View From a Hotel Window, 8/24/15: Palo Alto
Posted on August 24, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
This parking lot is made of brick!
Tonight: Kepler’s! In Menlo Park. 7pm. Me in conversation with Tad Williams. Should be a ton of fun. You should totally come by.
Tomorrow: The penultimate event of the tour takes place in downtown LA, at The Last Bookstore, at 7:30pm. I’m very excited to be showing up to this bookstore, which is by all accounts a simply amazing space. I can’t wait. Hope to see you there.
Ah, the Last Bookstore is only the Second-to-Last Bookstore on your tour? So much for the ironically appropriate.
I really enjoyed hearing you read that thing I won’t mention and hearing about that secret meal related thing I promised not to tell about.
Right, lauratd? And the [redacted]! The [redacted] was *great.*
Am leaving right now for Kepler’s!
Sigh. Got home from work too late to get there, and you’re probably still having a great conversation up at Kepler’s. It’s a great bookstore, has been for over 50 years, hope you’ve ahd a good stay.
Didn’t even get out of work until 7 :( Bugger.
At least you didn’t have to put up with my SJW fawning.
Dear John,
Break a… leg seems wrong… suggestions, anyone?
I’m 600 miles away, sigh. Fourth time you’ve been in my territory when I couldn’t be there. I smell conspiracy.
Personally, I’m blaming puppies. Because, well… puppies. So there.
I feel better, now.
Yours, ever faithful
Social Justice Gamma Rabbit.
Great seeing you at your Kepler’s booksigning. I was in the Bay Area for a home visit, and thought I would check it out.
So I come back to my hotel, fire up the brand-new Chromebook I bought today, to check out your blog and the rant you mentioned, and…
Holy s#it, that’s my hotel.
The Last Bookstore is great. I don’t know if you’ll have time to browse before things kick off, but try to take a stroll upstairs through their bonkers SF/F section, the $1 books organized by color (of all things), and the artists-in-residence studios.
For folks who aren’t familiar, The Last Bookstore is set up in an old bank building, so there are all kinds of surprises, like certain genres being shelved inside the vaults.
Its nice that the motel owners make an effort to make the carpark look nice. The didn’t have to, really for motels if you cover the three S’s its good enough for me.
I’ve driven past this hotel. Looks very nice for a repurposed motel.
Driven past — crud, I bike past it nearly every day. It makes me sad (like a kitten, not a puppy) that not only did I miss the event at Kepler’s, I probably blithely pedaled past John within 50 feet without knowing. :(
Also, the place used to be a dump; they remodeled (and renamed) a few years ago. It’s much nicer than the Glass Slipper Inn, not as nice as Dinah’s Garden, but falls between the two in price.
>
my wife wrote a Historical screenplay, with Kepler’s mother (as was historical) a witch that the dutiful son saved from The Inquisition, which nobody ever expects. And I recently emailed someone:
.
“Got to be me. I’m the only hero I’ve got.
“And look who has my back: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Lavoisier, Darwin, Dalton, Bohr, Einstein, Feynman, Hawking… the greatest thinkers of the millennium – because cannot the real problems of my era only, as in any era, be solved by clear thinking?
“Are not humans born unarmed, unable to survive on their own, with the brain the only weapon, the only hope?
“Zap-gun in hand, if need be.”
You could make a charming coffee table book of these parking lots! But you probably shouldn’t.
It was lovely getting to mostly see the back of someone else’s head while I heard you talk at Keplers, and meeting you was as awkward and brief as I was expecting – in short, thanks so much for visiting us, it was incredible.
I think I managed to get something like this out while you were signing, but I wanted to say again, slightly more coherently: I really appreciate what you do. I don’t know what it means for people who don’t want to be you when they grow up, but for those of us with that aspiration, getting a chance to see who you are through your public appearances and, perhaps even more, though the blog helps turn an impossibly distant hope into something that’s worth fighting for. Thanks for putting yourself out there and letting us see what happens!
I wish I could have gone to the Kepler’s event, but I had a prior commitment. It’s a great bookstore, and a real community asset.
😵👎no entiendo nada de 😬 que hablas