EP523: Windows

[eytanz]

EP523: Windows

By Beth Goder

read by Andrea Richardson

with guest host Kate Baker

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After just three years, most of Gurt’s downtown was nearly unrecognizable. Roldan Street boasted a new tea shop, and the roads had been repaved with greenish eco-tar. Even the old sign at Marta’s Bakery, which had been shaped like a pink cupcake, was replaced with sleek blue lettering.

Score another one for the prophetic soup.

The library sported new windows, stained glass whorls of teal and gold, while Grocery Plus had removed the panoramic window which used to overlook the river. That was the first thing I noticed when I came back, the windows.

I’d spent a lot of time looking out of windows, back when I lived in Gurt. I couldn’t go outside during the dust storms, because of my asthma, so I’d waited inside wherever I happened to be when the storm hit. But dust is all the same, just one blank, swirling vortex, so instead of watching the storms I started looking at the windows. Marta’s Bakery used to have the most beautiful violet windows, circular, like a morning bun with icing on top. Not that I eat morning buns, anymore.

I promised myself when I moved away from Gurt that I’d never come back, not after Sara left me at the altar. On the day of our wedding, I waited for hours at the church window (clean, but with the latch rusted off), fingering the beading on my beautiful white dress, while all of the guests snuck out, except for my family, who had transported in for the ceremony. Dad enveloped me in a hug, while Mom said that she had never liked Sara anyway, reminding me of the time Sara had ruined our trip to Seldar by whining about the swamp smell. It helped, but not very much.

Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!

[Fenrix]

I was a whole lot more engaged by the peripheral story. Without the alien culture that has precognitive abilities, we just have a historical preservation story wrapped around a relationship story with sfnal window dressing.

I was also hoping for a bit more depth on the historical preservation story, as there are good education opportunities available to be conveyed in an entertaining fashion. I would have loved a little discussion on context, which is critical for historic preservation. If you go digging in your back yard in the suburbs and turn up an arrowhead or cannonball, it's historical but not significant. The area's been disturbed enough that the likelihood of the thing has been moved is very high, eliminating its context. Where this comes into play in my daily life is if federal funds are used to build a sidewalk, we have to send out an archaeologist to do shovel tests every 50 to 100 feet along that disturbed urbanized shoulder to document there is no context. There's enough real work they can be doing, and we're wasting time and resources looking at something that

I also run into far too many True Believers who live in a black and white world and want to save everything. People who want to save every neighborhood of 60's ranch houses for their historical significance make my head hurt.

[Unblinking]

Hmmm....  I was going right along this one with the absurdity of the prophetic soup because it just seemed out there and weird and interesting, that I was disappointed when it came to a (somewhat) rational origin that alot of my interest kind of dissolved with the real explanation. 

For the window, while I like stained glass, I did wonder why it was worth spending so much resources to preserve it in such a caustic environment when maybe it could be appreciated with much much lower upkeep if, for instance, it were mounted on the inside of a window made of sturdier glass to similar effect but much less resources.

[Fenrix]

For the window, while I like stained glass, I did wonder why it was worth spending so much resources to preserve it in such a caustic environment when maybe it could be appreciated with much much lower upkeep if, for instance, it were mounted on the inside of a window made of sturdier glass to similar effect but much less resources.

It would preserve the artifact, but would ruin the architectural significance by changing its context. I've read about similar things that are poorly suited for their environment but a constant historic preservation task. I just can't bring a specific example to mind right now.

[Unblinking]

For the window, while I like stained glass, I did wonder why it was worth spending so much resources to preserve it in such a caustic environment when maybe it could be appreciated with much much lower upkeep if, for instance, it were mounted on the inside of a window made of sturdier glass to similar effect but much less resources.

It would preserve the artifact, but would ruin the architectural significance by changing its context. I've read about similar things that are poorly suited for their environment but a constant historic preservation task. I just can't bring a specific example to mind right now.

I can see where that line of reasoning comes from.  And it's probably because I'm not devoted to historic preservation.  But to me personally  the difference in context between the two is trivial enough that the significantly lower cost of one makes it seem a clearly superior route.  Seems a better use of public resources.

[Fenrix]

For the window, while I like stained glass, I did wonder why it was worth spending so much resources to preserve it in such a caustic environment when maybe it could be appreciated with much much lower upkeep if, for instance, it were mounted on the inside of a window made of sturdier glass to similar effect but much less resources.

It would preserve the artifact, but would ruin the architectural significance by changing its context. I've read about similar things that are poorly suited for their environment but a constant historic preservation task. I just can't bring a specific example to mind right now.

I can see where that line of reasoning comes from.  And it's probably because I'm not devoted to historic preservation.  But to me personally  the difference in context between the two is trivial enough that the significantly lower cost of one makes it seem a clearly superior route.  Seems a better use of public resources.

Damn engineers putting a price on culture and heritage. Just because we asked you to provide a cost-benefit ratio...

I remembered an example. Slate and sandstone used for headstones. Both have a tendency to delaminate and wear quickly such that the person they were memorializing is forgotten quickly by time.

[Lionman]

I liked this 'peek' into the writers world.  It did leave me wanting to hear more about it, to find out just how this character's life plays out.  So, all said and done, I thought it was better than average.

[Devoted135]

I really wish I had commented on this one sooner, I feel like I had something I wanted to say when I finished it...

I enjoyed it and was glad that she got to have some measure of closure with her ex. The prophetic soup was crazy enough that I was actually glad that there turned out to be *some* explanation for it, hand-wavy though it was. I agree with Unblinking that a more cost-effective measure of preservation ought to be considered. If ever a town needed a dome over it....

[CryptoMe]

Okay, I assumed time travel rather than precognitive abilities. Was that only me?