Tasty Pastries

So much has happened in the past few days that I am overwhelmed by the thought of recording it all... my solution, vignettes. Tasty pastries of the written world.

Forays into the Night (Part 1)
Saturday evening. There is a BBQ hosted by a couple of graduate architecture students a few streets over from me. On my way I take a purposeful detour and end up at the Collegetown Bagels at the Commons. I am a bit socially exhausted from the party I attended the night before and decide to skip the BBQ for a book and some coffee.

Coincidences
Friday afternoon my studio professor, Jim Williamson, spoke about the two fathers of architecture: Vitruvius and Daedalus. One representing order, regimen, objectivity... Vitruvius, the good soldier. The other represents creativity and questionable morals.
Most people know Daedalus as the father of Icarus, architect of the Labyrinth. Less well known is that he made the queen a wooden cow she could employ to mate with a bull... the outcome of which was the Minotaur.
Jim's question: "Who would you like to have over for dinner?"
I am reading James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The protagonist, Joyce's alter ego, is named Stephen Dedalus... the connection I did not get until it was made explicit in the passage I read tonight.

Forays into the Night (Part 2)
I continue my two-week tradition of strolling through the campus on Saturday night. Things have changed. Packs of students are everywhere. Groups of guys, groups of girls, groups of guys and girls... all have similar objectives. Another commonality is that each group has one or two leaders, directing the merrymakers through the labyrinth of side streets, en route to the next part.
I am the only one out alone. I am comforted by the solidarity and the fact that my pack is filled with good literature. I try to check my ego. Amory Blaine and Stephen Dedalus, the two protagonists of my latest novels, both students, both ego maniacs, do little to help my humility. I am too easily swayed.
On Cornell's campus there is a large gathering of students. The tower is illuminated and joyful undergraduates consume funnel cake and convulse with laughter. It is some sort of multicultural club fair. I am pushed into a great hall by a crowd and must escape out the back door.

Reverent and Secular
Continuing on I come to a chapel. The large doors open to a memorial: Cornell alumni who never returned from war. To the left is a sanctuary stripped of all religious associations. I pass by an open closet containing racks of hymnals from each of the major Western religions. The walls of the sanctuary are white and the stain glass is without lustre.
I buy some milk and go home.

Can We Get Some Purell Over Here
Sunday morning. I take a bus to Bethel Grove Bible Church. It is a great service and I have only one criticism. When we sang "And we raise up holy hands..." I was the only one that did. I didn't do it sanctimoniously, but out of integrity to my worship. Ok, partially out of habit too.
The pastor taught on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians and I thought that if Paul were to write a letter to Bethel Grove he would have to discuss whatever it is that is making their hands unholy.

The Terrible Patron
Sunday night. I spend two and a half hours in Collegetown Bagels, the one actually in Collegetown. For two and a half hours I sit inside at a four person table. I only spent one dollar and twenty five cents for a green tea.

Company for the Terrible Patron
The two girls catching up at the table next to me speak so fast that whole phrases slip in between the words of the singers in my earbuds. The guy two tables over tries to impress a girl with how much alcohol he consumed the previous evening. She is not impressed but I am.