My 12 favorite Worldcon moments
I arrived home from the Reno Worldcon late Monday night, and as you can tell by the absence of recent posts, I failed to live up to Edelman’s Schadenfreude Rule of Convention Reporting, which states that all blogging must occur while a con is still in progress, so you can see what you’re missing while it’s still going on. If you were following me on Twitter or Facebook, you got a taste of the action, but I was just having too much fun to pause to tell you about it here until my return.
Well, now I’m back, and it appears I still don’t (and won’t) have time for a lengthy con report, so these few highlights will have to stand in for the long weekend. Here are my 12 favorite Worldcon moments:
Singing along with Dr. Demento
I started listening to Dr. Demento’s warped radio show in the early ’80s, which is how I first learned about everything from “Fish Heads” to Weird Al. So I made sure to catch the opening night presentation of some of his most-requested songs, which he shared via audio and video clips. He also sang “Shaving Cream” live while hundreds of us in the audience sang along to the chorus, which, you’ll forgive me, had me a little giddy.
Never heard of “Shaving Cream”? Here’s Benny Bell’s original version of it from 1946. Now imagine 500-800 fen (I’m no good at counting crowds) singing along. If you weren’t there, you missed a good time.
Click to viewDinner with John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow
After yucking it up with Dr. Demento, I headed off with John and Cory for dinner at the Atlantis Steakhouse, where we dined on aged beef, had a great conversation, and realized that Renovation was the second consecutive Worldcon to be held in a city with legalized brothels. (What’s that? You don’t remember prostitution being legal in Melbourne. Well, it was.)
By the way, we only discussed this hypothetically. No. Really. I mean it.
Breakfast with Robert Silverberg
Bob and I have been having breakfast together at Worldcons for about twenty years, and we met Thursday morning at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. for this year’s nosh. I always learn something new from the éminence grise. (I may be grise, but I don’t consider myself an éminence.) Did you know that John Campbell, Jr. gave the eulogy at his own funeral? I had no idea. Now if I can only track down that piece of tape …
My combined kaffeeklatch with Adam-Troy Castro
When I arrived for my kaffeeklatch, I discovered old pal Adam at the next table and we decided to combine our efforts. For awhile it looked like we were going to spend most of our time talking up Barry Malzberg to our bemused audience, but we eventually moved on to other things. Like how we might someday show up to a future Worldcon in costume as Adam’s sad sack characters Vossoff and Nimmitz. But I was warned I’d need to grow a handlebar mustache. And I don’t know whether I can pull that off.
Schmoozing with Dave Kyle
Dave Kyle attended the first Worldcon back in 1936. According to Wikipedia, Dave is 92, but I’ve been told that Wikipedia is wrong, and he’s really 94. Either way, he’s a treasure, and I chatted with him whenever I saw him, introducing him to as many younger fans as I could, explaining why he was so important to our field. Attention must be paid to such a person!
My hunt for the best Awful Awful burger
Spurred on by the episode of Food Wars below, I had to find out who served the best Awful Awful burger in Reno. If you want to know what I discovered, you’ll have to wait for a future post, because I want you to hear all about my two food runs in every greasy detail.
A visit to Brooklyn
After inhaling the first of my Awful Awfuls, I wandered over to the Nevada Museum of Art, which turned out to have a current special exhibit on the Egyptian Treasures of the Brooklyn Museum. As a Brooklyn boy, I grew up with those treasures, so I considered skipping the exhibit, but I decided to go in anyway, figuring that seeing familiar objects in new surroundings would make them new again. I was right.
Additionally, what should I spot on one wall but the quote below from Bruce Sterling. There’s no escaping science fiction!
Dinner with 20% of the Clarion class of 1985
Friday night, I had dinner with Geoffrey Landis, Mary Turzillo, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Bob Howe, all of whom attended Clarion in 1985, plus Dean Wesley Smith, who had and still has his own connection with that year’s class. I hadn’t seen Dean or Kris since the year of the exploding cow (2001?), so it was great to catch up, and the other three, who I see more often, aren’t chopped liver either.
Robert Silverberg’s Hugo speech
This is how you present a Hugo Award. (I wish I could embed the video, but I don’t seem to be able to, so click on the link and go ahead to 2:44:50. And learn something.)
Reviewing the Hugo results
After the Hugo Awards were presented Saturday night, Pat Cadigan, Ellen Datlow, and I holed up in a dark corner of a bar, just the three of us while everyone else was off partying, and examined and critiqued, sometimes snarkily, the full results. You don’t get to know what we said. Because we’d have to kill you. But it was awesome.
Dead dogging it
Sunday afternoon, while Worldcon was winding down, Adam-Troy and Judi Castro and Lisa Goldstein and I took over a table where the kaffeklatches had once been held and talked for hours, watching the con be dismantled around us. At one point, the three of us, plus a lone woman reading at one of the other tables, were the only people in the vast hall that once contained thousands. Adam and Judi are always fun, and I hadn’t seen Lisa since the 2004 World Fantasy Convention in Tempe, Arizona. (To long, Lisa, too long!) We yucked it up for about four hours, and by the time we moved on, my face hurt.
Turning Ellen and Gardner into comics
By Sunday night, many had already headed for home, but a hardy band gathered at the bar on the second floor of the Atlantis to continue partying. We all started snapping pictures of each other for some reason, and I did a little bit more-I used the Halftone app on my iPhone to turn Gardner Dozois into the curiosity you see below. Ellen then asked for the same to be done to her, and the table debated the captions. I hope you approve of what’s been done to these two great editors.
And as for my LEAST favorite thing at Worldcon …
Why didn’t anyone remind me that there’d be smoking at Renovation back when the bid was taking place? My eyes were burning within a couple of hours Wednesday, and remained irritated for the entire con. And my lungs were burning, too. Even though Renovation was otherwise wonderful, if anyone ever suggests a Worldcon in a casino town again, I’m voting against it. I’m still belching smoke!
But even with that drawback, this was one of my favorite Worldcons ever. The list of highlights above only skims the surface.
What can I say? I love my tribe.
Originally published at Scott Edelman. You can comment here or there.