For some of us walking through a city is a navigational challenge with little opportunity to stop to and smell the flowers. For others, we're so glued to our phones we barely notice what's around us. This week, Christine and JJ take some time to appreciate the wonderful gems hidden around town; from quirky houses and guerrilla art projects, to tiny front yard libraries and secret doorways to the fairy kingdom!
For some of us walking through a city is a navigational challenge with little opportunity to stop to and smell the flowers. For others, we're so glued to our phones we barely notice what's around us. This week, Christine and JJ take some time to appreciate the wonderful gems hidden around town; from quirky houses and guerrilla art projects, to tiny front yard libraries and secret doorways to the fairy kingdom!
Talk description to me with Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.
Christine Malec:Hi, I'm Christine Malec.
JJ Hunt:And I'm JJ Hunt. This is talk description to me with the visuals of current events in the world around us get hashed out and description rich conversations.
Christine Malec:Now this may seem like a non sequitur, but I'm gonna start by describing my back gate. And there's a reason for that, it's two panels that you push apart. And at about forehead height, there's a horizontal bar. Now you have to learn don't, you know, squat down a bit when you go through to pass that under the horizontal bar. So I learned that pretty quick. Every sighted friend I have her was walked through that gate has hit their head on the bar. And I bring this up, because it illustrated to me that even though you're sighted, it doesn't really mean you're processing everything all the time. And I scratched my head over this, and I asked a lot of my friends, why does everyone hit their head on that bar, you can see it right there. And they tried to explain that, I still don't really get it. But the point is that, when you're excited, it doesn't mean that you see everything. And the way this relates to today's episode is that we're going to be talking about all of the visual things that are going on in a city at any given time. So if you're like me, a blind person navigating through a city, city blocks are just expanses to navigate through without hurting yourself or hurting anyone else or getting lost. And so all of the things that happen visually or around infrastructure on that block are, you know, things to just be wary of, rather than to enjoy. And so in this episode, we're going to talk about some of the, the mundane and some of the more unusual aspects of what you can see walking through a city, specifically Toronto, because that's where we live, but most urban places have have a similar vibe. And so even if you are a sighted listener, you may learn some things here that you never noticed before. So I don't know, JJ, where should we start? There's a lot to talk about here.
JJ Hunt:Why don't we start with some of the big ones like the eccentric houses, because these eccentric houses, sometimes you can walk right past the most outrageous eccentric house. And if you're not, you know, if you're either not paying attention, or if you're not taking in the world visually, you'd never know that you're walking by some pretty unusual homes. So people are seemingly compelled to do quirky things with their houses sometimes. So sometimes people build quirky houses from the ground up. So the construction itself is unusual. Sometimes people add a bit of strange art onto their house or into their yard. Sometimes people have a collection of something or a hobby that just grows out of control. So let's just talk about a few of these. So I went online, I've got some favorites from Toronto, we can talk about in a bit. But I went online and looked up other quirky houses from around the world. And I found some doozies. So there's the transparent house, in Tokyo, Japan. So this is a white steel framework house with glass walls, glass walls on the interior and exterior. So the white steel is structural, but it also acts like big square and rectangular window frames. So it's almost like the house is just entirely made up of giant windows with steel frames stacked up one beside the other on top of the other, inside and out. And so what you get is a completely transparent house. And it's not a typical layout. So like not like first floor staircase, second floor staircase, there's nothing like that. This is a network of short little staircases that lead to white painted steel landings and then another half staircase or two steps up that lead to another room. Very open concept very, like glass it's completely see through everything in this house can be seen from the outside if the windows are not covered. There are open balconies with half glass walls. There's very little room for furniture because you just have a bunch of these like little pads, landing pads, between half staircases and such, really open very airy there are some plants around so there are some architectural photos online so you know, architectural magazines and so forth where people have come in and done professional photo shoots in Italy. is very clean and crisp. And all the people who are being photographed inside are also wearing white so that they match the building. And there's, you know, a few plants around it looks gorgeous and pristine. But you can also go to like Instagram or Twitter and find people who have snapped pictures of this as they walk by. And all of the pictures that you see from passers by all the windows are covered with curtains, because I imagine living day to day in a house like this would be would be bonkers. Everything you do would be viewed from the state right? So it looks like they always have curtains covering the windows unless the photographers are there for the magazine. There's also a shark attack house in Oxford England. So in 1986, the owner of this have a very simple two story brick row house so this is a very you know, straightforward the lots of these row houses in in cities like Oxford, red brown brick, two storeys, the sash windows flower boxes in the front, very short little front yards. So the owner of this one particular house decided you know what, my house is just a little bit too much like all the others, I'm going to buy a 25 foot fiberglass shark and stick it in the roof. So that's exactly what he did.
Christine Malec:Wow.
JJ Hunt:A 25 foot fiberglass shark that looks like it's diving into the roof.
Christine Malec:Gasp! Oooh!
JJ Hunt:So the head is completely buried in the out. And the rest of the shark is just sticking straight up. The tail is straight in the air, and it almost doubles the height of the building. It's absolutely massive. So it really does look like a shark has been dropped from the sky and landed head down. There are shingles that are all ripped up and torn up. So it looks like there's debris on the roof. It looks like it's broken right through. But it's been there for decades. So clearly they've done a good job of waterproofing and making it structurally sound but totally bonkers. Totally bonkers.
Christine Malec:Then I was totally wondering about the background of the neighbors and the fights that must happen because not everyone enjoys that kind of eccentricity.
JJ Hunt:Ha ha! Some people probably love it, but I'm sure there are others that are like yes... you know, you're getting a pizza delivered and it's like"yeah, I'm the one next to the shark house."
Christine Malec:Heh heh.
JJ Hunt:It's so crazy. There's also there's a toilet shaped house in Seoul, Korea. So in 2007, a man named Sim, who is known as Mr. Toilet wanted to promote his he so he's got this personal campaign for proper restroom hygiene and sanitation. He's also the chair of the World Toilet Association. So he's eccentric millionaire, he decides he's going to build himself a grand mansion that is shaped like a toilet bowl. I mean, I could describe it but I could just say it. It looks like a toilet ball right. The hole outside the front of the outside is paneled in dark glass but most of the walls are concrete and steel white and the top of the house looks like a toilet seat with a with a hole in the middle. And the hole in the middle is like a dipped in set patio. So you can go out in your lawn chairs and sit in the hole with surrounded by toilet seat. I mean it's just...
Christine Malec:Yep, that's eccentric. That's eccentric.
JJ Hunt:Toronto's quirky houses are a little smaller in scale. So there's one called the tchotchke house. This is a modest semi detached house in the east end of the city. And the owner is a collector of dolls and figurines. So this woman and her son began placing their dolls and their little tiny front yard and they would kind of strap them on to the bent metal railings on the front porch. And that was nice as what they did for fun and then their collection grew and they put more dolls and figurines in the front and they grew and it grew and grew. And now the house is plastered hundreds of dolls, figurines collectibles there. I took a look at some online photos there's a superman a transitive Transformers Mickey Mouse lawn gnomes action figures a couple of Mr. Potato Heads on and on. They fill the yard they nearly eclipse the gray plaster bird feeder fountains that they've got there are they're strapped to the posts and the front porch. They're standing in the hedges each of these figures sticking out of the hedges. And then at Christmas Of course they add some snowman and the giant plastic candles and candy canes. They turn it into a Christmas tchotchke house. And then there's a Greek house. This one's actually really close to us. So the Greek house is a West End home. The owner took his if a pretty simple, again fairly generic, fully detached house and he swapped out the standard porch for a portico. We've talked about porticos before with fluted columns and a second floor back Kenny on the top of this portico, and he covered the entire facade of his house in white plaster, and then added triangular pediments, above the doors and on the roofline, and then he moved about a dozen replica statues, giant white plaster urns and traditional Greek statues onto the front lawn along the side of the house in the backyard. Everything is white with sky blue and gold accents. This is pulled from the Greek flag in which he flies, he finds a Canadian flag and a Greek flag in front of his house. And that's where the Greek flag is where the blue accent color comes from. It's, again, it just, you know, a fairly standard row of houses. And then there's this incredible Greek house is also a cork house in Toronto, where the owner has decorated the entire facade and in bits of cork and coin and other similar objects. And he's not just glued these on randomly, the owner of this house has done some lovely pattern work with repeating lines, geometric shapes, or using matching or offset materials in this clip, cork brown or copper coin palette, actually quite a beautiful house, the cork house is so strange. And these things are just, they're just around. They're just like stuck in neighborhoods all over the place.
Christine Malec:When you are walking, or when you're around them. Do you sort of see people stop and do a double take? Or are a lot of people not noticing? I mean, it's hard to tell if everyone's so used to it?
JJ Hunt:Yeah, there's definitely the doubletake phenomenon. Some people just walk by it. And it's hard to know, do they walk by because it's their neighbor, and they you know, they're walking by this house a dozen times a week and doesn't really mean anything to them are they walking by because they actually don't notice like it? It's amazing how these things can just not be spotted. But then then something catches their eye. And you realize then they do the double take and then they get their phones out. And it's pretty Yeah, they're pretty quirky.
Christine Malec:And JJ, you mentioned connected to houses something called hydro houses. What is that?
JJ Hunt:So hydro houses, I think, are a Toronto phenomenon. I haven't found examples of this anywhere else. But it might be the case if anyone has something like power high houses or hydro houses in in their city, I'd love to hear about it. So early in the 20th century, Toronto was experiencing a housing boom, I mean, we're always experiencing a housing boom, but whatever early 20th century, big housing boom, and there was a there was a challenge delivering reliable power to all of these new homes. So the technology of the day had big power lines or hydro corridors bringing high voltage electricity into the neighborhood. And I should as just an aside, in many parts of Canada, we call electricity hydro, because so much of it originally came from hydroelectric dam so Ontario power company is hydro one. The bill is hydro bill. The wires are hydro wires. So that's where hydro comes from. So hydro wires brought high voltage power from those dams and power plants into the city. And there it needed to be converted for stable domestic use in you they needed a local transformer to do that a residential substation. But the thing is, no one wants to buy a house near an industrial substation, it really has an impact on the desirability of the neighborhood. So someone at the Toronto hydro electric system, as it was then called, had this fantastic idea to hide the substations inside fake houses. So between the 1930s all the way through the 1950s, over 200, hydro houses or transformer homes were built in and around the city, especially in the expanding suburbs of tobiko and Scarborough, and they're not building them anymore. The power delivery technology has improved and you know, the substations can be a little bit dangerous. So some of these things have been torn down and decommissioned. But there are lots of them still around. And what's amazing about them is that they are entirely convincing as houses, but they're just hollow shells. They're like well built movie sets, they're nothing but a facade inside usually is only accessible to engineers. And inside these houses are like massive high voltage switch gears and shelves full of backup batteries, there's often an open back room. So sometimes under the roof, the back wall is nothing but a chain link fence. And that's if you've got a house with a large transformer in there, and they need lots of air coming in. And so they have a front of a house, but sometimes in the back, there's nothing but a chain link wall. And in order for the houses to blend in, they needed to match the design of the false house in any given neighborhood. With the other houses in that neighborhood. It wouldn't work just to build one and put it everywhere, because different neighborhoods have kind of different different styles. So because of this and because of the fact that they were built over decades, there are fake houses in almost Every style scattered across Toronto taken together it's an almost comprehensive collection of 20th century residential architecture in southern Ontario, but it's all fake. So there are pre and post war bungalows, they were the houses of choice in Etobicoke and Scarborough. In Leaside, that's a neighborhood in Toronto, on a street called Millwood road there's a cape cod style hydro house. It's a two story brick home with dormer window facing
Christine Malec:Ha ha ha! Oh my god! the street. I know! They even put up false brick chimneys, and stone trim around the front door. There's an arts and crafts style house in Etobicoke. On Burbank drive in North York there's a progressive modernist house that has an inverted roofline, like a flattened letter V. Ha ha ha!
JJ Hunt:And it's clad in white glazed brick with red brick details, like they do an incredible job on these things. And in some cases, the substations were just too large to fit inside a fake residential house, but they still needed the industrial infrastructure, right. So what they did was they created these larger buildings. So there's one that's called Glen Grove station near young and Lawrence. And it's like a giant Gothic castle. And but it's a hydro substation, like it's just amazing. It looks like I say, it looks like a castle mansion. And in Parkdale on Queen Street West. There's a building that's built to resemble a neighborhood school. And all a lot of schools around Toronto were built in the same period had the same architect. And so there's there is a look for Toronto schools built in a certain neighborhood dark red brick, sandstone foundation and cornerstones. And this building's got fall sash windows, they even put a flagpole on the front so that it looks exactly like a school. The only thing that marks is as not a typical Toronto school is that Hydo's got more funding, so it's a better maintained school than most of the schools that our kids are in.
Christine Malec:Huh huh huh!
JJ Hunt:But these things are so convincing that they often will confuse canvassers like and passers by people don't know like, they genuinely do not know that there's a hydro house in the neighborhood unless you look for details, right? So you have to really pay attention to the fact that there are on these house hydro houses, there are no personal items like bikes locked to the railings there. No kids toys on the lawn, or brooms or shovels generally aren't found on the porch. There's usually no mailbox, no doorbell. And then it gets to the more obvious things like the windows are often painted black or you know, papered over from the inside. And of course, now they have to put warnings on the door because there are potential hazards. So now on the front doors, some of these houses, there's a warning sign that says you know, danger, do not enter or whatever. But other than that, they are exactly like the other houses in the neighborhood. Totally hidden.
Christine Malec:I had no idea. Now I want to ask all my Toronto friends. Do you know about this? Like, does everyone know that this is happening?
JJ Hunt:Yeah, I've seen a few articles that come by. I've asked some people casually "Do you know about hydro homes?" They're like "Ya, Maybe?" Or then you'll point one out and they'll say, "Oh, my God, that makes sense!" Like they haven't quite figured it out.
Christine Malec:Ok, ok.
JJ Hunt:"That's why that place always looks like that. That's why the windows are dark."
Christine Malec:Yeah, "I only ever see workers going in there."
JJ Hunt:Exactly.
Christine Malec:Part of urban life is that people will do these things which are functional and or whimsical at the same time. And so what evidence do you see around cities and ours in particular the of the the sort of people taking their more artistic license and doing whimsical stuff with an urban landscape.
JJ Hunt:So there are a couple of different things that get done. There are art projects. And well, let's talk about some of the Toronto art projects because I'm really a fan of these things. These are not just one-off big installation art projects, but kind of art projects that are smaller, guerilla style, done without permission, sometimes done by a group of artists. It's art that goes beyond just tagging or graffiti. We've talked about that before. But art projects that get hidden all around the city, Toronto had won in around 2012 2013. There's an artist named Matthew Del Degan, who created the Lovebot. Do you remember the love bot? Did you hear about this character?
Christine Malec:I don't think so.
JJ Hunt:So the love bot is a boxy robot character that kind of resembles a series of gray boxes kind of looked like an old Commodore PET computer that stood up and started talking. Very boxy and gray. And in this bought this robot had a pixelated red heart shape on its chest. And so this artists created this character first he printed them on stickers and then started just posting them around the city. This is very popular for this kind of project. Stickers are hugely popular in parts of Mexico. Sticker art that gets posted all around the city, just do it really quickly. Lampposts, mailboxes, whatever. So he did that got some good positive response from, you know, the Instagram world or whatever. So then he started building, like more physical incarnations of the love bot, he built 102 foot tall, poured concrete robots, he needed a team of 30 volunteers to place these things around the city because they weighed about 200 pounds.
Christine Malec:Oh my gosh.
JJ Hunt:They were really heavy to move. So he would load these things, I presume, into the back of a truck or van at night, and he would put them all around the city 100 of these love bots. And they were just supposed to be a symbol of love for the for the city and for our fellow citizens. And so these things just popped up on street corners and whatever you walking down a street that maybe you haven't, you know, you walk down every day. And suddenly there's this, this concrete love bought standing there with a heart over is totally quirky and lovely. Just because this guy wanted to do it, I think he's kind of turned the love bot into a character that he's trying to grow. Maybe it's his personal brand now, but really strange. There's the Black Lives Matter street sign campaign that I love. And I think one of the reasons I love it is because it was going on for a long time before I noticed it. And I like to think I spot these things, I look for them. And still it took me a long time to find these ones. So a lot of the parking signs in Toronto and neighborhood streets, they're mounted on these square pipes that are dotted with, with bolt holes, these are like square hollow pipes, they've got bolt holes all the way up on all sides. So that you can you can put street signs on them easily. If you need to take down a parking sign, you can, you know, take it down easily put a new one up, it's, you know, very functional. And so what Black Lives Matter did was they used that functionality. And they made their own parking style sign. So a typical parking sign in Toronto will have a picture of a large p inside a green circle to indicate the parking is permitted. And then it'll give that you know, times like 8am to 6pm and dates like Monday to Friday. And then there are arrows in the bottom corners that point in the opposite directions to indicate that this sign applies to both sides of the street, you know, both directions on this side of the street, I should say. And so what Black Lives Matter did was they took that exact layout, they took the exact font, they took the exact vertical sheet metal with rounded corner sign exactly the same, but their signs read Black Lives Matter 24/7, 365 days a year with the arrows pointing in both directions.
Christine Malec:Ah!
JJ Hunt:Totally subtle, and they're all over the place. But I mean, I don't know how many dozens of these I've passed without noticing it. And I mean, some might say, well, if you can't, if no one's spotting them, then they're not doing their job. But I don't know there's something. There's something about that when you do spot it. It's so much more powerful, knowing that it's been there all along that that black lives matter whether you see the sign or not. It's brilliant. I love it.
Christine Malec:So wait, they're taking over existing signposts, or they're making new one?
JJ Hunt:Well, this is what's cool is that the signposts are all are all over, right? And so because they've got all these bolt holeson them, they can just add their signs on to existing posts, because the holes go all the way up on all four sides. So the the official parking sign might be at the top of that post. And so what they do is they take new bolts, they post their sign on to the side a little bit lower. And so now both signs can be on there. So they don't take down any existing signs. They just use the existing infrastructure to add their own signs using that very functional square hollow post with with the bolt holes in it. Yeah.
Christine Malec:No, when you see this kind of guerilla stuff, do you see it appear and then disappear? Does it get expunged by somebody? Or is it just now part of the landscape?
JJ Hunt:Often it sticks around for a very long time. It depends if it if it's really intrusive, if it's getting in the way sometimes the officials will come in and take that stuff down. Like I wouldn't be surprised because the these signs are being posted by official parking signs, someone might be coming along and trying to take those down. But sometimes they get left out for a very long time. So there's a great campaign. And again, this is just a couple of artists who I think might have originally just been one artist who took some of these signs that have been left up in our neighborhoods for ever. So Toronto has a neighborhood watch program. They've had it forever since we were kids and lots of cities have neighborhood watch programs. So this was really big back in the 70s and 80s. In the street signs were posted in areas where volunteers were part of this community watch program and the way the left in Toronto, these are white signs with black letters at the top and bottom that says this community protected neighborhood watch. And in the middle of the sign was an image in red and they these kind of icons worth houses red houses with stylized eyes inside. And what happened over time since the 70s and 80s. The Black has stayed quite vibrant. But these red houses faded. They were like faded to the point where they almost disappeared. So what we had around the city are a bunch of the signs with this community protected neighborhood watch with a big gap in the middle. So somewhere around 2014, an artist started printing up vintage pop culture images in like poster format and gluing them over that faded spot right in the middle of these signs. So now all around the city. Are these neighborhood watch signs that feature pictures of Mr. Rogers. He-Man, the Smurfs, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Chief Wiggum, Carebears, Incredible Hulk, Mulder and Scully from The X Files, Commander Sulu, Power Rangers. Even Super Grover and Yoda! They're everywhere. My neighborhood, we are protected by Eddie Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop. He's who's protecting our neighborhood. He's my neighborhood watch guy.
Christine Malec:That's so guerilla.
JJ Hunt:Yeah, pretty cool. And that like, like you said, these ones get left up for a very long time. This was a 2014 campaign, well campaign... you know... It started being done in 2014. And a lot of these are still around because they they're not offensive. They're high up. And they're kind of still doing the same job they were doing before. It's not like anyone's taken away a parking sign or confusing anyone trying to park a car. Yeah, your neighborhoods protected. But now, you know, now it's protected by the Hardy Boys instead of a, you know, this icon of a red house with a stylized eye in it.
Christine Malec:Can we talk a bit about the little curbside libraries because I know they're a thing in Toronto, I don't know how widespread they are. But can you describe what they look like. And function?
JJ Hunt:A number of houses, as you're walking through a neighborhood will have a post, usually a post in their front yard with a little box on top, it's a tiny library. And there's often a dork so it's enclosed. It's weather tight. And these are ways for people to to exchange books, it's a it is a little library. And so they're usually you know, one foot by one foot by two feet tall, the originals were built with kind of scrap material, whatever people had lying around. So you know, someone's got an old window, they put some hinges on it, that makes the door or Oh, I've got a few extra shingles. So that's what makes the roof and they're usually on a you know, a post that's just stuck into the guard into the garden into the front lawn or whatever. And then people come by and they drop off books and they take books. And that's turned into a real kind of, it's sometimes it gets really twitchy, like there are places you can order your little library. And you will get this thing sent to you. And it's and they can be in that like I want an arts and crafts little library. So you get this little library box, that's basically a you know, a replica of your house. So it's cedar shingles for the roof and, and the door is custom made with really nice trim. And you know, some of them are really quite fancy and ornate. And that movement has grown. There are neighborhoods where you can find food boxes, so people will put dry goods out as a way of handing out food in the neighborhood. Those can be found there even some fridges in some neighborhoods, I know there are some restaurants that will put food in an outdoor fridge for people who who need a little bit it really interesting campaign they're all over the place. They're spotted around it. There's a there are maps you can find of these things where you can you know, go online and Google little library maps and there are people register them if they're if they're so inclined, you can register your little library and get put on a map.
Christine Malec:I love this sense that the city has a life of its own, which sounds like a dumb trope, but it's not just the city infrastructure official people doing things that the city does have an infrastructure life of its own. That's kind of self sustaining by people who live in it.
JJ Hunt:Yeah, people want to just create and they want to reach out, and they want to communicate too. I think a lot of this stuff is about is about making connections with folks. Like the fairy doors, for example. Fairy doors, I think are very much like that. It's not just about one person wanting to make a piece of art. They want to make a piece of art that makes someone else smile, or connect with them. Do you know do you know fairy doors is this a phenomenon you;ve heard of?
Christine Malec:No, no.
JJ Hunt:They're all over the world. They're totally delightful and whimsical. So these fairy doors are tiny little doors that have been affixed to tree trunks and Now buildings and curves, and what they represent are doorways or gateways to the fairy world to the fairy kingdom. I haven't done a lot of research into these things, but I think they evolved from Elf houses in Iceland. So these are very tiny little houses like, you know, under knee high, with like, often they've got red facades, white trim, they're half buried in the hillsides with sod roofs. And they're supposed to be the houses of the Elves in Iceland, because there's a real thing about elves in Iceland. And then that phenomenon just got, you know, pumped out all around the world. And, and the turned into these fairy doors there, you can find them everywhere, Canada, the US, the UK, often in a country and rural setting, I think that's where it started because it looks quite picturesque to put a little tiny door in a tree in a field or something like that. But then there is the city version two. So the classic fairy door is set into a nobly old knot at the base of a tree. So you know, a limb gets taken off a tree. And what you end up with is this kind of wrinkled old knot with a hole in the middle of it. That is kind of like nature's doorframe. And then what people do is they they build dollhouse doors that fit perfectly into those knots. And sometimes they'll make them so that they actually have hinges so you can open them up and you can leave little treasures in there for people to discover notes for kids in the neighborhood. These little tiny doors that fit perfectly into like a front yard tree or a park tree. Sometimes these doors are made with arched windows and you know, they really look like hobbit doors like hobbit house doors. And in an urban setting, they then get put into all kinds of amazing places. So there's a lamppost hidden in Manhattan, where someone is, this is like a dented old gray steel lamppost, and at the base of it, someone has taken a little dollhouse door, a red door with recessed paneling, and proper forest green trim, and a little green pediment over the door with a little tiny door handle. There's even a little red welcome mat that they've put on the concrete pad that the lamppost stands on. And it's just hidden there. There's no sign that points to it. It's just there. It's only there if you can spot it, right? It's just a wonderful piece. in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I think they had a campaign a few years back, tons of fairy doors there. I think, bookstores and homes started, they started making replica door so your front door, they make a miniature version of that and put that you know, beside your front door, or if you're a bookstore, maybe I think there are a few that have doors on the outside and then doors on the inside of the bookstore. So you know, you can imagine people going in and out little tiny fairies going in and out. There's one in Atlanta that I really like it's a door that's cut into the gray stone foundation of a red brick house, very formal white door with ornate white trim. They've even got a little miniature brass doorknob, it's just gorgeous. And they box this thing in with tiny -- there's one step and then it's framed all the way around with tiny red bricks that match the building. I mean, it's exquisitely executed. They're fantastic. And you can again like that, like the map that I was talking about with the the little libraries, you can find fairy door maps of Toronto, Alameda, California, Dublin, Ohio, they're all over the place. So you never know where the fairies might be in your city. We wanted to share a bit of exciting news with you. This past week at the American Council of the Blind's annual conference, it was announced that our podcast talk description to me has been honored with a special Recognition Award for achievement in audio description. We are absolutely delighted by this award, and are really blown away by the special recognition. The list of new and past recipients of Achievement Awards reads like a who's who of the description world, and it's packed with user creators who we hold in the highest regard. To be included in that list is really quite humbling Christina and I would like to thank the ACB and the audio description project for this award and for the kind and supportive sentiments that they've shared with us in recent weeks. And we'd also like to thank you, our listeners, your contributions to this show on Twitter, by email and on Patreon and in live events, elevate our ideas and our conversations and make this podcast true collaboration. Thanks, everyone.