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[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

'"You have ever been a herald of woe. Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse."..."Here you come again! And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected. Why's should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow? Tell me that."'-LOTR pg 669

"Be vigilant! But for Gandalf Stormcrow you would have seen a host of foes"- LOTR pg 981

Gandalf legit heard an insult and went 'yup that's me' and started using it to describe himself.

In reality, Gandalf is easier to poke fun of, than to actually relate with, because he is powerful, ancient and wise. But he is also dry humoured and short tempered and just exhausted by the continual fall and decline of the age. The kings/stewards he attempts to counsel often try to put him in his place, while all he ever seems to want to do is adopt a gaggle of short people, and make sure some of them outlast him.

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"All the "great secrets" under the mountains had turned out to be just empty night: there was nothing more to find out, nothing worth doing, only nasty furtive eating and resentful remembering. He was altogether wretched. He hated the dark, and hated the light more: he hated everything and the Ring most of all."..."he hated it and loved it as he hated and loved himself."-LOTR pg 72-73

Gollum always reads as an image of hunger to me. From his earliest beginnings of a man who wanted to know more, to a creature at the bottom of the mountain starving and yet unable to die, to a being who crawled from Mordor, to the Shire and back again all for his precious. Never do we read him content, and that hits somewhere close to home.

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

*Aggressively shaking my arms*

"The bad vibes! it's in my bones!"

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"'All I am asking you to do is give me directions to the statue you were telling me about - the one of the elderly fox teaching some young squirrels and other creatures.'...'the statue is in the North-Western Corner. It is one of my favorites too!'...'May the house and it's beauty shelter us both. Your friend."

- Piranesi pg.80-82

Personally unsure if the statue was supposed to look more like a fox or a fox-dog, meh.

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"a full moon stood in the center of the single doorway, flooding the hall with light."..."they were not isolated individuals but represtation of a crowd." "I almost forgot to breathe. For a moment I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the world there were thousands."-piranesi pg 59

I feel like Piranesi sometimes is just a different perspective of 'when you stare into the abyss', but if we like this abyss and the abyss likes us.

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"On the way the house showed me many wonders. In the Fourty-fifth vestibule I saw a Staircase that had become one vast bed of mussels. One of the statues that lined the Wall of the staircase was all but engulfed in a blue-black carapace of mussels with only half a staring face and one white flung out arm left free." -Piranesi pg. 55,56

One thing I love about this book is how much Piranesi stays out of auto pilot. He lives to see the world around him, and I wish I was more like that

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"As far as possible I kept to the dry halls where statues are not clothed in rags of seaweed or armoured with encrustations of seashells, where the air is not scented with the tides:"-piranesi pg 35

Might as well showcase a younger Piranesi's fears

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"Water was not a problem; most halls contain falls of fresh water (sometimes you will see a statue almost bisected by the water"..."6 plastic bowls."...the cloud coloured ones are troublesome." "Whenever I put them somewhere to catch water they immediately fade into the surroundings"- Piranesi pg. 35, 53

-I don't think I would fare any better looking for 3 bowls in an entire maze

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"From there I intended to descend to the Drowned Halls, but to my dismay I found that the hall was full of clouds: a chill, grey, wet blank."... "I was more concerned about the statues. From what I could see these depicted human or demi-human figures, all two or three times my own stature and all in the throws of violent action"-piranesi pg 36-37

Have I talked about how good this book is at foreshadowing, cause yah...

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"I saw a bright yellow speck floating on the gentle Tide beneath the Fourth Western Hall Not understanding what it could be, I waded out into the waters and caught it "..."it is possible that it was part of a type of sea vegetation that I have never seen, but I am doubtful."..."it's surface repelled Water, like something meant to live in the Air."- Piranesi pg. 17

My favorite chapter title goes to this one :)

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of three Tides."... "I squeezed myself into the Woman's niche and waited until I heard the tides roaring and felt the walls vibrating with the force of what was about to happen."-Piranesi pg 3

I wonder if I would have loved this book as much if he got his math right, and the child of the house was allowed to remain a passive observer of the event.

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"the two statues flank the eastern door of the first western hall."..."Their trunks emerge from the wall at their waists; their arms push back to push mightily; their muscles swell with the effort and their faces are contorted." "They seem to be in pain, struggling to be born, the struggle may be fruitless and yet they do not give up."-piranesi pg. 16

To have the commitment of the horned giants, (2026 energy, right?)

Anyways, more to follow unless someone bests me with a quick draw and innundates me with beautifully rendered illustrations of this book (because there are too many cool descriptions and not enough fan art) :)

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

"an old man passed me, he looked sad and tired. He had broken veins on his face and a bristly white beard. As he screwed up his eyes against the falling snow, I realized I knew him."..."I wanted to seize hold of him and say to him: *in another world you are a king, noble and good! I have seen it!* But I hesitated a moment too long and he disappeared into the crowd."- Piranesi pg. 244

It is weird to draw our child of the house shaved with a hair cut and in a suit, but hey! Here's an attempt!

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

Piranesi pg. 242

"In my mind Raphael is better represented by a statue in an antechamber that lies between the fourty-fifth and sixty-second northern halls"..."one gets the sense of a huge darkness surrounding her; above all I get the sense that she is alone, perhaps by choice or perhaps because no one else was courageous enough to follow her into the darkness."

We all need a bit of Raphael in our lives- I hope I will revisit this one

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

Growing herbs to dry is not cost effective but...

(mini rant)

I am not a full-on gardener. I don't even have the space for that, but I did grow a couple of herbs in flower pots this year.

I had to buy dirt, I had to buy the plants, and then a few months later they got picked, hung to dry for a couple weeks, and then I had to remove the leaves from the stems. In the end, I had like a half cup off one plant, and the others I didn't even bother collecting.

If you believe in a time=money economy, this doesn't add up, and you are better off buying from somewhere else.

A true economical model would mean getting trimmings from someone else's perennials, starting several plants, consistently watering, pruning at the right time to boost growth, fertilizing, harvesting multiple times a year, and wintering them so they last till next year.

You might get more for less money if you did it that way, but it takes time. Most people I know are not that time-rich.

BUT

I didn't buy them just to eat.

I bought them because on a summer morning, I want to step outside, drink my coffee, enjoy the flowers, and smell the thyme.

I bought them because I want to get a good whiff when stepping outside in the rain, so even if I have to run just to do something I hate it makes my day just a little bit better.

I bought them because if I can keep them alive, then even if I fail at actively doing anything else productive, I get to watch something I did grow into something better.

That matters more than a jar of herbs sitting in my cupboard.

(I also don't need three cups of each type of herb every single year.)

So, should you grow your own herbs? Sure, if you can find the value in growing things.

However, if it's just going to be another thing to add to your plate and leave you panicking, don't worry about it. Buy from your store, remind yourself that at least you season your food, and move on.

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

woke up thinking about a graph, don't remember the dream or what anyone is supposed to do with it, but here we are

[iforgotwhyiwalkedintotheroom]

Story prompt

Once, just once I want to find a story that’s Samurai vs Ninja, but actually doing their historically accurate jobs. aka a pyromaniac stage crew facing off a bunch of firefighters between jigs.