{"id":1768,"date":"2000-02-27T08:22:26","date_gmt":"2000-02-27T13:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2011-03-01T23:26:27","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T04:26:27","slug":"toastmastering-the-nebula-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2000\/02\/27\/toastmastering-the-nebula-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Toastmastering the 2000 Nebula Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back at the 1999 Philcon,  Paul Levinson, who was then the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, approached me and asked if I would act as Toastmaster for the following year&#8217;s Nebula Awards ceremony in New York. Ham that I am, I immediately accepted. The video below, the first of five clips available from that night, shows how I repaid Paul for that honor.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LU1VHlpy4CQ\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Here am I razzing Terry Bisson as he takes the stage to present the award for Best Short Story. To preserve the suspense, I won&#8217;t tell you who else gets to take the stage once he opens the envelope, even though, since this was more than a decade ago, I realize it&#8217;s a false sense of suspense.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll note that both my name and his are misspelled in the subtitles, but that shouldn&#8217;t matter, since you know who we are. And we know who you are &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s_12rIKjQVw\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Next I introduce John Kessel, who then announces the winner in the Best Novella category.<\/p>\n<p>If you bother to watch this all the way through, you&#8217;ll learn who won that year, but you won&#8217;t see anyone take the stage to claim the trophy, because a) the winner wasn&#8217;t present (and SFWA long ago abandoned the &#8220;you must be present to win&#8221; rule), plus b) even without the acceptor reading the e-mailed speech, the clip was already at 9:50, and if included would have put it way over YouTube&#8217;s 10-minute limit.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you don&#8217;t want to watch this because by now you&#8217;re bored of my schtick, watch it for John&#8212;he&#8217;s hilarious!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hg4joCArBqE\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Prepare yourself for what follows my introduction of Joe Haldeman. I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll get choked up, as did I, when you see the late Octavia Butler take the stage to accept her trophy. You&#8217;ll easily be able to tell how much she was loved&#8212;the announcement of her win produced the most enthusiastic applause of the evening.<\/p>\n<p>As for my joke about Paul Levinson and singing at Nebulas, that refers back to a moment from the evening which I &#8216;m leaving for my final clip from the 2000 Nebula Awards. Think of it as desert.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-D9ECD9c4n8\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As part of my lifelong attempt to prove to the world that I have no shame, here&#8217;s an excerpt from my gig as Toastmaster at the 2000 Nebula Awards in which I explain to the crowd one of the important differences between the Nebulas and the Oscars.<\/p>\n<p>Those of you who were there or who heard from others about that sordid moment will know what to expect. As for the rest of you, well, you&#8217;ll just have to decide whether you&#8217;re brave enough.<\/p>\n<p>There are some things which once seen cannot be unseen. The choice is yours. You were warned.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4_Plutcw8E8\" width=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back at the 1999 Philcon, Paul Levinson, who was then the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, approached me and asked if I would act as Toastmaster for the following year&#8217;s Nebula Awards ceremony in New York. Ham that I am, I immediately accepted. The video below, the first of five [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[14,10],"class_list":["post-1768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videos","tag-nebula-awards","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}