Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 153
March 23, 2014
Geek Highways, Day 6: Our Lady of Spiders
.
Am I the only person to take vacations midway through a trip? After running ourselves ragged the first few days, Marianne and I needed a rest. So for the second day running, we took it easy.
On this day, taking it easy meant going to Dia: Beacon, which is a museum of Large and Difficult Art. How large? The building used to be a factory and the walk from one end of a piece to the other can be exhausting. How difficult? Every time I've visited D:B, I've seen numerous young and seriously artistic people (you can tell them by their leather jackets, black lipstick, berets, etc., etc., etc.) standing staring and staring and staring at a particular work of art, trying to get it with all of their might. I do not sneer at them. I spend a significant portion of my time there doing exactly the same thing.
People who have devoted their lives to this stuff believe these works to be important. I am not going to assume that I know better without at least making the attempt.
A good example of what passes here for an easily accessible work might be Robert Smithson's (he's the guy who made Spiral Jetty) piece, Map of Broken Glass (Atlantis) . Which is a big pile of shards of broken glass in the middle of the floor. I look at it and I imagine a story titled "The Crystal Continent." I think that maybe some day I'll write a story merging its high-art qualities with pulp-art plotting.
There's also a Joseph Beuys piece called Aus Berlin: Neues vom Kojoten which I hope someday to turn into a Mongolian Wizard story. (Yes, yes, I know.) Every time I see it, I fill several pages of my notebook with scribbled observations. There's really something there.
But there's also Agnes Martin (who was the Google Doodle lady yesterday) whose works remain more subtle than me, or Dan Flavin's arrangements of fluorescent tubes, which to this day, I swear, look to me like they'd make nice commercial lighting fixtures in nondescript corporate settings. I remind myself that if their art were easy to get they wouldn't be in Dia: Beacon.
But, as always, the highlight of this museum is Louise Bourgeois's oeuvre. Her early works are drenched in sex, body-awarness, and gender issues. Tough-minded, fearless, abstract gender issues. I've spent many hours looking at her work and not a minute of that time was wasted.
Bourgeois has an entire floor to herself and deserves it. Her stuff makes the rest of the museum look not quite second-rate but almost not-first-rate.
And when you follow her galleries to their logical end, you'll find . . . Crouching Spider.
Late in life, Bourgeois made a series of enormous metal spiders -- things so large you could walk under them, with needle-tipped legs. Mythic, Jungian objects. Sculptures that were simultaneously instantly accessible, terrifying creatures from the id, and enormously desirable. A perfect capstone to a great career.
They were, she explained, an homage to her mother.
Crouching Spider fills a factory room. You have to duck under her legs to see her properly. And Marianne did so, standing back to the brick factory wall with all of the spider before her and said, "Mother will protect me."
High art. Instantly accessible. Spend a day in Dia: Beacon and you'll come to the same conclusion I have: Out of all these major artists, Louise Bourgeois wins hands down.
No competition.
No kidding.
But don't take my word for it. Go see for yourself.
*
Am I the only person to take vacations midway through a trip? After running ourselves ragged the first few days, Marianne and I needed a rest. So for the second day running, we took it easy.
On this day, taking it easy meant going to Dia: Beacon, which is a museum of Large and Difficult Art. How large? The building used to be a factory and the walk from one end of a piece to the other can be exhausting. How difficult? Every time I've visited D:B, I've seen numerous young and seriously artistic people (you can tell them by their leather jackets, black lipstick, berets, etc., etc., etc.) standing staring and staring and staring at a particular work of art, trying to get it with all of their might. I do not sneer at them. I spend a significant portion of my time there doing exactly the same thing.
People who have devoted their lives to this stuff believe these works to be important. I am not going to assume that I know better without at least making the attempt.
A good example of what passes here for an easily accessible work might be Robert Smithson's (he's the guy who made Spiral Jetty) piece, Map of Broken Glass (Atlantis) . Which is a big pile of shards of broken glass in the middle of the floor. I look at it and I imagine a story titled "The Crystal Continent." I think that maybe some day I'll write a story merging its high-art qualities with pulp-art plotting.
There's also a Joseph Beuys piece called Aus Berlin: Neues vom Kojoten which I hope someday to turn into a Mongolian Wizard story. (Yes, yes, I know.) Every time I see it, I fill several pages of my notebook with scribbled observations. There's really something there.
But there's also Agnes Martin (who was the Google Doodle lady yesterday) whose works remain more subtle than me, or Dan Flavin's arrangements of fluorescent tubes, which to this day, I swear, look to me like they'd make nice commercial lighting fixtures in nondescript corporate settings. I remind myself that if their art were easy to get they wouldn't be in Dia: Beacon.
But, as always, the highlight of this museum is Louise Bourgeois's oeuvre. Her early works are drenched in sex, body-awarness, and gender issues. Tough-minded, fearless, abstract gender issues. I've spent many hours looking at her work and not a minute of that time was wasted.
Bourgeois has an entire floor to herself and deserves it. Her stuff makes the rest of the museum look not quite second-rate but almost not-first-rate.
And when you follow her galleries to their logical end, you'll find . . . Crouching Spider.
Late in life, Bourgeois made a series of enormous metal spiders -- things so large you could walk under them, with needle-tipped legs. Mythic, Jungian objects. Sculptures that were simultaneously instantly accessible, terrifying creatures from the id, and enormously desirable. A perfect capstone to a great career.
They were, she explained, an homage to her mother.
Crouching Spider fills a factory room. You have to duck under her legs to see her properly. And Marianne did so, standing back to the brick factory wall with all of the spider before her and said, "Mother will protect me."
High art. Instantly accessible. Spend a day in Dia: Beacon and you'll come to the same conclusion I have: Out of all these major artists, Louise Bourgeois wins hands down.
No competition.
No kidding.
But don't take my word for it. Go see for yourself.
*
March 22, 2014
Geek Highways, Day 5: A Visit to Robert Sheckley
.
Briefly, in mid-adventure, Marianne and I took a break from our rather intensive journeying at my sister's and brother-in-law's house, to collapse, recover, and do some laundry. But while in the Woodstock area we took a side-jaunt to visit the grave of Robert Sheckley.
Eight years ago, on a dark and bitterly cold day I drove from Philadelphia to Kingston, NY, to attend Sheckley's funeral. It was an extraordinary event. Three of his ex-wives were in attendance and a fourth sent her regrets that she was unable to make the trip. His daughter, noted writer Alisa Kwitney gave a loving and moving memorial that began with the words "Robert Sheckley was a terrible father." Barry Malzberg made an extempore speech that was one of the best things I've ever heard, a genuine work of literary art.
I got up then and said a few words on behalf of the Russian people. This may seem a little cheeky of me, but I knew his readers there would want to be represented. Sheckley -- and his clear-eyed, razor-edged satiric humor -- were big as big in that part of the world. When he collapsed in Kiev, months before his death, it was front-page news in Pravda.
Some years before -- and I was lucky enough to be able to tell the man this in person -- I was guest of honor at Aelita, Russia's oldest SF convention, in Ekaterinburg. This was a year after Robert Sheckley was goh. During the press conference, organizer Boris Dolingo was asked how the attendance numbers compared to the previous year's. Looking directly into the television cameras, he said, "Swanwick is a writer. Sheckley is a god."
Bob liked hearing that. And at his funeral, his family were glad as well.
Sheckley is buried in the Artists Cemetery in Woodstock. Not to be anticlimactic, but when Marianne and I got there we found that half the graves were buried under snow. Sheckley's, a flat stone with a galaxy engraved on it, was among those unviewable.
No matter. I had my memories. I was there. And in a sense, through me, so were all his many friends, fans, and readers.
On that same day I learned that my old friend Lucius Shepard had died. I would be lying to you if I said that mortality wasn't heavy on my mind. But they left behind their books. Any time we want to revisit them, we can.
*
Briefly, in mid-adventure, Marianne and I took a break from our rather intensive journeying at my sister's and brother-in-law's house, to collapse, recover, and do some laundry. But while in the Woodstock area we took a side-jaunt to visit the grave of Robert Sheckley.
Eight years ago, on a dark and bitterly cold day I drove from Philadelphia to Kingston, NY, to attend Sheckley's funeral. It was an extraordinary event. Three of his ex-wives were in attendance and a fourth sent her regrets that she was unable to make the trip. His daughter, noted writer Alisa Kwitney gave a loving and moving memorial that began with the words "Robert Sheckley was a terrible father." Barry Malzberg made an extempore speech that was one of the best things I've ever heard, a genuine work of literary art.
I got up then and said a few words on behalf of the Russian people. This may seem a little cheeky of me, but I knew his readers there would want to be represented. Sheckley -- and his clear-eyed, razor-edged satiric humor -- were big as big in that part of the world. When he collapsed in Kiev, months before his death, it was front-page news in Pravda.
Some years before -- and I was lucky enough to be able to tell the man this in person -- I was guest of honor at Aelita, Russia's oldest SF convention, in Ekaterinburg. This was a year after Robert Sheckley was goh. During the press conference, organizer Boris Dolingo was asked how the attendance numbers compared to the previous year's. Looking directly into the television cameras, he said, "Swanwick is a writer. Sheckley is a god."
Bob liked hearing that. And at his funeral, his family were glad as well.
Sheckley is buried in the Artists Cemetery in Woodstock. Not to be anticlimactic, but when Marianne and I got there we found that half the graves were buried under snow. Sheckley's, a flat stone with a galaxy engraved on it, was among those unviewable.
No matter. I had my memories. I was there. And in a sense, through me, so were all his many friends, fans, and readers.
On that same day I learned that my old friend Lucius Shepard had died. I would be lying to you if I said that mortality wasn't heavy on my mind. But they left behind their books. Any time we want to revisit them, we can.
*
March 21, 2014
Geek Highways Day 4: From Asimov's to the Civil War
.
After a leisurely morning in Brooklyn, chatting with friends, Marianne and I drove to Manhattan to visit the offices of Asimov's and Analog . Their physical locale has changed several times over the decades, but taken together the two magazines have been the heart of science fiction for most of its existence.
We had lunch with Asimov's editor Sheila Williams and editorial assistant Emily Hockaday and had a terrific time talking literature and science. "Did you come up with ideas for new stories?" Sheila asked me when we were done.
"Of course I did," I lied. Making a mental note to come up with a spiel connecting the next story I submit to her with this pleasant encounter.
Then it was off on the broad highways of New York State up the Hudson River Valley to Irvington, the home of Washington Irving, the first American to become an internationally famous literary figure. His two chief accomplishments were the startlingly original fantasy story, "Rip Van Winkle," and the anti-fantasy "Sleepy Hollow," which is on my short list of perfectly-written short stories.
Close by is Sleepy Hollow, with the Old Dutch Church which was described in the story, and a modern bridge which may well be at the same site as the bridge where the climactic scene occurs. Or maybe not. It's not really known. But of course we want to believe.
Up above the church is Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Washington Irving is buried. As are Samuel Gompers under an appropriately utilitarian gravestone and Andrew Carnegie, the original for Scrooge McDuck, who had a relatively modest Celtic sun cross, considering his great wealth, in a corner of the graveyard which had been brilliantly landscaped to make his final resting place seem private.
Leona Helmsley is also buried there. I considered looking up her mausoleum to make sure she was still dead. But since I didn't have a wooden stake or any garlic, I figured I wasn't in a position to do anything if she weren't and so moved on down the road through Ossining, best known for Sing Sing Penitentiary, but also the home of John Lorimer Worden, who commanded the Monitor in the Civil War.
And then onward, toward new adventures and new discoveries.
And I'm in e-print again!
"Armies of Elfland," a story I co-wrote with Eileen Gunn, has just been re-e-printed at Lightspeed. It's a tale of magic, love, and heroism that begins with a horrific act of genocide and swiftly gets much, much grimmer. I think it's safe to say you won't be able to predict the plot twist of this baby. That's because Eileen and I were each doing our best to confound the other while we were writing it.
You can find the story here.
And you can read the dual interview wherein Eileen and I reveal the demented method by which we wrote this puppy here. Kids! Don't try this at home.
Above: A selection of the Hugos that John W. Campbell won over the decades, preserved in the Asimov's/Analog offices. The one second from the right -- not the gold one but the little one in front of it -- was created by Jack McKnight the first year the awards were issued, during the convention itself. (The person responsible for having the Hugos made had failed to do so.) To his dying day Jack, who missed the Worldcon as a result, referred to them as "Those damned Hugos." *
After a leisurely morning in Brooklyn, chatting with friends, Marianne and I drove to Manhattan to visit the offices of Asimov's and Analog . Their physical locale has changed several times over the decades, but taken together the two magazines have been the heart of science fiction for most of its existence.
We had lunch with Asimov's editor Sheila Williams and editorial assistant Emily Hockaday and had a terrific time talking literature and science. "Did you come up with ideas for new stories?" Sheila asked me when we were done.
"Of course I did," I lied. Making a mental note to come up with a spiel connecting the next story I submit to her with this pleasant encounter.
Then it was off on the broad highways of New York State up the Hudson River Valley to Irvington, the home of Washington Irving, the first American to become an internationally famous literary figure. His two chief accomplishments were the startlingly original fantasy story, "Rip Van Winkle," and the anti-fantasy "Sleepy Hollow," which is on my short list of perfectly-written short stories.
Close by is Sleepy Hollow, with the Old Dutch Church which was described in the story, and a modern bridge which may well be at the same site as the bridge where the climactic scene occurs. Or maybe not. It's not really known. But of course we want to believe.
Up above the church is Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Washington Irving is buried. As are Samuel Gompers under an appropriately utilitarian gravestone and Andrew Carnegie, the original for Scrooge McDuck, who had a relatively modest Celtic sun cross, considering his great wealth, in a corner of the graveyard which had been brilliantly landscaped to make his final resting place seem private.
Leona Helmsley is also buried there. I considered looking up her mausoleum to make sure she was still dead. But since I didn't have a wooden stake or any garlic, I figured I wasn't in a position to do anything if she weren't and so moved on down the road through Ossining, best known for Sing Sing Penitentiary, but also the home of John Lorimer Worden, who commanded the Monitor in the Civil War.
And then onward, toward new adventures and new discoveries.
And I'm in e-print again!
"Armies of Elfland," a story I co-wrote with Eileen Gunn, has just been re-e-printed at Lightspeed. It's a tale of magic, love, and heroism that begins with a horrific act of genocide and swiftly gets much, much grimmer. I think it's safe to say you won't be able to predict the plot twist of this baby. That's because Eileen and I were each doing our best to confound the other while we were writing it.
You can find the story here.
And you can read the dual interview wherein Eileen and I reveal the demented method by which we wrote this puppy here. Kids! Don't try this at home.
Above: A selection of the Hugos that John W. Campbell won over the decades, preserved in the Asimov's/Analog offices. The one second from the right -- not the gold one but the little one in front of it -- was created by Jack McKnight the first year the awards were issued, during the convention itself. (The person responsible for having the Hugos made had failed to do so.) To his dying day Jack, who missed the Worldcon as a result, referred to them as "Those damned Hugos." *
Geek Highway Day 4: From Asimov's to the Civil War
.
After a leisurely morning in Brooklyn, chatting with friends, Marianne and I drove to Manhattan to visit the offices of Asimov's and Analog . Their physical locale has changed several times over the decades, but taken together the two magazines have been the heart of science fiction for most of its existence.
We had lunch with Asimov's editor Sheila Williams and editorial assistant Emily Hockaday and had a terrific time talking literature and science. "Did you come up with ideas for new stories?" Sheila asked me when we were done.
"Of course I did," I lied. Making a mental note to come up with a spiel connecting the next story I submit to her with this pleasant encounter.
Then it was off on the broad highways of New York State up the Hudson River Valley to Irvington, the home of Washington Irving, the first American to become an internationally famous literary figure. His two chief accomplishments were the startlingly original fantasy story, "Rip Van Winkle," and the anti-fantasy "Sleepy Hollow," which is on my short list of perfectly-written short stories.
Close by is Sleepy Hollow, with the Old Dutch Church which was described in the story, and a modern bridge which may well be at the same site as the bridge where the climactic scene occurs. Or maybe not. It's not really known. But of course we want to believe.
Up above the church is Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Washington Irving is buried. As are Samuel Gompers under an appropriately utilitarian gravestone and Andrew Carnegie, the original for Scrooge McDuck, who had a relatively modest Celtic sun cross, considering his great wealth, in a corner of the graveyard which had been brilliantly landscaped to make his final resting place seem private.
Leona Helmsley is also buried there. I considered looking up her mausoleum to make sure she was still dead. But since I didn't have a wooden stake or any garlic, I figured I wasn't in a position to do anything if she weren't and so moved on down the road through Ossining, best known for Sing Sing Penitentiary, but also the home of John Lorimer Worden, who commanded the Monitor in the Civil War.
And then onward, toward new adventures and new discoveries.
And I'm in e-print again!
"Armies of Elfland," a story I co-wrote with Eileen Gunn, has just been re-e-printed at Lightspeed. It's a tale of magic, love, and heroism that begins with a horrific act of genocide and swiftly gets much, much grimmer. I think it's safe to say you won't be able to predict the plot twist of this baby. That's because Eileen and I were each doing our best to confound the other while we were writing it.
You can find the story here.
And you can read the dual interview wherein Eileen and I reveal the demented method by which we wrote this puppy here. Kids! Don't try this at home.
Above: A selection of the Hugos that John W. Campbell won over the decades, preserved in the Asimov's/Analog offices. The one second from the right -- not the gold one but the little one in front of it -- was created by Jack McKnight the first year the awards were issued, during the convention itself. (The person responsible for having the Hugos made had failed to do so.) To his dying day Jack, who missed the Worldcon as a result, referred to them as "Those damned Hugos." *
After a leisurely morning in Brooklyn, chatting with friends, Marianne and I drove to Manhattan to visit the offices of Asimov's and Analog . Their physical locale has changed several times over the decades, but taken together the two magazines have been the heart of science fiction for most of its existence.
We had lunch with Asimov's editor Sheila Williams and editorial assistant Emily Hockaday and had a terrific time talking literature and science. "Did you come up with ideas for new stories?" Sheila asked me when we were done.
"Of course I did," I lied. Making a mental note to come up with a spiel connecting the next story I submit to her with this pleasant encounter.
Then it was off on the broad highways of New York State up the Hudson River Valley to Irvington, the home of Washington Irving, the first American to become an internationally famous literary figure. His two chief accomplishments were the startlingly original fantasy story, "Rip Van Winkle," and the anti-fantasy "Sleepy Hollow," which is on my short list of perfectly-written short stories.
Close by is Sleepy Hollow, with the Old Dutch Church which was described in the story, and a modern bridge which may well be at the same site as the bridge where the climactic scene occurs. Or maybe not. It's not really known. But of course we want to believe.
Up above the church is Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Washington Irving is buried. As are Samuel Gompers under an appropriately utilitarian gravestone and Andrew Carnegie, the original for Scrooge McDuck, who had a relatively modest Celtic sun cross, considering his great wealth, in a corner of the graveyard which had been brilliantly landscaped to make his final resting place seem private.
Leona Helmsley is also buried there. I considered looking up her mausoleum to make sure she was still dead. But since I didn't have a wooden stake or any garlic, I figured I wasn't in a position to do anything if she weren't and so moved on down the road through Ossining, best known for Sing Sing Penitentiary, but also the home of John Lorimer Worden, who commanded the Monitor in the Civil War.
And then onward, toward new adventures and new discoveries.
And I'm in e-print again!
"Armies of Elfland," a story I co-wrote with Eileen Gunn, has just been re-e-printed at Lightspeed. It's a tale of magic, love, and heroism that begins with a horrific act of genocide and swiftly gets much, much grimmer. I think it's safe to say you won't be able to predict the plot twist of this baby. That's because Eileen and I were each doing our best to confound the other while we were writing it.
You can find the story here.
And you can read the dual interview wherein Eileen and I reveal the demented method by which we wrote this puppy here. Kids! Don't try this at home.
Above: A selection of the Hugos that John W. Campbell won over the decades, preserved in the Asimov's/Analog offices. The one second from the right -- not the gold one but the little one in front of it -- was created by Jack McKnight the first year the awards were issued, during the convention itself. (The person responsible for having the Hugos made had failed to do so.) To his dying day Jack, who missed the Worldcon as a result, referred to them as "Those damned Hugos." *
March 20, 2014
Lucius
.
I'm heartbroken to have to share this with you. Lucius Shepard is dead.
Lucius was a good friend and a hell of a great writer. His curse -- and the reason that he wasn't a hundred times better known -- is that he had a special brilliance for short stories and novellas but found it almost impossible to work at novel length. It's a brutal business trying to earn enough money to keep oneself alive writing only short fiction and the occasional article. But through a combination of hard work, prolific output, and artistic brilliance, Lucius managed to do so. I stand in awe of that.
There must be a thousand stories out there about Lucius. He was a heavy drinker and, back in the day, a legendary user of drugs. You only had to meet him once to know that he was haunted by personal demons, though I never did learn what they were. Yet he had a great, though dark, sense of humor, and was a mesmerizing storyteller. And he had a kind streak. I remember him urging me to consider teaching at Clarion West: "It's a heartwarming experience, Michael, helping these young writers. It makes you feel like Mr. Chips."
But there was also that darkness. I was in a bar drinking with Lucius once when a friend expressed her wish that she knew what came after death. Lucius turned around and stared at her in astonishment. "You want to know happens? They dig a hole, they dump you in, and then they shovel dirt over you. End of story. Reincarnation? Think worms." You probably had to be there, but take my word for it, it was a hilarious performance, delivered with the emphasis and timing of a great actor, and self-mocking to boot. But it was also a good example of how clearly and steadily he looked at those aspects of existence he found appalling.
Lucius was a major American writer. He leaves behind a large and distinguished body of work. My own personal favorite is The Dragon Griaule but others will favor Live During Wartime or The Golden or . . .
But I'll stop here. Not because there isn't a lot more to be said but because it depresses the hell out of me to have to say it. Instead, I'll tell a minor story of my own: Years ago, I was in the West Village with Marianne in the White Horse Tavern, a place best known for being Dylan Thomas's favorite NYC drinking spot. Marianne's wine and my whiskey arrived and I raised my glass in a toast: "Here's to a very great writer who used to drink here . . . Lucius Shepard! 'Fifteen grams, I believe that's a record.'"
Go in peace, compadre. We're all the richer for your life and the poorer for your loss.
*
I'm heartbroken to have to share this with you. Lucius Shepard is dead.
Lucius was a good friend and a hell of a great writer. His curse -- and the reason that he wasn't a hundred times better known -- is that he had a special brilliance for short stories and novellas but found it almost impossible to work at novel length. It's a brutal business trying to earn enough money to keep oneself alive writing only short fiction and the occasional article. But through a combination of hard work, prolific output, and artistic brilliance, Lucius managed to do so. I stand in awe of that.
There must be a thousand stories out there about Lucius. He was a heavy drinker and, back in the day, a legendary user of drugs. You only had to meet him once to know that he was haunted by personal demons, though I never did learn what they were. Yet he had a great, though dark, sense of humor, and was a mesmerizing storyteller. And he had a kind streak. I remember him urging me to consider teaching at Clarion West: "It's a heartwarming experience, Michael, helping these young writers. It makes you feel like Mr. Chips."
But there was also that darkness. I was in a bar drinking with Lucius once when a friend expressed her wish that she knew what came after death. Lucius turned around and stared at her in astonishment. "You want to know happens? They dig a hole, they dump you in, and then they shovel dirt over you. End of story. Reincarnation? Think worms." You probably had to be there, but take my word for it, it was a hilarious performance, delivered with the emphasis and timing of a great actor, and self-mocking to boot. But it was also a good example of how clearly and steadily he looked at those aspects of existence he found appalling.
Lucius was a major American writer. He leaves behind a large and distinguished body of work. My own personal favorite is The Dragon Griaule but others will favor Live During Wartime or The Golden or . . .
But I'll stop here. Not because there isn't a lot more to be said but because it depresses the hell out of me to have to say it. Instead, I'll tell a minor story of my own: Years ago, I was in the West Village with Marianne in the White Horse Tavern, a place best known for being Dylan Thomas's favorite NYC drinking spot. Marianne's wine and my whiskey arrived and I raised my glass in a toast: "Here's to a very great writer who used to drink here . . . Lucius Shepard! 'Fifteen grams, I believe that's a record.'"
Go in peace, compadre. We're all the richer for your life and the poorer for your loss.
*
March 18, 2014
Geek Highways, Day 3: From Poe to St. Patrick
I began Monday by going to 84th and Broadway, where Edgar Alan Poe wrote "The Raven." One of my particular hobbies is visiting every site where Poe wrote that poem. I've been to the sacred site where this happened in Richmond, in Baltimore (well, one of them), in Philadelphia (the Poe House), in Wayne, PA (the General Wayne Inn, which following the murder of one owner by the other is now a synagogue), and several other places as well. I've got somewhere between a dozen and thirty-two more sites to go before my quest is done.
(In every one of those locations save the Poe House -- so far as I can tell -- Poe also scratched his initials. It was one of his particular hobbies.)
From there, Marianne and I went to the Chelsea Hotel. Forget Sid and Nancy, forget Bob Dylan, forget the rest of them. Here it was that Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001 in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick.
Next came the Flatiron Building, which was the first skyscraper in the world and is currently the home of Tor Books. We talked serious literature and hot new writers with old friend and editor Claire Eddy. Alas, publishing legend Tom Doherty was off on an agent lunch and so I didn't get to see him.
From whence we went off to 45th and Madison to the Roosevelt Hotel where Hugo Gernsback had his radio-television station, the second in the world. Gernsback was an immigrant, a visionary, and a crook. He stiffed his writers while giving himself a salary of a million dollars a year, back when that was serious money. He was living the American Dream while denying it to others. Yet almost by accident, he created science fiction. Amazing Stories was responsible for turning science fiction (a term he created after his earlier and clunkier coinage "scientifiction") into a genre separate from general fiction. And quite by accident his practice of including the addresses of those who wrote to his magazine with their letters made it possible for those correspondents to write directly to one another, thus creating sf fandom.
By chance, we arrived at the site of Gernsback's high-water mark as the St. Patrick's Day parade was winding down. Two bands went by and then the final clutch of local Irish celebrities, sashes across chests, looking important and disgruntled. A woman who had fallen behind the rest ran swiftly after them on heels so high I expected her to to pitch forward into the pavement. But she did not, her fellow celebrities smiled to see her join them, and Marianne and I went back to Brooklyn, exhausted and happy.
*
Geek Highway, Day 2: Aliens From What to Who
.
I'm running a little behind on my blog posts, but soonsoonsoon I promise I'll be all caught up. Meanwhile here's Sunday's Geek Highways report:
Angling south and west through parts of New Jersey that have no large roads, past small houses hidden behind a narrow scrim of trees and blue collar businesses with half a dozen employees each, we come to Grover's Mill. Here on the night before Halloween, 1928, hostile Martians attacked the Earth. Or so Orson Welles reported in his radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds. Which caused a panic unlike any seen before, alerted the world to the dangers of mass media, and triggered Congrssional hearings which took Welles' fanciest footwork to emerge from unscathed.
From there to Edison, the site of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratories. These are long gone, but the Edison Tower has take n their place, topped by a lightbulb- shaped dome. Today it's covered in scaffolding, being restored. "They've been turning this into a park since 1937" says a man we meet there, who has brought his grandchildren here to play with their dogs.
Onto the Garden State expressway to West Orange for what turns out to be Geek Paradise -- the the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Here, preserved, are TAE's improved labs, contains the original chemistry lab, heavy metal shop, precision machining shop, and much else as well. Edison's library office is a multi-story dream of affluence and achievement. But he much preferred his small and tidy private laboratory.
Time growing late, Marianne and I hurried on to Brooklyn, there to search out the site of the Asimov Candy Store where, at age 9, Asimov convinced his father to allow him to read the science fiction magazines they sold and sealed his fate forever. It is now an empty lot and it had to wonder if any of the neighbors are aware of its connection to literary history.
Finally, we dropped by the Way Station, everybody's favorite tardis bar. Proprietor Andy Heidel, who was formerly in publishing, explained that just before it opened, they realized the entrance to the toilet was right by the bar. So, to disguise that fact, they put in the front of a police call box before it. Thus making the bar a geek destination.
One martini later, our day was done and we went off to stay with friends David and Francie.
Above: The vacant lot where Asimov became a writer gonnabe. May the spirit of the place bless both you and me.
*
.JPG)
I'm running a little behind on my blog posts, but soonsoonsoon I promise I'll be all caught up. Meanwhile here's Sunday's Geek Highways report:
Angling south and west through parts of New Jersey that have no large roads, past small houses hidden behind a narrow scrim of trees and blue collar businesses with half a dozen employees each, we come to Grover's Mill. Here on the night before Halloween, 1928, hostile Martians attacked the Earth. Or so Orson Welles reported in his radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds. Which caused a panic unlike any seen before, alerted the world to the dangers of mass media, and triggered Congrssional hearings which took Welles' fanciest footwork to emerge from unscathed.
From there to Edison, the site of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratories. These are long gone, but the Edison Tower has take n their place, topped by a lightbulb- shaped dome. Today it's covered in scaffolding, being restored. "They've been turning this into a park since 1937" says a man we meet there, who has brought his grandchildren here to play with their dogs.
Onto the Garden State expressway to West Orange for what turns out to be Geek Paradise -- the the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Here, preserved, are TAE's improved labs, contains the original chemistry lab, heavy metal shop, precision machining shop, and much else as well. Edison's library office is a multi-story dream of affluence and achievement. But he much preferred his small and tidy private laboratory.
Time growing late, Marianne and I hurried on to Brooklyn, there to search out the site of the Asimov Candy Store where, at age 9, Asimov convinced his father to allow him to read the science fiction magazines they sold and sealed his fate forever. It is now an empty lot and it had to wonder if any of the neighbors are aware of its connection to literary history.
Finally, we dropped by the Way Station, everybody's favorite tardis bar. Proprietor Andy Heidel, who was formerly in publishing, explained that just before it opened, they realized the entrance to the toilet was right by the bar. So, to disguise that fact, they put in the front of a police call box before it. Thus making the bar a geek destination.
One martini later, our day was done and we went off to stay with friends David and Francie.
Above: The vacant lot where Asimov became a writer gonnabe. May the spirit of the place bless both you and me.
*
Geek Highway, Day 2:
.
I'm running a little behind on my blog posts, but soonsoonsoon I promise I'll be all caught up. Meanwhile here's Sunday's Geek Highways report:
Angling south and west through parts of New Jersey that have no large roads, past small houses hidden behind a narrow scrim of trees and blue collar businesses with half a dozen employees each, we come to Grover's Mill. Here on the night before Halloween, 1928, hostile Martians attacked the Earth. Or so Orson Welles reported in his radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds. Which caused a panic unlike any seen before, alerted the world to the dangers of mass media, and triggered Congrssional hearings which took Welles' fanciest footwork to emerge from unscathed.
From there to Edison, the site of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratories. These are long gone, but the Edison Tower has take n their place, topped by a lightbulb- shaped dome. Today it's covered in scaffolding, being restored. "They've been turning this into a park since 1937" says a man we meet there, who has brought his grandchildren here to play with their dogs.
Onto the Garden State expressway to West Orange for what turns out to be Geek Paradise -- the the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Here, preserved , are TAE's improved labs, contains the original chemistry lab, heavy metal shop, precision machining shop, and much else as well. Edison's library office is a multi-story dream of affluence and achievement. But he much preferred his small and tidy private laboratory.
Time growing late, Marianne and I hurried on to Brooklyn, there to search out the site of theAsimov Candy store where, at age 9, Asimov convinced his father to allow him to read the science fiction magazines they sold and sealed his fate forever. It is now an empty lot and it had to wonder if any of the neighbors are aware of its connection to literary history.
Finally, we dropped by the Way Station, everybody's favorite tardis bar. Roprietor Andy Heidel, who was formerly in publishing, explained that just before it opened, they realized the entrance to the toilet was right by the bar. So, to disguise that fact, they put in the front of a police call box before it. Thus making the bar a geek destination.
One martini later, our day was done and we went off to stay with friends David and Francie.
Above: Pcictures soon
.
I'm running a little behind on my blog posts, but soonsoonsoon I promise I'll be all caught up. Meanwhile here's Sunday's Geek Highways report:
Angling south and west through parts of New Jersey that have no large roads, past small houses hidden behind a narrow scrim of trees and blue collar businesses with half a dozen employees each, we come to Grover's Mill. Here on the night before Halloween, 1928, hostile Martians attacked the Earth. Or so Orson Welles reported in his radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds. Which caused a panic unlike any seen before, alerted the world to the dangers of mass media, and triggered Congrssional hearings which took Welles' fanciest footwork to emerge from unscathed.
From there to Edison, the site of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratories. These are long gone, but the Edison Tower has take n their place, topped by a lightbulb- shaped dome. Today it's covered in scaffolding, being restored. "They've been turning this into a park since 1937" says a man we meet there, who has brought his grandchildren here to play with their dogs.
Onto the Garden State expressway to West Orange for what turns out to be Geek Paradise -- the the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Here, preserved , are TAE's improved labs, contains the original chemistry lab, heavy metal shop, precision machining shop, and much else as well. Edison's library office is a multi-story dream of affluence and achievement. But he much preferred his small and tidy private laboratory.
Time growing late, Marianne and I hurried on to Brooklyn, there to search out the site of theAsimov Candy store where, at age 9, Asimov convinced his father to allow him to read the science fiction magazines they sold and sealed his fate forever. It is now an empty lot and it had to wonder if any of the neighbors are aware of its connection to literary history.
Finally, we dropped by the Way Station, everybody's favorite tardis bar. Roprietor Andy Heidel, who was formerly in publishing, explained that just before it opened, they realized the entrance to the toilet was right by the bar. So, to disguise that fact, they put in the front of a police call box before it. Thus making the bar a geek destination.
One martini later, our day was done and we went off to stay with friends David and Francie.
Above: Pcictures soon
.
March 15, 2014
Geek Highways, Day 1: From the Blob to the Big Bang
.
We left Philadelphia before dawn. Marianne and I drove west on the Schuylkill and then through a series of sleeping bedroom communities, nestled into the wooded hills to the northwest of the city, out to Downingtown. Along the way we passed Merion where, at the General Wayne Inn, Edgar Alan Poe scratched his initials into a windowsill and wrote "The Raven" -- two activities of which, by testimony of all the places claiming the honor, he was inordinately fond.
We stopped for breakfast at the Downingtown Diner, where parts of the 1950s sci-fi classic The Blob were filmed. Though the current diner is a replacement for the original which... well, nobody seems perfectly sure what happened to it. It's gone, anyway, and only the basement is the same as in the movie. The waitstaff there were cheerful and genuinely friendly. Asked if they got a lot of tourists, our waitress said, "More or less. Some more than others. Some are all 'Oh, this is so exciting!' and 'Can we see the basement?' No, they can't."
I ordered the Blob of a Mess (scrambled eggs mixed with hash browns, green peppers, and chopped ham, covered with cheese) with toast, coffee, and juice.
Our next stop was Phoenixville, where the Blob attacked a movie theatre full of teenagers. Once a year, the Colonial Theatre has a Blobfest whose events include a Run Out from the main door of the theater, a recreation of what may be the least convincing shot of the entire movie. It always sells out fast.
The theater has a respectable history. It opened in 1903 as a vaudeville house and such entertainers as Harry Houdini and Mary Pickford performed there. In 1903 it showed its first silent movie, and in 1928 its first talkie, The Jazz Singer. Coming soon, according to the marquee, is the classic horror cheesefest, The Tingler.
From Phoenixville, we drove back through Philadelphia and across the Ben Franklin Bridge to Haddonfield, New Jersey, where the first near-complete dinosaur skeleton was discovered. Today, the farm where Edward Drinker Cope spent ten very productive years has disappeared under a genteel residential neighborhood. But traces of it -- the farmhouse down by the pond, a tenant house set kitty-corner from the current street -- remain to be detected by the discerning eye. There is a memorial plaque by the stream and a mile away in the historic part of town, a life-sized bronze Hadrosaurus foulkii by sculptor John Gionotti.
After a long trek through deepest, darkest, mallest New Jersey, the business parks and fields of Phragmites give way to the Pine Barrens. There we search out the Carranza memorial, funded by the small contributions of countless Mexican schoolchildren. Emilio Carranza, "the Lindbergh of Mexico," died in a crash there in 1928 while on a good will mission to New York City. He was only twenty-three.
Then it was time for lunch. We took a detour into Roadside America and ate at Mighty Joe's Gas Grill & Deli, which has an 18-foot high fiberglass gorilla outside, clearly modeled on Mighty Joe Young and bought years ago from an earlier roadside attraction. Sadly, the owners have turned it into a memorial for a dead son, a bodybuilder who died young and had been nicknamed "Mighty Joe."
From Shamong, then, to Lakehurst. The visitors center was closed and it was not possible to get into the dirigible hangar but we could see it from the road, and the sky as well -- the brave blue sky in which the Hindenberg burned, putting an end to the Age of Airships for all but a very small number of lighter-than-air craft and the imaginations of children and dreamers everywhere.
Our last stop was Holmdel, where after a great deal of wandering about, we finally found the Holmdel Horn, one of the great obscurities of science history. The Horn was a directional antenna built to support NASA's Echo Satellites. Here, in the early 1960s, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson were studying emissions from the Milky Way and found themselves unable to account for small but persistent background "static." After all other possibilities had been eliminated -- they even spent hours clearing out nesting pigeons from the Horn and cleaning away their droppings -- they came to the realization that they were listening to the background radiation left over from the Big Bang.
This was one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the last century and possibly of all time. It established that our universe was born -- and that someday it will die.
The Holmdel Horn is, alas, on Alcatel-Lucent (what used to be Bell Labs) property and can only be glimpsed from a distance. But it is an important relic of science. Just glimpsing it was privilege enough.
Above: I'll insert photos into these entries as soon as I can find a fix for a hole in my clutch of electronic communications devices. It may take a few days.
*
We left Philadelphia before dawn. Marianne and I drove west on the Schuylkill and then through a series of sleeping bedroom communities, nestled into the wooded hills to the northwest of the city, out to Downingtown. Along the way we passed Merion where, at the General Wayne Inn, Edgar Alan Poe scratched his initials into a windowsill and wrote "The Raven" -- two activities of which, by testimony of all the places claiming the honor, he was inordinately fond.
We stopped for breakfast at the Downingtown Diner, where parts of the 1950s sci-fi classic The Blob were filmed. Though the current diner is a replacement for the original which... well, nobody seems perfectly sure what happened to it. It's gone, anyway, and only the basement is the same as in the movie. The waitstaff there were cheerful and genuinely friendly. Asked if they got a lot of tourists, our waitress said, "More or less. Some more than others. Some are all 'Oh, this is so exciting!' and 'Can we see the basement?' No, they can't."
I ordered the Blob of a Mess (scrambled eggs mixed with hash browns, green peppers, and chopped ham, covered with cheese) with toast, coffee, and juice.
Our next stop was Phoenixville, where the Blob attacked a movie theatre full of teenagers. Once a year, the Colonial Theatre has a Blobfest whose events include a Run Out from the main door of the theater, a recreation of what may be the least convincing shot of the entire movie. It always sells out fast.
The theater has a respectable history. It opened in 1903 as a vaudeville house and such entertainers as Harry Houdini and Mary Pickford performed there. In 1903 it showed its first silent movie, and in 1928 its first talkie, The Jazz Singer. Coming soon, according to the marquee, is the classic horror cheesefest, The Tingler.
From Phoenixville, we drove back through Philadelphia and across the Ben Franklin Bridge to Haddonfield, New Jersey, where the first near-complete dinosaur skeleton was discovered. Today, the farm where Edward Drinker Cope spent ten very productive years has disappeared under a genteel residential neighborhood. But traces of it -- the farmhouse down by the pond, a tenant house set kitty-corner from the current street -- remain to be detected by the discerning eye. There is a memorial plaque by the stream and a mile away in the historic part of town, a life-sized bronze Hadrosaurus foulkii by sculptor John Gionotti.
After a long trek through deepest, darkest, mallest New Jersey, the business parks and fields of Phragmites give way to the Pine Barrens. There we search out the Carranza memorial, funded by the small contributions of countless Mexican schoolchildren. Emilio Carranza, "the Lindbergh of Mexico," died in a crash there in 1928 while on a good will mission to New York City. He was only twenty-three.
Then it was time for lunch. We took a detour into Roadside America and ate at Mighty Joe's Gas Grill & Deli, which has an 18-foot high fiberglass gorilla outside, clearly modeled on Mighty Joe Young and bought years ago from an earlier roadside attraction. Sadly, the owners have turned it into a memorial for a dead son, a bodybuilder who died young and had been nicknamed "Mighty Joe."
From Shamong, then, to Lakehurst. The visitors center was closed and it was not possible to get into the dirigible hangar but we could see it from the road, and the sky as well -- the brave blue sky in which the Hindenberg burned, putting an end to the Age of Airships for all but a very small number of lighter-than-air craft and the imaginations of children and dreamers everywhere.
Our last stop was Holmdel, where after a great deal of wandering about, we finally found the Holmdel Horn, one of the great obscurities of science history. The Horn was a directional antenna built to support NASA's Echo Satellites. Here, in the early 1960s, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson were studying emissions from the Milky Way and found themselves unable to account for small but persistent background "static." After all other possibilities had been eliminated -- they even spent hours clearing out nesting pigeons from the Horn and cleaning away their droppings -- they came to the realization that they were listening to the background radiation left over from the Big Bang.
This was one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the last century and possibly of all time. It established that our universe was born -- and that someday it will die.
The Holmdel Horn is, alas, on Alcatel-Lucent (what used to be Bell Labs) property and can only be glimpsed from a distance. But it is an important relic of science. Just glimpsing it was privilege enough.
Above: I'll insert photos into these entries as soon as I can find a fix for a hole in my clutch of electronic communications devices. It may take a few days.
*
March 14, 2014
Geek Highways: ENIAC
.
Tomorrow I leave at dawn in search of Geek America. Not that I couldn't do that in the city that's come to be known as Geekadelphia. Philadelphia has more than its share of literary and scientific landmarks. Heck, our secular saint is Ben Franklin, the first American scientist to gain international renown.
But if I didn't leave, it wouldn't be a road trip, and so off I go.
Before going, however, I made a symbolic trip to Moore Hall in the University of Pennsylvania, where four of the original forty panels comprising ENIAC are on permanent display. ENIAC was the first large-scale general purpose electronic computer. It's the "general purpose" part that's most important -- it was the first electronic computer that could be put to any task that its programmers desired. It could be programmed by physically rewiring its components. A clunky task by today's standards but one that made possible mathematical calculations that simply could not be performed before then.
Back when I worked at the Franklin Institute Research Laboratory as a lowly information analyst, one of my bosses kept a box of vacuum tubes from ENIAC under his desk. How I wished I owned one! But of course simply owning one would have meant nothing. It's having a reason for owning one that means all.
*
Tomorrow I leave at dawn in search of Geek America. Not that I couldn't do that in the city that's come to be known as Geekadelphia. Philadelphia has more than its share of literary and scientific landmarks. Heck, our secular saint is Ben Franklin, the first American scientist to gain international renown.
But if I didn't leave, it wouldn't be a road trip, and so off I go.
Before going, however, I made a symbolic trip to Moore Hall in the University of Pennsylvania, where four of the original forty panels comprising ENIAC are on permanent display. ENIAC was the first large-scale general purpose electronic computer. It's the "general purpose" part that's most important -- it was the first electronic computer that could be put to any task that its programmers desired. It could be programmed by physically rewiring its components. A clunky task by today's standards but one that made possible mathematical calculations that simply could not be performed before then.
Back when I worked at the Franklin Institute Research Laboratory as a lowly information analyst, one of my bosses kept a box of vacuum tubes from ENIAC under his desk. How I wished I owned one! But of course simply owning one would have meant nothing. It's having a reason for owning one that means all.
*
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