Of course I didn't wait for a personal visit before I gave myself the pleasure of making fun of it. But today after jury duty in an LA courthouse I got a bit lost and found myself only a block away from the monstrosity. So I figured as a Catholic I ought to go visit my cathedral.
Honestly, it was even worse than expected. The concrete's uglier up close. Inside it's more like a bunker than anything else, and the approach from the back side of the cathedral is much more forbidding than the front side you always see pictured. The statue of "Mary" looked just slightly better than in pictures (she was leaning forward, welcoming), but it's still very bad. Only the other day an Asian seminarian told me that he's offended by suggestions that the statue will make Asian cultures feel included. "That's my mother you're talking about! My mother does not look like that!"
Against my will, I liked the tapestries in the cathedral very much. All the saints were great. But I wonder why Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux were both wearing all white? They were Carmelites! And St. Augustine's heavy jaw and prominent eyebrows make him look like The Governator. Tell me I'm not the only one who's noticed this. :)
My chief annoyance is that it's supposed to be a cathedral. There's a kind of architecture and art that lifts the mind and heart to God, and our cardinal spent $189.7 million not doing it. No wonder there were so few people there to pray. I saw one person in the Eucharistic chapel and none in the main body of the sanctuary.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
IMPENDING DOOM!!!
Got summoned for jury duty last year, but I had moved to Orange County and told Los Angeles County they had no claim on me. "Send us proof you moved," said they. But the proof they wanted was somewhat difficult to get. "Forget it," thought I, "I'm not obligated to prove to you that I'm telling the truth."
Then I moved again, to Lakewood, just on the other side of the county border. At the same time I discovered at my parents' house a letter addressed to me: "You scofflaw, you didn't show up for jury service! You have now been ATTACHED and COMPELLED to appear on the following date! We threaten you with fines and jail time! Et cetera!"
Now that I am back in LA County, it's my civic duty and all. So I made the drive to downtown Los Angeles today (took an hour and twenty minutes to get from church to the jury room, most of which was rush hour driving.) Once there I learned that since I live more than twenty miles from the courthouse, I could have my service relocated. "Nah," I figured, "let's just get it over with. How bad could it be? Most trials won't run longer than a week. I might not even get on a panel and then they'll let me go after only one day."
But they sent me out to another courthouse to interview for a panel. I saw by the notice outside the room that it was a civil case, which seemed promising-- I'd been afraid of a rape trial or something else with images I don't want in my brain.
They called us forty-five potential jurors into the courtroom. The lawyers for both sides were standing and facing us as we walked in, and it seemed to me that they looked a bit... apologetic. We sat down. And the gruff old judge with an Irish name informed us that the trail is estimated to last... up to FORTY DAYS! That's going to be EIGHT WEEKS, or roughly TWO MONTHS OF MY LIFE SPENT DRIVING IN ICKY RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC FOR MORE THAN TWO HOURS EVERY DAY AND THEN SITTING THROUGH AN INCREDIBLY BORING CASE WHEN I SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR A JOB ALREADY!!
All but fourteen of the forty-five jurors were soon able to plead themselves free, mostly because their jobs wouldn't pay them for jury time and they couldn't afford to go salary-free for two months. Being jobless and lacking a dependent relative or a planned vacation, I had to stay.
We remaining fourteen filled out a questionnaire and were instructed to report tomorrow at nine. My only hope is to be excused based on my responses to the questionnaire. It's possible that my honest answers will make the plaintiffs not want me, but if they're really hard up for jurors I might be stuck. May God's will be done. :)
Then I moved again, to Lakewood, just on the other side of the county border. At the same time I discovered at my parents' house a letter addressed to me: "You scofflaw, you didn't show up for jury service! You have now been ATTACHED and COMPELLED to appear on the following date! We threaten you with fines and jail time! Et cetera!"
Now that I am back in LA County, it's my civic duty and all. So I made the drive to downtown Los Angeles today (took an hour and twenty minutes to get from church to the jury room, most of which was rush hour driving.) Once there I learned that since I live more than twenty miles from the courthouse, I could have my service relocated. "Nah," I figured, "let's just get it over with. How bad could it be? Most trials won't run longer than a week. I might not even get on a panel and then they'll let me go after only one day."
But they sent me out to another courthouse to interview for a panel. I saw by the notice outside the room that it was a civil case, which seemed promising-- I'd been afraid of a rape trial or something else with images I don't want in my brain.
They called us forty-five potential jurors into the courtroom. The lawyers for both sides were standing and facing us as we walked in, and it seemed to me that they looked a bit... apologetic. We sat down. And the gruff old judge with an Irish name informed us that the trail is estimated to last... up to FORTY DAYS! That's going to be EIGHT WEEKS, or roughly TWO MONTHS OF MY LIFE SPENT DRIVING IN ICKY RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC FOR MORE THAN TWO HOURS EVERY DAY AND THEN SITTING THROUGH AN INCREDIBLY BORING CASE WHEN I SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR A JOB ALREADY!!
All but fourteen of the forty-five jurors were soon able to plead themselves free, mostly because their jobs wouldn't pay them for jury time and they couldn't afford to go salary-free for two months. Being jobless and lacking a dependent relative or a planned vacation, I had to stay.
We remaining fourteen filled out a questionnaire and were instructed to report tomorrow at nine. My only hope is to be excused based on my responses to the questionnaire. It's possible that my honest answers will make the plaintiffs not want me, but if they're really hard up for jurors I might be stuck. May God's will be done. :)
Sunday, July 06, 2008
"Imagining Christ" at the Getty
If you live in Southern California, you must go. :) It's just one room, the one where they always show medieval manuscripts, and they've turned 'em to new pages that all have portraits of Christ. Here's the website, which probably won't work after this month:
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/imagining_christ/
Last November I saw the Dead Sea Scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum, and ranted a bit on this blog about the viewpoint that had been imposed on the display. There was some deconstruction of those weird beliefs of the past, and I didn't like it.
What I love about the Getty is that their displays of religious stuff (and there are amazing treasures in their collection) don't deconstruct anything. They don't offer postmodern commentary or opinion about the artwork of the past and the beliefs that inspired them. And there are no leading invitations in the art descriptions saying things like, "What do you think? What is your viewpoint about this?" as if to put non-religious visitors at ease, as if people are such babies that they need help processing their exposure to a different worldview.
What the Getty does in their displays is to tell you about the people who produced the religious art or made use of it, and what they believed. Period. They give you the information relevant to the work and let you form your own commentary. They don't annoy me. :)
And they really got the Catholic theology right; half their captions were about the Real Presence and said things like, "One of the central beliefs about transubstantiation was that Christ was not symbolically but truly present on the altar." Yeah, some of the vocabulary usage seemed a bit mushy, and there was a mistake or two (under a manuscript showing Adam and Eve the caption says they were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Life) but on the whole the captions were much more doctrinally correct than any given issue of The Tidings. :)
One thing you won't get from the exhibit is that all this continues to be the Catholic belief and practice; it hasn't changed. The Getty display makes it seem as if this was all just the exotic custom of the medieval past, long since died out, instead of stuff you could find in the Catechism today. But I figure that's fine, since the display isn't about the present, but about the time the manuscripts were made.
Several manuscripts were sacramentaries with Latin prayers for the Mass, and I was thrilled to be able to recognize little bits, since the 1962 Missal isn't much changed from the 14th-century Latin. I'm bummed my picture attempts didn't come out (no flash allowed) and the Getty page linked above cuts out the text and only shows the pictures, so I can't show you what I mean. But I think once or twice the Latin on the page was the canon of the Mass, and I'm pretty sure I recognized the part about Christ after supper taking the chalice into his holy and venerable hands: Simili modo postquan coenatum est, accipiens et h unc praeclarum Calicem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas...
If I were a better writer I'd find some way to make you experience how cool it was for me to see all this really old stuff and completely relate to it and the people who made it because we're all part of the same Church. :)
It's interesting to know a bit about when different forms of devotion began to become popular. Christ was rarely depicted as crucified in Christian art until about A.D. 400, if I remember correctly. Before then, Christians were still very near the time when they'd been seriously persecuted and crucifixion was very much a live concern for them. So the theory is that showing their Savior crucified just was too much, or rubbed them too raw, or seemed inappropriate, or something. But eventually the crucifix etc. caught on. Even then, though, Christ apparently was usually portrayed as pretty calm while being crucified. It wasn't until medieval times that they really got into depicting him suffering, with bloody wounds and all. The Getty captions tell me it was part of a movement to feel more of a personal connection with Christ by contemplating his Passion.
(Take what I write with a grain of salt; I'm just going on memory.)
Here's an amazingly detailed picture from one of the manuscripts, showing the Mass of St. Gregory the Great. Check out the vestments, like a cross between Gothic and Roman. I like them! I'm also a big fan of angels with brightly colored wings. The medievals had it right-- why the heck should they be boring white? I'm not necessarily hardcore enough to advocate a return to the tonsure, though.
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/imagining_christ/
Last November I saw the Dead Sea Scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum, and ranted a bit on this blog about the viewpoint that had been imposed on the display. There was some deconstruction of those weird beliefs of the past, and I didn't like it.
What I love about the Getty is that their displays of religious stuff (and there are amazing treasures in their collection) don't deconstruct anything. They don't offer postmodern commentary or opinion about the artwork of the past and the beliefs that inspired them. And there are no leading invitations in the art descriptions saying things like, "What do you think? What is your viewpoint about this?" as if to put non-religious visitors at ease, as if people are such babies that they need help processing their exposure to a different worldview.
What the Getty does in their displays is to tell you about the people who produced the religious art or made use of it, and what they believed. Period. They give you the information relevant to the work and let you form your own commentary. They don't annoy me. :)
And they really got the Catholic theology right; half their captions were about the Real Presence and said things like, "One of the central beliefs about transubstantiation was that Christ was not symbolically but truly present on the altar." Yeah, some of the vocabulary usage seemed a bit mushy, and there was a mistake or two (under a manuscript showing Adam and Eve the caption says they were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Life) but on the whole the captions were much more doctrinally correct than any given issue of The Tidings. :)
One thing you won't get from the exhibit is that all this continues to be the Catholic belief and practice; it hasn't changed. The Getty display makes it seem as if this was all just the exotic custom of the medieval past, long since died out, instead of stuff you could find in the Catechism today. But I figure that's fine, since the display isn't about the present, but about the time the manuscripts were made.
Several manuscripts were sacramentaries with Latin prayers for the Mass, and I was thrilled to be able to recognize little bits, since the 1962 Missal isn't much changed from the 14th-century Latin. I'm bummed my picture attempts didn't come out (no flash allowed) and the Getty page linked above cuts out the text and only shows the pictures, so I can't show you what I mean. But I think once or twice the Latin on the page was the canon of the Mass, and I'm pretty sure I recognized the part about Christ after supper taking the chalice into his holy and venerable hands: Simili modo postquan coenatum est, accipiens et h unc praeclarum Calicem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas...
If I were a better writer I'd find some way to make you experience how cool it was for me to see all this really old stuff and completely relate to it and the people who made it because we're all part of the same Church. :)
It's interesting to know a bit about when different forms of devotion began to become popular. Christ was rarely depicted as crucified in Christian art until about A.D. 400, if I remember correctly. Before then, Christians were still very near the time when they'd been seriously persecuted and crucifixion was very much a live concern for them. So the theory is that showing their Savior crucified just was too much, or rubbed them too raw, or seemed inappropriate, or something. But eventually the crucifix etc. caught on. Even then, though, Christ apparently was usually portrayed as pretty calm while being crucified. It wasn't until medieval times that they really got into depicting him suffering, with bloody wounds and all. The Getty captions tell me it was part of a movement to feel more of a personal connection with Christ by contemplating his Passion.
(Take what I write with a grain of salt; I'm just going on memory.)
Here's an amazingly detailed picture from one of the manuscripts, showing the Mass of St. Gregory the Great. Check out the vestments, like a cross between Gothic and Roman. I like them! I'm also a big fan of angels with brightly colored wings. The medievals had it right-- why the heck should they be boring white? I'm not necessarily hardcore enough to advocate a return to the tonsure, though.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Yosemite wedding pictures
I don't have internet access at my new apartment yet (the horror! the horror!) but while I'm here at Mom and Dad's printing Yosemite wedding photos for them, I can blog a few of my own. :)
I took this shot from Inspiration Point. You'll notice there was some construction on the road, but folks who are familiar with Yosemite will notice something else. Something... missing. I'll see if anybody gets it. :)
Hint: there were lots of fires nearby and the valley was full of smoke.
Price gouging in Yosemite: this vanilla shake and rather small chicken sandwich cost $10.51.
Other photographers capture wildlife in majestic poses. I get deer marking their territory.
On the left is the sign the Ahwahnee Hotel posted for the unwashed masses who approach from the campgrounds to walk across the south lawn and visit the hotel. To the right is the sign they posted for their own guests.
WRESTLING BABY SQUIRRELS!! Cuteness overload!
Mom and I left from Curry Village around 6 AM every morning to walk to Yosemite Lodge, there to eat breakfast in the beautiful glass-walled dining room. One day I led her off the beaten path for a nice walk by the river. It was hard to find a trail and the walk took twice as long. We ended up with a big muddy patch between us and the bridge we needed to cross, so Mom stepped lightly across. I blanked on everything I ever learned about physics and common sense, and tried to run across. Don't ask me what college I went to; I'm embarrassed enough as it is. This is what my legs looked like after I sank ankle-deep in the mud. Fortunately those shoes were old and I just threw them away at the end of the trip.
If you want something done right... My cousin Greg photographing his own wedding. :) His bride's about to walk down the aisle.
Glacier Point tourists gathered to watch. They photographed us and we photographed them! I told my friend Adonela that I don't expect to have random strangers interested in my wedding, but she pointed out that if I get married at St. Peter Chanel I'll probably have someone crashing the wedding Mass, as she's done herself.
Aunt Becky's about to hit them with the "Be fruitful and multiply" verse. :) There's Half Dome in the background, which incidentally is what was missing from the first shot. Normally you see it clearly from Inspiration Point, framed between El Capitan and the Three Brothers, but the smoke obscured it that week.
Awww. :)
I'm proud to be part of the sibship. :) Clockwise from top left: Abigail, Rachel, Benjamin, and Caleb.
Much hilarity and excitement when Benjamin's awesome girlfriend Amanda caught the bouquet. She wasn't trying hard; it went right to her. Benjamin missed the scene but we sure let him know about it when he entered the room a minute later. "I leave you alone for two minutes--!" said he.
I took this shot from Inspiration Point. You'll notice there was some construction on the road, but folks who are familiar with Yosemite will notice something else. Something... missing. I'll see if anybody gets it. :)
Hint: there were lots of fires nearby and the valley was full of smoke.
Price gouging in Yosemite: this vanilla shake and rather small chicken sandwich cost $10.51.
Other photographers capture wildlife in majestic poses. I get deer marking their territory.
On the left is the sign the Ahwahnee Hotel posted for the unwashed masses who approach from the campgrounds to walk across the south lawn and visit the hotel. To the right is the sign they posted for their own guests.
WRESTLING BABY SQUIRRELS!! Cuteness overload!
Mom and I left from Curry Village around 6 AM every morning to walk to Yosemite Lodge, there to eat breakfast in the beautiful glass-walled dining room. One day I led her off the beaten path for a nice walk by the river. It was hard to find a trail and the walk took twice as long. We ended up with a big muddy patch between us and the bridge we needed to cross, so Mom stepped lightly across. I blanked on everything I ever learned about physics and common sense, and tried to run across. Don't ask me what college I went to; I'm embarrassed enough as it is. This is what my legs looked like after I sank ankle-deep in the mud. Fortunately those shoes were old and I just threw them away at the end of the trip.
If you want something done right... My cousin Greg photographing his own wedding. :) His bride's about to walk down the aisle.
Glacier Point tourists gathered to watch. They photographed us and we photographed them! I told my friend Adonela that I don't expect to have random strangers interested in my wedding, but she pointed out that if I get married at St. Peter Chanel I'll probably have someone crashing the wedding Mass, as she's done herself.
Aunt Becky's about to hit them with the "Be fruitful and multiply" verse. :) There's Half Dome in the background, which incidentally is what was missing from the first shot. Normally you see it clearly from Inspiration Point, framed between El Capitan and the Three Brothers, but the smoke obscured it that week.
Awww. :)
I'm proud to be part of the sibship. :) Clockwise from top left: Abigail, Rachel, Benjamin, and Caleb.
Much hilarity and excitement when Benjamin's awesome girlfriend Amanda caught the bouquet. She wasn't trying hard; it went right to her. Benjamin missed the scene but we sure let him know about it when he entered the room a minute later. "I leave you alone for two minutes--!" said he.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
A Yosemite wedding
Last Saturday in the amphitheater on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, right across from Half Dome, my cousin Greg married his sweetheart Amy. I don't have pictures yet so here's someone else's wedding in the same place-- Greg's looked a lot like this. The scenery's almost unreal, isn't it?Observations from the wedding:
1) Tourists! As soon as the wedding party started shaping up, strangers who happened to be visiting Glacier Point gathered behind the amphitheater, and we saw them taking pictures as the ceremony proceeded. One man actually videotaped most of it. There were only about twenty-five guests, so rubberneckers really boosted the number of people watching. :)
2) My two brothers are really handsome. They were both groomsmen, and wow, a tux does a lot for a man. It also helped that they had Gentleman Mode turned on for the occasion and were behaving very chivalrously. Perhaps that's one reason women like Jane Austen movies: the men dress and act like they're in a wedding party all the time.
3) Greg is an inveterate photographer, and we had been laughing about how frustrating it would be for him not to be able to photograph his own wedding, in such a great location too. Should've given him more credit. He had his fancy big camera in his hand while his bride was walking down the aisle, and got the shot.
4) My Great-uncle Dean, the retired missionary doctor mentioned in June 8 post below, performed the ceremony. He's about 87 and his wife is 91, and they flew out from the east coast for the wedding. It's cool to have a preacher in the family.
5) There was much Scripture reading at the service. A bridesmaid read some verses, followed by a groomsman with more verses, followed by the mother of the bride with more verses. (They had to do with God's faithfulness and love, and His grandeur revealed in nature.) Finally my Aunt Becky, mother of the groom, stood up with her worn family Bible and read the Scripture passages that she had chosen. "And I'd just like to close with one more verse," she finished. "It's from the book of Genesis, and it says, 'Be fruitful and multiply.'"
That brought the house down. :)
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