The Castle of Youth

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I'm still working hard on the novel, at the expense of having an interesting outside life to report upon. So this is an entry I should have posted a month or two ago, when things didn't look so autumnal.

The Morris Arboretum, here in Philadelphia, is your essential Pretty Neat Place. I'm a member, and I spend a certain amount of time there, communing with that strange hybrid of nature and artifice which a really good arboretum is.

Recently, the Morris added a new attraction: the Tree Adventure. It's a walkway that lets you wander up in the forest canopy, fifty feet up, in perfect safety. It has various educational features which are actually interesting. It has a giant bird nest with giant eggs in it, which kids can climb atop. Best of all, there's a rope net which allows kids to roll and clamber about high, high, high above the ground without the least chance of getting hurt. It's a very cool thing that operates exactly the way it's designed to, and children love it.

So the irony is extremely gentle that, not very far away from the Tree Adventure, a clutch of children found a real dead tree they could climb upon. That's them up above. In a castle. Or a sailing ship. Or something else equally cool and equally closed to the adult imagination.

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The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence Continues

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Whoops. I almost failed to make a Friday post. I got so caught up in the Novel that I lost all track of time.

Yesterday, I had lunch with Tom Purdom, because I wanted to pump his brain for information on how 19th-century artillery was organized. We went to Irish Bards and stayed after for several hours, talking about writing. As Tom observed afterward, it's always pleasant to talk about writing instead of actually doing it.

Pictured above: A message I found in the streets of Philadelphia, on my way to see Tom. That is not a sticker or hand-cut linoleum like the Toynbee/2001 messages you still see occasionally, here in the Sprawl. It's a rectangle of solid metal with the letters cut out, which was then sealed into the road using tar and macadam. A strange thing to do by somebody with a lot of fabricating skills.

But we'll never know that particular story.

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I Got A Rock . . .

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Not much to report today. I'm busily working on my novel and that's where most of my energy went.

However, since by state law all blog entries made in California must be upbeat, here's an item I didn't post while I was on the West Coast:

Last Tuesday, two days after the World Fantasy Convention (during which, my good friend Jeff Ford won two -- count 'em, two -- World Fantasy Awards!), I woke up in a hotel in Santa Rosa to find Marianne had been going through the local tourist brochures. "Guess what's only four blocks away from us? The Charles Shultz Museum!"

Who could resist?

Alas, when I got there, at ten a.m. Tuesday morning, I discovered from a sign in the door that:

1. The museum didn't open until 11:30 a.m.

2. It was closed on Tuesdays.

3. Writers were not allowed in.

4. Especially science fiction writers.

5. But most particularly not Michael Swanwick.

Okay, in my bitterness, I may have made up those last three. But you can picture my disappointment. Or, rather, you don't have to. Marianne took a photo of it for you.

Pictured above: Me, in front of the Charles Shultz Museum.

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Jack London's Grave

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Yesterday, I visited Jack London's grave. That's it above, a large stone that was rolled, in accordance with his wishes, over his ashes on a favored knoll in his estate in the Valley of the Moon.

The photo below shows me there. I wrote a bit in my notebook. Then I found an oak leaf and signed it and tossed it onto the stone.

Jack was a fellow writer. He would have understood instantly what I meant by that.

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Tofuburger in Paradise

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As you'll recall, after the World Fantasy Convention Marianne poured me into a candy-apple-red Jeep convertible (as required by state law) and drove me off into the wilds of California.

I, of course, have an East Coaster's natural suspicion of a place where total strangers smile at you and, worse, may not even have an ulterior motive for doing so. But after a while, you begin to think how pleasant it is to be in a place where November weather is like early September back home and frog-strangler rains are unheard-of.

Yesterday, we were driving about Marin County, looking at ravens and red-shouldered hawks and Western meadowlarks and the like. From high atop the cliffs of Point Reyes, we saw not only sea lions but harbor seals as well -- a lifetime first for me. Then, inland, we'd stopped in the middle of nowhere so Marianne could identify a bird she'd spotted, and we saw otters frolicking (there's no other word for it) in Walker Creek.

And I thought . . . I thought . . . . Well, I thought that it might be nice to live someplace as nice as this.

But then I was saved. By a sign. It read:

BABY

DEER

CROSSING

First of all, I thought, there's a name for "baby deer" -- fawns. Secondly, fawns do not form communal age-based crossing groups. They stick with their mothers. So, really, what we have here is a deer crossing. And, finally, deer are not a fragile and endangered species to be cherished and preserved. They're an environmental blight. Rats with antlers. The Devil's Own Smurfs!

So the soft and lovely fogs of California have not rotted my character to the point where I can't return home. Thank God.

Well, and hoping you are the same,

Michael

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Ringing Down the Curtain on the WFC

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A lot of good people won World Fantasy Awards yesterday. You can find the list here. Two of those good people are shown above: Michael Walsh, of Old Earth Books, for Old Earth Books and especially for publishing Howard Waldrop, and Ellen Asher, who received a lifetime achievement award for her career at the Science Fiction Book Club. They are Heroes of Literature, the both of them.

Afterwards, I asked Ellen how she felt about the standing ovation she'd received. "I was embarrassed," she said. "All I did was sit in an office for thirty-four years."

No. What she did was to be a good friend to the field (particularly to the readers) for the length of her career. Kudos to her. Wild applause.

And now . . .

On the "fun books" panel, I said that reading a book by an author one knew could be trusted explicitly was like getting into a convertible driven by a beautiful woman and leaning back and letting her take you away, while the wind blew in your hair.

"Happen to you much?" one of my fellow panelists said, in (friendly) irony.

As a matter of fact, yes. I'm worn and exhausted and now Marianne's going to pour me into a cherry-red Jeep convertible and drive me up the California coast. I don't know where we're going, but I trust her to get me there.

Well, and hoping you are the same,

Michael

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Chatting With Silverbob

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One of the more pleasant memories of a decidedly pleasant weekend (I except the extremely ugly Game 3 of the World Series last night) was sitting on a couch in the F&SF suite, chatting with Robert Silverberg. If you didn't have any idea who he was, you'd still think he was an extremely charming and witty and learned and intelligent man. But of course, he's rather more than that. He's . . . Robert Silverberg.

I said as much to David Hartwell, on my way to the Weird Tales party, where I read "Hush and Hark" as part of their "Midnight Invocations" . . . "There I was, talking to Robert Silverberg, as if I had a right to do so!" I said.

"Of course you had the right," David said. Then, with only the slightest pause, "But he is the King."

So I'm well and happy and hoping you are the same.

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