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May 26, 2003
What's In A Name?
Okay... about this blog's name.
Four years ago, I bought a house here in Concord, NH. It's an older house, though not so much so by local standards... built in 1920. Somewhen in its history, an owner decided they didn't like the original staircase upstairs (which was narrow and steep... I know because I've been in another house locally that has the same floorplan and is unmodified). And so the original staircase became a bookcase (on the ground floor) and a closet (upstairs) and a new staircase was built on the opposite side of the house.
This staircase twists around in an uncomfortable way, no two stairs are exactly the same size (as I found when I tried to put carpet bits on them to provide traction lest I trip over cats and break my fool neck), the pitch is inconsistent, the wall they run along is at an oblique angle to the side of the house (rather than the familiar and comfortable 90 degrees), the roof above the stairs has a different slope than the stairs do, and, in general, it looks dangerous and unstable. In fact, they're quite soundly built, just not aesthetically designed at all, unless the chosen aesthetic was "clumsy" or "ugly".
The first few times Julia and Lou visited, they demurred climbing the odd, twisty-looking stairs, deeming them "too weird" to possibly be used. Jeanne was less cautious her first visit, but then the computer was upstairs and she had things she needed to attend to using it. Or, at least, she did brave them after saying for the first two days that they made her feel queazy... but she did have a touch of the flu at the time. And, as Lovecraft fans, roleplayers, and serial exaggerators, the clunky architecture quickly mutated into something eldritch and strange, and became known as...
Well, you read the blog's title.
Posted by ghoul at May 26, 2003 11:37 AM
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Comments
Hey, it's the legendary number cruncher Jack Gulick. Small world, and thanks for the blogroll linkage.
Posted by: Bryant at May 28, 2003 10:46 AM
"Legendary"? That's a bit much... But I fear number-crunching is my lot in life.
It's good to be here, after lots of friendly pestering when I posted long rants in other folk's comment areas rather than just getting my own blog.
Glad to do the link... I've been reading along at your site for a couple of months now, so I knew it belonged.
Posted by: Ghoul at May 28, 2003 11:04 AM
Welcome, Jack.
I'll be "tuning in" often.
Posted by: Arref at May 30, 2003 01:45 PM
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