Silent Servants...

Silent Servants...

... of the Used, Abused, and Utterly Screwed Up.

A Secular Franciscan looks at the world...
with a more jaundiced eye than ever...
and lots of ellipses for you to fill in the missing text...
(with thanks to Thomas S. Klise for the title)



Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Why

am I so fascinated by tunnels?

Paris Sewers: Exploring the dark underbelly of the City of Light

The most heart-rending part of the story:

" Bruneseau found a number of interesting artifacts during his explorations, ... to the skeleton of an orangutan that had escaped from a zoo several years previously."
I feel most sad thinking about an intelligent animal that took refuge from humans in the sewers and died there, not understanding where he was and why he had been held prisoner. (I've said before that I relate too well to the animals and not well enough to the humans.)


2 comments:

Joel A. Shaver said...

I love them too, don't know why! I really like this article on the Paris catacombs:

http://www.infiltration.org/drains-catacombs.html

Also, just heard on the radio about a book on people who live in the storm drains under Las Vegas, which are much more interesting than I would have thought!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97800190

James said...

I'll check both of those links out. Looking at the 'infiltration.org' address of the one, it reminds me of the Urban Exploration websites. That is something that I've always found fascinating as well, though as I've gotten older I've lost a lot of the skills and abilities needed to get into the types of places they do. I did some similar things in my younger years, but now with access to good lighting and inexpensive but sturdy equipment and clothing it would be much more fun, I think!