City Root Rootless

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Yesterday, Marianne and I jaunted down to 12th and Callowhill Streets to see Keiko Miyamori's sculpture City Root.

The blood-red cube of resin contains a 4,000-pound root mass of an oak tree pulled from the ground at an urban excavation at 11th and Girard Streets, here in Philadelphia. Bricks, metal, and glass caught in the roots are visible, as are strings of bubbles and fracture lines within the resin itself.

City Root is gorgeous, monumental, and essentially abandoned. It's sitting behind a chain-link fence on the grounds of Shelly
Electric Company , because cracks developed during the long curing process, rendering it unsuitable for outdoor display, and so the park which commissioned it refused to accept ownership.

The whole sad story can be found here.

What a beautiful piece of art it is, though! If you happen to have a business with a huge lobby or a mansion that needs something to astonish and intimidate your friends . . . well, here's your chance.


And in the mail today . . .
. . . came an advance copy of The Best of Michael Moorcock, edited by John Davey with Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, from Tachyon Publications. Now, the idea that you can squeeze all the best of Moorcock's short fiction into a single handsome trade paperback is laughable. Nevertheless, it is one heck of a good-looking book, crammed with absolutely superior fiction.

The bottom line? If simply knowing this book is about to come into existence doesn't make you want a copy of your own, then I have no respect for you. Intellectually, that is.

I got an ARC because Jacob Weisman, the publisher, is a buddy. The rest of the world, alas, will have to wait until May 15.

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