olivermoss | (no subject)

* Sadly, I am not going to the Portland Mausoleum for more reshoots this memorial day weekend, because they have hard-pivoted to only a very few tours and you have to be on a tour. The tour takes people to less than 1/6th of the building.

On one hand, I got to go wander while it was still possible.

On the other hand, that suuuucks. I want to reshoot. There is more locally made art in there than in our art museum.

* For Blue Prince, I've switched to playing along with a Let's Play. I love the game, but it's too much of a time sink. It's not a work thing or a social thing for me, so I can't let it take up the time it needs for me to solo solve it. I am letting Cohh do all the repeat runs for info while I do other stuff, and solving along with the videos. I can also timeskip or watch on 2x for parts.

From chat comments, I am not the only one who made this pivot. I would love to really get lost in this game, but I just can't. I am very satisfied with what I did solve even before I switched to an LP. I solved a LOT. I have my own detailed theories about what the end game moves will be. But I can let someone else spend hours doing runs to do all the needed layouts.

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Ugh. Tour groups only?? That sucks!

I am glad you got to see it before they limited access so completely. It extra sucks that so much art is now completely unviewable

I should feel happy that I got so much access, but I'm just annoyed. It's amazing and part of the city's history, and so many people don't know about it and now can't see it. Best glimpse now is that one episode of The Librarians where it stood in for like 9 separate mausoleums.

I am glad that you got access to it while access was still available... but at the same time, that means you DO know what you and everyone else is now missing out on being able to see. It's especially frustrating that there are such amazing art collections that now literally no one is allowed to see.

Yeah, I am toying with making a website to collect information about it. I don't really have space for a project like that, but I might collect info so someone does.

Man, I know you don't need another damn project, but at the same time... It is such an interesting place with so much history to it that is likely to be very hard for people to find information on. Having that info collected somewhere so that it doesn't just become lost knowledge would be a good thing.

I've looked and I haven't found a good repository of information. Also, the staff say they don't know which crypt certain statues go to. Some just get moved around randomly, even two that are definitely busts and specific people. No provenances on them, the art, the windows...

Even defining the scope of the problem would be a huge help.

Even the staff don't have information about some of it?? Ugh, I did have the impression it was terribly mismanaged in a lot of ways, but things like representations of specific people getting moved to the wrong places? Yikes. ~~This is how you annoy the ghosts.~~

The lack of provenance on so much, when the art collections are so extensive, is really a shame. Rhetorically: why has no one been keeping track of these things!?

Defining the scope of the problem, and providing what information there *is* would be helpful.

I've been told they don't know which graves a lot of item go to, including two busts that are likely of people there. Yeah, that's... a plot bunny.

I don't know enough of the history to know why it's a mess. I know they changed hands a number of times, but what I am really curious about is what lead to the initial sale because a LOT of money was put into making this all permanent. The Povey Brothers who almost certainly did most of the stained glass didn't keep records, which is part of why they aren't more of a celebrated company from the era. No one knows for certain which pieces are theirs, so no way to do a book or anything on their impact.

That's... really depressing, that there's no one who knows where the items belong, and there's likely no way for anyone to ever figure it out, so those things are just... permanently "lost." (Maybe not lost as in gone, but misplaced.) Definitely a plot bunny in there for some angry spirits.

It's really unfortunate that there just aren't any records for so much, so there's not even really a way to unfuck it now that it's been fucked. That's so very sad to me. I remember you mentioning that about the stained glass, which just seems wild to me! I can't imagine artists (or craftsmen; I tend to think of stained glass as art, but I'm not sure how they thought of what they were producing) *not* keeping records of the pieces they made.

I figure there must be people in this town who know whose busts those are, or know what craftsman would have made them. I think defining the questions and problems could shake a lot loose if the right person sees it. A lot of the people buried there have living family in town.