This is how it works (redux)

[desperance]

In Which Chaz Goes to Cambridge, and Lingers, and is Late Home



(but it was worth it, Barry, honest it was...)

The point of going to Cambridge had started out onefold, to be at the Heffers SF/F event; it then turned twofold, to spend some time with my friend Michelle Spring, who has spent a fortnight in hospital with a burst appendix, which is the sort of major medical thing I thought had been left behind in my childhood, but evidently not (like quinsy, which another writerly friend of mine has suffered from); and then it turned threefold, when the blessed mevennen pointed me at the Whipple Museum. Of which, more anon.

So yesterday morning I committed writing, a thousand words or so; and really I didn't want to be leaving, because I am now one mega-climax, one resolution and one twist short of an ending, and I could've done that by Sunday morning and had a champagne party to celebrate the World's Quickest Novel By Me (Bar Two). But, hey-ho, off we go.

So I went, and sat on trains, and that was miserable because everything was late and all connections were missed and I didn't get to spend the easy chatty time with Michelle that I had budgeted for. I'd even caught an earlier train than planned, to give myself half an hour's leeway in the changeover in case of delay; turned out I would've needed forty-five minutes, which I did not have. Still, I was reading matociquala's "Blood and Iron" as far as Ely, and I am loving that book; and then I met Justina Robson on the platform as we waited for the last connection (well, all right, she found me), so that was nice. Except that while I talked to her on the train, I suddenly realised that - in phoning Michelle from Peterborough station, to explain how delayed I was - I had left behind in the phone booth that sheath of papers that contained her phone number. Also her address, her instructions for finding it, and the two Multimap sheets I'd printed out to help.

So while Justina took a taxi to the bookshop, I bought an A-Z of Cambridge, and tried to remember the address.

Which I did, thankfully (actually I was fairly confident, because I am good with numbers; it was only that because I'd printed it out from the e-mail, therefore I hadn't written it down, therefore I hadn't actually needed to read it, so...); rang the doorbell in a spirit of hope & adventure, and there she was. Pale and not exactly dressed, speaking of her open wound, but hey. Better than the other thing, the wrong end of peritonitis.

So I had a glass of wine and we chatted a little, about morphine dreams and such; and then I scarpered for the gig. Which is unusual, as there is no gigging - just a lot of writers in a bookshop, with many books, and as many punters as they can swing. No readings, no public talking at all. Just a glass of wine and a mingle. I do like this. And I met bugshaw, which was nice; and I met Steve Cockayne, a writer I admire enormously, and his family, and his marionettes (the family business, apparently - and for the first time I am moved to wonder, why are they called marionettes? This implies Marion, Marie - are we into religious territory here? I should've asked Steve, I guess...) and once I'd established myself as a true fan he asked me for a puff, a quote for his books (hee! He asked me! And this is Steve Cockayne we're talking here!); and I talked to a nice man who wants me to write a story for him, and to a nice publisher who'd love to publish me if only my books moved much, much faster. Sigh. But it was fun, and all worth it, and I was glad to be there. Also I spent a lot of time hanging out with TWF and other mates, and I drank much more wine than a glass.

And then I went back to Michelle's and cooked a steak (the perfect hostess: she had eaten, for obvious reasons, and she pointed me towards her kitchen and said do it yourself) and made a salad and talked to her until she went to bed, and then I watched silly TV and drank the rest of the bottle and did likewise.

And this morning we talked more (I do like my friends; we get to do talking...) and - oh, here's a thing. I think I am grim and ground-down, bloody and pretty much bowed; Michelle says I twinkle. One of us is wrong.

But I think I talked too much, because she grew tired; so I packed and left, and went to find this museum that mevennen had told me of. Thing is, I posted last week about orreries, and mevennen said I should go to the museum attached to the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. Where, obviously, I was going this week; where I was now at. So I went in search.

And found it, and it was closed until 12.30.

Now the thing is, usually when I'm in a strange city and due to go home, my first thought on waking - well, no. My first thought on waking is about coffee. My second thought after waking is about going home. Today, though, I had budgeted for museum; and my first thought on seeing the opening times was 'Oh, soddit, might as well go home, then"; and my second was "wish I'd checked on Google, then I'd have known"; and my third was "no, soddit, that's what, two and a half hours? I'm in Cambridge, I can kill two and a half hours, and I want to see this thing..."

So I decided to do my flâneur thing, which is how I experience strange cities, anywhere from London to Taipei. I wandered around a bit looking at pretty buildings and pretty people (the student cyclist with the headphones on, who was practising his air-drumming to the beat as he cycled), and felt amazingly nostalgic for my childhood Oxford, because Cambridge is still a city of cycles as Oxford used to be (don't know if it's still true, but students used to be forbidden cars within the city precincts; I know they do still have a Motor Proctor, because I passed the office). And went into Fitzbillies for a coffee and a Chelsea bun, and stayed there to write a thousand words of the novel, more or less (which at the moment my computer doesn't want to acknowledge as existing, but hey, we'll sort that out. Sooner or later). And wandered on and found a street market and bought a book by George Alec Effinger that I didn't actually have already, and what's that about? And went back to the museum - hereinafter called the Whipple - and it was open, and I went inside.

And it's only one room, but it is full of scientific instruments and I could have stayed all day, if I'd only had someone with me who could talk to me about them. They have stylus-driven mechanical calculators of the kind I had when I was a child in the '60s, hee!, my life has become a museum piece!; and slide rules ditto ditto; and brass Victorian microscopes of the kind my brother had; and astrolabes and all sorts, and yup, a Grand Orrery. And it was all lovely, and I left too soon.

In a very literal sense, because halfway to the station I decided I had to go back. And looked some more, and asked the nice lady if she had any literature about the orrery, which she didn't really but I bought a booklet anyway; and while I was talking to her a nice man pointed out that a pane had fallen from the leaded glass dome that covered the orrery, and did she know? Which she did, it had happened a while back; but I came out of there thinking of shattered domes, which led me to thoughts of old photographs, and I seem to have half a ghost story in my head. Which is, of course, why I went there. [Query: does anybody know why photographs should be spooky, where paintings are not? I am entirely untouched by Dorian Gray's picture, but an old photo will do it for me every time.]

And this time I very nearly made it to the station, before I remembered that I had left half a prescription's worth of pills at Michelle's house. So I went back, and she was asleep but her home help was in, helping; and let me take the pills and promised to leave a note for Michelle to say so, and I thought what a perfect way to distribute drugs among the populace, and who says I'm not a crime writer any more?

And then I did catch a train, at last; and halfway home someone I used to live with twenty-five years ago materialised beside me, on their way to give a poetry reading in Durham; which was a fine way to finish a fine day.

And so I came home, and Barry!!'s breakfast had turned into tea; but he did at least get Special! Tea! - which is pretty much tuna! from a tin! - and he seems to have forgiven me, at least to the point of snuggling and purring. So that's all right; and I have drunk a bottle of wine, and so am I.

Comments

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

A. Fantastic day.

B. Of course there's a ghost story!

C. Michelle is right -- you twinkle.

D. In my opinion, the quality of light in a photograph is very different than in a painting. The texture of the paint makes it heavier somehow, while, in a photograph, it remains more ethereal and other wordly.

And, of course, there's the whole theory about a photograph's ability to capture the soul . . .

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

So durham_rambler and I were right that there was no point in pounding on your door at lunch time, having visited Andrew? Thought so...

A painting is something that someone has painted with malice aforethought, whereas a photo is things which are there (or indeed not) transferring themselves to the picture via the light. A painting might be spooky if the artist was recording very objectively what s/he saw, and that wasn't in fact what was there (which is to say, I suppose, if it were as photographic as it could be).

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Now I want to visit the museum in Cambridge too.

Oh, and I love that you use the word 'flâneur', with proper accent and everything. We need more flâneurs in the world.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Go, do go; it's a fab little place.

Oh, and the flâneur thing - this was how I learned to love London. A couple of years back, I was there and feeling as I always did about London, that I really didn't like it, it was too big for me, too alien - and realised suddenly how that stood in contrast to my feelings for Taipei, for Seoul, which are as big and as alien and I love them. What it was, I was confused by a superficial familiarity with London; I'd been going there all my life, I sort of know my way around the centre, so I forgot that I was as much a stranger there as anywhere, I didn't treat it as I would somewhere more obviously foreign. So I made a conscious decision to do so. Spent a whole day at it, making my way on foot from the V&A to Tate Modern: looking at art, looking at the people, looking at the city; stopping in cafes to read a book, to drink a glass of wine, like that. And the book I was reading? Edmund White's "The Flâneur", about him doing exactly the same in Paris. It was perfect, and is now my absolute policy, wherever I am. I flân.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

I'm with Michelle on the twinkling.

What a lovely ramble - well worth sharing with us.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I like flaning (sorry, too brain dead to work out the accent) except that I refer to it my own case as 'buggering about.' You know what I mean. I'm glad you found and enjoyed the Whipple. And sorry I didn't make it up there - it was just an event too far at the moment. But I have been staying with Cherith Baldry, so I heard about it.