#guest article

I am incredibly honored to have gotten to interview Hiroshi Nagahama (Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mushi-shi, The Flowers of Evil) about his upcoming anime adaptation of Junji Ito's cult-classic horror manga, Uzumaki! If you're a horror fan like me, you're probably looking forward to it's premiere on Adult Swim very soon--so I was excited to ask him about it and what kind of horror has influenced him and his work over the years. Check it out on Anime News Network at the link above!

                                Collection Highlights

Azurite

Chemical formula: Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2 (copper carbonate)

Color: Electric to very dark (almost black) blue

Hardness: Semi-soft (3.5-4)

Crystal system: Monoclinic

Occurrence: Uncommon

Health risks: None

Wow factors:

- Spectacular color not seen with many minerals!

- Usually grows with green malachite and can sometimes grow in bands with it forming unique specimens.

Care tips:

- Azurite is sensitive to high heat and humidity. Prolonged exposure to a hot and humid environment may cause the specimen to wear down and become malachite.,For this reason, do not clean with water, store in direct sunlight, or use a heated lamp to light it.

- Store in a cool, dry cabinet and clean with a blub blower.

Locality of these pieces:  Unknown, but a very good possibility it was from Bisbee, Arizona which is one of the best localities for azurite in the world!

Price range: Small pieces such as azurite “Blueberries” are common and very affordable (usually less than $10). Nice thumbnails can range from $20-80 depending on the quality. Nice cabinet pieces can be quite expensive depending on color and quality. Expect large specimens to cost over $100.

How to Be Better Than Everyone by Caterina Primrose

First, before starting this article, I would like to make clear that this is not a guide on how to be Caterina Primrose. No one will ever have the ability to be Caterina Primrose but myself. Try as you may, it simply cannot be done. However, this will allow you to be your own version of Caterina Primrose. When asked by Miss Pinkly Breakfast to write this article, I admit, I was thrilled. Her request was a delightful one, and I am proud to let my fans take a peek inside the world of a woman they idolize.

My most important advice to you, is to simply own who you are.

Cliche, isn’t it? Yes. Own it. All of it. Good and bad. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most sickening human being to exist, or the spawn of the very Light itself. Accepting who and what you are is the first step in the confidence that creates superiority. If you have accepted all your faults and flaws, no one can tell you anything you do not already know. This already gives you the upper hand and often creates shock when you agree with your attacker. They cannot penetrate you, because you’ve already found peace with yourself. Now, I understand that this is a lot easier said than done. Self love and acceptance is often the most powerful but silently won war.

Why is it so hard, you ask?

Society.

As an actress, I am an artist, a child of the revolution, some may say. Artists see the world differently, and seek to share these observations through their art-form, in my case, theatre. Through my artistically fueled experiences of self realization, I noticed that everything is only a concept that we feed truth into. Morals, definitions, languages, gender, right and wrong - it only has as much power as we give it. In a small example, take trends and the way they change over time. They flood through the papers, media, fashion companies, everyone buys one and then are washed out just as quickly and replaced with the next best thing. This enthusiasm for this item, whatever it may be, was created by normal individuals with an agenda and like blinded sheep, society follows. In the very same way, these concepts that we abide by were created by individuals no different from you or I, with motives in which we fulfill by misplacing our trust and not questioning.

In conclusion, to owning who you are, who has the place to say what is morally correct? Society changes their views and opinions based on circumstance, no one knows your personal circumstances but you. Killing is illegal except in self defense or war. War is the justification of killing for another man’s agenda, in which, I repeat, we blindly follow.  To not shift the creature you were born to be to succumb to the community’s concept of acceptability makes you a true work of art. Great art will always be twenty to fifty years ahead of its time. People are often afraid of what they do not understand or threatens their security, and therefore will seek to dampen your ignition. If you’re bold enough and recognize your whole truth, you can become the type of Caterina Primrose that men start wars over.

Here are some more small points to guide you in your superiority

Always take care of your physical appearance.

Beauty is a necessity in confidence. Make sure you feel your very best

Find a successful and ambitious partner.

This often turns into a very unnecessarily controversial topic. Are we, as living creatures, not allowed to have standards? Should we not strive for the very best and never settle? What of our future children? Do we seek to give them all the tools to be successful? They may claim you to be a gold digger, but the term is endearing! It shows you care for yourself and your future. You are are a sensible human being with ambition.

Only order diet water when hydrating with little umbrellas in the drink

Own a poodle (Preferably a black one, because black goes with everything, but any color will suffice)

Appreciate those who love and support you

Hire an entourage for security

Have someone for everything you’d normally do yourself

Use all of Caterina Primrose’s products

This includes my perfume, Cateroma, my tobacco product that comes in both cigar and cigarette form, Primrose Premiums, as well as knock offs of my illustrious wardrobe made out of Dalaran City! All on sale for buy one get one half off this holiday season!

This wraps up the basis of How To Be Better Than Everyone!

With high hopes,

~ The Caterina Primrose

[Editor’s Note: Hello, Friends! I am in Europe with limited internet access, but fortunately I prepared for this. My gifted colleague Jackson will be doing two installments of Looking Around about a subject he is an expert on: rowhouses - specifically in the mid-Atlantic region. I hope you all enjoy his wonderful contributions to this series!] 

Please excuse the formatting as I am typing this on a tablet and will edit the article to include links and additional formatting at a later date. 

ROWHOUSES: URBAN LIVING AT ITS BEST


By: Jackson Gilman-Forlini 

 In 1959, author Jane Jacobs visited Boston’s North End neighborhood while preparing to write “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”. Prior to her arrival, the North End had been dismissed by urban planners as a slum; however, Jacobs discovered a neighborhood that was old but still vibrant with community life. She met with a young butcher who provided evidence of the neighborhood’s health by pointing out a rowhouse down the block that had been recently rehabbed. About its homeowner, the butcher remarked to Jacobs: “That man could live anywhere. Today, he could move into a high-class suburb if he wanted to. He wants to stay here. People who stay here don’t have to, you know. They like it.” [1] 

 What was it about that rowhouse that attracted this man and his family? In American culture, the 1950s are synonymous with suburban tract development (Think: Levittown and Leave it to Beaver.) By 1959, no one was building rowhouses--a style that was then seen by mainstream culture as hopelessly out of date and associated with poverty. Yet, in the midst of all this, why would a reasonable middle class family voluntarily chose to live in a rowhouse? 

Rowhouse Basics 

 The rowhouse, townhouse, or terraced house is a house that shares a wall on either side with another house. These houses are all based off of a fairly basic concept: the idea that people living in a densely populated urban environment want to live close to one another while maintaining some semblance of autonomy. In contrast to the apartment building or tenement, rowhouses are adjacent to one another but open onto the street independently. 

 There is some disagreement over what to call this kind of house. In the US, the most generic term for houses built as a single unit seems to be “townhouse.” For groups of townhouses built together that display serialized repetition of form, the preferred term seems to be “rowhouse,” particularly in the mid-Atlantic region where they are most prevalent. 

In the UK, “terraced houses” or simply “terraces” are used to describe rowhouses, while the term “townhouse” denotes a wealthy mansion located within a city. The rowhouse is amazingly adaptable to whatever period of architectural style it happens to be built in, because it follows a basic and easily replicated formula: take a rectangular box taller than it is wide, cover it with a roof, and repeat. 

Using variations in size, ornament, and shape, rowhouse builders are able to adapt the rowhouse for any style or circumstance. In the 20th century, as the middle class left urban center for the suburbs, the rowhouse fell out of favor for semi-detached and detached houses. However, the popularity of rowhouses has rebounded in recent years, proving that they are still a highly viable option for 21st century urban residencies. 

The housing stock produced by rowhouse builders shows a keen understanding of space efficiency, comfort, and elegant design. Origins and Stylistic Development The American rowhouse has its origins in the 18th century Georgian-style terraces of London, although earlier townhouses date back to the Middle Ages and through the Renaissance and Baroque periods in Europe. Particularly in the Netherlands, townhouse development grew prior to the 18th century. Each of these Dutch townhouses was built independently and ornamented uniquely, exhibiting extravagance of great variety. [2]

Dutch townhouses in Amsterdam display great variety of ornament within a single block. Photo courtesy of Jeff Bessen. 

These 18th century Georgian style terraced houses in London are examples of the direct forerunner to the American rowhouse. The popularity of neoclassicism at the time of their construction resulted in a unified and mathematically proportioned edifice. Photo by author.

In contrast, the appearance of 18th century British terraced houses were coordinated so as to form a unified whole. Compared to the highly decorative houses of Amsterdam, Georgian-style facades were stripped of ornament. In the process, their dimensions and proportions took on a more important role in projecting a sense of scale, balance, and elegance. This shift was consistent with the aesthetic trends of the Age of Enlightenment, when architects sought to symbolically interpret the neoclassical principles of reason and logic into physical material. In many cases, the proportions of Georgian rowhouses were based on the golden mean and were intended to mimic the classical columns and orders. [3]

More than just an edifice, the coordinated rowhouse block achieves the aesthetic brilliance of horizontality through the repetition of an individual unit that is fundamentally vertical. The interplay and juxtaposition between the vertical and the horizontal is immensely intriguing to the human eye.

Affluent rowhouses on the 2900 block of N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD. Photo by author.

In addition, the rowhouse block creates a strong sense of linear receding perspective for the viewer. The horizontal lines of rowhouses reinforce a sense of perspective receding to a vanishing point--a form that mimicked the technique of mathematical linear perspective developed for the visual arts during the renaissance. These features combined into a form that appealed to middle class sensibility in 18th and 19th century Great Britain, and ensured the successful importation of the rowhouse to North America. [4]  

Working class rowhouses circa 1915, 400 Block of Ilchester Ave, Baltimore, MD. Photo by author.

Philadelphia most readily adopted the form and intent of the English originals, and then later adapted this style to suit the tastes of the Federal period after the Revolutionary War. In Philadelphia today, the city displays some of the best preserved 18th and early 19th century rowhouses. [5]

From Philadelphia, the style was exported to Baltimore, the next closest city. Baltimore and Philadelphia became most strongly associated with the rowhouse during the 19th century, when this housing type became the predominant housing stock and took on distinctive features such as red brick and marble steps. [6]

During the 19th century, rowhouse construction continued to spread throughout American cities. In each city, the style changed slightly to conform to regional tastes and availability of materials. In New York, rowhouses covered in brown sandstone, colloquially known as “brownstones,” continued the same tradition. In Chicago, a form of limestone known as “greystone” was more frequently employed. By the 1870s, rowhouses reached San Francisco, where they can be seen today in the famous “painted ladies.” [7]

Still, the rowhouse remains most closely associated with Philadelphia and Baltimore, where it was adapted to suit all members of society from the working classes to the very wealthy. The predominance of the rowhouse was the direct cause for a high level of homeownership in these cities, compared to cities where tenements were more common. In the 19th century, rowhouse builders aggressively marketed their homes to a population anxious to speculate on the increasing value of land in these growing industrial cities. 

Builders incentivized rowhouse purchases through creative financing mechanisms such as ground rents, building and loan associations, and developer-guaranteed secondary mortgages. By the end of the 19th century, the relatively low price of a rowhouse meant that a working class family could own their own home by mortgaging close to 100% of the purchase price, with little to no money down. While this lending practice sounds predatory by modern standards, the records show that foreclosures were surprisingly rare. [8]

Why were rowhouses so popular and so successful?

The genius of the rowhouse is three-fold:

1) The basic plan and structure of the rowhouse is so simple that it’s highly adaptable to changes in style and size. It can be adapted to suit different groups of people across time and socio-economic class. Designs were formed and reformed depending on the taste and wealth of the occupants.

2) The design is practical. It allows for a maximization of land use while maintaining the autonomy the occupants. Rowhouses are also physically durable. By shielding over 50% of the house’s outer walls with two other houses, the rowhouse design protects surfaces from exposure to weather, thus lengthening the lifespan of the building materials while reducing the maintenance requirements.

3) The rowhouse can serve as a building block for larger compositions and landscapes--achieving variety within constraints. The rowhouse achieves aesthetic harmony by building an overall horizontality through the repetition of vertical units. This is a useful tool for enhancing the visual appeal of streets, making cities more desirable places to live overall.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the proliferation of new homes coupled with creative financing models resulted in an uptick in homeownership for middle and working class white families in Baltimore and other cities with large numbers of rowhouses. [9] 

While the low cost of rowhouses at this time enabled many black Americans to achieve homeownership, they were at a tremendous disadvantage due to the proliferation of discriminatory housing policies such as redlining, restrictive deed covenants, and legislated segregation. The effect of Jim Crow laws on the shape of American cities is too long to relate here, but is tremendously important to understanding urban history. A well-researched account can be found in Antero Pietila’s book, Not in My Neighborhood. [10]

Rowhouses for the rich and poor

Journalist and essayist H.L. Mencken, was born, lived and died in a Baltimore rowhouse that he once called “as much a part of me as my own two hands.” [11] Mencken’s father purchased the house new in 1883, and his son lived there until his death in 1956. The Mencken family was rightfully proud of their elegant home overlooking Union Square park. In an interview for the Library of Congress in 1948, Mencken sternly corrected the interviewer when it was suggested that he lived in a two-story rowhouse. Mencken proudly pointed out that he had always lived in three-story rowhouse--an emblem of his father’s financial success. [12]

Former rowhome of H.L. Mencken at 1524 Hollins Street, Baltimore, MD. Photo courtesy of Baltimore Heritage

Mencken’s interview reveals that the number of stories on a rowhouse was its own cultural symbolic language that communicated the wealth and status of the occupants. It was a mark of success when a family could improve its station by moving from a two-story house into a three-story house. [13] 

Rowhouse builders were able to tailor the design of rowhouses to denote different income levels. The structural design of a rowhouse easily allowed a builder to do this by adding or subtracting a story. By creating a literal tiered system of wealth through architectural symbolism, rowhouses enabled the working class to visualize a path up the socioeconomic ladder. Not only symbolic, the hierarchy of rowhouse design gave working class families the opportunity to build equity in a smaller asset before graduating to a larger one and improving their living conditions.

Late Romantic era rowhouses often assume extravagant and fanciful ornament such as this group of Picturesque style houses on the 2800 Block of St. Paul Street, Baltimore and built around 1905. Note the mismatch of elements such as Flemish gable roofs, Spanish tile, and Greek porticos. Photo by author.

The 19th century “starter home”--the most humble of rowhouses--were “alley houses,” so called because they were built along alleys.  Beginning in the late 18th century, alley houses were constructed by developers who attempted to maximize profit by maximizing the number of houses they could fit within a block. 

While large three-story houses were constructed along the main boulevards, the small alleys behind these streets were also utilized for two-story homes. The smaller size of these lots necessitated the construction of smaller houses, usually only eleven to twelve feet wide and two rooms deep. Available for half the price of a house on the main streets, alley houses provided an early form of affordable housing for working class immigrants and urban tradesmen, both black and white. Alley houses allowed these groups of people the dignity of owning their own home at a fraction of the cost of larger houses. [14]

Architectural historian Mary Ellen Hayward has done extensive research on the Baltimore alley house as both an architectural and sociological phenomenon. Her analysis has shown that, due to the close proximity between alley houses and larger rowhouses, early 19th century Baltimore neighborhoods were marked by a relatively high level of economic and racial diversity, especially compared to the makeup of Baltimore neighborhoods after Jim Crow. [15]

Many people today think that alley houses were only built for the domestic servants of the larger adjacent homes. In fact, most alley house occupants were skilled craftsmen and tended to group themselves by common industry rather than by other demographics. In a time before public transportation and cars, American cities were organized to allow for easy walking distances between home and work. It made sense that both boss and employee should live near their work, and therefore live near one another. In this way, rowhouses and alley houses built a city marked by geographic, if not social, integration of the classes.  This pattern of urban living changed only with the advent of trolleys, when the wealthy could afford to commute and consequently removed themselves from older neighborhoods and the working class. [16]

Typical early 19th century alley houses in Fells Point, Baltimore. Earlier alley houses in the background are identified by the pitched roof and gabled dormer. After about 1830, the Italianate style cornice and flat roof, such as the house in the foreground, became more common. Photo by author.

The need to live near one’s work appears to have transcended racial as well as economic lines. From about 1780 to 1840, blocks of alley houses in Baltimore were racially diverse and provided affordable housing for Baltimore’s large population of free black workers prior to Emancipation. This was particularly true among maritime tradesmen who worked and lived in the shipbuilding district of Fells Point--the same neighborhood where Frederick Douglass worked as an enslaved ship’s caulker from about 1836 to 1838. Alley houses continued to be built throughout the 19th century; however, the 1909 Baltimore City Building Code outlawed the construction of alley houses, thereby ending the era of their construction and limiting the availability of this type of working class housing. [17]

Decline and Rebirth of the Rowhouse

Starting around 1915, the increasing popularity of suburban detached houses with yards and garages threatened the economic viability of the rowhouse design. In response, rowhouse builders instituted a new design known as the “daylight rowhouse,” which reconfigured the standard rowhouse floorplan of one room wide by three rooms deep. 

By widening the typical house from eighteen feet to twenty three feet, the daylight rowhouse expanded the narrow front hall and placed it parallel to the front parlor and adjacent to the kitchen. This created a square floor plan two rooms wide and two rooms deep. The new design eliminated the poorly lit center rooms and allowed each room an equal distribution of natural light and ventilation. Skylights--strategically placed over the central hallways, stairs, and water closets--completed the effect. [18]

Although this new layout reduced the number of houses that a builder could fit on one block (and thus reduced profits), the main motivation for the improvement came from a desire to compete in the market with outer suburban developers.This strategy worked for a period, and daylight rowhouses were popular among the lower middle and working classes through the 1930s. Despite these efforts to keep up with current trends, however, the increasing popularity of the automobile continued to push urban dwellers further into the outer suburbs and all but halted new rowhouse construction by mid-century. [19]

Although new construction of rowhouses largely stopped after World War II, many people still found them to be functional--if not fashionable--places to live. A few modernist rowhouses were built such as this row of four houses  designed by architect Harry Weese in the mid- 1970s, but these are the exception. [20] 

Even though most middle and upper class Americans had dismissed rowhouses, the family that Jane Jacobs encountered in 1959 were pioneers in a small but growing number of middle class families willing to return to them. Eventually, city governments took notice of these people and incentivised “homesteading” programs in the 1970s and early 1980s as attempts at urban renewal. These policies, coupled with a newly created federal historic preservation policies, resulted in the rehabilitation of thousands of rowhouses. [21]

By the 1990s, urban populations began to rebound and new rowhouse construction picked up. This new generation of houses, termed “townhouses,” were built as much for their practical space utilization as for their livability. The urban planning theories of smart growth, new urbanism, and sustainable development continue to encourage the construction of townhouses as a means to reduce sprawl. A product of postmodernism, these new homes borrow the architectural language of 19th century rowhouses.

Today, new rowhouses and townhouses continue to be constructed while older historic rowhouses continue to be rehabbed. Their sturdy, practical design ensures that they will be an ongoing part of the urban landscape for the future. Ultimately, their appeal is the same today as it was two hundred years ago: We all want to live close to one another, just not too close.

About the Author:

Jackson Gilman-Forlini is a historic preservationist for the Baltimore City Department of General Services, where he coordinates the Historic Properties Program. He is a Masters candidate in Historic Preservation at Goucher College and can be reached at [email protected]

Notes

Do you have any friends or family who have gone missing recently? Been feeling hostile eyes staring at you while alone frolicking in the woods? 

Well, good news! 

We here at The ‘Tater understand your fears and have come up with a handy-dandy list of everything you need to know to keep you and your loved ones safe(r) from the returned Dark Lord Morgoth! 

(Oh, and all those symptoms? Definitely due to Morgoth’s interference. Not our fault, I promise!) 

1. DO NOT GO ALONE AND UNARMED INTO THE WOODS

It’s Spring, the flowers are finally blooming now that the Sun is here, and birds are chirping in the woods. We get it. You want to frolic. So does your significant other or one night stand. But is getting a helping hand worth the eternity of pain and suffering you both will feel after Morgoth captures you? We think not. 

2. IT’S NOT A KINSLAYING IF THEY’RE ORCS!

Look, we understand. “Orcs were once Elves!” “They didn’t have a choice!” “Maybe they aren’t fully corrupted!” “Aunty Mindi, is that you?” and so on and so on. 

The question here is, do you think that the chance of you maybe being the one exception for redeeming an Orc* is comparable to the chances of you dying a horrible death or worse? No? Then stab those Orcs like there’s no tomorrow! Otherwise, for you, there won’t be. 

3. TRUST YOUR NEW NOLDORIN NEIGHBORS

They have centuries of experience fighting with Morgoth! And if most of them happen to be over minor civic infractions, at least it’s better than ten thousand years of absence! 

So go out, find your friendly neighborhood Feanorian warrior, and trust in them to guide you to a new and better tomorrow! It’s either them or the Orcs

4. DO NOT GO NORTH

We’re not saying you can never head in any direction that is vaguely North, just that you are more likely to run into Orc patrols or other assorted nastiness the further North you go. You’re better off leaving the Northern defence to your friendly new Noldorin neighbors! 

Recruits can sign up at the fortress of Himring. Armor and survival not included. 

5. SHUN STRANGERS

...or old friends suddenly showing up, or strange malformed humanoids claiming to be from the Southeast. You never know who has been influenced by the Dark Lord! Do not trust “escapees,” no matter how trustworthy or traumatized they seem, and definitely do take everything with a grain of salt!

(protip: if it’s ugly, it’s probably the Enemy!) 

6. RESIST THE ENEMY

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you can’t help being captured, kidnapped, or otherwise inconvenienced. When that happens, you should do your best to defend your friends and family who are still free. Lie to your captors and sabotage their best efforts. If you can, pretend to be an Orc until you can escape. Definitely do warn the local populace about these unfriendly invaders encroaching upon their territory and make sure you have not been secretly suborned by the Dark Lord or his many minions. 

And remember, an honorable death fighting against the Dark Lord’s hordes is a much preferable fate to the shame of living under his shriveled, burnt fist! 

“I can guarantee that these are completely factual and useful pieces of advice,” local scientist and shapeshifting demigod Gorthaur the Cruel said when asked for comment. “The Dark Lord is never going to see through any of this, and neither are his Orcs. So definitely do follow this advice!” 

Orcs, escapees, and the Dark Lord Morgoth were not asked for comment. 

-

[Mod’s Note: I must give especial thanks to @temporiludi for guest writing this article! So very thoughtful. :D] So! Cat-people. Everyone’s favorite race to cringe at when the local self-proclaimed “otaku” brings them to the game table. And while they insist their character looks almost entirely human, save for the “kawaii” additions of cat ears and matching tail, most iterations of a feline-humanoid race are closer in appearance to their quadrupedal real-life counterparts than the ever popular cat-girl of Japanese anime. Today we’ll be exploring a race of cat folk introduced in The Isle of Dread module for AD&D, the Rakasta (NOT Rakshasa). At a glance, they resemble the Khajiit of The Elder Scrolls series. Upon further inspection however…no, yeah. They’re Khajiit. But stronger.

Collection Highlights

Quartz clusters from Peru

Chemical formula: SiO2 (Silicon dioxide)

Color: Milky white, colorless (sometimes water clear!)

Hardness: HARD (7)

Crystal system: Hexagonal

Occurrence: common

Health risks: None

Wow factors:

- Quartz crystals from this locality are almost always long, perfectly formed, and grow in delicate clusters that are pleasing to look at.

- Almost always grow alongside sphalerite and pyrite which can also be quite beautiful!  

Care tips:

- Specimens are often very fragile! Handle with care.

- While quartz can be washed with water, pyrite cannot because it can rust. Clean with bulb blower only. Compressed air may dislodge smaller crystals.

- Some specimens feature quartz crystals that are finer than a human hair! Great care must be taken with these specimens.

Locality of these pieces:  Huaron, Peru.

Price range: Pieces are common and very affordable! You can find a very nice specimen for under $50 in most cases. Larger specimens with a great aesthetic display may cost more as expected.