This weekend I’m at Capricon, the second oldest of the three big Chicago area science fiction conventions. It started as a bitter rival to Windycon. When I first became active in Chicago fandom, the two concomms barely spoke to one another and at one time were pushing competing Chicago Worldcon bids. That was, however, a long, long time ago. This weekend, I saw the treasurer of Windycon’s parent organization working on Capricon’s art show. There are still two distinct groups, but they are now more complementary than competitive.
This year’s author GoH is something of a coup: Peter S. Beagle, author of the legendary fantasy The Last Unicorn, who rarely appears at mainline SF cons. I chatted a while with his business manager, who says that Mr. Beagle’s financial condition is parlous, largely owing to a messy dispute over royalties from the animated version of The Last Unicorn. While I’m in no position to judge the legal rights and wrongs, I will say that anyone who hasn’t read the small but superb Beagle oeuvre ought to click over to Amazon right now and buy a book or three.
Friday evening the Chicago in 2008 Worldcon bid committee met to put itself on an official footing by holding its first corporate meeting and electing officers. Dave McCarty, the bidcomm chairman, was picked as chairman of the prospective convention. Jill Eastlake was elected president of the parent corporation. The other corporate directors are Dina Krause, Dave McCarty, Helen Montgomery, Ron Oakes, Marah Searle-Kovacevic and Alex von Thorn. Helen will be secretary, and for my sins I will continue to serve as treasurer. The officer/director slate has a non-parochial cast: Jill is, of course, a well-known Boston fan, Marah lives in Toronto, and Alex is currently a Virginia resident.
Otherwise, this wasn’t the place for fannish political news. The only bid party was Chicago’s. It and Columbus in 2008 had the lone bid tables. None of that is a surprise, as Capricon has never been a major stop on the bidding circuit. Next weekend comes its opposite, Boskone, where it should be possible to get a read on the state of the various Worldcon races. Of greatest interest is the status of the Denver in 2008 bid, which conventional wisdom sees as running neck and neck with Chicago.
Once upon a time, I was a regular at convention art auctions. Then, one day, I stared at my closet full of unhung paintings and prints, decided that there was no point in stocking a small art gallery for the enjoyment of my heirs, and quit auctions cold turkey. The Capricon art show was, however, good enough to lure me back. The show’s highlight was an exhibit of a couple of dozen Kelly Freas paintings and drawings from the collection of Alex and Phyllis Eisenstein, including the originals of several Astounding covers that I remember from my youth. The regular show was likewise splendid, with quite a number of first-rate pieces by artists whose names I didn’t recognize. If the convention keeps up this quality for a few years, it will become an important venue for SF and fantasy art. Moreover, it succeeded in the teeth of a complete crash of its database software six weeks before the con. The program had to be rebuilt from the ground up and reportedly worked flawlessly – a true cybernetic miracle. What’s more, the art show director was, according to herself, a novice. That I count as lesser evidence of a miracle; it may simply show the advantage of not having learned bad habits.
At the auction, I avoided paintings (there’s still that closet) but won two ceramic works by Peri Charlifu, a Colorado artist who has never previously, to the best of my knowledge, exhibited at a Chicago convention. He is so little known here that auctioneer Bob Passovoy thought he was female. Judging by his sales – and the “Best Pro Art” award that he received – Chicago fans will see more of him in the future.
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