The Notre-Dame fire

[sabotabby]

 I'm really trying not to cry. It seems so strange, crying over a building that I have never even seen in person, but it's something so important and beautiful and irreplaceable and just doesn't seem like something that could just cease to exist.

And it is just one of many important, beautiful, irreplaceable things that has been lost in my lifetime. It seems like a metaphor for how carelessly we walk over the world.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

Hugs

[sabotabby]

Hugs to the entire world.

[dewline]

Too true...

[sabotabby]

Worst timeline.

[dewline]

Not yet, as bad as it is now. Hopefully, with some vigilance and luck, not ever.

[minoanmiss]

So true. :(

ETA: a couple bits of hope -- Notre Dame is actually under renovation right now so a lot of the artworks had been moved out and stored, and it has a long history of damage and renovation. I've seen quite a few people who should know say that it's not completely destroyed and it should be able to be rebuilt. Not the same, but not entirely different.

*hugs you*

[kore]

Yeah, it sounds like the firefighters were HEROES and the bell tower was saved, so the other one didn't catch fire, and the limestone shell is OK. And they did move out a lot of the art. Still heartbreaking, but better than when it looked entirely possible the entire building would burn to the ground.

[sabotabby]

It definitely could have been worse. But. It might have totally been avoided.

[lapinlunaire]

I read just now that the North Rose Window may have survived too. I'm mostly worried about damage to things in the main structure. The biggest damage confirmed so far was the spire, but while that's sad it only dates back to the 19th century.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, getting the updates now, it’s way less bad than it could have been. I’m pretty relieved.

Still, it’s an old, beautiful thing that represents the collective work of countless labourers, destroyed by austerity, and I’m kinda relating rn.

[lapinlunaire]

I'm feeling weirdly calm about this and I don't know why.

Anyway, it's not strange to cry.

[franklanguage]

I'm still processing it, since I just read of it here and then went to the front page of the Times to confirm it.

Agreed: it's totally normal to cry over this; I never cry, or I'd be bawling my eyes out.

[sabotabby]

I really care about Gothic architecture? Maybe too much.

[franklanguage]

Perfectly legitimate reason. I've read more and seen the pictures, and it's truly tragic.(Those buttresses!)

However, I believe the French will triumph.

To add to this thought, I have to mention Moby's Instagram post today, which I'm more in agreement with: "I kind of wish people cared as much about burning rainforests as they do about burning cathedrals."

[sabotabby]

It's really all part of the same fucked-up system, though. I'd bet good money that when they investigate the cause, they'll find some austerity decision-making at work, someone, somewhere, taking the quick and cheap route out.

They may not be able to replace the beams. Because there's no old-growth trees of that size left. The tragedy of the cathedral and the tragedy of the rainforest are, at the very root, the same tragedy.

(I did appreciate that this meant that the burned Black churches in Louisiana met their GoFundMe targets and there's awareness of the Djap Wurrung trees and the struggle to defend them.)