Fred Phelp’s Westboro Baptist to protest Eve Carson’s memorial service
March 17, 2008 on 8:38 am | In rants | No CommentsThe University gave them permission to protest in McCorckle place, while the memorial will be at the Dean Dome. Note that their flier advertises the protest location will be at the Dean Dome.
From their promotional flyer:
“God Hates American Colleges.
They are filthy, anti-God, arrogant,
debauched, decadent & depraved.
This victim was student body pres.
We will picket Eve Carson’s
memorial Tue., Mar. 18, ~:30 p.m.
Yes. In religious protest and warning; to wit:
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked.” Gal.
6:7. God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers. Ergo,
God hates N. Carolina Univ. It is a cesspool of
iniquity – throughout; top to bottom – staff,
administration, faculty, alumni, student body.
There is no fear of God before their eyes, and
hence they are irreversibly doomed. American
universities are God-defying, Satanic, and vile.”
more of their rabid vomit at http://www.godhatesfags.com/written/fliers/20080311_eve-carson-memorial.pdf
garfield minus garfield
March 6, 2008 on 9:35 am | In ramblings | No Commentsa favorite link from this week’s popbitch:
“Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness in a quiet American suburb.”
San Francisco, March 1st and 2nd 2008
March 2, 2008 on 10:08 pm | In wanderings | No CommentsNot much happened on the 1st. I woke up earlier than my friends did, Luc went home and Laura accompanied me to a breakfast diner around the corner. I shopped around the upper Haight for a bit, found an excellent embroidered dress shirt, a really cool electronic/ambient double CD in an Asian imports store containing some of the most beautiful and most expensive items I’ve seen for sale, and came back in less than two hours, cold, tired and with a sore throat.
Today I hit the ground running. I checked in at work, grabbed some coffee, and hit the F line to head back up Market. I hopped off to walk a few blocks over to a beautiful Catholic church, but it was fenced in and boarded up
I got back on the F, switched to a cable car at Powell, and wandered around Union Square for a while.
I wound up at Grace Cathedral an hour early, and was greeted on the steps by Michael Gefty, the “indecent docent” of Grace Cathedral. We talked music and travels and church for a while, and I headed in for Holy Eucharist. Did you know that the small, easily passed door in the Narthex leads to a stairwell to the basement? And that instead of having a crypt, Grace Cathedral has a gymnasium, conference center, coffee shop, gift shop, and much more beneath the footprint of the building?
Dean Jones gave an excellent sermon as usual, centering on themes of light and darkness, self worth and priorities. All things I’ve wrestled with personally and recently. I’ve always felt uncomfortable taking communion because all through my childhood people told me I’m a bad person and I took it to heart, so to receive the Host in such a phenomenal setting, from the woman who lead the prayers, brought me to tears during the service.
After the service I rejoined Michael for a fascinating tour of the Cathedral. Paintings I had walked by many times were actually gilt. The silver was platinum, the blue color lapis latchuli. Each item on display in the cathedral had some significance making each a treasured work of art – and so easily passed by the casual visitor! A carved eagle lecturn in the apse is the only carved wooden work by Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Somehow I missed the ikon of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A relief portait of the Madonna and Child I had seen, but Michael related an anecdote: they usually don’t let people touch the works, but a blind woman did so. She remarked to her husband: “Dear, isn’t it something how the angel on the left is smiling much more broadly than the one on the right?” I had to take a flash picture of the work and examine it on my camera to even SEE the angels in the background!
Now Michael revealed his having earned the name of indecent docent. One of the murals featured Sir Francis Drake among indiginous natives. Michael explained how the artist used Chinese and Hispanic models for the natives, then pointed out that his partner was Peruvian.
“The Chinese have a saying – that there are three sides to every story. My side, your side, and the honorable side. So with a Peruvian partner, understanding how the artist could feature this son of a bitch in a church is beyond me. We call them Conquistadors, but they destroyed entire civilizations and sent entire cultures down the drain. They robbed, they raped, they sunk the Spanish navy, hell, that’s what the Queen paid him to do, and we reward the bastard for it by featuring him in a mural!”
That’s as close to verbatim as I can remember properly. I had snuck away from the tour to watch Christoph Tietze practice for his 4pm organ recital, so I missed his rant on the Church’s misogeny but I’ve heard many of these rants before. Where would we be without women. Magdalane bankrolled Jesus and the disciples. So why do we still commonly accept the bullshit notion that she was a prostitute? I could listen to Michael go on all day
I attended Choral Evensong at 3, Christoph Tietze’s organ recital at 4, and was back in my Bed and Breakfast by 6. I was planning on taking MUNI back up to Masonic and Fell to try out Hukilau, but frankly the menu didn’t look that interesting (I wanted poi and ‘ava ‘ava but they serve burgers and chicken sandwiches. Coconut pudding isn’t enough to drag me up there) so when Dion offered to cook me dinner right in the Bed n Breakfast, I took him up on it. We’re going food shopping in a bit, but he won’t let me help clean the kitchen to speed things along. I may walk around the street a bit, but I’m definitely taking things easy tonight. Tomorrow will be a long day of sitting on a plane doing nothing! I have yet to understand why that takes it out of me so.
San Francisco, February 29th 2008
March 1, 2008 on 7:59 pm | In wanderings | No CommentsI got up *very* early to be sure I’d be on time for the OpenLibrary meeting at the Presidio. Not as early as the patrons at the Mix bar next to my Bed and Breakfast – which opens daily at 6:00 a.m. The conference was wonderful as I expected, I was in over my head and couldn’t have been happier. I took 53KB worth of notes for my boss (all text!) and got some great group shots when the conference was over.
My friend Laura drove up for the evening, and craziness ensued. She made new friends, I made new friends, and she actually wound up crashing on the couch in the parlor of my Bed and Breakfast. whoops!
San Francisco, February 28th 2008
March 1, 2008 on 7:47 pm | In wanderings | No CommentsThursday was a wonderful day to be in San Francisco! The weather was warm and sunny, I got off to an early start, and I saw most of the areas of the city that I wanted to see before Choral Evensong at Grace Cathedral. I actually went to Grace Cathedral first, then to St. Mary’s to see the Ruffatti, and in following my nose towards a great dome that I thought would be a basilica (City Hall) I stumbled upon the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.
The Asian Art Museum was simply amazing. Floor after floor and room after room of jade carvings, ornate weapons, embroidered robes, carved gods and goddesses, fine furniture, and more from China, Japan, Indonesia, Tibet, Thailand, and India. My jaw dropped many times at the sheer beauty of the collections, and I filled my camera’s 1GB SD card by the time I left.
In the afternoon I headed down to Chinatown looking for street food, then on to Little Italy and North Beach. Along the way I stopped in several churches and ran across L’Osteria del Forno, which advertised pumpkin ravioli, but only on Fridays and Saturdays. I walked on to the Marina district and headed back up Van Ness, on track for 5:15 evensong at Grace Cathedral.
Evensong was amazing as always. It’s webcast – listen for some poor gentleman’s hearing aid going crazy during the improvised prelude. The sun went down during evensong and I nearly froze waiting for the bus afterwards. Standing in a hoodie and shorts on top of Nob Hill in February! Evensong lasted longer than I had anticipated, otherwise I would have been in fine shape.
I turned in early to get my rest for the OpenLibrary conference the next day. After a day of traipsing all over the city, not even the noise from the bar next door could keep me from sleep.
Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^