A conversation in a bookstore

This week has consisted of many overtime days at work due to deadlines on several projects on which I am involved. Today, I needed to only work one hour to get to my 40 hour work week. Fortunately, things were drastically less busy today, so I left the office around 4:30. On the way to the Metro, I stopped off at Bridge Street Books, as I hadn't paid them a visit in two or three weeks. Sometimes one just needs to soak in the bookstore atmosphere for a bit - gathering bits of miscellany from the travel section and the politics section for no particular reason.

I was upstairs, moseying around the philosophy section (too much Marx, not enough Kierkegaard), when I overheard two young women, about my age, conversing near a display of the works of the late Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"I have to say I like nonfiction more," quoth lady the first.
"That's a good quality to have, I think," replied her friend.
"I think so. I try to like great literature, but I can never get into it."
"Oh, I can. I just love fiction. But, it sort of sucks, you know? What practical benefit is there to just liking stories?"

At this point, the pair proceeded downstairs. I was a bit flabbergasted by the turn the conversation had taken. Why do we all of the sudden need a "practical" justification for reading literature? Is this where our utilitarian mindset has taken us? Will we soon have no art in schools and no fiction in bookstores simply because they are impractical? Will we replace all of our novels with mechanic's manuals? Surely, those are practical.

I exaggerate, of course, but only to make a point. Perhaps we have too much distorted the meaning of the word "education" so that it now only means something like "acquiring facts." We have developed a cult of "practical education" where workforce training is seen as obviously superior to the training of the mind to reason and to wonder. Surely, in the spirit of true education, there is much that Shakespeare and Hugo and Garcia Marquez and other mere fictionists can teach us about the world and about ourselves. Perhaps this conclusion is not as obvious as I naively suspected.

I bought a seven dollar copy of The Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard (a piece of nonfiction) and left.

Saint Jean Baptiste Day

Meanwhile, the crucifix remains in Parliament

Today is the 180th celebration of the Fête National of the Quebecois - the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. Though this midsummer festival was observed with feasting and fanfare from the earliest days of New France, the first "official" celebrations of the day as a 'national' holiday date to 1834. St Pope Pius X encouraged the public celebration of St Jean Baptiste Day and named the Holy Forerunner of Christ as the patron saint of French Canadians in 1908.

There is perhaps no better way to start to understand modern Quebec than through the lens of St Jean Baptiste Day. Since the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, which upended the Catholic Church's societal dominance throughout the province, the day has taken on a much more nationalist tone. Some years, depending on the provincial government, the celebrations are more separatism-friendly than others. Regardless, the religious undertones have been largely expunged and relegated to the sterile confines of "cultural heritage".

The same statement might as well be applied to the entirety of La Belle Province. Flannery O'Connor once described the American South as "Christ-haunted" - the same could be said of Quebec. Our Lord haunts the countryside in the names of His saints, applied to every little village. Our Lord's cross and His Blessed Mother's fleur-de-lys haunt the provincial flag (one of the most graphically-pleasing flags in the world, but I digress). Our Lord even haunts the chambers of Parliament, where a crucifix has been allowed to remain "as an important component of the historical character of the Province."

Yet, rates of weekly mass attendance throughout the province are among the lowest in the Catholic world. In a society where formerly large families were encouraged and commonplace (my French Canadian great-great-grandmother was one of eighteen), the birth rate now limps toward replacement rate. What can we make of the rapid secularization of what was formerly one of the most devout regions on earth?

It is indeed a riddle. On the one hand, I am wary of seeing the Church too powerful or too cozy with the political establishment, as this has often lead to abuses. At the same time, the Quebecois church was not an egregious offender in this way - society simply changed the government and threw the Church out with it, because they were viewed as such close allies. Political abuses were projected onto the Church. Now, there exists what the French term laïcité - religion may play a discreet and private role in an individual's life, but that is it. This model is decidedly more pointedly secular than our American model, which envisioned churches as operating more or less as they please outside of government interference, with free exercise being a well-defined right of all citizens.

The more important question than how we got where we are, is to consider how we might successfully evangelize in such a culture that has actively decided to privatize religion and sees any corporate, institutional religion as a threat to a culture's way of life. How can the Church in Quebec, which was once an institutional marvel, recenter itself on Christ and authentic discipleship? How can things grow from the ground up, so that people are attracted to the lifestyle of other people and not to the perceived "institution" and its historical baggage?

The answers to these questions are many and can be difficult to parse, but things certainly can get much worse in Quebec for the Church before they get better. That's not to lose hope, though. Among the first batch of cardinals named by Pope Francis was the Archbishop of Quebec, Gerald Cyprien Lacroix. The Pontiff allegedly told the Cardinal in an audience that "the Church needs Quebec!" Perhaps to underscore this point, His Holiness canonized François de Laval, Lacroix's predecessor - the first bishop of Quebec - who evangelized much of the province himself. The Pope knows what needs to be done. Let us pray for the day that the Church in Quebec will stand proudly with her patron, John the Baptist, announcing the saving presence of Christ!

Te Deum by Arvo Pärt

Performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the direction of Tönu Kaljuste in St Nicholas Church, Tallinn

This piece of music was composed in 1984, but it certainly evokes the echos of the centuries. There are bits that remind me of the best of Palestrina, and there are other bits that seem like pure, unadulterated Byzantium. In all, it is both subtle and sublime. 

A Church

After what seems like months away from my own personal drawing board, I've recently made a creative inroad or two. I've returned to my usual muse, Mater Ecclesia, for a few graphic thoughts on the relationship between tradition and modernity. The program chosen is that of a small parish church (perhaps seating 250-300 people).

click to view larger

I was inspired by a number of historical precedents in the development of this scheme. There are allusions to the Ottonian Hallenkirche of the former Holy Roman Empire. The material patterning hearkens to the playfulness of Siena Cathedral, while the alternating stone surrounding the altarpiece is a small (and very toned-down) homage to Mario Botta - one of the preeminent postmodern masters - and his chapel at Mogno, Switzerland. American Art Deco sensibilities play out in the relative streamlining and minimizing of detail throughout. The image of Christ used for the altar mosaic comes from the Medieval Codex Bruchsal. 

The sanctuary follows a very traditional layout, making it ideal for both the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, or a Novus Ordo Mass said ad orientem. Permit me a small digression on the orientation of liturgy. Notwithstanding all of the sound theological reasons for facing toward God as a whole community during worship, having the altar arranged in the more traditional manner often works so much better from an architectural standpoint. A freestanding altar necessarily requires a larger sanctuary, which, depending on the size of the church, can distort the cohesiveness of the sanctuary as a whole. In short - a freestanding altar has a higher probability of getting visually lost in a sea of objects. In this case, I have contrasted an ornately vested altar against a slab of gray stone, so that the eye is naturally drawn toward it, then to the tabernacle, the crucifix, and finally to the Son of God, occupying what in Old Testament theology would be termed the Mercy Seat.  

On a more mundane note, this project was entirely developed in SketchUp, with only the shadows and lighting added later in Photoshop. It's a technique I've been working on for about a year now, and I think I've finally been able to strike an appropriate balance.

The City of Magnificent Distances

 Washington is a walking city. If you've read any of my accounts of my own lookings-around the city (with or without friends in tow), you will have noticed the distances covered on foot are not negligible. For starters, the Mall is about two miles long from end to end, so to traverse it at a leisurely pace takes about forty-five minutes (inclusive of waiting time at crosswalks, which, in this city, can also be a considerable use of one's time). But, as spread out as the city is, it is sometimes downright pleasant to walk around in. Perhaps the human-scaled architecture, prevented by law from reaching much more than one hundred feet, lends the city a more agreeable street scape. The streets themselves - even the busy ones - are generally no more than four lanes wide, which keeps traffic slower (much to their chagrin, I'm sure).

In any event, even in the summertime humidity it has proven a pleasure to stretch the legs after work and walk around the city. Just last Wednesday, I met up with a friend who had an extra ticket to go to the top of the Washington Monument, which has just reopened to the public. To meet him, I walked along the Potomac from Georgetown, enjoying the trail along the waterfront before turning east at the Lincoln Memorial to head down the Mall. This past Friday evening, friends were picnicking at the Sculpture Garden for the ever-popular Jazz in the Garden summer concert series. I again walked from work, but chose the more direct route of Virginia Avenue, as I was in more of a hurry. Both walks were probably about two miles when all was said and done, but they were quite nice.

I had been toying with the idea of walking to or from work at some point, just to see how it went. The route I currently take to work, detailed in a post or two below, is rather convoluted if you map it out with geographic accuracy. As the crow flies, I live about four miles from work. As the Metro runs (or doesn't run) and as the Matt walks, my current commute shakes out to about seven and a half miles. I figured walking would be a happy middle-ground distance-wise. So, today I tried it out and clocked in at just under five miles walking at about an eighteen minute mile average pace. That brings us to an hour and a half walk. Getting home via Metro and walking takes about an hour. So, I saved $2.60 by adding a half hour to my commute today.

The trek

I think it may be worth it to make a habit out of this walk (perhaps in the mornings, when it's cooler, instead). The neighborhoods that I pass through are generally the green, leafy sort, so there is ample shade. There's a lot of fine landmarks to look at. And, lastly, there's many different changes in route that I could make to keep things interesting.

Today, I took the most direct route I could think of. Turning north off M St just before Rock Creek, I cut through a small park whose path led me to the P St Bridge, which I crossed and then immediately turned left onto Florida Avenue. After a brief stint on Florida as it winds past the Cosmos Club and the Embassy of Estonia, I turned north on to the mighty Connecticut Avenue. This was perhaps least pleasant portion, as the street is five lanes and quite busy during the evening rush hour. But, it lasted for only a block or two before I turned northeast on to Columbia Road, which I followed through Kalorama, Adams Morgan, and into Columbia Heights. Columbia Road is interesting in that it provides almost the entire spectrum of the socioeconomic strata of the city in less than a mile - from the Neoclassical severity of the Russian Economic Mission to an Ethiopian laundromat. From Columbia Heights, it was but a quick jaunt over to New Hampshire Avenue, then on to Rock Creek Church Road, which I followed along around to my humble abode just across North Capitol Street.

I have toyed with the idea of biking as well, but there is something downright nice about walking that you don't necessarily experience while biking. You get just as sweaty, but see half as much. Plus, it's a hassle to get my bike out of my apartment, down the stairs, and out the door (and then back in), and at 8am, I am just not one to deal with it. Anyways, we'll see how the walking goes, and whether I stick with it periodically or not.  

Francis on memory

 "A Christian with no memory is not a true Christian: he is a Christian in the middle of the road, a man or a woman prisoner of the moment, who does not know how to treasure his history, how to read it and live it as history of salvation. Instead, with the help of the Holy Spirit, may we interpret the interior inspirations, and life events, in light of the words of Jesus. And thus the wisdom of memory grows within us, the wisdom of the heart, that is a gift of the Spirit. May the Holy Spirit enliven Christian memory in all of us! And on that day, with the Apostles, there was the Lady of Memory, the one who initially pondered all those things in her heart. There was Mary, our Mother. May She help us in this road of memory."

--- Pope Francis, Sermon for Pentecost Sunday

Men of Letters

I am almost finished reading The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by popular historian David McCullough. It has been a fascinating look at the "long Nineteenth Century" in Paris, during which time it was the undisputed world capital of the arts, science, and culture (and maybe still is). The author follows the lives of many notable Americans who made long stays in Paris, including such luminaries as James Fenimore Cooper, Samuel Morse, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, among many, many others.

An interesting thing to consider about the book, which deals about day-to-day existence as well as wider historical happenings, is that the primary source material is from personal letters and journals. Though only a few were "writers", everyone was constantly writing. Of course, it was out of necessity in those days, but it gives me pause to consider how my generation will be reconstructed by historians. We are, generally, not writing very much. At least, not in any intimate or personal way to one another. The phone call has generally replaced the letter for such needs. But, though they may serve a similar purpose, they are not perfectly analogous. First, the letter is permanent, while the phone call (apart from some clandestine word-for-word transcription being generated by the NSA) is transient. Second, the letter, as a literary form, can pack in much extemporaneous information that is notably absent from most phone calls. Poetic descriptions of the weather, or musings on the culture that one is immersed in, are predictably absent from most phone calls that I am apart of.

We might then suppose that the internet, in all its myriad social media platforms, may be the other replacement for the letter. But, as a public forum, it is necessarily deficient in the exact opposite ways as a phone call. The internet is public, and largely permanent (though it feels transient), so a degree of intimacy and personality is inherently missing. We hurl our thoughts out into the abyss on the internet (I am doing so now) without much thought about the person-to-person conversations or discoveries that they may engender. And, when they do engender discussion, the case is that it often rapidly devolves into nonsensical shouting (have you read the comments on anything, ever?). No, the letter, with its one intended recipient, has a way of provoking thoughtful response that no blog or Facebook post ever will.

So, that leaves me to my original question, I suppose. How will we be discovered by generations yet nonexistent? Will they google us and find our blogs? Will they be able to read our Facebook messages and updates to get a sense of what we were thinking and doing? Will they raid the digital archives for our Instagram photos? And, will they, when all of this is said and done, come away with only a shallow impression of our existence - as shallow as we are accused of being by other generations for delving so deeply into the fleeting things of the digital age?

Commute

The month of May has recently departed from us as we speed ever so swiftly into the sultry days of summer. I have not written much of late, as I have been preoccupied by a great many things - foremost among which is my summer internship position. I was happy to accept a paid architectural internship earlier this past month at Hickok Cole Architects - a firm of about 90 people located in the Georgetown neighborhood of DC. I have had a good experience thus far, and have been learning much every day. The one drawback (if I must choose one) is the long commute I make to and from work each day. But, even this has settled into a routine.

I leave my door no later than ten to eight every morning. The fresh morning air has typically allowed me to put the extra spring in my step needed to negotiate the hills in my neighborhood. I arrive at the Brookland metro station and immediately slip into my MetroMode™, which typically involves a stoney-faced expression and a startling lack of patience for all of those who must (by some stern, unheard command, perhaps?) walk at a glacial pace within the Metro system. Having settled into MetroMode™, I take the ever-fickle, ever-jerky Red Line in the direction of Glenmont. If I am lucky, I get a seat and am able to enjoy about 15 minutes of good reading time. If I am unlucky (and I am), I am smooshed cheek-by-jowl into the belly of the car so that when the station is reached, I must clamor over people as if I were one of the sans-culottes in Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, yearning for freedom from the hot, crowded car.

It does indeed take all of the energy of the July Revolution for me to make my way onto the platform at Metro Center, where an even more daring maneuver must be undertaken. At approximately 8:30am each morning I take part in the daily Running of the Stairs. Like the similarly named event in Pamplona, the Running of the Stairs features madmen running headlong through narrow public spaces. Fear of being late to their useless bureaucratic governmental desks, rather than the traditional bull, goads these men on. And what an event it is to see! The perpetually-sweating State Department staffer hurdling the little old woman who just wants to get on the Blue Line to go shopping in Pentagon City! The sheer thrill of plunging through ear-budded, pre-coffee, angry-faced government workers! All to make it into the Blorange Line train before the tell-tale chime signals the merciless closing of the most merciless of all portals - the Metro car doors. As an aside, just yesterday I saw my first dooring. A clueless man was smashed in the doors at Union Station. He ranted with exquisite profanity to an apathetic car-full of people all the way to Gallery Place-Chinatown.

Invariably, we make it on to some Blorange Line train or another, and endure a further three stops before exiting at Foggy Bottom, the most fancifully-named of all Metro stops. With the humidity as it is in this city, it's a wonder that everyone doesn't have a foggy bottom by about 9:15am every day. In any event, Foggy Bottom has the secondary, dubious honor of being the worst-designed Metro station in the system. Everyone exits and must then process (there's no rushing here) to the end of the platform to two upward-bound escalators that are almost always broken. There are no stairs nor any other secondary means of ascension apart from an elevator that is almost always full of the aforementioned little old ladies. Somehow, we manage to spring forth from the earth and into the even more perilous and intriguing world of downtown Washington.

The Metro exit deposits one beside the GWU Medical Center. At the top of the escalator, there is always someone playing a guitar badly, and there is an umbrella salesman who haunts the premises on rainy days. Navigating from the Foggy Bottom exit on 19th Street, circumambulating around Washington Circle, to Pennsylvania Avenue is a feat worthy of Ferdinand Magellan, Captain Cook, and the other great circumnavigators of history. The sidewalks are, like the heart of the Grinch, two sizes too small. And, no matter what Christmas miracles may befall the Whos down in Whoville, it won't make a difference to these sidewalks at all. People walk too slowly. They walk as if a geologic age was but a fleeting moment. I often think that perhaps Our Lord Himself has descended again from His celestial throne to amble about, as to Him "A thousand years are like a day." Nowadays, since one can call oneself Christian on the most flimsy of pretexts, it would be safe to say that in regards to walking in this godly fashion, one could reckon the Christian population of Washington Circle as extremely high.

Somehow, we manage to pass through this human molasses and reach the wider sidewalks around the corner by New Hampshire Avenue. In between, there is a rather literary homeless man who always has an intriguing display of reading material spread for sale on the sidewalk. The other day I saw numerous old copies of Restoration Hardware catalogues and "The Complete Idiots Guide to Judaism." Eclectic, if nothing else.

At long last, we round the corner across from the Spanish Embassy and begin the homestretch down Pennsylvania Avenue, as it runs through the West End and into Georgetown at last. This stretch is home to some admirably wide sidewalks, so I am not given to noticing things to the degree that I have the privilege of doing around Washington Circle. However, I do always enjoy people-watching at the Melrose Hotel, which caters to a rich-tourists-from-Iowa clientele. Flannel and martinis may be seen on the sidewalk terrace (on my evening commute, of course). Next is the surprisingly-not-too-ugly-given-its-age St Stephen Martyr Catholic Church. The carving on the doors is exquisite, but the plaque posted on the wall calls attention to a rather badly done ceramic statue of the saint affixed halfway up the wall, simply because the sculptor also sculpted the Iwo Jima Memorial. Alas, we can't have it all, can we.

The remainder of Pennsylvania Avenue is fairly nondescript apart from the regional Mormon headquarters being located betwixt two bars, and a stereotypical Italian restaurant with white linen tablecloths and Botticelli's The Birth of Venus emblazoned on the doors via stickers. The executive avenue crosses Rock Creek Park and its Parkway and enters the hallowed vicinity of Georgetown. The first landmark is the Four Seasons Hotel, which caters to a slightly more diplomatic set of guests than the Melrose. Earbudded men in black suits in black SUV's are often to be seen in the porte cochere.

Next comes the most tempting part of the whole affair. There is a little bookstore in the midst of several shops right after the Four Seasons. And, like any bookstore worth its salt, it puts out the bargain books on the sidewalk, so as to lure passing bibliophiles in for a look around. It has worked on not a few occasions so far. I have made a purchase of David McCullough's fascinating read The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris and an anthology of all of Jorge Luis Borges' non-poetic works. Both were for far below their marked price. Such a coincidence has made me a happy reader of late (as if I need more to read these days).

After the bookshop there is a little French cafe-and-crepe place called Cafe Tu-O-Tu, which has an assortment of red chairs out front. Every morning I see the same group of French-speaking gentlemen sitting there with their morning cigarettes and coffees. It seems even DC can't break the French of their habits. In the spirit of American multiculturalism, the adjacent establishment, Sterling & Burke, can only be described as an Anglophile's permanent rummage sale. The front window includes a Union Jack, cufflinks, tea apparatuses, and the like. I cannot fathom how such a place makes enough to pay the rent. By now, we have reached 29th and M Street.

The rest of the way to the office is by way of the ridiculously tight sidewalks of M Street - which, unlike those near Washington Circle, are cobblestone. This adds to the difficulty. But, thankfully, the morning commute is usually light by the time I am in that vicinity, and I can make it unperturbed to the office near 31st and the canal. I must have been quite the sight the other day, however. My friend cooked dinner for a few of us and asked me to pick up a loaf of French bread. I went over to Dean and Delucca and got a suitable loaf. This was around 6:15 and a violent storm was on its way in from the west. With a baguette in one hand, and my too-large-for-M-St-sidwalks-umbrella in the other, and the billowing storm clouds just behind me, I am sure I was sending people fleeing as I marched very quickly back toward the Metro.

Such is the routine of the day. The ordinary becomes interesting if you look at it long enough, and that's what I shall endeavor to do for the rest of my time this summer. I've been granted an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to study the strangeness of humanity in all of its manifestations. What a life!