This lovely item got water-damaged, but its supreme commie kitsch shlockiness seems unaffected.

It's a combination thermometer and inexplicable calendar, plus a faux "TV screen" in the middle showing Chairman Mao being given a floral bouquet by Chou En Lai, while Comrades Chu De and Lin Piao beam radiantly. I picked it up at a souvenir stand in China for pennies back in the days before the Tiananmen Square uprising. I doubt you could find one today. The green plastic temple is unsurpassed in terms of pure shlocky loveliness.

And here's a ceramic neoclassical figurine pulling a rope in front of a grimacing devil clown.

Don't ask me why; they just gather dust in the kitchen.

Finally, the ghost of the house:

No, not the girl in front; the El Greco print in back. It's a strange story (and I am of course highly skeptical about these things) but the previous owner of the house told me that the previous owner told him that "it" was or somehow contained "the ghost," and to simply leave it alone. I didn't pay much attention until one day (in the late 1980s) I raised my hand as I cursed an irritating item in the paper, when just at that moment the print flew out of the frame and hit the floor towards the middle of the room, leaving the frame still hanging (empty) on the wall. Figuring the nails had come loose, I picked up the print (which is on a stiff board) and got up on a ladder to put it back in. No way would it go back in! The nails were not loose at all, and I had to pry it apart to get the print to go back in. Ever since, I have left it alone, and treated it with respect.

I hope that picturing it in the blog is not considered a violation. No disrespect intended. This house was built by a reclusive writer in 1919, and it is my hope that the ghost (whoever or whatever it might be or represent) will understand that the idea is to keep the spirit alive.