sundries

[rm]

I have, perhaps, neglected to mention The Piano in the Hallway. It's on the landing of the floor below us. It's clearly a vintage upright that I'd put at around 1930 based on the cabinetry on it. It's gorgeous; it's also in rough shape and needs, at minimum refinishing.

Here's the thing: I don't know if someone is getting rid of it or if it's living in the hall while they do some renovations. I do know I've heard someone in the apartment it's near playing, and perhaps teaching, in the past. And it seems gauche to ring their bell and say "hey, is The Piano in the Hall up for grabs?"

Also, I'm afraid it has bedbugs. Really. They love little wooden crevices. Additionally, we have nowhere to put it. But I'm still intrigued.

This morning as I was leaving for work, there was a woman who clearly lives in the apartment right next to the one from which the piano was emitted (these two doors are adjacent to each other at about a 120-degree angle) complaining, loudly (in Spanish, so I only caught about 70% of what she said) to the super that she can barely get in and out of her apartment due to The Piano in the Hallway and Something Must Be Done.

She's absolutely right, even if a piano is less grievous than the hideous mattress that lived in the hall last week or the ongoing situation with the severed doll heads that pop up periodically or that one time someone spilled a can of red paint down the stairs.

But it's a piano, as the super told her. And no one knows what to do about it or who to ask or if it's there for the taking or if it has bedbugs or what.

Rokeby House, a crumbling mansion on the Hudson is home to artists, Astor and Livingston descendants, and their friends. The people living there largely don't venture into the front rooms, left as a shrine to earlier generations. This is a weird/magical one folks.

Cool word thing about Welsh and recycling. via adammaker.

A feminist Victorian-era sex survey has been rediscovered. via justpat.

Drugging kids to give parents a break (or for amusement or punishment) is abuse. Um... no, really?

Phaal is a super-hot curry with ten types of peppers in it. Cooks wear protective masks while making it at Brick Lane Curry House in New York, and the dish is attracting rowdy tables that high-five each other for eating it. Time to watch going out for an English again, ne?

Jesus christ, newyorkers is now the most useless community ever! Someone set up an intro post, this was helpful until some selfish special snowflake posted her intro not in comments. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.

Other lives: coyotegoth found an old pic of me at the Deathly Hallows book release party at Books of Wonder, entertaining some random kid whose parents came up to me and declared "Snape is his favorite." I don't recall why I happened to have Lucius's cane in those shots.

Last night on Angel and Buffy - Wesley is all dub-con and the Watchers' headquarters blows up.

Despite the inherent idiocy/crackiness of pretty much everything Connor has introduced to the plot, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in "Soulless." Is Angelus more the devil (look at the name) than the Beast? Are they two halves of what we think of as the Devil? One is the sweet, sweet liar, of course (and lies with the truth, corrupting what is good) and one is brute force. If so, why is this devil divided from himself and how does this echo the self-division in Angel/Angelus? In what way might Connor represent the union of these forces and does that make him very good or very bad?

Okay, so Angelus sows seeds of discord. The rift between Gunn and Fred is widening; Wesley has hardly truly returned to the fold (let's not forget about the whole thing where he was fucking Lilah and he had Justine locked in his closet, OMFG), and seriously did anyone think everyone was watching the locking away of Angel's soul because they were scared that like Wes stole Connor he'd steal that? (I'm betting Connor stole the soul, btw, since he's having daddy issues right now).

And then Wesley kisses Fred, and jeez, the only sex scenes on this show that have ever been hot are Wesley's. Damn. Even if it was squicky and Fred didn't know how to react and Gunn walked in before she could either hit Wes or go for it (I understand why this happened narratively, but talk about robbing her of her agency, which is mostly what happens with Fred, and when it doesn't it's always like "wait, whut?" It's like all her character development happens off-screen).

Meanwhile, over on Buffy all this shape-shifting shit is confusing and pretty much everyone other than Willow is pissing me off. Also, don't let the awesome principal be evil, I really dig him.

AND IS GILES OKAY?

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[rm.livejournal.com]

re: snake stick: As Severus does, being a house elf.