"The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris rang out this morning for the first time today since 2019's fire."

"The Cathedral reopens with Mass on December 8th."

WE ARE SO BACK

The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris rang out this morning for the first time today since 2019's fire

The Cathedral reopens with Mass on December 8th pic.twitter.com/roQS22b0t7

— Catholic Arena (@CatholicArena) November 8, 2024

Why are we suddenly hearing about the New York Magazine editor who says she engaged in "sexting" with RFK Jr.?

I've been reading reports in various newspapers, and I'm going to select the one in the London Times to link to and quote: "Reporter put on leave after admitting personal relationship with RFK Jr/Olivia Nuzzi allegedly exchanged sexual messages with Robert F Kennedy Jr while covering his campaign."

The magazine said a review of Nuzzi’s work had found no evidence of bias but described the relationship as a “violation of our readers’ trust” and its own standards. “Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, she would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign,” it added.

Although Nuzzi did not identify the other person in the relationship, it has been widely reported that it was Kennedy....

It's a "relationship"? I'm only seeing that there were text messages and that they were "sexual." What are we talking about? Photos of naked body parts? Written invitations to have sex? Prompts to masturbate? Sexual words, such as saying that someone can go fuck himself? I don't know what we are talking about, and I suspect New York Magazine of wanting to hurt RFK Jr. and making sex-and-politics theater out of nothing.

According to the New York Post, Nuzzi had been “sexting” with Kennedy, who is married to Cheryl Hines, the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress, when Nuzzi was engaged to Ryan Lizza, the chief Washington correspondent for the Politico website. The couple called off the wedding a few weeks ago, said the newspaper.

Was Ryan Lizza involved in revealing these "sexts"? What's going on there? Here are Ryan and Olivia in happier times:

What nonsense! The photo, I mean. Who can look at that and not laugh? Can someone please tear off the veneer of middle-class respectability and tell us what the hell really happened?

"You might recall the epic 2008 Beijing opening ceremony, which showcased the four great Chinese inventions: the compass, gunpowder, paper, and typesetting."

"This one in Paris, put up last Friday, celebrated analogous French contributions like threesomes, the Minions franchise, and dressing like a clown...."

Begins Suzy Weiss, in "Was the Opening Ceremony Demonic, or Just Cringe? Don’t feel bad for Christians—feel bad for the French" (Free Press).

Ha ha. Very well put.

"As the boats ferrying the athletes moved along the Seine, what stood out was what was missing."

"The great mass of athletes in one place, moving in a continuous tide. The chaotic palette of national costumes, the different marching styles, the proud flag bearers. Few events more effectively combined the monumental and the individual. Everything about Friday’s ceremony and broadcast worked to diminish the athletes. Sitting in cheering clumps, sometimes three and four countries together, they looked like passengers on party boats competing to make the most noise, to signal that their country was having the most fun."

From "Opening Ceremony Misses the Boat/The Paris Games began with a new look and sparkled with Celine Dion. But the show suffered from bloat similar to TV’s other spectacles" (NYT).

"Frankly, I feel more comfortable in French. English is a beautiful, haunted language, but to my ear, it is aggressive and hegemonic."

"French, by contrast, is soft, romantic; it articulates the seemingly contradictory forces of logic and emotions like no other language I know. It allows people to complain all day long (a stereotypical French pastime) and somehow manage to keep it within a civilized range. It is a language that connects me to my true and best self. It binds me to the people who in turn feel that the language binds me to them."

Writes Euny Hong, a journalist and "culture critic," in "In Paris, I Get Judged on What I Speak, Not How I Look" (NYT). 

The essay begins "I moved from New York back to Paris in the summer of 2020, partly to get away from the spate of anti-Asian assaults that had emerged after the Covid pandemic." I couldn't figure out where Hong grew up. She cites her "Korean heritage." If she went "back to Paris," does that mean she grew up there? Does she sound like a native speaker in French? In English? In any case, there's a lot of subjectivity here. How do you know why other people treat you the way they do? How do you know what they really think of you? But why not, if you can, move where you feel that people like you? 

"I booked a lovely little apartment on Rue Jacob and pretended I was a heroine in a 2003 film starring Diane Lane."

"I had coffee alone. I lunched alone. I flâneured alone. Admittedly I was too scared to go for dinner alone, so I’d sit by my apartment window eating liquorice from Monoprix listening to the world muddle through its own dramas on the streets below. I have been to Paris with my husband many times.... But our days and nights are a compromise. Restaurants are deliberated over in accordance with our different tastes. Street directions are a tussle between scenic (him); haste (me). Breakfast in bed or at a café? Museum or shopping? Early to bed or a nightcap with the revellers? Everything must be negotiated when you are married. Not in a bad way, you are to understand. But individual desires must be ceded, the essential self gently led towards a middle ground."

Writes Farrah Storr in "I’m happily married — but I holiday alone" (London Times).

"Of course, leaning into ugliness — or at least less obvious curation — is still an aesthetic choice, intended to signify an irreverence or a rejection of norms...."

"As Alicia Kennedy writes: '"Bad" photos are in, but the thing about them is that they’re not really bad or even insouciant: They’re just a different approach, less big bright lighting, a little grainy, still beautifully plated.'... This trend toward DIY-looking food also opens up the door to greater inclusivity... For disabled and neurodivergent people who have trouble with fine-tuned decoration or people with disabilities who live with inaccessible kitchens where it’s hard to cook, much less stage a meal, 'the shift to DIY helps with the pressure'.... [S]eeing other people... unafraid to make work that looks amateur, imperfect, and unprofessional has given me a sense that it’s okay to do the same.... The pressure of showing the 'right' thing on Instagram isn’t entirely alleviated, but I’ve found a space where it’s okay to have realistic ambitions...."

From "The Great Food Instagram Vibe Shift/The food blogger aesthetic has given way to something more realistic and DIY: Laissez-faire Instagram food is here" (Eater).

It's nice to see social media trending toward what is comfortable and doable rather than strainingly aspirational. This article is about food and photography, but I think it's a more general trend, reminiscent of the late 60s, early 70s, when naturalness and ease felt like the essence of beauty and meticulous striving looked awful.

I mean, just to poke around at Eater, here's "Best Dressed/What Are We Wearing to Restaurants Now, Paris? At Folderol, a combination natural wine bar and ice cream shop in Paris, neighborhood block party vibes feel distinctly Parisian." 

A French woman — complimented for looking "quite put together" — says "The cap was brought from the U.S. by a friend of mine, which is why I like it so much. These are my new Nikes and they are the most comfortable sneakers on earth; I feel like I have a marshmallow on each foot."

Remember when Americans were told that we stand out as obvious Americans in France because we wear sneakers? There are many photos at that link and most of the Parisians are wearing sneakers. And none are wearing try-hard shoes. I'm seeing Doc Martens and Birkenstock clogs.

"I am a 45-year-old who has done his fair share of air travel. Having witnessed undeniable climate change (due, in part, to airplanes), I have sworn them off..."

"... and encourage others to do the same. My dear cousin plans to send her young son to Paris by plane to participate in a summer camp. May I encourage her not to?"

So goes a letter to the NYT social etiquette adviser. 

This is an issue so many people — people who love to think of themselves as hawkish on climate-change — desperately seek to avoid. The letter writer has gone very far into vigilance. He's not flying at all anymore, AND he wants to pressure others to adopt his form of austerity.

"Plans are afoot to turn Notre Dame cathedral, once it’s restored, into what some have called a 'politically correct Disneyland'...."

"The plans, yet to be rubber-stamped, will turn the cathedral into an ‘experimental showroom,' with confessional boxes, altars and classical sculptures replaced with modern art murals. New sound and light effects will be introduced to create ‘emotional spaces.' Themed chapels on a ‘discovery trail’, with an emphasis on Africa and Asia, will pop up. And Bible quotations will be projected onto chapel walls in various languages, including Mandarin. The last chapel on the new trail will have an environmental emphasis. Defenders of the new plan are bound to say that Notre Dame, before the heart-breaking fire of 2019, was already an artifice. The sublime cathedral, begun in 1163, was heavily adapted in a Gothic Revival style in the late nineteenth century.... With exceptional buildings, close to the public’s heart, like Notre Dame... architects can’t get away with doing the hideous things that go down well at the club. Well, they can’t on the outside of buildings, anyway.... And so radical changes for the exterior were vetoed.... Because people aren’t quite so familiar with the inside of Notre Dame, there is greater wriggle room for the anti-history brigade to prevail...."

From "Don’t turn Notre Dame into a 'politically correct Disneyland'" by Harry Mount (The Spectator).

I agree with Mount, but I just want to descend into the mundane language issue: Is "wriggle room" the British version of "wiggle room," and, if so, are there subtle, interesting difference between wriggling and wiggling that we ought to take into account? 

The OED does not have anything about "wriggle room," but it does have a definition for "wiggle room," though it's a "draft addition": 

Another U.S. expression the OED notes is "get a wiggle on" (which means to hurry). English has so many words. Do we need both "wriggle" and "wiggle"? And we also have "squirm" and "writhe," to name 2 more. "Squirm" has the advantage of rhyming with "worm," but worms really seem more to wriggle... or is it wiggle? "Wiggle" is the official Bob Dylan choice.

I'm not that worked up about the Disneyfication of the interior of Notre Dame. The contents of those alcoves along the perimeter are transitory — they'll live out their little lives and pass away.

UPDATE: This post made me remember a song that I don't think I have thought of in over half a century:

  

 

This song, from 1959, is by the stunningly unattractive men who called themselves The Playmates. Their hit that you're more likely to remember is "Beep Beep."

"The President of the Republic became convinced of the need to restore Notre-Dame de Paris as closely as possible to its last complete state, coherent and well-known..."

"... while betting on sustainable development in the choice of materials and site management" the French government announced today, the Washington Post reports.

After the fire destroyed the roof and the spire, architects were asked to propose the rebuilding, and there was some possibility of modernizing the design — possibly doing something with glass, like the I.M. Pei pyramid that became part of the Louvre. That is not going to happen. Good.

"Flames engulfed 460 tons of lead when Notre-Dame’s roof and spire burned, scattering dangerous dust onto the streets and parks of Paris."

The NYT reports.

Five months after the fire, the French authorities have refused to fully disclose the results of their testing for lead contamination, sowing public confusion.... [I]t took a month before city officials conducted the first lead tests at a school close to Notre-Dame. Even today, city and regional health officials have not tested every school in the proximity of the cathedral.

The tests showed levels of lead dust above the French regulatory standard for buildings hosting children in at least 18 day care centers, preschools and primary schools. In dozens of other public spaces, like plazas and streets, authorities found lead levels up to 60 times over the safety standard. Soil contamination in public parks may be among the biggest concerns....

Some French officials and lead experts have cautioned against ‘‘paranoia’’ and argued that in a city as old as Paris, not all of the high lead levels can be attributed to the Notre-Dame fire.... “The state was afraid to make people afraid,” said Anne Souyris, the city’s deputy mayor in charge of health....

The Supreme Court looks at Notre Dame in Paris as an example of how a religious monument can become an important secular monument.

In today's opinion, American Legion v. American Humanists Association, about a large cross memorializing WWI dead, Justice Alito wrote for the majority:

With sufficient time, religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and practices can become embedded features of a community’s landscape and identity. The community may come to value them without necessarily embracing their religious roots. The recent tragic fire at Notre Dame in Paris provides a striking example. Although the French Republic rigorously enforces a secular public square, the cathedral remains a symbol of national importance to the religious and nonreligious alike. Notre Dame is fundamentally a place of worship and retains great religious importance, but its meaning has broadened. For many, it is inextricably linked with the very idea of Paris and France. Speaking to the nation shortly after the fire, President Macron said that Notre Dame “‘is our history, our literature, our imagination. The place where we survived epidemics, wars, liberation. It has been the epicenter of our lives.’”

Notre Dame on fire.

The giant spire has fallen and parts of the roof appear to have collapsed as a huge fire rages at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris https://t.co/NszGCr1Qag pic.twitter.com/fqIrzwcQMN

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) April 15, 2019

Notre-Dame Cathedral

in Paris is engulfed in flames.

🇫🇷 #NotreDame #Fire #Horrifying
via @herpsonc pls follow pic.twitter.com/0ueUk9z5T0

— Tom Hall ☘ (@TomHall) April 15, 2019

The moment #NotreDame’s spire fell pic.twitter.com/XUcr6Iob0b

— Patrick Galey (@patrickgaley) April 15, 2019

ADDED: BBC: "The cause is not yet clear, but officials say that it could be linked to renovation work.... Last year, the Catholic Church in France appealed for funds to save the building, which was crumbling. A spokesman for the cathedral said the whole structure was 'burning.' 'There will be nothing left,' he said."

AND: AP:

France’s civil security agency says “all means” except for water-dropping aircraft were deployed to tackle the blaze. The defense agency said those were unsuitable for fires like the one at Notre Dame because dumping water on the building could cause the whole structure to collapse....

Earlier Trump had tweeted, "Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out," so that answers that.

A Notre Dame spokesman said earlier that the church’s entire wooden interior was in flames....

On Thursday, 16 religious statues were removed from the peak for the first time in over a century to be taken for cleaning and therefore escaped the blaze.

MORE:

"Black covers placed over each chair are discreetly changed between sittings."

From "No nudes is bad news: Paris's first NAKED restaurant closes after 15 months due to lack of customers" (Daily Mail).

Here's my selection from one of the photographs. If I understand the caption correctly, it shows one of the owners stopping by at a table to chat up the customers:



I mean, what do you want to see competing with the wineglasses on the tablescape?

"The 'yellow vest' protests have been 'a catastrophe' for the French economy, the finance minister says...."

"About 125,000 protesters took to the streets on Saturday, with more than 1,700 people arrested. Several tourist sites, including the Eiffel Tower and Louvre Museum, are closed this weekend... 'There was much more damage yesterday than a week ago' because Saturday's protests were more dispersed, deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told local radio.... There are concerns that the protests could lead to a drop in tourism. Paris was visited by a record number of tourists in 2017 - more than 40 million.... The government has... agreed to scrap the fuel tax increase and has frozen electricity and gas prices for 2019. But protests have also erupted over other issues, including calls for higher wages, lower taxes, better pensions and easier university entry requirements. The movement's core aim, to highlight the economic frustration and political distrust of poorer working families, still has widespread support."

BBC reports.

"Here’s How Facebook’s Local News Algorithm Change Led To The Worst Riots Paris Has Seen In 50 Years."

"The Yellow Jackets movement is what happens when you point Facebook's traffic hose at France's small towns. The question now is: How do you turn it off?" (BuzzFeed).

So, in less than two weeks, what you end up with is this: A Change.org petition with fewer than 1,500 subscribers gets talked about on a local radio station. The radio appearance is written up by a local news site. The article is shared to a local Facebook page. Thanks to an algorithm change that is now emphasizing local discussion, the article dominates the conversation in a small town. Two men from the same suburb then turn the petition into a Facebook event. A duplicate petition goes viral within the local Facebook groups. Then a daily newspaper writes up the original petition. This second article about the petition also goes viral. So does the original petition. And then the rest of French media follows.

"Revolution... It is a revolution... worse than 1968. This is the beginning of the revolution."

Lots of pictures in The Daily Mail of Paris on fire.

"Police have used teargas and water cannon against fuel tax protesters in Paris after violent clashes erupted on the Champs Élysées."

"Thousands of demonstrators from all over France massed on the famous boulevard on Saturday to express their anger at the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his government. But what was supposed to be a peaceful protest by the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) movement degenerated rapidly. On one side, protesters reportedly infiltrated by far-right extremists and casseurs (rioters and hooligans) tore up paving stones and hurled them and other missiles at police before building barricades that they set alight. On the other, police used teargas, pepper spray, water cannon and bulldozers to clear the road...."

The Guardian reports.

"He's not welcome here. You're in working class Paris now. He'll be at the Élysée, at the Eiffel Tower, he's not going to come here."

Said a Parisian man, interviewed by NBC, blogged here. So I thought I'd take today's virtual walk beginning at the place where NBC said this man was standing, which was the Barbes-Rochechouart metro station.

The Black Ball:



Pussy's:



Royal Food:

NBC: "Parisians Resigned to Hosting President Donald Trump in France for Bastille Day."

This is the way NBC covers the President's trip to France:

“America came to save Europe in World War I, so we owe them this,” said Jean-Pierre Tourne, a teacher who was waiting for his friend outside the Louxor cinema in the northern Paris neighborhood of Barbes-Rochechouart. “We don’t understand why the Americans elected him, but he’s the U.S. President now,” he added.

Don't worry. NBC doesn't understand either. By the way, we also came to save Europe in World War II, but who's counting? Let us know if you need us again. We're always ready to help, whether you understand us or not.

“I understand why as president he’s invited,” said [Louis Marcodini, a 19-year-old history student at University of the Sorbonne], who was sitting on the banks of Canal St. Martin in Paris’s hip 10th arrondissement. “Symbolically it’s important. We have to respect history. But as an individual, as a man, he is not wanted here. He is not in our hearts.”...

"He's not welcome here. You're in working class Paris now. He'll be at the Élysée, at the Eiffel Tower, he's not going to come here," said Yacine Mac, who was standing outside the Barbes-Rochechouart metro station, a predominately north-African neighborhood.

Well, Mr. Mac, you might be interested to know that in America, he's not welcome among the elite, and it's the working class places where he held the rallies and spoke to the people who bonded with him and made him President.