Remembering Art Widner (1917-2015)

[randy_byers]

I probably met Art Widner sometime in the '80s. I'm not sure exactly when. It quickly came to seem he'd always been there, but if he retired from teaching at 65, that would have been in 1982, so my best guess is that it would've been sometime after that, although it appears that he started getting active in fandom again (after 30 years away) in

Comments

[gerisullivan]

Thank you for these memories and photos. We were lucky to have him for so long.

[randy_byers]

Yep, he gave us lots of memories. After writing this I was remembering talking with him and Jack Speer (or mostly listening to the two of them talk) at a Corflu shortly before Jack's death. Art sang the song that Jack wrote that's been called the first filk song. I think at the 2006 Worldcon Art told me he'd seen Jack, who was on an oxygen tank, and here was Jack on his oxygen tank. Maybe that was the 2007 Corflu. I see that Jack died in June 2008, so this must have been at the 2008 Corflu in Vegas, which sounds right, although I had it in the back of my mind that it was 2007 in Austin. Was Jack at that one? Actually, I could go back and look at my LJ entries, which would probably tell me I misremembered the whole thing!

Jack Speer

[gerisullivan]

I'm sure the first and only time I met Jack Speer was in Vegas in 2008. He was being chapheroned by Elinor Busby. I tried to do a sort of drunken video interview with them. Elinor wouldn't answer any questions and merely said she was Jack's carer. When I asked her anything she just said *ask him*. Jack smiled throughout but looked as if he was secretly hoping this twerp would go away. I think I still have the video somewhere, possibly also of Art at the same convention. I remember seeing Jack and Elinor sitting together in that hotel's long and rather shabby public lounge area.

--

Graham Charnock

Re: Jack Speer

[randy_byers]

Peter Weston told me that when he conducted the Fan Guest of Honor interview with Jack at the 2004 Worldcon, it was hard to get Jack to talk. Art, on the other hand, was a natural-born /b/u/l/l/s/h/i/t/t/e/r/ raconteur.

[holyoutlaw]

Great post, thank you for writing it. Julie recommended it to me a couple times.

[randy_byers]

Thanks for reading! It's a lot of words, but he seemed worth it.

[holyoutlaw]

A lot of words, but hardly enough, know what I mean? Not to discredit your writing in any way, shape, manner, or form.

[randy_byers]

I do so know what you mean. Words really aren't enough in the end. Or it takes the collective words of everyone who knew him perhaps. (Another thing I'd love to fit in somehow is something Stu once said about Art's unique approach to spelling.)

[profgeek]

Thank you for the memories and photos, Randy. I met Art for the first time at Corflu Quire in 2007. That was a great weekend, and having the chance to talk with Art and Jack Speer was a treat I will never forget.

[randy_byers]

Graham remembers Jack being in Vegas in 2008 and you remember being in Austin in 2007, so maybe he was at both.

[don_fitch]

It's quite possible that Jack was at both. (I wasn't at either, feeling too decrepit to travel, even though Jack was eight years older than I, and Art ten or eleven years older.) Jack had a Very Strange (to me) habit of spending only a little time at conventions and a lot Touristing, so one didn't see him nearly as often as most of the other attendees. (I love Touristing, but do it the week before or after -- during any Con I rarely left the hotel except for Dinner Expeditions. Jack... tended to show up for most of the Program Items, then disappear. )

[randy_byers]

I'm with you on that count, although your comment about Jack reminds me of hearing that at least one TAFF winner -- was it Roy Tackett? -- apparently spent his trip traveling around the country but not visiting any fans. I think he did go to the Eastercon, however, which is all you have to pledge to do.

Your first photo

[anonymous]

Randy -

A very good remembrance, and much in line with mine (except for the cigarette smoking). But I think that first photo must be several years earlier than 1986. Can't date it any more precisely, though.

Re: Your first photo

[randy_byers]

You could be right, John, but why do you think so? When I first saw Lucy post this picture, she identified it as at the 1987 Westercon. I knew that was wrong, because amongst other things I had bleached hair at the 1987 Westercon. We then decided it must be a Norwescon instead, and I'm not sure how 1986 was arrived at, unless it was one Lucy knew she was at. My memory says I first met Lucy at the 1983 Norwescon, but I'm uncertain of the memory.

Re: Your first photo

[randy_byers]

And actually I just now, for the very first time, spotted what looks to be the arm of my leather jacket sticking out from behind Art, and I didn't start wearing that jacket until sometime in 1985. (It belonged to Denys, but he never wore it, so I asked if I could buy it from him.)

Your first photo, redux

[anonymous]

Didn't mean to be anonymous; it was John Berry who posted this, despite all evidence to the contrary.

John (not on LJ)