Spooky Albany

The recent Bouchercon world mystery convention was held last weekend in Albany, NY.

(For a writeup of the convention itself, with pictures and links, go here.)

Albany is an interesting place- hilly, lots of funky architecture and sculpture.

 

 

And a state house that looks like the Dakota in NYC, or a Stephen King movie set.

 

But-- a couple of things. First, they don't like windows.

That's The Egg- a concrete, windowless theater, atop an indoor plaza, with no views to the outside.

Which is weird, because there's a beautiful plaza space up top.

But at 5 at night, people suddenly disappear, and the place becomes the set for a zombie movie- complete with a few shambling forms in the eerie shadowed corners. These open places look like post-apocalyptic landscapes. The streets are deserted, as if humanity has been swallowed up.

Okay- so maybe instead of having a mystery convention there, they should switch to horror. All the filmmakers would just go outside and begin shooting video.

Yeah, I know Vincent Zandri likes it there. But he's tougher than me.