old Hugos

Jul. 31st, 2020 09:45 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
B. watched the Hugo Awards live on her computer. I couldn't get the feed to work on mine, so I didn't. But while casting around to see if there was some other avenue to watch with, I discovered that somebody had put up on YouTube the videotape of the 1994 Hugo ceremonies.

Now there's one I regret not having been at, because of the three years I was Hugo administrator, that was the only one where I missed the Worldcon. (I had just started a new job, and it wasn't possible to get enough time off to travel to Winnipeg.)

Barry Longyear was toastmaster, and I thought did a good job. Not too meandering, and his jokes were funny, something you definitely can't always count on at the Hugos. I was pleased that, at the start of the Hugos-proper part of the ceremony, he gave an acknowledgment to me and Seth, and we got a gratifying round of applause. Nice to hear, even after 26 years and the death of the other recipient. The short fiction presenter did essay a joke about the category adjustment, which only proved his complete ignorance of why it was done.

Ah, the olden days, when the politics in the speeches was old-fashioned, when the award music was a mix of the Candide overture and The Great Gate of Kiev, and both presenters and winners had to climb a steep flight of stairs to reach the podium.

Date: 2020-08-01 09:51 pm (UTC)
cynthia1960: cartoon of me with gray hair wearing glasses (Default)
From: [personal profile] cynthia1960
Berni reminded me of the excellent job John Picacio did in San Jose. John Scalzi also demonstrated that same set of skills when he was toastmaster. Mary Robinette Kowal did a excellent job as a category presenter last night. We have people in the community who can do this. GRRM and Silverberg are not in that group.

I really have no interest in valorizing the olden days any more, but I want to celebrate the exciting stuff we have available to honor now. Besides, steep flights of stairs suck. They sucked twenty years ago when I was nimble enough to attempt them, and they're even more sucky now.

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