Off the Cliff

This article on home libraries makes dispiriting viewing. "Traditional home library with dark-stained wooden furniture and ornate details"-- and open two floor cathedral ceiling and dark panelling all the way up and and and. Number three is much closer to the kind of rooms I live in, but even so-- where are all these huge high ceilings to be found? Not in my house. Abandoned abbeys, yes.

Which is probably a good thing because seriously, folks, ladders are not for the arthritic.

"Turn the window under the staircase into a cozy reading nook with built-in bookshelves." What window under the staircase? "If it’s spacious enough, a home office can also accommodate a sitting area." That's not a home office, guy, that's a conference room. "It’s a great way of saving space in your home office." And leaves room for the cannon in the front hallway.

Also vertical bookshelves strike me as a very bad idea.

Sitting at home waiting for people to call inevitably leads to Links.

Excerpt from Tsukumogami, Japanese household objects that wake up after their 100th birthday and become animate.

Name: Kyorinrin
Description: When ancient scrolls of wisdom sit around gathering dust, ignored by the humans who own them, they come together- compelled by the wisdom of the ages- and form a kind of goofy-looking dragon spirit. It’s kind of a vain thing. Puts its most ornate volumes on the outside, like a paper kimono or something. Even decorates with tassels. With its bird-like beak and long arms, it assaults the ignorant owners who ignored its priceless treasures and knowledge.

(There are of course many more of these. A possessed clock? They're all possessed if they have alarms. But one could argue that zorigami are the reason that clockmakers tend to go strange over time, like papyrologists do. Or do papyrologists just go blind? I forget now.)