Caitlín R. Kiernan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greygirlbeast) wrote2009-06-21 11:35 am
greygirlbeast) wrote2009-06-21 11:35 am
Entry tags:
Solstice '09
It seems impossible that this can be the Summer Solstice already. We've hardly had a whiff of summer in Providence. Hardly a whiff. And I'm so weighted down with the Tired and with deadlines that we've not had time to plan a ritual for this evening. Last year, we had such a wonderful Solstice on the rocks just north of Beavertail. I was hoping for a repeat this year. Anyway, one of the advantages of venerating all the nonconscious aspects of the Cosmos is knowing how indifferent the universe is to our little observances, and how it will take no notice whatsoever should we miss one, here or there. Panthalassa will not frown. Ur will not look askance. But I'll miss the ceremony, as it so helps my mind and my sense of the passing of time, ticking off these points along the wheel of the year. I do wish a fine Solstice to those who observe the day.
Anyway...
No writing yesterday. Not on four measly hours of sleep. Instead, we drove up to Boston. Ostensibly, to look for the tree that will be the Red Tree in the book trailer for The Red Tree. But, in fact, we mostly just wandered up and down Newbury Street and across Boston Commons and the Public Gardens. It was all rather splendid, a part of Boston I'd not seen. A place I wish I could live, where the past does not seem so entirely past. There are still vestiges of civilization showing through the grime of modernity, there on Newbury Street. You just have to peer past the people and the trendy shops and the trendier cafés. We overheard someone talking about rent on Newbury, $2600 (!!!) a month for an apartment. Only the rich can afford those particular vestiges. I shall have to be content with my rooms in this 1875 house here on Federal Hill. Yesterday, the weather was curious. The sky threatened thunder storms all day, but there wasn't even a drop of rain. Muggy, but no rain. An old man on the sidewalk played "All Along the Watch Tower" on an electric guitar, and it was wonderfully eerie. On the Commons, we watched squirrels and birds, and found a "dawn redwood" (Metasequoia) growing among the willows. In that city of overpriced everything, I was pleased to see that the boat rides (the swan boats that first began running in 1877), were only $2.75. We didn't go, though. Maybe next trip up. After Newbury Street, Spooky drove up to Cambridge and Harvard Square, and I saw the little cemetery that's mentioned in "Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)," but we were too tired to stop.
Truthfully, my goddamn rotten feet made the whole day rather miserable, despite the wonderful sights. I'm reaching the point where the walking stick isn't sufficient, and may soon be resorting to a wheelchair for such things as wandering around Boston for hours at a time (almost three miles). I miss the days when I could walk and walk and walk, with hardly an ache at all. I miss dancing even more. I don't think I've really danced since November 2004. Between my feet and the seizures, I feel I've aged twenty years in the last five. There is no romance in invalidism, and I do not welcome this weakness. Anyway, we made it back home by about 8 p.m. We watched a couple of episodes of The X-Files and Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940).
There are photos from yesterday (behind the cut):
The grand Metasequoia on Boston Commons.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn A. Pollnac
---
Cliff Miller writes, "There was a fire at the Georgia Theatre in Athens, causing heavy damage. I wondered if you had any memories of that place from your days in Athens that you might wish to share on the LJ?"
I heard about the fire at the Georgia Theater a couple of days back, and it saddened me enormously. I spent a lot of time at the Georgia Theater between 1994 and 1997. It's here I heard Concrete Blonde play, and met Johnette Napolitano (the same weekend I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
docbrite). Death's Little Sister once played there, opening for someone (though I can't recall for whom). I'm glad to hear they plan to rebuild, but, of course, it'll never be the same.
---
I've begun tweeting the micropreview of The Red Tree over at greygirlbeast. The plan was to post a sentence a day, until the book is released on August 4th. Of course, I immediately realized that 140 characters won't accommodate many of those sentences. Today, for instance, I was only able to post the first three quarters or so of the first sentence. So, this is going to be a strange affair, indeed.
Please, if you haven't already, have a look at the current eBay auctions, all proceeds earmarked to help offset the cost of my attending ReaderCon 20 in July.
And, with that, the platypus says its time to get my skinny ass to the word mines....
Anyway...
No writing yesterday. Not on four measly hours of sleep. Instead, we drove up to Boston. Ostensibly, to look for the tree that will be the Red Tree in the book trailer for The Red Tree. But, in fact, we mostly just wandered up and down Newbury Street and across Boston Commons and the Public Gardens. It was all rather splendid, a part of Boston I'd not seen. A place I wish I could live, where the past does not seem so entirely past. There are still vestiges of civilization showing through the grime of modernity, there on Newbury Street. You just have to peer past the people and the trendy shops and the trendier cafés. We overheard someone talking about rent on Newbury, $2600 (!!!) a month for an apartment. Only the rich can afford those particular vestiges. I shall have to be content with my rooms in this 1875 house here on Federal Hill. Yesterday, the weather was curious. The sky threatened thunder storms all day, but there wasn't even a drop of rain. Muggy, but no rain. An old man on the sidewalk played "All Along the Watch Tower" on an electric guitar, and it was wonderfully eerie. On the Commons, we watched squirrels and birds, and found a "dawn redwood" (Metasequoia) growing among the willows. In that city of overpriced everything, I was pleased to see that the boat rides (the swan boats that first began running in 1877), were only $2.75. We didn't go, though. Maybe next trip up. After Newbury Street, Spooky drove up to Cambridge and Harvard Square, and I saw the little cemetery that's mentioned in "Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)," but we were too tired to stop.
Truthfully, my goddamn rotten feet made the whole day rather miserable, despite the wonderful sights. I'm reaching the point where the walking stick isn't sufficient, and may soon be resorting to a wheelchair for such things as wandering around Boston for hours at a time (almost three miles). I miss the days when I could walk and walk and walk, with hardly an ache at all. I miss dancing even more. I don't think I've really danced since November 2004. Between my feet and the seizures, I feel I've aged twenty years in the last five. There is no romance in invalidism, and I do not welcome this weakness. Anyway, we made it back home by about 8 p.m. We watched a couple of episodes of The X-Files and Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940).
There are photos from yesterday (behind the cut):
The grand Metasequoia on Boston Commons.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Kathryn A. Pollnac
---
Cliff Miller writes, "There was a fire at the Georgia Theatre in Athens, causing heavy damage. I wondered if you had any memories of that place from your days in Athens that you might wish to share on the LJ?"
I heard about the fire at the Georgia Theater a couple of days back, and it saddened me enormously. I spent a lot of time at the Georgia Theater between 1994 and 1997. It's here I heard Concrete Blonde play, and met Johnette Napolitano (the same weekend I met
docbrite). Death's Little Sister once played there, opening for someone (though I can't recall for whom). I'm glad to hear they plan to rebuild, but, of course, it'll never be the same.---
I've begun tweeting the micropreview of The Red Tree over at greygirlbeast. The plan was to post a sentence a day, until the book is released on August 4th. Of course, I immediately realized that 140 characters won't accommodate many of those sentences. Today, for instance, I was only able to post the first three quarters or so of the first sentence. So, this is going to be a strange affair, indeed.
Please, if you haven't already, have a look at the current eBay auctions, all proceeds earmarked to help offset the cost of my attending ReaderCon 20 in July.
And, with that, the platypus says its time to get my skinny ass to the word mines....
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Good luck in finding your Tree, perhaps the Tree will find you :>)
-A33
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perhaps the Tree will find you
Well, I must admit, that would simplify matters.
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Now I wish Boston had Ents.
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I was thinking the same thing.
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Perhaps there are, and Boston merely needs elves to begin waking them up.
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Lovely photos, especially the squirrel and the tree, which looks like it's been carved out of stone by erosion, rather than grown out of the ground.
A blessed Solstice to you too. :)
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Maybe I can find such a tree in Cambridge
Anyway I am saying the night in Cambridge and Harvard and will venture over to Somerville. I know there are some fantastic old trees on the Tufts University campus which was down the street from my Grand's house. I can shoot some photos of some old trees and send them when I get back. Thanks for being on Twitter by the way. It gets me to come around and read your blog that I used to read a while ago.
Happy Solstice.
Re: Maybe I can find such a tree in Cambridge
Maybe I can find such a tree in Cambridge
If you do come across anything promising, let me know. And thanks!
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Hope you and Spooky will have a fine and celebratory Solstice.
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I'm glad Boston was good.
It was. Good, I mean. Rotten feet or no. Gods, I'd love to live on Newbury...
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A lot of specific shops that I frequented are now gone, but I'd bet that equally intriguing ones have sprung up in their place....
I glimpsed so many awesome-looking bookstores.
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I love so this fragment of the world.
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That is a very grand metasequoia.
They're so very rare, and I'd only seen one living before (the one outside the Peabody Museum at Yale). The first time I ever saw Metasequia needles, I was splitting open slabs of clay from the Late Creatceous. And then, yesterday, I bumped into the branch, and said, this is a Metasequia, utterly amazed. A few seconds later,Spooky found a plaque near the near confirming my ID.
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Funny thing. All the ones in North America are clones.
If you and Spooky ever get bored enough to drive over to Hartford, I'll introduce you to another.
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If you and Spooky ever get bored enough to drive over to Hartford, I'll introduce you to another.
Then one day we shall do that very thing.
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I also drive through Providence on average once a month. (I have a D&D game in Fall River.) Maybe I can bring you dinner.
Hmmmm. That sounds rather doable...
And Fall River is so ripe for D&D.
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