Tag Archives: Loscon

Hertz: Loscon LoCs and LOLs

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By John Hertz: Loscon is the L.A. local convention, held annually over U.S. Thanksgiving Day weekend. Loscon XXXIX was at the Int’l Airport (LAX) Marriott, 23-25 Nov; attendance 1,100; Art Show sales $8,500 by 45 artists.

Fan Guests of Honour were lovable Canadians Lloyd & Yvonne Penney, he known for letters of comment to seemingly every fanzine.

It was the Jack Benny Loscon. Fans of that great comic (not just alive while he was; do you read Sherlock Holmes? The Tale of Genji?) know his stage personality was always 39. This running gag was so strong that when eventually a 40th Birthday party was held for him, covered by radio and television, it didn’t stick, and within months everyone was joking again he was 39.

Benny, on stage a master of the straight face, in private life was known for cracking up. George Burns made him laugh so hard he had to get down on his knees and pound the floor.

And you thought I couldn’t do that title.

I moderated two panels about the Eaton Collection of s-f, U. Cal. at Riverside: on what it was and how to use it, in person, by paper mail, by its Website <eaton.ucr.edu>; on the treasure of the year, Jay Kay Klein’s photos, which went to Eaton at his death.

Klein was the photographer of science fiction. He shot fans and pros (and wouldn’t you like to –) everywhere. His photos were in Analog and Locus and con program books and Hugo ceremonies. He left 70,000; luckily, thanks partly to Alex Eisenstein and others who started reminding him in the 1970s, well indexed.

Melissa Conway the head of Special Collections including Eaton, and Julia Ree from Rivera Library where it lives, told stories, answered questions, and showed pictures. Ruth Jackson the University Librarian was in the audience. Conway had gotten to know Klein through this adventure, an amazing astounding fantastic man.

Chris Garcia in the audience noted that with constant computer changes “ephemeral” has a new meaning. I said a library was a time machine.

Friday night I had go off-site after Regency Dancing but I ate Keith Kato’s chili and saw Paul Turner in a dinner jacket. I had changed clothes by then so he was better dressed than I. He found Greg Benford and Larry Niven and got an autographed Bowl of Heaven. Mike Willmoth was genial at the Phoenix for ’14 NASFiC bid party.

Saturday afternoon, “Real Aliens” with David Brin, Niven, Phil Osborn, Philip Proctor, Jonathan Vos Post. Proctor in his years with the Firesign Theater had experiences, some alien. Osborn said he was an alien. Brin collecting the top theories (including “ain’t none”) called his new novel Existence. To some of them, if true, his answer would be “Send us your parents.”

On the Art Show desk was a Lego kit for Hayabusa, the heroic Japanese space probe that brought back asteroid dust. Selina Phanara brought colored-paper tiki gods, which sold. My favorite Mary Jane Jewell quilt, “Nap Time” with space ships strictly according to Hawaiian pattern, each ships’ porthole lit but one, is still over her fireplace so if you want to buy it you’d better ask her. Room was somehow found for Elizabeth Berrien’s wondrous wire sculpture.

In the Dealers’ Room, Alice Massoglia and I compared notes about the Leo & Diane Dillon exhibit at Chicon VII she’d helped with. In the hall, Dave McCarty said he didn’t know why his Hospitality Suite had no Jay’s potato chips. Ten years to learn.

At the Kansas City for ’16 Worldcon party Chaz Baden in a dinner jacket was clean-shaven 1930s style. Under a big sign The password is “goats” (the Pendergast faction of the time) he asked entrants if they knew the password. When they said no, he told them.

Helsinki for ’15 Worldcon chair Eemeli Aro had come himself and hosted the Helsinki party. He quite properly served Finn Crisps, chatting with people and handing out herring. Deirdre Saoirse Moen served mulled wine from a wooden tub. Jim Glass talked with me about s-f classics. Burroughs’ John Carter books, he said, have drama.

Sunday afternoon, “The Contract Between Reader and Writer”, Maria Alexander, Tim Powers, Mike Shepherd Moscoe. Powers said “As a writer I owe readers everything. As a reader I give no slack.” Shepherd Moscoe said, “What about being unpredictable?” From the audience, “What about ‘red herrings’?” I said, “I think we want to be fairly snookered.” Alexander said, “George Martin is making bank on killing people you like.” From the audience, he’s signaled all those people will die. Another, because Psycho changed focus Hitchcock made theaters turn away anyone coming late.

Chores, a little sleep, the Dead Dog Party. There was Kate Morgenstern whom I hope to see in more Masquerades, and plenty of conversation, and Roche & Trembley the ’13 Westercon chairs who’d been active party hosts, and Aro chatting with people and handing out herring.

Hertz Tells the Truth

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By John Hertz: John DeChancie corrected me.  I reported that at Loscon XXXVIII, where he was Author and I was Fan Guest of Honor, he said he’d never heard of fanzines until Marty Cantor sent him Holier Than Thou.  This was a misstatement by one or both of us.  In fact DeChancie knew of fanzines; he was then given a stack by no less than Bob Leman; he wrote Thou a letter of comment; the return copy was the first specifically addressed to him.  I like this version better, not only because it’s truer, and shows a fine fannish pro hipper sooner, but also because it shows him looking around.  Be bigger than your immediate adventure.

Reporting on the new LASFS (Los Angeles S-F Society) clubhouse I said it had no patio.  Other members later pointed out a door I hadn’t seen.   It opened onto the 14th Chorp Dimension and there I was.

Cantor also reminds me DeChancie is in both APA-L (Amateur Press Ass’n – LASFS, LASFS being the host though not the sponsor of L) and LASFAPA (L.A. Scientifiction Fans’ Am. Pr. Ass’n).  Cantor, who is the Official Collator of L, and the Little Tin God of LASFAPA, will not let either of his children be slighted even for the sake of the other.  In fact he’s a man whose deeds are better than his words.  Cantor – what do you mean I’ve ruined your – put that blaster down – augh

Hertz: Love That Loscon

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By John Hertz: (reprinted from Vanamonde 965) Loscon XXXVIII was held 25-27 Nov at the L.A. Int’l Airport Marriott Hotel (local s-f con, annually on United States’ Thanksgiving weekend; hosted by the LASFS [L.A. S-F Soc.], not the unrelated if overlapping SCIFI [S. Cal. Inst. for Fan Interests]).  Author Guest of Honor, John DeChancie; Illustrator, Aldo Spadoni; Science, Col. Rick Searfoss, U.S. Air Force (ret.); Fan, me.  Chair, Arlene Satin.  Attendance 1,000; in the Art Show, sales $5,700 by 35 artists.

Searfoss had flown Columbia and Atlantis and commanded a Spacelab mission.  Spadoni won Best Amateur Astronomical in the Discon II (’74 World Science Fiction Convention) Art Show at age 17, got an M.I.T. degree, worked at Hughes and for the past twenty-five years at Northrop, meanwhile consulting on Apollo 13 (R. Howard dir. 1995) and Iron Man (J. Favreau dir. 2008, 2010) and painting Niven & Pournelle space ships, some exhibited in the Loscon Art Show.  DeChancie besides his pro career has been an active fan, serving as LASFS Secretary, making friends with the Vegrants in Las Vegas, contributing regularly to APA-L.

At Opening Ceremonies, Satin showing images of might-be flying cars had to ask if we really wanted any.  Searfoss could only come Saturday.  Spadoni modestly said he was an aerospace engineer.  DeChancie said he’d never heard of fanzines until Cantor sent him Holier Than Thou.  I, not crediting Tom Whitmore who at Denvention III (’08 Worldcon) made Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi with “Run and find out” his new inner avatar, said again Why wait to be taught?

Starting a Classics of S-F talk on Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles (1950) I asked what made it appealing today.  From the audience: it reaches everyone, the masses, the literary.  Another: it has simplicity, like Wilder’s Our Town (1938).  Another: it’s polychromatic.  Reading the first paragraph aloud, I said Chronicles attracts with beauty.  Bradbury is an act no one has followed.  Mike Glyer in the audience said, it rouses willing suspension of disbelief.  I said, or creates belief.

The s-f broadcast Hour 25 interviewed us honorees.  DeChancie said he thought Starrigger (1983) was a straightforward adventure until a review called it howlingly funny and he realized he’d put in a good line every third page.  Spadoni said engineering visualizers learned from Hollywood how handheld-camera footage looked, and built computer software accordingly.  I said I liked to share my toys with my friends.

Greg Benford had asked me to help with a talk on his Wonderful Future That Never Was (2010).  We sat on tables to be heard in a crowded room.  People suppose combining two technologies will be twice as productive; more usually it’s been half.  The quantitative is where bright ideas go wrong, like jetpacks.  NASA, he said, was a jobs program.  The ghost of F.D. Roosevelt, I answered, says that to do things you have to get votes somehow.

Heard in the Art Show, “I couldn’t find my combat boots.”  A parade, with costumes and a drum, “What do we want?”  “Flying cars!”  “When do we want them?”  “Yesterday!”  In truth the best time for them.  Benford with Naomi Fisher peeked at Regency Dancing.  Later I accosted him, “You fell for my s-f author’s illusion.”  He said “What?”  I said “You don’t really have a faster-than-light space drive.”  He said “You mean those people haven’t really been impossibly elegant all their lives.”

Jan Bender, Jerome Scott, Becky Thomson, and a host of others helped me build the Rotsler Award exhibit.  The judges (Claire Brialey, Glyer, and I; see if you like, www.scifiinc.org/rotsler.) had decided it should go to D West.  I’d spent the usual hours poring over fanzines for samples.  A kind of sticky-both-sides tape had been recommended; it kept failing; I, the Art Show staff, Glyer, and passers-by spent all week­end putting things back up.  At home a West letter waited.  He declined.  We determined there would be no 2011 Award.

Spadoni’s punctiliously detailed ships could have been contemporary.  A Rick Sternbach giclée took The Mote in God’s Eye (1974) differently, the Mote red, all else blue and white, a far viewpoint for simplicity. Selina Phanara’s “Aloha” and “Tiki” showed her mastery of cut and colored paper.  Mary Jane Jewell’s quilts were strongest in “Tropical Sun”, red and gold, its eyes askance.  I was as ever glad to see the Illustrators of the Future contest exhibiting, not least because entries are often from outside the s-f community, and the contest by nature encourages monochrome, which current fads neglect.  Of Richard Man’s monochrome photographs I much liked “Echoes of China”, his celestial eye seeing a classic landscape in the mist of Tomales Bay.

I moderated Niven and Pournelle in a twentieth-anniversary discussion of Fallen Angels.  Pournelle said “We tried to draw characters generically.  Any fandom has people like these.”  Maybe.  From the audience, “I didn’t recognize anyone, but I saw they knew things that affected their actions.”  Another: it’s funny.  Another: the big picture has changed surprisingly little.

Saturday night I circulated some after shopping for the Prime Time Party (1 a.m. Sunday to dawn each Loscon; you, dear reader, are invited) with co-hosts Thomson and Tom Veal.  Chaz Boston Baden shaved his beard leaving a mustache, and put on a bowtie and hair pomade, to help with a Kansas City for 2016 Worldcon bidding party; fliers showed Harry Truman with a newspaper headlined “Password is ‘Goats’” (the friends of Tom Pendergast 1873-1945).  We opened and closed as advertised – in fact we went till 9:30 a.m. – people coming and going in tides.

At the talk on Blish’s Jack of Eagles (1952), Jim Young in the audience said “Again Blish shows himself a stylist.”  Another: Martian Chronicles doesn’t engage with any particular person; Jack does.  Another, “I read it for the first time this morning.”  I recalling Sturgeon’s “Science fiction is knowledge fiction” said “Jack’s what-if being scientific proof of paranormal powers, look how intellectually clumsy, though powerful, are the characters who take them mystically.”  At the talk on Frank’s Alas, Babylon (1959) someone said “I still remember scenes from reading it on publication.”  Another, “It focusses on a small group.”  Another, “It’s hopeful.”  I read aloud the last nine words.  About Babylon’s treatment of race relations, and civilization, I said “Look at art – painting, singing or playing music – who’s doing it?”

At Closing Ceremonies, Spadoni in a superb gesture gave Satin one of his space ships.  I couldn’t improve on that so said again In fandom the difference is participation.

D. West Wins 2011 Rotsler Award

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D. West of Embsay, Skipton in the United Kingdom has won the 2011 Rotsler Award, given for long-time artistic achievement in amateur publications of the science fiction community. Established in 1998, the award carries an honorarium of US$300.

West is known for a satirical eye and a sour wit, which he directs as freely upon himself as others.  He is in fact more versatile, which he sometimes reveals. West famously wrote an overview of fan artists for Simon Ounsley’s Lagoon, each entry accompanied by a sample of the artist’s work – every one a virtually undetectable fake produced by West’s own hand.

West is a three-time winner of the Fanzine Activity Achievement Award (FAAn) as Best Fan Artist (1995, 1998, 2000) and a three-time nominee for the Best Fan Artist Hugo Award (1979, 1987, 1999).

The Rotsler Award is sponsored by the Southern California Institute for Fan Interests, a non-profit corporation, which in 2006 hosted the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention.  The award is named for the late Bill Rotsler, a talented and prolific artist over many years.  Claire Brialey, Mike Glyer, and John Hertz served as this year’s judges.

The award was formally announced on Saturday, November 27, 2011 at Loscon 38. An exhibit honoring West’s work was displayed in the Art Show.

For more about the Rotsler Award, visit www.scifiinc.org/rotsler/. Samples of West’s work will be posted shortly.

Fallen Angels at 20

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On Saturday, Loscon 38 celebrated the 20th anniversary of Fallen Angels, Niven, Pournelle and Flynn’s novel starring over a hundred Tuckerized science fiction fans out to save two downed astronauts from a tech-hostile government.  

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and facilitator John Hertz discussed the novel’s enduring appeal with a standing-room-only audience.

Baen synopsizes the story:

One minute the two space Hab astronauts were scoop-diving the atmosphere, the next they’d been shot down over the North Dakota Glacier and were the object of a massive manhunt by the United States government.

That government, dedicated to saving the environment from the evils of technology, had been voted into power because everybody knew that the Green House Effect had to be controlled, whatever the cost. But who would have thought that the cost of ending pollution would include not only total government control of day-to-day life, but the onset of a new Ice Age

Stranded in the anti-technological heartland of America, paralyzed by Earth’s gravity, the “Angels” had no way back to the Space Habs, the last bastions of high technology and intellectual freedom on or over the Earth. But help was on its way, help from the most unlikely sources ….

Pournelle said the book is still selling about 30 copies a week, which is especially gratifying because a Baen Free Library edition has been available for years. He theorized these sales were driven by referrals from Amazon’s “customer’s who bought this also bought that”robot.

The characters in the novel were based on fans the authors knew – but Mike Flynn lived on the East Coast and hadn’t met many of the people Niven and Pournelle incorporated in the story. Larry Niven said one thing he was proud of is that Mike Flynn was able to recognize a particular person based on his description of her in the book.

John Hertz at Loscon 38

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Loscon 38 Fan Guest of Honor John Hertz kept his propeller beanie spinning with a busy programming schedule on Friday afternoon. He helped launch the convention at noon by leading a well-attended discussion of Ray Bradbury’s classic The Martian Chronicles. People chimed in with their favorite points about the work and John amplified them with critical insights of his own. I was quite intrigued with John’s observation that no writer has been able to follow Bradbury. (I know many writers have been touted as the next Heinlein, but “the next Bradbury”…?)

Later he and Loscon’s other guests were be interviewed for the Hour 25 program.

And he rounded off the afternoon by joining Gregory Benford to discuss Benford’s book The Wonderful Future That Never Was, which surely was the signature item of the afternoon for a con with the theme “Where’s My Flying Car.”

Classic SF on Loscon Program

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John Hertz, the Loscon 38 Fan Guest of Honor, invites you to join his discussions of selected classics of science fiction.

As John defines it, “A classic is a work that survives its own time. After the currents which might have sustained it have changed, it remains, and is seen to be worthwhile for itself.”

Now’s the time to pull out the copies in your collection or check whether they’re available online, read them and come prepared.

Here are John’s previews of the three works being discussed at Loscon 38:

Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles (1950)

Bradbury has said this is fantasy, not science fiction.  His poetry, his satire, his reproach — above all his poetry, without which stinging bees would starve — are in full bloom.  Of course he satirizes the Martians too, who in all their beauty have folly.

James Blish
Jack of Eagles (1952)

In Blish’s novel of paranormal powers, they prove to be within science; an organization treating them as mystical proves to be powerful, tyrannical, and unsound — as an ordinary man must discover for himself.  Never mind what pq – qp equals.

Pat Frank
Alas, Babylon (1959)

It may seem to focus less on technology than, say, Roshwald’s Level 7 (1959), or even Burdick & Wheeler’s Fail-Safe (1962).  Take a closer look.  The author’s sense of character and event develops much from simple themes.

Loscon 38 takes place November 25-27 at the LAX Marriott in Los Angeles.

[Thanks to John Hertz for the story.]

Programming Just Ain’t That Easy

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I’ve been on panels that drew single digit audiences where we were just too stubborn to quit: “What, and give up show biz?” (Can you believe people wouldn’t get out of bed at Loscon on Sunday morning to listen to Marty Cantor and I talk about fanzines?)

Last weekend at Lunacon the fans caught in a similar predicament made a higher quality decision.

Michael Walsh notes “So This Is Your First Con,” Friday at 4 p.m., had Ben Yalow and three other fans slated to participate. Only Ben showed, while Perianne Lurie was added at the last minute. There was an audience of one: Filthy Pierre Strauss, who probably went to his first con during the Kennedy administration. All decided that perhaps canceling would be best. 

They were very wise.

The Shirt Off His Back

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At last year’s Loscon I saw Larry Niven wearing his 2005 Marcon t-shirt. On the back it listed maybe a dozen different guests with a category/definer for each. I know nothing about contemporary Marcons beyond what it said on this shirt, but I wanted to report that my immediate reaction was “These guys look like they’re making a sophisticated effort to reach out to as many segments of sf fandom as they can find.”

Fans generally acquire con t-shirts at the con, so impressive as I found this one to be it probably wasn’t a component of Marcon’s pre-convention advertising.

A lot of committees start talking up their program participants well in advance, list them on websites, send e-mails to lists, etc. to attract interest. Maybe shirts could be another part of that strategy. That takes a certain amount of money, so it might be more practical for a large regional or a Worldcon. Think of a lovely pre-con shirt to be worn by Worldcon committee, given to patron friends, available for general sale, etc., as one more creative to get the attention of fans at other cons and start them thinking about attending yours.