New York is so great. What an anthill. After a couple of days there, I could feel two spectral thoracic legs waving from my abdomen.

An artist was commissioned to erect a bunch of treehouses in Madison Square, the little park at Broadway and 23rd by the Flatiron Building. They’re very high up, on trees with smooth trunks—and the homeless people can’t climb up to them.

I always visit the Flatiron Building because my publisher, Tor Books, has their offices there. I first saw the building fifty years ago, when I was twelve. My father and I went to New York together, and he showed it to me, along with the Empire State Building. Odd to think that now I’m doing business there.

I love the big NYC buildings against the sky, and how they reflect each other. It’s a wonderland, a giant hall of mirrors.

It’s not accurate to view New Yorkers as uniformly gruff. Many of them are very friendly and talkative. And it takes very little to get a conversation going. As a result of seeing millions of people a year, the locals are anything but shy. They’re smooth, and they converse easily.

Our daughter Georgia happened to be in NYC as well, and she got us to go with her to see Camper van Beethoven play at the Bowery Ballroom, which is a little like the Fillmore, but about half as big, and somewhat seedier.

I’ve always loved Camper Van. They were big when we moved to California 25 years ago; Marc Laidlaw introduced me to their music. By now, the lead singer, David Lowry, reminds me of an eccentric old professor—fit, dedicated, and prepared to speak out. My twin. They sang their big hit, “Take the Skinheads Bowling.” [Click to see it on YouTube.] What a masterpiece.
“Last night I had a dream—it was about nothing.”

We saw a new play called Becky Shaw that was fun. Not a musical, you understand— more of a Noel Coward piece, but up-to-date. Tight, witty repartee for the dialog—the kinds of things you’d say if you had a week to ponder each line. The actors were attractive and professional. The Big Apple. We hit a couple of ballets and museums too. Vulturing the culture.

We saw our old friend Eddie Marritz. He’s a cinematographer who shoots still pictures when there’s spare time. He’s very old school in this regard—he uses a Leica M6 rangefinder camera with black and white film. He was telling me it’s important to take lots of pictures of a given scene to make sure you got the right one. And he comes up with great shots, so for sure this approach works for him.

I myself prefer the school of “think, watch, get ready, and just take the one or two perfect shots.” Like going squirrel-hunting with only two bullets in your pocket (not that I’ve ever gone squirrel-hunting, but I like the Kentucky metaphor). Or—better analogy—it’s like making each pop count when you have only twelve firecrackers to set off, as was often the case when I was a boy.

I suppose I imprinted on a conservative photo-shooting approach when I was an impecunious young man making pictures on film. And now I like to imagine that if get deeply enough into the process, merging with the camera and with the view, I can feel the right picture without actually having to shoot the wrong ones. Alternately, I sometimes think that one picture is as good as another anyway—each has its own magic.

[Tribal paintings that are massed to make a ceiling near New Guinea.]

This said, now that I’m using digital now, I do go for a “do-over” sometimes. That is, I look at my shot on the camera’s little screen, and then I reshoot right away if the image seems badly lit, or poorly framed, or out of focus in the wrong spot. And it’s also the case, that I Photoshop nearly every one of my pictures, tweaking the lighting and framing—and this is another reason why I don’t necessarily need a “perfect” shot.

In NYC, I also saw a young writer I know from publishing two of his excellent stories in Flurb, Brendan Byrne. Brendan’s taking a little time off from work (most recently he was a bartender at McSorley’s) to focus on writing. He’s hoping to write a couple of novels during his personal sabbatical. Go for it, Brendan!

I advised Brendan to be sure and try writing an SF novel as well. In my (possibly mistaken) opinion, it’s easier to get a novel published as SF than as mainstream literature. Not that the lit-biz is booming on any front. My editor, David Hartwell, says nobody’s sure what’s going to happen next.

But I never worry too much when I hear bad news about publishing. I’ve been writing and publishing for about thirty years now, and I think that during each one of those 30 years, someone has told me that times have never been worse in publishing. Especially in SF publishing!

In any case, writing SF is something I like to do.
“I know it’s only rock and roll—but I like it.”

In this connection, I like to imagine being this sculpture of Herakles, I can relate to how he’s evolved into our present time.
“Wal, I’ve still got my torso—and some of my toes.”
The guy sitting beside Herakles is sketching him on a pad. It must be great to be an NYC artist and go sketching and painting things in the Met.

Today it’s 75 degrees in San Jose, California, and 3 degrees in New York. Like two different planets, almost.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 7:22 am and is filed under Rudy's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.