Costumers’ Life Achievement Award to Kathy Sanders

By John Hertz: Among our astounding developments – our amazing, stellar, thrilling, wonderful developments – is the Masquerade at science fiction conventions.  Once a dress-up party as the name suggests, pioneered by Forry Ackerman and no less than Jack Speer, by the 1960s it had come to its present form, an on-stage competition with lights, sound, judges, outdrawing anything except Hugo Night at the Worldcon.  Marvels appear.  Jokes.  It’s been called a cross between kabuki and Little Theater.

Fans and pros have been involved, and of course some people are both.  Larry Niven wrote the script for “One Night at the Draco Tavern” with himself as a helpless man who never quite understood what was going on, and included it in a 2006 collection.  Mike Resnick has been very fine as costumer and as a Master of Ceremonies.  Karen Anderson at Nolacon II the 46th Worldcon was given a costuming Life Achievement Award.  That was the predecessor of the current (since 1990) award given by the International Costumers Guild at Costume-Con.

With the widening appeal of SF, our general-interest Worldcon and its local and regional kin like Westercon, Boskone, Archon, spawned special-interest conventions.  Filksinging, our home-made music, got filkers’ cons.  Gamers’ cons.  Fanziners’ cons. Costume-Con XXIII (15-18 May, Charleston, South Carolina) gave the 2015 Life Achievement Award to Kathy Sanders.

First as Kathy Bushman, then as Kathy Sanders, she was for decades a compelling vibrant force in Masquerades, including Worldcon Masquerades, working alone, in groups — sometimes large groups.  She understood beauty, drama, strangeness, and time.

She co-chaired Costume-Con IV and XIV.  I judged for her when she was Masquerade Director at L.A.con III the 54th Worldcon.

The Masquerade is ephemeral.  Video records are difficult.  Some photographers have learned to make good stills of Masquerade entries.  Run-time footage showing the actual events of the stage, particularly alas for the great decades of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, even into the Nineties — not great because they’re past, just great — is scanty and often rough.  The ICG Archive much to its credit did manage a Sanders posting for YouTube. It’s worth your while.

So is the list of Life Achievement winners.  You can get it elsewhere, but I give it to you here — in chronological order.  These names are worth recognizing, men and women who have enriched us, in this artform we seem to have invented.


Marjii Ellers
Marty Gear
Bjo & John Trimble
Peggy Kennedy
Janet Wilson Anderson
Karen Dick
Byron Connell
Jacqueline Ward
Gary Anderson
Carl Mami


Sandy & Pierre Pettinger
Animal X
Adrian Butterfield & Victoria Ridenour
Pat Kennedy
Ricky Dick
Cat Devereaux
Barb Schofield
Kevin Roche
Betsy Marks Delaney


Dana & Bruce McDermott
Nora & Bruce Mai
Jill Eastlake
Penny Lipman
Tina Connell
Dawn McKechnie
Ann Catelli
Kathy Bushman Sanders


Terry Pratchett (1948-2015)

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

Terry Pratchett passed away March 12 at home surrounded by his family reports his publisher. He was the author of 70 books, among them 40 in the Discworld series of comic fantasies that began with The Colour of Magic in 1983.

Pratchett’s first sale was a short story, “The Hades Business,” published when he was 15. Early in his career he worked as a journalist and as a press officer for nuclear power generating utility.

Once he turned to fiction full time he enjoyed phenomenal popularity. Pratchett was the top-selling and highest earning UK author in 1996. In 2008, he was top author on The Bookseller’s first-ever “evergreen” list of 12 titles that had never fallen out of the top 5,000 since Nielsen BookScan began collecting data, three of which were his early Discworld novels The Colour of Magic, Mort and The Light Fantastic. (He was also near the top of the list of writers whose books were thieved from UK bookshops, with The Colour of Magic placing third on the list of Ten Most Stolen Books in 2009.)

Pratchett co-authored The Science of Discworld with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, a Hugo nominee in 2000.

He participated in ”Science Fiction’s 50th Anniversary Family Reunion” at Noreascon Three (1989):

Terry Pratchett recalled that at newsstands in Britain the good magazines were on the top shelf and sf was on the bottom shelf, from which he argued the shortness of old British sf fans was a matter of natural selection. More seriously, Pratchett said he learned from sf that mathematics was actually interesting, which no one else was telling him. “Good old sf – whenever I’ve needed you, you’ve always been there.”

He was a guest of honor at Noreascon 4, the 2004 Worldcon.

In December 2007, Pratchett announced that he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He immediately became an active spokesman about Alzheimer’s and its impact on individuals and society. In 2008 the Daily Mail published “Terry Pratchett: ‘I’m Slipping Away A Bit At A Time…And All I Can Do Is Watch It Happen’”, the author’s extraordinary essay on his Alzheimer’s affliction:

I spoke to a fellow sufferer recently (or as I prefer to say, ‘a person who is thoroughly annoyed with the fact they have dementia’) who talked in the tones of a university lecturer and in every respect was quite capable of taking part in an animated conversation.

Nevertheless, he could not see the teacup in front of him. His eyes knew that the cup was there; his brain was not passing along the information. This disease slips you away a little bit at a time and lets you watch it happen.

He also investigated “assisted suicide” (although he disliked that term), wrote a public lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, in 2010 and in 2011 presented a BBC television documentary on the subject titled Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die. However, The Telegraph reports that his death was natural.

Pratchett was knighted by the Queen for his services to literature in a 2009 ceremony, Elizabeth dubbing the kneeling author on each shoulder with her sword.

Although he did not win a Hugo or Nebula, he received many other accolades: a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (2010), the Andre Norton Award (for YA sf/f, presented by SFWA in parallel with the Nebulas) for I Shall Wear Midnight (2011), the British Science Fiction Association Award for his novel Pyramids (1989), the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature for A Hat Full of Sky (2005), and the Prometheus Award for his novel Night Watch (2003). An asteroid (127005 Pratchett) is named after him.

Gaiman Pratchett Good OmensLast April Sir Terry Pratchett was the Author of the Day for the Opening Day of the 2014 London Book Fair. In December he and his friend and collaborator Neil Gaiman made cameo appearances in BBC Radio 4’s production of Good Omens.

After learning of his friend’s death, Neil Gaiman published an emotional tribute.

Admitting he knew Sir Terry’s death had been coming, he said, “it made it no easier”.

I woke up and my email was all condolences from friends, and requests for statements from journalists, and I knew it had happened. I’d been warned.

Thirty years and a month ago, a beginning author met a young journalist in a Chinese Restaurant, and the two men became friends, and they wrote a book, and they managed to stay friends despite everything. Last night, the author died.

There was nobody like him. I was fortunate to have written a book with him, when we were younger, which taught me so much.

I’ll miss you, Terry.

I’m not up to writing anything yet. Maybe one day.

The public acknowledgement of Pratchett’s passing included these three tweets on his Twitter account:

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Update 03/12/2015: Corrected an award citation to British Science Fiction Association Award.

My Failed Attempt To Influence The Hugos

By 1981, File 770 had accumulated two nominations for Best Fanzine and I’d been shortlisted twice for Best Fanwriter. I felt I should use that power for good.

Having enjoyed the book tremendously, I tried to get everyone cranked up about nominating Alexis Gilliland’s 1981 novel The Revolution from Rosinante for the Hugo.

I wrote a glowing two-page review for my December 1981 issue with all the buzzwords at my command. For example —

Gilliland weaves a dynamic plot from plausible economic, technological and bureaucratic rivalries. Mundito Rosinante is an asteroid adapted to an industrial space colony. Its economc purpose vaporizes in a series of financial manipulations on Earth, leaving minor investors, workers and some unexpected refugees to fend for survival.

Gilliland’s space colony, complete with schematics and material specs, becomes as dramatic an artifact as a Ringworld, Gaea or Rama. But uncommon to such a story, Gilliland moves things constantly forward with concise prose, and without expository lumps in which the universe stops to explain itself. Strong characterizaton and reliance on dialog express action and motivation so well that the novel’s background assumptions are implicitly explained.

And so on.

It’s been said the way to find out if you’re a leader is to look around and see if anybody is following you. Well, when the 1982 Hugo ballot came out I found nobody was.

But if Worldcon members passed over his novel, they did nominate Gilliland for another Best Fan Artist Hugo, and made him a finalist for the 1982 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo! as we always say), things no one needed my help figuring out.

In fact, Gilliland went on to win the Campbell, outpolling David Brin, Robert Stallman, Michael Swanwick and Paul O. Williams. If that comes as a surprise, just remember the choice was based on what they had published in the first two years of their careers. Brin’s stellar “The Postman” (1982) and Startide Rising (1983) appeared after his Campbell eligibility expired, while Swanwick had several Nebula nominations early but his awards dominance came later on.

The Most Valuable Hugo

When Ray Bradbury’s 2004 Retro Hugo brought $28,734 in an estate auction last month that made me wonder — What individual Hugo Award is worth the most money?

There wasn’t much reason to wonder before. In all the other transactions I knew about the Hugo sold for $2,000 or less. Forry Ackerman’s Retro Hugo, part of a lot of six awards, auctioned for $1,500 in 2009. Emsh’s 1961 Best Professional Artist Hugo sold for $1,075 in 2011. And Harry Warner Jr.’s 1972 Best Fan Writer Hugo, offered together with copies of his books, was part of a lot that went for $2,000 in 2012.

Why did Bradbury’s Hugo command a much higher price? For three main reasons.

  • It is associated with a great sf writer who is also a media celebrity.
  • It was given for his most iconic work, Fahrenheit 451.
  • And the award is pretty, too: the wooden base is shaped to remind one of a tricorn hat, with 13 stars on one side, reflecting that the 2004 Worldcon was hosted in Boston, the cradle of American independence.

Are there Hugos that might fetch a price even higher than Bradbury’s?

I think people who bid on a Hugo Award have an affinity for the sf field and know why the award is important. With that in mind, it could be argued that Robert Silverberg’s 1956 Hugo for Most Promising New Author should be one of the most valuable, not just for his literary output, but because he’s repeatedly made that award the turning point of a funny comment while emceeing or presenting at Hugo ceremonies over the years. Unfortunately, the fanhistory we cherish rarely translates into cash value (or we’d all be rich!)

What about Hugos won by the sf writers with the biggest reputations, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke?

Heinlein’s 1961 Best Novel Hugo for Stranger In A Strange Land must be worth a pretty penny – an enduringly popular book widely read outside of fandom that became embedded in Sixties popular culture. Or there is his 1960 Best Novel Hugo for Starship Troopers (1960) – a veteran or military sf fan with deep pockets might bid that up (and in that case, the bug-hunting movie based on it makes it all the more attractive, despite how bad the film actually was.)

In Isaac Asimov’s case, the 1966 Hugo given to Foundation as Best All-Time Series is probably his most valuable — voted in recognition of his most iconic work, the series whose concept of psychohistory is credited by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman for sparking his interest in economics. Asimov also enjoys an enduring celebrity as witnessed by the attachment of his name to Microsoft’s recently-announced computer telemetry system.

The Arthur C. Clarke Hugo I expect collectors would pay the most for, by far, is his 1969 Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo for 2001: A Space Odyssey – always assuming he received a rocket for that in the first place, as I tend to expect he would have based on how the official Hugo Awards site credits the movie:

[Paramount] Directed by Stanley Kubrick; Screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick; based on the story “The Sentinel” by Arthur C. Clarke

Beyond the Big Three, it would be a mistake to overlook the media appeal of Philip K. Dick and the potential market for his 1963 Best Novel Hugo for The Man In The High Castle. PKD’s name is frequently invoked by the critics of our dystopian present, and his works have been turned into movies like Bladerunner, Total Recall and Minority Report featuring some of Hollywood’s most bankable stars.

All the Hugos I have mentioned so far follow the standard rocket-on-a-wooden-base design, so the artistry of the award isn’t a factor that would enhance their value. (Maybe just the reverse in the caseof Arthur C. Clarke’s 1956 Hugo for the Best Short Story, “The Star,” which was made with an Oldsmobile Rocket 88 hood ornament…)

Arthur C. Clarke receives Hugo Award from chairman Dave Kyle at the 1956 Worldcon, NyCon II.

Arthur C. Clarke being presented his 1956 Hugo Award by NyCon II chairman Dave Kyle at the 1957 Worldcon, Loncon I.

But over the past 30 years most Worldcons have commissioned Hugo bases that depart from the cliché plinth-and-rocket. They all have their advocates and among my favorites are:

However, my absolute favorite is Tim Kirk’s base for the 1976 Hugo, co-designed with Ken Keller, a cold-cast resin base wreathed with a dragon. Tragically, there isn’t a good image of it online. (After looking at the photo on the official site you’ll be questioning my sanity: “That’s the most beautiful Hugo base? It looks like a rocket on an oil can!”) But I’ve seen one up close many times at Larry Niven’s home. I think it’s quite beautiful.

So looking at who won the Hugos of 1976, one prospect jumped out as having the perfect combination of attributes to bring a good price at auction.

Best Dramatic Presentation

  • A Boy and His Dog (1975) [LQ/JAF] Directed by L. Q. Jones; Screenplay by L. Q. Jones and Wayne Cruseturner; Story by Harlan Ellison

The question, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey, is whether Ellison got a copy of the rocket, but for purposes of this discussion I’ll assume he did. Ellison enjoys the celebrity built on a long career of writing sf, fantasy and horror in all media – print, TV, movies, comics, as a Grammy-nominated voice actor. He’s even been in a commercial or two — remember “Harlan Ellison, Noted Futurist” plugging Geo Metros? “A Boy and His Dog” is one of his best-known stories. And there is a legion of Ellison collectors snapping up everything he produces. Just imagine the market for an Ellison Hugo?

So unless somebody can talk me out of it, I nominate the Clarke 2001 and Ellison A Boy and His Dog Hugos as the most valuable out there.

Update 10/27/2014: Corrected photo caption based on Rob Hansen’s comment.

Worldcon Wayback Machine: Monday at Noreascon 3 (1989)

Kelly Freas

Kelly Freas

Monday, September 4, 1989 at Noreascon Three. Final installment of my reminiscences about the once-in-a-generation convention that took place 25 years ago this week.

This is really only a postscript. My work schedule made it necessary for me to fly home and miss the last day of Noreascon 3. Yet luck was with me. I still picked up a good story while waiting for the plane.

Rainy Days and Mondays: With a cup of coffee in front of me I might have been any commuter, but Laura and Kelly Freas hesitated, decided they knew a Hugo when they saw one, and joined me at my table beside the jetway snack stand. Once Kelly recovered from Laura’s discovery that the stand wasn’t licensed to sell any of the beer visible in a refrigerated display case until 8:00 a.m., and in fact was doing a land office business in muffins, he and I traded pleasantries about the Hugos.

Kelly remembered being offended by the shoddy 1970 Hugo base given at Heidelberg (“looked like scraps from someone’s barn door”), inexplicably bad woodwork from the country famed for Black Forest cuckoo clocks. When Freas got home he chucked the committee’s base and made his own. Bruce Pelz later told me – the 1970 Hugo bases truly were cobbled together from an old barn door by Mario Bosnyak when the real bases failed to arrive.

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov’s Speech at Noreascon Three: Over a thousand fans attended the featured event on Monday’s program, a speech by Isaac Asimov. Edward F. Roe sent me an account of what I missed. Here are some choice paragraphs from his report.

By Edward F. Roe: Asimov was asked to write a sequel to his Foundation Trilogy 30 years after its first publication. In the words of one of his critics, “nothing happens” in an Asimov story. “Nothing happens” means that no one gets killed, raped, or blows up the galaxy. When Isaac re-read the Foundation Series he commented, “You know, that guy was right. Nothing happens.” Asimov’s prose employs dialog heavily, and what the people say is interesting. Asimov went to the publisher and said he couldn’t write a sequel. The publisher took the time and explained it very nicely. He said get out of here, go home and write!

Asimov states that only people over 65 years old understand the Great Depression. To him it was the greatest disaster in human history not involving war or plague. It left him with a deep sense of insecurity. His family owned a candy store and he worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, except for school. It was impressed on Asimov that this was a normal work week, a habit he maintains to this day. He feels insecure when he is not working. He said, “Mentally I’m still imprisoned in that candy store.” Even though he has written many hundreds of books he still feels he has many books yet to write. He said that his dying thought will be, “Only six hundred?”

And with that Noreascon Three went into the history books as one of the best Worldcons ever. For most of the 6,837 members it was all over…except for the many volunteers who stayed to take apart the art show hangings, cart away the exhibits, roll up Warp Drive and Alice Way, and do the thousand-and-one other jobs involved in winding down a Worldcon. Even they were soon on their way out the door like everyone else, richer in memories and anticipating the new friendships they’d make next year in Holland.

Worldcon Wayback Machine: Sunday at Noreascon 3 (1989)

Kirby Bartlett-Sloan and Chris Barkley in the daily newzine office at Noreascon 3.

Kirby Bartlett-Sloan and Chris Barkley in the daily newzine office at Noreascon 3.

Sunday, September 3, 1989 at Noreascon Three. Fifth installment of my reminiscences about the once-in-a-generation convention that took place 25 years ago this week.

Sunday In The Park With George: As I set up the Fanzine Sales table Sunday morning in the ConCourse a bearded fan sauntered past with his hands clasped behind him and his chin thrust out, loudly whistling assorted birdcalls. I lost sight of him behind a virtual tree in Jekyll Park.

Tony Ubelhor and I were at the table after the Sunday Brunch when an unfamiliar fan sidled up to the exhibit, standing half hidden by a pillar by the corner table. “Is SF Randomly still being published?” he asked nervously. We said yes, pointing at the issues for sale. With prodding the fan explained, “I was supposed to send them an article, but I haven’t done it. Are the editors around?” We told him they had been here and would be back soon – but showing all the disappointment of someone who was out when the collection agency called he slipped back into the crowd and was not seen again.

When Steve Antczak, editor of SF Randomly, returned Tony couldn’t resist yanking his chain. “Some Arizona fan asked us if SF Randomly was still publishing. We didn’t have the heart to tell him it folded.” Antczak yelped excitedly, “We’re still publishing!”

Martin Morse Wooster came by the table after his “lightning inspection” of the Moscow in ’95 bid party. Moscow, as in Russia, Red Square and Gorby, is Michael Sinclair’s brainchild. They had flyers all over the convention. Wooster said he found nobody from the ostensible committee at the party. Martin pieced together the rumors. “Apparently when asked Intourist said ‘Swell’ and the mayor of Moscow said ‘We need the cash.’ They haven’t talked to any Soviet writers and publishers.” Wooster smiled his Evil Commissar smile and in a bad accent said of fans who might go to a Moscow Worldcon, “These are rich people – they deserve the best!”

Say Da to Moscow bid passport.

Say Da to Moscow bid passport.

To attract presupporters Moscow in ’95 gave each a mock Soviet passport with red cover and gray pages divided to make room for the rubber-stamped visas Sinclair would enter at each convention where they held a bidding party. If the “Say Da” bid were merely an excuse to throw parties it wouldn’t have merited so much attention, but I remembered how the Bermuda Triangle in ’88 bidders encouraged people’s assumption they were joking until the committee found enough support to permit them to take the wraps off their serious ambition to run a cruise ship Worldcon. Afterwards they laughed their way to a second-place Site Selection finish in a field of four.

At 2:30 Sunday afternoon the ARA snackbar was overflowing with burger smoke sufficient to fill its corner of Hall C and begin to drift through the hall. It was like having an exhibit behind a bus. Rick Foss accused Seth Breidbart of arranging a barbecue in an enclosed room with smoke alarms, but Seth denied it was part of the Hoax Division program. We nervously observed that no alarms had been triggered by the dense pall of smoke. Theresa Renner added her ironic appreciation, “As a vegetarian, if there’s one thing I really like it’s being in a room full of burning animal fat.”

Maia Cowan came by wearing the best button seen at Noreascon Three: “HELLO – MY NAME IS BATMAN. YOU KILLED MY FATHER. PREPARE TO DIE.”

WSFS Business Meeting: Business meeting chairman Don Eastlake III lightened the usually pompous tone of the Business Meeting by appointing as his Sergeant-at-Arms a real sergeant. Standing in uniform astride the center aisle was Staff Sergeant Theresa Renner, librarian of the US Marine Band. Theresa wielded her mace, explaining the mace is always symbolic and never used…then set the can of spice on the chair next to her. When a passing smof threw Theresa a salute, Joe Rico prompted, “Tell him not to salute you – you work for a living.”

At Saturday’s Main Business Meeting the 120 or so fans present were given a lot of individual items to deal with, but tended to dispose of them rather expeditiously with the guidance of Eastlake and his timekeeper Rick Katze.

Three amendments to the WSFS Constitution passed by NOLAcon II were presented for ratification by Noreascon Three members. The voters rejected an expanded definition of WSFS membership. They defeated the rule which would have prevented a North American Worldcon Zone from being passed over successively (as the Western zone was in 1987 and 1990). They approved the technical language expressing the term of office for members of the Mark Registration Committee.

New amendments fared poorly. Two new Hugo categories were promptly disposed of, known in shorthand as the “otherwise ineligible materials” Hugo, and the “Worldcon rescuers” Hugo. Also failing was the proposal to expand the existing Best Nonfiction Hugo to cover “science or natural philosophy” as well as science fiction, inspired by Noreascon’s decision not to allow Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time as a nominee. A motion to extend the lead time for Site Selection voting from three to four years failed 55-63.

Advocates like Mike Wallis were disappointed that the proposed changes to the Best Professional Artist Hugo were not enacted. Nor were they rejected, but the amendment was downgraded to a resolution and Jo Thomas’ offer to run the new category as the one-shot Hugo 1990’s ConFiction is permitted by the constitution could have clashed with other plans of the Dutch committee. The original scheme would have replaced Best Pro Artist with three Hugos for Best Book Cover, Best Magazine Cover and Best Interior Illustration. Some fans persisted in searching for a nonexistent role for convention art show entries in this amendment, helping to cloud the issue.

Don Eastlake committed the blooper of the weekend while trying to explain NASFiC by-mail voting procedures when he uttered, “…at that point the ballots are fixed…” The Business Meeting howled at this bit of in-humor.

The Mark Registration Committee terms of Bruce Pelz, Fran Skene and Tim Illingworth expired this year. They ran against Martin Hoare, Craig Miller and Bruce Farr. All incumbents were re-elected.

Orlando in '92 bid table at Noreascon 3. Tony Parker (left), Melanie Herz (right), Dan Siclari reading a flyer. Photo by Phylis Brown from Fanac.org site.

Orlando in ’92 bid table at Noreascon 3. Tony Parker (left), Melanie Herz (right), Dan Siclari reading a flyer. Photo by Phylis Brown from Fanac.org site.

The Sunday Business Meeting announced the Site Selection results – letting the cat out of the cellophane bag.

Orlando having finished the race uncontested, when Joe Siclari came up to announce MagiCon’s information there was a momentary sense of anticlimax before parliamentarian Kent Bloom gave the cue for a last bit of business by the DC in ’92 committee. Bloom, a member of the withdrawn DC bid, looked down from the dais and said with a big smile, “We would like to formally tender our surrender.”

DC in '92 Worldcon bid card.

DC in ’92 Worldcon bid card.

At the same time Robert J. McIntyre, on bended knee, presented Siclari with some triangular-folded red, white and blue bunting salvaged from the Republican convention in New Orleans that had decorated DC parties. Shutterbugs made them re-enact the moment quite as the Marine flag-raising at Iwo Jima was restaged for photographers.

Sunday was also “question time” for representatives of next year’s Worldcon, ConFiction in The Hague. Someone asked about progress report delivery problems. A NESFAn who’d helped mail the Dutch PRs, which arrived as a bulk shipment at Logan Airport, said some of the packages were received waterstained: “I can’t imagine how that happened on an airplane, and I don’t want to think about it.”

A favorite activity in the fanzine exhibit was to rub the top of the display case to make the pages jump up and adhere to the plastic due to static electricity. Photo by Kirby Bartlett-Sloan.

A favorite activity in the fanzine exhibit was to rub the plastic top of the display case to make the pages jump up and adhere to the plastic due to static electricity. Photo by Kirby Bartlett-Sloan.

The Masquerade: Noreascon’s Masquerade emcee was the feisty Pat Kennedy. Among his announcements he said, “We have no smoking. If I can quit, you can quit.”

There were 55 entries in the masquerade. The panel of judges was Mike Symes, D. Jeanette Holloman, Patricia Mercier Gill, Janet Wilson Anderson and Ann Layman Chancellor. Workmanship judge was Peggy Kennedy.

Some of the humorous entries are most prominent in memory. “The Gravity Research Institute” came on stage about eight strong wearing utilityman’s orange coveralls draped with elaborate electronic apparatus and carrying tricorders and other gadgets. One of the party dropped a yellow-striped brick on the ground. The researchers stared significantly as it struck the stage and rolled over, scribbed notes, and hurried on to their next test.

Darth Vagrant in Noreascon 3 Masquerade. Photo by Gordon McGregor.

Darth Vagrant in Noreascon 3 Masquerade. Photo by Gordon McGregor.

Darth Vagrant lumbered on stage to the Empire Strikes Back theme, black helmeted but carrying a Hefty bag. When the music changed to the Batman theme, though, he plucked off his helmet to reveal the purple cowl beneath, and ran offstage to fight crime.

Takayana, the Costumer from Hell, wore clashing colors and examples of every masquerade cliché, one leg in gartered stocking, a green fur hindleg, a sequined ruff, a wig and so on.

The “Mermaid With A Vengeance” was said to be “seeking diplomatic exchange” with the Exxon Corporation: she balanced on her green tail, brandishing a bow and arrow.

Best In Show went to Deborah K. Jones’ “Dread Warrior,” inspired by the ceramic sculpture “Streamline Robot” by Toby Buonagurio.

The Cult apa séance at Noreascon 3. L-R: KT Fitzsimmons, Elst Weinstein, (?), Rich Lynch, Nicki Lynch, Kathleen Meyer, Kirby Bartlett-Sloan (on floor to right). (It was really just a party, but that's what they called it.)

The Cult apa séance at Noreascon 3. L-R: KT Fitzsimmons, Elst Weinstein, (?), Rich Lynch, Nicki Lynch, Kathleen Meyer, Kirby Bartlett-Sloan (on floor to right). (Don’t tell anybody it was really only a room party.)

The 1989 Hogu Ranquet: Considering the Ranquet is virtually always held at a local McDonald’s – which this year looked deceptively like a Burger King a block from the Hynes Auditorium – there could be no more appropriate Hogu guest than the author of “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburger Stand.” Guest of Honor Lawrence Watt-Evans said, “This proves I finally made it. I wasn’t sure – last year I won one of those joke awards….” Putting the importance of literature in its proper perspective, Watt-Evans observed that Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has sold 11 million copies, “Which is about one-quarter of the people who watched every episode of My Mother The Car.”

Lawrence Watt-Evans never recovered from being the 1989 Hogu Ranquet guest of honor.

Lawrence Watt-Evans never recovered from being the 1989 Hogu Ranquet guest of honor.

Such dignitaries as Julie Evans, Martha Soukup, Brian Burley and Tom Galloway listened to Elst Weinstein explain the Hogu selection procedure. Said Elst, “The voting system has changed over the years.” Yes, we used to count them. Somebody shouted, “Don’t worry – I’m from Brooklyn – I have plenty of postal money orders!”

Too bad, actually: this was a strictly-cash operation. With 60 people on hand there were tidal waves on a sea of green making sure a broad spectrum of favorites (or whatever the right antonym may be) won. . I was a bit self-conscious sitting in the Boylston Street Burger King while someone ran through the aisle waving a dollar bill and shouting, “Dianetics! Dianetics!” Elst made one small exception to the cash-only rule: he accepted an Exxon credit card – cut in half – as worth $5 voting credit in a category where the oil company was nominated.

Hogu commission membership cardThere was a commotion when Elvis made an appearance at the Hogus. It seems some local college group had picked the same hamburger joint at the same time and was conducting some meeting of their own when Elvis passed by to tell them hello. It was promptly dubbed the Best Hoax Appearance at a Hogu Ranquet.

Stupidity Is Also A Crime: Four huckster tables were hit by thieves during Noreascon Three, taking two copies of a limited edition of Stephen King’s Gunslinger, two other King rarities (one a British edition), and a signed limited edition Batman worth over $2,000.

One of the victimized dealers has a shop in the city. A man walked in and asked the employee at the counter would he be interested in buying one of the rarities at a good price? Aware of the theft, the employee said sure, they probably wanted to buy the book but needed the manager’s approval. A time was set for the fan to return to transact the sale.

While Boston police were still jumping all over the first fan, two others walked in with more stolen collectibles for sale saying, “Say, I understand you bought some stuff like this from my friend….”

Remembering “Science Fiction’s 50th Anniversary Family Reunion” at Noreascon Three (1989)

Noreascon Three marked the 50th Anniversary of the first World SF Convention, held in New York in 1939, by hosting a Sunday brunch that featured testimonials from every fannish generation, including from several people who had been to the original Worldcon (and one who had been thrown out of it!)

I asked Ellen Franklin of Noreascon Three’s Extravaganza Division what she recalled about organizing the brunch. Ellen answered:

What I do remember is that my team and I tried to create memorable moments, events where people could share in a heart based way and feel they had a voice, that what they said truly mattered. I still feel that way when people gather together, the most important thing is to create a true sense of community.

As I recall speaking order was definitely arranged and the event was loosely scripted to create diversity of comments–we also had Arthur C. Clarke from Sri Lanka I believe on audio perhaps with a photo of him. Hard to remember if it were today we would have used Skype. Jim Hudson remembers we also wanted everyone from the old pros, to fans, and newbies to talk about what the World Con meant to them or how their lives had been influenced, etc. It was incredibly important to me that these be heart based and meaningful and not ego driven, and I found a way to politely ask this of people when they were invited to speak…and somehow it all worked.

Breakfast With The Timebinders by Mike Glyer: Watching Noreascon’s Sunday Brunch unfold I thought: there may be other days like this but there won’t be many, and the ones we do have are to be cherished.

Isaac Asimov in Noreascon 3 dealers room. Photo by Gordon McGregor from Fanac.org site.

Isaac Asimov in Noreascon 3 dealers room. Photo by Gordon McGregor from Fanac.org site.

Isaac Asimov1, an appropriate “first speaker,” set the theme: “This is the fiftieth anniversary [of the first Worldcon] so this is a nostalgic brunch.” Asimov attended the first one and sounded less embarrassed than proud that he had not been turned back at the door with six other Futurian rabble-rousers2. Indeed, Asimov told the 1939 audience “I was the worst science fiction writer unhung.” Asimov said he’d refreshed his memory of 1939 by reading the Panshins’ The World Beyond The Hill, which chronicles the ascendancy of Campbell (and presumably Asimov) in the golden age of Astounding.

With the house lights down and Asimov standing in a spotlight, the barrage of flash photography may have helped record the golden moment for some at the expense of others seeing it at all. Though slow to come, an emphatic order against all flashes was crucial to the precious moments that followed. For the rest of the program attention moved around the room as spotlights focused on speakers at different tables, building emotional momentum as long-time pros and fans spoke about the impact of science fiction and its Worldcons on their lives.

Dave Kyle in 2011.

Dave Kyle

Asimov’s spotlight flicked off and a second one found Dave Kyle3 at a nearby table. Said Kyle, “Science fiction has not changed my life – science fiction is my life.” Kyle credited Forry Ackerman for his introduction to science fiction. As a 16-year-old Kyle sold his first sf story to Charles Hornig4, who at that moment was seated at Dave’s table. (Hornig’s magazine folded before the story saw print.) Kyle said, like Asimov, he also was admitted to the first Worldcon only because Sam Moskowitz didn’t realize that the Futurians’ controversial publications had been printed by him. When Kyle married, he bragged, he had 53 people on his honeymoon – a charter flight to the first Worldcon in London.

Betty Ballantine5 remembered as a child reading Dracula late at night in the jungle of India by lantern light with jackals howling and birds making weird sounds. As an adult she remembered the friendships she made in sf, working with the people she most admired.

Jack Williamson6 recalled, “In 1926 I was 18, had gotten out of a country high school with actually six years of schooling, had no job,” but in 1926 he saw Gernsback’s Amazing Stories and can still recite its table of contents. “I read that and I was born again.” With a borrowed typewriter he started writing his own sf, and next year Gernsback began buying it.

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

Terry Pratchett7 recalled that at newsstands in Britain the good magazines were on the top shelf and sf was on the bottom shelf, from which he argued the shortness of old British sf fans was a matter of natural selection. More seriously, Pratchett said he learned from sf that mathematics was actually interesting, which no one else was telling him. “Good old sf – whenever I’ve needed you, you’ve always been there.”

Andre Norton8 was wheeled from the brunch to a standing ovation. Then the spotlight picked out Kees Van Toorn9, 30-ish chairman of the 1990 Worldcon in Holland. Kees invoked the name of Mario Bosnyak, who brought the Worldcon to Heidelberg, its first and only time in mainland Europe [to that time], and Kees’ own first Worldcon.

Gregory Benford10 also went to his first convention in Germany, but 14 years earlier, in 1956. Benford’s father was in the Army and stationed there. Benford and his brother both had to learn a foreign language. “I had to learn English – because I’m from Alabama.” Greg’s first Worldcon was Pacificon II (1964) in Oakland. He also went to the next Bay Area Worldcon in 1968. “It’s aptly been said that if you remember BayCon you weren’t there.” BayCon was held in the Claremont “where the rooms were so small we were told not to complain to the hotel management but to the humane society.” Benford, a professor of physics, said, “It’s impossible to convey what it’s like to do science and write science fiction – great freedom of movement.”

Gregory and Jim Benford in Germany in 1956. From Fanac.org site.

Gregory and Jim Benford in Germany in 1956. From Fanac.org site.

Jane Yolen11 cast her remarks in rhyming doggerel, one a couplet expressing her wish that “A fantasy book would at last win the Hugo.” Her wish was loudly applauded by everyone who has forgotten Jack Vance’s Hugo for The Last Castle.

Forrest J Ackerman12 began to recount his life in science fiction at sufficient length and with so many examples present time seem to have lost all meaning for him until, with a gleam in his eye, Forry concluded, “You can see in my 50 years of science fiction I’ve accomplished about as much as in a lazy afternoon for Isaac Asimov.”

Mike Resnick’s13 implied comparison between the community he and Carol found at the 1963 Worldcon and the present was like a bolt of lightning. Attendance at Discon I was 600. Rooms were $8 apiece. The banquet was held in the afternoon because nobody could afford the evening rates, and even so the $3 charge almost caused a riot. The most expensive piece sold in the Art Show was a cover by Frazetta that went for $70, a price so high fans doubted it would ever be equaled. The pros wrote and performed a play for the benefit for the fans. Writers thought they could make $7,500 a year – if Robert Silverberg ever stopped selling 30 stories a month. The huckster room sold only books and magazines. Fans who read sf outnumbered those who didn’t. Resnick said that now he comes to the Worldcon mostly for business, but there is still that sense of community he found in 1963.

Takumi Shibano at Nolacon II in 1988. From the Fanac.org site.

Takumi Shibano at Nolacon II in 1988. From the Fanac.org site.

Japan’s Takumi Shibano14 published the fanzine Uchuujin (“space dust”), credited with the birth of Japanese fandom. He said, “Nationality doesn’t matter now. I just think of myself as a fan.” In 1939 when he read H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds it reconstructed his view of the world. “The idea that humanity might not be the lords of creation shocked this junior high school boy.”

Hal Clement15 was a fan who became a science teacher and aspired to write a sf story with no science errors. He’s been trying for 48 years, just like for 40 years he tried to write a chemistry test where all the students would interpret every question as he meant it.

Artist Richard Powers16 introduced himself tongue-in-cheek as “one of Betty Ballantine’s more recent inventions.” Powers styled himself a veteran of the “rack space wars” who worked at Hearst “wielding a baseball bat” when Ian Ballantine brought him over to their team of ruffians to work with Fred Pohl “who favored a length of lead pipe.”

Rather than a spotlight for Arthur C. Clarke17 there was a slide of his image beamed out at a large screen in front of the hall as he spoke in a recorded phone call from Sri Lanka. He began, “Science fiction didn’t affect my life, it created my life.” Clarke spoke fondly of the genre, but didn’t forget to needle Isaac Asimov.

Michael Whelan’s18 painful shyness and self-effacement hindered his start in the genre. He would never have approached a Frazetta or a Freas for an appraisal of his work, “Even though it’s exactly what I needed at the time.” He didn’t respect the opinion of those “outside the business” while at the same time he assumed those in the business of fantasy art would be too busy, or his work would be too embarrassing. In 1974, Whelan’s casual discovery of a San Diego Comic-Con flyer moved him to show his work. When he came back at the end of the weekend, he was amazed to find all his work had sold – of course, the asking price was $15. A volunteer agented his artwork at the 1974 Worldcon. Anxiously he waited for the results and learned over the phone one painting had won Best SF – in the professional division! He soon had his first paperback cover assignment from DAW. It all happened in the space of a month-and-a-half.

Samuel Delany19 went by Greyhound to his first Worldcon in 1966, only $36 in his pocket to get him through an entire weekend in Cleveland. He wound up in a room for $4.50 a night. Delany remembers 3,000 people at the con (the record shows 850) emphasizing how lonely he felt among a crowd of people he didn’t know and didn’t know him. A 15-year-old who’d been to three cons took him in hand and introduced him to lots of folks. After four hours the kid asked Delany what he did for a living. “I write sf.” The kid was delighted, “Wow – you’re a pro! And here I am showing you around the convention.” Just last year the kid published Delany’s Hugo-winning nonfiction book.

Frederik Pohl20 said, “Science fiction changed my life…. It gave me a profession. The best kind. I do all the things I like, that I would do for nothing – and people give me money for it.” As Pohl waxed nostalgic about the 1939 Worldcon one began to wonder which Futurians actually got excluded from the con. Pohl claimed even he got in – at least until Wil Sykora saw him and threw him out. Pohl claims that was no great loss. He went to the bar next door and found all the pros in there.

Will Shetterly and Emma Bull in 1994. Photo from Wikipedia.

Will Shetterly and Emma Bull in 1994. Photo from Wikipedia.

Emma Bull21 remembered as a college student she passed her time in a clinic waiting room by reading Foundation. Another girl asked, “Is that good? My boyfriend has been trying to get me to read it.” Emma knew, “She was really asking, ‘Is my boyfriend okay?’” Looking straight at Isaac Asimov, Emma repeated her answer: “I allowed as how the Foundation Trilogy was pretty good.” The audience gasped with laughter. The girl and her boyfriend visited Emma that very night. The boyfriend sat with Emma in front of the bookshelf comparing notes on what they’d read. The boyfriend was Will Shetterly, and borrowing a line Emma concluded, “Reader – I married him!”

Art Widner at Torcon III in 2003.

Art Widner at Torcon III in 2003.

Said Art Widner22, “Like so many fen, I was the Old Weird Harold on my block, carrying home those lurid pulp magazines with nubile bimbos on the cover wearing VW hubcap bras – which was remarkable because Volkswagen hadn’t been invented yet.” Widner said like Voyager 2 after 10 years he had explored the local system, science fiction fandom, and went to see what lay beyond. “Thirty-five years later I came back to report: it’s pretty lonely out there.” He returned to fandom as an “eo-neo” and bumped into Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden “who knew who I was – or rather, had been.”

Anita Raj, contemporary photo.

Anita Raj, contemporary photo.

The spotlight found the last speaker in the center aisle, diminutive Anita Raj23, who told her story: “This is my first Worldcon. A month ago I was a simple mundane and wandered into a work session for this convention.” She collated, stapled and mailed, and wound up with a radio and a beeper in charge of a gang of teamsters during Hynes set-up. “Don’t even try, because you can’t get rid of me now.”

Fans with longer memories than mine had probably identified with and been moved by all that had gone before, but for me it was Anita Raj who put the exclamation point at the end of the story and brought tears to my eyes.

Tears were probably in Isaac Asimov’s eyes, too – for having to wait so long to top Arthur C. Clarke’s dig at him. Payback time came during Asimov’s closing remarks.

“About six weeks ago there was an airplane crash in an Iowa cornfield24 which a hundred people survived. Others unfortunately died. Newspapers reported that one of the survivors was reading an Arthur C. Clarke novel before the crash. When Arthur saw that he immediately had 750 copies made, which he mailed to 750 friends, acquaintances and strangers.” As a postscript to Asimov’s copy Clarke wrote, “He should have been reading an Asimov novel: he would have slept through the whole thing.” Asimov huffed, “I wrote back to Arthur that the reason he was reading a Clarke novel was so that if the plane crashed it would be a blessed relief!”

Notes

1. Isaac Asimov lived less than three more years, passing away in April 1992. Later that same year his story “Gold” won the Best Novelette Hugo. During his career he wrote or edited over 500 books. Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in economics, credits Asimov’s concept of psychohistory with inspiring him to become an economist.

2. Futurian rabble-rousers. An ironic description. The Futurians were at feud with the other New York fans who were the main organizers of the first Worldcon and refused to let them attend.

3. Dave Kyle is still with us. In Mimosa #17, “I Miss the Banquets”, Kyle wrote:  “A joyful revival of the banquet came at Noreascon Three, in 1989, with a luncheon honoring Guest of Honor Andre Norton. She sat in her wheelchair between my wife Ruth and me, and received a standing applause of appreciation as she rolled out of the room in the glare of the spotlight. It was an excellent reminder of the tradition that had once been. With Isaac Asimov as toastmaster, the dozen brief speeches on the theme of what science fiction and fandom meant to each speaker was a powerful moment for a memorable convention.”

4. Charles Hornig created one of the first fanzines in 1933, and became the teen-aged managing editor of Wonder Stories from November 1933 to April 1936. He lived until 1999.

5. Betty Ballantine, born 1919, is still alive. She was given a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2007 and the Ballantines were both inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2008, with a shared citation.

6. Jack Williamson received a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1994. He was part of the inaugural class of inductees to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1996. The Horror Writers Association gave him its Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1998. The World Horror Convention elected him Grand Master in 2004. Jack died in 2006 at home in New Mexico at age 98. A great deal of his work remains in print thanks to the Haffner Press.

7. Terry Pratchett was knighted for his services to literature in the 2009 Queens’ New Year Honours list. The title acknowledged not only his literary output — 36 novels in the Discworld series alone – but his service as a public spokesman for research into Alzheimer’s since being diagnosed with the disease.

8. Andre Norton, despite her frailties, lived until 2005. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy (1977), first to be SFWA Grand Master (1984), and first inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (1997).

9. Van Toorn chaired ConFiction the following year (1990), which was the second Worldcon held in mainland Europe. There hasn’t been another yet.

10. Gregory Benford, a Professor Emeritus, Physics & Astronomy, of UC Irvine, two-time Nebula winner, writes frequently about science policy and cultural topics. His latest sf output includes two novels in collaboration with Larry Niven, Bowl of Heaven and Shipstar.

11. Jane Yolen has won two Nebulas since that afternoon (1998 and 1999), received a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement (2009) and been named a Grand Master Poet by the SF Poetry Association. She lives in Massachusetts. And despite my tart comment in 1989, these days I agree with everyone else that The Last Castle was sf. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the first fantasy novel to win a Hugo (2001).

12. Forrest J Ackerman survived to celebrate his 92nd birthday, then passed away on December 4, 2008. Even minus the items separately sold to Paul Allen, the auction of collectibles remaining in his estate fetched over a quarter million dollars.

13. Mike Resnick, who won his first Hugo at Noreascon Three, now has won a total of five. He’s also won a raft of other awards (including a Nebula), one of them a Seiun for the Japanese translation of the same story that won him his first Hugo – “Kirinyaga” (2000). He was Worldcon guest of honor in 2012.

14. Takumi Shibano, an internationally beloved fan, was twice Worldcon guest of honor: at L.A.con III (1996) and Nippon 2007. He passed away in 2010.

15. Harry Stubbs, aka Hal Clement, aka artist George Richard, was inducted to the SF Hall of Fame in 1998 and was named a SFWA Grand Master Award in 1999. He received a Retro Hugo Award in 1996 for his 1945 short story “Uncommon Sense.” He passed away in 2003.

16. Richard Powers, inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2008, also was Worldcon guest of honor at MagiCon (1992). He lived until 1996.

17. Arthur C. Clarke received a CBE in 1989 and was knighted in 2000. He died in 2008 and his legacy includes the award named for him that is given to the best British sf novel of the year, and the Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination at UC San Diego.

18. At Noreascon 3, Michael Whelan tied Kelly Freas’ mark of 10 Best Professional Artist Hugos and to date he has won a total of 15. Whelan was inducted to the SF Hall of Fame in 2009.

19. Samuel Delany was inducted to the SF Hall of Fame in 2002 and was presented the SFWA Grand Master Award in 2014. He was Worldcon guest of honor at Intersection (1995). He is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia.

20. Frederik Pohl was selected to the SF Hall of Fame in 1998 and was given the SFWA Grand Master Award in 1993. He came full circle, in a way, winning a Best Fan Writer Hugo in 2009 largely for his autobiographical posts on The Way The Future Blogs. He passed away in 2013.

21. Emma Bull’s credits include serving as Executive Producer and one of the writers for Shadow Unit. Bull and Shetterly live in Minneapolis.

22. Art Widner, who won a Big Heart Award at Noreascon Three, received the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award in 1992. Impressively, he is still an active fan today.

23. Anita Raj is on Facebook. I was not successful in getting a comment about the anniversary.

24. Asimov had in mind the crash landing of United Airlines Flight 232 in Sioux City six weeks earlier, where 111 died in the accident while 185 survived, their survival attributed to the outstanding manner in which the flight crew handled the emergency. The events later became a TV Movie with Charlton Heston, James Coburn and Richard Thomas.

Worldcon Wayback Machine: Saturday at Noreascon 3 (1989)

Myth Adventures Fan Club flyer by Christopher Smigliano.

Myth Adventures Fan Club flyer by Christopher Smigliano advertising their Saturday night party at Noreascon Three.

Saturday at Noreascon Three. Third installment of my reminiscences about a once-in-a-generation convention that took place 25 years ago this week.

Lights, Camera, Inaction! Fire marshals threw a large monkey wrench into plans for opening the Art Show when they disapproved a lighting setup that had passed muster at other conventions. Not until Saturday was the con allowed to turn on the full array.

According to Chip Hitchcock in Instant Message #464: “At about 11 a.m. Thursday the hotel electrician and other people visited us and told us a lot of our things were unacceptable. One of the main concerns was a new city ordinance prohibiting unshielded bulbs, which might break if a 9-foot-tall fan bumped into them.”

Chairman Mark Olson explained, “The hotel did have concerns about fires; there was a genuine hotel room fire in a room in the South Tower [of the Sheraton] Wednesday morning, believed to have been caused by a TV set…”

Kurt Siegel at MagiCon in 1992. Photo by Mark Olson on Fanac.org site.

Kurt Siegel at MagiCon in 1992. Photo by Mark Olson on Fanac.org site.

Hitchcock continued: “The fire marshal arrived around 2 p.m. and questioned our fireworthiness. He wanted to see our hangings’ flameproofing certificate… Anton Chernoff thought he had it; went home and fortunately found it.” When the word went out the con found other help. “Teresa Renner remembered a gopher in Registration who was a fireman: Kurt Siegel of the Schenectady Fire Department, who talked fire departmentese to them and saved a lot of time. He also went across the street to the fire house and talked to the station master, getting his okay to open the show if we didn’t turn on our lights.”

To obtain reflectors to cover the bulbs the committee searched from Back Bay to San Francisco Bay. Said Hitchcock: “With the help of Tom Whitmore, Gary Feldbaum and I tracked down suppliers in the San Francisco area. At one point we had Frank Richards in a warehouse in Woburn and Monty [Wells] in the office in South Boston waving money at a wholesaler, finally convincing them it was OK to give the stuff at the warehouse to Frank.” It was early Saturday when the lights were completely ready.

When the lights went on the Art Show winners were:

Popular Choice
Best Artist (Professional): Michael Whelan
Best Artist (Professional) Honorable Mention: James Gurney
Best Artist (Amateur): Nevenah Smith
Best Artist (Amateur) Honorable Mention: Omar Rayyan

Chairman’s Choice: Michael Whelan, “Passage: The Red Step”
Honorable Mention: Tom Kidd, “Winsor McCay City”

Directors’ Choices: C. Anderson: Paul Chadwick, “Storming Heaven”; D. Anderson: Bob Eggleton, “Horsehead Nebula.”

Art Show Staff Choice
Bonnie Atwood, “Water Dance”
David A. Cherry, “A Stitch In Time”
Ruth Sanderson, “A Tale of Two Cities”
Honorable Mention
Barclay Shaw, “Euridice”
Arlin Robins, “Sea Dreams (Study)”
Vincent DiFate, “Popular Science (sketch – Voyager and Saturn)”

Take Me To The Captain of the Starship: Self-effacing, the Program Operations staff dubbed itself “Program Oops.” Priscilla Olson and Ben Yalow, who had spearheaded work in creating the Noreascon Three program, joined operations staff Fred Duarte, Karen Meschke and others to implement it smoothly. This included hearing people’s last-minute pitches to be added to existing program. “The only fan from Iceland” asked could he please have a free membership, in return for which he would be willing to talk about an ever-increasing list of topics. He grabbed passerby Fred Patten to intercede, who was counter-recruited to take “the only fan from Iceland” off and lose him. (However, other reports say the Icelandic fan appeared on the “Sherlock Holmes and SF” panel.)

Her diplomatic handling of Paul Edwards’ effort to insert himself onto already-full panels initiated one staffer into a peculiar Worldcon ritual. Chief of the Program Division Priscilla Olson declared, “You deserve a blue dot.” Priscilla pointed to her own badge which had nine tiny adhesive blue dots affixed. “Three of those are for Edwards,” she said. Called “Lichtenberg dots,” Seth Breidbart received the first one after contending with Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s Tarot reading setup.

Alexis Gilliland opined that “The SFWA Suite had all the warmth and intimacy of a zeppelin hangar. “ However, the Green Room in a corner alcove of the Hynes was graced by 30-foot-tall windows with an outstanding view of the city.

On The Stage and In The Audience: “The Closing of the American Mind” included panelists Greg Benford and David Brin. Francis Hamit attended and reports, “At one point Neil Rest and others in back started booing and yelling at Brin for reasons I could not discern.”

The audience for Saturday’s 10 a.m. running of Orson Scott Card’s “1000 Ideas An Hour” included Janice Gelb who reports: “[During] the first half of the panel he created a believable story with help from the audience, and explained why suggestions do or don’t work.” Card determined for the last half whether to concentrate on science fiction or fantasy depending on a vote of the audience. Out of about 80 fans present, only 12 voted for fantasy, prompting Card to joke, “I should have known; the fantasy people can’t get up this early. They’ve got to stay up until after midnight to check mirrors for reflections!” For the balance of the program he collaborated with the audience to create a believable alien. The group invented two symbiotic animals. One runs fast (after a joke someone made about alien cannibals doing it to get an endorphin fix) and the second mates on the other’s back and lives there.

Gelb also reported that “The 60-Hour Grind” was theoretically about how to handle your full-time job and develop creative talent in your spare time. “Pat Cadigan had quit her job a few years before, and one other panelist had been unemployed for some time. Despite these anomalies the panel went fairly well, with members of the audience chiming in with their own horror stories. One panelist explain[ed] that the idea for the first story he ever sold came to him while he was a naval officer and was enduring Prisoner of War simulation!”

Sitting in the front row at the “Worldcons – Should We Kill Them Before They Kill Us?” panel was Gene Wolfe. When moderator Priscilla Olson was harangued by Linda Bushyager for having too much programming at Noreascon (over 600 items), Wolfe interceded to say he likes the redundancy of items with similar topics so that when he’s forced to choose one program over another he may still have a chance to hear discussion of what he missed later on.

Kelly Freas' poster for Mike Jittlov's "The Wizard of Speed and Time"

Kelly Freas’ poster for Mike Jittlov’s “The Wizard of Speed and Time”

Doug Crepeau, one of Mike Jittlov’s publicists, fished for some good response to the showing of Wizard of Speed and Time at the con. However, Gavin Claypool reported the Sunday showing was canceled. We learned later that was not because of poor attendance or the lukewarm review in a Boston paper. A local distributor rented the print to replace another film doing poorly in one of his movie houses and Wizard ran successfully for three weeks.

“All Our Children” featured discussion on fringe fandoms between Fred Patten, knowledgeable about comics and Japanimation fandoms, and Lois Mangan, a media fan. Janice Gelb moderated, terming the program “mainly a defense by media fans (“We do so read”) and some historical background on various fannish schisms by [Patten].”

Mr. Yalow Meets Mr. Murphy: Things ran smoothly enough that Fred Duarte was hard-pressed to think of any problems handled by Program Operations – oh, except one. It seems at one program they’d furnished an insufficiently powerful slide projector to penetrate the smoked glass in the projection booth window. They scrounged up another one and the panel started 20 minutes late. Division head Ben Yalow himself took this problem in hand. After all, the speaker was a famous scientist – Dr. Rosalyn Yalow.

Another Episode of Elst Weinstein’s Lobster Surgical Theater: Saturday night after I closed the fanzine sales table with the help of Tony Ubelhor, I joined the Ross Pavlac expedition to the No Name Restaurant, accompanied by Elst, Hope Leibowitz, Tom Veal, Becky Thomson and another couple. As Becky was a convention official at the information table it was yeoman work getting her away from a swarm of folk in search of her advice and orders. Even as Ross dragged Becky away bodily she obliviously continued calling out instructions to someone, “You can call my beeper –“ at which point her beeper vanished and Pavlac’s hand went over her mouth. Getting Becky down to the car to go to the restaurant was at least as much work for Ross as kidnapping Candice Bergen was for Sean Connery in The Wind and The Lion.

There was heated discussion over the menu of this famous Boston seafood restaurant, opened in 1917, and Elst Weinstein told Hope, “Get scrod.” [Not sure why I thought it was mandatory to repeat this joke, which already appeared once in the conreport.]

Ignoring Elst, several people ordered lobster and even persuaded the good doctor (Weinstein, not Asimov) to give them surgical tips for extracting the meat.

During dinner I learned that the business meeting approved Bruce Pelz’ Hugo preservation committee. With northeastern fans always full of ideas for how profitable Worldcons should spend their money, I said I was surprised they stopped at just funding a study committee. They could just as well have gotten a grant from Worldcon Atlanta Inc. to send the winners themselves to a taxidermist. Elst rejoined, “First we stuffed the ballots. Now we’ll stuff the winners.”

Filled with wonderful seafood, we helled back to the Sheraton in taxis: I had to get to the Hugo ceremony!

Fred Pohl emceeing Noreascon 3 Hugo ceremony. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Fred Pohl emceeing Noreascon 3 Hugo ceremony. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Ghod Blesh Saint Fantony: Noreascon’s novel Hugo ceremony required all nominees to rendezvous beforehand in Hynes 200, the function room near the stage entrance to the auditorium.

Hugo nominees, in case they won, received a laser printed diagram of how to approach the stage, where Fred Pohl would hand them the award, where to pause at midstage for photographers, and where to find the steps at the far side of the stage. It looked like a Minnesota Fats bank shot, or Stephen Hawking’s line drawing of the Big Bang. I still haven’t figured out the stage diagram. Or the Big Bang.

The ceremonies started with a procession of the nominees grouped by award category and led by a knight of St. Fantony1 bearing a Hugo rocket. How much time did the nominees have to absorb these directions? Remember the old Xerox commercial where the coach sends in Kolodny with copies of a last-minute play?2 We had about that much time.

Lucius Shepard at Noreascon 3. Photo by Frank Olynyk from Fanac.org site.

Lucius Shepard at Noreascon 3. Photo by Frank Olynyk from Fanac.org site.

A member of the committee in a tangerine evening gown tried to shout directions over the din of gossipy pros and fans. Saying, “We will start with the Fan Artist nominees –“ her words were so twisted in the babel that when she repeated them Gardner Dozois said in surprise, “I thought you said faint-hearted nominees—“ and Lucius Shepard claimed to have heard “wannabees.”

While we were backstage being herded together in categories, Jill Eastlake was onstage explaining the traditions of the knights of St. Fantony; we couldn’t make out word one but the muffled tones sounded quite reverent.

I marched in with the fanwriters, and don’t let them tell you it’s not a small world for there I was walking beside none other than NOLAcon’s Justin Winston, seconding the absent Guy Lillian III. Dick Eney in his knightly pastel green garb and brass headband led us. Dick showed his knightly virtue by not asking me where in heck is Fancyclopedia 3 anyway.3

For me, the pretention level of the ceremony had already crossed the redline and I just lost it when I got to the door and heard our processional music was “March of the Gladiators” from Spartacus or something comparable with brassy flourishes and rhythms suited to the stride of captured war elephants.

We walked circuitously through the auditorium like extras in a Hercules movie. Nominees in the professional categories marched at the end. Gardner Dozois basked in the applause, flashing a V-sign at the crowd like Winston Churchill on V-E Day. In his white tuxedo George Alec Effinger looked like he’d gotten lost on his way to the top layer of a wedding cake.

Donald Eastlake III came last in line carrying a purple banner: GHOD BLESH SAINT FANTONY. He stood it beside the larger St. Fantony and Noreascon Three banners already on stage.

Master of ceremonies Fred Pohl began by explaining that he was standing in for the Ballantines, because Ian’s health difficulties of a few months earlier militated against them continuing as emcees. When Pohl mentioned the Ballantines 2,000 fans and writers applauded loudly. Pohl replied, “You can applaud some more because I’m going to say some more nice things about them.” He reviewed their mid-1940s groundbreaking efforts in the science fiction paperback field, ascribing their efforts to drive and talent, and “one other essential ingredient: They paid more than anybody else.”

Noreascon Three presented two Special Awards. One went to artist Alex Schomburg and was accepted by his granddaughter who read the artist’s letter of thanks. The other went to the computer-based service SF Lovers Digest, accepted by its current moderator Saul Jaffe. Jaffe thanked Rutgers University for its facilities.

Rusty Hevelin (left) and Forrest J Ackerman (right) at Noreascon 3. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Rusty Hevelin(left) and Forrest J Ackerman (right) at Noreascon 3. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Apropos of the 50th Anniversary Worldcon, Fred Pohl introduced the Big Heart Award presenter, Forrest J Ackerman, as “the first fan to wear a costume, outside a secure institution, anyway.” Forry presented the Big Heart Award to Art Widner.

Robert Madle tried to present three First Fandom Awards to L. Sprague De Camp, Don Grant and Fred Pohl, but found he didn’t have the award plaques because he’d neglected to call on three other First Fandomites holding the winners’ plaques, Art Saha, Isaac Asimov and Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. When that was corrected, to much huffing by Art Saha, the presentations were made.

Isaac Asimov introduced De Camp’s award. He teased that the “requirements” of First Fandom are “great age, a withered appearance, and miserable habits. We keep Fred Pohl around as an example.”

Not to be surpassed even by the great Asimov, Pohl told the story of being at a conference with Asimov when a young woman walked up, looked at Isaac’s badge, and twinkled, ‘Oh: you’re Isaac Asimov…. What do you do?’” Pohl gazed at Asimov. “Don’t get me started. I know more Isaac Asimov stories than Harlan Ellison stories.” The audience gasped to think there could be that much material…

Takumi Shibano introduced colleagues from Japan who gave out two Seiun Awards to North American winners not present at the Japanese national convention. Winner of the Best Novel translated into Japanese was Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. Winner of the Best Short Story translated into Japanese was “Eye for Eye” by Orson Scott Card. The physical Seiun Award is something uniquely designed by each year’s committee. This year it appeared to be a small white urn, and Shibano confessed he didn’t know the significance himself.

Andre Norton received thunderous applause when she came onstage to present the award she created and funded. The Gryphon Award goes to the best unpublished fantasy by a woman. The physical award is a white gryphon embedded in a hefty Lucite block, and its winner was Elizabeth Waters. There is also an honor book award, which went to Lee Barwood.

Analog editor Stanley Schmidt presented the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer to Michaela Roessner. Then Fred Pohl began handing out the Hugo Awards.

Best Fan Artist was shared by Brad Foster and Diana Gallagher Wu, who tied with 201 votes apiece. Dave Langford won Best Fanwriter, his acceptance speech (read by Martin Hoare) saying, “Now I can die happy once I’ve been asked to contribute to Last Dangerous Visions.”

Martin Hoare (left) and Mike Glyer (right) at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org site.

Martin Hoare (left) and Mike Glyer (right) at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org site.

To my surprise and delight, File 770 won Best Fanzine. Hearing Fred Pohl introduce the category with comments about the fanzine exhibit, including the fanzine reading area I’d arranged, I decided to use the opportunity to ask people to come see it. Regrettably, I phrased things so broadly that I seemed to be strongarming the credit for the whole area and ignoring Nancy Atherton’s organization of the historic fanzine exhibit. I’m told at that moment all right-thinking people in the balcony simultaneously muttered, “You asshole!” particularly Debbie Notkin and Spike Parsons who looked me up the next day to tell me so. I apologized to Nancy and inserted a correction in the daily newzine.

Caroline Mullan (center) and Peter Weston (seated) at Tea Party II during Noreascon 3. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Caroline Mullan (center) and Peter Weston (seated) at Tea Party II during Noreascon 3. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Best Semiprozine went to Locus. I wondered whether Charlie Brown ever did any maintenance on his Hugos. Not that it ever occurred to me they needed any until British fan Peter Weston, whose company has been manufacturing the Hugo rockets since 1984, took me aside. He had seen my Hugos in Bruce Pelz’ display and complained they were getting tarnished and ought to be polished. I told him that’s all I needed was to have some friends drop in and catch me polishing my Hugos!

After Michael Whelan accepted the Best Professional Artist Hugo, Fred told a story about the 1966 Worldcon in Cleveland. They shared the convention hotel with a group of World War II veterans. Pohl got stuck in an elevator with 15 people: the vets sobbed and pounded on the walls shouting, “For the love of God, Montresor!” while the fans just said, “Let’s do some filk!” The hotel got them out by bringing the other elevator car alongside, taking out the walls, and inviting them to step across eight stories of empty space.

Samuel Delany at Noreascon 3. Photo by Frank Olynyk from Fanac.org site.

Samuel Delany at Noreascon 3. Photo by Frank Olynyk from Fanac.org site.

Gardner Dozois accepted the Best Professional Editor Hugo. Producer Frank Marshall was on hand to pick up the Best Dramatic Presentation rocket for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Samuel Delany delightedly received the Best Nonfiction Book Hugo for The Motion of Light in Water. A happy Mike Resnick was stunned into uncharacteristic speechlessness by his first Hugo, for his short story “Kirinyaga.”

Not even the finest novel of his career and a home-town Worldcon could swing a Hugo for George Alec Effinger in 1988, but in Boston he was not only summoned to accept the Best Novelette Hugo for “Schrodinger’s Kitten,” he outpolled his friend Harlan Ellison’s story in the bargain.

In his white tuxedo Effinger fell somewhere on the spectrum between Mark Twain and John Travolta, yet his acceptance sounded peculiarly like Gary Cooper in a famous movie, complete with faked mike reverb: “Some folks say I’ve had a bad break. But today I feel like I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth, earth, earth.” Sitting next to me was Vancouver’s Fran Skene whose knowledge of American baseball extends little beyond her delight that W.P. Kinsella lives in British Columbia. I told her in a pithy sentence about Lou Gehrig and Fran’s scowl of distaste for Effinger’s humor said it all.

Mike and Carol Resnick at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org site.

Mike and Carol Resnick at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org site.

Brandishing his Hugo, Effinger had one last remark: “Mike Resnick and I have just begun collaborating on a novel and these two awards are going to cost somebody a lot.”

Connie Willis’ “Last of the Winnebagos” won the Best Novella Hugo. Connie said that after seeing the Locus photo of her Nebula win she swore if she won a Hugo she “would not be photographed smiling like a chipmunk from ear to ear,” but she abandoned her resolve in the happiness of the moment.

Best Novel went to C.J. Cherryh for Cyteen and she thanked a list of people beginning with “my alpha reader, Jane [Fancher].”

There was the usual orgy of photography after the ceremony. A lot of fans stayed in their seats for the promised Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Batman double-bill. I circled back to the press area for a copy of George Flynn’s excellent press kit with releases about the pro winners and complete voting statistics. Then I found an elevator bound for Keith Kato’s chili party.

1989 Hugo Award winners. Photo by Robert Sneddon. From Fanac.org site.

1989 Hugo Award winners. Photo by Robert Sneddon. From Fanac.org site.

Robert Silverberg (left) and Ralph Vicinanza (right) at Noreascon 3. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

Robert Silverberg (left) and Ralph Vicinanza (right) at Noreascon 3. Photo by Robert Sneddon from Fanac.org site.

The Legendary Keith Kato: Once upon a time Keith Kato was a physics student and science fiction fan who discovered this natural law: if you feed Robert Silverberg sufficiently good chili, he will attend all your parties. In fact, the young Kato spent years perfecting his “Silverberg grade” hot chili and in the process met any number of sf writers including Gregory Benford, who became an advisor on Kato’s Ph.D. committee.

For years Kato hauled his cooking pots and hot plates around the country and spent Hugo day in his room cooking meat and simmering chili, oblivious to the smell of hot oil wafting down the entire corridor as far as the elevators, and hoping Housekeeping was the same. Keith tried to retire once mainly because of the unkissed toads who crashed his parties and never even thanked him.

Fortunately he came back. Before I started to actually win the things, the best part of Hugo night was to be invited to Kato’s party, eat chili, listen to writers’ shop talk, and meet an eclectic mix of international fans from Japan to Norway and everywhere in between. I have been going to them long enough that it was fated I should learn the inner secrets of Keith’s process. First, I ran into Keith at a market next to the convention center filling a shopping cart with cheese and vegetables. “I’m buying all the perishables,” he explained, and I confess it bothered me to discover there were non-perishable ingredients in his chili. At the party, as I hovered over the bathtub, shoving aside the ice-cold imported beers in search of a Diet Pepsi, I heard Kato explaining to Ashley Grayson, “Nobody realizes I cook chili in my swimming trunks.” Without expression Grayson replied, “How do you keep it from running out?”

jan howard finder came in with word the Kees Van Toorn’s noisy ConFiction4 party had just been closed down by Sheraton management. finder took the opportunity to report on the success of several benefit auctions run at Noreascon Three. He said the ASFA auction yielded $3,500 from the sale of 285 items. jan sounded breathless from having run 172 items in the first two hours of the auction.

The daily newzine later reported that the ConFiction party was “partially evacuated twice by hotel staff due to the vast numbers of enthusiastic supporters who came to enjoy real Dutch hospitality and a great bar, featuring 160-proof double-distilled rum known as Stroh.” The rum was available by the glass or in a vanilla/praline cake prepared by Carol Shetler and Larry van der Putte. In spite of the Sheraton, Larry kept the party running until 5 a.m. in the morning.

Tom Hanlon reported pros complained the Bantam Books party was cordoned off by hotel security. They were eventually moved to a larger and cooler room on a non-sleeping-room floor.

Chairman Mark Olson said Sunday night, “We were very, very happy with the treatment we received from the Hynes and the Sheraton.” Compared to the specter of Hotel Hostility raised when the Sheraton originally tried to kick out the Worldcon, the degree of cooperation showed by the hotel was apparently very satisfactory. Despite that, a number of parties were closed.

The committee relied heavily on volunteer elevator monitors to prevent overcrowding. The recruiting pitch in the daily newzine asked, “Do you like standing in small rooms with total strangers? If so, you’re just the person we’re looking for.” For once the newzine’s black humor was exceeded by a grimmer reality. Monitors took a lot of mindless abuse: I heard it, and it was disgusting. The worst case I witnessed involved one idiot who not merely insisted on riding an elevator that a monitor warned had jammed earlier, but loudly abused the monitor and dragged the nearest person to the door to ride with him as an assertion of “hotel customers’ rights.”

Elevator monitors address a real problem, but as Joe Rico summed up, “Without elevator management, elevators are slow, crowded and inefficient. With elevator management, elevators are slow, crowded and inefficient, but at least somebody notes it in the Ops log.”

George Alec Effinger at NOLAcon II in 1988. Photo from Fanac.org site.

George Alec Effinger at NOLAcon II in 1988. Photo from Fanac.org site.

Saturday Night’s All Right For Fightin’: Unlikely as it seems that George Alec Effinger would need to stray very far from his home in New Orleans’ French Quarter in search of exotic pleasure, and even more unlikely that he would find it in Boston, he found his heart’s desire at a Boston Red Sox game. His friend Debbie Hodgkinson mentioned they got into a tiff: “George is off in baseball land. He got mad when I called it Fenwick.”

Effinger was even more emotional about the reception for his 1988 Hugo-nominated novel When Gravity Fails: he is thoroughly outraged by the lack of promotion for his books. Said George, “People keep coming up to me asking when the sequel to Gravity is going to be out – and it’s been out for THREE MONTHS!!”

Effinger was soothed to learn the sequel, A Fire In The Sun, was featured in the window of a nearby bookstore. George’s calm was short-lived, though, for after the Hugo ceremony a passing fan asked him if the Hugo in his arms was bought in the Art Show.

Notes

1. Not sure that the Fancyclopedia’s article about the Order of St. Fantony really makes clear what it is, but it’s a long entry.

2. YouTube has a copy of Xerox’s Kolodny commercial.

3. In the 1980s I was still part of the Fancyclopedia 3 editorial project. Today it’s a wiki site under completely different and obviously successful management because I can actually look stuff up on it!

4. ConFiction was the next year’s – 1990 – Worldcon.

5. The Myth Adventures Fan Club party flyer included above is one of a series of six by Christopher Smigliano. The entire set is online here.

Here Jay Kay Klein (right) interrupts photographing the 1989 Hugo winners long enough to give me a piece of his mind. I must deserve it -- do I look guilty, or what? Photo by Julee Johnson Tate.

Here Jay Kay Klein (right) interrupts photographing the 1989 Hugo winners long enough to give me a piece of his mind. I must deserve it — do I look guilty, or what? Photo by Julee Johnson Tate.

Worldcon Wayback Machine: Noreascon Three (1989) Day Two

Niven with a Puppeteer. Photo by Gordon McGregor from Fanac.org.

Larry Niven with a Puppeteer at Louis Wu’s Birthday Party. Photo by Gordon McGregor from Fanac.org.

Twenty-five years ago today Noreascon Three began in Boston, Massachusetts. I’ve been working on a post about its epic Science Fiction’s 50th Anniversary Family Reunion Sunday brunch which will appear September 3. The research has reminded me it was a superb once-in-a-generation convention and I have decided to republish my whole conreport in daily installments.

SF Tonight! Pam Fremon, Ellen Franklin and Tappan King created a format where Andre Norton and the other guests were seconded by their closest friends in sf and presented to a large audience in a warm and personal way. In that atmosphere the intended homage was paid to each guest and these charming but delicate individuals were not tossed into a den of 2,000 couch potatoes demanding to be entertained.

Tappan King in 1992.

Tappan King in 1992.

There was a minute-by-minute timeline for the show – this was Noreascon after all – but with 36 hours to go the script wasn’t done. Tappan King, host and headwriter, confessed, “I’ve been working at Tor the last two weeks and invisible weasels have been eating the gray matter.”

My job was to play Ed McMahon to Tappan’s Johnny Carson; I loved my role in Tappan’s outline and existing script, but welcomed even more an opportunity to brainstorm and help improvise the rest of the business.

The major brainstorming session was Thursday night at 10 p.m. I had fed my brain at Legal Seafood: squid, scrod and a brew. Trotting six blocks back to the Hynes I was a little late. Already at work, and on the verge of finishing “10 Reasons To Leave Fandom” were Tappan, Heather Wood (also of Tor, our kazoo-playing answer to Doc Severinsen), Priscilla Olson, Tom Whitmore, Ellen Franklin, Deb Geisler and some others (wish I’d made a list.) Thinking up the between-guests business and the pseudo-announcements was a lot of fun. The only thing we were barred by management from doing was jokes about ballot stuffing.1

Friday afternoon was the technical rehearsal for SF Tonight! (Somehow that phrase entangles in my mind with “…technical readout of the DeathStar…”) The tech crew efficiently set the microphone levels and coordinated the stage lighting with the Hynes electricians. Tom Whitmore and Tamzen Cannoy led the talent in setting the stage, placing furniture and checking sightlines.

Ellen Franklin, part of Hasbro’s management, had borrowed some toy fair backdrop scenery, swatches of Martian desert painted on sheets of canvas, to hang at the back of the stage.

At 8:30 p.m. 2,000 people were in the auditorium. I got my cue and stepped into the spotlight: “And now – live! – from the John B. Hynes (after whom the sloop was named) Convention Center in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, it’s SF Tonight!  — brought to you by First Fandom, purveyors of used parts, the Permanent Floating Worldcon Committee and SFWA Chewable Vitamins. Now here is your host – TAPPAN KING!”

Tappan led into our Letterman-inspired “10 Reasons Not To Leave SF,” then talked to the guests.

Andre Norton at World Fantasy Con in 1987.

Andre Norton at World Fantasy Con in 1987.

Andre Norton was preceded by two friends, Susan Shwartz, and Tom Doherty of Tor Books. Doherty told Tappan that one of his first acts as head of Tor was to fly down to visit Andre Norton because he’d heard she was dissatisfied with her publisher and he regarded her books as very important to the company. An extra benefit of having Doherty present was the assurance of a strong arm to escort Andre Norton to the sofa (given that she moved around the convention mainly by wheelchair). Tappan and Andre Norton had a good exchange, and the audience reacted enthusiastically to Norton.

Fred Pohl started the second set telling about the Ballantines. Richard Powers, well-remembered as a Ballantine Books cover artist, joined Pohl and answered questions about his career. Then Betty and Ian Ballantine were ushered in. Before that Tappan King told us, “These people are my ghods!” Although visibly moved, Tappan got through the questions without a hitch.

Between guests I stepped over to the podium and read some our concocted announcements chronically interrupted by the “Marseilles” howled on kazoos.

Art Widner at Torcon III in 2003.

Art Widner at Torcon III in 2003.

In a third segment Art Widner and Hal Clement of the Strangers Club2 related that Widner got the club’s name from a series of sf stories he’s never actually read. The club’s legacy included Louis Russell Chauvenet’s invention of the term “fanzine.” Among the Strangers’ most memorable meetings was one attended by John W. Campbell and L. Ron Hubbard, and Art told what it was like to be around those two lions of sf in their prime.

I had so much fun I couldn’t possibly be objective and went looking for people to ask about the show. All my friends, being too cool to go to programming, had gone off to baseball games and seafood restaurants so I’m still looking, but Chairman Mark Olson noted later, “I saw half of SF Tonight! when it happened and most of the rest of it looking at the mixdown video tape. I enjoyed it and have heard that we’re getting good reviews on it. (Certainly Andre Norton was delighted with her part in it.”)

A Nation of Ribbon Clerks: After SF Tonight! I wandered up to Program Oops to check on the night shift, who looked remarkably like the day shift, Priscilla Olson, Ben Yalow, and Fred Duarte.

A bonus was getting my Hugo nominee pin. Noreascon gave each nominee a 1-1/2 inch replica of the Hugo rocket. I attached mine to my membership badge which by then was looking satisfyingly like the fruit salad on the uniform blouse of a commandante of the Bolivian Coast Guard.

The Noreascon Three membership badge was a great big laminated square with your name and town in LARGE laser-printed letters under a blue line-drawing of a Cheshire cat in a spacesuit. The cat grinned through its fishbowl-shaped helmet and held a party horn in one paw (which didn’t seem like good science and I was sure Hal Clement would criticize…)

Attached to my badge with duct tape was a “gizmo” identifying me as part of the Program Division. Staff wore them to be readily accessible to members. Some gizmos were special. Seth Breidbart had a flock of them hanging down from his badge, including “Hoax Division” and “This Space Intentionally Left Blank.” Sue Hammond’s gizmo said “Ice Princess” – Sue was in charge of giving away the tons of party ice on the Sheraton loading dock.

I had five ribbons pinned to my gizmo, out of many printed for Noreascon Three participants. I had a green Committee ribbon, a maroon Program Participant ribbon, an orange Hugo Award Nominee ribbon, a black Exhibitor ribbon, and one of Seth’s yellow Hoax ribbons. I’d have made it into the Guinness Book of Records if I’d found the time to claim my sixth ribbon, the half-white half-red one given to the Press.

After I got my Hugo pin, Tony Lewis wanted to show off Boston’s Hugo Award base. He convoyed me to another inner sanctum of the Hynes where Jill Eastlake allowed me to gaze from a discreet distance at the beautiful art deco bases. Taking inspiration from the 1939 World’s Fair Trylon and Perisphere, the circular black base was stepped with a smaller-radius granite base. The chrome rocket appeared to have landed on the granite, bull-eyeing a circular green ellipsis inset with small chrome and glass orbs, and sprinkled with tiny brass knobs and doohickeys.

BoxboroLogo-125Louis Wu’s Birthday Party: Leaving Tony, a plan to drop off my coat and tie in my ninth floor room failed to survive contact with the mobs at the elevator bank. But I hadn’t wandered more than 10 feet when a new plan took shape: Scott Welch in a fivesome from Bridge Publications was on his way to the biggest bash of the night, Louis Wu’s Birthday Party, and invited me to come along. Boxboro Fandom’s3 farewell blowout cost a rumored $17,000.

The Boxboro party was in the Back Bay Hilton and everyone knew there was a line around the corner waiting to get in because the hotel would admit only about 545 individuals at once (blaming it on that bogeyman the fire marshal.) However, the “Scott Welch party” had passports and blue tickets certifying them as “Special Guests of Louis Wu” that allowed us to jump the line – we replaced the next five people out the door. Scott’s party would have graced any occasion for it included Edgar Winter, a performer so renowned that jaded fans scrambled from all corners of the party when he took the stage in the Mardi Gras room.

Inspired by the birthday bash in Niven’s Ringworld, Boxboro encouraged fans as they walked around the party to imagine they were being transported to these (sometimes improbable) locations.

From the top of the stairs partiers were attracted by the hot jazz trombones and cornets blaring in the Mardi Gras Room as the band set a frenetic beat for a score of dancers, including Julie Schwartz and his well-endowed date. (“They always are,” said Craig Miller.) Joey Grillot, everyone’s favorite New Orleans fan, sang along with “Mack the Knife.” Though he never hit a single note Joey scored points for enthusiasm.

Good and Evil at the Boxboro party. Photo by Gordon McGregor from Fanac.org.

Good and Evil at the Boxboro party. Photo by Gordon McGregor from Fanac.org.

The Mardi Gras room was reached by way of the Puppeteer World, notable for the cardboard circles on the floor simulating stepping-disk sidewalks. The warm pastel yellows of the puppeteer room were in stark contrast to the roulette red-and-black of the Mardi Gras room. With Edgar Winter in tow the Scott Welch party made a beeline for the sound of Bourbon Street.

Eyes adapted to dim nightclub-style lighting could read the signs on the wall naming the party’s sponsors, announcing that the band was the Hi-Tops, and noting this particular night spot was “The Silent Club.” A picture of a large bludgeon with golden spikes driven through the meat end was captioned, “You never hear a silent club coming…until it’s too late!”

Edgar Winter

Edgar Winter

When he introduced Edgar Winter, Scott flashed the “Mission Earth” album cover. Winter performed Hubbard’s score on the record. At the party Edgar Winter laid them in the aisles with two incredible blues numbers. Winter even played the sax. Photographers sprawled at his feet on the dance floor. Fans jammed the perimeter either listening raptly, or like Ellen Franklin, rocking and clapping in time.

Robert Neagle of New Orleans looked right at home in The Silent Club wearing a white shirt captioned “Porno Patrol” in scarlet letters. Neagle was plainly awestruck by Winter.

After Winter finished his set I prowled the party looking where its rumored $17,000 had gone, which obviously wasn’t for the snacks in the Mardi Gras room: they looked pretty funky. There were bowls full of oblong pretzel droppings and at the rate fans were consuming them each bowl would be a lifetime supply. Normally locust-like fans were able to resist several kinds of generic chips. A lot of this stuff probably sounded tasty when the hosts were compelled to order it from Hilton catering, but snacks delivered in 5-gallon cardboard boxes inevitably have a certain industrial toughness.

Next door, the Nippon Room featured a hi-tech Japanese theme. Rock music provided by “Crime of Fashion” accompanied a laser show playing on the ceiling. A sushi bar occupied the far wall. To the right was a simulated video wall with four big-screen monitors playing a Japanese rock video while people danced to the music. My path was momentarily blocked by a Japanese fan taking his friends’ photo, which seemed completely appropriate and may even have been genuine.

Attached to the wall behind the sushi bar was some ominous plumbing variously labeled “Omni Trap,” “Detoxification Filter,” “Blasting Agent,” “Corrosive Liquid,” “Cyclohexanone,” and “Specialized Activated Carbon” which may have been a recipe for Kzin deodorant or the plot for Greg Bear’s next novel. Hopefully it wasn’t the ingredients for the Mad Tea Party next door.

There were 40 fans lined up at the Mad Tea Party behind ropes and stanchions, and I couldn’t believe it was merely for tea and cake. Nor was it. They were waiting their turn to take a wooden pink flamingo mallet in hand and play through the croquet course laid out in the next room.

Thanks to transporter booths the Kzin embassy and the Ringworld map room were just around the corner from Wonderland. Color monitors showed computer graphics vaguely suggestive of celestial navigation. A slide carousel projected quotes from Ringworld. There were life-size Kzin and puppeteer mannequins (alienquins?) Costumer Drew Sanders stalked around the party in a furry and incredibly hot Kzin outfit [originally an entry in the 1984 Worldcon masquerade].

These last rooms boasted a more aggressive range of munchies including fruit and vegetables, and some remarkably courageous chefs carving huge joints of meat in the Kzin embassy. (Where else?)

Francis Hamit said Louis Wu’s birthday party reminded him of Universal Studios – five attractions and a lot of standing in line. But I say it was a hell of a party.

Notes

1. “The only thing we were barred by management from doing was jokes about ballot stuffing.” There had been a controversy about the votes cast for one nominee, which was resolved by the nomination being declined.

2. The Strangers Club. The Boston science fiction club co-founded by Russ Chauvenet in 1940. He coined the word fanzine the same year. When did he sleep?

3. Boxboro Fandom. One of the greatest convention party-throwing crews. Steve Boheim’s reminiscence here has the details. Larry Niven also wrote about the aftermath in N-Space:

Boxboro’s Hotel Liaison was a straight-looking guy who never raised his voice or appeared without a tie: a proper gent. And heck, they were taking the whole second floor! So the Hilton Manager was cooperative. She signed the thick contract without really noticing a clause near the end.

Getting the prop walls for the Kzinti Embassy into the hotel was tough. They’d measured the largest doors – the front lobby doors! – but hadn’t measured them open. Open, they were too small. Boxboro considered taking them off their hinges, with and without permission. They considered junking the props. They were sure the prop walls wouldn’t come apart, but someone tried it, and they did.

Still, the only feasible way to get them out after the party would be to hack them apart with a chainsaw! That would allow the debris to fit into a dumpster. So they put it in the contract.

“I can’t believe they let you use a chainsaw at four in the morning!” the Hotel Manager wailed. But she didn’t stop them. It was in the contract.

4. Final note. The convention’s name was officially agnostic: “Noreascon 3”, “Noreascon Three” and “Noreascon III” were all declared correct forms of the name.

Worldcon Wayback Machine: Noreascon Three (1989) Day One

Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. Contemporary photo.

Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. Contemporary photo.

Twenty-five years ago today Noreascon Three began in Boston, Massachusetts. I’ve been working on a post about its epic Science Fiction’s 50th Anniversary Family Reunion Sunday brunch which will appear September 3. The research reminded me what a superb convention it was, a once-in-a-generation, and I have decided to republish my whole conreport. Here is the first daily installment.

The Worldcon was among the first events held in the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, built the prior year in 1988. In the words of one travel writer the Hynes’ “severe gray interior is reminiscent of an early 20th-century German railroad station.” I see from my first paragraph I at least picked up on the “German” vibe.

(Incidentally, the convention’s name was officially agnostic: “Noreascon 3”, “Noreascon Three” and “Noreascon III” were all declared correct forms of the name.)

Noreascon Three by Mike Glyer (from File 770 #82): Boston’s renovated Hynes Convention Center has ceilings tall as the Tombs of Atuan, floors black as Kubrick’s monolith, and walls as green as Tiffany enamel. The entry from Boylston Street looks like a stark glass and basalt-colored proscenium perhaps waiting for Leni Riefenstahl to jump out of a cab and demand to know who removed the swastikas, but just beyond are breathtakingly tall chrome escalators hurtling toward a promise of incredible activities.

Hynes Convention Center in 2009.

Hynes Convention Center in 2009.

Within, Noreascon’s Extravaganza Division marked the convention with unparalleled heart and understanding. Their events did not merely entertain, they touched the emotions of large numbers of fans. Ellen Franklin and Jill Eastlake’s division existed to stage the big events at Noreascon Three spectacularly. The 50th Anniversary Party (Thursday), SF Tonight! (Friday), Boxboro Fandom Party (Friday), Hugo Awards (Saturday), Masquerade (Sunday) and Closing Ceremonies and Retrospective (Monday) headlined the con’s hundreds of successful programs and events.

Hynes escalators in 2009.

Hynes escalators in 2009.

Mother of Invention: Some of the decisions forced upon the committee by necessity were so successful they will probably form part of the essential architecture of future Worldcons.

When the 1987 Boskone’s crowd problems instigated the Sheraton to dishonor its agreements to host future science fiction conventions, Noreascon Three was forced to create attractions in the Convention Center to compensate for the loss of hotel facilities, or later when they regained the Sheraton through litigation, to keep crowds in the Hynes for the sake of peace with the hotel. A new idea, the ConCourse, with the Huckster Room and the convention program gave members ample reason to hang out in the Hynes. The ConCourse amalgamated fanhistory exhibits, convention information, the fanzine lounge, the daily newzine publishing area, convention bidding and Site Selection tables, and a Hynes-run snack bar in one place, and layed it out as an indoor park. Fred Isaacs and Peggy Rae Pavlat [Sapienza] led the development of the ConCourse and fans responded to it so positively we should see others like it in the future.

A second invention whose mother was necessity, SF Tonight!, showcased the guests of honor in a talk show format hosted by Tappan King. Andre Norton in particular was not suited by health or preference to do her star turn in the form of a long stand-up speech. The interview format made a virtue of necessity, but the audience approval for SF Tonight! Is such that future committees should note how this format uses the guests of honor’s interesting friends to illuminate the guest’s career and personality.

The Virtual Trees: Noreascon Three attracted 7,100 members, including 700 full-attending memberships at-the-door and 900 1- and 2-day passes. The largest one-day attendance was 6,600 on Saturday. [It is the third-largest Worldcon ever.] Over 1,825 pre-registered members checked into the convention Wednesday before it started – probably to set up!

On Wednesday, green-stickered set-up volunteers poured in to convert the Hynes Convention Center Hall C to an artificial park with Astroturf paths, benches, couches, and a gazebo adorned with laserprinted “virtual pigeons” – white signs containing the word “pigeon.” Noreascon Three Hynes Liaison Joe Rico discovered fellow committee member Fred Isaacs also scotch-taping signs saying “tree” to the concrete support pillars. Joe reminded him the con’s agreement forbade taping anything to a painted surface. Fred dismissed that saying, “These are virtual trees.” Steam shot out of Joe’s ears as he announced, “Well I’m a virtual forester –“ *rip* *rip* *rip*

Amy Thomson passed among the set-up crew distributing jars of “100% Organic Apple-Ginger-Mint Jelly… Not For External Use.”

National computer networks Genie, BIX and CompuServe all had booths demonstrating their online services and special interest message bases. Free-lance journalist Francis Hamit, checking out GEnie, logged onto Jim Turner’s board and found himself talking to Tom Clancy; Hamit wangled a phone interview out of it. While setting up her BIX booth Bjo Trimble spied me 20 yards away laboring over my fanzine tables and descended on me announcing: “Flash! The Trimbles have taken over Texas and are selling it to Panama – write that down!” Critically inspecting an air bubble in Amy’s jelly, Bjo said, “That looks like it’s about gone – it will ferment and blow up on the plane and get you arrested – better drink it here!”

Bjo Trimble saw the yellow Ryder truck brought up in the freight elevator was disgorging heaps of cardboard boxes on pallets. She asked, “What’s that van for?” I told her it was the exhibit of the NESFA Displacement Authority.

Right on cue, Spike Parsons arrived to help me move cartons of my own, full of fanzines, from the truck pile to my exhibit. Spike said, “I told them I’d do anything as long as I didn’t have to carry a radio.”

Chef’s Tour of the ConCourse: Hynes Hall C was dubbed the ConCourse at the suggestion of “Filthy Pierre,” Erwin Strauss. The ConCourse was the con suite, although a Hynes snack bar and its satellite hot dog stand were the only sources of refreshments. The Hynes prices and Noreascon’s budget didn’t permit them to compete with the Atlanta (1986) or Baltimore (1983) con suites, nor did anyone really miss the spectacle of fans running on rugs full of broken Fritos in pursuit of the committee member setting out the last unopened carton of popcorn.

Green Astroturf paths flanked by park benches created a unifying visual theme for the ConCourse. Two open spaces, carpeted with green Astroturf and bordered by one-foot-high white picket fences, were designated Hyde Park and Jekyll Park.

All the convention information services and exhibits were in the ConCourse. Strauss set up an all-members message area at the corner next to the Sheraton, and beside it rows of “Filthy Pierre boards” with their string holders for all the different flyers distributed at a Worldcon. Along the wall were Site Selection, worldcon membership and bidders tables. Also, any club that wanted a table could get one.

The ConCourse strategy involved more than static exhibits. Autographing sessions were held there. Myriad events and diversions occurred within the area under the heading of Passing Fancies. It might by a filk performance by Orion’s Belt and Windbourne in Hyde Park, “Stfnal Pursuit” in Jekyll Park, belly dancing, origami, or the Gilbert and Sullivan sing-along, but something strangely fannish and entertaining was going on all the time.

Gavin Claypool showed up at the September 7 LASFS meeting decorated with all kinds of Worldcon souvenirs including what Bruce Pelz termed “A large pink thing he got at Boston.” Gavin, with an even pinker face, was brought up front to explain how he won a Passing Fancy ribbon. Gavin said while the trivia “pros” were off playing Stfnal Pursuit, he competed in a Trivia Bee and won a ribbon. He also won a Noreascoin, worth 10 cents at the convention. “Trivia pros” Jerry Corrigan and Leo Doroschenko won Stfnal Pursuit.

At the corner of Warp Drive and Alice Way (names given to two of the Astroturf paths) was the History of Costuming Exhibit. Dressmaker forms were used to display a variety of prizewinning Worldcon masquerade costumes. On Sunday the convention arranged a guided, tactile viewing for vision-impaired fans. Exhibit organizers Gary and Janet Wilson Anderson described details of the costumes.

Noreascon 3 Worldcon Masquerade History Exhibit. Photo from Fanac.org.

Noreascon 3 Worldcon Masquerade History Exhibit. Photo from Fanac.org.

Behind that was the Alice Exhibit of costumes and paraphernalia worn by the Noreascon bid committee in a past masquerade. Beside it was Joe Siclari’s exhibit of Worldcon bidding artifacts, including a wall of t-shirts (such as the glow-in-the-dark zebra shirt sold by LA in ’90.) Next to Pigeon Park (so named by fans because of its “virtual pigeons”) was a bulletin board of Mundane News containing the front page from a daily paper, coverage of the con, and weather reports from the world outside the Hynes.

T-short display in History of Worldcon Bidding Exhibit organized by Joe Siclari. Photo from Fanac.org.

T-short display in History of Worldcon Bidding Exhibit organized by Joe Siclari. Photo from Fanac.org.

Nancy Atherton arranged the History of Fanzines, which displayed rarities from the 1930s-1960s on vertical boards secured with plexiglass. It was a breathtaking array of important zines, mainly from the collection of Peggy Rae Pavlat [Sapienza]. The exhibit stirred up nostalgic memories for many fans of their early days in fandom, once again making an emotional connection that will distinguish memories of Noreascon Three from other conventions.

I heard all the comments about Nancy’s exhibit while at the fanzine sales table in my Contemporary Fanzine Exhibit. Fans purchased about $1500 worth of zines (including about $230 of one media zine going for $9 a pop.) The sales table ran with tremendous help from Linda Nelson, Dick Lynch, Hawk, Spike, Tony Ubelhor, Teddy Harvia, Marty Helgesen and Nancy Rauban. I also set up eight tables full of recent vintage fanzines for fans to read. Even though it was an unsecured exhibit open at all hours it seemed few zines disappeared, and a number of fans were observed reading and enjoying.

Bruce Pelz assembled the History of Worldcons exhibit. It included program books, banquet photographs, unique Worldcon sales items and press clippings. Most impressive were the sealed exhibit cases displaying 31 of 35 years’ worth of Hugos. Poul Anderson loaned 7, Larry Niven 4, Mike Glyer 4, ASF 5, Richard Geis 5, Carol Carr several, and one each came from Longyear, Whelan, Scithers, Kelly Freas, Virginia Heinlein and F&SF.

A sheet from Bruce Pelz' Worldcon History Exhibit. Photo from Fanac.org.

A sheet from Bruce Pelz’ Worldcon History Exhibit. Photo from Fanac.org.

The ostensible 1958 Hugo loaned by Kelly Freas was merely a brass plaque mounted on wood. After the con Bruce asked Len Moffatt, who remembers Solacon well, whether they gave out rockets at South Gate in ’58. Len Moffatt insisted there were rockets and that Rog Phillips manufactured each individual handmade base. Moffatt remembered in the 1960s Avram Davidson complained he took his 1958 Hugo to Mexico and it fell apart.

A like fate befell my 1984 Hugo with the ceramic L.A.con II rat base. The metal rocket battered apart the ceramic base during shipment to Noreascon. Fortunately veteran costumer Kathy Sanders came to the con prepared with all kinds of quick-fix tools and glue, and reassembled the base well enough to be displayed. (There happened to be spare rat bases back in LA, so no harm done.)

View of the Hugo exhibit at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org.

View of the Hugo exhibit at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org.

Distressed by the deteriorating condition of the bases or metal in some of the Hugo rockets he was loaned for his exhibit at the convention, as well as concerned about the advancing age of some winners and prospect that their Hugos may vanish in the same junkheap with the fanzines and old pulps, Bruce Pelz asked the business meeting to create a Hugo Preservation Study Committee to address both problems. The members so far are Bruce, Ben Yalow, Colin Fine, Peggy Rae Pavlat [Sapienza] and Debbie Notkin.

Some of the exhibits will continue on to Holland [the 1990 Worldcon], but the Hugo Awards were returned to the individual owners. Maybe in a few years somebody will find an excuse to do it again.

Thursday Night: The Bay-to-Breakers is an annual 10K run across the Golden Gate Bridge. Its exotic entries include “centipedes,” eight runners in tandem, usually in silly theme costumes. The knots of fans surging towards dinner on Boylston Street looked a little like that. I knew, because I was in Ross Pavlac’s centipede on its way to Legal Seafood with Spike, Bill Bodden, Tasmanian Robin Johnson, pediatrician Elst Weinstein, Rick, Jaice and little Connor Foss.

Walking in the door we found the waiting room so crowded that several of the fans with us despaired and were on the verge of bailing out in the direction of an Italian restaurant. If this had been the International House of Pancakes they might have been right to expect an hour wait for a table, but I had been here several times before and knew they moved people surprisingly quickly, and actually preferred serving large parties. Adding to that the fact that this was a Ross Pavlac expedition, I started giving odds against our waiting longer than 15 minutes. Wisely, nobody took my action for by agreeing to sit in the smoking section the “Aardvark, party of nine” was seated within 10 minutes.

Poring over the menu, I saw out of the corner of my eye Robin Johnson pointing emphatically at his paunch. No, he wasn’t having an attack. He was illustrating a point about his travels with the diagram of the Moscow subway system on his t-shirt.

The meek at the table ordered shrimp nachos, while others, encouraged by Rick Foss, savored fried squid rings. It gave Foss his opening to repeat a favorite story about the squid burritos he made one night, and how the next morning used the leftovers for a squid tentacle omelet. He thought the grey squid bits needed more color and reached into the pantry for some blue food coloring. Right about then his neighbor, Indian Mike, dropped in. Rick waved the beastly-looking omelet under his nose. “Want some breakfast?” Rick admits, “I didn’t know he was on acid at the time.” Foss says it took two years for Mike to get up the nerve to ask whether what had been stuck under his nose was blue with tentacles. Rick moralized, “It must be awful when reality is worse than your hallucinations.”

I had to leave in the middle of dinner to attend the SF Tonight! brainstorming session. Later, I caught up with part of our group and other fanzine fans in the ConCourse. When the subject of restaurants came up, Stu Shiffman explained where Legal Seafood got its name while Gary Farber did an interpretive dance behind him.

Spike was engaged in conversation with Gary, explaining her job in Program Oops. “I’m Fred Duarte when he’s not there – and you thought being Jeanne Gomoll was a hard job.”

Next installment: Friday, and SF Tonight!