Instagram didn’t launch until 2010—but why should that stop me from Instagramming L.A.con IV, the 2006 Worldcon which took place in Anaheim?

And so … here are seven snapshots of who were were a decade ago.

Bob Silverberg

At breakfast in a shirt I can’t quite believe I ever owned. (more…)

There was no Instagram back in 2004—but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from Instagramming the 2004 Nebula Awards weekend!

Early tomorrow morning, I leave for San Jose to attend the 2014 Nebula Awards weekend. So what better time than now to take a few peeks at the same event held a decade ago in Seattle.

Slightly younger Robert Silverberg meets much younger Robert Silverberg

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I dreamt this morning that I was the Toastmaster at a Nebula Awards banquet, a task which I already did once in real life, back in 2000, so I’m not sure why I was doing it again. I spent time greeting friends, though the only ones I can remember now that I’m awake are Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. But I didn’t spend too much time schmoozing, because I was mostly interested in finalizing my patter, focusing primarily on roasting Robert Silverberg, since I needed to introduce him for some reason. Not sure what award would bring him to the stage, though, as he was made a SFWA Grand Master years ago.

When we all moved into the banquet room, instead of many tables of eight or ten people each, as occurs in real life, there was instead a single table stretching from the podium across the room.

My research for my talking about Bob consisted mostly of tracking down the most embarrassing early writing of his I could find, so I could read awful quotes and comment on them, basically showing that if someone that bad could get so good, there was hope for all of us.

As for the rest of my duties that night, such as introducing award presenters, I was going to let my iPhone take care of them. To show how science fictional the world had become, I was going to use apps to do the introducing for me. I’d found one into which you could enter a person’s name, and it would search online and generate an introduction, including not only relevant information, but jokes about them as well. And from time to time, I planned on using an excuse generator, versions of which actually seem to exist in real life, to offer reasons for me not having bothered to draft anything in that particular case.

What can I say? In the dream, it somehow seemed as if it would be entertaining.

I woke as I took to the podium to begin.

And speaking of iPhones, this entry has been written on one, as my PowerBook crashed and burned Sunday, the geniuses at the Apple Store declared on Monday that all I now had was a very shiny paperweight, and I’ve been laptopless ever since!

And as you can see, in this picture Bob forwarded to me last week, he has the nerve to laugh about it!

I don’t care if the guy is a Grand Master—isn’t it time he had his license revoked?

And just to show that my memory isn’t what it once was, I had thought this accident had taken place at a publisher party at the 2001 Philadelphia Worldcon, but Bob assures me that he had instead mowed me down a year later at a party held at San Jose’s Tech Museum of Innovation during the 2002 Worldcon.

My first Worldcon was 1974, so they’re all starting to blend together, folks.

In last night’s dream, Irene and I are at a science-fiction convention walking through the halls of a hotel, heading toward a ballroom at which a cocktail party is being held. As we near the room, we bump into David Hartwell, and continue along with him, chatting. Once in the vast, high-ceilinged, and crowded room, we grab drinks, split up, and proceed to mingle and schmooze. As I stand there, drink in hand, surveying the crowd, I realize that I don’t know what day it is. Is the Hugo Awards ceremony still to come, or have I missed it?

I spot David again, this time standing by a small table with Marty Greenberg. I go over to ask them, because if the Hugos are that night, I need to head back to my hotel room and change into a suit. But before we can talk, we’re suddenly no longer at a World Science Fiction Convention …

… but instead in the cul-de-sac of Woodview Drive, the street on which I used to live over in Maryland from 1989 until 2004. I’m standing in front of my old house with Irene and Marty and David, but also with Lois Gresh, and they all have luggage, as if they plan on staying with me for awhile. There’s a problem, however, I tell them—I don’t live there anymore. We need to head over the West Virginia, where I’m living now.

So I get into my Jeep and drive down the street. I don’t get more than a quarter of a mile before I realize that my guests are not in the Jeep with me, they’re instead walking alongside it. I decide that this is silly, that we won’t get very far that way, and so stop, get out, and tell them to get in. But once I do, the vehicle is no longer something large enough to carry us all, but rather a motorized golf car, open to the air on all sides. Perhaps four people could fit inside, but not a fifth, and certainly not the luggage as well. (more…)

In a small snippet of a larger dream, I’m sitting across from Robert Silverberg at a long table while I open my mail, which for at least 15 years—ever since I started editing science-fiction magazines—has consisted not just of envelopes, but of many packages filled with books, DVDs, toys, etc.

As I tear through the parcels and leave the detritus at my feet, I come across a small box with a return address of Wes’ Rib House.

“Ah,” I say in satisfaction, for this what I’d been waiting for.

“Oh?” says Bob. I rip open the box and show Bob the package of rib rub I’d ordered.

Bob, seeing the name on the spices, comments that he recognizes it as a restaurant in Chicago, but when I correct him to say that Wes’ is in Rhode Island, he continues to insist that the place is in Chicago. Even though I’m right, and have eaten there many times in real life, I begin to doubt myself in the dream.

Because after all, it is Robert Silverberg.

We contradict each other for awhile, and then the dream moves on …

It’s only Wednesday, and Denvention 3 has barely begun, but I’ve already started uploading my first pictures. The way I figure it, what’s the point of having fun if I can’t make at least a few people out there kick themselves because they can’t be here with us?

I meant to only stop in my hotel room for a few minutes, but then a tornado siren went off, and people have reported sighting funnel clouds. So the real reason you’re getting these photos so quickly is that I thought it might be wiser to stay here for a little while longer instead of rushing right over to the SFWA suite. (That weather report is to make a few other people out there happy that they can’t be with us.)

Meanwhile, here I am with Robert Silverberg, in a photo taken during the hour I waited to register (from 10:17 to 11:17), which is the longest it’s ever taken me to get my badge at a Worldcon. I’m hoping that isn’t an omen.

A fuller report will follow when (and if) tonight’s partying ends.

I had a dream this morning in which I was in an unnamed, unidentifiable foreign country. I was teamed with Donald O’Connor, who bore the same physical appearance as he did in Singing in the Rain, and Robert Silverberg, who looked exactly like he does today.

We were in a marketplace, similar to what you’d see in a film like Casablanca. The three of us were circled around a life-sized, hollow cardboard mock-up of a car. For some reason that never became completely clear, it was very important that we convince someone who was about to show up that this was a real, functional car. So I crouched down and hid behind a rear tire (a cardboard rear tire), while Donald and Bob showed off the car and I made automobile noises as best as I could.

I’m no Mel Blanc, so unfortunately, my attempt was rather pathetic and I wasn’t very successful in my part of this ruse. Luckily, I woke before I discovered what would happen if we failed.

Robert Silverberg was born 73 years ago today. Here’s a picture I took of a slightly younger Silverberg at the 2005 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. See that photo behind him? That’s of a much younger Silverberg at the 1957 World Science Fiction Convention in London.

I’ve been reading Robert Silverberg for as long as I’ve been reading science fiction. And why not? Bob’s career is one year older than I am, since he published his first short story in 1954. (Though maybe I shouldn’t rub that in.)

Happy birthday, Bob!