I haven’t done a regular blog post in awhile—in the first part of January, I was busy promoting The Big Aha and my art show. And in the latter part of December, my wife and I were on a trip to Wisconsin and Wyoming, visiting our daughters and their families.
So I’ll mention some upcoming events, and then I’ll run some of my snowy trip-to-the-midwest photos.
Next Wednesday, Jan 29, I’m part of a wild line-up of Dorkbot entertainment in SF. “People doing weird things with electricity.” I’ll be talking about how to get high off quantum mechanics—which is a theme of The Big Aha. I’ll probably run a slideshow of some of my paintings as well.
A couple of days later, Saturday, Feb 1, I’ll be part of an equally louche speaker-list at Transhuman Visions, a con at Fort Mason.
I’ll try and podcast one or both of these talks. I finally got a decent pocket voice recorder (it’s a solid little SONY digital recorder…I hated that piece-of-crap Zoom I was trying to use, the one with the inscrutable controls and a display as unreadable as a new San Francisco parking-meter’s).
Speaking of this, see a click-link for Rudy Rucker Podcasts just above. You can find the podcast of my Big Aha talk, reading, Q&A, and art tour there already
The Big Aha reading at Borderlands was good. Some of my artist/author pals showed up, including Paul Mavrides and John Shirley, also Richard Kadrey and Michael Blumlein, these two guys shown above. I wish I got to spend more of my time talking to writers.
So now wah-wah-wah back to December 22, 2013. Flying from Sunny Californee to Salt Lake City and on to Madison. I just love the views you get when a plane’s about to land. Especially cool with snow on the ground. I view that image above as Gilbert Shelton’s cartoon character Philbert Desannex, implemented as vast grayscale Mormon-land earthwork. Philbert’s big wobbly nose is pointing to the left.
Fun with daughter Georgia in Madison. Her husband Courtney made these amazing cut-out snowflakes with the grandchildren…he’d researched the web about cool ones to make. This awesome young woman YouTuber Vi Hart has a great video on topic.
Nice and nostalgic to be out there in winterland, a part of my early past. Xmas-tide sundown in winterland, wow.
Sylvia and I stayed in a hotel with, of all people, the Harlem Globetrotters, out on some intense performing tour. I saw them in the Kentucky State Fairgrounds in 1956. They didn’t look much older. Goose Gossage! One morning it had snowed still more and we walked around the Madison capitol building. Snow always very nice on heavy-duty Beaux-arts-type architecture.
A beautiful Christmas together.
Caught the plane to Jackson, Wyoming, to visit Isabel and her husband for New Years Eve. Flew over a Magic Mountain.
Isabel and Gus live in Pinedale, a little wilder than Jackson.
We were staying in an inexpensive motel a few blocks from Isabel’s house. It enjoyed walking the half mile to her house and taking pictures along the way. I do my best photos when I’m alone and I’m, like, having a conversation with the camera.
The patent mysteries of solid, well-used sheds.
There’s the one house where the guy keeps an endless amount of junk in his yard. He’s just ouside the town line, so he can do as he pleases. I’m inordinatley fond of this one particular rusted old car. I think of it as “the R. Crumb car,” because it looks like one of Crumb’s drawings, maybe like the car on the cover of Zap Comix #0, or was it #1.
For me, a big highlight of the trip was that I got to go cross-country skiing with Georgia in Madison, and then again with Isabel in Wyoming. This picture shows me at the start of a blizzard off-trail on the edge of a huge canyon holding Fremont Lake, at the tip-ass-end Wyomingwhere. I was really proud and happy that I was able to get out on the trail one more time. Yeah, baby!
I’ve still got more trip pix, but I’ll save them for a later post.
January 28th, 2014 at 10:02 am
My house was built around 1950 and had that same yellow tile with the brown trim in the kitchen counter and backsplash, until a recent remodel replaced it with a more two-dimensional laminate. A chromatic mode plucked from mid-century.
January 28th, 2014 at 10:23 am
Fought off my pedant switch for a few days, but am now giving in. Goose Gossage was a baseball player, not a Globetrotter, which I only know because he is a local ‘hero’ here in Colorado Springs. Though I suppose he could have been there too?
Meanwhile, my copy of “The Big Aha” is in the mail. Looking forward to it.
January 28th, 2014 at 10:56 am
Walt, yeah, this tile is from a 1950s era house in Madison, WI. And, James, you’re right, I meant Goose Tatum! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_Tatum
January 28th, 2014 at 11:24 am
And I’m in Seattle.
January 30th, 2014 at 2:54 am
Hi Rudy –
Glad you’re still rocking ‘n’ writing and I’m psyched to read your latest. I’m sure it is as brilliant and invigorating as ever.
A bit OT:
I found a fun piece at Science Gymnasium on the trouble with Infinity that I thought you might be able to relate to. I recall you saying that David Foster Wallace might have been a good writer, but he didn’t understand infinity. I suppose that’s fittingly tragic. It was so central to his thematic continuum, but I can speak for the majority of us laymen. It’s a tangle for us, but with wonderful, energetic and creative people like yourself out there, you make the most complex subjects intriguing and a joy, even if we don’t have a thorough understanding of them.
My best as always,
Kelly
http://www.sciencegymnasium.com/2014/01/whats-it-like-to-devote-yourself-to.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Sciencegymnasium+%28ScienceGymnasium%29
January 30th, 2014 at 4:13 am
OH…and in mentioning DFW in the previous post, and as a sort of salve for the simplicity of the problem of infinity I offered up, you might find the following article tasty.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/neither-scylla-nor-charybdis-gauging-crisis/
January 31st, 2014 at 12:02 pm
I’m really looking forward to reading The Big Aha. What I read of Turing&Burroughs was great; i downloaded it and only read part of it because I intend to buy a physical copy of it sometime. I just don’t have a credit card so i can’t order it online.
I just want to say that I’m a big fan of Mr. Rucker’s 3rd person narrative style. I find so much SF out there, especially the stuff written in 3rd person, is overwritten and way too descriptive. I mostly gravitate toward books written in 3rd person POV, and books like Postsingular and Turing&Burroughs are very refreshing. They’re just sparse enough in style to be incredibly readable 😉
I bought Postsingular and its sequel in a Chapters, but I haven’t been able to find what he’s written since. I hope I can. ;p