{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3371", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3371, "subject": "Winchester House Absolute", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-07-19T03:59:08+00:00", "last": "2002-07-20T22:42:13+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2002-07-19T03:59:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Winchester House Absolute", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Michael Andre-Driussi " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Update: I saw in the progress report for Con Jose that they are organizing\na tour of the fabled Winchester Mystery House. I had not realized that\naccess was so restrictive, I thought people could just drop in any time,\npay the money, go inside, which shows how little planning I had done.\n\nAnyway, I decided to let the cat out of the bag and ask Gene Wolfe if he'd\never been, if he would like to go while at Worldcon, and if he would, would\nhe rather go on the organized tour or on a separate one.\n\nHe has been there before (D'oh!) and he recommends it. He is interested in\ngoing while at Worldcon, but as his wife would not likely be able to go\n(wheelchair access issues), he would probably have to go without her and\ncannot commit as yet." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tAs I recall from a documentary some time back, Sara Winchester was\ndisabled herself and much of the house is accessible with only 2-3 inch\nrisers; a stout but gentle help ought to be able to naviagte a\nwheelchair without much trouble, though some of the corners might be\ntight.\n\n\tThose who have occsasion to visit the campus of Texas A&M in College\nStation should visit the Sterling C. Evans library. The sprawling\nstructure has gradually acreted around the blocky, utilitarian 3-4 story\nbuilding present when GW matriculated there 50 years ago and now\ncompletely concealed by the present expanded facility. When I was there\nca 1988, there were numerous intertwined sections separated by a single\nwall or locked door that required very circuitous routes to otherwise\ntravel between, including a shadowy gallery from which exultant brats\ncould lash the poor slobs underneath on their way to Periodicals.\n(Fortunately, they were more interested in making out.) The original\nbuilding is mostly(?) intact, though its had new floors inserted between\nthe originals IIRC, in order to fit more archival shelving. There's no\nrodents living among the stacks, though there are some interesting\narchitechtural decisions, including a stairway styled like a stopped\nescalator that gives it a declined-age feel. There's more than a little\nHouse Absolute and \"Date Due\" to be found there. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson\nHow Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789\n\"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy.\" -Cpt Law\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Geller", "address": "dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net" }, "date": "2002-07-20T00:39:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Winchester House Absolute", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "He has been there before (D'oh!) and he recommends it. He is interested in\ngoing while at Worldcon, but as his wife would not likely be able to go\n(wheelchair access issues), he would probably have to go without her and\ncannot commit as yet." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\tAs I recall from a documentary some time back, Sara Winchester was\ndisabled herself" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "She had arthritis.\n\nShe was also 4'10\" and of slight build." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " and much of the house is accessible with only 2-3 inch\nrisers; a stout but gentle help ought to be able to naviagte a\nwheelchair without much trouble, though some of the corners might be\ntight." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is incorrect.\n\nI've been there many times.\n\nThe staircases that have the teeny tiny risers also have walls that are\nthree feet apart and multiple 180 degree turns.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n," } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "littlesense at necronomicon.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-07-20T22:42:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Winchester House Absolute", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:\nThose who have occsasion to visit the campus of Texas A&M in College\nStation should visit the Sterling C. Evans library." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": ".There's more than a little\nHouse Absolute and \"Date Due\" to be found there." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Haunted Boardinghouse too, by the sound of it.\n\nHouse Absolute hunters might also find a visit to the Doge's Palace in\nVenice of interest.\n\nAlthough the Doge did have apartments there, the primary function of the\nbuilding was to house the ruling councils and law courts of the Republic.\nEnjoying the public tour of the Palazzo a while back it struck me, as it had\non a previous visit, that these grand chambers with their Tintoretto and\nVeronese ceiling panels were all very nice for looking at, but you couldn't\npossibly run a complex, corrupt city like Venice from them. This time I\nenquired, and discovered that, if you booked it two days in advance, there\nwas another, private, tour of the Palazzo you could take.\n\nAs the name suggests, the Itinerari Segreti takes in all the secret rooms\nvisitors to the Palazzo were never supposed to see. A warren of chambers and\npassages that, like the Secret House, interconnects with the public palace\nat a number of different points. At one, you actually find yourself looking\ndown from a high inner window into one of the public rooms, the tourists\nmilling around below you entirely oblivious. I had been that room on the\npublic tour, and had never even noticed the window.\n\nElsewhere we saw the office where the Chancellor, the most powerful man in\nVenice, worked. He was paid a salary of a billion lira a year to free him\nfrom the temptation of bribery, and he worked in a bare, cramped wooden room\nhidden above one of the sumptuous ceiling panels.\n\nIn another of the public rooms there were four ornate matching wardrobes,\none in each corner. Three were genuine. The fourth concealed a little\nstaircase leading to a minimalist torture chamber Master Palaemon might have\napproved of. It had a strappado, a bench for inquisitors where they could qu\nestion without being seen, and tiny en suite oubliettes where enemies of the\nstate could hear what was coming to them next." } ] } ] }