Adieu, old friend

Recent links of note:

Louvre and Orsay shut down due to flood threat
Victoria Stapley-Brown, The Art Newspaper
A frightening dispatch from Paris: the same rains that cancelled a day of tennis at Roland-Garros—quelle horreur—have caused major flooding of the Seine, threatening artworks in both the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay and resulting in the temporary closing of both institutions. Precautions are being taken, including the moving of works stored underground to higher floors, and the museums hope to reopen soon, after the waters have receded.

Then They Came (Maybe) For The £50
Andrew Stuttaford, National Review
In the EU, no bill is safe. Would that I spoke of bills in the legislative sense—of course, those EU bills are not only safe, but also ever proliferating. Instead, it’s the €500 bill that’s under duress. Soon, the ECB will no longer issue the currency, citing its propensity to “facilitate illicit activities.” And in turn Britain is considering the removal of the £50 note, in the interest of stanching tax evasion. The trend towards the elimination of cash is alarming, as Andrew Stuttaford perceptively notes at National Review, for the fact that cash is “a vital element in the preservation of the rights of the individual against the presumption of the state.” But in the EU, l’État c’est toi—no need for cash, then.

From our pages:

Mixing memory & desire
Dominic Green
On Patrick Modiano’s deliberate obscurantism.

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