"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly"
/FAA looking into complaint about an Arkansas turkey drop. What, no one in Arkansas ever watched WKRP?
Two-lot land listing in Riverside
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35 Hidden Brook Road, at $3.395 million. That's an absurd price to pay for the existing house, of course, but it has two legal building lots and, if actually buildable (you always want to confirm these things), then somewhere between $3 and $3.395, for this street and this neighborhood would seem reasonable.
Well, dang, I was wrong on this one
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When 70 Sumner Road, up Rogues Hill Road approaching Bedford, came on the market in April priced at $4.295 million, I predicted a quick sale:
70 Sumner Road is new today at $4.295 million. That would ordinarily seem an aggressive price for this street, as far removed from town as it is, but look here: it's got everything that today's buyers demand. I predict a quick sale; maybe a bidding war?
It had the Zebra, the Orange, even a modified version of the Chair, but none of those worked; today the house is listed with a new broker, with a new price: $3.295 million.
You just never know.
(It's also possible, I suppose, that would-be buyers were turned off by this: "EXCLUSIONS: GARDEN POTS AT FRONT DOOR AND POOL TERRACES." Unless those pots contained the created remains of beloved ancestors, I'd think that someone might be turned off by a seller seeking $4.3 million while insisting on keeping her flower pots. Let go and let live.)
A couple of large contracts reported
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5 Indian Head
5 Indian Head Road, Riverside, $4.995 million ask. Not my particular cup of tea, but we've discussed that before. Good location.
526 North ST
526 North Street, asking $3.895 million. It started off at $4.250 in February, 2016 and met market residence, but the sellers pretty-much held their ground, and have prevailed. De gustibus non disputatum.
I probably should have saved at least one load of #6 birdshot yesterday, for today
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Happy Halloween!
How one mother helped her 5-year-old learn about cultural appropriation and Halloween costumes
Sachi Feris
My five-year-old, who I had successfully shielded from Disney princesses until recently, finally figured out that “Let it go” (which she had been singing with her friends for a over a year), was from the movie “Frozen.” My daughter promptly demanded to see “Frozen” along with “Moana,” inspired by a Moana-themed birthday party favor (sunglasses). We saw both films within the month and, in early August, she declared that she wanted to be “Elsa” from “Frozen” this Halloween, and “Moana” the following Halloween.
I had some reservations regarding both costume choices…about cultural appropriation and the power/privilege carried by Whiteness, and about Whiteness [capitalized?] and standards of beauty…and so our conversations began:
“Elsa is an imaginary or made-up character. Moana is based on real history and a real group of people…if we are going to dress up a real person, we have to make sure we are doing it in a way that is respectful. Otherwise, it is like we are making fun of someone else’s culture.”
Hearing me push back against her Moana choice, my daughter re-asserted her desire to dress up as Moana (for Halloween 2018!). I closed this initial “Moana” conversation by telling her: “We would have to do some research and figure out if there is a way to dress up as Moana that is respectful of her culture.”
Since her 2017 Halloween choice was, in fact, Elsa, I returned to this costume choice and shared: “There is one thing I don’t like about the character of Elsa. I feel like because Elsa is a White princess, and we see so many White princesses, her character sends the message that you have to be a certain way to be “beautiful” or to be a “princess”…that you have to have White skin, long, blonde hair, and blue eyes. And I don’t like that message. You are White, like Elsa—if you dressed up as a character like Moana, who has brown skin, you would never change your skin color. But I’m not sure I like the idea of you changing your hair color to dress up as Elsa—because I think Elsa’s character could also be a short, brown-haired character like you.”
Later, as my daughter continued her daily ballads/sing-alongs to “How far I’ll go” from Moana, I began doing some research of my own with regard to if/how my daughter, a White child, could dress up as Moana in a respectful way, in case her 2018 costume choice got bumped up.
I came up with three ideas:
First, I considered whether my daughter and I could find Polynesian artists that made traditional clothing and both learn about and support their work—but I wasn’t coming up with such artists…and, moreover, it still felt problematic to “dress up” as another culture, (even while trying to learn about and honor it). So much for idea #1.
My second idea, which I shared with my daughter, involved thinking about different qualities that Moana exemplifies, like bravery, strength, love of family, and caring for the environment, and using those qualities as inspiration to dress up as “Moana’s sister”.
My daughter was not impressed. “No! I want to be the real Moana!” she said with a scowl on her face.
.... “Anyway,” I added, “I don’t like the idea of dressing up using the same traditional clothing that someone from Moana’s culture may have worn because that feels like we are laughing at her culture by making it a costume. A child whose family is Polynesian could dress up using that type of traditional clothing but Moana’s culture is not our culture. If you want you could dress up as someone from one of your cultures, you could be a tango dancer from Argentina…(or as Che Guevara!). [Communist, executioner of political prisoners and homosexuals, fine: just don't wear a coconut brassiere] Otherwise, maybe you could be a modern-day Moana and dress up in the clothing you think Moana might wear today.”
After a few days of the same conversation, my daughter decided that she would, instead, dress up like Mickey Mouse for Halloween 2018.
“That is a great solution,” I told my daughter. “And with Mickey Mouse, we don’t have to worry about making fun of anyone or dressing up as a culture different from our own because Mickey Mouse is a pretend mouse! [Earth to Saschi: so is Moana, and so is Elsa and - hold on now, so are Halloween costumes!]
This brings be to my third “idea” on “how to dress up as Moana”…which was to tell my daughter she could not do so. In the end, my daughter came to this on her own.
Shouldn't someone be calling the child-abuse authorities on this woman?
Lost weekend
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Shouldn't he be in his mother's basement, blogging in his pajamas? Why's he bothering US?
Busy stocking pheasants and serving as a Range Safety Officer for hunters wanting to sight in their rifles in anticipation of Maine's opening day, November 6th (? that Monday, anyway). Turned out that the nomads were more interested in seeing their Patriots almost lose to the Jets. Off to try to shoot some of those just-released pheasants this morning, but the blog should be active again by noon. when I'll report on any real estate news that may have arisen during the weekend. Don't hold your breath: we're moving into the dormancy period, which is why I'm having fun in Maine this week..
When it comes to property videos, Greenwich real estate agents are so far behind the curve
/We've been having fun with videos in the comment section for my post on 66 Cherry Valley Road, but Sensei, as always, has come up wth this one, from Australia. The winner.
Riverside sale
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44 Glen Avon Drive, $4,662,500. The sellers paid $4.475 for the house when it was newly-built in 2004, so no home run here, but not a terrible loss, either, unlike some other areas of town. That's due in part to Glen Avon's (deserved, in my opinion) popularity.
I was a little surprised to see that the cedar roof, installed in 2003-2004, has already been replaced. I know that cedar roofs have a short lifespan despite their high cost, but 14 years seems like an unusually brief existence. Reader, what's your experience with these things?
With apologies to AJ, what the hell went down in Las Vegs?
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And if you come bck tomorrow, the odd are in your fvor that we'll have another fairytale for you
As readers know, I have a low regard for conspiracy theories, mainly because the reasons the world is going to hell are pretty much staring us in the face. But I can't honestly blame anyone following the Las Vegas massacre story from taking refuge in any conspiracy theory, no matter how wild and zany. Almost a fortnight from the moment when 58 people were gunned down at a country-music festival, officialdom has so bungled the case that almost every single one of the most basic facts about the act are up for grabs.
Earlier this week whichever branch of the Keystone Kops is running this show (apparently the Feds) completely reversed their timeline of the case. Previously we were told that Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos had gone up to the 32nd floor to investigate an "open-door" alert and was a hero because his intervention had distracted the perp from killing even more people - and fortunately, even as Mr Campos was taking a bullet in his leg, the cops were already pounding up the stairs.
We're now told that that timeline was, in fact, back to front. Instead, Jesus Campos was investigating the door alert before the massacre even began. At 9.59pm, Paddock responded to Mr Campos' arrival by emptying 200 rounds into the 32nd floor corridor. Which seems a tad excessive. Paddock then apparently took a leisurely six-minute break before going over to the window and beginning his massacre. Which seems a tad excessively relaxed. What was he doing? Having a nice cup of tea? Calling down to room service? Your guess is as good as the coppers'.
But, at any rate, it seems someone else was on the scene - maintenance man Stephen Schuck, who was also forced to take cover from those 200 rounds:
As Mr Schuck says above, when the shooting began, he used his radio to call in what was happening - including the precise location of the room from which the shots were coming. That was six minutes before Paddock began firing on the crowd. So in theory the police could have gotten there in time to prevent, if not all, then many or most of the deaths at the concert.
But they didn't. Instead, Paddock fired on the crowd for ten minutes and then, despite having apparently prepared for a siege, decided to call a halt and shoot himself.
The Mandalay Bay resort is now disputing the police's revised timeline. They say that officers were already in the building when Campos radioed in that he was shot and, within 40 seconds, both police and hotel security were on the 32nd floor.
So that's three timelines. We're now told:
Police say the current timeline will be revised again by Friday.
I'll bet. While we're waiting, I'll confess that I dislike the current preferred jargonizing whereby the Sheriff announces that they're "working" various crime scenes. I don't know quite what's involved in "working" a crime scene but one would assume it includes at minimum securing the crime scene. Yet apparently not. Last weekend, Paddock's home in Reno was burgled. Just consider that for a moment: On Sunday night someone pulls off the worst single-shooter massacre in American history - and yet it's insufficient of a priority to the multiple federal, state and local agencies investigating it to prevent the supposed perpetrator's property being broken into under their noses.
That seems odd, don't you think? Sometimes, in unusual cases, sleepy small-town two-man police departments find themselves a wee bit overwhelmed, and sloppy things happen. But how can it happen with these resources in the most prominent investigation in the country?
It is unclear to the Keystone Kops what was taken from the Reno home. Of course. Since Day One, this entire case has been about what's missing, and what's missing seems to be getting larger. There appear to be four photographs of Stephen Paddock - three from many years ago, and a fourth that shows him with closed eyes. That's quite unusual in the age of Facebook and selfies. But it seems even more absurd for a guy who spent much of his time in a town where humanity is under closer scrutiny than almost anywhere on the planet. Long before computers and the Internet, Vegas casinos had cameras everywhere filming their patrons for the benefit of unseen eyes in the back office concerned to know what their customers are up to at every moment and from every angle. Yet there's only one solitary image that approximates to how Stephen Paddock looked on the night of October 1st?
Where's the footage of him bringing those bags into the hotel? When, come to that, did he check in to the Mandalay Bay? By now, this ever shifting, reversible "timeline" should at least have a verifiable starting date, shouldn't it? As "empty" as Paddock was a week and a half ago, he's getting emptier, and blanker: We're asked to believe that he made "millions" playing video poker - which is as likely, as Ann Coulter put it in an excellent column, as making millions by smoking crack. If, in the all but statistically impossible event he did manage to relieve the casinos' machines of millions of dollars, he would certainly not be additionally enriched by free hotel suites and complimentary $500-a-glass vintage port, as his brother claims.
