A Day in Newport (Three Days Ago)
Mar. 12th, 2009 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastI haven't much felt like making entries the last few days, and as I was on "vacation," I didn't.
But today it's back to work, and a small mountain of tedium awaits me. I only have to make a molehill of it all by the end of the day.
The time has come that I have to get very serious about beginning the next novel. I'd decided that it would be Joey LaFaye, and I thought, back in December, that it was a hard and fast decision. But now I'm thinking I'm still not ready. I think maybe I know, now, what Neil meant about not writing The Graveyard Book for so long, because he didn't feel as though he was yet a good enough writer to do it justice. I believe that's what has happened to me with Joey LaFaye. I want to write it. I've been attempting to write it for something like three years now. But I'm just not ready. Instead, I will write something else. I do not yet know precisely what, but it might involve the "yellow house" in Providence (see "So Runs the World Away," "The Dead and the Moonstruck," Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, etc.), something concerning the New England vampire hysteria of the 19th Century. But I'm not yet certain. Mother and I are still collating.
Seven days off, and I might actually feel more exhausted than I did beforehand.
The most interesting thing I've done in the last seven days was Sunday's trip to Newport. I have it in my head that the story I need to begin tomorrow will be set there, and, also, I wanted to see the waterfront, which is always too clogged with sweaty, ill-dressed tourists in the summer to bother with. It was warmish and sunny when we left Providence, but by the time we crossed the bridge to Aquidneck Island and reached Newport, clouds had moved in and the day had turned chillier. We parked off Washington Street, then walked south along America's Cup Avenue and Thames Street. I was sorely disappointed, though I should have expected it. I recall having said before how much I want to see a fishing town that is still a fishing town, and not a self-parody, living off tourism. Gloucester is the closest I've gotten. Newport, though, feels like fucking Disney World. Everything is too bright, too stark, too friendly, too not-quite-real. And even in that nasty weather, there were tourists from Connecticut and New York (just not so many you couldn't walk along the sidewalks). But the harbour was nice, and the boats, and we found a wholesale lobster place that didn't mind us strolling about inside amongst the holding tanks and equipment. I think the lobster place was the only thing that actually almost felt real. When we'd finally had enough of tacky gift shops., we drove east to the Redwood Library and Athenaeum (ca. 1747), which is gorgeous. We may be heading back there tomorrow. It's the oldest lending library in America, and the oldest library building in continuous use anywhere in the US. Anyway, there are some photos behind the cut:
Approaching the Claiborne Pell Bridge to Aquidneck Island. View to the southeast.
Boats make me feel better.
Inside the lobster place, I found this dessicated exoskeleton of an Hamarus americanus.
The lobster wholesale place, and it seems that, during the summer, the place also houses gift shops. A shame, that.
Lobsters! A few were really huge, and there were also rock crabs in the tanks.
Looking across Newport Harbour to Goat Island, view to the southwest. I love that shot of the sky.
This scruffy little black boat just sort of made me love it.
Sails on the harbour. View to the southwest.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
But today it's back to work, and a small mountain of tedium awaits me. I only have to make a molehill of it all by the end of the day.
The time has come that I have to get very serious about beginning the next novel. I'd decided that it would be Joey LaFaye, and I thought, back in December, that it was a hard and fast decision. But now I'm thinking I'm still not ready. I think maybe I know, now, what Neil meant about not writing The Graveyard Book for so long, because he didn't feel as though he was yet a good enough writer to do it justice. I believe that's what has happened to me with Joey LaFaye. I want to write it. I've been attempting to write it for something like three years now. But I'm just not ready. Instead, I will write something else. I do not yet know precisely what, but it might involve the "yellow house" in Providence (see "So Runs the World Away," "The Dead and the Moonstruck," Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, etc.), something concerning the New England vampire hysteria of the 19th Century. But I'm not yet certain. Mother and I are still collating.
Seven days off, and I might actually feel more exhausted than I did beforehand.
The most interesting thing I've done in the last seven days was Sunday's trip to Newport. I have it in my head that the story I need to begin tomorrow will be set there, and, also, I wanted to see the waterfront, which is always too clogged with sweaty, ill-dressed tourists in the summer to bother with. It was warmish and sunny when we left Providence, but by the time we crossed the bridge to Aquidneck Island and reached Newport, clouds had moved in and the day had turned chillier. We parked off Washington Street, then walked south along America's Cup Avenue and Thames Street. I was sorely disappointed, though I should have expected it. I recall having said before how much I want to see a fishing town that is still a fishing town, and not a self-parody, living off tourism. Gloucester is the closest I've gotten. Newport, though, feels like fucking Disney World. Everything is too bright, too stark, too friendly, too not-quite-real. And even in that nasty weather, there were tourists from Connecticut and New York (just not so many you couldn't walk along the sidewalks). But the harbour was nice, and the boats, and we found a wholesale lobster place that didn't mind us strolling about inside amongst the holding tanks and equipment. I think the lobster place was the only thing that actually almost felt real. When we'd finally had enough of tacky gift shops., we drove east to the Redwood Library and Athenaeum (ca. 1747), which is gorgeous. We may be heading back there tomorrow. It's the oldest lending library in America, and the oldest library building in continuous use anywhere in the US. Anyway, there are some photos behind the cut:
Approaching the Claiborne Pell Bridge to Aquidneck Island. View to the southeast.
Boats make me feel better.
Inside the lobster place, I found this dessicated exoskeleton of an Hamarus americanus.
The lobster wholesale place, and it seems that, during the summer, the place also houses gift shops. A shame, that.
Lobsters! A few were really huge, and there were also rock crabs in the tanks.
Looking across Newport Harbour to Goat Island, view to the southwest. I love that shot of the sky.
This scruffy little black boat just sort of made me love it.
Sails on the harbour. View to the southwest.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 05:13 pm (UTC)I, for one, would be very interested in a book about the New England vampire hysteria. I read Michael Bell's Food for the Dead several times.
Great book. Spooky actually went to school with a descendant of Mercy Brown's family.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 05:21 pm (UTC)Hell, even TAPS is headquartered there!
The boyfriend and I have been toying with the idea of going up there for a week or so. He has a liking for the place, since he visited often when his sister was at Brown. Any suggestions of particularly neat/spooky things to check out would be appreciated. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 05:32 pm (UTC)The boyfriend and I have been toying with the idea of going up there for a week or so. He has a liking for the place, since he visited often when his sister was at Brown. Any suggestions of particularly neat/spooky things to check out would be appreciated. ;)
Hmmm. Well, Woonsocket gives me the willies. I tend to see spookiness in places other people don't, not so much the expected, supposedly spooky places (i.e., Mercy Brown's grave, etc.). College Hill in Providence is great, though, and many of the graveyards.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 05:36 pm (UTC)Is the Swan Point cemetery security fuhrer still chasing off visitors with cameras?
Also, if I still lived in FL, I'd try to convince Kat and Chris to come up with us. :P
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 05:51 pm (UTC)This whole state is creepy. Rent a car and drive around and you're bound to end up somewhere interesting.
The big cemetery (North Burial Ground?) on North Main St. is better than Swan Point for grave reading. It has many more interesting inscriptions, and is much friendlier to visitors.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 05:52 pm (UTC)(And we'll probably be driving up anyway, so yay!)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 06:07 pm (UTC)Some useful cemetery information.
I've found that once you get back a few blocks from the touristy areas of any of the older towns (like Newport), you begin to see the real place. It's worth it to check out the outskirts of places like that.
There's a paved walking/biking trail that goes through The Great Swamp. You start at the Amtrak Station in Kingston, where there is always free parking. It's a beautiful place with a chilling history. The old library in Kingston is a favorite of mine.