Long Update
It's about time for a serious update.
One of my college friends moved to Connecticut a few months ago, so I buzzed up to visit him. Ten hours, baby. Each way. The driving was surprisingly easy, although I couldn't get on the turnpike on the way home at Carlisle -- police blockade -- and had to take like an hour detour to get to Breezewood.
But the visit was fun. We saw like everything worth seeing within two hours of Grotin: The world's second-largest casino, the first US nuclear sub and associated museum, the Newport cliff walk and a tour of The Breakers, Avery Point where the Coast Guard trains, the Providence Place mall (five stories), and yes, the bug on the roof of a skyscraper in Providence. We also spent some time hanging out with his aunt and his roommate. There were little stone walls everywhere. Apparently from when the 17th-century settlers were clear-cutting the area, they took and stacked the rocks to mark the bounds of their fields, so now they're all in random places all over. There are also a remarkable amount of Dunkin Donuts shops. I saw his church, which is quite small but new, and we drove past where he works. Kind of a grueling weekend, but very fun.
I always thought I'd grow up and have good taste. Like I'd get into opera or something, and all my books would be bound in leather. Given my sheer joy at finding out that my library carries compiled volumes of comic books, I don't think that happened. I took out the first volume of Ultimate X-Men and devoured it that night. I love everything about comic books -- I like looking at striking artwork, people in cool poses or making cool faces, I like succinct and snappy dialogue, I really like superpowers -- so I think I'll be spending this summer plowing through the rest of the series.
At the same time I picked up some more hack fiction: compiled short stories in horror, scifi and mystery flavors. I actually think that since childhood, my taste has gotten worse.
I redeemed myself by picking up Louis Sachar's Holes. Holes (the book, not the movie) is unbelievably good. The plot is incredibly tight -- not a single word wasted. I can't recommend it enough.
Geocities finally went and erased the RWOnline website. I can't say I'm surprised, it's been two years, and I can't blame them either -- I hate online deadwood as much as the next guy. I do, however, intend to resurrect it as an archive for all the articles, reviews et cetera that ran in the zine all those months. If any of you have an article you wrote, or saved just because you liked it, please drop an email to rwonline at yahoo dot com, and let me know what you have. I may not have everything on my home computer (although I suspect I have a lot). I would hate for everyone's hard work to just be deleted like that.
One of my college friends moved to Connecticut a few months ago, so I buzzed up to visit him. Ten hours, baby. Each way. The driving was surprisingly easy, although I couldn't get on the turnpike on the way home at Carlisle -- police blockade -- and had to take like an hour detour to get to Breezewood.
But the visit was fun. We saw like everything worth seeing within two hours of Grotin: The world's second-largest casino, the first US nuclear sub and associated museum, the Newport cliff walk and a tour of The Breakers, Avery Point where the Coast Guard trains, the Providence Place mall (five stories), and yes, the bug on the roof of a skyscraper in Providence. We also spent some time hanging out with his aunt and his roommate. There were little stone walls everywhere. Apparently from when the 17th-century settlers were clear-cutting the area, they took and stacked the rocks to mark the bounds of their fields, so now they're all in random places all over. There are also a remarkable amount of Dunkin Donuts shops. I saw his church, which is quite small but new, and we drove past where he works. Kind of a grueling weekend, but very fun.
I always thought I'd grow up and have good taste. Like I'd get into opera or something, and all my books would be bound in leather. Given my sheer joy at finding out that my library carries compiled volumes of comic books, I don't think that happened. I took out the first volume of Ultimate X-Men and devoured it that night. I love everything about comic books -- I like looking at striking artwork, people in cool poses or making cool faces, I like succinct and snappy dialogue, I really like superpowers -- so I think I'll be spending this summer plowing through the rest of the series.
At the same time I picked up some more hack fiction: compiled short stories in horror, scifi and mystery flavors. I actually think that since childhood, my taste has gotten worse.
I redeemed myself by picking up Louis Sachar's Holes. Holes (the book, not the movie) is unbelievably good. The plot is incredibly tight -- not a single word wasted. I can't recommend it enough.
Geocities finally went and erased the RWOnline website. I can't say I'm surprised, it's been two years, and I can't blame them either -- I hate online deadwood as much as the next guy. I do, however, intend to resurrect it as an archive for all the articles, reviews et cetera that ran in the zine all those months. If any of you have an article you wrote, or saved just because you liked it, please drop an email to rwonline at yahoo dot com, and let me know what you have. I may not have everything on my home computer (although I suspect I have a lot). I would hate for everyone's hard work to just be deleted like that.