Today the European spacecraft Huygens is in the atmosphere of Titan! Updates here. (Thanks to Brent Rasmussen for hipping me to this.)

Hopefully the space cuttlefish will return the visit soon.

When not in such hallowed precincts as the Public Library, I noticed the taxis a lot this time. It’s like when you’re snorkeling or SCUBA diving and you see schools of one kind of fish. Or, for that matter, like seeing flocks of seagulls or of pigeons. Or herds of cows. This one particular kind of indigenous “animal.”

Their cries can be heard at any hour of the day. From the moment I exit the airport until the moment I leave, the 3D environment is studded with the honks, near and far, hanging out there like Christmas balls, like stars, like raisins in dough. The honks respond to each other like barking dogs.

And when I ride in a taxi and suddenly the road ahead opens up — the joy with which this artificial organism leaps forward, devouring the tenths-of-a-mile.

One day it was raining and a slight man in front of us with a portable umbrella began dancing a soft shoe and singing, yes, “Singin’ In The Rain,” in a light, fine tenor. Channeling Fred and the Bingle. This guy is, however, maybe not quite all there. A taxi pushes its snout through a light and comes to rest blocking our cross-walk. “You’re supposed to stop at the light,” yells the para-Astaire, his good humor melting away. And then in the street he stops to glare at the taxi, perhaps it’s made some gesture of defiance. “You better not get outta there! I’ll break your head!” Emotional lability. But also a bit like a country person scolding a wayward hog. A civic duty to keep the taxis in line.

Looking down from the hotel windows I saw the taxis swarming like paramecia. Their distress when the road was narrowed. Nudging, nuzzling, honking.

We had to laugh at a sign we saw near Times Square. DON’T HONK. FINE $350.

That sign isn't in this picture, this is just a street scene, waking down towards the Flatiron Building, tinily visible in the canyon crack, there to meet my Tor editor David Hartwell. Turns out Frek and the Elixir is now available in paperback, and I thought it wouldn't be till April. Go git it, gaaaahs.

We had dinner with some more characters from the past, inspirations for Luanne and Garwood Carrandine in “Monument to the Third International,” reprinted in Gnarl!

Merry as ever, and lovely to be with.

Exciting to look out the window and see a big clock. About as far as the 20th Century got in terms of computation displays.

I met with John Oakes, editor for The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul for Thunder's Mouth Press. He’s feeling optimistic about the book, which is good. We went out to lunch and John proudly showed me a secret mid-block passageway from 17th St. to 18th St. Kind of a Matrix zone in there.

I hit Times Square for old times sake. No ghosts of Burroughs and Hunke, or even of Eddie and Rudy. Instead they have, excuse me, a Drug Enforcement Agency Museum? A Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant? A Toys R Us?

The most colorful new building was the Westin Hotel, complete with a giant lava lamp.