When it came time to choose where I’d eat during the recent World Fantasy Convention—and you know me, I hate to waste a meal on a hotel restaurant—my number one choice was Rose’s Luxury, judged by Bon Appétit as 2014’s best new restaurant in America. Getting the chance to eat there represented a different sort of challenge than most popular restaurants I’ve been to, which have involved using my Internet-fu to snag a table the instant reservations for the date I needed became available online.

Rose’s Luxury, however, doesn’t take reservations. Which results in the kind of wait one Yelp reviewer recently experienced: “We waited in line approximately 1h45m before putting our name down. After that was another 2h30m wait to get a table.” And another, who waited even longer: “I waited about 5 hours for a table on a Saturday night, starting from lining up outside at 4:30 to being seated around 10:00pm.”

There seemed to be only one way to avoid that kind of wait—arrive around 90 minutes before the restaurant opens, guaranteeing you’ll be part of the first seating. That will keep wait time to a minimum. I was up for standing outside the restaurant before it opened—hey, I had no problem getting to Franklin BBQ three hours before it opened, so 90 minutes was nothing to me—but would I find others foodies at WFC who’d think the experience worth the wait?

I did!

Here I am with Rajan Khanna, Jenn Reese, Liz Argall, Greg van Eekhout, and Barry Goldblatt after we’d ordered and eaten EVERY FREAKING DISH on the menu that night.

But let’s go back in time, and see how the night began … (more…)

If you worked at Marvel or DC in the mid-’70s, and were not lucky enough to have connected with a counterpart at your competitor who was willing to trade you a weekly package of all of their company’s comics for those published by your own (as I sadly was not), you surely ended up at Ed Summer’s Supersnipe Comic Book Emporium.

I can’t count the times someone in the Bullpen would cry out, “I’m heading up to Supersnipe” as the day wound down, and we’d march en masse from 575 Madison Avenue to 84th Street and Second Avenue to squeeze into the tiny store (seen above in an image borrowed from Sean Howe’s blog) that was the comics shop of the day. And when I say tiny, I mean it. In my memory, no more than half a dozen people could squeeze inside at a time, as most of the narrow store was behind the counter. (more…)

Of all the photos I took during last weekend’s World Fantasy Convention, I’m proudest of this one, snapped of Sofia Samatar after she took the stage during Sunday’s banquet to accept the Best Novel Award for A Stranger in Olondria.

I was proud because the dramatically posed image came out so crisp and clear, even though I was sitting way in the back, in the last row of tables, and using a zoom with no flash, since one wouldn’t have worked at that distance anyway.

But more importantly, I’m proud of Sofia, because she used her time onstage to address the elephant in the room that is the H. P. Lovecraft trophy. (Here’s what she later had to say about the moment.) I was extremely upset there was no panel at the convention devoted to that topic, so after I saw the convention program, and noted the absence of one, I tweeted my disappointment.

When I learned via the official WFC Twitter feed that the programming committee had been instructed by the board not to have a panel, I was even more upset. (more…)

As those who’ve followed me for any length of time know, if I’m at a reading or panel, and I have the permission of those involved, I’ll record the event and toss it up on YouTube. My earliest such video was of Cory Doctorow back in 2010, and since then I’ve added more than 100 others. So I, of course, captured the three readings I attended at last weekend’s World Fantasy Convention.

On Friday, I watched as Alaya Dawn Johnson read from her YA novel Love is the Drug.

(more…)

Another World Fantasy Convention—during which I had loads of fun and little sleep—is over. WFC is one of my favorite con weekends of the year, second only to the always amazing Readercon. Now that I’m home, and have had a decent night’s sleep, here are a few of the moments I enjoyed most.

Thursday night, Rajan Khanna, Jenn Reese, Liz Argall, Greg van Eekhout, and Barry Goldblatt joined me for dinner at Rose’s Luxury—where we ordered and ate EVERY FREAKING DISH on the menu. (A meal which I shall describe at length later.)

Here are Liz and I reveling in the Sfoglini rigatoni with parmesan cream and breadcrumbs—plus white truffle!—before digging in. She seems lost in the moment, while I appear absolutely manic.

With good cause. A memorable dish from a memorable meal.

(more…)

Well, it’s that time again! October’s over, so I’m once more gathering together the dreams I shared on Twitter to see what poetry can be made of them when they’re assembled in one place.

Last month, my subconscious delivered me Jesse Pinkman, Harlan Ellison, Lena Dunham, Robert Downey, Jr., and more.

Dip into my brain below …

October 2014

I dreamt I was one of the human survivors on a boat cruising through the zombie apocalypse. No idea of our plans or where we were headed. Oct 31

I dreamt I was zooming down the highway when a bicyclist suddenly appeared in my lane. She grew slower and slower, but I couldn’t pass her. Oct 27

I dreamt that the state was auctioning off parts of my land without informing me, and I was running around trying to stop it from happening. Oct 27

I dreamt I was rushing around the house packing for a trip to North Korea, and realized my flight was only two hours away, so I was screwed. Oct 27

I dreamt I shared ukulele sheet music with a friend, and as I touched each page, a video popped up. Looking forward to paper doing that IRL! Oct 26

I dreamt I hung out with Jesse Pinkman, and we wanted KFC, so we stole a car and robbed people leaving a KFC. But we only took their KFC. Oct 26

I dreamt I moved back to NYC, and immediately regretted it. I felt claustophobic as I wandered the streets. Would I ever see the sun again? Oct 25

I dreamt I bumped into Harlan Ellison, who was immediately mad at me for not sending him a Get Well card. I apologized, but it didn’t help. Oct 25

I lost a dream because I no longer know what this middle-of-the-night note means: SO THERE BE PRO BALL Oct 24

I dreamt I was very carefully boxing up a complete run of Science Fiction Age magazine and preparing to ship it off to Paul Di Filippo. Oct 24 (more…)

My comics career from the ’70s through the early ’80s may have been brief, but it was varied. Which means that as Back Issue magazine has peered into the past, I’ve ended up getting mentioned multiple times—for my creation of the Scarecrow, for my contribution to Madame Xanadu, and also for many of my back-up stories.

The December 2004 issue, which just popped up digitally via email, covers a couple of assignments I never figured anyone would care enough about to write up—my Mighty Marvel Fun Books. (more…)

This year’s World Fantasy Convention starts Thursday in Crystal City, Virginia, but before it begins, why not take a look who we used to be? Instagram may not have existed a decade ago, but that didn’t stop me from taking eight photos I snapped back in 2004 and treating them as if it had.

Gordon van Gelder

Here’s Gordon grimacing. At least I thought it was a grimace. He told me he preferred to think of it as a sneer. (more…)

I’ve been reading J. Redding Ware’s 1909 book Passing English of the Victorian Era, a collection of words and phrases once used—some by many, some only by a few—during the period of the book’s title. It’s so fascinating, it’s hard to stop reading.

Now that I’ve made my way through the letter C, here are the ones that tickled me so far.

Acknowledge the Corn (American English)

Adroit confession of minor offence to intensify the denial of the major offence: e.g., “Sir, I believe you are after my wife—and you certainly pocketed my meerschaum last Sunday evening at 10.30.” To which the answer might be: “Well, I acknowledge the corn—I took the pipe by incident, so to speak; but as to Mrs H., I’m as innocent as the skipping lamb.” Said to arise from an ordinary horse-lifting case in the West of U.S.A. The victim was accused of stealing four horses from one point and four feeds of corn from another for the said four horses. “I acknowledge the corn,” said the sufferer—but legend says he was lynched in spite of the admission. (more…)

We’ve eaten at Bryan Voltaggio’s Frederick restaurant Volt multiple times, both in the Main Dining Room and the Chef’s Dining Room. But somehow, we’ve never been able to snag reservations at Table 21, the 8-seat counter which wraps around the open kitchen, where you’re served a tasting menu comprised of (what else?) twenty-one courses. Reservations become available at 9:00 a.m. exactly one month in advance , and I guess I just never jumped quickly enough for the days I was seeking.

But last week, serendipity worked in my favor. Old friends who’d long been drooling over my various Volt reports were visiting from out of town, and I’d gotten reservations for us in the Chef’s Dining Room. But the day before, I received a cell from Volt asking whether we might like to move to Table 21, as there were suddenly four available seats.

Who could say no to that?

And so last Thursday, the four of us headed over to Maryland to join four strangers (who due to the intimate nature of the seating would soon become friends) around the kitchen as Chef de Cuisine Scott Muns (recently of Rose’s Luxury) led his team to serve up a delicious and inventive meal.

And so it began … (more…)