"Майкл Суэнвик. Беспроводный Фолли (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

embarrassment of some of the younger, more cosmopolitan members.
Early on they were joined by other eccentrics-- not their type, you'd
think, and yet there was the kinship of outcasts among them, or perhaps
simply an aloof, unnoticing toleration. These newcomers were occultists of
varied ill-defined convictions, and filled the place with orgone generators,
maps of Lemuria and the hollow earth, cutaway models of the Great Pyramid,
and ghost-catching machines. Many of the more whimsically useless towers and
puzzlingly misleading passageways were built in this era. One inevitably
thinks of the east stairway which, after many twists and turns and not an
option to get off, deposits its unwary victim back at its own landing. Or
the Salem room , built by a reclusive young bachelor, which is all strange
and eldritch angles and has a single occulus window overlooking the
moon-barren slate roofs. And from which the occasional member has been
rumored to have vanished.
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