this afternoon on the subway i was subjected to the most annoying music.  i couldn't hear enough of it to be sure, but it sounded vaguely oriental, and also somewhat whiny... and it was coming from the headphones of the guy across the car... we're talking a good 6 feet away.  and i could hear it... my only satisfaction to being subjected to someone else's personal music is that, at that volume, he has probably suffered hearing loss...

and now i feel guilty about not feeling guilty for thinking that....

for my liturgics class (we are studying the theology of rituals) the professor assigned us two churches to go and observe, but only as architectural space, not while worship was going on.  so today i went to look at them. one is st. thomas episcopal church, and the other is st. peter's lutheran church.  st. thomas' is a new york city institution, and has an extraordinary school associated with it > primarily they are known for their men and boys choir (which now admits girls), and my grandfather was an alumnus from there.  you cannot miss that it is a church since it is a very gothic construction, and extremely beautiful inside.  st. peter's, on the hand, if it did not have the words "st. peter's church" over the door, would not be recognizable as a church.  very modern in architecture, and very angular and geometric (in a trapezoidal sort of way), it is made of the same dark gray stone as the citicorp building that stands behind it.

inside, st. thomas' looks like everyone's idea of "church".  st. peter's looks like a cross between a sunken living room, an ampitheatre, and an office.  st. thomas' is grand and majestic, while st. peter's is informal and intimate... this will be an interesting paper... too bad it's due on tuesday and i have to work like thunder to complete it...

a year ago, dans la belle france, two minority youths were electrocuted and one severely burned because they took refuge in an electricity generating station, fleeing the police who wanted to perform an identity check.  clichy-sous-bois erupted in violence, and that violence spread from the banlieux to paris herself...

the united states is no stranger to this sort of inflaming of the passions of the disenfranchised > it happens when the police mistakenly shoot and kill someone who had his wallet in his hand, or a cell phone, mistaken for a gun.  but here, even when we we are upset and outraged and beside ourselves with grief, we seldom riot.  not like les français in this case. 

and the violence has resurged on this anniversary, with hooded youths forcing people to disembark from three buses so that the buses could be torched and burned.  there have been recent ambushes of police who were responding to calls from within the worst of these banlieux (suburbs).  the mayor of clichy-sous-bois and the members of his police force will all be patrolling the streets tonight with fire extinguishers in their vehicles...

so... what is the difference between the situation in france and the situation here that keeps us from this sort of violence?  france has worked very hard to build a color-blind society, and therefore there are no programs such as affirmative action (apparently termed "positive discrimination" in europe according to the articles in the london press).  perhaps it is because we openly acknowledge that our society is racist and xenophobic on many levels, and have tried to address this in various ways, through legislation and education.

perhaps it is better to acknowlege one's sin and attempt to deal with it than to gloss over it, saying that there is no sin at all because we don't believe in that sin or practice it (even when it is obvious that the condition still exists)....

there is a problem in france with the way employment works, since the unemployment rate among all youth hovers at around 20%, with minority youth facing double that rate.  some of the issues, too, stem from too high an expectation.  one recent university graduate with a masters degree in financial administration was complaining that he had sent out over 100 resumés with no response over a six month period.  that is not a very long period nor a lot of resumés by our standards.

the united states has a history of almost 400 years of immigration and mixing of various religious and ethnic groups.  although we may not do it as well as we ought, perhaps we might start realizing that we do it fairly well, and look to see if there are any ways we can help our brothers and sisters around the world live in peace...

it seems that i may be the only person in  New York City to look up when i walk.  i have always had a passion for the buildings here, although i am more used to looking around in midtown (weird this > i now am describing the island of manhattan in terms that were once obscure to me, and not thinking anything of it until i write it down).  there are more commercial buildings in mid-town, and some of them are intricately carved.  i used to walk down 5th avenue while my friends window-shopped at tiffany's or macy's with my head tipped back, looking at ornamentation more than twenty feet above my head.  i wondered why someone would place the ornate work up so high?  wouldn't it seem more logical to place it down closer to eye level?  but i liked the feeling that it was a sort of private world, a link between myself and the architect, that not everyone was privy to. 

here in chelsea the buildings are more residential, and the feeling is very much that of neighborhood.  even still, the buildings are unique, not the same as the residences of brooklyn, those characteristic brownstones.  i still look up when i walk, even on the Close, and see what delights are to be seen.  for example, one of the newly refurbished dorms (scheduled to open in Aug 2006, but really opening in Feb 2007) has windows that are pointed arches, similar to a cathedral style window. 

off the Close, walking looking up is a little more problematic since some of the locals are not too careful about curbing their dogs... you don't want to step in a present ... ewwwww!!!!  but this morning i walked down to the indoor market and bought a loaf of italian rustica bread and some fresh butter.  that in itself was awesome.  and tres yummy.  but on the way, i noticed a building that was way cool.  first, you notice it because it is white in a city of grays and browns.  second, you notice that it is square, like all the surrounding buildings, but offset sort of perpendicularly to the street.  the name of the building is the maritime building, so you look up at it, and that's when you notice that all the windows are round portholes.... 

i have gone walking with andy, who indulges my passion and indeed shares it since he does architectural consulting and construction work.  he is always pointing out interesting things, and so i will have to share this building with him when i next see him...

closer to the ground, they have been reseeding the lawns here on the Close, and many birds have come to this impromptu feast.  for the first time i got to see a wren up close - she was so small and so delicate, plump with a bright yellow hat and a stubby tail... i also got to see/hear a mocking bird > this made me so happy and homesick i thought my heart would burst, since every place i have ever lived, sooner or later, a mocking bird has shown up.

perhaps i am supposed to be here after all...

there is a film crew on the Close (what they call our campus)... apparentl,y we are now Central Park, or at least the studio version of it.  we will be in an upcoming episode of "Law & Order: SVU"... they brought in extra fake plants, and some sort of lattice-work; we were hoping they would let us keep it since it looks so beautiful, in an artificial, studio way.  but no.

instead, we were treated to not being allowed to use certain entrances, not being allowed to check our snail-mail, not being allowed to go to and from our dorms... they tried to stop me from going to class - seems my boot heels made too much noise and i was a distraction to the actor-dog (hey, i can't help my animal magnetism) every time i went by... they tried to stop my one class from taking place > it's the Schola, our performance choir, and they didn't want us singing since that would come out of the classroom windows and interfere with the soundtrack.

it was ok that they had some wierdo person barking like a dog to mark out scenes before Actor-Dog took over, but singing is right out. (seems Monty Python & the Holy Grail was right about that....)  but hey, here's an odd fact > even though Actor Dog barked on cue (the same exact bark > bark, bark, bark, bark  for over 45 minutes), it obviously was in some kind of non-interesting-to-other-dogs kind of way, because none of the other dogs on the Close even thought about barking back....

Rk called today... all the way from sweden... seems he's been trying to get through for the past 10 days, so i guess my connectivity issues were not limited to internet.  why is it that a man with an accent can sound soooooooooo sexy and make your knees forget that they are made of bone and cartiledge, and not jelly?

there is an Episcopal seminary in Alexandria, Virgina aptly named Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS).  for a very very long time they have been our rivals, and within the past several decades, that has taken the form of FOOTBALL (American style, not soccer for those of you who prefer that other form)...

now, there is no official proof that VTS offers its seminarians football scholarships, but there is much anecdotal support, since GTS (General Theological Seminary, my school) has NEVER won a game against them.  actually, we haven't won a game against any other seminary either, but that might be because we have only ever played VTS....

well... the tradition has been for us to travel down to VTS in the beginning of October to face them on the field of battle... er.. football field of battle.  until last year, we had never even scored against them, let alone considered winning.  well, last year we managed to score 6 points!!! of course, they stopped counting how many touchdowns they scored against us once the score reached 56 to 6, but hey!!! at least we scored! it doesn't help that we have been barely able to field the 8 players it takes to make up one squad, let alone compete with a team that has 2 offensive lines & 2 defensive lines... last year, we had 11 people make the trip down to VTS, and were able to field a full team, plus have 2 substitute players and a person wielding a thurible (that is an incense burner on a chain, used in liturgical processions in some churches)... 

this year, we vowed to surpass even our last year's performance... SO... we had 25 people going down.... there were 11 members of the cheering squad, 8 of which were on the Liturgical Team (more about that in a second), 1 cameraperson, 1 first-aid person, and 12 random players.  VTS did so not know what to do with all of us!!!  we drove down on Friday afternoon, but even tho' we did our best to avoid rush hour, it still took over 7 hours to make the drive down... the game was Saturday, and it was a beautiful day to die...

the football squad ate an early breakfast (carb-loading at its finest), while the Liturgical Team prepared to do our part to aid in the effort... all of us were wearing black cassocks; one man donned a green and black chausible, another wore a red verger's robe, the rest of us wore white surplices over the cassocks with academic hoods borrowed from the faculty (they were with us in absentia).  one woman, instead of wearing the academic hood, wore a cope (big fancy cape) and a bishop's mitre, to be the Bishop of Europe (she's italian and apparently has ambitions....)  we processed from the refectory down to the field: first the verger wielding a huge wooden cross, then the chausible man and another man both wielding thuribles, then a woman carrying a homemade icon of St. Lawrence (martyred on a gridiron, pun really intended), myself and another woman carrying stuffed penguins (our mascot > we are the penguins, VTS are the friars), then the first-aid person with a woman who was engaged in a servant ministry (translation: she carried what we couldn't), with our "bishop" and her 4 year old daughter rounding out the procession...

we processed onto the field where we proceeded to gather both teams together to sing a hymn (the tune was chelsea square (another pun since GTS is in the chelsea neighborhood of manhattan).  during the hymn, the thurifers censed the "bishop", then the center of the field, the football, the 'icon' of St. Lawrence, the penguins, and each team.  there was a real bishop supporting VTS, and he led us in prayer, and finally the mayhem commenced.

we scored first, a touchdown and converted for 2 points (both were firsts for GTS), and all VTS could do was score 2 safeties.  at the end of the first quarter it was 8-0 GTS, and at the end of the half, it was 8-4 GTS. the thurifers were censing the line of scrimmage for each play, and i was running up and down the field, penguin held aloft, all of us cheering mightily.  we had even transliterated signs reading "penguins rule" and "fry the friars" into greek... it was some sight!!!!  unfortunately, we lost in the end, but only by a very respectable score of 28-8, the first time VTS had ever had to sweat, the first time they had ever trailed at the end of the first half, and the first time GTS had held them to only 3 touchdowns.... just wait 'til next year!! penguins rule!

oh, and if anyone wondered... i was without internet connection for the past 2 weeks *sob, sniffle*