Notre Dame: Sorin Hall's New West Wing Opens

Renovations to John Bellairs's one-time Notre Dame dorm, Sorin Hall - which he once lovingly referred to as "South Bend's answer to the House of Usher" - are complete, as Margaret Fosmoe discussed in the Notre Dame Magazine:

Where's There: Hagia Sophia

Mother Ximenes' Handbook for Grade School Nuns features a section on things Catholic students should know, one fact of which is that a priest is living in the walls of Hagia Sophia Church in Istanbul, Turkey (Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 107).

Where's There: Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The White Sepulchre of Armbruster, Pennsylvania, is the home base of the Knights of the White Sepulchre, a semi-militant arm of the church, whose home organization is a plaster cast of this major Christian pilgrimage site [Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 100].

Where's There: Boboli Gardens

Da Vinci's unfinished work, Saint Sebastian Dying in a Bed of Zinnias, was inspired by the effeminate Pope Ganymede V prancing around in this famous park [Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 62].

Where's There: Winnekenni Castle

(The fourth in a series about places or things John Bellairs didn't write about in towns where he lived.)

For the final installment in this series we're going back to Duston Heights. And Haverhill. And castles.

Where's There: Tilton's Tower

(The second in a series about places or things John Bellairs didn't write about in towns where he lived.)

When John Bellairs began a story in the early 1980s that would go on to become 1983’s The Curse of the Blue Figurine he made yet another shift in geographic location. Three books, three different states: his native Michigan in The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring (1976); southeast Minnesota for The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn (1978); and now New England, specifically northeast Massachusetts. While the location may have changed, there was still something sinister afoot and a kind of magic to be harvested.

Where's There: Wilder Creek Castle

After years of reading about the places where John Bellairs lived and wrote about, we decided that for this round of Where’s There that we would investigate some of the locations in the towns where John lived but that he didn’t write about.

Make sense?

What's What: SPQR

Fleeing from The Bishop, Prospero finds traces of Roman influence in the stonework of the castle in the form of this abbreviation [The Dolphin Cross; Magic Mirrors; 226].

What's What: Gutenberg Bible

Lewis Barnavelt finds a copy of this volume in his cousin’s library and believes, if sold, it would bring in a lot of money [The Vengeance of the Witch-finder; 127].

Where's There: University of Göttingen

We learn that Mrs. Zimmermann earned a D. Mag. A. degree (Doctor Magicorum Artium) from the University of Göttingen in Germany in back 1922 [The House with a Clock in its Walls; 34].

What’s What: Washington Elm

We’ve received a number of interesting inquiries about John’s life and work over the years and one particular question about a tree pops up once every so often.  Perceptive readers of the original Dial edition of The House with a Clock in its Walls will recall the rear flap of the dust jacket that notes John was living in Haverhill with his family, "a grandfather clock, and a piece of the elm tree under which George Washington took command of the American army."

Sounds like a rather impressive souvenir right? Like every good story, however, there is both fact and fiction surrounding this tree.

Where’s There: Barnavelt House

The residence at 100 High Street in New Zebedee, Michigan, is the home of Jonathan Barnavelt and his nephew, Lewis, who moves to the house in the summer of 1948 [The House with a Clock in its Walls; 3].

What’s What: Doomsday Clock

A device hidden in the walls of the Barnavelt House that, when wound properly, will bring about the End of the World (The House with a Clock in its Walls; 133-6).

Something About the Khaki Mailboxes

Drab, drab! I am the olive-colored mailbox.

What's What: Fusebox Dwarf

For Christmas Uncle Jonathan created something called the Fuse Box Dwarf, a little man who popped out at you from behind the paint cans in the cellarway and screamed, “Dreeb! Dreeb! I am the Fuse Box Dwarf!” [The House with a Clock in its Walls; 121].

Where’s There: The Hagway

Having been given 24 hours to prove his existence (and come up with a way to defeat Snodrog), Sir Bertram wanders the land until he comes to this road winding “through country vaguely reminiscent of northern Indiana” [The Pedant and the Shuffly; 30-1].

Where’s There: Hellespont

Standing in Leander’s Tower in 1453, Professor Childermass says that the tower “stands on a tiny spit of land in the Hellespont, the narrow body of water that runs between the Black Sea, which north of here, and the Sea of Marmara, which is below us [The Trolley to Yesterday; 28].

Where's There: Cemetery Island

Described as "just a dot on the map out in Hurricane Sound, not far from Vinalhaven," this island on the southeastern coast of Maine was home to Warren Windrow in the 1840s [The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull; 125].

What's What: Lapsang Souchong

We get an idea of how awkward Miss Eells is by how she prepares her hot plate and kettle for tea, including the ordeal of sweeping up sugar and trying to remove the lid off the Lapsang Souchong box [The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn; 15-6].

What’s What: Patriotism Award

Award given by the Montana Women's College; recipients have included Chiang Kai-Shek and Professor Reichsmotif [Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 75].