Back Again

Hey everybody. 

Sorry about the lack of updates, but I have been having a rough week and was physically incapable of doing anything. Going forward for the next few or several weeks, depending on the diagnosis, my posting schedule will be pretty limited and probably not too focused on model horses. I am aiming for once a week, or whenever I have something I need to say.

I am home now and have a lot of doctor appointments lined up for next week. I am still a little uncomfortable about revealing any more until I get a confirmed diagnosis, but I can tell you that BreyerFest looks very questionable at this point. I was so looking forward to the cake...

(It was to celebrate my fiftieth anniversary of collecting. Yellow cake with gold frosting, with maybe a Traditional Man o War on top.)

Since it is very unlikely I will be returning to work anytime soon, either, I would love to have more model horse friends to talk shop with if you happen to be in the area. I have access to my computer now so feel free to e-mail me or call me whenever you can. I will answer when my time, my energy level, and my schedule allows.

Beyond that, all I am trying to do now is get my pain under control and find out where I put my appetite. 

Again, thank you for all your kind thoughts and well wishes; I am always amazed how the model horse community rises to the occasion when it needs to: it truly is the best of all possible hobbies.

(Well, except for the scammers, cheaters and thieves. Those guys always suck, in or out of the hobby.)

Wrapping Up 2023

I wish I could have gotten more done this week, but my back was definitely not cooperating. One of the first things I am going to do when everyone gets back to business this week is finally make an appointment with the doctor and see if anything else can be done for it, beyond what I am already doing. 

They finally released a hype-free video of the entire 2024 Stablemates Club lineup. I’m a little meh on the Cassidy mold and Gambler’s Choice Foal. I think it’s mostly because Duns don’t photograph very well, so they look a little drab compared to the rest of the lineup. To me, at least. 

I also did a quick skim of the videos posted on Collector Club News page; I know for a fact that I am in at least one of their promotional videos from the 1990s. I know it exists because I had a coworker say “I saw you on TV!” after he got back from a vacation in Colorado, several months after the BreyerFest where I was filmed.  

A friend and I were asked to look at some horses in a class at BreyerFest Live back when it was still in the Covered Arena, and pretend to comment/critique them. None of these videos appear to have that footage in them, fortunately, but I also zoomed through them pretty fast, so I may be wrong....

The only other historical tidbit I can offer is that the gentleman narrating the 1990 Breyer Factory Tour video is Werner Fleischmann, founder of Reeves International, and Tony Fleischmann’s Dad. 

I managed to escape the temptations of the Reeves Warehouse Sale, mostly by doing a little of my own inventory this week. One phrase kept popping into my head as I was wading through all the models and paperwork:

Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. 

It really was one of those years for me: Test Colors, Rarities, Variations, Gloss Prize Models. Just about the only thing I didn’t get this year was a vintage BreyerFest Auction Test Piece, and all y’all know how that turned out…

But seriously, I need to sell a ridiculous amount of stuff in 2024, and I’m not going to get too worried about the prices they ultimately sell for. (Heck, I was going to donate some stuff to Toys for Tots, but again, my schedule got in the way…) Some mistakes were made, and I have to own up to some of them: the physical and mental space are worth more than the money I might potentially “lose”. 

As far as next year’s hobby goals, aside from selling a bunch of stuff, it’s pretty short: I want to finish some of my Customs, and enter at least one contest at BreyerFest. I’d prefer it to be the Customs Contest, but since I’m going to be elbow-deep in quilting and sewing projects until at least the end of January, that one might be a stretch. 

I will also squeeze a few live shows in there, too, but BreyerFest Live is definitely off the table. I am not crazy.

Personal, non-model goals are pretty much the same: lose weight, eat better, save more money, take better care of myself, and try to work on my communication skills. My non-BreyerFest vacation goals are still up in the air; I’m hoping they’ll become clearer by the end of January. (Fingers crossed, Oklahoma City!)

And that’s about it for the year. Off to work on another bajillion piece quilting project. Four blocks pieced, just another 95(!) to go. I thought this quilt was a good idea why?

Somehow Still Alive

And boy howdy, I have got some stories to tell. Here is the VERY brief rundown:

I am happy to report that I was neither gored by a bison nor eaten by a bear, though my encounters with both were WAY too close for comfort. (You will have to wait for photographic evidence of the bison encounter, since it is on my real camera, not the phone one. The bear one happened way too fast and the car ahead of me that almost hit said bear had to immediately pull over to, I presume, hyperventilate.)

I also had a couple more crying sessions, a possible religious experience, met a park ranger who grew up about ten miles from my house, outran a thunderstorm, drove on the scariest freaking road ever, did not fall off any cliffs, and saw even more Pryor Mountain Mustangs. 

So yeah, it has been kinda busy the past several days.

It also looks like I have been missing some of the post-BreyerFest drama? How is the Leftover Sale controversial at all? They have it every year at the same time, except when they announce it otherwise, like last year. The only surprise about it is the fact that they had so many to sell. My brain is a bit too fried to speculate on the reasons why...

People will find any excuse to be angry, I swear. Glad I missed most of the drama. Looking forward to seeing what Studebaker I get when I finally get home in just a couple days. (Hoping for the Blue one, only because I never get the Blue one, even if it is the not that rare. Never!) 

Since I was freaking out at the show at the time, I completely missed getting the Stablemate Buggy, but I was a little annoyed over the fact that it was another Appaloosa on the Django mold anyway.

Off to do a bit of journaling, and then to bed.  

Proof of Life

So far I have lost a credit card and a water bottle, had a last minute cancellation that forced me to rearrange my itinerary almost completely, screamed once (long story: both necessary and intentionally) and cried several times (this was mostly involuntary.) 

I also got a speeding ticket, which I did not think was possible in Wyoming, but there you go. Lesson learned.

Regrets? Not a one. Though I wish some of you were here with me, in body and not just in spirit. So I am just giving you guys some advance warning: in search of companions for future trips to Iceland, the Kentucky Derby, and my Redneck Roadtrip Redo.

I have taken multiple pictures, but most of them are on the actual camera and not the phone; I periodically lose coverage on the phone because many of the places I have been going are outside the reach of my service.

Not much else to report. I have not spent much so far, beyond food/gas/lodging and the speeding ticket; I have not bought any horses so far, but a sign that said Ranches for Sale starting at $98,000 did give me a brief pause...

Sometimes Angels Appear

We have now entered the portion of BreyerFest Prep where I am basically running around the house and yelling at random inanimate objects and everything I do is an EPIC FAIL.

Need to spray paint something? It starts to rain on your project.

Have to print out your Samplers? The cheaper toner cartridges you bought for that are absolute crap and you have to go back to the store and buy the name brand anyway.

Then you find a kinda significant typo in the ones you did print out so far. (Screw it, not reprinting; label them variations and get on with your life.)

The contact paper you need to finish another project? It’s out of stock at the one store that normally has tons of it, so you have to drive across town to the other... 

But at least I was able to procure an obnoxiously colored t-shirt without incident; I considered coming up with a fancy logo or something for BreyerFest back like I did in the ancient days, but I have run out of both time and enthusiasm, so its garish hot pink magenta-ness will simply have to speak for itself. 

I also purchased some Faygo Firework, for those among us for whom even Light Beer is a little much. (it’s like Mountain Dew: Summer Breeze, but without the caffeine. Tastes better IMHO but yo, native Detroiter here.)

The Sampler has been published online; printing the paper copies will be one of the 300 or so things I have to finish this weekend. The writing went relatively easy this year, which may just be because I didn’t have the time to fret over it. Deadlines can do wonders for your clarity! 

(But not your proofreading skills. Oof.)

Speaking of writing, I did actually spend two minutes reading this year’s Hugo Award nominees. I did not make the short list! Not that I was expecting to (I’m no Chuck Tingle) but hey, stranger things have happened…

In some model horse news, apparently some of the BreyerFest auctions are already in the WTF range. Except the Pacer, but I think that’s because (a) the Pacer’s never been a huge favorite even among Vintage collectors and (b) the initial photo had a freaky-weird bend on his front leg which now appears to have been fixed. 

But a lot of collectors don’t trust Reeves’s photography, so they might just be holding off until they see it in person and can confirm that it looks “normal” again. I’m skeptical it’ll stay that low, and you know my heart belongs to another. 

(I am willing and able to go up to $1500 for an auction piece, BTW.)

And finally I’d like to give a shout out to Catherine and Skittles today, a lovely reminder that when you are having an epic fail of a day, sometimes angels appear.

Kindness

Thank you everyone for the kind words; I’ve been checking the comments the past couple of days whenever I’ve hit a rough patch, and it’s helped immensely. It wasn’t unexpected, but it still hurts like hell regardless. 

Whenever the house got really quiet before, we just knew she was up to no good, and sometimes I catch myself wondering exactly what order of mischief she is up to now….

I guess I’m fortunate that I’ve also had a lot of work to keep me distracted, too. All those odds and ends that rush at you in the weeks before BreyerFest that absolutely must be attended to simply haven’t given me the room to dwell. 

Most of you who attend in person are familiar with that feeling.

Fate has her favorites and I know I am not one of them, especially this year, but maybe she’ll look kindly my way and favor me with a Raffle Model? I love them both, in different ways:

I’m not a fan of Buckskin Pintos generally, but the Buckskin Overo on the Rotating Draft Cleveland Bay Surprise Model last year was probably my favorite of all the colors it came in last year. And boy howdy, it also looks awesome on the Fireheart.

Reeves has been absolutely crushing it with the paintjobs on that mold; when I have the time and the space, I’ll definitely make some time to go get me a Mojave. 

Pintaloosas aren’t a huge favorite in the model horse world, a reflection of the same biases apparent in the live horse world. Personally I love them, but other than the Fun Foals Standing Stock Horse Foal I picked up in the NPOD years ago, I haven’t had much luck scoring some of the scarcer and flashier ones. The new Classic/Freedom release on the Liam mold is intriguing, but possibly not wild and crazy enough for me; I haven’t seen one in person yet to decide. That Cancion, though, that Cancion….

I won’t go out of my way to buy more tickets than I usually do; I have another trip literally the day after BreyerFest to also pay for, and I don’t think I’ll be able to bring quite as much stuff to sell as I wanted to this year due to the live show thing. 

But I’ll see what I can do; things usually have a way of working themselves out in the end. Or at least I like to think so. 

Goodbye, Vita Louise

She came to me in a dream last night. She rolled over, got on her feet, did a play bow and one of her weird little howls that always made me laugh. 

Then she ran off, and I knew I couldn’t follow. I woke up and knew she was gone. 

You were a terrible dog. Willful, disobedient, vain and dramatic. You ran off frequently, jumped into the arms of strangers with disturbing ease, and were occasionally vindictive with your bowel movements.

But you always came back to us. Whenever we were sad or sick or stressed, you were there for us, right to the very end. 

Thank you, Vita, for giving me that last little moment with you before you left; I’m so sorry I couldn’t have been there for you more, near the end. 

We will all miss you terribly. The house is already so quiet without you.

Her name meant life, and she was full of it. 

Death is before me today: 

  like the recovery of a sick man, 

  like going forth into a garden after sickness.

Death is before me today: 

  like the odor of myrrh,

  like sitting under a sail in a good wind.

Death is before me today: 

  like the course of a stream;

  like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.

Death is before me today:

  like the home that a man longs to see,

  after years spent as a captive.

https://www.consolatio.com/2009/06/ancient-egyptian-death-is-before-me-today.html

Sometimes a Cigar

Another quickie here because I do not have time for more:

In regards to the raging debate, all I have left to say on the matter is that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a biergarten is just a biergarten. So here’s a picture of one of my Cigars, the Connoisseur Series Wanderlust:

(He’s another one of those molds I have a lot of rarities of, and I don’t know why. But not the actual Cigar, for some reason.)

The whole concept of BreyerFest “selling out” tickets is a recent one: earlier ones didn’t “sell out”.  They would cut off ticket sales at some point because they needed time to make enough of the Celebration Model for everybody. 

They may well have attendance targets they want or need to meet now, and it’s difficult to calculate how much stuff to make, especially when it involves a couple dozen different things. In the past they made a certain amount of stuff and hoped that they would have enough for everybody: sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. 

The only rough way to calculate that is based on ticket sales; you do a rough estimate of how many models an average attendee will buy based on historical averages, and divide by the number of models you plan to sell. And err on the side of caution of having a little too many rather than not enough, because when you don’t have enough, ooh boy…

Last year was a weird one because it had been a couple of years since we were all in Kentucky, and a lot of people still weren’t quite ready to attend large public gatherings again. I think the BreyerFest we know and love will feel a lot more like it did pre-pandemic this year.

But not the same. It’s never the same BreyerFest twice, and it shouldn’t be. 

Also: if you need to get in contact with me or relay some information to me, the easiest way to do that at the moment is e-mail. If you happen to have my phone number you can also call or text, but there’s less than a dozen of you with that kind of access so I know it’s not likely an option.

(Nothing personal if you don’t have access, I just don’t have the time or spoons for that level of social interaction.)

I do read the comments, but unless it’s something I can or should immediately address, I am probably not going to respond to them, especially in the next month. I am notoriously bad with responding to e-mails, but I do read all of them.

I don’t have the time to talk about the Bentleys today, but I will be talking about them in the next post or two.

And finally…

If anyone is up for a picnic involving karaoke, corndogs and light beer under the big tree in front of the Covered Arena some time Saturday afternoon during BreyerFest, I’m all for it. Wearing magenta is recommended but not required; any obnoxiously colored shirt will do. 

I can’t guarantee that I will actually perform any karaoke, but if I do, I want to call dibs on Nine Inch Nails. Just because.

Places (Not) To Go

Will I be able to get everything done that I need to get done in the next two weeks? We’ll find out!

As for attending the “memorial” event at BreyerFest, I am still undecided. As I mentioned in the last post, most of my bigger emotions are now packed into little tiny boxes in the attic of my mind, and I planned on keeping them taped tightly shut until I get to Wyoming.

BreyerFest is already a pretty intense event, so it might be in my best interest to stay away from things that might provoke yet another emotional outburst. (Everyone melts down at least once: the only question is whether it happens in public or in private.)

Speaking of other events I may not attend, I am utterly uninterested in the BreyerFest Car Show. 

Part of the reason why I go to Kentucky every year is to escape the local car culture. A half dozen car shows spontaneously happen in random parking lots around here every weekend from April through October (and once a month at work!) and they’ve completely lost their allure to me. 

I grew up around old cars, and I’ve already seen examples of even the rarest of them in person – heck, there was a local museum (not even two miles from our house!) that had a Tucker, and I had no idea it was that big of a deal until the movie came out….

It’s not something completely unexpected – I mean hello, this year’s theme is “Driving Forward” – but I have plenty else to do, so I doubt my presence will be missed.   

I don’t know most of the Social Media Influencers attending the Social Media Meet, so that’s also probably a no-go. I guess I’m peripherally a minor social media type person, but unless I hear otherwise, you’re more likely to meet me in my Room in the 300s clear on the other side of the hotel. (Which is Room 312, unless something goes sideways.) 

And I guess that’s it for today? I have some horses to pull out of boxes and pictures for various projects that I have to process, and every moment is precious right now. 

Here’s a picture of the Unpainted Sherman Morgan that I bought; I thought I’d be able to see some of whatever the problems were that led to the mold getting decommissioned and then retooled, but I don’t see anything obvious. 

It’s most likely he was tossed into the cull bin because the seams were poorly matched up in places, and were beyond the ability of the finisher to buff them away. Still a pretty neat guy to have, though!

This also means that, in spite of the fact that I am not the mold’s biggest fan, I own four examples of it pre-remodeling (all except Fashionably Late), and three post (Matte and Gloss Justin Morgan, and the 2014 BreyerFest Special Run Celebration in Silver Filigree.) 

Funny how that happens. 

Light Housekeeping

Still recovering from Florida; aside from the weather, I work nights, so switching back to my vampire’s schedule can get a little messy. I should be back to “normal” in another day or two, I think. I have another five day weekend coming up next week that should help. (Thanksgiving, already?)

So today’s post is mostly housekeeping.

First: RIP Kevin Conroy. Every nerd has their Batman, and he was mine. I had hoped that, had there ever been a live-action Batman Beyond, he would have been able to also play him “in the flesh”. The closest we ever got was his depiction of a bitter, broken Batman from an alternative Earth in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event in the Arrowverse back in 2019. 

Second: It looks like I’ll have to take a pass on going to BreyerWest in Denver. The possibility of a couple of other trips has been dangled in front of me, including one overseas. More on them at a later date, if they transform into something beyond the hypothetical. I have a lot of other things to focus on, in the meantime.

Third: I apologize to any Customer Service Reps within earshot about my behavior in the two days prior to me leaving for Florida. I am not good on the phone even under the best of circumstances (I have telephonophobia), so having to make phone calls about a possible cancellation of a long-anticipated event just a few days before because the first ******* hurricane to hit Florida in November in nearly forty years is barreling straight towards your final destination is just about my worst case scenario.

The only positive outcome of all that was that I got all my anxiety out of the way before I arrived in West Palm Beach. I was so chill, in fact, that as I was going about my business on Friday afternoon I was mistaken for a resident. 

(Or maybe it’s just that I look very much like a Michigander, and so many of us move to Florida at some point, either permanently or temporarily, that we’re considered Appendix Floridians?)

And finally: my Atli arrived while I was away:

Breyer’s Silvers (the color, not the mold) are kind of hit or miss with me – with their Gloss Red Bay version first seen on the Uncalled For being a miss – but this fellow is just right! Incidentally, I managed to get a Lyric at the Early Access Black Friday Sale while I was down in Florida, after I finally remembered my web site password, LOL…

Florida, Maybe?

If everything goes according to plan I shall be in Florida attending the Ponies & Palm Trees Exclusive Event this weekend.

It’s not looking so good as I write this, because of course it is. A hurricane this late in the season? More stuff that gets filed in the already overstuffed “weird **** that only happens to Andrea” folder. Great, just awesome. 

(Time to Google “Summer snowstorms in Wyoming” just in case, I guess...)

Though I suppose I should have anticipated to hit a few bumps in the road during my Year of Adventure. I mean I did: most of this trip is either free or (mostly) refundable, so I should not be worrying as much as I do, but I do. You plan for every contingency, and the Worst Case Scenario Gremlin pops up on the horizon and waves like an old friend, because he is. 

Why can’t that little dude take his own vacations and leave me the heck alone? (Okay fine, I didn’t see much of him in Chicago. But still!)

Anyway, enough with the doom and gloom. Maybe everything is cool and I am chilling with my friends in a semi-tropical environment that is not a post-apocalyptic landscape! Or maybe I am stranded in North Carolina reading a book. Or in my basement pouting, eating pizza rolls and waiting for a last minute virtual event. It will be an adventure regardless, even if it was not the one I was hoping for.

As a native Michigander, it’s almost a legal obligation to make at least one trip to Florida in your lifetime. There was one attempted family road trip in the late 1970s or early 1980s that got us as far as Tennessee before we turned back, but otherwise I have never been, until now. 

My brother was obsessed with Jacques Cousteau back then, so seeing the oceans and maybe the Manatees might have been a motivation, but I honestly don’t even remember the reason why we were going to go there in the first place. I know that my paternal grandfather had a place down there before he died (about ten years earlier), but I have no recollection if the trip was in any way related to that.

The opportunity to attend this event was presented to me, and since I had a friend who recently moved there and begged me to visit at least once, the stars aligned.

It’ll also been a good practice run for next year’s trip(s). It’s been a while since I’ve actually flown anywhere, and while BreyerWest is not impossible, it is a little impractical. I’m a warm weather person and flying to Colorado in February is not on my bucket list of travel destinations. 

See y’all on the other side.

Maybe. 

I hope.

Expensive Week

The words just haven’t been coming easy this week. Part of it is the season: this is the time of the year where my Seasonal Affective Disorder kicks in hard, and some days (like today!) it’s hard to even get out of bed. 

But a lot of it has to do with all the petty – and not so petty – personal and professional grievances cluttering up my mind. On the personal side? My Spooky Stablemates order arrived, one Stablemate short:

That’s… aggravating. Man, I’ve got so much on my plate now, and dealing with a missing Stablemate is NOT helping. 

A phone call has already been placed, and the second one will be on his way soon, but I’ll believe it when I see it. (Pretty sure if it does arrive, it will be a duplicate. But, whatever...)

This week has been so expensive, both literally and figuratively. I think I might take a pass on buying any non-obligatory horse purchases through the end of the year, including that Display Box of Stablemates I had been thinking about buying for myself. 

Looking around my office it’s quite obvious that I’ve bought enough for myself this year already!

(Suddenly remembers Chadwick, sighs deeply.)

I did manage to get a little bit of cleaning up in the office done yesterday, and made a few hard (and not so hard) decisions about some of that stuff.

For one, I’ve decided to sell off my Peregrine. Even though he did NAN in his class at the live show I didn’t do all that great at, I have not grown as attached to him as I thought I would. Maybe because I didn’t even get a chance to open him until the day before the show? 

Or maybe I’m feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff cluttering up my life, and I know he’ll be an easy sell I won’t lose money on? And that money will come in handy for other expenses coming up?

I always feel a little guilty with selling horsey things for a bigger-than-average profit, but I am at a point in my life where I am valuing experiences over things, and did I forget to mention that I’ve been pricing plane tickets and rental cars for my Grand Wyoming Adventure next year? 

I’ve gotten so used to BreyerFest that I had forgotten how expensive actual vacationing is. If losing Peregrine, and a few other choice pieces, gets me where I want to go, so be it. 

(And if you are wondering about those Red Roan Running Mares in the background, you’ll see them next post.)

The Remains of History

Since we’re on the topic of Gambler’s Choices, I finally opened up my clear Jol:

I think Reeves missed an opportunity here with the gemstone Desatado release Fire Opal: imagine if that color had been painted in translucent and/or iridescent paints on a clear glitter body? 

I mean, it’s possible that they did try it and went “meh, didn’t work” and that’s why they went with what they did. But getting more creative with the translucent bodies – like they did with Jol, obviously – sometimes pays off.

(This is just a convoluted way of saying I want more glittery translucent Traditionals.)

Anyway, on a more melancholic note, the estate sale of our now deceased neighbors across the street was this past weekend. I went in at the beginning to get one last look around the place – and see what the family did not claim for themselves – and then at the end to see what sold, and possibly pick up a bargain or two.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but one of them was a Serial Cowboy/Lone Ranger/Hopalong Cassidy fan, and at one point there were at least a handful of related Breyers in the house. 

(Those were not present.)

So I picked out an assortment of the better Western-themed books (several signed!) and a few others: some as mementos, and the rest to supplement my depleted book sales stash, especially since I was out of town for the local AAUW Book Sale. One of the “others” was an inaugural edition of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage that had handwritten notes on the days both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were assassinated. 

They also avidly collected Presidential memorabilia, so I know that that had to have meant something to them: history written while it was still raw and fresh. It felt so odd finding it there at the end of the sale, marked down and ignored until I picked it up. So I rescued it.

Although there is no history that would have been lost if it had been shuffled into a book sale donation pile – there’s nothing in those notes that adds or enhances our understanding of those events – the meta-narrative of the fact that it was a meaningful part of their Presidental history collection would have been lost.

Which is why I write what I do, when I can do it. As you know, I own many such meaningful things. This blog is not just about their history, but the history of the history, and why it’s important to have these things in my collection.

And in case you are wondering, you will not find any “bargains” at my (hopefully very far in the future) Estate Sale. The ephemera is going somewhere where it can be archived and documented for future historians, and several friends and family members know full well how much some of this stuff piled around me is worth.

Or maybe by then, it won’t be. I will be fine, either way, as long as some of the history remains, with it or about it. 

Test Color Bears and Other Dreams

Believe it or not, I’ve seen a surprising number of Test Color and Oddity Bears (including a lovely White one at BreyerFest this year!), so the latest Test Color offering isn’t that much of a shock. I’d love to have him, of course, but I am under no illusion that I will picked for it. I’ve got other things to pay for, anyway.

I had a few spare moments yesterday (work was… more stressful than I anticipated) so I thought I’d Google “Breyer”, “Science-Fiction” and “Worldcon”, and this is what I found:

https://file770.com/meet-the-2022-national-toy-hall-of-fame-finalists

A discussion about Breyer on a Science-Fiction Fandom news web site!?! If some of the names are not familiar to you, Cat Rambo was President of the SFWA from 2015-2019, and Cora Buhlert just won a Hugo for Best Fan Writer.

And proceeding to do a deeper dive, I found these obscure YouTube gems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp42r0TKP0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeyBUMvHN34

More proof that the model horse hobby is, indeed, fanac. 

So my childhood fantasy of someday being nominated for a Hugo Award is not completely out there? And the possibility of a Science-Fiction or Fantasy-themed BreyerFest is also not quite as crazy as some may think? 

Sweet. 

Line and Form

Today was not a good day, and I would very much like to crawl under a rock. 

Aside from everything else that’s going on, I thought I’d take my live show paperwork to work to finish it during break and lunch. Not only did that not happen, I didn’t discover until I got home that had left it all at work, so now I won’t be able to work on it at all today at home, either. 

So now I can’t finish it until tomorrow, when I had planned on getting to bed early and catch a couple extra hours of sleep, since I am not going to get much on Saturday because of the scheduling conflict I mentioned before. 

That’s just awesome. And pretty much par for the course this week.

Since I never got around to my Chicago Worldcon report (those notes are also with the live show paperwork. Like I said, not a good day), I want to at least highlight one of the things I bought there: a tiny piece of art I bought from a dealer who had purchased the archives from the estate of Virgil Finlay. 

I wasn’t comfortable buying one of the dealer’s more expensive pieces, but I thought this item – a cover proof from his time illustrating astrology magazines – was both very affordable, and so very, very on point for me, as a horse person attending The Science Fiction Convention in Chicago. The spot colors were also a plus: a very Breyer-esque Blue and Yellow!

I may get it framed some time in the future, but for now it’s just going to reside in my ephemera archives.

Virgil Finlay has always been one of my favorite science-fiction illustrators, and the dream would be to own one of his originals. The dealer had some sketches of horses (not full-on, finished artwork) that were a temptation, but maybe another day, or another lifetime.  

Some of his artwork was on display in the Korshak Collection room at Worldcon – in addition to works by Frank R. Paul, Hannes Bok, Emsh, the Brothers Hildebrandt, and so many others – but the piece that really caught my eye there was Stanley Meltzoff’s cover illustration for the paperback edition of Robert Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth. It had a beautiful, painterly quality to it that reproduction just cannot capture. If there was one painting in that room I could have stolen, it would have been that!

(Just being in that room was one of the many highlights of Worldcon.)

The Entropy of the Season

Not dead, but a rough week nonetheless.

Whatever was in my eye is no longer in it, but the eye doctor diagnosed me with something else that may require a second opinion.

(I’d rather not talk about it right now, except to say that I ended up having a panic attack in the examination room.)

But dealing with that potential problem will have to wait at least a week, as I have literally DONE NOTHING FOR NEXT WEEK’S LIVE SHOW YET. So my weekend will largely consist of me slapdashing my showstring together.

For funsies I might do some quilt prep too, because it’s that time of the year and I derive some small pleasure basting things together. (My small, valiant effort to battle the entropy inherent in the season, I guess.)

I did buy a Maelstrom from the Halloween Sale, because after the week I had, I deserved a Metallic Green Desatado that Glows in the Dark. I threw in a couple of Spooky Surprise Blind Bag Stablemates, even though I know there’s a high likelihood of me getting two identical ones and I’m in no mood to negotiate trades. I’ll just throw the inevitable duplicate in the sales pile and call it a day.

(Bleh.)

On a more cheerful note, I am oddly more optimistic about Breyer’s chances at the Toy Hall of Fame this year. It was pretty weird to have nonhobby people asking me if I had heard the news about Breyer being nominated!

I went online and saw that Breyer was actually called out by name – and even featured in the title! – of several stories about the nominees this week. We didn’t quite get the same treatment last year, which leads me to think that the news people and/or museum publicists think that we’re a stronger contender?

It’s interesting that the announcement of this year’s winners will occur on November 10th, the day before the Ponies & Palm Trees Exclusive Event in Florida. It’ll make for an interesting (and possibly more drunken?) weekend if it does happen…

(FYI: Stay away from the Absinthe, guys!)

The Inherent Danger of Shiny Objects

The past four days have been an absolute nightmare that ended with me in Urgent Care this morning with an eye problem. 

This is an entirely separate problem from the exhaustion thing, which had led to me spending most of my interrupted weekend in bed, which then led to my back giving out and even more time in bed because I couldn’t get out of it.

Everything seemed fine by Monday morning, I thought. 

Then I woke up with something in my eye Monday evening right before I went to work, and it’s still there.

I just woke up a couple hours ago and it’s quite apparent that whatever they tried to do at Urgent Care did not work, so even further medical intervention may be necessary on Wednesday or Thursday if the situation does not resolve itself on its own by then.

So needless to say, model horse stuff is on the backburner until this is fixed. It’s more irritating than painful, but I’ve had it with my week of sickness and anything involving my eyes makes me nervous and I don’t have the patience to deal with this anymore. 

I have a live show in a week and a half and I haven’t even printed out anything to start assembling my show string. I was just going to treat it as a “fun show” anyway, but it’s like the Universe is attempting to make even that low bar a challenge.

Why can’t I have just a little bit of fun without dire consequences? Must karma always bite me in the butt? 

Here’s a little bit of actual model horse content to keep you entertained while medical professionals prepare to drop more mysterious liquids into my eyes:

It’s the Stardust I had Peter Beagle sign! As far as I could tell, I was the only person who brought a Unicorn to be signed, which surprised me a bit because if you were at Worldcon itself, you would have noticed that it was very… unicorn-flavored. Reeves probably could have done well with a table full of Unicorns in the vendor area. 

 

(FYI: Unicorns taste like cake batter. I recommend the Kroger Unicorn Oreo Knockoffs!)

I chose the Stardust because he was the most readily available Breyer Unicorn that I had, and he’s one of my favorites anyway, with his darling little space pants. Photographs were taken of the occasion (not of, or by me.) I also told Mr. Beagle that he had many fans in the model horse community and that we’d love to see him someday if he’s willing and able. 

A Very Brief Report From Your Ambassador to Another Planet

Here is the extremely condensed summary of my Chicon 8 report, in the style of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman:

• Made friends.
• Forged alliances. 
• Plotted the destruction of my enemies.
• Partied like a rockstar. 

I had a wonderful time, and I wish (more of) you could have made it. A bigger and better report of the trip will be posted in a couple of days, after my ears stop ringing and the laundry gets washed.

(And also: I will neither confirm nor deny that there may be video of me dancing somewhere on the Internet.)

One Perfect Day

Even though I had publicly committed to the idea of attending Motor City Comic Con this year, in private I was still apprehensive. The live shows I was attending were private events with familiar folks, but Motor City was… huge. And unlike a live show, it would be utterly anonymous and (essentially) alone.

Not only did I feel unprepared, I could think of so many other things that were better uses of my time that weekend: my garden, working on a Diorama Contest entry, listing my mountain of unsold stuff on the Internet…

But then I got news of Liz Bouras’s passing a couple days before the convention, and that’s when I knew I had to go. Although it was purely a coincidence, it didn’t feel like one.

As many of you may have surmised by now, I have had an… interesting life, to say the least. And some of the more interesting stories have involved me in comic book fandom. One of those stories has me at a Motor City Comic Con in the early 1990s with my fandom friends Ken and Mercy. 

This might have been the first time we met in person; that I cannot remember. What I do remember was that one of the first things they told me when I met up with them was: Liz and Paula are here.

That would be Liz Bouras, and Paula O’Keefe. It’s a long story, but they had been friends for a while, but through the comic book side of things. It was something I only found out about after I “met” Ken and Mercy through the pages of the APA Interlac a short time before.

I never did get to see Liz or Paula that day, but it was strangely comforting to know that other model horse people were present.

You see, when I first entered the hobby in the late 1970s, I was concerned I wouldn’t fit in. I felt that I wasn’t your average horse girl: I like other, more nerdier stuff too, and most of the horse girls in my area balked when I started talking about comic books, old movies, cartoons and Star Wars.

But when I opened up my first issue of The Model Horse Shower’s Journal – the September 1978 issue, to be specific – I learned that I had nothing to worry about. There were lots of people in the hobby just like me. That I found this place was no coincidence: it is where I belonged. 

Although I wouldn’t consider Liz a close friend, our paths crossed many times, and we had several friends in common. I entered the hobby just as she was coming into her own in it, as the hobby was transitioning from its earliest, wildest days to something a little more formalized and organized. 

It wasn’t until early last year that I was able to acquire a custom of hers – a vintage piece from that very era – in a body box lot. She was able to confirm it was hers on [this very] blog, and needless to say, he will be with me always. 

Through a different mutual acquaintance, I also ended up becoming the caretaker of a portion of her hobby papers a while back. It was not long after I made a commitment to collecting not just the history of model horse manufacturers, but of the hobby in general. I had no idea that she had been doing much the same. After her passing, I felt I like I was now carrying a part of her katra.

But anyway, back to the Comic Con. I hesitated to buy tickets ahead of time, so I found myself standing in the shorter line to buy tickets at the opposite end of the building. I was minding my own business when someone who had just picked up their prepaid wristbands walked up to me.

“Would you like a free wristband? Someone in our party couldn’t make it, and we have an extra.” 

I was verklempt. Of course I would. In the not-very-short walk to the other side of the building, he asked me what brought me to the convention this year. I told him a little about Liz, and of course about the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my messenger bag. William Shatner was one of the marquee guests this year, and I got the crazy notion several months earlier of having him sign it for me. 

When I got to the end of wristband line, I parted ways with my unknown benefactor. After a moment or two to compose myself, I struck up a casual conversation with the very talkative gentleman in front of me. (As one does at any convention, really.) 

After a few minutes of talking, I realized that… I knew who he was.

I won’t go into the details, because even though some of you are nerds of the highest order, I suspect most of you won’t know who Kim Metzger is or what he’s famous for. He actually apologized for it (he didn’t need to!) 

And again, it felt like kismet: I doubt anybody else in that line that day would have known who he was. At many comic book conventions nowadays comic books have become almost secondary, so the fact that two “old school” fans could find each other, and talk about comic book things at what was ostensibly a comic book convention was… all that I could ask for.

Even if the convention offered up no other delights, the experience had already been totally worth it. 

While I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do that day (I didn’t get a signed copy of Danny Trejo’s cookbook, or meet Freddie Stroma), I did see what I wanted to see, and attend most of the panels I wanted to attend. And I did get Shatner to sign my Lafayette!

That was when I believe I reached Peak Nerd. There I was at my first Motor City Comic Con in years, wearing a Kingdom Come Superman shirt, waiting in line to have Shatner sign the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my Hello Kitty messenger bag. The only thing that could possibly be missing was a lightsaber or sword. (Though to be honest, I did briefly shop for one!)

(He smiled and said “Thank you”, by the way. I’m pretty sure I was the only person who actually brought him a horse to sign that weekend. I wish I could have said something in return, but like always, I found myself speechless.)

I walked out of the building that day and marveled at how everything had fallen into place to make this experience a reality: I could not have asked for a more perfect day. I was so glad I said yes to what the Universe had in store for me.

People always tell me that I’m brave to do some of the things that I do, like traveling cross-country alone. I don’t necessarily see it as a matter of bravery, but necessity. Life is meant to lived, for as long as you have it: when an adventure offers itself, sometimes you have no choice but to take it.

Chicago Itinerary

Just a few notes here while I run around the house like an idiot, trying to get my act together for Chicago…

I’ll be out of town from Wednesday afternoon through Monday evening. The rest of my family will be having a garage sale while I am gone (she says, with some relief). No significantly horsey stuff will be present because obviously, but if you happen to be in that part of town for other activities, feel free to stop by and maybe even peruse the garden.

(The Ammis and Lupines are past their prime, but everything else is blooming.)

As for my activities in Chicago, I’ll be attending the 80th Worldcon, Chicon 8, in downtown Chicago. If you happen to be in the area – or even attending! – I’d be more than happy to meet up with any of you as long as there aren’t any conflicts with my schedule. 

Most of the panels I will be attending will be related to First Fandom/Fan History, Fantasy, Cosplay, Comics, and Star Trek. I hope to get a couple of things signed by Peter Beagle and John Scalzi. The former because he wrote The Last Unicorn; the latter because I admire him as a fellow blogger and a generally interesting and thoughtful kind of person, though with questionable taste in foodstuffs.

(If you are wondering, yes, I’m taking a Breyer Unicorn with me to get signed. After Shatner, why not?)

I will attend the Masquerade as a spectator, not as a participant. I’ve decided – as of this moment, who knows if it’s going to change when I get there – that I am not going to volunteer. This is my first go-round with a convention this significant with people I largely do not know. It is overwhelming enough to be there as an anonymous fan. 

I’m not even sure if I’ll attend the actual Hugo Awards; that’s another thing I’ll play by ear. I didn’t get a chance to read, listen or watch most of the nominees, so it would be weird to be in attendance anyway, I think. 

I’m still reintroducing myself to that world, I need a little more time to acclimate. 

I am hoping to visit a few other attractions in town if I can find the time: the Art Institute of Chicago, to visit Seurat’s La Grande Jatte; the Field Museum to see the dinosaurs; and also perhaps the American Writers Museum to see the Ray Bradbury exhibit.

As far as posting goes, I will have an automated post sometime during the weekend which will basically be a reformatted repost of my One Perfect Day article from this year’s Sampler, because it seems appropriate. 

Otherwise, I’ll be off the grid for the duration! Don’t trash the place while I’m gone.