As the helicopters swirl above my street on the Upper West Side. Get it together, NYPD, Jesus.

I once got curious and tracked down - thank you, Google - the descendants of one of the early 20th-century robber barons. The current batch is scattered and feckless, as far as I can tell. Some prominent American families seem to try to hang in there; others just give up.

The paternal line was broken repeatedly, was it not? There are female progenitors on or leading to the throne among the Tudors, the Stuarts, the Hanovers, and of course right this very minute the Windsors. The Y-DNA line can't possibly be anything like intact ... Of course, I haven't read the article, so that'll be…

Now 900% weirder, if that were possible.

It helps a bit, thank you.

Off the top of my head and typed fast ... I have a 17-year-old son to whom both his father and I have talked and talked, his whole life, about being respectful of other people - of their space, of their beings. Since he was 12 or so I've talked to him about the importance of consent in sexual situations, and about how…

Also she is looking for a job as a paralegal. Just in case anyone's hiring.

Oh, man, did I love Only Lovers Left Alive.

He has them mixed up in his head with the characters they played.

There's also Flavio Brunetti's truly disconcerting portrait of Gollum which emphasizes his tight glutes. More MY EYES! Damn it, I was going to get stuff done ... OK, I wasn't, it's Friday evening, but this is absurd. Bless Ryan Lovett for giving these folks an outlet.

Heh. I think that's Beren, falling in love with Bikini Kill. Aragorn's in the first picture, showing so much thigh that I was downright startled (and the ladies in the balcony at house left look very pleased).

The fall of Numenor is fine, and so is the picture of Mordor. It's when he gets a chance to 1) draw faces, 2) pick out outfits, and 3) use those terrifying colors that he goes horribly astray.

Yeah, I love the books - although I will never love Tom Bombadil - but your phrase "never that fussed about pacing" is an excellent way to describe Tolkien's style.

Somehow I don't think Éowyn would have had much success disguising herself as a regular member of the Rohirrim in this outfit ...

Thank you, I'm looking through them now and they're almost all awful - as in "My eyes! Aaagh!" And then suddenly I find myself quite liking the one called "Harad" which shows the ghost army attacking the Corsairs at Pelargir. Huh.

I don't know, but that cover is v. v. cool.

DAMN on the Sendak mix-up - I would love to see his full take on The Hobbit.

I am not particularly superstitious but nothing would induce me to have a Ouija board in my house. Old stories have long since put me off (cousins trying to work the thing, while thinking about our grandmother who'd just killed herself, and everyone was in Maine, there was a snowstorm, things started darkening and…

Oh, yeah, good lord that one is terrifying. Not unlike the Vermont story above. Ed Jr. was a more immediate threat - but the hand and face prints on the windows in Vermont give that story the edge, I think.