The Stuff of Wilfair

hotel
motel
pool
diving board
vinyl couch, motel lobby
sleigh bells, motel door
citrus topiaries
oranges
lobby flower arrangement
sequins
Bic four-color pen
tar bubble
tar pits
dips
toast
banjo
mint dish
mastodon
Fair's chair
bell cart
motel bed
indoor trees
tree branch, Fair's hair
paintings
film equipment
monitether
old keys
old rotary phone
motel bumper sticker
snood and evening gloves (Fair)
necktie and glasses (Gomery)
director's viewfinder (Monty)
apron and cleaver (Sutton)
fan "I ♥ You" posters (Prior)
two-toned motor car (Thurs)
fruit
club sandwich
Shirley Temple drink
sarsaparilla

Jamila's suggestions (thank you!):
forearms/rolled up sleeves
French fries
Brylcreem
fruit basket
cherries (on top of cherries, in Shirley Temples, etc)
Ferris wheel
sorry
popcorn
division sign
cinnamoning
sexy aunts

And a few more...
Gomery's forehead pi sign
Gomery's watch
Moonbeam Threshold 
cogs (mentioned)
Finley hotels (mentioned)
discount omelets (mentioned)
hotel brochure
mimosas (mentioned)
carabid beetles
frosting
Mmm Mmm Café (mentioned)
motel van

Bess adds...
Fair's window (thanks, BB!)

Anything else? :)

Wilfair Poster

I asked the wonderfully talented Claudia Varosio to design a movie-style poster and this is the beautiful result. She even has an Etsy page for it now, too!

How Monty and Gomery Look

Fair Finley's description of her neighbors Monty and Gomery Overbove, direct from WILFAIR.

-----------

           The Overboves looked out the window and spoke low, making a point not to include me. I stepped over to pretend-look at a stack of bumper stickers on the front desk, but turned to admire the cousins because my up-close, slack-jawed-staring chances were so few.

Gomery’s nose was a classic integral, long and swooped at the end, and his chin an acute angle, though not sharp. His cheeks were two narrow rectangular planes with a wave at each cheekbone. A freckle just above and below the middle of his mouth gave the appearance of a division sign. A handsome equal sign made up his lips, thick lines, not thin. The loose curls that bunched at his back collar whenever he leaned on the front desk were a tangle of sixes and eights.

            And his rather elegant face? Total polygon. A polygon that sometimes appeared in my dreams, or in waking places I wouldn’t expect, like my oval soap dish.

            Monty’s appearance was pure movie theater. He was built like a vintage popcorn box, tapered at the hips and wide at the shoulders, though not white-and-red-striped with “Popcorn” large across his chest. Still, he was often salty, prone to buttering-up, and hot. His profile had a delicate gorgeousness, like he was shot in soft focus and projected on some screen. He stood as straight as a theater lobby standee made of heavy-duty cardboard, unlike his cousin, who sometimes bent over the motel’s front desk in the shape of an "is lesser than" symbol.

            Or an “is greater than” symbol, depending on the angle.

            Monty’s open stance forever blinked on-off-on-off-on, like the clear bulbs over a multiplex marquee. Gomery sometimes seemed to move through a cloud of chalkboard dust, as though he was thinking about symbols, and what they symbolized.

            They both had brown hair and both were tall, and there was no comparison to make to a movie theater or physics lab in their particular hair color or height categories. Rather, their tallness and hair color were similar to a lot of young men who were beginning their twenties in the typical way young men have begun their twenties for the last several millennia.

            So. Very well, in other words.

            I had checked in on the Montgomery Overboves #1 and #2 from my bedroom window for the last nineteen years, so I liked to think of myself as something of a local expert on these matters.

            “Expert” sounds extreme, but we had to be some of the only people to have grown up at our respective workplaces. I’d had a lot of time to “somehow” the cousins half ridickity, in my own mind.

            Somehow, we’ll be friends. Somehow, they’ll get to know me. Somehow.

            And I thought if I ever got to know the cousins better, beyond talking about hotel and motel business, I might begin to associate how they look with who they really are, rather than the two subjects I knew they were studying.

            I couldn’t wait for that day, if that day ever came, though I’d probably always look at the freckles just above and below the center of Gomery’s mouth in a particular way. And my soap dish would forever be face-shaped.

*****

Wilfair and Redwoodian Words

A word cloud visit tells me these are some common words in each book.

WILFAIR

Sorry
Motel
Tar
Two
Bed
Lobby
Know


REDWOODIAN

Window
Gomery
Smiled
Night
Thought
Pool
Now

Haven't word-clouded STAY AWHILE yet, or what there is of it, but I know for a fact I overuse love, looked, thing, big, and beautiful far too much.

The Real Places of Wilfair

I like stories flush with magic realism. But I also like them to be set in places I can visit, if possible.

Just my thing.

With that in mind, Wilfair, Redwoodian, and future books will all incorporate at least one or two real California locales.

They are, so far:

Wilfair
La Brea Tar Pits (a tar bubble figures prominently in the story)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Fair, Monty, and Gomery pay a quick visit)
Original Farmers Market (Sutton's fruitcher shop)

Oh, and let us not forget Wilshire and Fairfax. It's a real Los Angeles intersection that's within walking distance of the aforementioned places.












Redwoodian
Owens Valley (it's along Highway 395 near the eastern Sierra)
Alabama Hills near Lone Pine (where the gang stops for coffee)
Sierra Nevada (The Redwoodian and the Stay Awhile Cabins would be in the Mammoth Lakes area)

Wilfair Poster by Claudia Varosio

Find it on Etsy!