Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 60

Sticking to the Ribs

Prepared for any grilling emergency, I am and remain the Master of Meat !

Westlake on Publishing

This from Donald Westlake: “Publishing is the only industry I can think of where most of the employees spend most of their time stating with great self-assurance that they don’t know how to do their jobs. “I don’t know how to sell this,” they explain, frowning, as though it’s your fault. “I don’t know how to package this. I don’t know what the market is for this book. I don’t know how we’re going to draw attention to this.” In most occupations, people try to hide their incompetence; only in p...

The Sands of Dingle

Sunset at Inch Beach, in or near Dingle.  Fine golden sand, beautiful setting, and surfers!  If it weren’t for the kids playing with their hurling sticks I would have thought I was in Monterey. I also had ice cream at the legendary Murphy’s parlor.  The elderflower ice cream was particularly fine on a hot afternoon.

Mere Observation

So I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had a kind of Theory of Dunsany that I wanted to put forth when I had the time, and I seem to have time right now.  Because I’ve had a while to ponder the matter the theory has expanded from its origin point to a consideration not only of the sort of fiction people were writing a hundred years ago, but the sort of people who were writing it. Two things stand out about Lord Dunsany.  The first is that he could write volumes and volumes of short, ironic...

Out of the Mist

These are the Skellig Islands off the west coast of Kerry, home to an ancient abandoned monastery, and the location of a key scene in Return of the Jedi. The Skellige Islands also feature in Witcher III, one of that game’s jokey references to cinema.  (Another is an elven swordsmith named Hattori.) I’ve been back from the mists of Ireland for a few days but am still suffering from jet lag and various bodily ills that come from sleeping in beds not one’s own.  (I am also subject to acute hunge...

Flitting

Here’s today’s picture of a butterfly. The rollicking Wilbercon around Ireland is over, and I’m now in Dublin for Worldcon. I’d love to post my con schedule, but I can’t because I don’t have one.  I’m not on programming, go figure. Whether I’m on a panel or not doesn’t signify, but it would be nice if people who wanted to meet me had the chance.   As it is, I’ll be flitting from flower to flower around the con, so you’ll have to hope you run into me.

Big Boat

This is the flight engineer’s station on a Pan-Am Yankee Clipper, circa 1941, as displayed at the Flying Boat Museum in Foynes.  (Flying Boat Museum!  This trip is so geeky I want to swoon.) The flight engineer was kept pretty busy, having to nurse four big radial engines all the way across the Atlantic.  (Or Pacific, more likely.) The Foynes flying boat station was active 1943-45, taking advantage of Ireland’s unique position as a neutral country  From Foynes the boat could fly on to the we...

Rocks

This is Kenmore Stone Circle, dating from the Bronze Age.  Human remains were found underneath the central stone. One of us said, “This is what Stonehenge would look like if England had leprechauns.”

Immigrant

This painted lady flew all the way from Africa to perch in a blackberry bush and say hello.

Behold the Mighty Leviathan!

This is the Leviathan, at 72 inches the largest telescope in the world from 1845 to 1917, over seventy years.  She was built by William Parsons, the third earl of Rosse, on his substantial estate at Birr Castle.  He subsequently used Leviathan to investigate nebulas, which he discovered were not vague blobby things in the sky, but objects with structure, such as the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51).   Birr Castle was about all you want in a family home (which it still is).  Pictures and portraits, musi...