Monday, March 03, 2008

The World Is Tiny

First, an amusing anecdote: last, I met Rose Fox for lunch at the Shake Shack. As we were waiting for food -- and this is in the middle of winter, mind you, with only about five other people nearby, not the usual teeming hordes -- John Douglas wandered up, and we all said hello for a few minutes. Proving, once again, that if two people in any sub-group are present anywhere, a third will soon appear.

I was reminded of that moment this morning when I read Michael Swanwick's blog post about Janet Kagan's recent death. Now, I don't think I'd ever met Kagan, since she'd been ill for quite a while. I did read Mirabile, and liked it, and was among the many people in SF who hoped that she'd write more. But I just realized that she lived (and died) in Lincoln Park, New Jersey -- two towns over from me, the place where I catch a train to work every morning.

I wish I'd known that before she died -- not that it would have made much difference, since I didn't know her. But still.
Your Hornswoggler is Andrew Wheeler Released into the wild 3/03/2008 12:18:00 PM
Recurring Motifs: ,

2 comments:

Michael Swanwick said...

I wish you'd known it too, just because you guys would've liked each other.

In my researches into Hope Mirrlees' life, I discovered that for years she and Tolkien lived within walking distance of each other. Yet, almost assuredly, they never met.

There must be a fix for this kind of irony, but damned it I know what it is.

Mon Mar 03, 09:47:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

I only discovered from reading Edward Llewellyn's (an old timey DAW author who nobody but me remembers) obit that he was one of my father's colleagues and that I could probably have met him just by asking. I'm pretty sure the window of opportunity on that was very narrow, though, that Llewllyn first getting published and my father dying occured at almost the same time.

I also managed to avoid meeting John M. Ford because I thought we'd met and that he'd made it very clear even that was more investment of his lifespan than he wanted to invest in talking to me. I only realized once it was too late that for some reason I'd confused Ford with Stephen Brust.

Tue Mar 04, 10:50:00 AM 2008

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