old Hugos

B. watched the Hugo Awards live on her computer. I couldn't get the feed to work on mine, so I didn't. But while casting around to see if there was some other avenue to watch with, I discovered that somebody had put up on YouTube the videotape of the 1994 Hugo ceremonies.

Now there's one I regret not having been at, because of the three years I was Hugo administrator, that was the only one where I missed the Worldcon. (I had just started a new job, and it wasn't possible to get enough time off to travel to Winnipeg.)

Barry Longyear was toastmaster, and I thought did a good job. Not too meandering, and his jokes were funny, something you definitely can't always count on at the Hugos. I was pleased that, at the start of the Hugos-proper part of the ceremony, he gave an acknowledgment to me and Seth, and we got a gratifying round of applause. Nice to hear, even after 26 years and the death of the other recipient. The short fiction presenter did essay a joke about the category adjustment, which only proved his complete ignorance of why it was done.

Ah, the olden days, when the politics in the speeches was old-fashioned, when the award music was a mix of the Candide overture and The Great Gate of Kiev, and both presenters and winners had to climb a steep flight of stairs to reach the podium.