and a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush
hello!
I think about houses a lot. So much so that I am genuinely afraid to check if I began my last newsletter in just this way. I might have. I’m not going to check, y’all know what you’re getting from me at this point. The last letter was about magical houses, so at least I won’t be repeating myself on that front. This is about houses as characters in people’s lives. Not in that they’re sentient, but that they can hold such incredible significance in a person’s life that they might as well be people.
I read all of the Anne of Green Gables books at a young age, and I read them repeatedly. Not only is Anne’s journey through life marked by the places she lives, but she names the places. She names nearly everything around her, in fact, and she’s not subtle about it. She calls the first house she lives in as a married woman “The House of Dreams.” I’ve always found the naming of homes unspeakably charming. There’s a sense, I think, that names belong to grand homes; manors, which might be passed down through a family. Anne disagrees, and so do I.
I just read In the Great Green Room, a biography about Margaret Wise Brown, who wrote Goodnight Moon, as well as many other beloved books for children. I came across it while shelving at the bookshop, and what attracted me to it was the revelation that Margaret was bisexual (with the usual caveat that “bisexual” is a modern term and applying it to historical figures is always tricky), and that she had a little house on the coast of Maine which she called “The Only House.” Her relationship with The Only House was one of the great ones of her life, and got me thinking about other people I love who had deep connections with their homes.
Katharine Hepburn had Fenwick, a house on the Long Island Sound in Connecticut. I read her autobiography many years ago, but the thing that stood out to me despite all of the hollywood stories, was how joyfully she wrote about Fenwick (“Fenwick is and always has been my other paradise.”). William Morris had his Red House, Edward Gorey the Elephant House, and Josephine Baker had her Château des Milandes, a relationship which was sadly doomed (the upkeep on a 15th Century French castle is no joke). All this to say, there’s nothing to stop you from naming a house. Nothing to stop you from loving a house as if it is a friend.
My little house here has become a friend. It’s small, and filled with books, plants, and pets (we have a dog, a cat, and a tortoise, collectively). It has its oddities, normal old house things like the fact that my bathroom has no outlets or towel bars, as well as its own weirdness. There’s a sconce in the hallway which seems to be entirely decorative–there’s no switch which will turn it on. And yes, it has a name, one we stumbled into this summer after weeks of rain and horrible humidity caused an outbreak of mold in some old pieces of furniture. We spent days cleaning everything in the house and the pervasive smell gave rise to its name: The Vinegar House.
Dog Thing
Mixed Media
A good movie: Shaolin Soccer. I first saw Shaolin Soccer many years ago, and returning to it was a surreal delight. If you’re in the US, it’s on Netflix. Go nuts.
A good book: Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones. I’m still snatching up Diana Wynne Jones books when I see them, and this is one I bought just before I moved and then forgot about. It’s an adult fiction book–the first of such by her that I’ve read–but it does the blending of genre that she so excelled at. In this case, she’s blending science fiction with Arthurian fantasy. It’s a delight. Also a delight: Band Sinister, the newest novel from K.J. Charles, is a warm embrace of a book. One of the most genuinely loving romances I’ve ever read.
A good tv show: Doctor Who. I am so, so, so charmed and enamored of the new Doctor, enthusiastically played by Jodie Whitaker, and her new companions and the new writing being done for them all. I haven’t felt this excited about the show in ages.
A good album: Sonderlust by Kishi Bashi. I picked this up on vinyl after hearing it on the Hilda soundtrack (btw: have you watched Hilda? WATCH HILDA), and have been listening to it nonstop since.
A good fic: Con tanto amore by tacroy. This isn’t a new fic, or even new to me, but reading Hexwood got me thinking about other Diana Wynne Jones works, which got me thinking about this, my fave fic about the Chrestomanci series. Magic boy realizes he loves his best friend, panics and accidentally makes his friend think he’s dead, magics himself to Italy in a hurry.
Lastly
bye! I won’t write about houses again next time, probably! Maybe!