This is Me, Jack Vance
Page 18
Dedication
In Memoriam
NORMA VANCE
(1927–2008)
Jack Vance (1916 - )
Jack Vance was born in 1916 and studied mining, engineering and journalism at the University of California. During the Second World War he served in the merchant navy and was torpedoed twice. He started contributing stories to the pulp magazines in the mid 1940s and published his first book, The Dying Earth, in 1950. Among his many books are The Dragon Masters, for which he won his first Hugo Award, Big Planet, The Anome, and the Lyonesse sequence. He has won the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, amongst others, and in 1997 was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Jack Vance 2009
All rights reserved.
The right of Jack Vance to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10994 0
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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* When the British royal family came to San Francisco, they stayed at the Palace Hotel, where the ballroom was known as The Rose Room. Hickman wrote a tune to commemorate this royal visit, Rose Room, which is still a standard.
* I like many kinds of music besides jazz, including old folk music. An LP was recorded back in the ‘30s by Jimmy Rogers, “The Singing Brakeman”. The tune which comes to mind was “Just Waiting for a Train”.
I’m a thousand miles away from home
Just waiting for a train.
The emotion Rogers projects is very real. While I’m on the subject, I’d also like to mention another LP by Harry McClintock, better known as Haywire Mac. This was about cowboys and also the great American hobo. Nor must I forget Ukulele Ike (alias Cliff Edwards); one of his records is Stack O’ Lee, one of the high achievements in jazz.
* The Campanile, a 300-foot belltower erected in 1914, is to this day a symbol of UC Berkeley.
* The older the ink, the greater its value. The best ink is often several centuries old. It would have been formulated by an ink-maker, lain aside, the stock inherited by the ink-maker’s son, who would keep it and pass it down to his own son in turn. This stock of ink would be passed down from son to son over the generations, until finally it might be used. Such ink would be sold as a black cake in a porcelain pot, and reverently stroked with a damp brush.
To write a character properly, an exact sequence of strokes must be observed. If the strokes are not carried out in the proper order, the educated eye can see that the character is malformed, to the shame of the person who has performed this gauche travesty.
As a side illumination, and to draw attention to my own achievements (on the theory that if I don’t no one else will), I would like to mention that I became quite deft in the writing of the characters and was so complimented by my instructors.
* Lu Watters later composed a tune, “Big Bear Stomp”, in recollection of these sessions.
* I did much of my writing in a deck chair where I could look off across the ocean. On a calm day in the tropics, the view across the ocean trivializes any attempt to describe it in words. There are endless miles of blue water, transparent at the swells, gently heaving all the way out to the horizon, where maybe a few cumulus clouds are mounting.
* In fact, at the end of the trip Britt told me that when taking stock of the crew he considered me the least shifty of the lot!
* 7 shillings, 6 pence.
* Much of the popular music of the time, especially that produced in England, reflects this mood. Here I refer to those splendid orchestras of Lew Stone, Ray Noble, Ambrose, and the vocals of Al Bowlly. At this time Noble and Bowlly recorded such tunes as Café Continental, Isle of Capri, South America Joe, One Night in Monte Carlo, Good Night Sweetheart, The Very Thought of You, and many more.
* Years later, I used Positano as the locale for a murder mystery, Strange People, Queer Notions.
* Now Er Rachidia.
* The Tahitian word Hinano has multiple meanings. It is first the name of a flower, the lovely bloom of the hala tree or screwpine, Pandanus odoratissimus. Second, it is the name of Tahiti’s most popular beer, the label of which is a work of art. Third, Hinano is a girl’s name—notably, Hinano Katz, whom I have mentioned. Fourth, it is the name that Johnny and I subsequently applied to our 45-foot ketch, which still plies San Francisco Bay.
* Camasunary, incidentally, is the setting for Mary Stewart’s novel Wildfire at Midnight, one of her most suspenseful murder mysteries.
* I should add that the same was true when we drove through Romania and Hungary, both also part of the Eastern Bloc at this time. Nobody took the slightest interest in our activities, and everyone we encountered in these countries was extremely friendly.
* If anyone is interested, peat is extracted from bogs using a spadelike instrument known as a slane. It is thrown up on the bank and allowed to dry and mature for several months; the end product is used all over Ireland as a fuel. When we were in residence at the Molloy cottage we used it in our fireplace. It burns beautifully, makes a lovely fire and produces a sharp, woodsy odor, which once smelled is never forgotten, and which for me is indelibly linked to memories of Ireland.
* Years later, there was a knock on our door in Oakland, and who should appear but Bob Kok. He had a sad story to tell. His daughters had all married and had left home, his wife had died, and Bob Kok was now a very lonesome man. He stayed with us for a while, then returned to South Africa. This was the last we ever heard of him.
* Vienne.
* I am sad to report that La Pyramide no longer exists; Mme. Point and her culinary delights are now things of the past. I am told the restaurant died with her; and perhaps this is a more romantic fate than the long, slow decline typical of so many establishments after their originators have departed.
* I say “went” because, as I write this, circumstances have changed. Due to certain medical contingencies too dreary to enumerate, I no longer indulge in alcohol, and our bar, except for when family or drinking guests come to stay, is now a quiet place.
* Uranium oxide, though I didn’t have any, will produce a beautiful yellow glaze; I made use of this knowledge in my early story “The Potters of Firsk”.