My pictures from today's rally in historic Sheridan Square in front of the Stonewall Bar.
The Stonewall Bar, the 2 original buildings that were built as stables for delivery horses for Macy's about a century ago. This is the crowd from about a half hour before the rally began.
People getting interviewed
The media
The front of the Stonewall Bar. The current Stonewall Bar is a reincarnation of the original and occupies only half the space.
Spectators
The crowds in Sheridan Square at the start of the rally looking toward Grove Street, easily the biggest and most crowded rally I've ever seen in Sheridan Square.
The rally crowd looking north toward the stage (which I could not see).
I stayed through Governor Andrew Cuomo's speech, but left soon after. My back was starting to hurt, and the close crowd was making me a little claustrophobic.
Haydn
The Creation: the conclusion of the Fifth Day.
The 3 Archangels exclaim over the beauty of the newly created world.
Despite our gay kind being continually described as a perversion and an offense against Nature that leads only to sterility and death, God and Nature appear to have no difficulty or reluctance replenishing our ranks. Nature and God always make plenty of us despite so many predicting our destruction and in the face of so many attempts to kill us off (from Inquisitional fires to Hitler to Omar Mateen).
We are part of Nature. We are natural. We belong in this world as much as do bacteria, bell flowers, and blue whales.
Or to put it another way, we too are part of a world blessed by God and called by Him "good," and we too are created male and female in God's image.
In the words of Mother Jones, "Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living!"
Michael and I are both shocked and horrified by the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando over night. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims; the dead, their families and friends, the injured, with the police and first responders, with everyone whose life was permanently changed in that event last night.
Josiah Wedgwood was an ardent supporter of the effort to abolish African slavery. He issued this ceramic medallion in 1786 to promote that cause.
In the wake of last night's massacre in Florida, I claim its question for myself and for all those who are like me (for my lesbian and transgendered sisters, the medallion asks "Am I Not A Woman And A Sister?"). I direct the medallion's question toward all those who would deny me full equality, full rights of citizenship, and deny my full humanity for reasons of conscience and religious conviction.
Any answer other than "yes" is not acceptable. "Yes, but..." is also not acceptable.
Omar Mateen answered this question quite clearly last night.
For no apparent reason, here are some of the many photos I took of Sankt Lorenz Kirche in Nuremberg two years ago.
As always with my photos, they are freely available, especially to educators.
Open sourcing forever!
From behind the high altar in the ambulatory looking west into the nave.
The very late 20th century high altar; a post War rebuild
The crucifix behind the altar which a guidebook somewhere said is attributed to Tilman Riemenschneider; I think 'attributed' is the operative word. It doesn't look like any work by Riemenschneider I've seen. It's still magnificent though.
*NOTE:
Gerrit informs me that this cross is a work by Veit Stoss. I was thinking this might be by Stoss, the expression on the face, the drapery, but I wasn't sure. I was only sure that this was not by Riemenschneider or his circle.
A 15th century painted altarpiece behind the high altar
The city of Nuremberg complete with the Castle and the spires of the city's churches, including the Lorenzkirche, in the background of the altarpiece. The 15th century didn't care about archaeological accuracy. There was no reason why the Blessed Virgin and her saints couldn't hold court in Nuremberg.
A reliquary complete with saintly bones...and in a Lutheran church!
Yes, those really are bones, femurs it looks like to me.
A glimpse of Jackob Grimm's tracery vaults in the ceiling of the choir, viewed from the ambulatory behind the altar.
Veit Stoss' great Annunciation is always worth an encore
More of Veit Stoss' Annunciation.
I left out the many photos I took of Adam Kraft's spectacular sacrament house. I plan to do a separate post on Kraft eventually.
A spiral staircase that I think went up to a chantry
Escutcheons of prominent Nuremberg mercantile families. Like so many late Medieval and Renaissance cities in Europe, Nuremberg was a plutocratic oligarchy, and a little stricter than most. It was one of the few cities that did not have a guild system and that positively forbade trades from organizing. For awhile, Nuremberg grew very rich by being so fortunately situated astride the main trade routes from Venice to Flanders, and from France to eastern Europe. That changed with the warfare that followed the Reformation, and the advent of the global economy in the 16th century.
A rat. Peter Meyer told be the story behind this little detail, and alas, I've forgotten it. That's one thing I love about Medieval and late Medieval/Renaissance churches is all the delightful marginalia throughout these buildings. I wonder sometimes if pietism and later modern form was really worth the sacrifice of all this playfulness.
A painted boss in Jackob Grimm's ceiling tracery. As I look at it, it might be Saint Lawrence. He looks like he's wearing a deacon's dalmatic.
Peter Meyer with a very large bell just inside the west door
The bells of the Lorenzkirche
The people stopping and listening to the bells in this video was very much my experience in Nuremberg. Some of the people in this video are tourists, but most are locals. I remember enjoying a sandwich featuring the local wurst at an outdoor cafe near the Lorenzkirche on a pleasant Saturday evening when all the bells in the city began ringing at sunset announcing the beginning of the Christian Sabbath. I remember just about everyone stopping to listen.
