Subject: (urth) Winchester House Absolute

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 03:59:08 +0000

> From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>

> Update: I saw in the progress report for Con Jose that they are organizing
> a tour of the fabled Winchester Mystery House. I had not realized that
> access was so restrictive, I thought people could just drop in any time,
> pay the money, go inside, which shows how little planning I had done.
> 
> Anyway, I decided to let the cat out of the bag and ask Gene Wolfe if he'd
> ever been, if he would like to go while at Worldcon, and if he would, would
> he rather go on the organized tour or on a separate one.
> 
> He has been there before (D'oh!) and he recommends it.  He is interested in
> going while at Worldcon, but as his wife would not likely be able to go
> (wheelchair access issues), he would probably have to go without her and
> cannot commit as yet.

	As I recall from a documentary some time back, Sara Winchester was
disabled herself and much of the house is accessible with only 2-3 inch
risers; a stout but gentle help ought to be able to naviagte a
wheelchair without much trouble, though some of the corners might be
tight.

	Those who have occsasion to visit the campus of Texas A&M in College
Station should visit the Sterling C. Evans library. The sprawling
structure has gradually acreted around the blocky, utilitarian 3-4 story
building present when GW matriculated there 50 years ago and now
completely concealed by the present expanded facility. When I was there
ca 1988, there were numerous intertwined sections separated by a single
wall or locked door that required very circuitous routes to otherwise
travel between, including a shadowy gallery from which exultant brats
could lash the poor slobs underneath on their way to Periodicals.
(Fortunately, they were more interested in making out.) The original
building is mostly(?) intact, though its had new floors inserted between
the originals IIRC, in order to fit more archival shelving. There's no
rodents living among the stacks, though there are some interesting
architechtural decisions, including a stairway styled like a stopped
escalator that gives it a declined-age feel. There's more than a little
House Absolute and "Date Due" to be found there. 

-- 
Jeff Wilson
How Am I Posting? 1-800-555-6789
"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy." -Cpt Law

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 00:39:13 +0000

> disabled herself

She had arthritis.

She was also 4'10" and of slight build.

>                 and much of the house is accessible with only 2-3 inch

This is incorrect.

I've been there many times.

The staircases that have the teeny tiny risers also have walls that are
three feet apart and multiple 180 degree turns.

,

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From: Tony Ellis <littlesense at necronomicon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 22:42:13 +0000

Jeff Wilson wrote:
>Station should visit the Sterling C. Evans library.
<snip>
>.There's more than a little

The Haunted Boardinghouse too, by the sound of it.

House Absolute hunters might also find a visit to the Doge's Palace in
Venice of interest.

Although the Doge did have apartments there, the primary function of the
building was to house the ruling councils and law courts of the Republic.
Enjoying the public tour of the Palazzo a while back it struck me, as it had
on a previous visit, that these grand chambers with their Tintoretto and
Veronese ceiling panels were all very nice for looking at, but you couldn't
possibly run a complex, corrupt city like Venice from them. This time I
enquired, and discovered that, if you booked it two days in advance, there
was another, private, tour of the Palazzo you could take.

As the name suggests, the Itinerari Segreti takes in all the secret rooms
visitors to the Palazzo were never supposed to see. A warren of chambers and
passages that, like the Secret House, interconnects with the public palace
at a number of different points. At one, you actually find yourself looking
down from a high inner window into one of the public rooms, the tourists
milling around below you entirely oblivious. I had been that room on the
public tour, and had never even noticed the window.

Elsewhere we saw the office where the Chancellor, the most powerful man in
Venice, worked. He was paid a salary of a billion lira a year to free him
from the temptation of bribery, and he worked in a bare, cramped wooden room
hidden above one of the sumptuous ceiling panels.

In another of the public rooms there were four ornate matching wardrobes,
one in each corner. Three were genuine. The fourth concealed a little
staircase leading to a minimalist torture chamber Master Palaemon might have
approved of. It had a strappado, a bench for inquisitors where they could qu
estion without being seen, and tiny en suite oubliettes where enemies of the
state could hear what was coming to them next.

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