pictures!

[truepenny]

First of all, let me praise the work of Heather Corinna, who took the gorgeous author photo for Mélusine which will be reappearing on The Virtu. As hanneblank points out, Heather is having a one woman show in Minneapolis starting August 7th. I only wish I could go.

Secondly, pegkerr linked to We're Not Afraid, which is a lovely lovely site.

And thirdly, since Ace is starting to think about the cover for The Virtu, I spent part of yesterday morning looking for photo references for Mélusine. And it occurred to me that some of you might like the chance to see what I think the city looks like.

The vigil chapel in the Stephansplatz subway station. The workers uncovered it by accident when they were excavating for the subway, and whoever it was who was in charge (a thousand blessings upon their head) decided to (a.) preserve it and (b.) allow subway users to see it by installing a window in the station. This is a terrible photograph (the vigil chapel does not photograph well, being underground and dimly lit and, hey, behind a window), but since the vigil chapel is the ultimate origin of the Arcane, I want to give it credit. And if you are ever in Vienna ...

I spent three weeks in Vienna when I was fourteen. It and Athens are the only two major cities I've explored to any extent. Athens is not Mélusine, but it gives good cityscape. If you mentally edit out the belt of green in the middle and then squint the right way, it's a good starting approximation.

Breadoven and Havelock and the other more respectable parts of the Lower City probably look a lot like Boston. Or last century Seattle. I hope some of the more bohemian districts (Dragonteeth, Engmond's Tor, Candlewick Mews) have at least a few neighborhoods that look like they were designed by Hunderdwasser.

Peterskirche has Ver-Istenna's dome. Ver-Istenna's flanking towers aren't as tall, but that dome is exactly right.

And the more I think about it, the more I suspect that the Mirador has gaudy patterned roofs like Stephansdom.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

These are VERY cool links.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Somehow, that picture of last-century Seattle reminds me a lot of modern Globe, Arizona (http://www.go-arizona.com/activityLink.cfm?activity_id=453058783), even though Globe is a town rather than a city (though it is bigger than it looks in that photo). I think it's the way the buildings sit on the hills. The first Hunderdtwasser link looked like something out of Buenos Aires (http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/travel/southamerica/argentina/buenos-aires.htm) (scroll down to the picture and description of La Boca neighborhood).

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

It is a gorgeous author photo.

What's the etymology of cade-skiff, and cade as a prefix in general? I'm not parsing it and it's driving me batty.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Cade-skiff derives from Cade-Cholera, the death god of the pentatheon of Mélusine. A skiff being a type of small boat, the cade-skiffs are named for the small, wide, shallow-keeled boats, suitable for hauling drowned bodies into, which they use in their policing of the Sim.

Cade, in both cade-skiff and Cade-Cholera, comes from Latin--cado, cadere, cecidi, casum: to fall, drop; to perish

It is, however, pronounced /kayd/.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Very cool. Danke.

I should probably do something about my shameful lack of Latin.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Latin is a very cool language. Translating it is like solving puzzles (I liked Latin for much the same reasons I liked algebra)--and it's much easier than ancient Greek.