#how special for that girl that she’s got this catharsis from whatever she is clearly going through

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The ask I got yesterday about ~community~ and whatnot just made me think again about how special it is that we all have this space to share in something we all love, and create connections with each other and with this art that enrich our lives. Again, what a gift it is that Taylor has been able to put into words these experiences that touch people so deeply, and give us all a way to better understand each other and ourselves and in some ways give us the tools and space to learn how to support each other. Whether it’s identifying with struggles or sharing experiences or reveling in joy or even communing in events like concerts or meet-ups or simply making friends along the way, I can certainly say this time has enriched my life and I’m sure it has with many of us here.

I hope we can all continue to practice that kindness and empathy in this little community and beyond. ❤️

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

ASM vol 5 #25/826 Story 1 Thoughts

Wow!

Now THIS is how you do a milestone issue...even though the milestone was last issue but whatever!

In some ways this issue reminded me of a lot of DC’s recent milestone issues for the Trinity. Wonder Woman’s 75th Anniversary special, Action Comics #1000, Detective Comics #1000.

By this I mean you have multiple artists contributing and the story feels like vignettes.

The difference though is that most of these vignettes are in fact part of the same story.

The downside of that is that it does make the main story ‘Opening Night’ feel somewhat disjointed because there are 3 or 4 endings. It could’ve been easily fixed by simply presenting the Syndicate pages and the Gleason pencilled pages as their own stories (which functionally they are) or at least as clearly labelled epilogues.

That’s a nitpick though because the main story over all was fantastic, no pu....actually pun very much intended. Why not Spencer likes his puns and meta jokes and there was plenty of the latter in this issue. Case in point Kindred’s jabs about continuity.

Let me get some minor negatives out of the way.

The changing artists really, really didn’t complement one another exempting Kev Walker and Ottley’s work. Ramos’ artwork wasn’t well integrated with the rest of the art at all, as was the case with his work in the Heist arc back in the earlier issues. Gleason’s work I will give a little more of a pass too because as presented it feels so much like it’s own separate story and has consistent art within those pages it’s not really a problem. But with Ramos and Ottley it’s very jarring.

Now it is the lesser evil because I’d rather have Ramos draw some pages and panels rather than the whole issue. Reserving him for, let’s face it, the less important B-plot of the main story whilst Ottley does the heavy lifting on the main story is a great compromise.

Other small complaints I have involve Mary Jane herself and her storyline.

For starters...Carlie Cooper is back. Now she isn’t used badly, it’s just...I hate that character. I don’t think many people have many positives to say about her and there is baggage associated with her. So if she is destined to become MJ’s go to buddy then that’s going to grind my gears (especially when we consider she let MJ risk her life by dating Otto in Superior, what a jerk!) and I’d infinitely prefer a wholesale new character or an old established character (Liz, Glory, Jill Stacy even?).

Buuuuuuuut on the flipside Carlie was better suited to being MJ’s sidekick in this story given she got involved in some of the action. Possibly even seeing her get zapped was Spencer putting in a piece of catharsis for the many fans he knows honestly hate this character.

Secondly we got MJ’s acting career. Now there are three little problems I have with it that might not even be problems. Let me explain.

a)      MJ claims she lost her Secret Hospital job because of the nature of her life. I took that very much as an implication associated with her connection to Spider-Man. Problem is...she didn’t lose her job because of Spider-Man. Her role just happened to be cut back and eventually if I remember correctly she either quit following a deranged fan assaulting her or she was outright fired. Now in defence of her comment and of Spencer, the line doesn’t explicitly mention Peter or anything like that so it could easily be taken as her life being in general crazy regardless. Bear this in mind for something else I’m going to bring up

b)      MJ claims she never liked being famous. That really struck me because of course MJ wanted to be famous from day 1. Now you could easily argue that when we first met MJ she was younger and had yet to experience fame, so now she feels differently. Buuuuuuut she was a model in her adulthood. She pursued acting as a soap star, and as a movie star and as a stage star and took a job at Stark industries and at various points was modelling during those jobs. Soooooooooo what gives? I mean....maybe you could say she hated aspects of being famous but the speech seems weird and inconsistent in and of itself even. I’m hoping I’m just missing something

c)       MJ says she had trouble fitting in and then over did it in social situations. I dunno if that’s really true. It could be bad phrasing on Spencer’s part but really MJ always did fit in, her facade helped her to fit in, it was partially engineered to help her to do that. Is that what he means though?

d)      MJ becoming a famous actress again gives me mixed feelings. Spider-Man is the everyman and whilst temporary fame that comes crashing down is one thing, if she is long term famous it kind of meddles with the everyman aspect of Spider-Man. An aspiring actress, even a low key soap star is different a more if you will ‘domestic’ form of fame. But that’s more a criticism of where this might lead so it could wind up being fine.

One final, final little problem I had was another example of worried where this MIGHT lead. In Kindred’s lair we see a wall depicting different Spider-Heroes and so now I’m facepalming that the climax to his storyline will be a huge crossover event affair that demands I read Miles and Gwen’s and Jessica Drew’s titles.

Again a nitpick at best, at worst something to worry about in the future not the present.

Everything else in the main story was beautiful.

MJ’s connection to acting is restored. Wonderful. It’s my preferred profession for her because it taps into Peter’s double life and her own history with her party girl facade.

The speech was well written and delivered and I liked the meta aspect of her giving it whilst disguised as a famous super hero wife!

Spencer continued to find a way to handle the old criticism lobbied against MJ/the marriage that it Mary Jane simply waited by a window (even though I think that’s fine sometimes) or just got stood up on dates all the time by having MJ have friends she can hang out with. This is one aspect where Carlie, because she is in on the secret, helps a lot I must admit.

Spencer also renders Mary Jane very well rounded.

Look I LOVE seeing instances where Mary Jane shines as cool, as bad ass and the like, but sometimes if handled poorly it can come off as idolizing her.

Spencer avoids this by giving MJ flaws.

She’s jealous of Melanie’s success which she sees as something that could have been her’s.* She has tiny doubts about Peter’s sincerity. She admits she struggles to fit in and feels uncomfortably exposed in the limelight.

But she’s also, brave, self-sacrificing, resourceful and, most importantly in this story, a good actress (apparently being able to impersonate Melanie’s voice...or maybe that’s something no one thought about because this is a non-audio medium).

The effect is to make Mary Jane truly the hero of the story, not just because she is ‘taking point’ in the main story but because she feels complex and nuanced, just as Peter is.

My quibbles above aside, Spencer really is a good Mary Jane writer and for Spider-Man that’s an important consideration for a writer (just as being a good Lois Lane writer or good Alfred writer is for Superman and Batman). He’s done her justice 99% of the time he’s written her and it says an awful lot about him and his priorities for this title that he’d give the lion’s share of a milestone issue over to her.

It also says a lot of his abilities to make good stories out of well...clean up duty.

Let’s be brutally honest here the majority of Spencer’s issues have revolved around stories really designed to fix things after BND and Slott’s run.

Back to Basics fixed Peter and MJ’s relationship and mostly reconstructed Peter’s character by having him own up to the diploma debacle and zero in on who the man was and who the spider was by literally separating the two.

The Heist reconstructed Peter and Felicia’s relationship and fleshed out why MJ and Peter were getting back together as quickly as they did.

Those poorly drawn Bachalo issues fixed Ned Leeds not being dead.

Hunted fixed Kraven not being dead and Shed and more stuff with Felicia

Now this issue has fixed MJ and Peter’s future’s to some extent. Peter is back at ESU and MJ is back to acting. Not only does she now have a Stark free job situation but it’s a job that’s her home away from home as I discussed a bit above.

The issue also does some clean up with Curt Connors, restoring the pre-Hunted status quo and by extension facilitating something else comfortingly familiar by having Connors teach Peter.**

Speaking of Connors, I can’t recall off the top of my head (having not eaten breakfast yet) if Connors had safehouses before now to keep him safe from his family. I know that has been the case in other stories, such as the Forever Young novel from a couple of years ago, but in the comics I can’t recall. If not then it’s a great thing for Spencer to integrate. If so it’s a great thing for Spencer to have remembered and gives Spider-Man a meaningful subplot to work with whilst Mary Jane takes the limelight in the main plot.

Now let’s move onto Mysterio. As I predicted last issue the doctor was Rinehart but I was mistaken in believing it was the real Rinehart. Spencer, and Mysterio, were so good at their jobs that I was successfully fooled into thinking Mysterio really had died last issue. The idea that Rinehart was really Mysterio and Mysterio was really someone else never occurred to me and was an ingenious twist.

But like all good mysteries it had clues right there for us to see as last issue signposted the disappearance of Mysterio’s former doctor,  who we now know was tricked into becoming Mysterio so beck could escape. What sold it was the inner monologue of Rinehart talking about Beck as a separate person. This would’ve been a cheap trick under a lesser writer but Spencer justifies it by claiming Mysterio was method. Just brilliant. As was tying in MJ’s agent and new found fame to Mysterio and his film script.

We also get some more tantalizing tidbits about Kindred. He doesn’t like killing innocent people if he doesn’t have to. The idea of him being an established villain now looks much less likely. And did you notice that when we first see him in the issue...he’s sticking to the wall...surrounded by spiders...and later has them crawling out of his bandages...and is targeting other Spider people...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm????????????????

That about does it for what I call the ‘main main story’, we move now onto what should’ve been epilogues.

There isn’t much to say about the Syndicate pages beyond they were good for what they were, they eloquently tie into the main story and set up the next arc.

Much more interesting are the Gleason pages, and not just because the art looks so nice and so much better than Ramos.

On the one hand I am wary of Spider-Man comics bringing in too much of the shared universe because it messes up a lot of the drama and stakes. But as a little side story meant to set up something else that’s fine and what a set up.

Spider-Man 2099 is back!

Now I feel like I should really catch up on his solo book. I kept buying it but stopped reading it around Civil War II!

I honestly have NO IDEA where this is going beyond thinking it might have something to do with Kindred’s interest in all the other spider people??????

Beyond all that...not much to say.

I’m not going to tell you that I recommend you pick this issue up because....c’mon...you know you already did...and loved it!

   *Importantly, if Spencer intended it this way, MJ missed out on Melanie’s success because of something not  connected to Spider-Man. I was worried the story was going in for this idea that being with Peter has cost Mary Jane a successful career, but in this issue, through Melaine we see that wasn’t the case.

MJ’s life led her to quit a role that was already being reduced but it wasn’t because of Spider-Man stuff at all.

This is not just refreshing and healthy for their relationship, it’s also realistic. Take that every bullshit AU about MJ being famous by not dating Spidey!

**By the way I was going to criticise Connors having both arms in human form but then I double checked issue #2 and that was the case there too. I keep forgetting that he has both arms now it’s just so weird to see.

[douxreviews]

American Gods - ‘A Prayer for Mad Sweeney' Review

"You have a story to tell." "Do I?" "I can see it in your fingers."

American Gods pauses in the penultimate episode of its first season to tell us a story. It's a really good story.

It seems like an odd choice, given that they only had eight episodes in the season to work with, that American Gods should devote almost the entirety of its penultimate episode to telling us an extended Coming to America sequence. It seems like even a stranger choice that they should have almost none of the regular characters appear or even be mentioned.

It should be an odd choice, but it isn't. For three important reasons:

- Neil Gaiman loves telling stories about stories themselves. That was roughly 85% of the Sandman comic's groove. It's not just about the story, it's about how stories themselves can affect a life.

- Essie MacGowan's life is a great story, and is very well told. It's actually surprisingly rare for a television show to excel in both of those things.

- When you actually break it down, this episode isn't just telling us Essie's story. It's also telling us Sweeney's story. And giving us a concrete example of how the old Gods ended up in America. It's demonstrating how the old beliefs die. It's showing us how belief can shape the course of a life, and how it can bring comfort as that life passes. It's telling us what Sweeney thinks about Laura, and why. It's showing us how his and Laura's relationship is evolving through the expediency of telling us the story of his relationship with Essie.  On a fundamental level, this episode completes Sweeney's emotional character arc. The Sweeney that puts his coin back in Laura's chest is not the Sweeney that broke into her hotel room only a few short episodes ago.

I just want to touch on Essie's story before we get into the Sweeney and Laura stuff, because there's one factor that makes it work really, really well. Essie was a servant girl who got her heart broken early, and then did what she had to for herself to survive. She stole without regret. She seduced the ship's captain in order to get back to England and then robbed him blind the second he left again, and she had what is implied to be a lot of sex with the gaoler in order to get pregnant and therefore not be hanged. They were all completely pragmatic choices that she made for herself. She enjoyed many of them and she didn't feel bad about any of them. And the show doesn't demonize her for any of it. Not even for a moment. All of the things she does which society would condemn are presented in exactly the same tone as her telling stories to her children, leaving cream out for the little folk, or being kind to a husband that she essentially conned into marrying her in order to get out of servitude, but whom she seemed to like well enough and whom she apparently made very happy.

None of these actions are presented as good or bad. They're presented, as a whole, as having been her life. Nothing more or less.

That said, the decision to have Emily Browning play both her usual role of Laura and that of Essie MacGowen was a brilliant move. Brian Fuller mentioned in the little after-show interview that they used to do that she has a gift for accents, and he is not wrong. Essie's Irish accent was every bit as believable as Laura's American accent. It was with some surprise that I discovered that she's actually from Australia, which means both are equally false. That's a real gift, as anyone who watched David Boreanez struggle with the task back in the day will attest.

Having Emily Browning play both characters explicitly tells us as viewers that we should be contrasting Sweeney's relationship with the two of them, and that choice really pays off. With Essie, Sweeney is roguish, charming, and open. He clearly treats her as, if not an equal, than at least a compatriot if not a friend. With Laura, Sweeney is bitter and cynical, clearly not thinking of her as being worth his time but being stuck with her in order to get her coin back. Just seeing the difference in him while he sits next to essentially the same woman tells us everything we really need to know about what the years have done to Mad Sweeney.

The mirror imagery serves the entire episode well, really. The usage of Fionnula Flanagan as both Essie's grandmother in the beginning and Essie herself at the end. The usage of Emily Browning as both the woman Sweeney liked and the woman he currently dislikes, and of course, the mirror car accident that finally brings Sweeney to his emotional catharsis. We all kind of assumed that Wednesday had caused the car accident that killed Laura, and that Sweeney was probably involved, right? Even so, as much of a not-surprise as that information was, it was right for them to hold it back until this point. Sweeney has witnessed Laura's kindness in letting Salim go. They've had the heart to heart in the ice cream van about having done bad things, and at that emotionally vulnerable point Sweeney is confronted with essentially the same visuals and experience as the car accident that he himself caused, which had murdered the woman whose animated corpse was currently sitting next to him. At this moment, and no other, he's presented with the thing he wants most. His coin has been knocked out of that same woman, the woman he murdered and who is herself an echo of a woman he liked very much. All he has to do is pick it up and walk away. And he can no longer do that.

That's a proper character journey, that is.

Two things that really seal this final moments into something special. First, thank you to the show for not translating for us whatever Sweeney screams at great length in Irish at this point. It can't possibly be as moving as what we're left to imagine for ourselves. And second, even more thanks for the choice to not have Sweeney tell Laura what he'd just sacrificed for her. As far as she knows she just got back up off the road and they're off again. That was the dramatically right choice.

Such a good story.

Quotes:

Mad Sweeney: "That’s what you get for putting a god in a petting zoo."

Laura: "So, do you love god, or are you in love with god?"

Mad Sweeney: "Can’t a man get a moment alone with his prick?"

Ibis: "Malice draped in pretty can get away with murder."

Essie: "I had my opportunity." Mad Sweeney: "Doesn’t seem right, just giving you the one."

Mad Sweeney: "We’re like the wind. We blows both ways."

Bits and Pieces:

-- The use of 50s music in the Essie scenes is there for a deliberate reason, despite being anachronistic. In visual storytelling, at this point in time, pop hits from the 50s indicate innocence. And more specifically, nostalgia for innocence. Not that the 50s were actually that innocent, but what can you do. The study of the use of symbols in a performed text is called 'semiotics,' if you were wondering. Tellingly, the music cues for Essie only become the 'appropriate' Irish period style when Sweeney comes to collect her at her death.

-- The three ships we first see deliberately visually invoke the whole Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria fairytale version of American history that we like to tell ourselves here in the US. Then it cuts to the interior and they're essentially slavers. A visual metaphor for American attitudes toward its own history. Discuss.

-- Were we supposed to infer that the coin that Essie gave Sweeney early on is his lucky coin that is currently in Laura's xiphoid process, or is it merely another visual echo? The sides we see of each don't match, but I don't think we see the other side of either.

-- Is Tatonka Ska supposed to be the buffalo that Shadow keeps seeing? Is he (she? They?) the 'proper' god of America?

-- I wonder if Pablo Schreiber was told when he got this part how much of it was going to involve public urination. That said, his losing an argument to a raven while he relieved himself was comedy gold. No pun intended.

-- It was sweet that Laura took the first opportunity to tell Salim where the Jinn was so that he could just go directly there and skip the rest of the road trip, but it's also hard not to read that just a little as 'We're not gonna need you for a bit, so why don't you take the rest of the season off and we'll meet you in the season two premiere, k?'

-- The implication seems to be that Essie kept forgetting to leave gifts for the leprechauns because she was too busy having sex. That's a tiny bit slut-shamey, but the episode doesn't dwell on it in any detail, so it's probably not intended as such.

-- The moment when Laura hands the ice cream truck driver everything from Sweeney's pocket and he politely takes the wallet back but leaves the money was a nicely staged bit of physical comedy.

-- This car accident was caused by a rogue bunny running in the road. We learn next week that the road bunnies are in league with Easter, who's all about renewal land rebirth. Did Easter just give Sweeney a push to facilitate some kind of spiritual renewal?

-- The title of the episode appears to be a reference to the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, but unfortunately I've never read it so I can't speak much to it.  I'm not a huge Irving fan, to be honest.

A great story. A great episode. Sweeney and Essie's last conversation makes me cry every time.

Four out of four cups of the best cream

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[planetarywho]

What the hell is going on with the world? It feels like only yesterday I came here to write an eulogy to Brazil's National Museum. St. Sulspice burned, what, weeks ago? And now this. Notre Dame. Another piece of history up in flames.

It's so hard talking about this one. So very difficult. More than all the others, in my heart, even if there are no such things as rankings in history: objectively, it's all equally depressing. But seeing Notre Dame burn felt visceral, knowing it had been built in a time we no longer can access, reflecting in its walls, in its construction, ideals that are foreign to us, but ever so present in as far as we keep hoping for something better, and seeking to shine our own colourful reflections in the world.

I babble. Yesterday - the day of the fire - I started writing, but couldn't go through with it. It just hurt. So, today, I shall try again, to find catharsis somehow, to be able to look at the photos, be them from before or from now, without it feeling like it does.

I know it is selfish and self-centred to write about the impact a tragedy such as that has in my life, and not in the world. But, honestly, what more can be said about its lost for humanity that hasn't already, and by people far more talented and knowledgeable? Having Notre Dame burn is shocking wherever you are, whoever you may be. It's an icon, one of the most recognisable images out there, and it means many different things to different people. What to add, so, other than one of these tiny meanings, these small pieces of a collective mind and memory?

Yesterday, as I was leaving my Modern History class, I saw students covering their mouths, whispering and pointing at their phones. A girl ran out of the classroom. Another went to show whatever it was to the professor, who seemed completely incredulous. I had no clue what was going on, and no desire to know it, and so left the class peacefully. The History floor was filled with people in hushed conversation. There were muffled sobs coming from a side corridor. Still, it was a surprisingly silent commotion. It felt like mourning.

I kept on walking. Being someone who's only finishing leftover courses, if I knew five people in that crowd by name it would've been too many. Their pain felt foreign, and I believed to be so.

After Modern History, as irony is, I went to Medieval Art History. There was also conversation in this corridor, and people wondering if the professor would be there at all, at least on time. Finally, I asked a girl what had happened.

"Don't you know?" She said, pointedly. "Notre Dame is on fire. The spire fell a few minutes ago."

I stared at her for a beat, than thanked her for the information, and just... Paused. Tried to connect those words with what I had in my mind, with the idea of that place, and simply couldn't. It felt unreal.

When my grandmother died, a few years ago, I didn't cry. I was polite and helpful, answering people, helping my dad with funeral arrangements, choosing flowers and calling relatives. It took me months to actually be able to mourn her properly. For the first few days, I felt unreal, as if I was the ghost, floating through other people's lives but never touching them more than in passing, never being solid enough to have a purpose of my own. I was functional, but not quite human, not in a way that could be fully described as such. Until finally crumbling down, all that time later, though I talked about her to people, I did so without picturing her face, or voice, or stories. To think of her was impossible if I wanted to remain in control of myself, so I didn't. Something very similar happened years before, when a close friend died of cancer while I was out of town, and, believing I knew already, someone commented on his funeral (that had taken place less than a week before) during my birthday. The shock took a while to set. It is still bittersweet to see December arriving, every year, after this.

The fire at Notre Dame feels somehow similar to that. When the National Museum crumbled in ash, I actually wept, and could talk about it clearly, be it in real life or online. Now I can only seem to ramble on and on, circling the subject, but never approaching it, never reaching close enough to feel it all. The margins are already overwhelming.

Said Art History class was about gothic vitrals. I think it's fairly obvious that about half the images in the professor's presentation were of said cathedral. I have never seen a classroom like that before. It was as if we all feared making any noise beyond the bare minimum, trying to keep the silence. The professor tried to talk about it at the start. She mentioned how Notre Dame had survived many fires before, as would remain - and if she added a bitter comment under her breath about this being avoidable these days in a way that wasn't in the past, who can blame her? We went through the motions, and dutifully wrote down common themes, techniques, and ecclesiastical changes that were behind the passage from Romanic to Gothic. We asked questions when expected to. She very quickly finished both this subject and the next - paintings, and similar arts -, and said an early goodbye. We left in silence.

It is rare to feel this kind of collective shock in a History course. If you don't know historians, let me tell you: we're loud, when confined in close quarters with our peers, and argumentative as hell. There are little cliques inside de Academia formed by those who follow a certain method, and/or study a certain theme. The ones who follow Foucault are friendly with the ones who like Certeau, and often with the postmodernists. Everyone else - including, on occasion, ourselves - hates the postmodernists with a passion. Most medievalists scoff at the Foucaultians, and are not terribly fond of the Marxists. The Marxists don't really like anyone, but specially the Cultural Historians.

I think I painted the picture: we don't agree a lot. To truly unite us is no easy feat. But everyone was in one kind of mourning or another yesterday. We were all together, working as a collective mind - or, perhaps, a collective heart. There was no place for anything else other than pain.

When I was three, I asked my parents - with all the solemnity only a clueless kid can have - for a very specific present for my fourth birthday: to go to the Louvre. I had seen images of the art on a kids show, you see, and a few books, and believed Paris to be no further from Curitiba than the nearest beach (which is an hour or two by car). So, they sat down with me, and talked about Paris, and explained where it was, and what this distance meant. They showed me yet more pictures in encyclopedias: of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Molin Rouge and, of course, of Notre Dame. Paris became a new Neverland in my mind, a place filled with adventure and magic, as far from boring reality as it could be. I had images of all those places stapled to my walls, talked for hours about the works of art there, and about all the things I'd visit when I grew up ("see, it's not all the Louvre, there are things I wanna see all over the city"). Through the years, my obsessions shifted around, going from one monument or historical site to another, but never truly leaving. At around age seven, during my ancient mythology fase, It was all in the Egyptian and Greek collections, the neoclassic art, the Obelisk. Later, about age twelve, it were the catacombs, and the graves of writers and poets. At around fifteen or sixteen, it was time for the Molin Rouge, and the cafes of Montmartre. There was a time for Versailles, other for the Tower, other for Monet's Gardens.

Notre Dame's first time in the spotlight of my dreams came, like for so many, right after I first saw Disney's Hunchback for the first time. Yes, I know. Such a silly reason, in a way. One of the least contemplative ones. But the place, all the songs with its name, the mixture of scary and wonderful, stuck with me, and it became, for a few months, all I researched and talked about. It came back during my teenage years, when I first read Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and again after I started learning French for the first time, and when I started liking medieval architecture, and when discovered the off-Broadway Disney musical, and...

After time, it became such a pinnacle of my inner Paris, that remembering it, and going to look at its pictures, became a comfortable thing, like talking to an old friend. Sure, we didn't talk as much anymore - sticking to the metaphor - , but whenever we did, nothing had changed. When I got enough money to visit Europe for a couple weeks (after a year of making use of still being with my parents, and saving every penny from all my wages), Paris was at the front of my mind as to where to go. But money was short and the city expensive, I had a new historical obsession (medieval Ireland), and while I can read French well enough, and understand movies when in a good day, I never learned enough to communicate in it; English was so much easier. So, despite a lifelong dream, I went backpacking through Great Britain and Ireland, entering every old church I could find, visiting every castle and fort, seeing as many museums as possible. Paris would always be there.

About a month ago I started studying French again. A friend needs to learn it, and I decided to form a study group with him and a couple others. As the one with some previous knowledge, so far I function almost as the teacher, giving homework for us all to do and guiding pronunciation and grammar. The first week, I looked for musicals in French, and found subtitled versions of both Mozart L'opéra Rock and Notre Dame de Paris, and promptly told them to listen to them. Every day, I fell asleep hearing lyrics about the cathedral, its gargoyles, its majesty. We discussed themes, and sang "Les Temps des Cathedrales" together loudly and boisterously. And all along, it was there. It was a theme, a symbol, something as integral to our existences as most monuments in our own country - moreso than those, in many cases.

Knowing the world continues, but Notre Dame is not there - at least not as before? It's unimaginable. It's utterly surreal. It is to painful to be mourned, to giant to be looked at. Even now, as I try to write something, to find words, what I manage is a giant text about routine, and history, and meaning. Not about the individual feelings, but their shadows, the translucent colours the superimpose on the world. Maybe this is appropriate in some way, and keeping with the foundations that lay with all its architecture. But it is still detached, contemplative, an exercise in prose, not an actual in memoriam, or at least a proper confessional. And it deserved much more, from History just as from all individual statements. It deserved more even than the adoration (be it historical and artistic, like this, or religious, like that of so many) that is being layed at its scorched feet. Honestly, as it happens with all beloved that pass away, it simply deserved to be there, still, and appreciated like we wish it now that it is gone.

Maybe in a few weeks, or months, or years, I can finally cry, and write something coherent, something as heartfelt as it should. Now, I fear too much the idea of staring it in the face, and swing only empty eyesockets looking back. I either face the loss, or remain functional, and breaking down is not s luxury that can be had at the present time, with thesis to finish, classes to give, sick dogs to look after. I'll continue to wiggle around the hole that this new fire burned into my soul, and walk on, until the second it decides to swallow me hole - for a bit, at least.

I thought of many good phrases for an ending, but don't really feel like being poetic or clever is an honest conclusion to a memorial - which, in a way, this is part of. So, I'll simply stop writing, go to bed, and hope I wake up and realize this was nothing but a really bad dream.