Date: 2009-01-17 14:37 Subject: The Coming Forry Memorial -- One Fan's Misgivings Security: Public Location: Going round in circles Mood: frustrated Music: The hum of my 'pooter Tags: forry memorial ackerman dr acula

And now, to present the "Better Late Than Never" award, here's LASFS President Michael Thorsen:

"Ahem.  (Is this thing on? *tap tap* Testing one-two-three...)

"Forry Ackerman passed from the realm of mere mortality into eternity on Thursday, Decemeber 4, 2008, slightly less than 3 hours after the close of the weekly LASFS meeting.  He had been sick with pneumonia some weeks before, but (we are told) had recovered; he passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home.  He had outlived Locus Magazine's announcement of his death by over a month, the last great accomplishment of a man whose life was one accomplishment after another.

In times past, when a LASFS member would die, his memorial was held within a week or two, three at the most,  of his passing. Gary Louie, Bruce Pelz, Michael Mason, Kelly Freas, Alan Rothstein.... If a weekend event had to be bumped, it was bumped.  It was understood that some things just would not wait.

For one of the founders of our club, however, the LASFS BOD elected to wait until there was a free day on the calendar to hold a memorial.  As it turns out, the first free day was the fourth weekend in the following month  Talk about striking while the iron is cold....

Now, nearly 2 months after his demise, the long-overdue LASFS memorial for Forrest J (no-period) Ackerman, author, editor, actor, agent, professional fan, avid collector of all things SF, coiner of the term "Sci-Fi", and veteran (if not an actual founding) member of LASFS itself, will occur this Saturday (Jan. 24, 2009) at 1 PM at LASFS HQ in North Hollywood. 

The BOD selected a pair of LASFS members (myself included) with little actual familiarity with Forry or his estate, family, business contacts, past accomplishments, affiliations, etc to organize this event.  Not knowing who to contact, we groped around in the dark for several weeks until Tadao finally found someone who said he knew some people.  Contact numbers were traded, and where it went from there, we will find out on January 24.

With less than a week to go, we have to the best of my knowledge not contacted Forry's family, his executors, business contacts, or made any sort of public announcement other than a post on the LASFS website and on Livejournal.  We don't even know if we have a budget to provide a snack table.  These are details that should have been worked out first thing, and would have been if the organizing committee (self included) had been composed of people who knew what they were about.  (Hell, the only reason I'm even on the thing is because I'm LASFS' elected president.  A temporary political post is not a good enough credential for setting up this sort of event.)  My apologies to Tadao, but at this low point in our careers and with so many conflicting elements in our personal lives, and with how little we actually know about Forry, we are the last two SF fen in the world who should have been put in charge of this memorial.

Scheduled long after the fact, organized by people with no knowledge of who to contact and too much going on in their own affairs to do it justice, and lightly publicized.  It would serve LASFS right if no one at all showed up to this thing.  But that would also be an insult to the memory of a man with enviable accomplishments in many a field, who was highly influential in the creation and direction of modern SF fandom.  I can't see for the life of me how this will turn out well; all we can do now is hope for better than we deserve."

[Walks from the stage amid thunderous silence from the audience.]