Marie Brennan's Blog, page 166

A Year in Pictures – Statue in the Arc de Triomphe

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I imagine this was originally part of a larger statue — maybe even a whole grouping — involving an upraised arm exhorting the brave men and women of France to victory or something in that vein.

Without the context, though, it really looks like the statue should have a speech bubble saying “Oh no you DIDN’T!”

(It’s inside the Arc de Triomphe, up where you can pause to take a breather on your way to the roof.)

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A Year in Pictures – Military Helmet

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While in Poland, we spent a day touring Zakopane, which is a mountain town known for its skiing and its traditional culture. Our guide took us to a small museum that replicates a rural cottage; this old military helmet was sitting atop a chest along one of the walls, along with a couple of other caps.

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A Year in Pictures – Kerala Flower Bowl

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This was in the lobby of the resort we stayed at for one night in Kerala. It was absolutely gorgeous: a huge bowl of flowers and leaves arranged in perfect geometry, floating on the surface of the water. I have no idea how often they had to refresh it, but it’s an impressive work of art.

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A Year in Pictures – Gargoyle at Sacre-Coeur

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You aren’t allowed to take photos inside Sacre-Coeur (the church at the top of Montmartre), which is probably a good thing; otherwise I might still be there. But I made up for it by continuing my gargoyle-shooting binge all over the exterior. This one is a particular favorite because of the contrasting angles made by the curve of the dome, the columns of the windows, the gargoyle, the roof edge, and the other roof below — it’s almost Escheresque.

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Various posts in alternate locations

“Keep Calm and Carry On” — my SF Novelists post for the month; a brief reflection on some of the recent trouble regarding gender and such.

Interview at SF Signal — in which they ask me about a variety of things, including photography.

“What Happens When Fantasy Novels Get Scientific?” — Me at io9, talking about the impulse to treat dragons scientifically.

Finally, not something you can read just yet, but: I’ve sold another story to Tor.com! “Daughter of Necessity,” which I read at FogCon after revising it half an hour before the reading. It will be out some time in the fall, most likely.

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A Year in Pictures – Ring of Chinese Lanterns

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I think I’ve mentioned before that my father has been a total pusher for this photography habit of mine. When I was home the other Christmas, he took me to a Chinese lantern festival to learn the ins and outs of night photography. This was one of the first shots I took; it’s of the arch over the main part of the sight, and it was a beast to get, because the central lantern kept swaying in the wind. But I am nothing if not persistent, and in time I got the shot I wanted.

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A Year in Pictures – Royal Society Motto

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This is one of my photos from the research trip for A Star Shall Fall, when I visited the library of the Royal Society. Nullius in verba is their motto, and can loosely be translated as “on the words of no one” — indicating the group’s founding principle of testing knowledge through experimentation.

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A Year in Pictures – Komyozenji Garden

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I’m not usually a fan of Zen rock gardens, but this one, at Komyozenji in Dazaifu on the island of Kyushu, is the exception. It’s meant to mimic water, and so the gravel forms curving forms within the most amazing moss I saw anywhere in Japan. It may, in fact, be my favorite Japanese garden of all time.

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A Year in Pictures – Flowers at Ham House

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On this particular research trip to England (for In Ashes Lie), I had to be especially choosy about my pictures, because I’d forgotten to bring the cable that would let me offload them to my computer and my memory card was not that large. This is one of the keepers: the “cut flower” bed (i.e. the bed from which one would cut flowers and bring them inside) at Ham House, a lovely seventeenth-century manor. Ham House is the place I learned to understand the tulip mania of the period: while I’m accustomed to thinking of tulips as boring little cups, the cultivars there are gorgeous.

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The Value of Travel

I originally posted this as a reply to John Scalzi here, but it occurred to me that it was something that might be of interest to my local audience — especially since I’m posting all these photos from trips I’ve taken.

In discussing his own feelings about travel, Scalzi said:

The fact of the matter is I’m not hugely motivated by travel. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy it when I do it, nor that there are not places I would like to visit, but the fact of the matter is that for me, given the choice between visiting places and visiting people, I tend to want to visit people — a fact that means that my destinations are less about the locale than the company. I’d rather go to Spokane than Venice, in other words, if Spokane has people I like in it, and all Venice has is a bunch of buildings which are cool but which I will be able to see better in pictures.

To which I said:

I like seeing people, sure — but the second half of the comment is boggling to me, because it’s so radically different from my own view, in two respects.

First of all, seeing is only part of the experience. Looking at a picture is flat, whereas being there is a full-body surround-sound sensory experience. There’s sound, smell, the feeling of space or lack thereof, the process of walking through. Highgate Cemetery was more than its headstones; it was the blustery autumn day with the wind rushing through the trees raining leaves down on us and the tip of my nose going cold. Point Lobos is more than the cypresses; it’s the smell of the cypresses and the feel of the dirt under my feet and the distant barking of the sea lions. Furthermore, pictures will never show me even everything from the visual channel: they may show me the nave of the church, but usually not the ceiling, nor the floor with its worn grave slabs. They will show me the garden, but not the autumn leaf caught in the spider web between two trees. I would have to look at hundreds of pictures from Malbork Castle to capture what I saw there. (Heck, I took hundreds of pictures there!)

Second, the most memorable part to me is usually the bit I wouldn’t have thought to go looking for if I weren’t there. The first time I went to Japan, my sister and I went to see the famous temple of Ginkakuji, which I loved — but I loved even better the tiny shrine off to the left outside Ginkakuji, whose name I still don’t know. Or when I was in Winchester, and she and I walked to St. Cross outside of town; we went for the porter’s dole (old medieval tradition: even now — or at least in 1998 — if you walk up to the gate and ask for the dole, they will give you bread and water), but stayed for the courtyard with the enormous tree and the most amazingly plush grass I have ever flung myself full-length in. I can look at pictures of famous buildings in Venice, but I’m unlikely to see pictures of the stuff I wouldn’t think to look for.

I write all of this in the full awareness that I have been extremely fortunate in my travel opportunities. My father’s work has often taken him abroad, so he has a giant pile of frequent flyer miles, and both in childhood and now I’ve been able to afford trips to other countries: British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Israel, Japan, India, Poland, Greece, Italy, Turkey, France, the Bahamas. It’s created a positive feedback loop: these trips have led me to really enjoy travel and the different experiences I have when I go places, so as a result I arrange more trips when I can. As a replacement, pictures don’t even begin to cut it.

Not part of my comment to Scalzi, but I will add two further observations:

1) Clearly I do see value in pictures, though, or I wouldn’t take so damn many of them.

2) What it says about my sociability that I am liable to travel to places rather than to people is left as an exercise for the reader.

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