Quick Take: Down in the Catacombs

A charming little place...

The Wall Street Journal ran an article recently on the culture that's sprung up in Paris' catacombs, with clubs and restaurants opening up underground, and also of explorers venturing into the lesser-known and unfrequented sections. I once read of how authorities once discovered the location of an illegal movie theater and club down in there (disappointingly, the movies they found were distressingly mundane), and another time I saw something on TV featuring some Blair Witch-esque footage found in a video camera abandoned down there, where the bearer was moving along through the tunnels in an increasing state of panic, then finally dropping the device and last seen fleeing out of sight. (Probably faked, but still, fairly nifty.)

Since this blog is partially founded in romantic and eerie visions of Paris (I'm sure that when I get back to the real City of Lights I shall be most disappointed), and we do like the idea of all the best and most proper cities having catacombs (alas, something of which Washington has a paucity, save for some replica catacombs under the Franciscan Monastery; one supposes all the decent catacombs have been taken over by the Department of Homeland Security), I'll post a link to the story here. Read and dream.