RIP: elessar merlyn tetramariner
I've just learned of the death, this past Friday, of one of the most colourful characters in SF&F Fandom. He'd lived in England the past 10 years, and actually married and settled down! He never really expected to live past 30, purely as an attitude thing.
He was one of my original contacts in science fiction fandom, and the surreal thing about meeting him at a con was having read about him in one of the local papers when I was a kid, and saved the clipping -- it was all about a young man who had legally changed his name to more closely represent his ideals. He always used lower case for his names; elessar was for Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings, of course; merlyn was the wizard, naturally, but altered slightly out of respect for the original; tetramariner was something he made up himself, to express that he was a traveller to all the compass points and went by many varied means.
I remember one Toronto con, must have been in the late '70's, that was hit by a monsoon-level storm. He encouraged/inspired a group of us to go out of the hotel, into a raised park area of the building, and dance in the pouring rain, laughing in the power of the winds that were blowing the downpour nearly horizontal, our eyes lighting up in wonder at the bright spikes of lightning dancing around us, and the way the rain hit the hotel and spiralled off again.
We had many-many late night talks over the years -- he was like a mentor who challenged me to think outside the box.
If I had to choose a set of names of people who stood at crossroads of my life, and inspired me to turn off the expected road,he would be one of them. I wouldn't be who I am today without him.
He was the centre of a lot of controversy in his time, yes. But the elessar I remember was a good man, a truefan, and a rabid individualist. I raise a glass in his memory, and shed a tear -- and wish him luck in his next journey, wherever that may take him -- he wondered about it (and put it off) long enough.
He was one of my original contacts in science fiction fandom, and the surreal thing about meeting him at a con was having read about him in one of the local papers when I was a kid, and saved the clipping -- it was all about a young man who had legally changed his name to more closely represent his ideals. He always used lower case for his names; elessar was for Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings, of course; merlyn was the wizard, naturally, but altered slightly out of respect for the original; tetramariner was something he made up himself, to express that he was a traveller to all the compass points and went by many varied means.
I remember one Toronto con, must have been in the late '70's, that was hit by a monsoon-level storm. He encouraged/inspired a group of us to go out of the hotel, into a raised park area of the building, and dance in the pouring rain, laughing in the power of the winds that were blowing the downpour nearly horizontal, our eyes lighting up in wonder at the bright spikes of lightning dancing around us, and the way the rain hit the hotel and spiralled off again.
We had many-many late night talks over the years -- he was like a mentor who challenged me to think outside the box.
If I had to choose a set of names of people who stood at crossroads of my life, and inspired me to turn off the expected road,he would be one of them. I wouldn't be who I am today without him.
He was the centre of a lot of controversy in his time, yes. But the elessar I remember was a good man, a truefan, and a rabid individualist. I raise a glass in his memory, and shed a tear -- and wish him luck in his next journey, wherever that may take him -- he wondered about it (and put it off) long enough.