"Michael Swanwick - The Wireless Folly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

After World War Two, there was an influx of new members--cool-eyed, wise-talking gals and guys,
many of them ex-GI's. The wanted dance floors and jazz pavilions, roller rinks and in-house garages.
They were responsible for all the neon and much of the aluminum siding.

But there is so much to see! There are at least a dozen bars scattered throughout the Folly, and none of
them completely abandoned even yet. One of the favorites is a complete English pub with brown oak
paneling and frosted glass and (oddly enough) a broken Wurlitzer in the corner.

It was through here, in 1968, that one of the young radicals the Association seems always to attract, ran
brandishing a war ax, screaming that he was going to demolish all the older, outmoded rooms to let some
air and sunshine in. Waving the weapon over his head, he charged for the core of the Folly, pursued hotly
by a puffing mob of old-timers.

Two or three rooms suffered minor damage to the moldings.

Or there is the orangery which, more recently, several self-appointed bricolateurs retrofitted with
network of old radio tubes, clockwork telescope drives, and ormolu bells, all operated off a rewired
NASA-surplus Cray. The mechanism thus created periodically acts out postmodern notions of
cosmology and then deconstructs itself. It has met with great admiration and no little puzzlement.

Predictably enough this structure served as catalyst for yet another affray involving the roused emotions
of all the membership. Rubber bands yet litter the parquetry.

Alas, there is simply not the time to visit every room in the Folly. It has grown practically beyond human
ken, and continues to grow. As witness the recent proliferation of indoor rifle and pistol ranges. Or the
diminishing daisy-chains of replica rooms that spiral way from several of the more imposing master
bedrooms.

Nor have we the patience to chronicle all the doings of the Wireless Association's members. The they not
mellowed with age --indeed, they can no longer even agree on the purpose or goals of the Association.
Several conflicting charters float about, surfacing now and again in the glass-domed aviary, perhaps, or in
the empty indoor swimming pool with untranslatable runes carved on its bottom which one member (who
shall remain unnamed) has converted to a pornographic movie theatre.

But they keep on building anyway. The folly increases with each passing month. Grotesque and
sprawling, it slowly humps its way across the surrounding fens. And while some elements are shoddily
built, and there are recurrent rumors of watch-beetles in the wainscoting and dry-rot in the dormers,
taken as a whole it remains an undisputed work of genius, and one of the great eccentricities of our age.

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