Wow, wow, Waldrop!
Mar. 22nd, 2006 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eclectic_boyI just got an unexpected package in the mail, return-addressed "Capclave 2005", an sf convention I attended back in September. It contained something I'd forgotten about -- the autographed chapbook of Howard Waldrop stories that all Capclave attendees were promised, apparently finished at last. HW is one of my favorite authors, and one of the two stories, The Horse of a Different Color (that you rode in on), is excellent, top-of-his-game stuff. I just blew through it and it's left me positively giddy.
Waldrop's finest skill is in mixmastering cultural references and obscure slices of past generation's lives. In this case, the story is a reminiscence of one of the last living vaudeville performers, and gradually grows from odd trivia about stage life to involve The Golden Bough, T.S. Eliot, freemasons, and the holy grail. And a pantomime horse. It's just a joy to see how his mind works. This may be making an appearance at a story reading near you (well, if you're in Swarthmore, this Saturday).
Waldrop's finest skill is in mixmastering cultural references and obscure slices of past generation's lives. In this case, the story is a reminiscence of one of the last living vaudeville performers, and gradually grows from odd trivia about stage life to involve The Golden Bough, T.S. Eliot, freemasons, and the holy grail. And a pantomime horse. It's just a joy to see how his mind works. This may be making an appearance at a story reading near you (well, if you're in Swarthmore, this Saturday).
EzGVVHhaDvKyD
Date: 2007-06-11 04:52 am (UTC)