The Great Re-Opening!

From today's New York Times:

Since midsummer, installers have been placing the 8,500 pipes the console organ controls in chambers above the choir stalls at the eastern end of St. John the Divine.

Read it all here, and rejoice in God's adundance!

RFSJ

The Roar of the City

I've lived in cities all my life, except when I was less than two or three years old. South Bend, Toledo, Columbus, Indianapolis, New York. There's something you don't notice until you get away from one. Last Wednesday evening I stayed the night in Manhattan at the rectory of the Church of the Transfiguration, because that's where my friend Rick's ordination was held. Fortunately it wasn't too hot, but even so, there's no A/C in the rectory, so I had the window open all night. I noticed something that I probably have never noticed before: the background "white noise" of the City. It's actually kind of like a roar - it's always there, even at night, and doesn't seem to decrease in volume. Because I now live in rural Vernon Township, and at least two hours from any major city, there's no city roar. I only noticed it when I went back to a city after three months away from one for the first time in my life. It wasn't disturbing, really, just , well, noticeable.

RFSJ

For Shame!

St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, the doyen of fashionable Manhattan parishes and a center of Anglo-Catholic culture and the English choral tradition, is spending $20 million to repair and clean its stained glass windows. And it's financing this by selling some of its air rights. (Air rights are important in vertical cities like New York, because zoning laws limit how high you can build. You can sell or transfer airspace you will not need to someone nearby who would like to build higher. Here's a good overview of air rights for background.)

I was really rather upset when I read this. In the midst of a major recession, when thousands of people are losing their jobs and thousands more just in New York need all kinds of help, St. Thomas decides to spend $20 million on stained glass windows? And not even from it's own endowment, which is considerable? I can't believe it. It would have been much more of a Christian witness to spend $20 million on emergency housing, or to donate to Episcopal service agencies like the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen. or even decide to spend equal amounts on outreach and the fabric of the church. But windows and only windows?

Don't get me wrong. I believe that "worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness" is a sacred duty. But the Oxford Movement churches of London in the 18th Century combined exquisite worship with a deep commitment to the poor in their areas. I don't see much of that happening at St. Thomas.

Extremely disappointing!

RFSJ

Shenanigans at St. Thomas?

St. Thomas Fifth Avenue is the premier Anglo-music parish in the US. Its Choir of Men and Boys is world-renowned and with good reason. The rector there was formally accused of some misdoings last fall. The Diocese of New York investigated and found nothing wrong. However, The Advocate has got some good background. An excerpt:

In December 2006, nine gay Episcopalians filed a complaint against the rector of New York City’s St. Thomas Church alleging that he made derogatory comments about a fellow clergyman’s homosexuality. It was one of 16 charges leveled at the Reverend Andrew Mead, leader of the prominent Episcopal congregation at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 53rd Street whose wealthy, influential parishioners include Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and Standard Oil heiress Minnie Mortimer—who married Oscar-winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan at the church in May. Among the other accusations in the complaint: that Mead paid for cat litter for his own cats and “large quantities of alcohol” out of St. Thomas’s kitchen budget; and that the rector, while dressed as Santa Claus, forced female employees to sit on his lap to receive presents at a staff Christmas party.

The complaint, signed by 12 people altogether, was investigated by the New York diocese’s governing committee this spring and ultimately dismissed, the matter declared formally closed at St. Thomas’s 11 a.m. Sunday service on May 20. For the gay complainants, it was a “crushing defeat,” in the words of one, Bruce Gilardi—and the final straw in a series of questionable events at St. Thomas since Mead arrived over a decade ago. “If the church feels it can sweep us under the rug,” says Gilardi, an entrepreneur who had attended the church regularly since moving to New York in 2000, “then that’s an indication that this isn’t a place for me anymore.”

Read it all, and pray for the church.

RFSJ

I'm 38 NY Years Old

According to the Time Out New York Age Quiz, that is. I'm pleased; it means I'm two years younger inside the Five Boroughs than my calendar age!

Take the car quiz and let me know (in comments) how old you are in New York!

RFSJ

I saw "Passing Strange" Last Night...

Last night I was invited to see the show Passing Strange at the Public Theatre at Astor Place. It's an interesting show - kind of like a rock opera, but more of an extended ballad. The music is provided by a 4 piece band - 2 guys on keyboards/guitar, another on bass, and drums. There's a narrator, two leads, and several backup singers who play multiple roles. It's done in a thrust stage with very minimal staging, but with a huge neon-and-light-bulb backdrop along the back wall, that's mostly used in Act II. The music is kind of eclectic but has a lot of rock, blues, punk, funk, industrial, and some gospelly stuff here and there as well.

The show is basically the story of a middle-class black kid growing up in South Central Los Angeles (race is an important theme in this show; the band is all white, but all the actors are black) and his story of coming of age in LA and then in Amsterdam and Berlin. Production values were excellent, as one would expect. However, I (and my friend) thought that Act I, which describes the boy's time in LA from about age 17 to about 20, and his sojourn in Amsterdam, to be much better - more authentic - than Act II. The blurb on the website says:

From Los Angeles to Amsterdam to Berlin and Back, Passing Strange is the story of a young black bohemian, who abandons his bourgeois roots to journey to Europe searching for ‘the real’. Discovering a world of sex, drugs, rock and roll and art revolutionaries, our rebel-hero explores love, identity and the meaning of home.

That's true as far as it goes. However, we both found that Act II - the Berlin part - didn't seem real to us. As I told my friend, "I couldn't tell if he was being ironic or authentic in Berlin." It was almost as if the character was playing a character in Berlin, and wasn't even attempting to be real himself there, but was simply giving his audience (he became the darling of the industrial set while there) what they wanted.

Some other things didn't work. We felt that the ending lacked a lot of heart and left us both emotionally, well, not cold, but unaffected. And I definitely did not like the bit at the end when the Narrator, who is also the co-producer, book author and composer, gave a story about the final dress rehearsal - it was rather jarring, coming immediately after the end of the show itself, especially given the attempted poignancy of the final scenes. There was no transition from the end of the ballad to the meta-story about the dress rehearsal; the ending just fell rather flat with me. The friend I was with, a huge theatre buff, wasn't too thrilled either, and he had come back a second time to see it just to make sure he hadn't missed anything the first time. As he remarked over a nice supper later, he hadn't.

There are lots of excellent moments, to be sure. There's a great scene in Act I where the Youth is smoking pot with the youth choir director, who is flamboyantly gay (away from the church) and yet is afraid to be open about his own sexuality. I found it a wry comment on homophobia in black churches, whcih I understand to be a real problem - see Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians and Gays in Black Churches, by the Rev. Dr. Horace Griffin of General Theological Seminary. And there are some really wonderful scenes during the Amsterdam sojourn about trust and breaking of trust that for me, were more emotionally laden than the ostensible emotional climax at the end of the show.

Passing Strange is being held over until July 12. The New York Times and the New Yorker have reviewed the show as well.

RFSJ

I Hate Times Square!

I attended the Eucharist at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin this evening, which is located just off of Times Square on 46th beteeen 7th and 6th. The sidewalks both before and after the service were crowded, and everyone seemed to be moving at the slowest possible pace. To make matters worse, the hot dog vendor was charging $3 for a sausage and the Mr. Softy guy also charged me $3 - instead or $2 - for a small chocalate in a cone.

Times Square has to be my very least favorite place in my most favorite city. Tourists, go home! Just send in your money by check and leave the rest of us alone.

RFSJ