Riddle
From Robert Stone's Damascus Gate:
"God… that Great
(See the Web site "Stone, not Wood.")
Christianity may be a religion of lies, but it sometimes has a certain charm. If in fact there is a heaven, part of it must strongly resemble Paris in the 1890's, as suggested by the picture below.
From today's New York Times:
"The Very Rev. Sturgis Lee Riddle, dean emeritus of the American Episcopal Cathedral in Paris, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 94.
His death was reported on the cathedral's Web site."
From the cathedral's Web site,
a Christmas card:
Après l'Office à l'Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Noël 1890
(After the Service at Holy Trinity Church,
Christmas 1890) Jean Béraud
"Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."
— Ernest Hemingway,
Death in the Afternoon, Ch. 11
"There is never any ending to Paris…."
— Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
See, too, my Paris-related entry for December 9, the date of Riddle's death, and recall that in Wild Palms, "the much sought-after Go chip [is] the missing link in the Senator's bid to be immortal, 'like Jesus.' "
Scene from Wild Palms