Ray Bradbury

American author Ray Bradbury is still writing his "speculative fiction" despite a stroke in 1999. His 1957 novel Dandelion Wine is one of my favorite books, and there is a chapter in it that I find quite evocative. An old man named Colonel Freeleigh calls regularly from his wheelchair to a friend in Mexico City and asks him to hold the telephone out the window so he can hear the sounds of the street. The colonel explains, "You are all there, the people in the city. I can't believe I was ever among you. When you are away from a city, it becomes a fantasy. Any town, New York, Chicago, with its people, becomes improbable with distance. Just as I am improbable here, in Illinois, in a small town by a quiet lake. All of us improbable to one another because we are not present to one another. And so it is good to hear the sounds, and know that Mexico City is still there and the people moving and living..." You can read most of this chapter on Google Books (search "Mexico City" and start reading on p. 130) and you can hear the sounds of the Mexico City street on sound-effect.com (click arrow to listen to 127-second preview). I first read this story as a teenager and was reminded of it while talking to Jody Arlington when she lived in Madrid in the late 1990s, so I reread it and faxed her a copy. I thought of it again last night when imagining what it would sound like to be on one of the ships in my rather tame post of yesterday...

Garden cemeteries

The gravestone of Swiss-American geologist Jules Marcou (1824-1898) in Mount Auburn Cemetery (above). A great 6-minute segment about Green-Wood Cemetery from the ongoing on-line video series The City Concealed, which explores the unseen corners of New York (below).

One day several years ago, Jody Arlington and I took a brown-bag lunch to beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown. We perched on the stairs of a family tomb that took the shape of a rotunda and began to enjoy our sandwiches in the shady, picturesque setting. Almost immediately, we were chased away by a caretaker who lectured us about disrespecting the dead. I didn't have the presence of mind to counter with the history of garden cemeteries, but just have a look at the first paragraph of this article - which features Oak Hill and 5 other Washington-area cemeteries. The garden cemetery movement of the 19th c. was inspired by Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, with its artistic tombs and winding walkways. Graveyards, previously believed to emit an unhealthy miasma, drew visitors to enjoy the statuary and stonework in a landscaped setting. Garden cemeteries in the U.S. led to the public park system and two of the first - Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Green-Wood in Brooklyn, New York - have been designated National Historic Landmarks. I have never been to Mount Auburn Cemetery, but did take a driving tour of Green-Wood Cemetery with my friend Kristina - the guard was going to deny us entry, since we didn't have relatives buried there, but I produced my membership card for the Association for Gravestone Studies (to which I have belonged since 1987) and he let us in. We didn't bring a lunch.

Speaking of taxidermy

Friends James Taylor, Jody Arlington, and Franck Cordes spent Saturday evening with me, and a good time was had by all. We talked about myriad curiosities and characters, sideshow performers, carnival mummies, and - of course - our favorite museum! Later in the evening, we discussed the fire that devastated the legendary Deyrolle taxidermy shop in Paris last year. Deyrolle (estab. 1831) is being restored and several rooms have reopened. This after 90% of the animal mounts were destroyed by faulty electrical wiring in the store next door. I realized I forgot to include this pertinent news in my recent taxidermy post.

While They Slept

I have known Jody Arlington (pictured with her husband Franck Cordes) since 1994. It was only recently that she revealed publicly that her brother killed their family when she was 16. He has spent the years since in prison. She has moved on, periodically writing the story herself (as her thesis, for instance). Now she has allowed Kathryn Harrison to tell it in While They Slept, which was published in June 2008. I reviewed it on nth position and it was reviewed in the New York Times. Jody has been featured on Good Morning America and in the Washington Post Magazine. Strong woman, horrifying story, great book.