Saturday, November 17, 2007

Busy Boy

ORYCON 29

So: Dianne has the flu; her sister and my brother-in-law and their two children are here visiting for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday; and Orycon 29, the local science fiction convention is this weekend, at which I am fairly well-booked to do panels and autographing and all like that.

Never a dull moment.

I've been to all the Orycons, save one, which we missed whilst living out of state, due to an early snowstorm that blocked the roads. (But: I was at the Symposium, so I figure that balances it out.)

Fine con, medium-sized, run by good local folks, and some top-flight guests usually show up. Today, I was on several panels, including one with Steve Barnes and Ursula Le Guin. Got to bring your A-game to keep up with folks like that, they don't cut you any slack.

Peter S. Beagle is a guest this year, the man kinda responsible for me buying my first motor scooter. Not a motorcycle, I had a couple of those before, but a scooter. He wrote a book, I See By My Outfit, about two guys taking scooters from New York to California, kind of my generation's On the Road, that mightily impressed me as a young man. And some other books since that have become classics, including The Last Unicorn. Very good guitar player, he is.

Oddly enough, he's hooked up professionally with an artist/writer/musician I knew back in my salad days, used to be known as "Freff," who's become an agent. I passed by their table in the dealer's room, and it took me a few seconds to realize who he was. Been almost thirty years since I've see, him, and he's put on a few pounds, but I did recognize him. What goes round comes around ...

Back again tomorrow -- unless Dianne is still feeling ill, in which case I might stay home. Got to keep our priorities straight ...

1 comment:

Mark Jones said...

It was good to see you at Orycon. I'm glad Kai got to meet you, too; now you'll know who she is when she argues with you on Steve's blog! (And I make a point of always trying to be there for the "Steve and Steve Show" when you and Barnes are on the same panels.)