| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 10 February 2005 |
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' I guess that this is something to do with the fact that we have troops in Saudi Arabia and, from what I read, Europe is not committing itself to nearly as great a degree. We may not be the most successful industrial power any more, but we sure are second to none when it comes to defending the industrial powers.
We returned to the room and Evelyn put on the tuxedo she bought for the occasion. Now the only way to get to the convention again was via the tram and with most people dressed for the summer heat it was quite unusual to see a woman dressed in a tux on the tram. I took some pictures.
At the convention we were put in a room together with a bunch of other nominees and their others of varying degrees of significance. Holding forth over the scene was fan artist Tom Mayhew, a large man who was sort of a cartoonist who had a pocketsize book of cartoons which were on- and off-color in varying degrees and also funny in varying degrees.
Eventually they led us to the Prins Willem Alexander Auditorium, which was already pretty full. We sat with George 'Lan' Laskowski, who publishes our stuff in LAN'S LANTERN. They usually play some sort of music to start the Hugo ceremonies. Last year it was the Imperial March from BEN HUR. This time they made an unusual choice. They played a piece Ennio Morricone wrote for ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. It is sort of a sad piece of music that mourns the loss of the Old West with the coming of the railroad. It speaks of a melancholic change of eras. With the fall of communism, eras are certainly changing, but I am not sure what the loss is that whoever selected the music is bemoaning.
Through some sort of coup, they got C. Howard Wilkins, the American ambassador to the Netherlands, to speak. I was expecting another 'surprise, some science fiction may be literature and enjoy your space mouse' sort of speech. Instead, he said that he himself was a fan and talked about his pleasure in meeting some of the writers. He talked about his own reactions on reading science fiction (in general, he thought he could be as imaginative as Bradbury, something that is very likely true). His speech had phrases such as 'the rapidly expanding popularity of our field.' It sounds a little strange having an American ambassador refer to science fiction as a field partly his. Saul Jaffe said people who got a chance to talk to him on a one-to-one basis were impressed by how much he seemed to know about science fiction. Later when he presented the Hugo for Best Novel, he said that his own code name was Noah Ward and it was he who had been nominated in every category. It was clear this gentleman was a class act. The American came out looking better than their European counterparts.
All but the last award was announced by writer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who read the names too fast at first. As a result, Evelyn's name was read about fifteen seconds before her picture was shown. The picture they chose was the two of us in safari gear at Olduvai Gorge. Wow! My picture was shown to the audience at a Hugo ceremony. I guess I have arrived. Well, sad to say, Evelyn did not win a Hugo and neither did LAN'S LANTERN. On the other hand, for the first time in recent history the stories I wanted to win in both the short story and the novelette categories did win. In fact, of the twelve stories nominated in the two categories, they were the only two I can say I actually enjoyed. What struck me as odd was that shortly after having completed the Hugo nominees, I picked up a book called RIVALS OF WEIRD TALES, which was a collection of fantasy and horror stories published in the 1930s and 1940s (at the time the famous fantasy magazine WEIRD TALES was being published). I read three stories of about the same length. I liked three stories out of three. The stories written now are more literary, I suppose. They are just not very entertaining and they are not very good narratives. Form has triumphed over substance. Style has won over story-telling. It is remarkable how often now I can finish a story sure I must have missed the point.
When the awards were over, Evelyn went off to the Hugo losers' party and I together with Kate, Jo, and Saul Jaffe went to see a play that was being put on. The play was written and directed by someone named Svarapa. It was a murder mystery set on a background of neo-pagan ritual. The first scene had a number of women getting together for a ritual. Included is a mystery writer named Edgar Allan Poe. An oracle in a large pot warns of dire happenings. The women discuss the warnings. Then there was about eight minutes of mediocre chamber music poorly played. The next scene has a ritual and one of the characters dying to the regret of the others. Then there was more uninteresting music. The third scene featured a lot of very bad acting as a police detective, whom we are told is very good but who acts very stupidly, shouts her lines and asks a bunch of very uninteresting questions. The high point of the scene is when the group I am with gets up and leaves looking for something better to do.
We found it in a late-night panel on the erotic aspects of the vampire novel. Late-night panels are often a waste, with drunk panelists being what they mistake for funny. Blessedly, this panel took place on a high level. It was partially on the nature of the vampire and partially on experiences of the writers with some of their less balanced fans. That ended about 12:30 AM. We found the shuttle bus back to the hotel. It did not leave until 1 AM. Evelyn was already back at the room.
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One of the things that requires the greatest creativity in travel but which gets the least attention is the toilet. Rare is the toilet that works as expected and it is always a complex puzzle to figure the never-written rules for getting the desired result from one of these babies. When we first checked into our room the toilet was making a sound like the sink was running. 'Obviously we just missed Kate,' I thought. The toilet is still running. Ten minutes later it was not so obvious that we'd just missed Kate. I tried some of the obvious first type of actions. I should explain that traveler's toilet flushing actions are classified in five types:
Type 0: Flushing the toilet in the obvious manner. It is called the zero-th kind by the masters because if this works the masters say there really is no puzzle.
Type 1: These are generally simple external actions. Juggling the handle is an example.
Type 2: Surgery. Open the tank. Again do simple attacks like pulling up the float.
Type 3: Finesse and magic.
Type 4: Get a plumber.
Type 1 actions failed and I tried to side-step the whole puzzle by reporting the problem. I reported the problem Thursday morning and was told the problem would be fixed Friday morning. Friday morning, no change. But then I realized the statement I got was ambiguous. They did not necessarily mean that the toilet would be in a fixed state when we used it. Rather they could have been saying that the task of fixing might actually occur Friday morning, in which case the statement that 'the toilet will be fixed Friday morning' would still be true. I cringed at the thought that I might actually report the problem a second time only to be fixed by the stare of an angry desk clerk who would remind me that the repair had not yet fallen overdue. I gave the hotel the benefit of the ambiguity.
Alas, Saturday morning, when the problem was still with us, I decided the hotel's last non-lie interpretation had run out. I intrepidly reported the problem again. 'Oh, yes, we will get your toilet fixed. However, today is Saturday and the man will not come out on a weekend.' This is what I get for trying too hard to avoid the wrath of desk clerks. By this point we had discovered that it helped to sleep with the bathroom door shut. Besides, I comforted myself, water shortages were not supposedly a serious problem in the Netherlands. If the toilet used up too much water they could always take the little Dutch boy's finger out of the dike.
Anyway, Sunday morning I found a Type 3 solution to the problem. If one merely stands on the seat of the toilet when it refuses to turn off, it stops the water from flowing. With this wonderful solution we can pass the problem on to the next resident of the room, as the last eight probably passed it on to us.
Sunday's panels were one on style in writing, and one on alternate histories in which Evelyn could discuss her views with Robert Silverberg. Later I was on a panel about science fiction television series. I figured I earned my participant ribbon that way and, as it turned out, it was a really easy task. Melinda Snodgrass was also on the panel. She is involved with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. My field of expertise is series before the first STAR TREK. Since so few fans these days care about anything but STAR TREK and the more current television series, there was not much for me to do but listen to a whole lot of audience questions to Melinda. After that we went to the convention center restaurant for dinner, which was good food served in tiny portions with bad service. They also forgot to bring us things like bread. Of course, a bunch of people in T-shirts might not have been what the restaurant had in mind either. I tried to dress nicely but the rest of our group was pretty much in con gear. I mentioned to Kate that the poor service we got may have been related to the counter-culture dress some of us had. She did not believe me. In my group I seem to be the only one who really believes that the way people treat you in a fancy restaurant may be related to your appearance.
The Masquerade was really very bad. I would have thought Europeans would have been into costuming. Not so. There are three classes that costumers fall into: novice, journeyman, and master. A day before the masquerade they had only ten entries, all novice. They got about fifteen other costumes together so the masquerade would not be too much of a disappointment. Still, it was obvious that this was a very bad masquerade. While the judges decided, they had a modern artistic dance group come out. They were just awful by general consent. I walked out (again to work on my log). Evelyn and I tried going to some of the parties afterward but they were too crowded, so we went back to the room.
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Monday was the last day at the convention. Evelyn and I went to the same first panel. It was 'Will SF Have Another Golden Age?' It was held in the big auditorium. We got there and nobody else was there. After we had waited a few minutes, someone came in and told us it had been moved to a meeting room. Only two of the panelists showed up. The panel more or less had decided that another science fiction Golden Age was unlikely. Twenty minutes into the hour three more panelists and a bunch of audience showed up. They had arrived late, met in the big auditorium, and decided that Golden Ages of science fiction were happening all the time and would continue to happen. Thus, by a mixup in programming, a Golden Age of Science Fiction was brought about.
The second panel had Evelyn, LOCUS editor Charlie Brown, and Pascal Thomas in a panel called 'This Book Should Have Been Nominated [for a Hugo].' I walked out in the middle however, because I was curious to see a film on the video program. My first and probably last film of the trip, but one that had never been particularly available to me. Don't laugh: it was MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. It was better than I expected. |
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