I'm just a dandelion

What a pleasant Boskone!  There was just an inch or two of snow, enough to look pretty, in place of the traditional fierce blizzard.  negothick   and I had a comfy room (with complementary wifi), so I didn't have to slog back and forth on the T, getting up way too early and heading back in the cold, and could slip upstairs when I felt like a bit of quiet.  The art show, as ever at Boskone, was terrific, with a beautifully curated collection of historic covers—this year's theme was aliens—and fine new work.  I fell in love with the mediaeval manuscript pages done as felted fiber art:  musicians with a lute and rebec, and a series of bestiary pages (a gawky hatchling dragon, a griffin bearing off a sad horse on the worst date ever, a stunning phoenix in gold thread, a basketwork bear).  As ever, there was good bread in the con suite, and an apotropaic slushy machine for making sno-kones.  As ever, there was a solid hucksters' room, and weird free books left out along the hallways, with a scattering of finds.  The ever-saturnine Michael Swanwick gave me an advance uncorrected bound manuscript of The Iron Dragon's Mother, not due out until May 2019.  Oddest activity ever, on Sunday afternoon:  dissecting a dead accordion.

All my program went well, especially the Shakespeare panel (thank you, Gillian Daniels, for excellent moderating), and my reading, to a small group of people who laughed at my jokes.  O bliss!  And Suford Lewis gave me a great big Oz-like medal for Hall Costume—for the best and most vivid presentation of Nine.

Nine