On 6/24/2010 10:54 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
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In a message dated 6/24/2010 8:23:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
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What, pray tell, is a mourning door?
for moving a casket out of a parlor

And why (and how) is this door different from all other doors? 
Sheesh. Hell if I know and I really don't give a rat's fig. You asked a question and I answered it. I don't need to prove duck squat. So there... na na na na! You are the artichoke! Leave me alone.

"But the hand is so much bigger than that, substantial, real. Her own hands shake with relief as she puts on the tea water. Something is starting-a secret, a discovery, begun not in the narrow recesses of her body, but in the mysterious body of her new, old house. The house has a door called the Mourning Door-the realtor pointed it out the first time they walked through. It's a door off the front parlor, and though it leads outside, it has no stoop or stairs, just a place for the cart to back up so the coffin can be carried away. Of course babies were born here, too, added the realtor, her voice too bright. Probably right in this room! After she and Tom moved in, they decided only to use the door off the kitchen. Friendlier, she said, and after all, they're concentrating, these days, on making life." from a short story "The Mourning Door", Elizabeth Graver, in entirety can be found here http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/the-mourning-door

The story has construction workers in it messing w/ an old house. As with much of contemporary fiction the story is highly disconnected from much more than being a fancy writ story with a smattering of gobble gook. So I can't say it says so much for the architectural relevance or reference to a mourning door... but be advised that there is a population of the world that believes in such things. I would look it up to see if it is in my Shorter Oxford but there is 5' of books stacked above them.

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