2004 November
About Andrew Cusack
Writer, web designer, etc.; born in New York; educated in Argentina, Scotland, and South Africa; now based in London. read more
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Bibliotheca Universitatis Sancti Andreae
One of the less attractive aspects of the University of St Andrews is its library. Most people complain that it’s ugly, inhospitable, and generally not a nice place to be. My main problem, however, is its greivous inefficiency. Never having been to other university libraries, I don’t know if this is widespread or merely a specific case.
I have an essay due on Friday. I want or need books A, B, C, D, and E. So I check SAULCAT, the electronic catalog of the library, and find that D and E have been taken out but that A, B, and C are still in the library. I write down the ‘classmark’ numbers for A, B, and C, and look them up in the stalls. They’re not there. I look on the reshelving cart. They’re not there. Then I look on the shelves of books waiting to be reshelved (no joke), which on Level 3 of the Library are 6 or 7 columns of 5 shelves each with books in no particular order so you have to look through the whole lot. They’re not there. I look through books left in empty study carrels. They’re not there. I look up in the empty carrels on Level 4. They’re not there. At 5:00pm they’re not there. At 9:30 at night, they’re not there. At 1:40 in the afternoon they’re not there. In short, they’re just plain not there. You can go to the front desk and fill out a missing book form, as I naïvely did the first time I experienced this problem. Nothing will happen.
And there are only 5-12 people in the entire university who are probable taking courses that require these books. Yet nonetheless they’re never there. It’s something of a hassle.
Now, taking one particular missing book, The French Army in politics, 1945-1962 by John Stewart Ambler, classmark DC404.A6. Right now, SAULCAT says its status is “IN LIBRARY”. Yet for the past day it’s been nowhere to be found. I could buy a used copy from Amzon.co.uk for £74.95, but obviously that’s not feasible. The books that you can get for cheap and within a day the Library usually has enough copies of anyhow. The book is either lost or stolen and Lord only knows the likelihood it’ll be found before the end of term let alone in time to write an essay for.
The Remarkable Hapsburgs
Last night, Fr. Emerson popped up from Edinburgh and gave a talk on the Hapsburg dynasty. It was tremendously interesting. I learned so much I hadn’t known before and it opened up a terrific number of avenues of information down which I have only begun to stroll.
I had no idea how remarkable a man Franz Ferdinand was. All they teach you in America is “This is the guy who got shot” instead of “This man would have been the savior of all that is good and holy in Europe.”
I have seen and read a lot of what Europe is today; Fr. Emerson gave us a glimpse of what Europe was yesterday, before the utter destruction of the social order of the continent by that moment in Sarajevo and everything that came after it. Knowing what Europe was, how depressing to see it now!
It also filled me with some optimism, oddly enough. I used to be partly in the school of thought that’s convinced that Europe is lost. If this is how Europe was, surely it could be again? Perhaps, perhaps not. (more…)
A St Andrews Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is one of the things you miss most when you’re abroad. A., Chris, Dave, Jenny, and Za-Za were kind enough to host a Thanksgiving at their residence on Queens Gardens last Friday, since we don’t get Thanksgiving Day itself off. (more…)
And Now… A Rant
I don’t think I have often used this blog for the purpose of a whine, but in this instance, I shall, for my irritation is searing.
There is very little I despise more than writing essays. I despise writing essays with an unquenchable passion that knows no end. It is an excercise from which I draw absolutely no pleasure or reward at all. I don’t even get the feeling of satisfaction or relief one usually gets after having completed an endeavor, and I certainly don’t get good grades. (Just good enough to graduate, which is good enough for me).
Once you’ve finished 2,000 words on French control of Algeria in 1871, then you’ve 3,500 on the extent to which Church involvement in politics is desireable and appropriate. And a presentation on the Coronation service and its elements.
At least Modern History students aren’t required to write 40,000 word dissertations like some departments. We get off with an 8,000 word Special Honours Project or something. I think if I were forced to write 12,000 words I’d sooner kidnap the Chancellor’s King Charles Spaniel and hold it hostage until I negotiated an exemption (though Sir Kenneth would probably die of a cardiac arrest if faced with such a situation).
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have to do them, or that I particularly deserve an exemption from writing essays (though I certainly wouldn’t turn down that offer!). I just absolutely despise writing them.
I very rarely have the mental capacity to sit down and devote my mind to one topic for five minutes, let alone more. (Concentration has never been my strong point). The knowledge that this essay, which I have had to devote useless hours of study and writing to complete, will only ever be read by one (perhaps two) other people, further fills my mind with hatred. What a waste! Anything of any worth I have learned so far whilst at university has been learned either in conversation (be it in the pub or the seminar room) or through individual study, most likely not related to any of my courses.
To heck with them all!
Next Wednesday
Fr. Emerson will be returning to to Canmore next week to give a talk on the Hapsburgs.
The Ark and the Dove
Yesterday, whilst plotting reaction deep within the Cellar Bar on Bell St, the subject of the Catholic landing in Maryland came up. The event took place on March 25, 1634, when the passengers of the Ark and the Dove disembarked upon the shores of Terra Mariae, held a Mass, and then hewed a Cross out of felled trees, raising it while saying the Litany of the Holy Cross.
Surely these three elements of Angledom, Catholicism, and America make March 25 a festival of the apex of civilization?
The Ark and the Dove were the subject of a rejected proposal for the Maryland state quarter.
Anyhow, descendants of the passengers of the Ark and the Dove might be interested in joining the Society of the Ark and the Dove, the insiginia of which can be seen below. (Image courtesy of the Hereditary Society Community).
‘New Yorkism’
The latest edition of the City Journal presents a wonderful vision for Hell’s Kitchen, the Manhattan neighborhood which has been slated for a massive redevelopment. The Journal commissioned a number of the world’s leading classicists in the field of architecture to design skyscrapers that fit into the City Planning Commission’s recommendations for the new ‘Hudson Boulevard’ which is planned for the ‘Far West Side’ (the newest catchy rebranding for Hell’s Kitchen since ‘Clinton’ failed to take off).
Taki Mellows
Buttiglione: ‘Here I Am’
Rocco Buttiglione has announced plans to found a movement to campaign for Christian values in the European public sphere. For my friends on the home side of the pond who haven’t been keeping up with the Buttiglione controversy, here’s the gist: (more…)
Transnistria
Those fretting about our recent divisive election in the United States should turn for a moment to the Republic of Transnistria. President Igor Nikolayevich Smirnov has so united the people of his unrecognised independent republic that he was elected with 103.6% of the vote in the northern region. Andrewcusack.com: your leading source for Transnistrian news.
Transnistria on Wikipedia.
Liturgical Highjinks
Courtesy of Churchbuilding Architects, Inc., I bring you the whirling dervish cleric of St. Nicholas Church, Evanston, Illinois. It’s funny, until you realise it’s real.
Tip-Top Warner
Gerald Warner in this week’s Scotland on Sunday: priceless.
Some choice bits:
The whole notion, of course, was risible in the eyes of the liberal media on both sides of the Atlantic. That people in the 21st century (“in this day and age”, as liberalism’s most brain-dead cliché phrases it) would come out and vote on abortion, stem-cell research and homosexual ‘marriage’, instead of addressing such important issues as medical welfare, gender equality and closer engagement with Europe had the liberal élite rolling in the aisles. They are not laughing now. …
As their television screens relayed pictures of unprecedented queues snaking for several blocks around polling stations, the élite leaped to the egotistic, patronising conclusion that the common people had come swarming out, like extras in an Eisenstein film, to implement the revolution that their betters had devised for them. …
That crass delusion epitomised the fissiparous detachment of the liberal subculture from the real America: those lines of voters were not The People – just people, the mainstream Americans with whom the Democrats are now hopelessly out of touch. They were mostly Christians; but they were not, for the most part, bible-thumping disciples of white-suited tele-evangelists – at least not in the states that crucially mattered. They were ordinary, church-going husbands and wives, mild in their manner but firm in their convictions. …
Liberals’ inexplicable fixation with the militant homosexual cause (representative of less than 3% of the population) proved self-destructive. In the past month, that lobby has destabilised such widely disparate institutions as the Anglican Church, the European Commission and, now, the Democratic Party. With all 11 states where referenda were held on same-sex marriage rejecting the proposition by majorities that had to be weighed rather than counted, the constitutional amendment that will finally resolve this issue is in the bag.
How quaint, thought European and New York liberals, that voters should be concerned that one in four Americans is aborted in the womb, when they could be supporting measures that would put an extra $500 in their pockets. How ignorant to oppose stem-cell research that will save so many lives. Who got their priorities right? Are the Americans not more thoughtful, more moral and more intelligent to worry about mass extermination of babies? …
“Dude, here’s our country!” That is what real Americans told Michael Moore, the hygienically challenged human hamburger whose Pravda-style propaganda has earned him more fans in Cannes than in all 50 states of the Union. Now he wants Hillary Clinton to challenge for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Great idea: an East Coast, liberal, feminist überbitch that might have been computer-realised by Karl Rove, to leave the Democrats with just California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Bring her on!
And in response to Mrs. Kerry’s “shove it”:
The whole thing has a feel of – in the parlance of our generation – “Ohhhh snap! He went there”. Monoculus floreat!
Read the whole thing, if you dare.
Yale Club Silliness
Armavirumque chimes in with some sad news of the Yale Club, which has some of the greatest facilities of any private club in the City, conveniently located next to Grand Central. (Although this would’ve been more convenient in the days when long-distance trains ran into Grand Central).
Anyway, James Panero can do the talking:
Well, like Gatsby, the recent history of this Club has been tragic. Wedding parties, business meetings, and conferences now invade every nook of the clubhouse. Good luck finding a quiet afternoon the library. The Grill Room has recently been stripped of its smoky, hunting-lodge feel. And now, in the past two weeks, an even graver injury has befallen the clubhouse. In order to make the second-floor lounge more convertible to conferences and weddings, the old lounge furniture, long newspaper table, and rugs have been replaced with seconds from a Holiday Inn–with lighting by way of Versace. And what of the castoffs? Sold at auction for pennies.
At Dartmouth, there is an expression, not often heeded, but nonetheless forcefully expressed: “lest the old traditions fail.”
Listen up, Eli. Case in point, an email I received from a friend today:
When your clubhouse no longer makes for a suitable privy, you know things are bad.
I seem to recall that St Andrews grads are allowed to join the Yale Club, thus I mourn for its partial deterioration. Nonetheless, presumably the Club isn’t run from the top-down but accountable to its members. They need to start a reactionary front to seize the reins of power.
Perhaps there ought to be a St Andrews University Club. Small and comfortable, owing to the comparitive scarcity of St Andreans in the metropolitan area. A library modeled on the King James Library, a dining hall modeled on Parliament Hall, a ballroom based on Younger Hall, and of course a smaller version of St Salvator’s Chapel (clubs ought to have chapels, after all). And rather than stick it in the Clubland of the 40’s, why not Fifth Avenue on the Park, or maybe Riverside Drive if we’re willing to brave the West Side. Bah, fantasy.
NYU Students Take to the Streets…
…to join in the fight against our cousins, the Hun. I doubt many of NYU’s ROTC students would be brave enough to don their BDUs in the streets of Greenwich Village these days. Well I don’t doubt they’d be brave enough, but they’d no doubt be more prudent perhaps. Anyhow, the ROTC program for all the colleges and universities in the City are based up in the Bronx at fortress Fordham, where the administration has been happy to play host to the future leaders of America. (Though we’ve heard the Pershing Rifles at Fordham are given to somewhat riotous behavior). This li’l bit of New York nostalgia was dug up from the NYU Archives.
Larchmontiana
Lucas de Soto triggered a bout of homesickness when he sent me this link with desktop-sized photos of Larchmont. (The first four photos are from the link). Larchmont is sort of two towns over from my dwelling place, and has been home to many good friends including Lucas and Clara de Soto and family, Adam Brenner, ‘the P’ (Retha Petrosino – my legendary high school English teacher) and her husband Fred, and others. Also, my graduation ceremony was in the Larchmont Avenue Church. (more…)
Where’s the peanut butter?
So that’s what WFB’s living room looks like…
Photo from the N.Y. Sun
Election
A long morning. A few people filtered into the flat from 1:00am. Kat, Jocie, C., Dave Watt, Rob and Maria. After having some celebratory champagne with future American immigrant D. P. at around 7:00, I finally got to bed around 8:00am and slept until 11:30am. Half past midday now and I need some breakfast/lunch.
Electoral college of beverages consumed: A California’s worth of tea, a New Hampshire of whiskey, and probably about a New York of beer. And an Alaska of bubbly.
Condi versus Hillary in ’08, anyone? God forbid.
ALMIGHTY God, whose kingdom is everlasting and power infinite; Have mercy upon this whole land; and so rule the hearts of thy servants The President of the United Sates, The Governor of New York, and all others in authority, that they, knowing whose ministers they are, may above all things seek thy honour and glory; and that we and all the People, duly considering whose authority they bear, may faithfully and obediently honour them, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
Dutch Church, Kingston
The Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston, New York.
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