Meanwhile, In a Parallel Fandom
So, I was listening to my friend Susanna, who scorns SF but is heavily connected in the knitting community -- she may qualify as a moderately BNK (Big Name Knitter), if getting flown to exotic places like Japan and Minneapolis to teach Bohus knitting counts as Big -- talking food, and she mentioned that she knows this guy who's a quirky old retired ex-IBMer, who grows citrus as a hobby. In kind of a big way. The way she put it is that while the UC Riverside's citrus collection is quite respectable, "Gene's is bigger. He's got the biggest collection in California."
This seems to be true. In fact, if this article is to be believed, Gene -- Gene Lester -- has the biggest private collection of citrus trees in the country. Citrus that I've never heard of -- natsudaidai, ginger limes, Poorman Orange/ New Zealand grapefruit, kusaie, Rangpur lime, yuzu, calamondin -- and I used to think pommelos were on the exotic side, and Meyer lemons sadly rare. But Gene grows fruit that simply can't be bought in the US, or had otherwise. Luckily, for citrus fans -- I'm looking at you, TNH -- even if you are not a member of the California Rare Fruit Growers Association and thus able to tour Gene's Watsonville ranch, if you're in Los Gatos, California, or can get there, you can sample them anyway. It seems that the restaurant Manresa holds an annual "Citrus Modernista dinner": Gene Lester gives a bunch of his fruit to the restaurant, and chef David Kinch uses them to create a 5-course dinner, which, according to Susanna, is well worth an annual pilgrimage.
It's a cool, but familiar feeling, finding that I'm one or fewer handshakes away from someone who does something quite extraordinary, but typically what gives me that frisson is either connections in fandom or the time I've spent working in universities. Like the morning I woke up to find NPR explaining in hushed tones that my old boss had been awarded a Nobel prize in physics. But somehow I didn't expect to get that familiar feeling through knitting. Makes me think that interest-based communities are more similar in how they grow and branch than the disparity of the interests that spawn them would lead me to suppose.
And then I wonder how much those branches intertwine from one fandom to another. Does Jon Singer know about Gene Lester and Manresa? Does Bruce Schneier? It seems like they should. Surely Teresa must. She's the reigning queen of weird citrus fandom.
This seems to be true. In fact, if this article is to be believed, Gene -- Gene Lester -- has the biggest private collection of citrus trees in the country. Citrus that I've never heard of -- natsudaidai, ginger limes, Poorman Orange/ New Zealand grapefruit, kusaie, Rangpur lime, yuzu, calamondin -- and I used to think pommelos were on the exotic side, and Meyer lemons sadly rare. But Gene grows fruit that simply can't be bought in the US, or had otherwise. Luckily, for citrus fans -- I'm looking at you, TNH -- even if you are not a member of the California Rare Fruit Growers Association and thus able to tour Gene's Watsonville ranch, if you're in Los Gatos, California, or can get there, you can sample them anyway. It seems that the restaurant Manresa holds an annual "Citrus Modernista dinner": Gene Lester gives a bunch of his fruit to the restaurant, and chef David Kinch uses them to create a 5-course dinner, which, according to Susanna, is well worth an annual pilgrimage.
It's a cool, but familiar feeling, finding that I'm one or fewer handshakes away from someone who does something quite extraordinary, but typically what gives me that frisson is either connections in fandom or the time I've spent working in universities. Like the morning I woke up to find NPR explaining in hushed tones that my old boss had been awarded a Nobel prize in physics. But somehow I didn't expect to get that familiar feeling through knitting. Makes me think that interest-based communities are more similar in how they grow and branch than the disparity of the interests that spawn them would lead me to suppose.
And then I wonder how much those branches intertwine from one fandom to another. Does Jon Singer know about Gene Lester and Manresa? Does Bruce Schneier? It seems like they should. Surely Teresa must. She's the reigning queen of weird citrus fandom.