You know, I never thought of the nail thing. And it's true— I would be oddly let down if I put on a beautiful ring from a wonderful man and my hands were all scraggly with half-chipped off polish. My nails don't need to be "done"— just not in that awful in-between lazy state.

Holy shit. Is that a real animal?? It looks like something I would've had dreams about at age 6 after getting into my grandpa's LSD stash.

Maybe they should. Who's down for a mass burning of Robin Thicke in effigy tomorrow? Meet in union square, I'll bring the voodoo doll, you bring the kerosene.

It's disgusting. When I first heard about the victim blaming, I was absolutely shocked— how could anyone think, without any evidence to the contrary, that this girl was anything other than a victim? If victim-blaming and rape apology has gone far enough that the automatic assumption is that a teenage girl, a child,…

Well, I meant more does it count as being "in-movie" if she only trains and becomes a Jedi in the post-movie Extended Universe. I'm with you— lightsabers for all the ladies! Hooray for lady Jedi!

Am I the only one who has a very hard time seeing pandas as actual animals, and not a guy in an unconvincing bear suit?

Scandalous history on the part of the older generation means nothing. My grandparents had my mother out of wedlock while my grandfather was still legally married to another woman (also in the Village in the 50s!), and when, fifty-something years later, I was living in a rented room in their building, my grandmother…

"Belle de Jour" would translate to "Day Beauty" or "Beauty of Day," and "Belle du Jour" would translate to "Beauty of THE Day." "Du" in French is a contraction of the words that mean "of" and "the." Both are correct— they just mean different things, and one is rather more prosaic than the other.

That's awesome! And even better, because there are plenty of awesome lady Jedi!

Yeeeeesss, but think much, much smaller (you could maybe fit a wine case on it?) and pressed up flush against the front of the building. Also, there's no obvious opening on the outside. (I think it's been paved over, it's only in the basement you can see the shaft.)

I meant that it doesn't go between the basement and the upper floors, rather— it definitely goes into the house, just below ground level. It's literally a shaft from the sidewalk directly outside into the basement. And, oddly, is on the opposite side of the building from the kitchen. Whatever it is, it's a very odd…

We know for certain that it was a flophouse for sailors in the early 1900's— the lady my family bought it from told us that. (I'm not sure whether she knew that because she ran said flophouse, or because she bought it from the person who did.) I could probably trace it very easily back through the end of the 19th…

Hm, that's good/disappointing to know. Our building is very close to the Hudson, and there's a (now blocked-over) dumbwaiter shaft that doesn't go into the house itself, just between the basement and the pavement in front of the building. My mother told me that they supposedly brought the escaped slaves up the river…

Does anybody know how one goes about finding if a location was used as an Underground Railroad stop? My family owns a townhouse in Manhattan that— supposedly, according to my mother— was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. But I've no way of ascertaining that, and I'd really like to. Any historically-minded…

I know the one you're talking about. I want to say it was associated with XOJane or The Hairpin?

"Isn't this... I thought the old lady threw it into the ocean at the end?"

GRRM is on record as saying that his books are more based on the War of the Roses period, though. And you don't really have to dig too far into history to find a bunch of batshit insane rulers.

Oh yeah, he was supposedly gorgeous in his prime— but also vain as hell. There's a story about some ambassador (I think) coming back from France and reporting that Francis I (Henry's best frenemy) was doing well, very good-looking, etc. Henry was so put-out by the thought of another king being considered attractive…

Honestly, I have no problem with Astronaut Barbie being pink. The truth of the matter is that the color pink is associated with the Barbie brand— it'd be odd if there was no pink in the product.