Cory's book, the Emperor Norton Prize, and EFF's Lawsuit.
Borderlands Books in San Francisco hosted the 13th anniversary celebration of Tachyon Publications today, with a party, a cake - and the Emperor Norton Awards. I'd gone along with friends. To their astonishment, I'd never been to Borderlands. V offered to take me on a guided ramble of bookshops and other finds in San Francisco's Mission District, and one of these days I hope to go. Anyway, today I went for the party.
The Emperor Norton Awards are given annually in San Francisco for "extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason." I was delighted and excited for Cory when the Emperor Norton award for books/ authors went to Cory Doctorow's new book, Little Brother. The other award, for creators or creations or services went to bookstore owner Jack Rems.
The trophy itself was a bust of a man with feathers on his head, which I guess represented the redoubtable Emperor.
Cory wasn't there to accept it, since he lives in London and was, anyway, on a flight to India. Instead we had a speech from Cindy Cohn, the Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Part of it was Cory's message thanking everyone; the remainder - at Cory's direction, and entirely fittingly given the content of Little Brother - was about EFF's lawsuit against domestic surveillance in the US. (There's more about it on their website.)
I met a number of interesting and accomplished people, and was quite honored to be in such company - if just a little tongue-tied.