Thoroughly Thursday
Feb. 5th, 2009 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fenchurchWoke up this morning and turned on the local news (yes, I like to stay in bed for a bit, catch a little bit of the news and check my email) where they started a story with "Have you ever wanted to own the ring worn by Bela Lugosi in Dracula?" and I felt my stomach drop. I've seen that ring, in person... as well as the scarab ring from "The Mummy." Forry was wearing them the first time I met him, at WesterCon XXXX. He'd been so nice to me, considering I got completely tongue-tied and wound up barely being able to speak at all. I still have the keychain he gave me (it says "Remember me with every key. 4E 4E 4E").
I mean, I know it's been a few months since Forry passed away, but it was just a little bit devastating to hear that his collection is going up for auction. And now I'm really, really hoping that someone like Paul Allen will swoop in and buy it all because it just seems so wrong to have the collection broken up after all this time.
I was lucky enough to meet Forry again several years later when he was a Guest of Honor at the SF&F Symposium at BYU, the year I ran it. And this time, I got the chance to chat with him quite a bit, which was a delight... and I got to tell him how much he'd influenced me as a young fan. I'd discovered Fandom when I was 14 and did what I always did with a new obsession... researched it thoroughly, ending up writing several term papers on the subject of the history of Fandom (thankfully, I lucked out and had a fannish English teacher that year). I kept running across pictures of Forry (in costume and not) or covers of British SF&F magazines with "Forrest J Ackerman Writes From America!" splashed across the cover, and I'd loved the idea of someone who was so immersed in fandom.
A few weeks after the Symposium that year, I got a surprise package addressed from Hollyweird (which was how Forry generally referred to it). It was a copy of the March 1953 issue of Authentic Science Fiction (cover price: one shilling and sixpence), with Forry's name on the cover... he'd put an asterisk next to his name in the table of contents and had signed the actual article "To Fen, An Authentic Fan, Love Forry." It's possibly one of the most treasured items I own, next to a few family heirlooms. And that's how I ended up with something from Forry's private collection.
On a completely different subject, we tried bison this evening for the first time... we'd been looking for something quick to grill for dinner and found some pre-formed bison patties at a local grocery store. Delicious! Although for mine I ended up cutting a patty in half and reforming it before grilling it... my concept of a "serving" has definitely changed in the last year, and the original 1/3 pound burger was just way too HUGE. Verdict: Bison = yummy! And fast!
I managed to watch tonight's Bones in near realtime, which is a bit of a rarity, since I tend to forget it's on until later. I thought the whole episode was weird and bizarrely paced. I mean, they solved the whole Gravedigger thing (that we've heard nothing about in quite some time) in one episode, pinning it on a character I don't believe we've ever seen before. Oooo-kay. And there was a ghost. And massive lawbreaking and some really improbable situations.
At the end of last season, I floated the theory that all the writers of my favorite shows had been getting together during the strike to drop a lot of acid. I'm beginning to think the writers of Bones didn't stop after the strike ended. Honestly, it made me wonder if they were expecting the season to be cut short or something... because quite a bit of tonight's episode should have been built up over the first part of the season, or at the very least over a few episodes. The whole thing was just... wacky.
ETA: Oh! And as of today, I've managed to practice the piano every day for the last three weeks! Yay!
I mean, I know it's been a few months since Forry passed away, but it was just a little bit devastating to hear that his collection is going up for auction. And now I'm really, really hoping that someone like Paul Allen will swoop in and buy it all because it just seems so wrong to have the collection broken up after all this time.
I was lucky enough to meet Forry again several years later when he was a Guest of Honor at the SF&F Symposium at BYU, the year I ran it. And this time, I got the chance to chat with him quite a bit, which was a delight... and I got to tell him how much he'd influenced me as a young fan. I'd discovered Fandom when I was 14 and did what I always did with a new obsession... researched it thoroughly, ending up writing several term papers on the subject of the history of Fandom (thankfully, I lucked out and had a fannish English teacher that year). I kept running across pictures of Forry (in costume and not) or covers of British SF&F magazines with "Forrest J Ackerman Writes From America!" splashed across the cover, and I'd loved the idea of someone who was so immersed in fandom.
A few weeks after the Symposium that year, I got a surprise package addressed from Hollyweird (which was how Forry generally referred to it). It was a copy of the March 1953 issue of Authentic Science Fiction (cover price: one shilling and sixpence), with Forry's name on the cover... he'd put an asterisk next to his name in the table of contents and had signed the actual article "To Fen, An Authentic Fan, Love Forry." It's possibly one of the most treasured items I own, next to a few family heirlooms. And that's how I ended up with something from Forry's private collection.
On a completely different subject, we tried bison this evening for the first time... we'd been looking for something quick to grill for dinner and found some pre-formed bison patties at a local grocery store. Delicious! Although for mine I ended up cutting a patty in half and reforming it before grilling it... my concept of a "serving" has definitely changed in the last year, and the original 1/3 pound burger was just way too HUGE. Verdict: Bison = yummy! And fast!
I managed to watch tonight's Bones in near realtime, which is a bit of a rarity, since I tend to forget it's on until later. I thought the whole episode was weird and bizarrely paced. I mean, they solved the whole Gravedigger thing (that we've heard nothing about in quite some time) in one episode, pinning it on a character I don't believe we've ever seen before. Oooo-kay. And there was a ghost. And massive lawbreaking and some really improbable situations.
At the end of last season, I floated the theory that all the writers of my favorite shows had been getting together during the strike to drop a lot of acid. I'm beginning to think the writers of Bones didn't stop after the strike ended. Honestly, it made me wonder if they were expecting the season to be cut short or something... because quite a bit of tonight's episode should have been built up over the first part of the season, or at the very least over a few episodes. The whole thing was just... wacky.
ETA: Oh! And as of today, I've managed to practice the piano every day for the last three weeks! Yay!
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 07:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 11:55 am (UTC)And I think bison is delicious. I'm with you on that.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 02:37 pm (UTC)The idea that's being floated is to have the collection purchased by a consortium of fans and then make arrangements to donate it to an appropriate archive, with a number of the pieces that went out earlier rejoining the collection at that point. Hopefully, the plan will work because it would be a shame to see everything disappear into private collections, never to seen by a wider circle again. Forry loved sharing and he was terribly generous with the fans and people he met because that was his nature; he liked giving people joy. I met him a few times at dinner parties and I have my own gift from Forry, though it's not from the big collection. It's a copy of several of Shaw's plays printed in the early 1900's he'd picked up somewhere and he signed it "In thanks for lovely conversations, Forry." We always ended up talking about writers and collecting and books when we met at parties and he thought I might enjoy the volume.
He really was a special man.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 02:40 pm (UTC)Go you!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-07 01:46 am (UTC)I'm a little behind on Bones, but that whole "wacky" and "writers on acid" fits with the ep I watched last night, with the carnival/circus and the conjoined twins death... I couldn't help but wonder where in the world such traveling circuses still exist... (not to mention the knife-throwing scene) So... yeah.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 10:39 pm (UTC)My sister and her hubby met Forrest, and toured his house some years ago. They had a wonderful time.