Thursday, May 23, 2019

Trying out for gargoyle the next time






    With our primitive and sub-rudimentary
    data connections in the regressive Vir-
    ginian countryside, if we have begun to
    posals of the moment's architects for
    the rooftops and parapets of Notre Dame,
    then we know we can trust our reader to
    be able to lead this discussion, should
    we somehow tumble from that peak of nau-
    sea to which they all have floated us,
    and be lucky, as if as a gargoyle, all
    we should dispense from here were tears.

    The other day, a considerate genius of
    our acquaintance wrote in from that city
    of angels on the further coast, to relay
    Notre Dame has acquired through her many
    centuries of witness to the follies of 
    the building trades, not least upon her 
    own elevations. I pass it along, hopeful
    that the vigor of its perceptions, if not 
    their virtue, might serve as a kind of e-
    metic buttress of humility in the face
    of the heroically self-referential rap-
    tures of our contractor-exhibitionists. 
















Paul Berman
The Tears of Quasimodo
  Victor Hugo and the 
  Ideals of Progress
Tablet
April 24, 2019©




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