven’t had a chance to read much of it, but I did enjoy Jordan McGillis’s article on how San Diego retains many of the qualities that once made California the envy of the world.
■ Peter Viereck ranks amongst the names of slightly neglected thinkers in the agora of American conservatism. Reading him always brings some insight, but I never knew much about the man himself.
Samuel Rubinstein supplies a fascinating account of the man and his thinking in Peter Viereck: Psychoanalyst of Nazism.
■ National treasure Peter Hitchens has spent his life hating the ogre Ted Heath, destroyer of worlds. I will never forgive him for what he did to England’s ancient counties and boroughs.
But Hitchens the Heath Hater, with his typically thoughtful approach, offers a reconsideration of the man.
■ All politics is local: Fred de Fossard writes about how EU-obsessed Lib Dems are ruining Bath rather than guarding one of the most precious jewels of English cities.
■ We leave you with this six-colour lithograph from the Pretoria-based artist Nina Torr entitled ‘Here we go again’ (an edition of thirty, available from the Artists’ Press):
Gaullist California
A friend well conversant in my ongoing crusade to remind today’s centre-droit of the utility of the Gaullist experience writes in:
The Golden State once practised a very successful form of Cal-Gaullism, developing world-class infrastructure, research universities, new industries… and much of the place was solidly conservative.
Once upon a time, parts of Southern California (including Orange County) were deemed the most conservative places in America, from which Nixon, Reagan, and others sprang.
San Francisco, though still beautiful, is certainly now well past its prime; I remember that white tie and tails were still seen there regularly as late as the ’80s.
The Polish church in Los Angeles was built to serve the large number of Polish exile families (with fathers who were aerospace engineers trained in the RAF like mine) who came from the UK and Canada to work in what was then the world centre of the aerospace and defence industry — “the Gunbelt in the Sunbelt”.
California Floreat
As Alex Massie writes over on his Spectator blog, Governor Jerry Brown of California “has taken to slapping down the kind of mollycoddling absurdities much favoured by that state’s woeful legislature”. “Governor Moonbeam”, as he is nicknamed, recently vetoed a bill proposing to criminalise skiing or snowboarding by children without a helmet.
“While I appreciate the value of wearing a ski helmet, I am concerned about the continuing and seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state.” As His Excellency points out, “Not every human problem deserves a law.”
When I was a child, skiing with a helmet was unheard of; but then we were taught to ski without even poles.
Cape Dutch California
While this Cape Dutch mansion sits in the hills of Montecito in California, it bears the name (and style) of an old Cape Peninsula town. “Constantia” was designed by Ambrose Cramer (take a peek at his nifty grave) in 1929 for Arthur & Grace Meeker, with landscaping by Lockwood deForest, Jr. The Meekers sold the house to the architect Jack Warner. In the late 1960s, Stewart & Katherine Abercrombie bought the place, and hosted the Dalai Lama on one of his trips to the United States. It was the subject of a 1979 feature in Architectural Digest. The place is for sale, currently listed at $17,900,000. (more…)
So this is why people live in California
Jackson Street, San Francisco: 20 rooms, 9 bedrooms, 7 full bathrooms, 3 half-bathrooms, 7 fireplaces, hardwood floors, 4 storeys, an elevator, 4-car garage, and off-street parking.
California Wedding
WHERE DOES ONE begin? Scotland, I suppose. I’ve known Abby since Day One in St Andrews. I was among the number of poor souls who were foolish enough to participate in the ‘overseas orientation’ for non-UK/RoI students. Through pure chance, a group of us who sat down to dinner in Andrew Melville Hall that night decided to venture into town that evening and see what was what. We went to the Central, which became my regular for a very long time, until replaced by the Russell for my tertian and magistrand years. Jon I met just over a year later, during his first few weeks at St Andrews (as I entered my second year). It was at the Catholic Society and he told me he came from Bristol. I was fairly ignorant of Bristol other than that it is home to the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. I asked Jon about the museum and his answer was such as to confirm that he and I were on the same page of the book, so to speak. He didn’t come much to Canmore at the start and so we were not instant friends, though I do recall running into him in the corridor of New Hall at 2 or 3 in the morning one night and striking up a brief conversation (most likely telling him he ought to be coming to Canmore, since like-minded folk are a dime a dozen there).
Anyhow, by some time or another we were all best of friends, and both Jon and Abby have been the source of (and butt of) so many of the great amusements we enjoyed at St Andrews. Good God, how many laughs! In Canmore, the Cellar Bar, the Central, the Russell, in flats, in Edinburgh, in Rome, in Dublin, in New York, and most recently in California, whenever one is with Jon and Abby there is always a good time to be had, and an appropriately inappropriate comment to relish. I have picked up the habit of simply saying “ledge” (that is, short for “legend”) every time I utter the name of Jon Burke. Abby once desired that I verbally express precisely what it was that makes Jon such a legend, but all I could say was that it was of the same nature as the Sacraments in Eastern theology: appreciated, nourishing, and clung-to, but ultimately a mystery.
It was California then, which was host to our latest adventure, namely the joining in matrimony of Miss Abigail Hesser and Mr. Jonathan Burke. I flew in on Wednesday and upon checking in at the hotel, the desk clerk handed me a written message from Jon: “We’re in the bar, free cocktails!” The wonderful rehearsal dinner was the next evening, and I was privileged to have the best seat in the house, with Fr. E and Mrs. Hesser on my left and Abigail and Jon on my right. But Friday… Friday was the wedding! (more…)
Volcanic Hills Loom Over the Italian Bay
OR NOT, to be precise. I found the above view of San Francisco rather charming, a touch Neapolitan even, and decided to share it. The domed building is the Palace of Fine Arts, designed by Bernard Maybeck for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. It used to exhibit various works of art, but is now an “interactive” science museum. The Palace of Fine Arts was actually built to last only two years but the San Franciscans couldn’t bring themselves to tear it down. Eventually, the elements took their toll and in the 1960’s, it was torn down and completely rebuilt to the same external design but with a permanent structure. (more…)
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- Burns Tower April 19, 2024
- Patrick in Parliament March 18, 2024
- Articles of Note: 13 March 2024 March 13, 2024
- Cambridge March 9, 2024
- Taken on Trust March 4, 2024
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