Music Before 1800

Music before 1800

Twelve Days of Christmas music is taking place right now.  

Starting December 26, Trinity Church Wall Street is hosting 12 days of not just Christmas music.  

I caught up on New Year's Day for Handel's Music for Royal Fireworks commissioned by King George II.  The King himself must have listened to it with more than the couple-hundred people I did, with the same sound of real Baroque horns.  Schubert's Winterreise, written the year he died, and the Play of Daniel, written on vellum in the year 1200 in Beauvaise, performed in period costume in Latin with medieval instruments.  The Play of Daniel is the only performance with a charge and tickets in the roomier Trinity Church (which makes it a little more comfortable if you don't arrive early.)  There's a matinee and evening performance tomorrow.  

Trinity and St. Paul's share an endowment of $4 billion.  St. Paul's is the oldest continuously running church in Manhattan.  It survived both the fire of 1776 and the terrorist attacks on the Wold Trade Center directly across the street.  George Washington prayed there and the replica of his pew was the only place people weren't sitting to listen to these packed, though not-uncomfortably-so performances.  

Among the many groups that play Music before 1800 gathered through January 6th are Novus New York, the Clarion Music Society, Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS).

Today was a music marathon starting with living composer Gerald Busby at 1:00pm.  At 5pm,  Winterreise sung by Christopher Dillon Herbert, baritone, such beautiful lines in Getman as "every sorrow finds its grave."  

After the 7pm performance of Daniel, we skipped off the The Brooklyn Museum, which is a bigger scene than I remember.  There's a fun exhibit about Coney Island, with about as many people viewing it as at Coney Island.

Back at Trinity-St. Paul's Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be Bach at One.  They recommend arriving at noon to get a seat.  

Tomorrow again, January 3 at 3 PM and 7 PM at Trinity Church the musical of Daniel will take place.  This was phenomenal.  I highly recommend everyone go and see it.  Tickets start at $25 or if you have student ID $15.  

Everyday until Epiphany there will be two or three different performances, so be sure to look at http:// trinitywallstreet.org for more information.

Living with Lyle

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the book, The House on East 88th Street, home of our famous new neighbor, Lyle the Crocodile.  

For months, we wondered if the house where the family moved in and found a Crocodile in the bathtub was the same Townhouse our new apartment is in. After checking out every Lyle book at a couple of Libraries, a visit to the Author's website, http://www.bernardwaber.com/home-1.html, and carefully reading each and every story about Lyle the Crocodile, or re-reading my childhood favorites, I found the actual Victorian Townhouse where Lyle lived at 236 East 88th Street, pictured below with the green door.  The address of the house next door is on page 10 of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.

236 East 88th, home of Lyle the Crocodile

234 East 88th Street, home of Lyle's next door neighbors.

The literary landmark is on The Yorkville School on the East end of East 88th Street.  The school isn't in any of the books, but the drawings in the books look more like the Townhouses at 436 East 88th, right across the street from the school.

An exhibit debuted at the Eric Carle museum which I hope someone will bring to New York next, perhaps at the museum on East 88th Street.

Lyle is getting around New York this holiday season.  Here he is in the window of Bergdorf's, living it up with some sparkly new handbags.

We really couldn't be more pleased with our new neighbors.

Radicalization of American Youth

Today, NYPD Commissioner Bratton spoke at 7 World Trade for Quality of Life Week hosted by The Manhattan Institute's new e-letter, "The Beat."

Commissioner Bratton reported that increasing numbers of American teenagers through 20-somethings are becoming radicalized by terrorists and addicted to heroin without their parents noticing.  Parents need to look for changes in behavior and prevent radicalization because they've had no success in de-radicalizing converts to militant Islam.

Subscribe to The Beat here and follow them on Twitter to see the media coverage.  

http://thebeatmi.com/the-beat-by-manhattan-institute-announces-first-of-its-kind-quality-of-life-week-in-new-york-city/

First visit to the new 7 World Trade: 

The exhibit quotes Winston Churchill, "We shape our buildings, and afterward they shape us."

Post-panel press conference with NYPD Commissioner Bratton

Building models

Memorial Fountain

Hole in the ground

Not sure what this is...sci-fi bird? a bug?

The old post office

 People voiced their concerns about "refugees."  Nobody wants to go through another attack.  The panel discussion closed to the tune of "We Got the Beat," one of my favorite 80s songs by the GoGos.  The fudge and cookies were exceptionally good.

The Beat is a quick read without which I would have no idea that the 125th Street train station to Connecticut we used to take is now full of addicts to a new synthetic marijuana called K2.

I saw my former colleague from Governor Pataki's campaign and Executive Chamber, Jonathan Greenspun, who now works for Mercury consulting hired to launch The Beat.  When I worked for MI before leaving to work on the Pataki campaign, we did everything in-house.  Now I feel a little better about my own little blog since I don't have half the former Governor's office getting it off the ground!  Time to post a business plan with a go-fund-this page so I can!  

It was kind of a perfect day...quality of life is good (except for a little rain on my woolens and the hem coming out of my skirt I've worn since college graduation).  I rode my rusty old English 3-speed I used to keep in the office closet at 2 World Trade downtown.  I'm sure we didn't have such beautiful bike paths back then.

The terrorists need to know that though they intended to give us only pain, loss and fear, what they gave us, in the end, is a better building, with better light and windows.  It is a much happier and more prosperous place.  If that wasn't what they wanted, then they must stop.

Safe Zones in Syria

Enough of my tristesse about France.  What can we do to prevent another attack?  

Last night, after attending the *Mandatory State-of-the-School* meeting at my daughter's school, I subwayed to midtown in hopes of catching the tail end of a policy lecture, having no idea until I got home and flipped on the news that at that very moment, ISIS had released a video threatening attacks on Time Square.  While the last of my well-informed group finished off the wine and cheese, we had no idea that one block West, the Mayor and Police Commissioner were holding a press conference about the video.

What to do now is take action on behalf of Syrian refugees to create Safe Zones in Syria.  Terrorists do not have the right to run people out of their homes:  Not persecuted Christians, non-radicalized Muslims, or anyone else.

Please watch this video of former Governor Jeb Bush on Meet the Press  this past Sunday:

From NBCNews.com http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/jeb-bush-talks-isis--syria-on-meet-the-press-567206979547 Jeb Bush Talks ISIS, Syria on Meet the Press

While I don't agree that "Christians have no place in Syria", they need more than our prayers right now.  They need Safe Zones in Syria.

I've watched yesterday's ISIS video, the recent Democratic Party debate [break up banks?], the Trump video [bomb the hell?], the Carson video [rabid dog?], even Sarah Palin on "Mace the Nation" and what stands apart is this interview with former Gov. Jeb Bush on the creation of Safe Zones in Syria.  

Please help the refugees where they live.

Refugeez

The attacks on Paris are significant because a country that truly believes in diplomacy got hit.  The French understand that people from different worlds can sit down and break bread together, talk about their ideas and experience and find common ground.  The French work very independently of each other, coming together at times like dinner and watching a soccer game.

Friday night was a demoralizing hit.  It took place in the young, hip, international part of town.  People were gathered for dinner, or a California rock band, or a National soccer game against a rival.

That area was the first place I took my daughter on my own after seeing the L'Arc de Triomphe with local cousins, and all the playgrounds and carousels.  I wanted to take my daughter to see everything, starting with the site of the French Revolutionary storming of the Bastille.  From there you can walk up through the streets where the famous writers lived, see smaller jardins, stop in the Jesuit church.  With a pre-schooler, I wasn't eating in trendy restaurants or going to heavy metal concerts, but we covered that area between the Bastille and Sacre Coeur, at the foot of which the famous Artists lived in that golden age before World War I.  

The Paris Police never carried arms before Charlie Hebdo.  The country had total gun control.  

After Je Suis Charlie, the world could see that non-violence against terrorists is suicide.  As a Catholic country, suicide is against the national religion.

Increased security measures were expected to deter terrorist attacks.  

It was the last thing anyone expected.  One suicide-bomber was turned away at the stadium door after his vest was detected in a pat-down.  I can see why someone wouldn't want to arrest a man wearing a bomb-filled vest.  The end result was that he blew himself up and nobody else.  Yet he terrorized everyone from the President of France to Geraldo Rivera's daughter.  

At least two terrorists entered the country as Syrian "refugees" through Greece.  The plot was masterminded in a suburb of Brussels,  Molenbeek, an old industrial town with a Bronze foundry that is now a museum.  Muslim immigrants seem to settle in places where there is ore, which tend to have produced munitions.  Brussels is another town I spent time visiting my former in-laws who worked there at the time I got married.  Some of my bridal lace came from one of those little towns outside Brussels, a gift from Nana, RIP.   Museums, gardens trimmed in Belgian fences, moules & frites...the radical terrorist 'burb was not on my map.

The country that valued peace to a fault, went to war reluctantly, avoided fighting and violence at all cost, and did so successfully, or at least got lucky, for so many years, got hit.  In the center of Europe, after opening the door to those they thought were the persecuted Christians and non-radical Muslims, Paris got hit.  The city of lights, the city everyone in the world wants to visit, the first city I ever visited in France with my Grandparents, the first trip with my former husband and father of my daughter, got hit.  The city of so many dreams and memories for so many people, got hit.

The difference between a shooting and a mass-shooting is one sane person with a gun to disarm the terrorist.  It is okay to protect the innocent.  It is okay to keep terrorists out of your country.  It is sad that no amount of crepes suzette will bring them to civility.  They came from Syria and could have lived a life in Europe, instead chose a path of darkness and death.  

A safe haven for Syrian refugees must be created somewhere while terrorism is sorted out.  To risk such brutal, bloody massacre of innocent, unarmed people by letting possibly-radicalized terrorists into the United States would be suicide.  The only "religion" that promotes suicide is radical-Islam.  The "nation" that promotes suicide is ISIS.  The USA is a country that protects and defends freedom, liberty and life.

It is encouraging that France struck back without hesitation with airstrikes on Syria and raids in Belgium.  Vive la France!

Thank you, Cardinal Dolan

Our little church, built by Civil War veterans, is saved.  Masses, the Play Group, the Tuesday lunch will continue in the current location.  Now called Saint Thomas More, it will be renamed (for the fourth time) under the new parish formed under Our Lady of Good Counsel four blocks away in Yorkville.  

A new name is a great way to "Make All Things New."  The name is a little outdated given the current marriage debate.  Thomas More signed off on King Henry VIII's first marriage knowing it was not a valid Catholic marriage in the first place, then stubbornly refused to annul it.  This isn't the best example of upholding the values of Catholic marriage.  History proved Henry would have petitioned for more than one annulment, inevitably dividing the church at that time, yet that first annulment could have been granted, which might have been enough to spare Thomas More's life.  Since they have an Independent school that bears the name, too, perhaps choosing another St. Thomas would keep it simple.

Thank you, Cardinal Dolan, for this sound decision to keep this and other old churches open.  The Archdiocese has taken steps to solve financial problems without closing the vital churches in our neighborhood.

On the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, many churches were built at that time of every faith.  Originally called "Beloved Disciple", the church included a home for indigent women. It cost the modern day equivalent of $6000 for a woman to enter.  Perhaps they were war widows.  It was a time to repair and rebuild I am thankful the church will remain a place of prayer and inspiration.

Reflections on Church Closings

My Great-Grandfather built so many Catholic churches in the Bible belt, the KKK burned a cross in his front yard.   

My Great-Grandparents' original church in Muskogee, Oklahoma, now houses a charity and has been replaced by a contemporary church.

I was not expecting this when I attended my Great-Aunt’s funeral, planning to take my daughter to the same church where Gaga got married, where I attended my Great-Grandmother’s and Great-Uncle’s funerals and my cousins' wedding.

I hardly recognized Muskogee and did not have time to sort it all out as Google maps was not much help.  Fr. Marlin, the Casady chaplain who grew up in Muskogee, came to Aunt Lucy's funeral and mentioned how many old buildings had been torn down and things had changed, even street names.  

The Catholic school headmistress even came, which surprised me because I remember Mom and her cousin saying how mean the nuns were.

As soon as they were old enough to be educated out of Muskogee, off my family members went to prep, boarding or military schools, some Catholic, some Episcopal.  My Great-Grandparents built buildings on campuses, too, of schools they went to and schools they didn’t, including a Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority house.  Gaga said her Father built the Kappa House at Oklahoma State University, yet my cousin said he built it at University of Oklahoma so that she could get in.  Gaga once remarked when the pledge class a year after mine took the first black member that the Kappas had always taken Jews.  My Great-Grandfather built some of the older buildings on the old Oval at the University of Oklahoma, though I could never find the signs Gaga said were behind the doors on the walls when I was a student there.

When I was a child in Oklahoma City, there was a period when many of the buildings my Great-Grandfather built were torn down.  It became weekend entertainment to go to a nearby office building and watch them go up in dynamite.  The wealthiest man in town was buying up the Art Deco buildings and demolishing them.

One time I asked, “Mommy, why is he tearing them down?”

“Because they remind him of when he was poor.”

He didn’t want to be reminded of his humble beginnings, his childhood when he wasn’t rich.

The architectural agenda in Muskogee looked as if they were trying to influence the legacy.  The front pews were separated from the rest and had exactly the number of places for our cousins’ immediate family to sit.

I wanted my daughter sit with her cousins, to show her the beautiful, solemn church, the hilly, winding road canopied with trees leading to houses built for entertaining, a big park where the azalea festival takes place every year, a soda fountain named “Chet’s” (my Great Grandfather had a Dalmatian named Chet), Baker’s Catfish and a peach grove in nearby Porter where we always bought Red Albertas, and a pecan farm.

Aunt Lucy and Uncle Larry's house opened up with cabana doors to a Koi pond with stepping stones through it that led to the front door.  Spanish tiles in Moorish shapes lined the floors that expanded into a row of living rooms to the right and a dining room to the left.  Past the piano, long dining room table and walls covered with oil portraits of every family member was a pool.  Then down to a little farm where my cousins raised chickens, eggs with room for a little forest and a horse or two.

Since that was sold, after a church-parlor reception with lemonade and cookies, they headed to the River, where my Great-Grandparents had built two summer cabins for their ever-growing family during the Great Depression to keep the construction crew employed at something they could take pride in.  For the club they built a dining hall and pool with an octogon-shaped diving tank.

I didn’t hear about the cross burning until a year or so ago.  I guess you wouldn't tell your children something that scary.  Mom, Gaga and all of us have always been protective, cautious, private about coordinates.  It took a lot for me to go on facebook and write in the social media.  Gaga's safety and the safety of the chapter may have been considerations in the construction of the Kappa house.  My Mother grew up under union kidnapping and death threats.  The brief period when she attended public school, the Masons were actively anti-Catholic and she steered clear of them.  I imagine we would be a far less educated family without the building contributions.  A parish would take up a collection and my Great-Grandparents would do the rest.

Some of those churches have been rebuilt, like the one at the River.  When your business is construction, you don’t get attached to old buildings, unless the preservation of them is smart in terms of real estate development.  Nobody’s going to go on a scenic tour of the new church in Muskogee, light and airy as it is, with great acoustics.  Sometimes, my Great-Grandfather would salvage architectural elements, like old courthouse doors on the cabin at the River, so that the crew would feel like they were building something important using the best materials.  The old buildings have some history that will be worth remembering in the future.

Though Gaga and her two brothers all lived in new houses they built, they contributed to the historic preservation of important structures.  Gaga served on the Board of Regents of Kenmore that saved Ferry Farm, George Washington's birthplace.  She also contributed to preserve the Murrell Home, an antebellum farm on the road to the River.  After both of my Great-Grandparents had died, a natatorium was built at Georgetown University, where my two Great-Uncles and Grandfather had graduated.  Before it was co-ed, Gaga, Aunt Lucy and Aunt Mimi went to Georgetown Visitation, the Sister order to the Jesuits that had the missionary inroads from New Orleans to the West that the Sacred Heart nuns followed to build more schools starting up the river in Saint Louis (these orders were literally sister orders as a Jesuit Priest educated his parents' daughter in the Jesuit model, then suggested they start a sister order led by his sister.  The Visitation order was shut down in France by the government at the time the Sacred Heart missions in America began.)  Uncle John restored Dahlgren chapel at Georgetown University in his late wife's name even though she had gone to unrelated Catholic schools.  Now it has been renovated again by our cousin Francis.

Aunt Lucy once said, "You can't save every church."  While that may have been true at the time, tearing down the old doesn't make it go away.  Building new influences the future, but not always in the desired way.  

The Italian Futurism exhibit at the Guggenheim museum last year showed how new architecture led to fascism, the opposite of freedom.  The marxists take down old icons and build new to destroy the memory cues that keep the social order in place.  In the end, it doesn't work for them either.

There are better solutions for all:  build new things in new places and the people who want new will go there.  Some are better off to "shelter in place."

You always want your family to feel like they're coming home, that they can come home, that home is a good place that will be there to strengthen them.  You want to build good memories of home and family.  Inclusion is a sign of a healthy family.  A church is a spiritual home.

Someday, future generations will visit Muskogee who never even knew my Great-Grandparents.  They might drive by their house, meet the new owners, want to see where they went to church, visit the cemetery.  That's all that may be left, and it is more than most people have.  In the case of my Great-Grandparents, there was hell to pay for building those churches.  

This was not the Presbyterian committee to build a new church in an established city my other Grandmother served.  A huge, heavy, grey stone building you couldn't tear down if you tried.  Some churches need to be fought for.  Her funeral took place in a newer undercroft chapel built to say masses in Asian languages to new immigrants who were joining the parish.  We would have had big music upstairs, where we had gone to church with her sometimes, but she wanted the smaller chapel.  New things happen in old churches, too.  Gaga chose her parish church we had never even been to.  Like Aunt Lucy's, it was a little more chaotic getting settled than at Uncle John's, where everyone filed naturally into the Cathedral, where we had celebrated our cousins' weddings.

Because I grew up in an inter-faith family, some people didn't even know I was Catholic.  Every once in awhile, I got an earful on their thoughts on Catholics, too.  These were not the cross-burning class, but some did listen to KKK anti-black music.

Consider the sacrifices people made to build churches back then.  Think about family members coming back to funerals.  It isn't a time to add confusion.  It is a time to reflect and pray in peace for those you love, who gave you so much.