John M. Ford
Sep. 25th, 2006 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacI'd known his health was always a very precarious thing at best, but it was still unexpected and very sad to find my Friends list this morning full of announcements of his death.
He was a writer of imagination and wit, and possibly the greatest composer of humorous pastiche that there ever was. I knew whenever I saw his name in the Making Light comment thread that we were in for something good, and most likely hilarious. And if not intended as hilarious, still moving and to the point.
I caused him a minor embarrassment and waste of time once. As he happened to be in the general area of a convention where I was to present the award for another Mpls writer, he agreed to come fifty miles to the con to accept it for her. And we sat there through the various ceremonial events, and I never got called. (The award had already been announced, and I guess the extraordinarily parsimonious concom decided to skip the presentation part without bothering to tell anybody.) So as the event broke up and people filed out, chatting, around us, I solemnly handed him the trophy, shook his hand, and apologized as best I could. Then he slipped it into his backpack and went on his way.
He was a writer of imagination and wit, and possibly the greatest composer of humorous pastiche that there ever was. I knew whenever I saw his name in the Making Light comment thread that we were in for something good, and most likely hilarious. And if not intended as hilarious, still moving and to the point.
I caused him a minor embarrassment and waste of time once. As he happened to be in the general area of a convention where I was to present the award for another Mpls writer, he agreed to come fifty miles to the con to accept it for her. And we sat there through the various ceremonial events, and I never got called. (The award had already been announced, and I guess the extraordinarily parsimonious concom decided to skip the presentation part without bothering to tell anybody.) So as the event broke up and people filed out, chatting, around us, I solemnly handed him the trophy, shook his hand, and apologized as best I could. Then he slipped it into his backpack and went on his way.
