After I’d recharged my batteries with a brief nap Saturday afternoon, I was ready for two of the most important pieces of programming this weekend—the consecutive hour-long Guest of Honor interviews, the first of which had Jim Kelly being interviewed by John Kessel, the second with Jonathan Lethem being interviewed by Robert Killheffer.

Both of the interviews shared a common quality, in that you got the sense that these were friends who were very much at ease with each other, but beyond that, there was a sharp difference. In the first interview, I got the sense of eavesdropping in on a conversation, while the second was more a monologue sparked by an occasional question. For example, once Bob asked his first question, it was half an hour before he got a chance to ask a second, so ornate and passionate was Jonathan’s answer. There were no dull moments in either hour, and the two-hour block was very entertaining.

I guess the reason Jonathan didn’t need that much prodding to get going can be attributed to something he said during one of his lengthy answers: “I was explaining this all along before there was even very much work to explain it about,” followed by “I explained myself into a career.” He has obviously been thinking about his relationship with the signifiers of science fiction since the beginning of his career, and so he has the complex footsteps to that dance well thought out.

I then headed off for what was, compared to Friday night’s huge group, a much more intimate dinner. I headed to Bickfords with Barry and Joyce Malzberg, Paul D Filippo, and Deb Newton. While that diner offers good, solid, home-style cooking, whenever I’m there I always feel as if I am taking part in a Boca Raton early-bird special. When I walked through the packed restaurant from our table near the front to the men’s room at the back, I noted only one person my age, with everyone else seeming to be my parents’ and grandparents’ ages. The customer base seemed so weak and frail that I worried someone would expire during our meal!

We discussed the implosion of the Scott Meredith agency, our plans for our literary estates, and other weighty topics, but we also turned to lighter fare, and for some reason in the midst of it we all began to sing “The Teddy Bears Picnic.” I’m not sure what the other patrons, many of whom came with canes, oxygen tanks and walkers, made of that!

Back at the hotel, I watched two one-act plays which had been written by Jim Kelly and directed by Jeanne Beckwith. The first play, titled “The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum,” starred professional actors whom Jeanne had driven down with her from Vermont, while the second, “Unique Visitors,” starred our own John Kessel, with off-stage voices supplied by the likes of Andy Duncan, Jim Morrow, and several others whose faces I couldn’t make out in the dark. John, who has appeared in the film The Delicate Art of the Rifle, acquitted himself well, and his impassioned rantings from the stage brought much laughter and applause.

By then, it was time to print my boarding pass for Sunday night’s flight home, and of course engage in more schmoozing. I know that I should have attended the 22nd Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition, which I usually do, and which some chastised me for skipping, but this year I felt as if I shouldn’t. As I explained to various friends to justify my absence, it felt like too somber a year to spend sitting and watching a game show and laughing for two hours, disengaged from the give and take of human interaction, when I could instead spend that time in intense conversation with friends and acquaintances, some of whom, as we learned this year, might not be around next year. That one-on-one time felt too precious. I felt a need to grasp on to those friends a little longer, and so, my apologies to the competitors, who had one less set of hands to applaud them. Maybe next year I will once more be in a frivolous mood.

On a lighter note, here I am fooling around with Matthew Jarpe, Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter. I have no memory of exactly what we did to drive Michael to his knees, but I vaguely recall that it had something to do with the lengths to which a writer had to go to promote his work. It had something to do with always being a ham when cameras were present, which, I assure you, isn’t a hard thing for me.

I got to bed a little after 1:00, hoping for a good night’s sleep in preparation for my reading and two panels Sunday, but it seems that five hours is all my body was willing to accept. I guess Readercon is so rich and exciting that my subconscious is insisting I drain every moment from it, and it won’t allow me to crash until on the plane home. (Only metaphorically, I hope.)