Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke Ontario Canada
I was hoping to see Sue Mason at Torcon, too. Ah, Torcon was a pivotal time for many of us. For Sue Mason and Rob Sawyer, a golden Hugo for each, and I have seen Rob’s golden relic a few times now. For Yvonne and myself, well, enough complaining, but at least, we got to see much of it, and we worked extensively with the L.A.con people to help them win the 2006 Worldcon. Now that Torcon is past, Yvonne and I made a major decision ... no more Worldcons for us. We have our memberships for Noreascon 4, and intend to vote for the Hugos, but we will not go to Boston. We will not paint all Worldcons with the same brush, but Torcon 3 (and the senior Torcon 3 committee) took the love of Worldcons right out of us. Also, Worldcons have become prohibitively expensive for us. I plan to stay with fanzines, and I am considering a couple of new print projects, but Yvonne has moved into the field of space advocacy, and will be heading to Washington, DC for a NASA brainstorming conference. Our con-running commitments run to 2006, and that is when we intend to retire from convention management.
If there’s been any bitterness, it comes from the way Torcon treated us, but that is well past. The future beckons, and given our ages, it is high time to start thinking less about international fandom and more about our retirements. (I say much the same thing in the locol, except that we were still planning on attending a couple of Worldcons more. Plans do change.) We plan to involve ourselves where we feel we’re wanted and needed, and for me, that’s fanzines. We plan to become much more local fans, where we know we’re a part of things.
So many evil aliens ... I will not believe that all aliens are malevolent or bent upon our entire destruction. They are just different, different thought patterns, environment, etc. That’s why we call them aliens, hmm? Too many of us have problems dealing with those unlike ourselves.
Mike Resnick’s Torcon Diary ...Yvonne and I have eaten at Shopsy’s exactly twice, and that’s it. It’s okay, but there are far better places to eat. I think you pay more for the name, when the Shopsowitz brothers ran the best deli in Toronto, bar none. (We were so busy at T3, we rarely found the time to eat. Our best meal of the week was at the Lone Star Restaurant across the street.) We did make it to the CFG suite a couple of times, but both times, there were few people there, and our commitments to the L.A.con IV people made our time fleeting and valuable. We were pleased that our efforts for LA made such a difference, and the committee showed their appreciation. That Worldcon I’ll probably regret not going to.
Great pictures! Rob Sawyer did know that great things were going to happen to him that week, with the Seiun first ... he knew about this ceremony for some time, his win being announced at the Japanese national convention some months beforehand. (Illegal Alien was the novel in which Rob Tuckerized me ... I didn’t even know I spoke Japanese.) John Hertz’ Big Heart win was a marvelous surprise to see unfold, and I got to meet Dave Langford for the first time. I did send an e-mail to you not long after receipt of this zine that the bearded man on page 41 was not Rusty Hevelin but Mike Glicksohn.
An interesting aside …Yvonne and I were involved in Worldcon masquerades in the 1980s, and we did win a prize or two, but we were not asked to submit anything to the Canadian costuming retrospective. I guess we’ve been out of costuming so long, no one remembers but us. (We won two prizes at the Chicon IV masquerade, way back in 1982, for the Royal Canadian Mounted Star Fleet.)
The parade of the departed continues … PLCM [P.L. Caruthers-Montgomery], who would send me copies of the SFC Bulletin. Johannes Berg from Norway, who we saw and chatted with at Torcon. Shirley Maiewski of Hatfield, MA, who we had hoped to see in Boston. We try to make as many new friends as we can, for we know that our old friends won’’t always be with us. I just with they wouldn’t leave us so quickly. Selfish of me, I suppose, but I won’t apologize for missing people who were part of my fannish past and present for so long. (Even Julius Schwartz has left us. The fandom we grew up with is becoming but a memory…)
If there’s been any bitterness, it comes from the way Torcon treated us, but that is well past. The future beckons, and given our ages, it is high time to start thinking less about international fandom and more about our retirements. (I say much the same thing in the locol, except that we were still planning on attending a couple of Worldcons more. Plans do change.) We plan to involve ourselves where we feel we’re wanted and needed, and for me, that’s fanzines. We plan to become much more local fans, where we know we’re a part of things.
So many evil aliens ... I will not believe that all aliens are malevolent or bent upon our entire destruction. They are just different, different thought patterns, environment, etc. That’s why we call them aliens, hmm? Too many of us have problems dealing with those unlike ourselves.
Mike Resnick’s Torcon Diary ...Yvonne and I have eaten at Shopsy’s exactly twice, and that’s it. It’s okay, but there are far better places to eat. I think you pay more for the name, when the Shopsowitz brothers ran the best deli in Toronto, bar none. (We were so busy at T3, we rarely found the time to eat. Our best meal of the week was at the Lone Star Restaurant across the street.) We did make it to the CFG suite a couple of times, but both times, there were few people there, and our commitments to the L.A.con IV people made our time fleeting and valuable. We were pleased that our efforts for LA made such a difference, and the committee showed their appreciation. That Worldcon I’ll probably regret not going to.
So ... come! In fact, if you haven’t made such a trip before, drive – you could pass by Mt. Rushmore – not that big statues of American Presidents would mean much to a Canadian – and through Yellowstone and cross the Rockies: a truly epic journey!
Great pictures! Rob Sawyer did know that great things were going to happen to him that week, with the Seiun first ... he knew about this ceremony for some time, his win being announced at the Japanese national convention some months beforehand. (Illegal Alien was the novel in which Rob Tuckerized me ... I didn’t even know I spoke Japanese.) John Hertz’ Big Heart win was a marvelous surprise to see unfold, and I got to meet Dave Langford for the first time. I did send an e-mail to you not long after receipt of this zine that the bearded man on page 41 was not Rusty Hevelin but Mike Glicksohn.
An interesting aside …Yvonne and I were involved in Worldcon masquerades in the 1980s, and we did win a prize or two, but we were not asked to submit anything to the Canadian costuming retrospective. I guess we’ve been out of costuming so long, no one remembers but us. (We won two prizes at the Chicon IV masquerade, way back in 1982, for the Royal Canadian Mounted Star Fleet.)
The parade of the departed continues … PLCM [P.L. Caruthers-Montgomery], who would send me copies of the SFC Bulletin. Johannes Berg from Norway, who we saw and chatted with at Torcon. Shirley Maiewski of Hatfield, MA, who we had hoped to see in Boston. We try to make as many new friends as we can, for we know that our old friends won’’t always be with us. I just with they wouldn’t leave us so quickly. Selfish of me, I suppose, but I won’t apologize for missing people who were part of my fannish past and present for so long. (Even Julius Schwartz has left us. The fandom we grew up with is becoming but a memory…)
posted by ;-p at 11:57 PM
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