THE EMPHATIC ROUTE

THE EMPHATIC ROUTE

BEING A REPORT ON THE JOURNEY OF GUY AND ROSE-- MARIE LILLIAN TO THE CITY OF SAN ANTONIO AND THE 2013 WORLD CONVENTION THROUGH WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS FOR

THE SOUTHERN FANDOM PRESS ALLIANCE AND EFANZINES.COM GHLIII PRESS PUBLICATION #1148 * 10-1-13

Shreveport, the city where we lived at the time of LoneStarCon 3, is within the borders of the state of Louisiana, but psychologically, morally, politically, spiritually, geographically, and meteorologically it is a Texas town. Somehow that meant that when the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention settled in San Antonio, home of the Alamo and a great Texas city that made the con even more unmissable. Of course, we hardly could miss it, as it was but a good day’s drive away – a drive through towns with such rugged western names as Pflugerville over natural wonders like Woman Hollering Creek.

It was as if the venerable event had landed just down the street. Stunned though we were by the unexpected end to my state job the very day of our departure, there was no way we would not go.

Call it a statement. Call it a statement made with emphasis . Call our trip the emphatic route.

Our trip’s emphasis turned out to be welcome reunions with old – well, long-term – friends. We made some new connections – I think particularly of TAFF delegate Jim Mowatt and his wife – but very few. A great SFer from a Northern clime gave me unique insight into the trend. I asked him if his daughter, a rare beauty and also a fan, would be here, or if she had succumbed to the appeal of Dragon*Con, proceeding in Atlanta even as we spoke. Neither, said he. She didn’t attend anymore: nobody there her age. And Dragon*Con’s hugeness and impersonality had little interest for her as well.

So the Worldcon not only has little appeal for the young, it has little to attract new fans. It is what it is. It’s for who it’s for. Such is the nature of this era in the life of . Whatever there is to Worldcon, newness is not it.

Well, so be it. LoneStarCon 3 was what it was: a genuinely good time in a great location, rich with the greatest treasure of all: old friends. (Quick, on to the convention, before I hurl.)

After trying to check into the wrong hotel and forcing one of the extremely friendly staff to trundle our luggage across the street – “Wait. Wait.” – we checked into our corner room (small, but gifted with an epic Riverwalk view, as you see, and a Book of Mormon to supplement the Gideon Bible). We got down to the Convention Center and got down to finding familiar faces.

As they tend to do at Worldcon, said faces began to appear – even if just for an instant, passing in the lobby: Warren Buff and Glenn Glazer, for instance, who would have a very interesting proposal for me after the con. Crossing to the convention center ( “Wait. Wait.” ) we found not only a host of Hispanic kids but the Thayers – Teddy Harvia and Diana. They thanked Rosy effusively for her help with this year’s souvenir book, of which they were editors, and a bright and airy tome it turned out to be, too.

We also ran into Jerry Kauffman, the very able fan-ed whose Littlebrook is literate and challenging – and published on some of the most attractive brown paper in the hobby. I quizzed him on the arcane source of the bond, and was given the deep secret: a local retail store. He’s got a great voice.

Eve Ackerman came up, urging me to think up some good fake Hugos for our panel on that topic that afternoon – I was baffled – and Steven Silver was there, discoursing effusively on his WOOFzine. This year’s disty of the Worldcon Order of Fan-eds’ annual apa was being taken a tad more seriously than usual; Chicon 7’s had contained some serious and worthy content (in contrast to classless tripe like my entries, Happy 2000 th Birthday Caligula and Globs of Snot ). Silver had run a gloomy but essential catalog of SFers lost in the preceding year, and, he told me, he’d done so again. I made sure my Southern comrades Dennis Dolbear and George Inzer were included. (For some reason DD’s name didn’t make the Memorials page of the program book, but was flashed on the screen with the other honored lost before the Hugo ceremony.)

Establishing this as a true Worldcon, Rich & Nicki Lynch approached. Nicki has not aged since I met them at a convention during the Taft administration. In addition to underscoring my dismay over the concom’s ignoring of the new Hugo rules – allowing more blogs to intrude into the Best listings – Rich presented me (again) with a plastic bag full of Coca-Cola bottlecaps, entered into MyCokeRewards’ website within days of our return home. My enduring cola addiction owes its existence to Rich.

Silver, Rich and la Nic have been around fandom for a long time, almost as long as me, but we all pale to garish neohood when compared to the fellow who toodled into view next. Escorted by his son, whose name I didn’t snare, and his lovely daughter Kerry, Dave Kyle rolled up. An old friend of Rosy’s family, Dave is, if not fandom’s senior boy, among the top 3 or 4. Natty as ever in his trademark red jacket, this was his turf. See him here collecting another autograph in his memory book of the con.

All this before we crossed the boundary into exclusive Worldcon territory. An explanation for those readers who did not attend LSC: Omnes sedes conventa in tres partes. (Thanks, Joe Major, for the Latin.) The program and registration area lay straight ahead down a long passage once one entered the center. This hallway boasted a UPS Store (where I printed up some covers for extra copies of Challenger #31) and a large snack bar area perfect for overpriced but convenient quick lunches. Beyond that, protected by cops, was the exhibit hall, Art Show and Dealers and suchlike. You had to walk a bit at this Worldcon – or roll, Kyle rode one of a slew of motorized scooters we saw – but God knows we’ve seen worse.

Once we made it into the exhibits, we passed Daleks, a recreation of the Enterprise bridge, and … hallelujah! Renovation was not the only Worldcon to boast the presence of the Iron Throne .

Yes, the duplicate of the Throne is made of plastic, not iron, but everyone posed on the great chair at Renovation and of course, we posed here. Rosy looked regal – as someone said on Facebook, my personal Khaleesi. I laid across the seat like a guest at the Red Wedding – or an exhausted old fart of a fan trying to keep up with nubile neos. Fortunately, that photo seems to have been lost.

It was time for opening ceremonies, so we followed the crowd out of the convention center into the stunning San Antonio heat … and back in. Given three or four , I might figure out how that place worked. We found Roger & Pat Sims and Steve & Sue Francis near the back of the throng and joined them for the show. Behind us, Filthy Pierre, Erwin Strauss, kept tune with proceedings on his mouth organ. It all looked clever, but that far back, it was hard to hear—and see. “I wish I had zoom eyeballs,” quoth la belle . Somehow we made out what was going on.

LSC3 didn’t differentiate among its Guests of Honor, giving Fan Willie Siros and Editor Ellen Datlow equal billing, but surely Author Norman Spinrad was the most prominent among them. I go a long way back with Spinrad; I met him at the same Little Men meeting as I first encountered , Quinn Yarbro and Larry Niven, the great debate on Dangerous Visions where Harlan asked me to try writing. Spinrad often rode a motorized scooter, like many another, and once nearly wasted my foot coming onto an elevator, but I never got to recall those fabulous days with him. Probably the nicest aspect of the event was the appreciation given the memory of Darrell Sweet, a Fan Guest who had passed on since the convention was won. His son was present to hear the cheers.

Among the guests were the Fan Fund winners, Jim Mowatt of TAFF and Bill Wright of DUFF. How well we remembered Bill from our own DUFF trip. After Alan Stewart picked us up in Melbourne, brains fried from our 14½ hours in the air (during which I didn’t sleep a wink), a smiling Wright waited for us at our destination. He was grand company throughout the first half of our journey. Bill is – how did Bloch describe Lafferty? “well-stricken in years,” so I could join those who saw his DUFF delegacy as a tribute to his decades in fandom.

This year’s Hugo base was introduced – that is to say, brought forward and held high. You could see nothing from our vantage. Later we found the clever and evocative sculpture on display ( ) and sneaked a lift. T’was very heavy, rivaling Confederation’s granite pyramid in that department. At least it’ll stay upright outside in a hurricane.

We’d been searching for our great buddy Lezli Robyn sine first arriving, and finally, at the Iron Throne, our dear Aussie buddy appeared. So often we’ve seen Lezli in a state of injury – burned by irons, scalded by superheated cocoa – but at this convention, she was kite- high and flying. Her first story collection, Bittersuite , was due to debut, and the one-time Campbell nominee was ecstatic. We immediately hied for the Riverwalk to celebrate.

Originally, goodfella Joe Major and I had planned to host our annual Fan-Eds’ Feast at a Riverwalk restaurant, but Joe’s absence (forced upon him by automotive woes) put the kibosh on that idea. To compensate, Rosy and Lezli and I made for the marvelous flowing tourist trap, and dinner at Maria Mia. There the ladies were serenaded by a loud but lyrical band and we stuffed our chops with mildly spicy – but delicious – chow.

Right next door to Maria Mia was a touristy souvenir shop where the ladies tarried for a few minutes. Lezli bought some doodad and found, later, that the saleslady had accidentally slipped a second item into her bag. She returned it. The saleslady was so grateful she ran up to the Aussie expatriate on the street the next day, and thanked her.

We adjourned for a reception/party for the DUFF and TAFF winners in the con suite – which, we found, was being run by our Southern comrades Gary and Corlis Robe. There we continued our re-encounters with friends from times past. Norman Cates of New Zealand and the WETA Workshop talked of his 2020 Worldcon bid. Tom Whitmore and I shared our usual St. Louiscon anecdotes – Tom has found the Fellowship of the Foot certificate made for us by Anne McCaffrey! (Mine remains buried.) A real surprise was meeting Chris Couch, an ancient SFPA member –around my age, actually, but you know what I mean – from Lon Atkins’ OEship in the late ‘60s. That’s before I joined … in January, 1971 . And of course Jim Mowatt and Bill Wright were on hand to be feted.

My fellow fan editor John Purcell took the floor to introduce his wife, who unveiled her painting for this year’s WOOF cover. Behold. I wish Purcell could have run the piece in color. He thanked me for my magnificent contribution – well, for the four-page waste of paper I called Teat Zombie – and for toting along a heavy-duty stapler.

Thus ended Thursday. As it often does, Friday subsequently dawned.

My first task of the day was to cross the street ( “Wait. Wait.” ) and deliver a box of zines to Purcell’s fanzine lounge. No one was there, but I tarried to arrange this & that. It was fun to lay out issues of Challenger for DUFF – I’d printed a few Chall 31 covers at the UPS Store and stapled them up on the spot. Andy Kubert’s SuperMouse cover was a hit with the staff.

I glimpsed Lois McMaster Bujold – her hair is short again. While scarfing a bit o’brunch, Greg and Elizabeth Benford came up to say hey and – a rush – to say how he’d enjoyed my new personalzine, Spartacus. I only heard one negative comment about that pub, and that from an expected source. I’ll have to do more.

I’m sure astute readers have noticed that the morning’s notes have been in the first person, singular. Where was Rosy all this time? At Lezli’s kaffeeklatsch, back in the hotel. In response to my beloved’s call, I rushed across ( “Wait. Wait.” ) and bought her a cuppa at the lobby Starbuck’s. I wandered about looking for the klatsch site – only to find my shoes suddenly soaked in coffee. The Starbuck’s cup had leaked just enough to weaken the paper bag. Splush.

I presented the obscene remains to la belle as she sat with Lezli and a military writer wannabe. Soon they were finished, and Lezli, Rosy and I were off for a four block walk around downtown San Antonio. To the Alamo .

The Alamo was San Antonio’s oldest and most familiar face of all, a place ripe with national, local and personal history, a beautiful and noble edifice wonderfully preserved. I’ve heard of it since I was 5 and like the good baby boomer I am, wore a Davy Crockett coonskin cap. I’ve visited the place half a dozen times, loving it each time. (No, we’ve never seen a basement – Pee Wee Herman was ill-advised.) But Mib the Panda did get himself arrested.

What Mib did, in his foolish fannish recklessness, was try to ensconce himself on a ledge of the façade, the better for a photo. Along came a very tough-looking Texas Ranger, no less, who seized the pernicious panda and handed him, with great stentorian seriousness, to me. “Nothing on the building,” he gently growled. How right he was. To Texans this place is holy. Mib acknowledged his error and a safer picture followed viz.

True enough, the Alamo is a shrine – but looking at the tale as an adult and not as a Crockett-crazed kid, one has to ask, a shrine to what? Audacious courage, to be sure – David Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Travis and all their comrades were men of nerve and commitment and supreme sand. Confronted with this building and the story behind it, I ask the same question I ask on Seminary Ridge or Little Round Top –would I have behaved as well? But didn’t the rights embodied in Texas independence include the bogus right to own slaves? I’d had that idea – but inside the gift shop (adorned by the most awesome miniature battle scene I’ve ever seen) was a man who thought otherwise.

This was historian/author Jim Knapp, a gent signing copies of his book on Texas history. (Lezli bought one for her husband.) He maintains that the stand at the Alamo was not for slavery – and such is my love for Davy Crockett (he preferred “David”) and the place where he went down swinging that I bow to his expertise. And his faith.

Back to the con we stumbled in the sizzling heat. Boiled alive by the summer heat, I treated the ladies to ice cream en route.

We bid Lezli adieu for a bit and toured the hucksters room. I was impressed by the number of small publishers, by meeting Joe Lansdale, and finding a copy of Amazing World #17. Seeing a copy of the DC fan magazine I helped found reminded me that a name from those long-gone days was said to be seeking me, so I spent some time seeking Tony Tollin – but for the moment, in vain.

Perhaps accidental encounters are better, anyway. Riding a scooter, up drove Ricia Mainhardt, a fellow friend of the late and inutterably great Julius Schwartz, and dear to me forever. She has M.S., she told me, but her smile and epic spirit shone. I was so proud of her I could have risen to the distant ceiling. A sad contrast to the onetime lady friend whom I saw in a state of near catatonia, plodding past like Lincoln, one foot thudding down before the other could even move. I remembered the girl of verve and smarts I once knew, and worried deeply that the real girl would never reappear.

SFPAns of a certain era will remember Rusty Burke, a long, tall member of Knoxville’s krewe of maniacs who published solid devoted to the works of Robert E. Howard and their pal, Karl Edward Wagner. Rusty has since become one of the foremost Howard fans and scholars in the world. The staff at the Robert E. Howard House in Cross Plains, Texas credits him with getting their annual REH Days celebration underway, and here the bwah was, manning a panel on the immortal fantasist. Of course we attended. The mood was very serious and thoughtful, the info surprising, the result inspirational. Rusty, though he now hangs his professional hat within spittin’ distance of the U.S. Supreme Court and seldom attends Southern events, deserves a Rebel Award for his work on fandom’s behalf. And I ought to read more Howard.

Traditional to many past Worldcons has been the Rich Lynch Death March, in which the much-honored editor of Mimosa led his kith on a long, usually hot, usually uphill trek to a place of cuisine. Rosy being busy, I joined Rich and Peter Balestrieri on a jaunt to Schilo’s, a well-known German restaurant. Enjoyable feed – I had their trademark Reuben sandwich and Peter, a Rusty Hevelin scholar (!), opined on the Hevelin collection at the U of Iowa and the pressing Academic Question of the day: in order to read and copy old fanzines, is it OK to remove the rusted staples?

It was time, now, for my first panel of the convention. Someone – it might have been Chris Garcia – declaimed on FB post-con that Eve’s fake Hugos panel was the funniest he’d ever attended at a Worldcon. That well could be, in which case kudos to the panelists, Eve, Dave McCarty, Nicki and me. But nitwit that I am, I remember little of it, just that Randall Garrett’s immortal “A spaceman and –girl in free fall” limerick didn’t get the laughs I expected and that Garcia himself declared that he was mounting a Hugo campaign for SYFY’s Shaknado . (Chris also said he was avoiding the Alamo; his ancestors may have won the battle, he claimed, but were much mistreated for it.)

“Party-hopping. Orlando. Inge Glass – unseen since 2000!” So read my notes for the next hours of Friday night.

I first spotted Inge sitting in the lobby of the main hotel during L.A. Con III. Goaded by Jay Kay Klein, I went over and talked to her. She was wearing goofy spectacles in a checkerboard frame. She let me take her to dinner, escort her to the Hugos, and together – on Julie Schwartz’ request – we trailed him and around the dealers’ room, watching eyes bug and smiles bloom at the sight of the man in the wonderful ice cream suit.

Forry Ackerman was wild about her and took her on a personal tour of the Ackermansion. At Bucconeer, Joe McCarthy (Ned Brooks’ nephew, not the evil right-wing Red-baiter, who is long dead) and I accompanied them on a “Poe Tour” through Baltimore, culminating in Inge’s silent reading of “The Raven” by Edgar Allen’s grave.

During the last San Antonio Worldcon I’d taken Inge to the Alamo, and at Chicon 2000 she and her husband Tony had been among the first to congratulate Rosy and me on our engagement. Indeed, I had not seen her since. Gafia took its toll.

But this year she was back, having visited San Francisco (and the Golden Gate), Arizona and Santa Fe en route. Today she was wearing a cute cowgirl outfit – and the SFnal shawl I watched her buy at LACon. Those are galaxies painted thereupon. Great the joy!

Inge joined us on our party sweep, sharing our delight in the Helsinki soiree. Of all the candidates for the 2015 Worldcon, the Finnish bid absolutely displayed the most imagination, humor, and spirit – particularly through their hilarious film of kids reciting SFnal lines in their native tongue. Despite the Worldcon being in Europe the year before, everyone expected them to win. (I couldn’t help but notice that the temperature gauge on the suite’s a/c was set on Celsius .)

And the evening and the morning became Saturday.

We had breakfast with Lezli, who was croaking like a wheezing frog and was worried that book debut was spoiled. The idiot publisher had screwed up and there were no books on hand to fling to the awed masses at her reading. And speaking of reading, her voice was shot. Greg Benford came by to offer solace, and Connie Willis greeted us as she walked by, a real cheer.

Though Lezli couldn’t speak above a hiss and her book hadn’t arrived, her reading didn’t go badly at all. Lezli’s friend, the great Jay Lake, his hands gloved against infection, did her reciting for her, an evocative and original tragic/ironic romance. I hope the impressed reception sweetened the moment for her. We resolved to order Bittersuite ASAP.

In the dealers’ room, I got to greet Paolo Baciagulupi, author of the superb Nebula/Hugo-winning masterpiece The Windup Girl – he looked repulsively young – and finally connected with my DC comrade of yore, Tony Tollin. He looked ridiculously old! As if almost 40 years had passed since we worked together! The death of Carmine Infantino earlier this year had brought us former Woodchucks back into communication, at least temporarily, but it was magnificent to be in the actual presence again.

Tony is one of those small publishers I mentioned before. His Sanctum books are beautiful editions of Doc Savage and Shadow pulps, newly proofed and exceptionally put together. TT and I exchanged ancient DC gossip and personal news (alas, his cute wife with the cookies has passed on) and admired his exemplary career in popular culture. His books are invaluable, keeping in print some wonderful stuff, and he has every right to be proud.

Almost simultaneously, another long-term pal, fan artist Marc Schirmeister, jumped up. The epic horse artist – I don’t know how else to describe him – hadn’t been seen since the last Torcon. Oh! To be in a position to soak this genius for more ‘toons! He cracked Tollin up revealing the great Bead mistake on the cover to Challenger #14. Y’see, he didn’t know the beads people throw at Mardi Gras come in necklaces , so …

Rosy and I had lunch with PRae Sapienza at one of the hotels. I seem to recall chatter about a new bid, but when isn’t there chatter about a new bid? After chow, we returned to the con center (“Wait. Wait.” ) so la belle could cast her ballot for the 2015 Worldcon. While she voted, I asked George R.R. Martin for a Hugo Loser ribbon, and he gave me one; “You’ve lost enough of them!” said he. “Thanks much,” I replied, “and please don’t kill the dwarf.”

Disgraced by my lese majeste , we recoiled in shame to the TAFF/DUFF auction, watching such celebrated extroverts as Chris Garcia and Murray Moore spread joy and collect bucks from a good crowd for objects rare and wondrous. A happy encounter was TAFF winner Jacq Monahan, a lovely lady who paid me a great compliment – I think: “You’re such a name.” Andy Porter sold a ditto’ed Algol from days of yore, Norman Cates offered an Avengers film crew sweatshirt (it went for $80). John Hertz auctioned Ah, Sweet Idiocy and Warhoon #28 (it also went for $80) …– Pat Virzi, I noticed, bought a slew o’zines, not strange for a Hugo-winning fan editor. We showed our support for the fan funds, one of which sent us to Australia ten years ago, by buying nothing. We did introduce Bill Wright to New Orleans’ Rebecca Smith – both fan fund winners would visit NOLa after Worldcon.

Dinnertime. We escorted Inge to Schilo’s – it showed wit, taking a German girl to a German restaurant, but she enjoyed herself and we enjoyed her company.

We were accompanied to the LoneStarCon 3 Masquerade by Tollin and Ken Keller, the chair of revolutionary MidAmeriCon, the 1976 Worldcon where Tom Reamy produced the most professional program book of all time (although I like JoeD Siclari’s for LACon III better) and I met Rosy. I remember very little about it – just this groovy centauress and that Janice Gelb danced (in a fashion) on stage, her skit an in-joke among Australian fans. I didn’t get it. That’s happening more and more lately.

We joined Robin Johnson and his scooter party-hopping after the ‘rade. Careening from bash to bash, we were treated to the astonishing news that Spokane has sneaked through and won the 2015 Worldcon. Huh? As everyone had assumed, Helsinki had led throughout the early voting, Orlando falling aside on the first ballot. It was second- and third-place votes that stealthily put Spokane across. The Australian ballot strikes again! Word was that Helsinki’s people, far from being discouraged by this wry turn of events, were instead looking at the strength of the bids already announced for later years, which , frankly, gave me sudden nerves about New Orleans. Ken Keller and I sat in the Crescent City party, watching dear Rebecca Smith dole out the Sazerac, remembering MidAmeriCon, smoffing mildly.

On the floor above us that Sunday , a Mexican concert was in progress. I had two fanzine panels in a row, the first moderated by Bill Wright. My notes are worthless. “Fandom in its Jammies.” What? I mainly remember my co-panelists -- Jerry Kauffman, Andy Porter (celebrating his 50 th anniversary as a fan-ed), and Jeanne Mealy of Stiffle-Apa – and a quote that actually made sense: “In the pace of our conversation, fan-eds are like Ents.”

My next panel – “E-Pubbing Your Ish” – also dealt with fanzines, obviously, but was nowhere near as easy-breezy. In fact, I’d call my mood grim. Not the fault of the other panelists -- Garcia briefly, Jim Mowatt, our moderator (whose name I forget) and Pat Virzi – but I’ve been catching a load of smarmy criticism of late from a noted fan writer and that hassle was on my mind. Is too bad, since this panel was our only chance to talk about some major questions floating about the fan editor community … What to do with Fan Hugos? How to welcome new tech and new fans? I recalled, but did not mention, the repulsive response given a neo fan-ed’s Dark Matter by some senior publishers, and both Rich Lynch and I responded to Mowatt’s comment on the Faan Awards with dismissals of “cliquish” that undoubtedly baffled the good fellow.

Fortunately Ms. Virzi saved the day, coming forth with the best gag of the convention. Came when Chris Garcia waxed metaphorical and referred to The Drink Tank (his on-line fanzine, of which he has published close to 400 issues as of this writing) as his “Brain droppings.” Quoth la Virzi: “Chris, you need more fiber.”

Inspired, I hied therefrom to the Fanzine Lounge, there to man my heavy-duty stapler and bind WOOF. I figure out a way to semi-attach Garcia’s half-sized zine. His brother fan-eds gave Chris mucho grief-o for this pub. He told me he’d thought WOOF was going to be sent out in envelopes; our stapling surprised him.

At lunch in the lobby, we met a local lady, Grace Sutherland, attending her first Worldcon. Apparently she was having a good time. That was nice – not everyone we met was an oldtimer.

We never miss Norman Cates’ WETA show, and it was as ever delightful, as he showed a righteous film about the making of ma clever CG commercial and scenes from other maaterworks. He and I agree that the first Hobbit movie was half an hour too long (at least), but I was stunned by the care and genius that went into it.

We had a late lunch at our hotel bar, joined by our pals from last year’s Archon – Joe and Gay Haldeman. The pleasant interlude was interrupted by a pesky wasp that I, in my best Francis of Assisi evocation, chased outside rather than swatted. Then we were off for the Hugos . I never miss the Hugos, nominee or not.

We were only 11 th and 12 th in line, but that was far too plebian for me. Faint heart ne’er won fair Hugo seats. Heedless of protocol, I sashayed into the huge cool room an hour earlyand asked Seth Breidbart to direct me to the best non-reserved chairs. He’s known me for years and is generally tolerant of my insanity, so Seth allowed me to assume excellent seats on the right. He told me to guard them for sight- impaired attendees, which I did, starting with Rosy. Hey, look who she married; she must be sight- impaired.

Pachibel played overhead as the auditorium filled. I saw Ricia and Robin Johnson assume their places, dead center. In case you were wondering, my guts cooperated and I sat through the event in relative comfort. Paul Cornell, the MC, was skillful, the pace decent – in other words, we weren’t hospitalized afterwards for prickly heat – and some of the awards were decent. For instance, John Picacio won Best Artist again, and gave a great speech – again. I really like this guy; he has a generous attitude and seems like a genuinely nice dude. And he could hold his heavy trophy in one hand, as you see here.

Undoubtedly two of the four transcendent moments of the evening belonged to retiring Analog editor Stanley Schmidt. His special committee award was greeted with enormous applause, applause overwhelmed when, later, he finally won the Hugo he had deserved for decades. Great stuff: this was his night.

Another great moment came when George R.R. Martin won the short dramatic presentation Hugo for the “Blackwater” episode of . Being practically the only self-contained episode of the entire season – most shows consisted of three minute segments of one group walking along one road, then another group walking along another, et.c – it was a relief, not to mention supremely exciting. George topped himself by bringing along Rory McCann, the towering “Hound” of the series, causing a flutter of celebrity jones in the crowd.

The fourth best moment? When the Master of Ceremonies called on the assemblage to shout out the message he’d printed on a huge sign, and held it high. Jay Lake didn’t win a Hugo, but he did hear the World Science Fiction Convention howl out “WE LOVE YOU JAY!”

Once the final awards had been bestowed, I spotted Stan Robinson, obviously disappointed – and I was too. Stan’s 2312 , while low on plot, was a quantum step in literary inventiveness and skill above Scalzi’s one-joke novel, and, of course, a blog copped the fanzine award again. I found out later that had the con followed a stricter interpretation of the rules, and excluded blogs, both Silver’s Argentus and my Challenger would have made the ballot. I’m not saying I deserved nomination for my 2012 production – it’s been pretty slim since illness billowed up within my guts – but I wouldn’t have had to finagle a good seat at the awards and Rosy would have had entry into the post-ceremony party. The circumstance didn’t anger me, but it was annoying.

Several repeat winners “recused” themselves from further competition, which was good – and there could be no denying that the winners represented vox populi . The often-puckish Australian ballot produced none of its frequent mischief; each of the winners had won the most first-place votes in its category. But the fannish winners were alien to my fandom. For instance, the Best Fan Artist – Galen Dara – was quite beautiful, but totally unfamiliar; when I ran into her later I admitted the same and asked where she’d published. Turned out her work had only appeared in a semiprozine. But I decided I should just relax and accept my fate – a dinosaur walloped by the meteor of changing times.

Outside the post-Hugos party I congratulated Janice on her dancing debut at the Masquerade – Broadway beware – but made no attempt to whine my way in. I could never get past Gelb and her henchman Eve, and the Hugos going to aliens this year, I really had no desire to. Rosy and I went to the Cincinnati party, where we actually knew some people.

Monday dawned. Packed up, got bags to car, checked out.

Rosy went to a kaffeelatsch she’d greatly anticipated, with Gail Carriger. Sat right next to her, too, but found that uncomfortable – she couldn’t see her well! During this time I was at the WOOF collation and stapling with Purcell, cursing Chris Garcia’s half-sized zine, impossible to bind into the disty. Ne’ertheless, round and round the table we wound, Mowatt, Wright, Garcia, Sanmiguel … stacking fanzines. WOOF 2013 assumed its shape. Pretty good disty, too. In addition to my fluff and Silver’s gloomy necronomicon, there was an excellent article by Andy Hooper, who fortunately wasn’t there.

Art Show – someone had said they’d seen a print of my mother-in-law’s Freas, the one I’d reproduced on the cover to Challenger #30. This bothered us; the painting is Nita’s exclusive property and my reproduction thereof was supposed to be the only such allowed. Never saw it.

But we did see Kerry Kyle and Dave, posing in LSC’s photo facility. .You may find our portraits from said outlet elsewhere in this report. We stuffed our chops on birthday cakes set out for Dr. Who and wandered one last time through the exhibits. An extraordinary pleasure to walk beside Rosy’s family friend Dave Kyle: His last words to me before we left, “Always something new to see.” You can’t fake that level of optimism and spirit.

In the hotel lobby on the way out, we chatted with Inge, who got to meet Lezli when she came up. Soon Inge’s husband Tony appeared, a lucky man indeed. We have a standing invitation to visit their home in the German countryside.

So we headed home from LoneStarCon 3, or rather, we headed back to Shreveport. “Home” was a concept very much in flux. While we were on the road, news came that we picked up on Rosy’s iPad: Fred Pohl had died. I wondered if it was bad of me to wish that it had happened a day before – that Fred’s people, you and me and all the others, had had the chance to hail his name at the World Science Fiction Convention.

Well, we enjoyed LSC3. Good to see everyone. But dammit, I missed a chance for a great photo. Imagine Mib seated on the Iron Throne! Emphasize that , pandas of the world!

My cameraphone takes bleary photos but I insist that the spirit is clear. Above, Andy Porter immortalizes a display; right, Rosy and Lezli among other flowers of the con; below, Kerry Kyle with a photo of her dad.