When I first began to show 3D models I'd built or was working on, one of the
first was a model of the house on First Street. I wanted to build it in
its role as the Mayfair house of the
Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels, and I began with a model of the
house's double parlor. I had begun both the model and the process of
finding a new home, if necessary, for my website that I had launched in 2008
around the same time, August 2021.
I decided to remember Anne Rice for the literary world she created that opened
up for me the moment I read one of her novels for the very first time.
That was 30 years ago. When I remember my first impressions, all the
things I pictured in my mind as I read the novels, I still remember trying to
picture in my mind what that double parlor looked like. It doesn't
surprise me that of all the rooms in a house in New Orleans' Garden District,
I would start a model of it with that double parlor. And fill it with
little bitty models of Anne's novels (just the covers).
The music is specific. It is mentioned in Taltos. And it
has a deeply personal meaning for me, as well.
At that time, I also happened to be trying to get a handle on YouTube
videos. This might not be the most polished of videos by any stretch of
the imagination, but it is what it is. It's where I was at in terms of
how to do stuff at that time. And it's not easy to make something so
polished when you're also in tears while trying to make it--even a YouTube
video.
To write novels that could reach someone so young and make them want to see
and learn more about the world in all of its complexities, its layers, its
history...novels one does not just read but become immersed in...novels that
truly did make a profound impact on me at such an early stage of my life, once
again, I want to say to Anne, "Thank you."
