The Restoration of Notre Dame

The 2019 fire at Notre Dame (WSJ/AFP/Getty images)

Like many who watched in horror five years ago, we thought that Notre Dame Cathedral had been lost forever to fire. Yesterday it re-opened, radiant and gleaming.

The limestone facade of Notre Dame Cathedral is radiant. Its ornate gargoyles and angels show no signs of the smoke and flames that once billowed from the church. The cavernous interior is immaculate, the soot having been meticulously scrubbed from its arches.

By almost any metric the restoration of Notre Dame has been a success, coming five years after a fire swept across the masterpiece of Gothic architecture, nearly destroying it. On Saturday, a host of global figures, including President-elect Donald Trump, gathered inside the cathedral for a solemn ceremony to mark its reopening.

Notre Dame’s revival is nothing short of a miracle to many, a sign that cooperation across France and beyond to achieve a singular goal is still possible.

We marvel that the skills necessary for the restoration had not been lost, that there was little dithering over what the "new" church should look like, that funds were raised quickly, and most of all, that beauty came back into the world.

Paris in the summer when it sizzles

To those of us who followed the news 21 years ago, the French heat wave was an eye-opener: [bold added]

It was an unprecedented heatwave, which saw hospital services overwhelmed, fatalities rapidly counted by the dozens – if not hundreds – in hospitals and retirement homes, a health minister procrastinating at his holiday resort, and a government was slow to act....from August 2 to 17, 2003, France experienced its most prolonged and intense heatwave in the hottest summer since 1950. It was also the most deadly, claiming the lives of 15,000 people in a fortnight.

Trocadero Fountains, 2019 (CBS News)

After 2003 heat waves have been taken very seriously, and safety protocols (cooling centers, wellness checks) have been implemented.

Headline: Paris Wanted a Green Olympics. Team USA Wants Air Conditioning.

The organizers of the Summer Games, in their efforts to be friendlier to the environment, chose not to install air conditioning.

For much of the world, a few fitful nights of sweating in front of open windows is simply a reality of summer. But some Olympians are more reliant on climate control than others—namely the members of Team USA.

They are now discovering what generations of American tourists have encountered on their European vacations: When you ask for A/C in France, you’re more likely to receive a giant Gallic shrug.

Although athletes' quarters have been engineered to be cooler than non-A/C rooms (cold water circulates beneath the floors), portable air conditioners are available at extra cost.

But for those athletes who remain unconvinced and worry about their performance being derailed by sleeping in sweatbox apartments, Paris 2024 has made air conditioning units available for hire. And there are no gold medals for guessing which delegation leads the way.

The 592-strong Team USA delegation isn’t risking the slightest discomfort. Every single U.S. room and some common areas have been equipped with portable A/C units, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The Americans will all be able to take on any Paris heat wave by hanging out in meat-locker conditions, even though temperatures over the next 10 days aren’t expected to top 90.

I don't blame the athletes for removing all possible impediments to their performance. Unlike the one-percenters who always use private planes, the U.S. Olympians at least have a good reason for setting aside the global-warming principles the elite espouse for the rest of us.

Notre Dame:: Continuing the Tradition

1966 windows by Jacques le Chevallier

Four years ago Notre Dame Cathedral miraculously survived a devastating fire. Not unexpectedly there has been disagreement surrounding the reconstruction of the over-800-year-old national monument.

The latest controversy is over the replacement of the Chevallier stained-glass windows that were not damaged by the fire. These windows are grisaille (“shades of gray” accented with color). In addition they do not depict scenes from the Bible or saints ("non-figural"), and didn't have defenders when their replacement was authorized by both the Catholic Church and the government.

Now there are petitions to leave the windows intact. Your humble blogger has no dog in this hunt, but I do think that, based on history, if the windows are replaced they will be beautiful.

Once a Decade, Whether We Need to or Not

Grand Marnier Soufflé: not as flame-boyant as 2005.

We celebrated our anniversary yesterday by going to the Iron Gate restaurant in Belmont. The French cuisine is très expensive, but we allow ourselves this indulgence once a decade (2016 and 2005).

When we're in the nursing home, we won't be able to come here. From the looks of the other white-haired clientèle, Iron Gate should worry about its diminishing customer demographic, but somehow it has survived for half a century.

We each ordered a three-course meal ending with the Grand Marnier Soufflé. The waiter did not serve it as spectacularly as his counterpart of 18 years ago, but it was excellent nonetheless.

Maybe we'll visit the Iron Gate next year, whether we need to or not.

Reconstruire Mieux, Non

Only Luddites would object to a pool on the roof.

2½ years ago Notre-Dame Cathedral was engulfed in flames. Somehow, miraculously, it was spared. In what has been termed "the world’s greatest act of collective cultural philanthropy"

Over $940 million has already been collected from donors, some 340,000 in all, from all over the world.

Initial attempts to modernize the reconstruction met with vociferous resistance, and the exterior will be restored to the original.

Now the controversy is over the interior.

The illuminated pictures do look like Disneyland

Now we learn from the Telegraph newspaper (and two European online journals) that the cathedral interior is to be updated—and in the most radical fashion.....the intact interior, is to be transformed into something akin to a contemporary art installation or theme park...

The grand nave, the central passage of the cathedral, is to be lined with Renaissance-era paintings, one above each of the Gothic capitals.

The idea is to make the Catholic faith comprehensible...to the 12 million tourists, many with little or no knowledge of Catholicism, who arrive each year. To make them feel more welcome, phrases in their native languages are to be projected on the wall.

Traditionalists, which include your humble blogger, do not believe in "restoring" documents, works of art, or other relics to make them more "accessible" to modern viewers. As the essayist points out:

If those tourists want information about the Catholic faith in digital form, they can find it far more abundantly on the phones in their back pockets. It is a losing game to compete with virtual reality; the result can only be a simulacrum of a simulacrum.

With the right technology one can have both--the original physical experience of Notre Dame and the visual and auditory enhancement that can be superimposed over the physical. Using augmented reality tools would be more informative than images projected on walls, and there is no need for any controversy over reconstruction.

Just make sure the WiFi signal is strong.

Note: to their credit the French didn't have the nerve to call the project reconstruire mieux (building back better).

The Revolution Eats Its Own

SF School Board VP Alison Collins (Chron photo)

Viewing everything through the lens of race eventually pits non-white groups against each other.

Note: European history teaches how revolutionaries become ever-more extreme, end up killing each other, and inflict greater cruelties on the general population than the regimes they overthrew. The internecine battles of the Girondist vs. Jacobins and the Mensheviks vs. Bolsheviks in the French and Russian Revolutions, respectively, come to mind. I wonder how modern wokes plan to avoid these precedents or whether they even studied them in school.

Speaking of school, SF School Board Vice-President Alison Collins has been called out for her racist tweets against Asian-Americans in 2016:

In the tweets posted in 2016, Collins said Asian Americans had used “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’”

“Where are the vocal Asians speaking up against Trump? Don’t Asian Americans know they’re on his list as well?” Collins had tweeted. Using asterisks in references to the racial epithet, Collins continued, “Do they think they won’t be deported? profiled? beaten? Being a house n****r is still being a n****r. You’re still considered ‘the help.’”

Collins, who is Black, said she wanted to again express her “sincere and heartfelt apologies,” although she didn’t specify further. In a previous statement Saturday, she apologized for the hurt caused by the tweets, which Lam called a “non-apology.”

For the record your humble blogger thinks that Alison Collins should not be removed from her job for tweets made before she was on the school board. And if she still believes that Asian-Americans should stop studying hard, she should say so and not cave to the outrage. If they want to remove her, let them do so by legal means and not bully her into resigning.

Alison Collins is one of the Board members who thinks Lincoln was too racist to name a school after him, so I gotta admit, it's kinda fun watching her squirm.

Let's Talk About Racers Instead

Auto racing, hunting, and anything to do with heavy industry, extraction, and agriculture (raising tomatoes in containers doesn't count) are worlds removed from the bicoastal ivory towers, so it's no surprise that CNN got it wrong when reporting on the Indianapolis 500.

For CNN--which appears to have no knowledge of the rube culture in flyover country--referring to "NASCAR'S Indianapolis 500" is an understandable error, just like generalizing all non-STEM majors as worthless is an understandable error by people who don't bother with the finer points of credentialism (FYI, dear reader, I'm a non-STEM major). Lumping together two very distinct racing institutions like NASCAR and the Indy 500 is like referring to "Boeing's A320" or "Google's iPhone."

Christian Bale and Matt Damon (indian express graphic)

Speaking of racing, I watched the very fine Ford v. Ferrari, a "true-story" movie about the Ford Motor Company's all-out effort to wrest the 24 Hours of Le Mans trophy from Ferrari in 1966.

While it has excellent-and-not-too-dizzying racing sequences, the power of the movie rests on Carroll Shelby's effort to get Ford to agree to the car designs and the driver, Ken Miles, he wanted. Matt Damon (Shelby) and Christian Bale (Miles) give excellent performances as they battle each other, the Ford bureaucracy, Lee Iacocca, Henry Ford II, and Enzo Ferrari.

What resonated most with this boomer was the movie's depiction of pre-1968 America, when men were confident in their ability to accomplish anything after the shared experience of World War II and when the women they loved supported them while being smarter than they were--Holy Pride and Prejudice, Batman! (1966 language reference). In tone, color, character, and attitude the movie was very much like The Right Stuff, the movie and book about the fighter pilots who became the first astronauts.

Highly recommended, even for those who don't know the difference between carburetion and fuel injection.

Green Acres is the Place to Be

The Grand-Dewyse family will spend more time in Errancourt
2 hours NE of Paris when the child comes (WSJ photo)

The move out of the cities is occurring worldwide:

Fears of a second wave of infections and the ease of remote working are prompting families with children, pensioners and some young people to question the long-term benefits of city life.

In the U.S., 39% of urban dwellers said the Covid-19 crisis prompted them to consider leaving for less densely populated areas, according to a Harris poll of 2,050 adults conducted in late April.

In France, 38% of potential home buyers widened their searches further from big cities as they sought gardens and an extra room for remote working during the pandemic, according to a survey mid-May by French real-estate portal SeLoger.

In Germany, where economic activity is more spread out across the country, demand for houses in rural areas has risen steadily since lockdowns began in mid-March, according to online real-estate portal ImmoScout24.

Some historians think the urban exodus is short-lived:

Examples from past crises—from the Spanish flu of 1918 to wars in Europe and 9/11 in New York City—show that urban exiles tend to return, researchers say.

Your humble blogger believes that this time is different; the de-population of urban centers won't reverse itself for at least 20 years. As services like fire, education, health, transportation, and police are asked to do more on frozen budgets, businesses and the middle and upper classes flee--not all at once, to be sure--but enough so that the tax base erodes. Services are further reduced, and the flight continues. The admittedly extreme example is Detroit, a once-great American city that has never recovered from the 1967 riots.

We are entering a downward spiral that is extremely difficult to turn around. Almost everyone wants to feel safe where they live, and cities are going in the opposite direction with COVID-19. (Defunding of police forces might be the last straw for many American urban dwellers.)

If you have property in the city, sell it. If you are considering a move into the city, rent, don't buy. Even better, don't do it.

Jean Vanier

(WSJ drawing)

Words of wisdom from philosopher Jean Vanier (1928-2019), founder of L'Arche: [bold added]

Mr. Vanier was asked what could be contributed by those unable to devote themselves full time to serving others. “Try and find somebody who is lonely,” he said. “And when you go to see them, they will see you as the messiah. Go and visit a little old lady who has no friends or family. Bring her flowers. People say, ‘But that’s nothing.’ It is nothing—but it’s also everything.”

Appalled by conditions in a French mental asylum, Jean Vanier invited two inmates to live with him in 1964. His house became the first L'Arche (inspired by Noah's Ark), and the charity "has spread to more than 150 communities in 38 countries, providing homes for about 5,000 people."

Those suffering from mental illness or mental disability require attention for hours every day over a long period of time. Solutions are not easily "scalable", and treating everyone who needs help is frankly impossible. Another quote:

The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy. What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community....What I’m trying to live and trying to say is that people with disabilities are important—in themselves but also they have a message to give to humanity.

Once in a while we chance upon a profile, a biography, or obituary that gives us hope for humanity. R.I.P.

"It Felt Like a Miracle"

Good Friday, 2019, in Paris (NBC photo)

Peggy Noonan asks why the burning of Notre-Dame Cathedral triggered an emotional reaction around the world:

the flames and smoke evoked similar [to 9/11] feelings of grief and loss, and a sense of portent, especially for Catholics, who saw in the destruction a metaphor for—or a judgment of—the state of their church...

Tuesday morning, the shocking good news: The fire was out, the structure still standing, the great things still there—the radiant cross, the altar, the Pietà, the pews, the relics saved.

It felt like a miracle, didn’t it? I think it was.

From despair to hope....on Holy Week. Unbelievable.

Not Gone

(WSJ/AFP/Getty images)

Like everyone* else, we reacted with horror at the sight of flames engulfing Notre-Dame Cathedral. When the spire toppled, its destruction seemed inevitable.
      *we'll ignore the tweets of a few crazies.

On this Holy Week we are grateful that it has been spared.

The discussion has already started about the cause of the fire, the restoration and its cost. For the nonce, let's reflect on the significance of Notre Dame, and why its loss would have meant so much to so many.

As word of the fire spread, emails and calls began zipping across continents as art historians sought to glean details about the fate of the treasures within. [Met curator Barbara] Boehm said she was worried about everything from the 14th-century sculptures that line the belt of chapels to the vast organ that is encased in elaborately carved wood.

Among the holy relics preserved there are a crown of thorns said to have been worn by Jesus during his crucifixion and a piece of the cross on which he was crucified.

“It’s such an emblem of Paris, of civilization, that everything inside it—from the candlesticks to the chalices—contains centuries of history and preciousness,” Ms. Boehm said...

Among many historic events that have taken place at the cathedral, Henry VI of England was crowned king there in 1431 and Napoleon was made emperor in 1804 after taking the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and placing it on his own head. In 1909, Joan of Arc was beatified by Pope Pius X there...

Today, the cathedral is a major pilgrimage site for Catholics from France and around the world. It draws around 13 million visitors a year—or around 30,000 people a day, more than the Eiffel Tower.

Jerrilynn Dodds, professor of medieval art and architecture at Sarah Lawrence College, said Notre Dame is one of the few monuments to faith that enjoys universal appeal. “Our love for Notre Dame goes beyond religion, beyond politics,” she said. “It’s part of our collective identity, and now we’re suffering a common grief.”

It was there centuries before we were born, and now there is comfort that it will be there after we are gone.

A Beautiful Portfolio

The Villa Maryland in Cap Ferrat, France (WSJ)

20 years ago a business colleague vacationed in Europe. Only later did she fill in the details.

A friend had terminal cancer, and Paul Allen had invited the lady and a group of her closest acquaintances to enjoy the comforts of his chateau in the South of France. And so it was that Sue and friends had the run of Paul Allen's estate, complete with staff and the services of a Cordon Bleu chef for a week.

Enchanted Hill near Beverly Hills (WSJ)

His co-founding of Microsoft made him a billionaire by the age of 30, and Paul Allen was famous for his portfolio of eclectic investments (Charter Communications, Seattle Seahawks, SpaceShipOne, and Portland Trail Blazers, among many others). The composition of his vast real estate portfolio is less well-known but is now being evaluated following his death in 2018.

While geographically diverse, these properties share common elements. They aren’t by any means on the wrong side of town, but they also aren’t typically in a hot spot. For example, rather than Seattle’s elite, pricey community of Medina, where Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have homes along what is called the Gold Coast, he chose the more suburban Mercer Island, where he bought on the less-desirable south end of the island. In Los Angeles, his compound is in what’s called “Beverly Hills Post Office,” where homes can sell for about half of those in Beverly Hills proper. His ranch in Idaho is over the Teton Pass from the ritzy ski area of Jackson Hole, Wyo., near where the workers who can’t afford Jackson live and commute. His property on the peninsula he bought on Lopez in the San Juan Islands, Wash., is on the island’s less prestigious side, far from the village. Yet the homes he built were impressive estates.

Their potential to do harm has prompted calls (from the left--where else?) to abolish billionaires' existence, but that potential doesn't trouble me. Billionaires directing their favored philanthropic causes are far more efficient and effective than a government bureaucracy with its attendant inefficiencies, not to mention graft and corruption.

And if a Paul Allen chooses to spend his fortune on building or preserving beauty, that's fine with me, too.

Quiet Diversions

The North Korean regime may seem completely alien to First-Worlders, but it must have an instinct for self-preservation. North Korea is in the position of the hostage taker who is completely surrounded by a SWAT team; he knows that if he fires a single shot--which may or may not kill his hostage--he will be dead in a second. That's why I'm not worried....much.

On my list of havens from the world are art museums. Viewing an artwork online is an imperfect substitute for visiting one, but the advantage is that virtual escape is but a click, not a plane ticket, away.

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

The Wall Street Journal to its credit will occasionally devote space to a lesser-known work of art, in this case ‘The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit’ (1882) by portrait artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).

He set his large-scale composition just inside the main door of the Boits’ Paris apartment. The girls, in the foreground, are in a theatrically lighted space that melts into a darkened interior. Much of the painting’s allure lies in its careful balancing of color. Warmth slips in sparingly, through the caramel tones of a wall and the red of a dagger-shaped screen. Blackness holds the center, drawing the eye beyond the riddle of these four self-possessed children.

The most we can be confident of is their relative ages. The youngest, seated on the floor, holds a large, pink-cheeked doll and glances slightly away. The eldest stands in the shadows, in profile, next to her second-born sister. Daughter number three, distinguished by her blond tresses, is planted on pipe-cleaner thin legs at the far left, and seems to gaze inward. It is only the second-born daughter, dead center you suddenly realize, who truly looks back, her eyes alert with expectation.

Her older sister leans against an outsize vase, one of a pair. Flanking the passage into what appears to be a well-appointed parlor, the vases lend a sculptural quality to the three standing figures. A ruffle at the neck of the blond child echoes the fluting on the vases.

The WSJ art reviewer points us to a Velázquez from two centuries prior:

He borrowed his structure from Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas,” which he had copied on an 1879 visit to Madrid. Both works feature young girls and, unusually, are large and square. Like Velázquez, Sargent overcomes the square’s potentially deadening symmetry with a pleasing off-balance arrangement enhanced by deep space. And, also like him, he upends the conventions of group portraiture by giving each figure room to breathe. A viewer of the Boit daughters could seemingly join 4-year-old Julia on the carpet.

Las Meninas

There are beautiful aspects of the world that will long outlive our current "urgent" concerns. Quiet diversions can remind us so.

Seems Like An Eternity

On the 73rd anniversary of D-Day the Chronicle runs colorized photos of the Allied landing on Normandy beach.

"God ha' mercy on such as we..."

Kerouac Would Approve

(Ars technica image)

In news that you may have missed, the village of Tourouvre au Perche in Normandy, France has opened a 1-kilometer (0.6 mile) "solar road" built out of solar panels:

The roadway is just one kilometre (0.6mi) long, but that still works out at 2,800 square metres of photovoltaic cells—enough, hopefully, to power the village's street lights.

At a cost of €5 million (currently US $5.3 million), the uneconomical "Wattway" is a demonstration project:

There will now be a two-year test period, to see if Wattway can withstand the rigour of being pounded by thousands of cars and trucks per day, and whether it can actually provide a useful amount of electricity.

Usefulness aside, the main problem with constructing solar roads is their crippling cost. One of the main selling points of Wattway, according to Colas, is that each panel is just a few millimetres thick, and can thus be installed on top of an existing road, which in turn massively reduces construction costs. Having said that, the 1km road in Normandy cost €5 million (£4.3m) to build. And that's for a single lane of a two-lane highway!

There are clearly engineering obstacles--not only the vehicular pounding but also problems that are foreseeable with solar energy, such as dirt, snow, and other sunblocking materials and cloudy weather--but we applaud the experiment.

Grape Expectations

Growing grapes in Somerset (SW England)

Climate change will not be bad for everyone. One winner could be the British wine industry.

Warmer temperatures in the U.K. due to man-made climate change could make the country a leading wine producer by the end of the century, according to new research.

In 80 years Britons won't be traveling to Provence for sunshine and chardonnay but somewhere closer to home. Maybe the French will be summering in Britain!(?)

Sacre bleu!

Soufflés May Never Come

Carré d'agneau 

As we did a year ago, we had a quiet dinner to celebrate our anniversary. This year's venue was the Iron Gate in Belmont, which serves traditional haute cuisine and has prices to match.

The rack of lamb was $45, normally the entire ticket for four at my usual haunts, but I'm loosening the pursestrings a bit as my expiration date approaches. And why not---I've lost a number of classmates---and none of us has begun to collect Social Security.

Has it really been 11 years since the last soufflé?

Multinational Tax: No Change Any Time Soon

Lisa De Simone

Stanford accounting professor Lisa De Simone says that multinational corporations shift income to low-tax jurisdictions at twice the rate of previous estimates:[bold added]

In our European sample, instead of $54 billion being moved, we find that it’s more like $99 billion..... a change in the tax code could have a bigger effect on the tax base than previously thought. Say, for example, a country raises its tax rate, hoping to generate more revenue; you could get enough outward income shifting that tax revenue actually goes down. In a global economy, the corporate tax base is a very leaky vessel!

To repeat, after raising the tax rate countries sometimes find that total collections go down as multinationals shift income.

One of the principal mechanisms is "transfer pricing," that is, a high-tax French subsidiary "sells" product to an Irish sister company at a low price, thereby making France less profitable and Ireland more so. Income and expenses may also be shifted through other structures such as loans, leases, and service fees.

With the multiple jurisdictions and entities involved, international corporate taxation is much more complicated than U.S. individual income taxes. Trying to increase tax collections from multinationals would involve changing the law country by country in dozens of jurisdictions, which will be difficult and extremely time consuming.

Do not expect change any time soon.

Maybe We Won't Always Have Paris

Like millions of others, we've visited the Great Cities of Europe---London, Madrid, Venice, Florence, Rome, Amsterdam---and also, like millions of others, Paris is #1 or #2 on the list.

It's difficult for our minds to grasp the evil of what happened tonight.

It wasn't a natural disaster like an earthquake or a man-made disaster like a pipeline explosion or a hybrid disaster like a heat wave.

It wasn't a vengeful person fueled by hate, rage and alcohol or an unnoticed individual seeking to become famous through a horrific act.

It was a coordinated attack by dozens of heavily armed men who killed as many people as possible. The killers are not appeased by sweet words or money. Widespread death was the goal.

After 9/11 we said that the world was changed forever. After years of unresolved conflict, wishful thinking, and willful blindness we thought terrorism "contained" and resumed our normal lives.

The problems were growing beneath the surface and now threaten to overwhelm Western Europe. Hundreds of thousands of unassimilated Muslims live in the outskirts of Paris.  Rick said, "We'll always have Paris," but maybe we won't.

Je Suis Passé

Even if we're not thinking about Apples' remaking of entire industries, the evidence of technological disruption is all around us. Here's an amusing video of French second-graders trying to figure out the uses of ancient artifacts like floppy disks and rotary phones.


Comments: 1) It's been over 20 years since I heard it, but scratching a record with a phonograph needle is still tops when it comes to the most cringe-inducing sounds. 2) Laugh with the youngsters and not at them; how would you fare on a similar test, bucko, with 50-year-old farm tools? 3) Someday I'll bring my Apple III out of storage to astonish the kids with its 256K of RAM.