Notre Dame rooster - old, new, and mine
For those unfamiliar, some "dives" have knickknacks with nostalgic, even personal ones with deep emotional meaning to the proprietors and clients that might go back for years. At the locale of my "happy" hours in the past few years there is a shelf high up near the ceiling with miscellaneous items. I have unfailingly been drawn to one of the roosters.
With the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral on December 8 being in the news, this dive rooster has come to be reminiscent of the cathedral's from the 2019 fire. In no way did I set out to attempt to acquire it, although I'll admit to coveting it. The proprietor is the widow of the founder of the place and has kept things although she has upgraded it in many ways. We have had discussions of lots of things, among them how I collect bells and such. I told her how I have gifted a bell to 3 or 4 of my previous dives, with the funny line that all of the places I gave a bell to went on to go out of business. She said in shock, "Well, don't give ME a bell!" But the other day as I looked at the rooster with the Notre Dame rooster in mind, I asked her whether all those shelf things were bought by her husband or given to him by customers, and she said yes. We talked about collecting, like, useless in the end, what to do with stuff nobody treasures like us and don't want. She agreed, saying that she had given some things to somebody who appreciated them. I showed her the pictures of the Notre Dame rooster, old and new, and said that the one on the shelf looked like it. She brought it down for me to look at, and as she saw my attraction, she intuited my coveting and immediately said, "I'll give it to you." Of course I protested, unconvincingly, and she set about dusting it with eyes welling up. Mine welled up, too.
Up on the shelf, it was striking, but down in the hands, it is *very* heavy, of beautiful artisanship, maybe of brass. I gave her the spare $20 bill on me, but the next morning stopped in by surprise to add $80. She protested, but I left it and left.
Below: Top left, the Notre Dame old rooster; top right, the new one. Below, MINE.
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/notre-dame-cathedral-gets-new-spire-and-golden-rooster-180983465/
The return of these two distinctive features marks a poignant milestone in the cathedral’s reconstruction
.... While the rooster has long been a national emblem of France and a symbol of Christianity, this particular bird, which sports flame-like wings, is also meant to resemble a phoenix, signifying endurance in the wake of the devastating 2019 fire.
“Since [the fire], we have worked on this rooster, [the] successor, which sees the flame carried to the top of the cathedral as it was before, more than 96 meters from the ground,” said chief architect Philippe Villeneuve, who designed the new weathervane, per Thomas Adamson of the Associated Press. “It is a fire of resurrection.”
Before the rooster left the ground, it was blessed by the Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich during a ceremony that took place behind the cathedral. The original rooster, which sustained damage but survived the fire, will eventually go on view in a museum, reports Reuters’ Lucien Libert. ....
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= new reply since forum marked as read
So, the above - *spontaneous* - acquisition was not the first. All my bells and stuff have been purchases at flea markets, second hand places, and such. But this, below, was like the rooster.
Some 30 years ago, I stopped by a dive far from here, and noticed this ceramic figure almost a yard high. The place was buzzing, doing well, and I asked the owner where he got it (so I might get one), or whether he would sell it to me. He said no, wouldn't sell it because it was the place's patron or good luck piece. Fine. So, about ten years later I stopped in and the place was on its last legs, one customer. The attendant now might have been the son. Way in a corner, covered in dust and spider webs, was the figure. I asked the fellow whether I could buy it. He readily agreed, for the price of my paying a beer for him and the customer. I paid the beers and added a nice bill. The paint job in the pics is my doing.
