Somebody's watching you
Feb. 3rd, 2008 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonMy friend's coming over in a bit and we're going to my favorite Bistro for late lunch, early dinner. In the meantime, here's what I'm doing instead of watching the Bowl.
Late last night I decided to check out the satellite view of my 'hood. Found the house quite easily—and the roommate's car parked in the driveway. Creeped me the hell out. (So much so, apparently, that I'm having trouble writing in complete sentences.) But I also decided to check out the old 'hood in Venice in which I grew up. Yep, there is was.
It occurred to me, since I used part of my old neighborhood for the opening chase scene in Shivery Bones that I could trace the entire chase route from satellite and do screen captures. (Yes, I had better things to do, but I did this instead. It was that kind of night.) (Why? Because it was there. And maybe because I'm obsessive-compulsive?) (But that's another post for another day.)
And of course I had to share! So, here it is: the "exciting" opening pages of Shivery Bones in captioned pictures:
Ezra crashes through the plate glass window and races up San Juan Avenue on his motorcycle, followed by a hail of bullets.
He makes the turn at 6th and heads north, pursued by the Chavez gang.
And north.
And north. (Maybe I'm anal?)
He blasts through the stop sign at Rose, leaking fuel from his motorcycle and blood from his body.
Just before Dewey, the bike fishtails and he goes down. The leaking fuel catches fire and he hoofs it away from the bike and heads up Dewey.
He cuts through the small park paralleling Dewey, dodging more of Chavez's men.
He cuts up Marine then Longfellow, which mercifully weren't named in the ms.
And cuts through the parking lot of the drive-through Starbuck's on the corner. The green arrow indications said Starbuck's.
He staggers up Lincoln, still bleeding profusely, and worrying because it's such an open street. He needs to hide from Chavez's gang. At Pier, he rests against the wall of a photo lab (the green arrow) and almost gives up—he's hurt bad. But he makes it across the street to Panchito's Tacos (not it's real name) (orange arrow) and hides behind the dumpster while some of Chavez's men cruise by. He knows he's got to find a more permanent hiding place but he's too weak to crawl the hill up Pier. (The satellite doesn't show that this is a very hilly section of Santa Monica called Ocean Park.) Meanwhile, it's last call at the ersatz British pub across the street (purple arrow) and people start heading his way. I know about this bar because one of my "uncles" when I was a kid lived in one of the apartment buildings on Pier and used to walk down there of an evening, and stagger back later in the evening. There's lots of staggering going on, heading Ezra's way, so he crawls into the back of a plumber's truck to get out of sight. One of the drunks crawls into the truck and drives off up Pier.
There's a lot of winding and twisting up the warren of streets after this, which I have fortunately spared you and the readers of the novel. The drunk winds up in a car accident at the corner of 4th and Marine. You can't tell from the satellite photos, but 4th is a ridge route, running along the length of a steep hill for many miles. Ezra has to hoof it along 4th once again, desperately seeking a hiding place. He does—a very unusual one: Granny G's house.
Here's the neighborhood of Granny G's house. The green arrow indicates the cluster of bungalows which sit on the site of an old estate that fascinated me when I was a kid, your prototypical haunted Victorian mansion. It inspired the story, but I moved it further down the block to the corner of 4th and Pier (purple arrow). A large apartment building sits on that corner, but since Granny G's house winks in and out of time and space, there's room for both buildings.
Late last night I decided to check out the satellite view of my 'hood. Found the house quite easily—and the roommate's car parked in the driveway. Creeped me the hell out. (So much so, apparently, that I'm having trouble writing in complete sentences.) But I also decided to check out the old 'hood in Venice in which I grew up. Yep, there is was.
It occurred to me, since I used part of my old neighborhood for the opening chase scene in Shivery Bones that I could trace the entire chase route from satellite and do screen captures. (Yes, I had better things to do, but I did this instead. It was that kind of night.) (Why? Because it was there. And maybe because I'm obsessive-compulsive?) (But that's another post for another day.)
And of course I had to share! So, here it is: the "exciting" opening pages of Shivery Bones in captioned pictures:
Ezra crashes through the plate glass window and races up San Juan Avenue on his motorcycle, followed by a hail of bullets.
He makes the turn at 6th and heads north, pursued by the Chavez gang.
And north.
And north. (Maybe I'm anal?)
He blasts through the stop sign at Rose, leaking fuel from his motorcycle and blood from his body.
Just before Dewey, the bike fishtails and he goes down. The leaking fuel catches fire and he hoofs it away from the bike and heads up Dewey.
He cuts through the small park paralleling Dewey, dodging more of Chavez's men.
He cuts up Marine then Longfellow, which mercifully weren't named in the ms.
And cuts through the parking lot of the drive-through Starbuck's on the corner. The green arrow indications said Starbuck's.
He staggers up Lincoln, still bleeding profusely, and worrying because it's such an open street. He needs to hide from Chavez's gang. At Pier, he rests against the wall of a photo lab (the green arrow) and almost gives up—he's hurt bad. But he makes it across the street to Panchito's Tacos (not it's real name) (orange arrow) and hides behind the dumpster while some of Chavez's men cruise by. He knows he's got to find a more permanent hiding place but he's too weak to crawl the hill up Pier. (The satellite doesn't show that this is a very hilly section of Santa Monica called Ocean Park.) Meanwhile, it's last call at the ersatz British pub across the street (purple arrow) and people start heading his way. I know about this bar because one of my "uncles" when I was a kid lived in one of the apartment buildings on Pier and used to walk down there of an evening, and stagger back later in the evening. There's lots of staggering going on, heading Ezra's way, so he crawls into the back of a plumber's truck to get out of sight. One of the drunks crawls into the truck and drives off up Pier.
There's a lot of winding and twisting up the warren of streets after this, which I have fortunately spared you and the readers of the novel. The drunk winds up in a car accident at the corner of 4th and Marine. You can't tell from the satellite photos, but 4th is a ridge route, running along the length of a steep hill for many miles. Ezra has to hoof it along 4th once again, desperately seeking a hiding place. He does—a very unusual one: Granny G's house.
Here's the neighborhood of Granny G's house. The green arrow indicates the cluster of bungalows which sit on the site of an old estate that fascinated me when I was a kid, your prototypical haunted Victorian mansion. It inspired the story, but I moved it further down the block to the corner of 4th and Pier (purple arrow). A large apartment building sits on that corner, but since Granny G's house winks in and out of time and space, there's room for both buildings.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 06:41 pm (UTC)Very creepy for anything else.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 06:47 pm (UTC)